Walking in Memphis

Now maybe this is the type of car we should have gone for on this trip - a Cadillac seen parked today outside the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee - rather than messing around with shipping a vehicle from the West Coast (how ridiculous!) or a series (yes, series) of car rentals ... Oh, how I wish!

So here we are in Memphis, obviously, but I better back up and just fill you in on the latest of our sorry saga with "The Car" - it's a bit boring, I have to confess, so I'll try to be brief so as not to bore you before I get to the interesting stuff. Turns out it was a BIG mistake to return to Toronto just because we were informed the car had arrived and was awaiting off-loading, but we were told that the car should be available within 72 hours of arrival - that would have been yesterday (Friday) - so, after spending much of Thursday in a coffee shop on Queen Street East (The Second Cup - great place BTW), reading and sleeping, and after a fantastic meal of Atlantic salmon and red wine with Wade & Susan (Olivia was ill in bed), and up-dating my iTunes, we woke on Friday with much anticipation - having been told the day before that the car was on a "list" to be off-loaded and would be available for us Friday between 9-11am. By 10:15am I could stand the wait no longer and decided that we'd head over to the airport anyway, phoning beforehand to see what the latest was. They were still waiting to hear a definite time, and suggested we go straight to the rail yard to impress upon CN Rail the urgency of the situation. It was en route to the rail yard that we got the "bad news" that not only was the car still on the train, the train had not even pulled into the unloading bay yet and nothing would be moving before Monday at the earliest.... So that's where we were up to: in Toronto (still) - and no disrespect to a great city - without our car.

There's no way we were going to stay put any longer, so back to the car rental place to rent another vehicle - the cruise control on the Avenger wasn't working, and we needed something bigger so we could sort out all our "stuff" that so far has remained packed in the bags we'd separately flown in with. Result: brand new burgandy (of course) Jeep Cherokee with only 1946km on the clock. Not without some tension on the part of Sean and myself, separately and between us, we headed out west from Toronto down the 401 bound for Memphis, driving pretty much in silence, brooding on our own thoughts as far as Detroit, crossing the border once more at about 5pm. I was conscious of two families who I know who each lost loved ones to cancer within the past few days, thinking of their loss and how this week must seem to them made my own frustrations with the car seem trivial and pathetic in comparison.

After stopping at Denny's south of Detroit for Meatloaf, vegetables and mashed potatoes, all washed down with copious amounts of coffee, we headed south into the darkness following the signs for Cincinnati passing through Toledo on the way; then Louisville (where we shall return on Monday to go to Gethsemani), Nashville name shining in the night and onto Memphis, over 1500km, listening along the way to Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Madeline Peyroux, Dylan and the entire reading of On the Road (abridged) by David Carradine, stopping a couple of times to grab some sleep and arriving at dawn in time for breakfast at the Arcade - Memphis' oldest restaurant, where I'd began my visit here with breakfast back in 1991 arriving on the night train from Chicago, but that's another story...

Then on to the main business of the day - Sun Studio - standing once more on hallowed ground and trying to hear the faint echo still reverberate from those blessed walls, seeing the three X's taped to the floor which according to Sam Phillips marked the spot for where Elvis, Scotty and Bill stood when they recorded "That's Alright, Mama," and listening to DJ Dewey Phillips introduce the new record on his show that very night. An emotional moment for both Sean and I: hearing those first bars of "That's Alright" played in the studio and almost feeling brushed by the three ghosts standing right there on the three taped X's; emotion earlier too when we heard the first demo recording "My Happiness" sung right here by an eighteen year old Elvis in 1953 who had no clue of where it would all lead, good and bad - but of course, "nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old" (On the Road).

And here is, for me, the picture of the day - life-dreams reflected in chrome:

Back in Toronto

Yes, that's right - we're back here in Toronto, staying with Susan, Wade and Olivia who have graciously once again provided hospitality, this time for both Sean and myself. Having heard that my car is now in Toronto (as of yesterday), we decided to drive up over night so as to pick it up as soon as possible, planning to drive back south today to resume the onward journey.... So Sean and I left Brunswick, Maryland last night at 1:30am heading for Niagara Falls which we reached by about 9:30am this morning - taking turns to drive and sleep.

