We Get Our Kicks on Route 66

June 11, 2009

We headed out of Springfield on Route 4, which traces the path of old Route 66. The road is lined with soybean and corn fields, and many fields that have not yet been planted, which lie puddled and flooded with rain.

Our first stop was Virden, a town with one traffic light—a flashing red—which is not working. Virden was the site of a miners' riot in 1898. A large bronze relief on the town square commemorates the Battle of Virden with a scene depicting police with drawn guns at the top, cowering miners at the bottom, and a poster recruiting "175 colored miners" from Birmingham in the middle. These are our clues. There are no further historical markers around to elucidate the details. A search of the internet fleshes out the story: the miners here joined a state-wide strike, and the coal company recruited 180 black strike breakers from the south. When the train carrying them tried to pass through a line of armed strikers, a shoot-out with the armed mine guards erupted. When it was over, eight miners and four guards were dead, and forty more were wounded.

We paused in Carlinville to photograph the Macoupin County's "Million Dollar Courthouse." Recognized as the most magnificent courthouse in Illinois, the Macoupin County Courthouse
was a $50,000 project when it was begun in 1867. By its completion in 1870, it had ballooned into one of the largest courthouses in the nation, with a price tag to match--over $1.3 million. At the opposite end of the luxury spectrum, Carlinville boasts the largest collection of Sears and Roebuck mail order houses in the country. Standard Oil Company built 156 of them for their miners in 1918, and 152 of them are still standing (although just about all have had additions and improvements made to them since they were built, so the sense of uniformity that the neighborhood must have had when it was built is lost in history).

Litchfield is home to the oldest café on Route 66, so we had to stop there for lunch. The Ariston Cafe has been family owned for over 80 years, and in its current building since 1935. It is a classic 50s restaurant, with a display case of sumptuous desserts greeting us at the door, a long lunch counter across the front, booths lining the walls, and tables in the middle covered with white tablecloths. We turned on the little yellow fluorescent light fixture on the wall of our booth to optimize the ambiance as we ate our lunch.

The union workers who died in Virden could not be buried in local cemeteries (the Lutheran minister didn't want "murderers" in his churchyard, and the person who owned the other cemetery objected to union ceremonies on his land), so the union purchased land in Mt. Olive where they could bury their martyrs and other miners. The entrance gates to the cemetery bear the words "Resting place of good Union people." Mother Jones, the diminutive grandmotherly woman who dedicated her life to fighting for the rights of union workers, is buried in the cemetery—she said she wanted to rest with her boys. A monument to her, "the martyrs of the Virden riot of 1898," and to about a dozen other named martyrs of the Progressive Miners of America "who have given their lives to the cause of clean unionism in America" during the 1930s dominates the cemetery. This monument added to our curiosity about the tough life of union miners around here. Some further internet research is in order.

Our next stop was Collinsville, where we snapped a picture of the world's largest catsup bottle
(the water tower of the Brooks Catsup Company), then headed to a more meaningful stop on the other side of town.

Cahokia Mounds is the largest historic Native American settlement in the United States, containing the largest prehistoric earthwork in the country. Cahokia was first inhabited from about 700 AD to 1400 AD, and it covered nearly six square miles, with tens of thousands of residents. They built over 100 mounds for ceremonial and burial purposes, some of them quite large. Although farmers have been plowing them for years, some remain, and archaeologists have excavated to find clues to the lives of the people who lived there. Some of their discoveries are pretty gruesome, like hundreds of young girls buried in a mass grave area after serving as being sacrificed in sacred rituals, and young men sacrificed to be buried with an important leader of the community. Other discoveries are just the usual pottery shards and post holes.

We climbed 140 steps to the top of Monk's Mound (named for monks who came here long after the Indians with the intention of building a monastery at the top of the mound). We could see all the way to St. Louis, which, by the way, was once nicknamed "Mound City," because there were 26 mounds in downtown St. Louis before it was fully developed.

