Love Notes

by Bill Love

Charles Kuralt said the interstate highway system has made it possible to go from coast to coast without seeing anything. I was about to find out if it were true. It rained the day the truck was loaded for the move to California. Tropical Storm Bill. I took that as a cautionary tale in self-sabotage. I left Music City and found myself singing across country. Through Memphis (Trisha Yearwood’s Wrong Side of Memphis among others) but no sign of Beale Street. Across the Mississippi River where radio and TV call letters begin with K instead of W, an oddity that lets me know I’m in unfamiliar territory. Through Little Rock (Lee Ann Womack’s A Little Past Little Rock but a long way from over you). I saw nothing of Fort Smith, though I know there is an historic exhibit there, complete with courtroom and gallows, of a hanging judge. He ordered the hanging of fewer people than, say, a Texas governor, who never got the title of “injecting governor.” I also know the city’s Welcome Center is the “Hello, Bordello,” a former bordello with two front doors, one facing the railroad, the other the river, to welcome customers from each. The person who took me there was a Presbyterian Elder; the hostess who greeted us in the Welcome Center was also a Presbyterian Elder. Past the Muskogee Turnpike (and Merle Haggard’s Okie from Muskogee) which also goes to Tulsa (George Strait’s Tell Me Something Bad about Tulsa). As I approached Oklahoma City, I was keenly aware of the bombing of the federal building. I was also keenly aware of having just passed through the Cherokee Nation where signs marked the Trail of Tears, where the federal government relocated Native Americans who occupied land they wanted.

On to Amarillo (George Strait’s Amarillo by Morning) and then to Tucumcari, a romantic name from a childhood spent watching cowboy movies and Rawhide. The New Mexico Welcome Center had a corral for horses, something I’d never seen at any other rest area. It also had signs warning of poisonous snakes. My dog, a chocolate lab mix named Murray (after my father), immediately claimed the territory for himself. I’m sure as he sniffed his way, he had a more direct experience of the changes than I could imagine. Past Albuquerque, I saw a young man herding cattle from the back of a 4-wheel ATV. Another romance gone.

Through New Mexico and into Arizona. Through Winslow (and the Eagles’ Take It Easy: standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona) and Flagstaff.

In the middle of nowhere were casinos. The “nowhere” were reservations, and the casinos were the result of loopholes created when the United States isolated Native Americans into nations, which were not subject to laws against gambling. In the midst of the desert were oases, surrounded by cars and trucks. A clever way to gain reparations from the paleface settlers by appealing to their weakness and the desire for easy gain. Again coming upon a town, I saw a parking lot full of cars and thought at first it was another casino. When I got close enough to make out the sign, I saw it was a Wal-Mart SuperCenter.

The terrain was starkly beautiful. It seemed also to be harsh and unwelcoming. I came to admire the determination of the pioneers who first traveled across the desert.

Past Lake Havasu City, where London Bridge now resides. Into California. Through 150 miles of desert with trash and broken bottles the main evidence of civilization and onto the freeways of Los Angeles (Guy Clark’s L. A. Freeway).

I suppose Charles Kuralt is right. There are signs to indicate what is there to be seen, but I passed by where people live their lives with hopes and dreams and disappointments, where they love and are loved, where they practice their faith. I encountered little, if any, of that, just as they were unaware of my passing through. Still we live out our days on the same earth, under the same sky, and within the care of the same God.

Bill Love is interim senior pastor at
Claremont Presbyterian Church in Claremont, CA.