It's a Beautiful Day

I love this town, so full of smiles and worn, friendly faces. A history as deep as the coal mines below and everyone is ready to share their story with you. While corporate America struggles to find a handhold in Bethlehem, the true grit and soul of the city lingers in the small colorful streets that are, to me, always festooned with Christmas decorations and riotous explosion of autumn leaves.




Our pit stop at Ginny's Luncheonnette was a whim but the beginning of a very good day. Walking in the nondescript door, I was reminded a certain other local dive somewhere far out in the desert where only those in the know would care (dare) to venture. The smell of grease and coffee was in the air and the waitresses were sweet but brisk. We stood out like two sore thumbs and all the patrons turned and stared as we entered. We sat at the counter and ordered two hot teas and breakfast potatoes, afraid of using the facilities without giving a little something back.


Unexpectedly, Ginny's embraced us in her homey grip. Two men on either side shared their hard-hidden disappointment in the destruction of the steel mill and the inevitable demise of the town they once knew as children. I could see that everything they held dear in Bethlehem was on the brink of disappearing and true to their staunch American spirit, they would not let it go lightly. They were cheerful, but resigned. Although it was scarcely ten o'clock in the morning, I could envision a beer instead of the coffee under their faces, between their rough hands.

The toast was the best toast I've ever had. It wasn't the bread and it certainly wasn't the slab o' butter that was spackled on each piece before they were clattered on plates before us. It was the tired and always-friendly faces of the middle-aged servers, so swift and familiar in their element of service. No face like that is complete without a "Here you go, my dear," even though the phrase sounds so different to me depending on who's on the other end of it. In this moment I envied their lives, so classic and so quintessentially American. Without trying they possess a nationalism and a sense of identity and pride that I could never live to tell. They are this country. They live those lives and make up the fabric of what we are. They have always been here, and in a way I hope they always will be.





Bethlehem is a town full of stories. Walking through the streets and staring at the legendary blast furnaces, you are guaranteed to meet a misty-eyed individual ready to share his personal tale about that metal jungle. Today I realized that the stories find you when you're here. The magic of this place is so deeply ingrained in the bricks of the streets and under the furnaces themselves. You will never leave this town without having weird and wonderful opportunities throw themselves in your way, and you will go home ready to tell others about what happened. While the man on Main St narrated his tales of 30 years, losing friends to explosions and explaining the night he climbed the towers and hung the star of Bethlehem, I head back to Maryland tonight with tales I'm just as eager to share.


I know that my stories from Bethlehem Steel are a Generation Y of this American Behemoth and I feel feeble assuming that my experiences weigh as much in history as those men in the diner. But I met new people, was inspired, and was fascinated once more with the strength and power of these structures. It is no longer a mystery to me why I keep returning to see her again and again.

Road. Traveled.

So many hundreds of miles asking to be crossed. The feeling of trepidation, uncertainty, and nervousness about the empty, dry, hot spaces of the American west. I never imagined a journey could be like this, and I'm more sad than I can say about those days passing by so fast. Morning, day and night, another sunrise, another sunset. No matter where I woke up, it was always the same, yet not the same at all. I knew I was not alone, and that nothing worrying me on this vulnerable trek could puncture the good humor that pervaded our little bubble.

"We go side by side
Laugh until it's right"

Starting in the nearly perfect urban center of the San Francisco Bay Area, we saddled up our beast with the humorous start of "Oh what the hell, why not?" The G6 was ours, our charger for the week. A snap decision that worked out very well for us! We were able to fit everything in there (with some trouble): 20 pounds of tea and cookies, gold bars, alligator feet, and even a couple of cameras.


We have so many stories to tell, if anyone will listen. We started seriously, enjoying the sights, tastes, and sounds of Mountain View and San Francisco. So many people to see and meet, and so many hours of waking time. If someone was to tell me that I would be crawling on all fours over salt-soaked rotten planks 50 feet over a craggy island in the middle of the Bay around midnight, I never would have believed it.


Once again I savored the pungent odor of cypress and eucalyptus sodden in the night air. I can't breathe enough when I am there. No matter how tired I am and how confused I feel, my lungs rejoice knowing that these trees are near. We saw the lights of the Bay Bridge and downtown, flew over some of the steepest streets downtown and even tried to shoot the city lights before they flicked off. The evening's catch was quite poor, but how often do you get a chance quite like this?

1,280 miles to go...

After the gray windiness of San Francisco, we headed south through the flatlands of the Californian farms. Now growing: Asparagus! Iceberg lettuce! Spinach! Funny, they all looked like soybeans to me.

We were squeezed down the road with mountains to the left, mountains to the right (but which is which, I'll never know!) There were clouds crowning the peaks on both, but our path was straight and clear. We stopped in Mexico... er, I mean Soledad, a little too hasty for the universe to catch up with us, and made a left turn a bit prematurely.


Miles and miles of yellow grass and blue sky. In the desert of the west we played prince and princess to the most garish fairytale castle in the country. We drank smoothies and kissed elephant knees, wandered through the streets of San Luis Obispo and sipped whisky in a red leather room.


845 miles to go...

The inland road was exciting at first, then slowly grew more monotonous as the same yellow hills appeared beyond the clouds. Suddenly the world was only three colors: gold and green and blue, and the pinwheel of the road never displaced them. The oil derricks nodded, "Yessssss, go on..." among the scrub brush and the dust. We sped through the hills and through the cotton fields and the tiny towns so scarce with people but, strangely enough, always with a Subway, or a Chevron, or a Wendy's.



In Mojave, the air vibrated with excitement and aeronautical anticipation. Maybe it was hunger or a hundred windmills on the horizon, but the modest blip on our map held secrets under each and every crack. I didn't see them, even staring through the greasy booth dividers at Mike's Roadside Cafe but the sunny smiles of the people here rivaled the good nature I felt within.

534 miles to go...

As the sweet light once again touched the tawny tips of the waving grass, we found a treasure trove of glittery mirages in the desert. Las Vegas! And as the half moon rose above the oasis of light, I thought about home and how mystical this land seems when you are 2,500 miles away.




All too soon, we stared the finish line in the face. Only one more big, bright, beautiful sunny day. One more afternoon of chasing land butts and smurfing bugs on the windscreen. And one pit stop on the red-paved asphalt, searching for waterfalls and fake snow and bumbleberry pies. And then suddenly there was cold, and darkness, and sand and whirlwinds and people and --

(CUT TO)

Now that it's all over and I'm home again, I wake up with a jolt in the morning, realizing that I have nowhere that I need to be. No strange and thrilling new place awaits to be seen around the bend of the black ribbon highway. The shock of realizing that I no longer have 8 AM breakfast dates and that I know every road here fills me with the depression that I feel so often after conceding to my wanderlust. I am dazed inside where I once was filled with excitement.

We should have made a left turn at Albuquerque.

I know I will be on the road again. My life is so strongly pulled in that direction and I know myself well enough to never ignore desires that strong. And I'll put the purse in the dryer for you.

"Pull on the borders to lighten the load
Tell all the passengers we're going home"