Bourbon, break-ins and flashing blue lights

on the road to father and bonding


Otto stared down at the phone he had just hung up. He paused. “Well, that’s a revolting development.”

I had hired Otto, a portly attorney and friend of my wife’s father, to find me another attorney who would handle my case in Virginia — site of the “revolting development.” He found Ms. Stacy Slatterhouse, with an office across from the Halifax County Courthouse, and we had just debriefed her on the details of my case.

“I can’t promise anything,” said Ms. Slatterhouse.

Days before, Virginia state troopers snared me racing 94 MPH under clear skies and with little traffic on Route 58E along the Virginia-North Carolina border. I was in a 60 MPH zone. They swooped in and nailed me roughly halfway between Roanoke and Richmond, about 400 miles from home near Philadelphia.

94 MPH is double reckless driving, Ms. Slatterhouse informed us. The judge conceivably could reduce the charge to defective equipment. Then again, “94 is a high number, very aggressive driving,” said Ms. Slatterhouse. Ms. Slatterhouse also brought up the touchy business of my son, Steve, being with me when I sprung the trap. “The judge might take into account, how can I put it, some egregious parental role modeling,” said Ms. Slatterhouse. But Steve was sound asleep in the shotgun seat when the blue lights lined up behind us. “What? What’s going on?” he asked groggily, realizing we were boxed in by three brown and tan state patrol cars. His first question was the same one the trooper asked me as he leaned into front seat: “What on earth are you doing going this fast?”

“When you come down for your court date, and make no mistake, you must appear,” said Ms Slatterhouse, “bring along your toothbrush. Just a heads up. You just might spend some nights across the street from the court house in the county jail.”

“You know, I was up your way not long ago,” said one of the troopers after studying my driver’s license. I know. Everybody drives fast up there. It’s different down here. It’s a different world. Why don’t you let your son slide over and drive for a while? He’s driving age, isn’t he?”

Sure he is, we’re out here hunting for a college, after all. That’s what Steve and I had been doing for eight days. I told one of the troopers we were tired and just wanted to get home. A plea he has heard, oh, possibly thousands of times. My bad. I should have stuck with the “different world” rationale. Steve slid behind the wheel and locked in a steady 60 MPH. We said nothing. Hell, we were out of cell phone range and I couldn’t even phone home and freak out on my wife.

I wouldn’t say Steve and I committed to this trip with a high sense of purpose, like actually finding a school for Steve. No, we didn’t drill down too deep. My wife Suze suspected all along we had other plans, other goals for this summertime road trip. To be sure, we stayed away from anything organized, organized campus tours, orientations, interviews, print propaganda handouts. We breezed through campuses, sometimes not even getting out of the car, and went with first impressions and gut feelings:

Penn State — 41,700 students, almost all white. Sprawling vanilla campus without discernable personality. At least the massive football stadium is a walk away from the dorms. A steady rain while we were there left a bland impression.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania — Workable size, 14,310 students. IUP wasn’t on the initial itinerary, but like many decisions on this trip, we improvised on the move. Old projects-like dorms are being demolished for new two- and four-person suites with private baths. This is a trend all across campus America. Kids coddled at home want to bring as much comfort and privacy with them to college as they can. The campus lifestyle factor can be a significant determinant.

University of Pittsburgh — Probably too urban for Steve. Petersen Events Center, where the Pitt Panthers basketball team plays, is a NBA-worthy glass and steel palace. It also houses the student fitness center. Rec centers and student centers are other major “lifestyle” draws on college tours. A classroom is a classroom, a commodity when college shopping, but student centers with multiple flat screen monitors and food courts, and gyms with rock climbing walls, this is part and parcel of creating brand reputations and positioning schools competitively. After 18 years of training, our kids know what to look for when they shop.

