Driving West in 1970, poem by Robert Bly

DRIVING WEST IN 1970
by Robert Bly

My dear children, do you remember the morning
When we climbed into the old Plymouth
And drove west straight toward the Pacific?
We were all the people there were.
We followed Dylan’s songs all the way west.
It was Seventy; the war was over, almost;
And we were driving to the sea.
We had closed the farm, tucked in
The flap, and were eating the honey
Of distance and the word “there.”
Oh whee, we’re gonna fly
Down into the easy chair. We sang that
Over and over. That’s what the early
Seventies were like. We weren’t afraid.
And a hole had opened in the world.
We laughed at Las Vegas.
There was enough gaiety
For all of us, and ahead of us was
The ocean. Tomorrow’s
The day my bride’s gonna come.
And the war was over, almost.

Note: “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” is the Bob Dylan song referred to in “Driving West in 1970.” Listen to a 1968 version by the Byrds here. Find it on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume II at Amazon.com.

Once, Driving West of Billings, Montana, poem by Susan Mitchell

ONCE, DRIVING WEST OF BILLINGS, MONTANA
by Susan Mitchell

I ran into the afterlife.
No fluffy white clouds. Not even stars. Only sky
dark as the inside of a movie theater
at three in the afternoon and getting bigger all the time,
expanding at terrific speed
over the car which was disappearing,
flattening out empty
as the fields on either side.

It was impossible to think
under that rain louder than engines.
I turned off the radio to listen, let my head
fill up until every bone
was vibrating—sky.

Twice, trees of lightning
broke out of the asphalt. I could smell
the highway burning. Long after, saw blue smoke twirling
behind the eyeballs, lariats
doing fancy rope tricks, jerking silver
dollars out of the air, along with billiard cues, ninepins.

I was starting to feel I could drive forever
when suddenly one of those trees was right in front of me.
Of course, I hit it—
branches shooting stars down the windshield,
poor car shaking like a dazed cow.
I thought this time for sure I was dead
so whatever was on the other side had to be eternity.

Saw sky enormous as nowhere. Kept on driving.
***
“Once, Driving West of Billings, Montana” appears in Susan Mitchell’s collection The Water Inside the Water (Wesleyan University Press, 1983).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Susan Mitchell grew up in New York City and now lives in Boca Raton, Florida. She has a B.A. in English literature from Wellesley College, an M.A. from Georgetown University, and was a PhD student at Columbia University. She has taught at Middlebury College and Northeastern Illinois University, and currently holds the Mary Blossom Lee Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Florida Atlantic University. She has published poems in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Poetry Review, The New Republic, Ploughshares, and The Paris Review. Her poems have also been included in five volumes of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize volumes. (Source: wikipedia.org)

PHOTO: “Montana, Big Sky Country” by Sherri Jo, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Motel Chronicles, story by Sam Shepard

MOTEL CHRONICLES (Excerpt)

by Sam Shepard

…We stopped on the prairie at a place with huge white plaster dinosaurs standing around in a circle. There was no town. Just these dinosaurs with lights shining up at them from the ground.

My mother carried my around in a brown Army blanket humming a slow tune. I think it was “Peg a’ My Heart.” She hummed it very softly to herself. Like her thoughts were far away.

We weaved slowly in and out through the dinosaurs. Through their legs. Under their bellies. Circling the Brontosaurus. Staring up at the teeth of Tyrannosaurus Rex. They all had these little blue lights for eyes.

There were no people around. Just us and the dinosaurs.

PHOTO: Dinosaur Park, Rapid City, South Dakota, 1945 (April K. Hanson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

On the Road Redux, New Yorker cartoon by Barbara Smaller

CAPTION: “We want to do the whole Jack Kerouac-‘On The Road‘ thing, only with B&B.s.”

CREDIT: New Yorker cartoon by Barbara Smaller, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prints available at condenaststore.com.