The Cahokia site also has an area they call "Woodhenge." It is a reconstruction of a solar calendar constructed on that exact spot in about 1100 AD. There are 48 poles arranged in a circle 410' in diameter with a center post about five feet east of the center of the circle, making its alignment with the solstice sunrise more accurate than it would be if in the center. When viewed from the Woodhenge circle, the sun rises directly over Monks Mound on the spring and fall equinoxes.

We noted that exactly one week ago today we were visiting Georgia's Stonehenge—the Georgia Guidestones--which were also constructed to mark the equinox and solstice positions of the sun.

That's it for Route 66 today.

But, there's more . . . we found a few more places of note after we left 66.

The first was the house in St. Louis where Dick lived 1970-71. Except for having bigger trees, the neighborhood looked just the same as Dick remembered it, a pleasant surprise.

The second was a monument in Howell, Missouri dedicated to several hundred families from Howell, Hamburg, and Toonerville who were forced to leave their homes prior to the declaration of WWII. The government bought 18,000 acres to build a TNT Plant, destroying homes, schools and churches, eradicating the towns. Now, part of the site is a nuclear waste dump from the cold war. There is a huge gravel mound covering 45 acres, and they are in the process of doing some kind of remediation. Funny we have never heard of this one, only the waste sites out in the desert far from population centers. This one is just 35 miles or so from St. Louis. They do some kind of tours here, we think, based on their sign, but it was too late to stop, so we will just add this one to our growing pile of things to look into more deeply when we get a chance.

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln: Springfield, Illinois (mile 1240)

June 9-10

Because this year marks the 200^th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, there are commemorations and celebrations of Lincoln all across the country. We couldn't think of a better place than Springfield, Illinois to pay our respects to our 16^th President. This is the only place where Lincoln owned a home, it is where he practiced law up until he was elected President, where he married and where he is buried.

We began with a visit to the Lincoln Home National Historic Site,
where a whole block of Lincoln's street is preserved and blocked from traffic. We got our free tickets to tour Lincoln's house, and wandered through the homes of a couple of his neighbors while we waited. We were a bit surprised to see how large his home was, and how elegantly appointed. He had come a long way from his log cabin life by the time he was in contention for the Presidency. Mary had decorated their home with lots of fancy big print wall paper from England, and they had elegant furniture and fine china for entertaining. But, then again, their home was quite modest, compared to homes of other Presidents we are familiar with—Jefferson's Monticello, Washington's Mt. Vernon. The Lincoln home wasn't the sort of place that you would name. It just had a simple plate on the front door that said "A. Lincoln."

We were lucky to arrive on a Tuesday, because at 7 p.m. every Tuesday evening, Union troop re-enactors have a big ceremony retiring the colors at Lincoln's tomb. The ceremony involves much playing of the bugle, marching, shouldering and unshouldering of rifles, and attaching and detaching of bayonets. The most impressive part is when they have to shoot their guns three times, which involves many steps of pulling a pouch of powder from a little box on their belt, biting off a bit of the paper of the pouch and spitting it on the ground, pouring the powder into the end of the rifle, tamping it down, cocking the rifle and shooting. It takes quite a while between shots. Watching the process, it is amazing that so many soldiers managed to kill each other in the Civil War. If you missed your shot the first time, there would be plenty of time for your intended victim to run away before you could try to pop him again. I guess they just didn't believe in running.

The next day we visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the largest and most highly visited of all our nation's Presidential libraries/museums. The Museum is a sensory overload multi-media presentation of Lincoln's life. There were fewer artifacts than we expected—lots of hand-written notes and papers, but not too many memorable iconic items—like the hat he wore to the theatre the night he died, which we saw at the Smithsonian. (Mary's blood-stained fan and Abe's blood-stained gloves from that night were at this Museum, though, come to think of it.