University of West Virginia — Confusing campus layout. The school loses points as we lose patience trying to find the football stadium. We find it, it’s locked up, we climb over the gate and stroll the astroturf field. You’ve noted no doubt the emphasis we put on athletic facilities. Colleges pour millions into their athletic budgets every year; athletics is part of the lifestyle equation and brand building; so we feel obligated to check out their investments. Of course that’s horeshit. Steve and I are serious sports fans, have been all our lives, and we’ll take every opportunity (or risk) to walk the fields we see on TV. Beyond sportsdom, Morgantown has too much weedy, ramshackle off-campus housing winding up into the hills. I heard someone once say WVU is too “trailer park.” That’s a helluva image problem for the admissions people to deal with. They’ve got to free the state university from the baggage of the state.

The College of Wooster — Classy, leafy, brick-lined liberal arts campus. Immediately out of our price range. And as Steve asks, “What good does a liberal arts degree do for you?” “It’s your ticket to keep studying a few more years in a grad program,” I explain.

Ohio State University — OSU suffers from bad timing on this trip. Columbus is hot and crowded and we’re hot and tired. Still, we push on to locate the famed Horseshoe, Ohio Stadium, “one of the most recognizable landmarks in all of sports” according to the Buckeye web site. Colleges love to tout recognizable landmarks, and of course most of them are the towering football stadiums. After all, ESPN, CBS Sports, ABC Sports et al don’t come to campuses to photograph the library or the physics lab.

Ohio University — Steve would be a legacy kid here, with both his mom and I OU alumni. “It’s a party school isn’t it?” he asked. “Aren’t they all?” I answer. I think he’s looking to escape his legacy, and more important, that zoombifying eight-hour drive from Philadelphia. OU is in fact a perennial top five finisher in annaul national collegiate party power rankings. The admissions folks grit their teeth and prepare their spin every year the rankings come out. “Oh, that’s such an old story by now…”

Virginia Tech — Steve likes the slate stone architecture of the buildings circling the expansive grass drill field, the heart of the campus has a military feel like West Point. Va Tech is another school standing in the shadows of an enormous football stadium. As mentioned, Steve’s not one for long windshield time, and Va Tech, like OU, is a drive too far.

Actually Steve and I didn’t talk about specific colleges on this tour as much as we went back and forth on areas of study. Steve is taking a shotgun approach to what major to pursue, and I can’t keep up with the rounds of questions. “What do you do with a sports administration major? What if you combined it with journalism? Is journalism dead? What’s a sports information director do? ESPN did a show about them. Seems there is a lot of pressure to those jobs. How much do they get paid. What do you do with a general business degree? What’s business administration? What kind of job could I get in TV production? How do you a get a job with NFL Films or ESPN or The Speed Channel?”

“Wanna see Applachian Bible College?”

“What?”

“Just messin’ with you. You don’t have to figure out the entire arc of your career when you’re 17.”

“But if I don’t know what I want to do, maybe I shouldn’t go to college for a year. Maybe community college. It’s expensive. Give you and mom a break. I know we don’t have a lot of money now.”

As you can see, there are no secrets, financial or otherwise, in our small ranch house. But the boy is prone to thinking too much. Just like his mom, dad and sister. We all need to chill a little more. Of course the stakes of finding an affordable four-year college experience don’t lend themselves to chillin’.

Our road trip talk becomes much easier to handle when music is the topic, which happens at some point every day on this trip. In the back seat sits a cooler packed full of CDs. Steve’s a particular fan of what’s called “Brit Pop,” the wave of British rock and roll bands from the ‘90s. He started listening to The Clash and took it from there. Oasis. Blur. Pulp. Coldplay and Radiohead, the Libertines, Keane. Back to Led Zep, the Beatles, the Stones, the Who. Throw in a lot of Marley, a bit of Dylan and The Band. I don’t want to lay my musical prejudices on him. Pick out another CD, Steve. But what’s most annoying is the iPod generation’s itchy trigger finger that keeps pushing the damn forward button searching for another single track. They’re “single minded,” no different than the transitor radio craze in the ‘60s.