Driving West in 1970, poem by Robert Bly

DRIVING WEST IN 1970
by Robert Bly

My dear children, do you remember the morning
When we climbed into the old Plymouth
And drove west straight toward the Pacific?
We were all the people there were.
We followed Dylan’s songs all the way west.
It was Seventy; the war was over, almost;
And we were driving to the sea.
We had closed the farm, tucked in
The flap, and were eating the honey
Of distance and the word “there.”
Oh whee, we’re gonna fly
Down into the easy chair. We sang that
Over and over. That’s what the early
Seventies were like. We weren’t afraid.
And a hole had opened in the world.
We laughed at Las Vegas.
There was enough gaiety
For all of us, and ahead of us was
The ocean. Tomorrow’s
The day my bride’s gonna come.
And the war was over, almost.

Note: “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” is the Bob Dylan song referred to in “Driving West in 1970.” Listen to a 1968 version by the Byrds here. Find it on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume II at Amazon.com.

Photo: 1960 Plymouth Fury. When “Driving West in 1970” mentions “old Plymouth,” I figured the car was at least 10 years old (though the vehicle in the above photo looks grand). From what I’ve gathered, while other car models were moving away from fins, the fins on the 1960 Plymouth Fury were bigger than ever. I like to think of these Plymouth fins helping the Bly family fly and swim all the way to the ocean during this 1970 journey.

Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard

MOTEL CHRONICLES (Excerpt)

Story by Sam Shepard

…We stopped on the prairie at a place with huge white plaster dinosaurs standing around in a circle. There was no town. Just these dinosaurs with lights shining up at them from the ground.

My mother carried my around in a brown Army blanket humming a slow tune. I think it was “Peg a’ My Heart.” She hummed it very softly to herself. Like her thoughts were far away.

We weaved slowly in and out through the dinosaurs. Through their legs. Under their bellies. Circling the Brontosaurus. Staring up at the teeth of Tyrannosaurus Rex. They all had these little blue lights for eyes.

There were no people around. Just us and the dinosaurs.

PHOTO: Dinosaur Park, Rapid City, South Dakota, 1945 (April K. Hanson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

Driving West in 1970, Poem by Robert Bly

DRIVING WEST IN 1970

Poem by Robert Bly

My dear children, do you remember the morning

When we climbed into the old Plymouth

And drove west straight toward the Pacific?

We were all the people there were.

We followed Dylan’s songs all the way west.

It was Seventy; the war was over, almost;

And we were driving to the sea.

We had closed the farm, tucked in

The flap, and were eating the honey

Of distance and the word “there.”

Oh whee, we’re gonna fly

Down into the easy chair. We sang that

Over and over. That’s what the early

Seventies were like. We weren’t afraid.

And a hole had opened in the world.

We laughed at Las Vegas.

There was enough gaiety

For all of us, and ahead of us was

The ocean. Tomorrow’s

The day my bride’s gonna come.

And the war was over, almost.

Note: “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” is the Bob Dylan song referred to in “Driving West in 1970.” Listen to a 1968 version by the Byrds here. Find it on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume II at Amazon.com.

Photo: 1960 Plymouth Fury. When “Driving West in 1970” mentions “old Plymouth,” I figured the car was at least 10 years old (though the vehicle in the above photo looks grand). From what I’ve gathered, while other car models were moving away from fins, the fins on the 1960 Plymouth Fury were bigger than ever. I like to think of these Plymouth fins helping the Bly family fly and swim all the way to the ocean during this 1970 journey.

Coral Court Motel RIP

During my childhood summers, I’d spend time with my aunt and uncle in St. Louis. My aunt liked to take long walks, and we often journeyed from her home in south St. Louis on foot, down Route 66 to a shopping center called Maplewood. Along the way, we passed the Coral Court Motel, which even as a child struck me as amazing. I have since learned that the buildings (the motel was made up of individual glazed brick cabins) were examples of art deco and streamline moderne architecture.

The Coral Court Motel operated from 1942-1993, and was razed in 1995 for a housing development — despite many attempts for designation as a historic landmark. All that remains is a website dedicated to preserving memories of the place. It boasts: “For mystery, intrigue, and sheer tawdriness, you can’t beat the Coral Court.”

Shellee Graham has written a fascinating book about the motel called Tales from the Coral Court: Photos and Stories from a Lost Route 66 Landmark. Find the book here. While I don’t own the book, I have borrowed it from the library a few times and have enjoyed it immensely — cultural history, architecture, geography, social studies, and soap opera all in one photo-filled book.