On the Road with Bluboo and Rosalita
Day 1 of the Bluboo Travel Extravaganza finds that the trusty CRV has landed somewhere in Kentucky at a Super 8 Motel, about 25 miles from Louisville and some 700+ miles from the Squirrel Shooting Grounds in Cross River, NY. The squirrels bid Rosalita and me a fond farewell by taking several good natured, well-placed BB-pellets in their butts and heads. My concern is that the squirrels will have too much time to gobble down bird feed while planning a pre-emptive nuclear strike upon our return.
There are no pictures from the first day as today was a work day of sorts. Our mission is to get to the real “meat” of the adventure in New Mexico, Colorado, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole and Mount Rushmore. As for me, most of my day was spent driving, but I also found time for meditation, deep reflection and creative thought. For example, with necessity being the mother of invention, I dreamed of a design to install the Cone of Silence from “Get Smart” around my driver’s seat. My next best option was turning the driver’s compartment into something like the isolation booth from the “$64,000 Question.”
I would be lying if I, at times, did not envy James Bond and that little red button in the stick shift knob of his Aston Martin for the ejector seat. And only 4,300 more miles to go!
In my quieter moments, I thought about some of the places we passed on today’s portion of the trek. We originally had hoped to stop at Gettysburg, PA, and walk the steps of “Pickett’s Charge” by making that one-mile, uphill climb from Seminary Ridge to the Bloody Angle at Cemetery Ridge. The battle was originally fought on July 1-3, 1863, so today was the 144th anniversary of the ill-fated charge ordered by General Lee. The fact that I had done the walk before, combined with a little too much “squirrel shooting” time this morning, made the stop impractical. But I can never forget what all those brave men from the Blue and the Gray did on that hot summer day.
A little further west on I-76 in Pennsylvania, there is a memorial in a little town called Shanksville. That is where United Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001. In the same way that we battled in Gettysburg to stay together as a nation, the brave souls on that doomed flight sent the world a very clear message about the quality of American character. We are too often the subject of ridicule for our follies, but so few remember our heroism and sacrifice as a nation. So, Happy Birthday America … the land of the free and the home of the brave. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, we must promise ourselves that “government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the face of the Earth.” (from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address)
We also passed Lancaster, Ohio, the birthplace of William Tecumseh Sherman, one of America’s most daring and brave generals. Southerners, for obvious reasons, have a slightly different opinion of him. Famous for the quote that “War is hell!” and his devastating “March to the Sea” that obliterated the South, he made one irrevocable mistake that can’t be forgiven. While he burned Atlanta, he did not completely torch the city and they were able to rebuild it. Had he done a better job, he would have saved me six of the most miserable months of my life living and working there. While no place on Earth could be lower than Buffalo, Atlanta has manage to rate just slightly better than Buffyville but below El Paso and Cleveland.
As we passed through Cincinnati, I was reminded of one of my favorite achievements while I worked at Contractors Register, publishers of The Blue Book of Building and Construction. In fact, this is the first time that I have shared this story in a public domain because my former bosses were much too modest to accept fame (they wanted the fortune, but not the fame). In 2001, a gentleman named Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler Magazine, wanted to build a “boutique” of sorts in the very religious, holy town of Cincinnati. I don’t know the whole long story of Larry’s problems with the townsfolk because I was never a big fan of porn. Well, at least not much. Sort of. But I really did read Playboy for the jokes and the articles and I never inhaled.
Umm, anyway, back to the story. It seems that several general contractors and subcontractors were scared off the project by the lovely townspeople. When an out-of-town GC was hired, he contacted me to use one of Blue Book’s brand new bidding tools because he could not locate a single sub willing to bid the project. The rebel in me immediately saw this as a remarkable opportunity to stick it to “the status quo” in Cincinnati while giving my bosses something for which they truly could be proud. The best part was that the GC was bombarded with tons of highly qualified, out-of- town subs and suppliers willing to do the work … free from any reprisals by Cincinnati saints. My efforts were a huge success and a coup for the company!
I never understood why my bosses never used the testimonials about the success of their products and services in completing The Hustler Store in Cincinnati. I also envisioned the owner’s secretary modeling some of the Hustler fashion offerings for the executive committee and our newsletter, but my boss for some unknown reason squashed the idea (in retrospect, he was right, for once). My life as a visionary has always been rough. Nitey night all!