A more complicated topic that often comes up has to do with what I’d call “cultures,” for lack of anything more descriptive. Steve doesn’t use the word per se, but he’s something of an anthropologist. Now how do you make money out of that? For years he’s followed the NASCAR culture and the Formula One racing culture. College football cultures and traditions, especially the hardcore southern schools and midwest Big Ten schools in towns and states without professional teams. Texas and Ohio high school football cultures. Books like “Friday Night Lights,” and “It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium.”

Steve talks some on this trip about the rust belt culture we’ve been driving through.Pittsburgh. Cleveland. Akron. Canton. He finds something interesting in the decay and the people and the towns hanging on. He zeroes in on the tortured history of the Cleveland Browns. Something about the old school plain orange helmet he likes. And the Browns’ history of Hall of Famers, die-hard fans, the Dawg Pound, and never being in a Super Bowl.

Dipping into NASCAR culture was a main attraction of this road trip. We aimed to see the Bristol (Tennessee) and Martinsville (Virginia) tracks. The Martinsville track is the smallest NASCAR races on the circuit. Bristol, aka “Thunder Valley,” is a pilgrimmage shrine. If you took the grandstands at Daytona International Speedway, which stretch for miles, wrapped those stands around and around, coiled them tight as a drum, higher and higher around a half-mile oval, until you had a ten-story coliseum, that’s Bristol Motor Speeday. The “world’s fastest half-mile,” with 160,000 seats.

Twice a year NASCAR races at Bristol, on a spring Sunday and an August Saturday night. In mid-July, when we drove up to the track, it was after hours and the tours were done for the day. The museum was closed. We pretty much had the place to ourselves, with a few other straggler fans.

Damn if a gate to the track was open and some fans were wandering in. We walked down the rows of seat, slipped through an opening in the chain-link fence circling the tracks, and ran laughing up and down the steep raceway banks like concrete sand dunes. Suddenly a red pickup flies by us on the track. “Isn’t that the guys who were out here taking pictures?” asks Steve. Hmmm. Sure enough, track workers left open a drive-in gate down by turn one. Steve and I hurried back to our car.

“You drive,” I told Steve.

“Why?”

“You wanted to see Bristol. Well, nobody’s here and the track’s open. Take a few spins around.”

“Really?”

“Hell, yes. Who wouldn’t want to take their car out on Bristol and turn a couple laps. Damn straight.”

Steve guns our Mazda and its puny put-put engine around the high banks, once, twice, three, four times. That’s two miles. Then it’s my turn. Twice around for a mile. We laughed our asses off.

We weren’t laughing several days later when a patrolman caught us trespassing inside the Martinsville track. The thing is shaped like a paper clip, track walls are scarred and gouged by metal and rubber, with the stands sunk low in a valley, hard to see from the highway.

“Can’t you read? Read the signs?” an old, leathery guard asked me. “I could arrest you for being out here.” Of course two “No trespassing” signs hung on the fence right above where I had slid on my back to wriggle my way on to the track. “Come on, Steve,” I yelled. He was wandering the far end of the paper clip. “Sorry sir,” I said to the guard.

Before the old boy had more time to consider our fate, we were in the Mazda heading east on Highway 58. We were leaving behind the old south culture and heading toward home, to Philadelphia. “Racin’ the way it oughta be!” as the Bristol Motor Speedway motto says. Leaving behind strip malls and Hardees, Long John Silver, Arby’s, Subway, Wendy’s, Burger King, Sam’s Club, Daylight Doughnuts, Doggy Bakery, General Tire, Auto Zone, K Mart, CVS, Lowe’s, Kohl’s, Food City, Walgreens. Cash Now. Cash 1. Bristol Cash. Gun’s ‘n Pawn.