Turns out that although the car is indeed in Toronto, it is still on the train, and CN Rail have not been able to give any clear information as to when the car will be off-loaded. It may be available tomorrow, or we may have to wait until Friday. This means we are not going to be able to complete the section of Kerouac's journey from Washington to Rocky Mount, North Carolina and then on to New Orleans which is a great disappointment. Instead we are planning to rearrange the order and timing of our mini-retreat at Gethsemani (Thomas Merton's monastery in Kentucky), and visits to Memphis and New Orleans.

Still determined not to let such distractions and diversions get me down - as far as I am concerned this all part of the "on the road" experience as a parable of life. Instead perhaps it's a chance for a rest after a very full few days ... especially yesterday in Washington D.C. - still can't quite believe that was only yesterday, and we were there! Much to process and reflect upon.

Inauguration Day

"We arrived in Washington at Dawn. It was the day of Harry Truman's inauguration for his second term. Great displays of war might were lined along Pennsylvania Avenue as we rolled by in our battered boat. There were B-29s, PT Boats, artillery, all kinds of war material that looked murderous in the snow grass; the last thing was a regular small ordinary lifeboat that looked pitiful and foolish. Dean slowed down to look at it." - On the Road.

It's a different world today in many ways - little evidence of war material on display at Obama's inauguration despite wars raging overseas. Plenty of police from numerous agencies - D.C. Metropolitan, F.B.I., Homeland Security, U.S. Marshalls, Sheriff's, (not so) Secret Service etc. ... with very little evidence that anyone was in overall charge or that there was any organization or plan, or that that any of them really knew what they were supposed to be doing. Result was general chaos with over two million people pouring into the nation's capital for the most popular inauguration ever.

Much has changed in the world and in America when "a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath" (quoting Obama's inauguration speech), thinking once more of Kerouac and Cassady in the lunchrooms and diners on their way across the country.

We took the local MARC regional transport train into Union Station in the heart of D.C., hardly realizing how lucky we were to have got these tickets. From there we made our way through the crowds and all the various law enforcement agencies to the Washington Memorial a good way up the Mall, but from where we could look back down to the Capitol where all the action was taking place. We heard Obama take the oath of office and his speech over loudspeakers.

When he got to the line "So help me, God," and officially became the 44th President of the United States, there was predictably a huge cheer but also much emotion and hugging, tears and spontaneous "Halleluias" and prayers of thanks to God. Particularly moving to be amongst so many African-Americans for whom today has had special significance. But the significance is not simply for them, but for all of us - for America as a nation, and for the world. Perhaps, in the words of Van Morrison, "the healing has begun." At last.



My personal favourite soundbite from Obama's speech: "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." The choice between safety and ideals that seems of late to have paralyzed America in a kind of fortress mentality that has cramped liberty and in some ways cut the nation off from the rest of the world.

A final glimpse of the president and his family in the presidential motorcade as we prepare to hit the road ourselves once more...

Time to Move!

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one noble function of the time, move. And we moved!" - On the Road. As Jack & Neal did 60 years ago, we entered the Lincoln Tunnel and emerged on the Jersey side taking the mysterious sign that pointed "South" with an arrow on Route 1, heading for Trenton then Philadelphia, then on down into Maryland heading for Fells Point in Baltimore, birthplace of Billie Holiday and location of erstwhile TV series "Homicide: Life on the Street" - a site of pilgrimage in itself!


Most of the way we were listening to local radio stations, first jazz from New York City - celebrating the career of drummer Roy Haines giving us a funky seventies soundtrack as we made our way across the Brooklyn Bridge once more and through Manhattan to the tunnel; then picking up a Philadelphia station playing oldies from the sixties, seventies and eighties - lots more soul there including "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" by Sly and the Family Stone; then later still as we got down into Maryland listening to NPR, including a speech by President-elect Obama made today in Baltimore where we were headed ... also listening with new ears to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech from 1963. Lots of comment and discussion on the airwaves about today, Martin Luther King Day in the U.S. and tomorrow, the inauguration of the first African-American President. Like a dream come true.