Probably the reason we don't remember the real stuff too well is because the fake stuff was so overwhelming. There was a presentation called "Ghosts in the Library" that featured a real actor on stage holding real items from the Presidential Library, while special effects ghosts came out of them. Another multi-media theatre presentation had strobe lights and seats that shook and smoke that came into the theatre during the war scenes. One room was a television studio with multiple monitors, inviting you to watch the taping of Tim Russert analyzing the four candidates running for President during Lincoln's first run for the office. One of the most memorable exhibits was a map of the US during the Civil War with the areas held by the Union in blue and the Confederacy in red. Then, the colors started wiggling around like amoebas as each second of time represented a week of the war. The war took 4 minutes. It was clear the Confederates didn't stand a chance three and a half minutes into it, when the blue was squeezing out the red from all directions. The tally of casualties at the bottom of the screen was spinning so fast you couldn't even read a number most of the time.

Springfield has one other treasure that is not to be missed,
and it has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln. The Dana-Thomas House is, according to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, "the best preserved and most complete of Frank Lloyd Wright's early Prairie houses." Susan Lawrence Dana, a socialite activist, commissioned Wright to build the house around a 30 year old Italianate brick house she inherited from her father. By the time Wright was done in 1904, the Italianate house could hardly be found beneath all the frosting. The house cost just $60,000 to build, according to the film we saw before our tour. This price is just incomprehensible to us—in addition to being huge, the house has 250 art glass windows, doors and light panels—there isn't a plain pane of glass in the whole place. There are over 100 pieces of furniture Wright designed for the house (fortunately, when they tried to sell the furniture at auction to settle the estate, for less than $1 a piece, hardly anyone bid on it, so they returned it to the house in the hope that selling it partly furnished would help the sale). It cost the state $1,000,000 to buy the house and $5,000,000 to renovate it in the 1980s.

We agreed that this house was designed by a show-off for a show-off. The living spaces alternate from dark enclosed areas to massive two story tall rooms with vaulted ceilings and lots of windows. The dining room and an adjacent living room have connected balconies for musicians. There is one window made just to allow a two story tall Christmas tree to be brought into a large reception area.
There is scarcely an unadorned surface inside or out.

As if the house wasn't interesting enough, Susan Dana had a fascinating story herself. She was an often disappointed and disillusioned equal rights crusader, and a spiritual seeker who dabbled in mystical faiths and had her own church in her house for a time.

We could have spent more time in Springfield—there were plenty of other sights to see, but we decided to be on our way down old Route 66 to see what other interesting adventures awaited us in smaller towns.

Culinary Claims to Fame

Springfield, Ill (mile 1240)

June 10

Springfield is famous for two regional specialties, and we managed to sample both on the same day (a feat we do not recommend). When you read about them, you may wonder, as we did, about the cholesterol levels and artery health of the natives of the Land of Lincoln.

Lunch at the Cozy Pup Drive-In

Springfield was home to the inventor of the corn dog on a stick, Ed Waldmire. He had a food service job in the Army during WWII, and began his experiments with hot dogs on a stick while in the service. He perfected his technique when he got out, and officially invented the corn dog as we know it in 1946.

He called his invention the "Crusty Cur." Fortunately, his wife interceded in the naming department, convincing him to change the name of his product to the "Cozy Dog." Without her rebranding intervention, the world might well be without corn dogs today.

Ed opened the Cozy Dog Drive-In along old Route 66 in 1950, and even though he died in 1993, his legacy lives on there today. We both proclaim our Cozy Dogs the best corn dogs we have ever eaten. They are also the first corn dogs we have ever eaten. They may be the last we ever eat. But, we are glad we had the opportunity to bite into local history.

The Horse Shoe

Every restaurant in Springfield, it seems, has Horse Shoes on the menu. We knew we had to have one, and our very knowledgeable tour guide at the Dana Thomas House told us where to get the best ones in town. So, off we went to D'arcy's Pint for dinner. A plaque on the wall and a newspaper article told us that Al Roker came there to eat a horse shoe for a "Roker on the Road" segment, so we knew we were in the right place.

A horse shoe is a sort of open face sandwich with fries and cheese sauce on top. There are many variations;
we decided to try one of D'arcy's "signature" dishes—the chili burger horseshoe (at $7.75 one of the pricier options). We decided to just order one and share it, which turned out to be a brilliant decision. Here is what our server set down in front of us—a massive serving platter heaping with food, in layers, from the plate up:

• A couple slices of Texas toast, smashed to ¼" thickness by the weight of the items on top of them.


