I am amazed at the number of people who can go through the world and somehow remain oblivious to their surroundings. I feel sorry for them.
This morning, I awoke early, as I almost always do. Being an early riser on a tour bus can be a bit of a trial. Tours are routed and organized so that the bus arrives mid-morning. As an early riser, this often means I spend hours looking out the window, watching the world pass me by. I am used to it now, it has been part of my life for almost 15 years, far longer than anything else I have ever done. And there is much to see in the world, even from the window of a bus. High in the Adirondacks this morning, the hills are bright with fall foliage. Deer run along the highway, farms are asleep, and small nameless towns that I will never visit pass by in a whirl. At the truck-stop I stood in line in the bathroom with a group of stolid looking Amish gentlemen, bewildered by the high-tech sinks. Admittedly the last one was a low dignity moment, but still an experience worth remembering, part of a day in which something was learned. People have written narrative books based on less interesting experiences. I know, having read too many of them.
And sometimes there is nothing to see. The other day, In Joplin, my rather handy personal GPS unit told me that the mall where I purchased socks and underwear was actually situated alongside ‘Historic Route 66’, that coast-to-coast highway so prominent in US rock and roll mythology. Perhaps one needed to travel a little further to capture the magic, as the only interesting thing I encountered on the two miles I hiked was a Petsmart store. Also, I have a feeling not many people walk that road in Joplin. Everyone who roared past me, as I struggled along on the sidewalk-less verge stared at me as if I was mad. Again, though, I learned something - Route 66 is rather uninteresting. And dangerous.
America can be a bit difficult like that. It never ceases to surprise me. One day you are amazed at the ingenuity of the place, the next dismayed at how small some of its inhabitants have made their world. Canada lacks extremes, it’s the thing that makes it so easy to live in, but also one of the reasons it can be so bland. America is many things, but it is rarely bland.
University City, which is a part of St. Louis where we played recently, was one of the nicest pieces of urban planning I have ever seen. Everything I had read about St. Louis suggested that it was a city in decline, a place that time had passed, crime-ridden and blighted. The reality was nothing like that. Everyone I met was polite, worldly and interested, qualities you would hope to find anywhere. The stores and restaurants were unique, and full of strange cultural nuances. It was one of the most interesting places I have been in years. And then, in Joplin, (not to pick on Joplin, again) I had the opposite experience, the kind that makes you lose hope utterly. While purchasing the aforementioned socks, I tried to use my Visa card. As is the case with most Canadian and European cards, it contained the chip technology that will soon obviate the magnetic strip. These are unheard of in the USA, so right away my card caused some consternation.
I persuaded the reluctant clerk that the card would still work, and despite her suspicions, she bravely forged ahead. Soon, however, we met another roadblock. Presumably as a security measure, she asked me a question I was unable to answer.
“What’s your zip-code, sir?”
“I don’t have one,” I said.
She stared at me with some disgust. Plainly I was a smart aleck.
“Well, then I need the code associated with this card,” she said primly, with one of those steel-edged southern accents that brooks no argument...
“Seriously,” I said, trying my best disarming smile. “Neither of us have a zip-code. I am not an American, I don’t live here.”
She had a look of panic now.
“You have to have a zip-code,” she said.
“I live in Canada,” I explained, a little gingerly now. She was already waving at her supervisor. “We don’t use zip-codes.”
“You must,” she insisted.
“No, we don’t use them. And neither do the British, the French, the Mexicans or anyone else. We all have different kinds of postal codes. Only the United States uses this kind of zip-code.”
She and the supervisor stared at me for a long moment. Plainly we were at an impasse. I suppose I could have easily just paid the ten bucks in cash, but it was a point of principle now.
“Look,” I tried again, “this is Macys, this is a huge company, surely your system must allow non-Americans to buy stuff. There’s no way I can be the first.”
“You have to have a zip-code, sir.”
“Okay, 0000000.”
The supervisor was on the verge of giving me the boot by now.
“That’s not your zip-code, sir.”
“But I told you, I don’t have one. Why don’t you try yours?”
With an audible snort, she typed it in. Instantly the receipt shot out of the printer, to the mutual annoyance of both the salesclerk and her supervisor. Without a word they handed me the bag, and I left to a conspiratorial whisper. No one likes to be proven wrong, but that experience took the cake.
Anyway, as this blog is supposed to be about music, here’s a couple of songs that might put you in the traveling mood.
‘Going Mobile’ by the Who is from their landmark album ‘Who’s Next’. One of a handful of band songs sung by Pete Townsend, it is a great peon to a lost age, when gas was cheap, the world a lot less crowded, and the highway really was limitless. Unlike so much of his work, Townsend actually sounds happy on this song, reason enough to savour it.
For those of a more folky bent, you might gravitate more to Anne Briggs, a singer from the great age of UK folk music - the early 1970s. ‘Travelling’s Easy’ also speaks to a different era, when packing up and wandering away with just a knapsack and a belly full of ideals was a reasonable thing to do, if not a rite of passage.
Either way, whatever your journey, it pays to keep your eyes - and your mind - open. I know I am lucky to have seen the world in such a fashion, but it is more about attitude anyway, even of you are just crossing the street. And, because as an English major I am over-fond of a good quite, let me finish with one from Thoreau, America’s great philosopher of thoughtfulness: ‘Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.’