A sense of history in the making. Something important is happening. And it is good that we are here to witness this and to absorb it into ourselves even though we never planned this when we first hatched the idea of following Kerouac and Cassady down their road. The route (in this case Route 1) and the timing (now January 2009) were predetermined - they are given - and yet what transpires along the way is taking on a life of its own.

Tomorrow we will rise early to drive into Frederick from where we are staying with friends, Frank & Debby in Brunswick MD, to take the MARC train into Washington. We have our tickets. Valid for a particular train on the way in and for a particular train on the way back.

Latest update on my car: passing through Folette, ON over the weekend - hopefully arriving in Toronto tomorrow...

Tales of Manhattan

Gorgeous day again yesterday, bright sunshine and New York sub-zero temperatures, walking and walking around lower Manhattan. First crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (see left), taking lots of pictures along the way - including an update of my "panoramic collage" that hangs on my wall from 1992 when I was last here.

Then on down to ground zero which, of course, is just a big hole in the ground - even more so because it is a building site at the moment develping, I believe, a memorial park on the site of the twin towers. Nevertheless photograph the "space" where they were, now filled with sunbeams of glory (see below):


Is that the shadow of a dove I see at the bottom of the picture ...?

Also visited the Episcopal Church of St. Paul which is right by here - a Church that provided hospitality, care and counselling (as well as foot care!) to the thousands of volunteers who came in the aftermath of 9-11 to clear the site and recover what remains of loved-ones they could. The Church itself has now become something of a pilgrimage site for thousands of visitors who make there way here - there was a steady stream of people coming through when we were there and I get the impression that this is constant. Inside there are memorials and memorabilia from that traumatic time - a scar on the psyche and on the heart of the nation (and the world really - e.g. insgnia badges had been sent from police departments right across the world as a mark of solidarity - including Thames Valley in the UK and the Carabinieri in Italy). I was not prepared for how moving this place and this experience would be. There was nothing to do after sitting there quietly for a while but to walk in silence through those streets of lower Manhattan, remembering and imagining what is was like.

Strange that we were there just two days after another plane had come down in Manhattan - the one that had to force land in the Hudson River on Thursday. I'm sure the sight of a plane coming in low over the city must have froze people's hearts, no doubt descending in eery silence having now engines. The world's largest glider, but in the hands of a superhero for a pilot. We didn't see the plane itself but we could see through binoculars from the top of the Empire State Building where they are trying to bring it out of the river.

On the way to the Empire State we wondered through Greenwich Village and thought of Dylan's early days in the bars and coffee shops there, and of Kerouac and Ginsberg, and Thomas Merton too, stopping by 35 Perry Street where he wrote his Secular Journal before going to the monastery in Kentucky.

From the Empire State we made our way in the gathering dusk down Fifth Avenue, then Broadway and the Bowery all the way back to the Brooklyn Bridge attempting some pictures along the way (with moderate success) of the sparkling jewels of Gotham night. Click on the photo below to fill your screen with New York nighttime skyline....

New York, New York!

No pictures today - not yet anyway as I'm writing this on someone else's computer... but we're here in New York, staying in Brooklyn Heights with new friends John and Jill. Sean arrived on time at JFK, I had a good run down from Lowell in bright sunshine but biting cold - thermometer said minus nineteen degrees C in Lowell this morning - and the latest news on my car is that it is passing through Winnipeg today due to arrive in Toronto on January 20th. So it's all good.

P.S. Update - here's where we were staying in Brooklyn Heights with John and Jill...

Lowell: Where Kerouac's Road Began

So here I am in Centralville an area in Lowell, Massachusetts where Jack Kerouac was born and spent the early years of his life. This was yesterday, the temperature was about minus ten degrees centigrade - hence the scarf! It's colder today.