• A massive burger, more like a small meatloaf, weighing in at an estimated ¾ pound.


• A ladle full of chili with beans, smothering the burger and sloshing over the side of the platter when it was set down.


• Three cups of French fries piled like a big hay stack on top of the chili.


• About ¾ cup of white cheddar cheese sauce ladled liberally over the fries.

This was supposed to serve one person!

We shared it and couldn't finish it.

Our server could not adequately answer the question, "Why is it called a horse shoe?" I hypothesized that it was because if you try to eat it all you feel like you have a horse shoe in you stomach. Although I believe this is a legitimate explanation, our internet research turned up another origin of the name, full of symbolism:

• The bread is the shoe.


• The meat is the hoof.


• The fries are the nails.

There is no mention here of the sauce, but our server did refer to the cheese sauce as "the glue that holds it all together." Hmmm—glue, horses . . . I guess it fits.

Ernie Taylor: An Artist Out Standing in His Field

June 9: Mile 1,038

We were scarcely more than an hour from New Castle, driving on a two-lane country road when we passed a field covered with fanciful colorful sculptures made from pieces of farm machinery. Within seconds we realized we should have stopped for a photo. Dick turned around, drove back, and I snapped a couple pictures. Then we turned around to be on our way, but stopped again when we got in front of the place to snap another picture. As we passed the far end of the field, we noticed a man in coveralls working on one of the sculptures, so we turned around again to get a picture of him. He waved, and invited us to come get a closer look. We couldn't resist.

His name is Ernie, he's 81, and he has been a welder all his life, but just took up making art from farm machinery parts in the fifteen years since he retired. He says he works half days now—from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and every morning he sets out with a goal for what he will complete that day.

He has a whimsical sense of humor—"Would you like to borrow my riding lawn mower?" he asks, pointing to an old bicycle with its front wheel assembly replaced by a push lawn mower. He has a garden of colorful welded flowers, populated with Dr. Seussical birds made from shovel blades and rebar and rake tines and such. A snake chases two road runners, a dog eyes a fire hydrant, a 10 foot tall mother dinosaur proudly towers over a little one hatching from an egg. Mobiles spin in the wind.

There are hundreds of sculptures, and there are bound to be hundreds more, because he has a policy of not selling his work. "You work three days on something, and someone wants to pay you $3 for it. I'd rather have people be mad at me for not selling to them than me be mad at them."

Along the way he shows us the burn on the back of his head from when they tried to shock him back to life after a heart attack he had at age 71. "That electricity burned me. I know what a burn looks like—I'm a welder, and I've been burned everywhere but the roof of my mouth." He was in a coma for a month, but sees his recovery as a miracle. His second miracle was suddenly being able to play the guitar after he recovered. He shows us the calluses on his fingers, and tells us how he plays for the folks at the nursing home.

He wanted to show us his 50 year collection of antique farm tools and horse drawn equipment and transportation, but we didn't have time to stay longer (we could easily have been there all day if we took him up on his offer). So, he invited us to sign his book of visitors, and sent us off with a gift and a joke. His gift was a plastic cup decorated with a felt beak and comb and eyes drawn with a marking pen to look like a chicken. A string hung from the cup, and he pulled a little wet sponge in a jerking motion along the string to make it sound like a chicken clucking.

His joke: "The crows mistook my wife for a scarecrow the other day. They got scared so bad they brought back corn they stole three years ago."

As we left, Ernie invited us to come back next time we visit our family in New Castle, and leave plenty of time to see his farm tool collection. And, bring the grandkids—they will love it.

Family Fun II

New Castle, Indiana (mile 894)

June 7-8

New Castle, Indiana is home to the world's largest high school gym—a field house that seats nearly 10,000 people, over half the population of New Castle. But, more importantly for us, it is the home of grandsons Andrew and Collin. We followed them home from Patrick's graduation (see previous post), and had lots more family fun. They made us many different paper airplanes, performed a magic show, demonstrated stunts on their Razor scooters, and took us on a guided walk on their nature trail.