Bristol is the “Birthplace of Country Music,” where the Carter Family came out of Poor Valley to first record here in ’27. Where hell-bent Saturday nights turn into solemn Sunday mornings. “Speak something worth hearing or be silent” commands one church message board. It’s not a long walk from the State Line Bar & Grille, Logan’s Roadhouse, Borderline Billiards to that Sunday morning coming down feeling at the Sacred Cross Church, Volunteer Baptist Church, the Faith Community Fellowship.

Bristol, the Carter Family, old time music, old time racing, they all were part of my romantic reflection until we were about two hours down the road on 58E and the blue lights came out of hiding.

It was a damn good ride while it lasted. Steve and I hit many of our targets. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a subterranean collection of musical misfits, outcasts and geniuses. The Pro Football Hall of Fame. A World War II sub. The Pittsburgh Vintage Car Grand Prix in rainy Schenley Park — MGs, Austin Healys, Jags, Rolls Royces, Lotuses. A 14-inning Pirates game after a torrential rain delay to see ace Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum, thin as a reed, hair like a surfer’s, last year’s Cy Young winner. An Indians game viewed from scorching left-field bleachers, with a clown in the top row pounding on a tom-tom drum that just made you sweat more.

We drove through mountains and hollows in West Virginia. Where the Ghent Fire Department features Mountain State wrestling. Where in White Sulphur Springs, Mud Bogs are organized on city property. Whoever can drive an ATV, 4x4 truck and/or SUVs the furthest distance in the mud pit in the shortest time wins.

One afternoon we drove 40 miles south on Ohio Route 3 from Wooster to Mount Vernon, a rich green stretch of farms, hay fields, pastures, soft hills and a hot haze out on the horizon. Classic Ohio Gothic. I counted 93 barns during that stretch of road. Small, large, aluminum, tin, wooden, brand new and rusted ruins.

We had buffet dinners at Iron Skillets and Golden Corrals. Load the plates high and come back for seconds and thirds. Our minor contribution in the nation’s obesity crisis.

There was that Blacksburg pub where a spunky waitress described what it was to be a Hokie, the Va Tech mascot. “Soon as you get here, the first day, you buy your Hokie tee shirt and from then on you’re a Hokie. It is a family. Especially after the killings.”

“Were you on campus?” I asked.

“Yes. You had to stay wherever you were. Sirens went off and the school sent everyone an email saying there had been a shooting and to stay where you are. We all spent the rest of the day texting and emailing our friends to make sure they were all right.”

“Did you know anyone who was shot?”

“Yeah, my friend Michael was killed, shot in the back.”

There was one night in Athens, Ohio, when Steve and I had dinner at The Oak Room, serenaded by one sorry out-of-tune townie singer-guitarist-harmonica player, trying to win the crowd with ‘70s chestnuts by the Eagles, James Taylor, Pure Prairie League, the Beach Boys. Reminded me how fortune we are that it isn’t the ‘70s anymore, and never will be again.

Another night in Athens I left Steve to ESPN’s Sportscenter in our room at the OU Inn and traipsed up a bluff overlooking the Hocking River and the OU campus. Up there sits what once was the Athens Lunatic Asylum, dark and menacing, with more than 1,800 patients at its peak in the ‘50s. Behind barred windows patients had a panoramic view of the Hocking Valley. Plenty of sunlight and fresh air was the prescription for improved health. Of course some bizarre behaviors and procedures went on behind the barred windows. The focal point of the sprawling complex, spread over hundreds of acres, is a four-story fortress-like intimidating institution. It still stands, a series of set-back wings extending from the main entrance for a total 853 foot length. More than 18 million bricks, all manufactured on the grounds, went into construction of the rock solid building, along with concrete and a tin roof.

What was I doing up there in my bare feet alone with the ghosts?

Three shots of bourbon and a beer at dinner helped lubricate my way. Steve and I had been on the road five days at this point and needed some separation time. I needed a break from the steady rotation of ESPN updates that Steve never tires of. And it’s not all that ghostly up on the old asylum grounds. The hospital had been extensively renovated by OU’s Board of Trustees in the mid-‘90s, renamed The Ridges, and at the cost of four-million dollars turned into an art museum. The refurbished, stately central administration building was named Lin Hall in honor of former Dean of Fine Arts Henry H. Lin, the father of Maya Lin, architect of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Now it’s one of those recognizable campus landmarks.