After a leisurely breakfast with my hosts, retired priest Frank Baker and his daughter Cindy, I headed out on one of my favourite activities in a new town or city - especially if it is of a "pilgrimage" nature - a walking tour. Simply walking around through the streets, these same streets Jack walked, seeing the places he lived and worked and played. Much has no doubt changed, but I am sure much still remains the same - especially under a blanket of snow. Many of the houses are the same, the Merrimack and Concord Rivers continue to flow very much as very have always done, many of the old textile mills are still here even though the industry has gone - many have been turned into luxury apartments, or incorporated into the country's first and (I think) only urban national park, complete with park rangers (!), some of the old mills remain as derelict redbrick ruins waiting for redevelopment and rebirth. Much changed, much remains the same. No doubt the snake of the world still lies coiled beneath the hill behind me here in Centralville (read Doctor Sax to know what I'm talking about).

I took a lot of pictures - no room to show them all here but if you are a facebook friend you can see them there - I'll just put in a selection here to give you a flavour. Here's Kerouac's birthplace at 9 Lupine Road where he lived the first two years of his life (incidently, if you click on any of the pictures you can see them full-size).

Gabrielle & Leo Kerouac lived on the second floor (first floor for Brits) with their children Gerard, Caroline and baby Jack. In 1924 they moved just around the corner to 35 Burnaby Street (never noticed the BC connection before!) into what for me I think was my favourite Kerouac childhood home. As you can see, the sky was very blue yesterday. Gorgeous day!

The Kerouacs moved around quite a lot, as you can gather, and I visited a number of other addresses in Centralville, including 34 Beaulieau Street where Jack's saintly older brother Gerard died in 1926 at the age of nine (Jack was four). Then I headed over to Pawtucketville, maybe 10-15 minutes walk away, where Jack spent his teenage years, again at various addresses. From Pawtucketville you can head into downtown across the Moody Street Bridge - this became a fearful place for young Jack who, at the age of twelve, was walking across the bridge with his mother when a man coming towards them, carrying a watermelon, suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack. I can well imagine the terror as even now the car tires rolling across the iron grid of the bridge seem to wail mournful cries of tormented ghosts.

From this mournful location it was fitting that I then took in the Archambault Funeral Home where Pauvre Ti Jean was laid out before his funeral on October 24, 1969 at Saint Jean-Baptiste Church, which I passed on my way down to the Old Worthen Pub (a Kerouac local) to hook up with my old friend Ed Farley, who I first met in Louisville, Kentucky through the Thomas Merton Society. Ed was born in Lowell and has lived here virtually all his life.

With Ed I visited the Kerouac Monument at the corner of Bridge and French Streets - a simple but impressive community of solitary granite blocks inscribed with some choice words of Kerouac scripture. Ed was there at the inauguration of this monument and remembers the architect inviting people to come back in a quiet moment, to sit and to read some of Kerouac's writing in this very peaceful place - in the midst of the city and the old textile mill buildings.

Today I have spent most of the day in downtown Lowell, first at the Kerouac Monument again, which I find has a deep solidity to it, as well as a deep spirituality - a sense of never mind the legend, never mind the tragedy, never mind all the confusion and dissolution, read these words and find in them the life of a great soul - and let it be balm and sustenance for your own soul. Then, I headed over to the public library, one of Jack's favourite places when skipping classes at Lowell High, which I passed along the way - stopping at the famous clock featured in Maggie Cassidy. There's something quite ironic and wonderfully subterranean to skip classes in order to go and sit in a library! But with temperatures like today's, I can well imagine why.

It was getting dark by the time I left the library. Time to stop off at the local bookstore to pick up a couple of books on the social history of this place, Lowell; and then a brisk wander through the gathering gloom to visit a couple more haunts of old angel midnight himself, before repairing to the Old Worthen once more for a pint of Sam Adams before heading back for supper. As I ordered my pint, a fellow patron of the establishment asked me where my accent was from... and what brought me to Lowell, and in the best Kerouac fashion a conversation was begun and a connection made - ending up with Eric insisting on paying my bill. Thank you, Eric - blessings upon you, and upon you too, Scott - it was good to meet you both!