Since Andrew had an orthodontist appointment in Muncie on Monday, we took the boys and mom Jennifer to Minnetrista, a small museum and large garden complex endowed by the Ball family (of Ball canning jar fame, now into aeronautics and other high tech businesses). What could have been a quick and somewhat disappointing visit turned into a very special morning when Becky, an enthusiastic volunteer, adopted the boys, and let us come along with them for a private educational tour. She took us on a golf cart ride to a cabin, where she told us all about the lives of the turtles, snake, and frog inside, and let the boys touch a turtle and some skin shed by the snake. Then we were off to the Children's Garden, where she gave the boys food pellets to feed the fish in a big lily pond. After we spent a little time in the museum exhibit areas while Becky had to work at the front desk, we were back in her golf cart, on our way to a private tour of the home of one of the five Ball brothers (who all built their homes side-by-side on a private river-side road). We hope Becky had as much fun as we did being the only visitors at Minnetrista that morning!

We met son Mark for lunch at a bakery café where every meal comes with a big cookie—our kind of restaurant! Mark took the rest of the day off from work to spend time with us, and our computers, which were running night and day during our visit doing back-ups and other healthy tech stuff that we don't know much about, but Mark does.

We ended our perfect day with a trip to "The Show," the only movie theater in New Castle. It has just one screen, and is dedicated to family entertainment. We all enjoyed the latest Pixar film,"Up," featuring a variation on the "Wizard of Oz" plot--with an old guy doing Dorothy; his sidekicks a talking dog, a boy scout and a giant bird; and the witch and wizard rolled into one character, a heroic explorer gone bad.

Family Fun

Wyoming, Ohio (mile 780)

Saturday, June 6, 2009, 6:30 p.m.

We are sitting in a sea of folding chairs on the lawn of Wyoming High School waiting for the school's 125^th graduation ceremony to begin. The ritual has been the same for as long as anyone here can remember. And, Dick can remember many—eleven years attendance as a school board member, three as a proud parent, and now the graduation of his oldest grandson, Patrick.

The band plays "Pomp and Circumstance," pairs of undergraduate girls (including granddaughter Kate) process down the center aisle carrying flower-covered arches which they raise ceremoniously, and the graduates pass one-by-one beneath the arches—each girl in a white gown carrying a single red rose, and each boy in a tuxedo with a white jacket, a red rose pinned to his lapel. Somehow no two girls have ever shown up in the same dress, or so they say. After the singing of the National Anthem, one short speech from an adult and short valedictorian and solitarians addresses, the students file down from their seats (in sections segregated by gender) to receive their diplomas as their names are called, and they try to pull one last prank while shaking hands with the authority figures. This year, they tried to stuff dollar bills in their principal's pockets. (When Dick was president of the school board they tried to cover him with stickers.) The graduates recess through the flower arches, are briefly mobbed by well-wishing family members, then head out to their class party on a riverboat.

Sunday Patrick's parents threw a big brunch celebration for family members from far and wide who came to congratulate him.

Patrick's graduation festivities were the centerpiece of our Cincinnati visit, but we shared many other memorable family moments there. Grandson Harrison gave up his bedroom suite and slept on the sofa so we could stay in comfort at his family's house and enjoy sharing their busy life—a pizza picnic at the swim club, a romp with Duncan at the dog park, and time to play and pretend with the five year old twins. We shared alone time with daughter Megan over dinner at our favorite local restaurant. Our visit was short, but filled with pride and joy.

Elberton, GA: "Granite Capital of the World" (mile 242)

It's only the first day of our big adventure, and already we have visited a world famous spot!

Dick read about Georgia's answer to Stonehenge located in Elberton in his May issue of Wired magazine, then did further research in our Weird Georgia book. When we realized Elberton was almost on the way to Cincinnati, the first stop on our itinerary was a lock.