I spent the evening sitting up there on The Ridges working the right side of my brain. Call it a baby boomer’s fantasy guilt trip. Fantasizing about hardships we never had to face.

I thought back to our walk through the World War II submarine U.S.S. COD, docked next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the shores of Lake Erie. “Find them, Chase them, Sink them” was the COD’s motto, accompanied by a graphic of a topedo smashing through the skull of the enemy. So damn cramped and confined. A city 312 feet long. Mess hall/movie theatre. Sleeping berths stacked four high in spots. Mini toilets, showers, washrooms, a laundry, a galley, They stayed trapped idown there up to 74 days on patrol. Twenty-two percent of all U.S. Navy subsmariners were killed in action in World War II. Death, how’d they live with it?

And I imagined what went on behind the dark brick walls of the asylum. Another self-contained city, with a dairy, a farm, a water system. Numb days and nights. Frozen stares. Music and dance shows were put on by patients. Lobotomies peeled back facial skin to run a spike up through the brain, sometimes successful, sometimes not. Screams. Shouts. Howls. Sobs. Most patients remained until they died, and were buried out back if not claimed by families. Rumors of chains on walls. False. Rumors of ghosts, of course. A dark, dank medieval basement for the craziest. An attic full of tight passageways. Lost patients. In the ‘50s and ‘60s the medication revolution commenced and mass institutionalization was out. Soon patients were out on the streets.

Yeah, it had been a damn good trip. There was the afternoon Steve displayed admirable patience, typically not found in large reserves in 17-year-old boys. After getting lost time and again, I finally found the Carter Family Fold and A.P. Carter’s log cabin birthplace and the general store he owned next door. We were in far southwest Virginia in Poor Valley, up against the Clinch Mountain. Steve fiddled with his iPod in the car for a half hour or more while I roamed around shooting pictures. Then I struck up a conversation with a couple inside the Fold. The Carter Fold is a sort of micro-Opry, a barn with a wood-beamed ceiling, ceiling fans, 850 hard-back seats, and a stage with a wooden bench, room for a dozen musicians, and framed photos of the Carter kin and various guest musicians. Off to the left on a podium is an open Bible.

“Of the sisters, Anita had the best voice, that high soprano. June (Johnny Cash’s second wife) was the best entertainer and personality, but she wasn’t the best singer. And then there was Helen,” says Paul, a slight, retired U.S. Department of Agriculture attorney. Faith Collins, a volunteer at the Fold, has talked Hal into staying over another night so he can make the Saturday night show, this one featuring the old-time band Wayne Henderson & Friends. I don’t think I’d have that kind of luck convincing Steve. He’s not much for songs about lost loves, buried lovers, foggy mountain tops, wrecks on the highway.

“It’s in my genes to love music,” says Faith. “I was born dancin’. My dad sang gospel. Sang in quartets. People who don’t have no music in their cars, it’s like a morgue. I don’t understand. Soon as I get in a car I turn on the music. I always have music on in my house. You come here tomorrow night, you’ll be up dancin’. Two years up to 90 years old you’ll see them dancin’. The three of us come out of the kitchen dancin’.”

“I owe you big time,” I said to Steve when I had heard enough and finally returned to the car.

“No problem,” he said. “How’d you find this place?”

“You don’t unless you really want to.”

It’s like finding Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana’s home, which we did courtesy of the Dawg.

Dawg and I have known each other for at least 15 years, with him writing a number of short articles for my magazine. The Dawg played football at West Virginia University, and before that with Joe Montana for a season. Dawg was a skinny sophomore at Ringgold High School, about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. Montana was the senior starting quarterback.

