Places I Remember

Traffic on I-95 wasn’t bad today, but for a change of pace on the homeward bound route from school, I exited at Massaponax and took U.S. Route 1. Spring is a long way off, but the sun is already a little higher in the sky: it was pretty at midday. I put on Edie from Ohio’s “Actually Not.”

Just five or ten miles south from the discount malls, I was nearly alone on the backbone of the east coast. If I squinted a little, it could have been 1975 again. The countryside has changed only a little since the countless day trips of my childhood. That huge oak, there?: I've probably had my eye on it most of my life. The rhythm of farms, motor courts, bizarre little stores, and 1940s gas stations feels the same. I love most the parts where four lanes – smushed together; no median – ribbon up and down the gentle hills. The trees seem to cozy up to the asphalt. It looks as great in the rear view mirror as it does through the windshield. EFO’s “Mimosas in Missouri” matches perfectly drives on Virginia’s roads less travelled.

When I squint a lot – when the motor court cottages don’t have fallen trees through them, when the gas stations still boast their red tile roofs and not asphalt shingles – I can almost imagine car trips of 1950.

I love Route 1. In Caroline County, Virginia, on a Sunday afternoon it’s silent and empty. At the same moment, countless people on the same road are pulling into enormous parking lots to shop in big box stores; or their farms; or small-town café. It bustles through Boston and West Palm Beach. I love to meet it in a new city, a strange state: it connects me to home. In Virginia, I’ve driven every bit of it from Pohick Church to the North Carolina line. Off the top of my heard, I know it’s called Washington Highway, Richmond Highway, and Jefferson Davis Highway. I suppose this spring is the time to make sure I cover that last bit: some day when time is on my side, I’ll have to inch into Washington via the number one highway.


At the Byrd [state route 147]: "The Cat in the Hat" and "Gothika"