We began our visit at the Elberton Granite Museum and Exhibit, where an exceedingly friendly and knowledgeable retired granite worker sat us down to watch an 11 minute video about granite, the lifeblood of Elberton (pop. 4,700). In our vast experience of educational videos viewed in historic and cultural settings, we put this one in the top 10% -- we learned lots of amazing facts about how granite is quarried, cut, polished, and engraved, and we came away convinced that Elberton deserves to call itself the Granite Capital of the World. Here are a few stats to back up their claim to fame:

• 1/3 of all the monument grade granite produced annually in the US comes from Elberton.



• there are 40 quarries in the county, mining in excess of 2 million cubic feet of granite yearly.



• over 200 Elberton companies do business in granite and associated products.



• over 250,000 granite monuments are made here yearly.

After the film, we took a whirlwind tour of the museum, since we arrived just 35 minutes before its 5 p.m. closing time. Possibly our favorite exhibit was a broken statue of "Dutchy," Elberton's first granite monument. Dutchy was a 7 foot tall granite statue of a confederate soldier standing atop a 15 foot monument base commissioned by the Ladies Confederate Memorial Association back in 1898. When he was unveiled with great ceremony, his uniform looked suspiciously northern, and his body looked short and squatty--"a cross between a Pennsylvania Dutchman and a Hippopotamus," as he was famously described, hence his nickname Dutchy.

The sculptor left town shortly after the unveiling, never to be heard from again, and two years later a group of patriotic young locals tore Dutchy from his base, broke off his feet and legs, and buried him face-down at the base of the monument. There he remained, buried in the manner customary for a traitor, until 1982, when the Elberton Granite Council searched for his grave, exhumed him, ran him through a car wash, and hauled him to their new museum.

The fate of Dutchy is ironically similar to the fate of the Georgia Guidestones that precipitated our visit to Elberton. (Picture to be posted soon.)

The story of the Guidestones began in 1979, when a mysterious man calling himself R. C. Christian showed up in Elberton with a model and precise drawings of a structure he wanted to have built, a mystical astronomical tool seemingly meant to aid survivors of some sort of apocalypse. The President of Elberton Granite thought Christian was crazy, and sent him to the President of Granite City Bank, who verified that he was not a kook, that Christian was not his real name, and that his money was good. The monument was built on the highest hilltop in the county, and when it was done Christian gave the monument, the land it stood on, and an endowment for its upkeep to the county, then, like Dutchy's sculptor, he disappeared. Only the Bank President knows his identity, and he is sworn to secrecy.

Four stone slabs over 15 feet tall and a central column support a 25,000 pound capstone. The slabs are oriented to the limits of the moon's annual migration, the column has a hole through which to view the North Star. Other features align with the sun's position during the Solstices and Equinox. But, here's the controversial part--each stone slab is engraved with ten principles to guide the survivors of some apocalyptic event in creating a better world than the one their predecessors (or God? or the devil?) destroyed. The principles are written in eight languages on the eight sides of the stone slabs: English, Russian, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, and Spanish. They are:

• Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.



• Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.



• Unite humanity with a living new language.



• Rule Passion - Faith - Tradition - and all things with tempered reason.



• Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.



• Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.



• Avoid petty laws and useless officials.



• Balance personal rights with social duties.



• Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.



• Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

The monument has not been toppled as Dutchy was, but that is only because it was built to withstand the apocalypse.

Back in December it was spray painted with language that would make Jerry Springer blush, and with Bible verses (a special Christmas gift, perhaps?). That round of vandalism has been cleaned off, but we found new graffiti done with Sharpie pens, plus a lot of epoxy splotches and swirls on our visit. Apparently there are a lot of Christians out there who think that R. C. Christian was an anti-Christ.

Based >on the Guidestones exhibit at the Granite Museum, it appears that the city fathers had unbridled enthusiasm for the monument, expecting it to be a huge tourist draw for Elberton. Now, at least some of them may be feeling a little like those Confederate ladies whose soldier didn't get the reaction they expected.