The Montana tour doubles as a tour of Pittsburgh’s destitute Mon Valley. Donora, the Dawg’s hometown, has lost about two-thirds of its population since the mills’ belched and boomed in the ‘20s, 30s and ‘40s. Monongahela, Montana’s hometown, also has dropped two-thirds of its population since the 1970s. Both towns stretch up hills rising from the Monongahela River; both are faded blue-collar capitals with largely empty downtowns and blank, boarded up storefronts. A male resident of Donora today brings home an average salary of about $33,000.

“There’s nothing to do here. No jobs,” says the Dawg. “Used to be a bar on every corner. Millworkers would work all day, stop at the bar after work for shots and beers, get home for dinner, go to bed, get up and do it again and again every day. My dad worked one of the mills for 30 years. Never got sick. Now you gotta get out of here when you’re young or drugs will get you,” says Dawg. “It’s bad.”

A few weeks after our trip came to its abrupt conclusion, I was getting my hair cut, preparing for the court date in Virginia. Rose, who has cut my hair ever since I got out of college, had some muse-like advice. “You know, I know your back story well enough to know this about you. And your son should know this too, if he doesn’t. You’re a romantic.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“An imaginative romantic.”

“Guilty.”

“A bourbon romantic.”

“Guilty.”

“A mandolin romantic.”

“Guilty.”

“You live in the moment”

“Guilty.”

“You’re about experiences.”

“Guilty.”

“And you were on a mission on this trip.”

Rose has more insights than my shrink, and is of course a helluva lot cheaper.

“Yeah? What was that?”

“You wanted to give your son the experience you never were able to have with your dad.”

“Yeah, maybe it was a major ‘make-good.’ Making up for what I didn’t get to do since my dad died when I was 12. But my dad wasn’t a bourban man at all, never drank in front of me, didn’t know anything about NASCAR, and never would have taken me on a trespassing after-hours spin around one of the country’s most famous race tracks.”

“How do you know what crimes your dad might have had in mind? He was an artist, a romantic, he would’ve taken chances somewhere.”

The judge seemed in good spirits the afternoon he was to hear my case in the Halifax County Courthouse. “Let’s get these cases moving,” he said. “There are a lot of people here who don’t want to see me, and I don’t want to see them.”

He had no time for me, that’s for certain. “First thing here I want to say is that the state of Virginia law requires jail time for any speed over 90 miles an hour. The man was going 95. My god, I can land my plane going slower than that,” said the judge.

“I’m not going to touch this case. The law stands as is.”

Ms. Slatterhouse was caught by surprise, then jumped in: “Your honor, the defendant has driven 400 miles to appear here. He has completed an eight-hour driving course, and an orientation session for Habitat for Humanity.”

“I don’t care. Unless you can get the commonwealth attorney to advise against sending this man to jail…”

“When? Now?”

“Yes.”

A few sweaty minutes later my attorney reappeared with the smiling commonwealth attorney.

“I was going out to lunch when I was grabbed to hear this case, your honor,” said the commonwealth attorney. “The trooper says the gentleman was very cooperative when arrested. Given his clean record, the commonwealth does not advise jail time.”

The judge took a breath and looked me over. Maybe he saw another carpetbagging Yankee in a nice jacket and tie, fresh hair cut, trying to squeeze his way out of a tight spot with courtesy and remorse. Hell, all the locals in the room wore flip-flops and shorts. I was over-dressed. The judge wasn’t having any of it.

“I will reserve my comments on what I think of driving 95 miles an hour and keep them to myself. Since no one else here seems interested in this case except me, and the commonwealth has advised against jail…pause…$1250 fine. That’s it. Guilty as charged. I’ve traded you money for jail time,” he said to me.

Ms. Slatterhouse immediately advised me to appeal. That would require another trek down here. No, I was out of my element. A local got caught speeding at 92 MPH and the same judge dismissed his case completely this morning. No jail time. No fine. No nothing. Dismissed. I’ll pay the damn fine in full and hope Steve finds a college that gives him aid money.