Jun 11 2010

Closed Captioning brought to you by

R & B Productions LLC. And were you expecting, the Real Housewives of Jackson Center ?

At Phil’s Market, a real cashier

Yes, the Alumapalooza Rally is a wrap. What began five days earlier, slowly, but inexorably, became a small community with a distinct personality. Although temporary, everyone had the positive vapor that the memory will become permanent, and it already has.

Here is the benchmark established by the most successful independent rally in the Airstream world.

No one bolted early
Everyone was reluctant to leave
Jimi Hendrix playing the National Anthem on Saturday morning
No ukelele concert

On a less serious note, you might consider early registration for 2011. Although the field can hold more than the 120 units this year, 200 is probably the maximum, and the popularity of the event will grow exponentially, rain or no rain.

Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in promoting the event, no stock options, no t-shirts or CDs for sale, and I will not accept comps or bribes (although I can be flexible here).

On the subject of flexibility, note the gurus of yoga, sKY and slaDE, on the right, demonstrating fly exercises. But can anyone explain the contortions of noted photographers, Bert Gildart and Alison Turner, who are both professionals.

Do not attempt without adult supervision

In Celina, OH, the J. A. Long Company, a good place to buy hides and butter, wholesale.

Many residents of Arizona employ phonetics to assist in spelling Tucson, i.e., “tucks on”, thereby placing the ‘c’ before the ‘s’. In rural western Ohio, near the Indiana border, lies the small burg of Tocsin. A local simply calls it TOXIN. Does the E.P.A. know ? Why not call it toxin, an easy name to remember? Xanax, Xerox, Kotex, Axion; see how easy it is to recall brand names with an ‘x’.

Rural Superfund site

A happy couple, with dog Jack, bidding a fond adieu to the Airstream backlot and papparazzi.

Perhaps next year the Saturday morning theme song will be the classic Cole Porter (Indiana born) song for aluminum lovers, the rendition by Sinatra;

I´ve got you under my skin.

I´ve got you deep in the heart of me.

So deep in my heart that you´re really a part of me.

I´ve got you under my skin.

The Old Chicago Trail from Detroit to Chicago

A sign erected in 1953, on an Indian path near Buchanan, MI. says it all.

Jun 04 2010

Ohio Route 127 to Paloozaville

The rosy fingers of dawn, through a morning fog, provide the salivary stimulant for Jack and his favorite ride, an aging excella groomed for takeoff. Destination: Alumapalooza

Jack, 2005
Chevy, 2001
Airstream, 1985
Barn, 1881
Silver maple tree, 1855

The first pass is through Bryan, OH, home to Lester’s Diner, a 13 ounce cup of coffee, where you can still order eggs and toast for $1.99. It’s noon, however, we are dribbling through town, aimed for Jackson Center, OH, and cheap eats can wait another day.At a stoplight, a pony-tailed motorcyclist on a Harley turns, smiles at us, gives a thumbs up to our vintage Airstream in tow, and above the rumble of his hog, points to the trailer and remarks,” Ya gotta a loose steel ball back there”.My initial reaction is a Frank Romano gasp, of the ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ sit-com, “holy cr@p, what now?” My fear quickly dissolves when he realizes the white noise and my impaired hearing caused mock despair, and he yelled back,”Have you got Lucille Ball back there ?”I smiled, pleased at his reference to the classic long, long trailer cult flick, and shook my head in the negative. Really, turning to Lynn, do I resemble a Cuban band leader ?The next town of stately Victorian mansions on South Washington Avenue is VanWert, OH, and a more famous eatery, Balyeats Coffee Shop, where, since 1924, they’ve serve Young Fried Chicken, Day and Night. Their outdoor sign, the first neon in town, says as much, so it must be true. We wouldn’t want old fried chicken, but we do stop for a four inch high slice of banana cream pie.As we pass along this truly blue highway Lynn muses, ‘if you lived out here and weren’t exposed to television and the internet, you’d think the world was peaceful’. She’s right.Endless farms, all similar, but different, like hopscotching across a giant board game. No cookie cutter suburbs to dilute a fading Mail Pouch sign. Barns with slate roofs that cleverly reveal, however faded by a hundred summer suns, the date they were built by hand.1893.In the rolling fields, summer wheat, knee high, is higher than the corn, but it isn’t yet the fourth of July. A folly of nature, teasing us in a few brief weeks prior to the solstice, the corn always wins. America still has, tucked in the edges, tattered remnants of the family farm. Even in places where wilderness and self sustenance is illusory, it still exists within living memory. We therefore internalize its existence, act as if it is still there, and behave accordingly. The seductive and dangerously chaotic and capricious unknown lies just beyond the farmland in many places.But not here, not yet.Turning east on OH-274 headed toward Jackson Center, we pass through New Bremen, OH, home to the Bicycle Museum of America and promise to stop on our return. Our interest is piqued; wouldn’t Dayton, home to Wilbur and Orville’s bicycle shop, be more logical ? I’ll learn why and report back.Our destination, Jackson Center, is reached, a most unlikely town discovered by a California dreamer, a modern day Barnum, some fifty + years ago. A legendary design icon, an aerodynamic escape on wheels, blossomed. And this week, hundreds of disciples devoted to the coagulation of aluminum are joined at the rivets in a celebratory toast….and having a grand experience.Who could have ever guessed.Only in America.

May 30 2010

Charles Kuralt at Alumapalooza

in absentia, all next week, should he still be alive (passed away July 4, 1997).<p>

The foremost chronicler on the joy of the open road since John Steinbeck and his “Travels with Charley”, the Alumapalooza gathering in Jackson Center, Ohio, would be a Charles Kuralt must stop on a tour of America’s backroads.

<p>

unusual hobbyists to unusual families to the simple pleasures of unknown places

My dog, Jack, wife, Lynn, and I plan to attend, if only for the opportunity to interview a sample of travelers. Lynn will provide the charm, Jack will go one-on-one with all the canine attendees, and I’d like to meet the ‘non-celebrities’.Among the many celebrities:

Corporate royalty, Bob and Kelly Wheeler
The first family of Airstreaming, Rich Luhr and Eleanor O’Dea
Foremost photographer, writer, and U.S. National Park authority, the widely published Bert Gildart
Historians and vintage gurus, Fred Coldwell and Forrest McClure
Our own 1959 “Out of Africa” icon, Dale ‘Peewee’ Schwamborn
Rumored personal appearance by the Australian born, Geico gecko

My attention will be directed to the lesser known, e.g., William Bucher, perhaps the most enthusiastic and shameless provocateur of traveling in classic aluminum. Having logged nearly 300,000 miles on his shining, as new, aging red Suburban, Bill has towed his spotless trailer > 85,000 miles. Well known for impeccable maintenance, his combined unit is washed, dusted, and polished, not monthly, not weekly, but often hourly. If you’re fortunate enough to attend this gathering, be prepared to be dazzled. Warning: protective eyewear is necessary if you look at his polished wheels.

His wife, Joanie, the world’s foremost collector of all things Barbie, has gained fame as a baker of cookies and as an accomplished rock painter.

These are the stories I want to hear.

Our destination, Jackson Center, offers nothing. No beach, no mountains, no theme park, no franchised food, nothing but miles and miles of level farmland, corn and soybeans, a small midwestern town.

Nothing,

nothing but the exquisite beauty of the American countryside.

A Charles Kuralt week, a time to arrive, on a blue highway, in anticipation of nothing or everything, in search of our national soul.

I hope to see you there.

“Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything”, C. Kuralt (1934-1997).