Had to make a long haul drive for work today in an old company van. Because he felt sorry for me, my sweet husband burned some music CD.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing that makes me think,\u201d I said. \u201cI have to drive for four hours starting at 5 AM. \u201c<\/p>\n
I started with the Isley Brothers, which was some good funk. On to Van Halen (because I might as well Jump), and through Shirley Brown.<\/p>\n
No man should give his lady a Shirley Brown album. I was loving how good she was, and grateful that Chris had introduced me to her, but men do not come out looking good after she\u2019s done singing.<\/p>\n
It was a long stretch of highway. Let me tell you.<\/p>\n
Now, the next one. \u201cHello. I\u2019m Johnny Cash.\u201d At Folsom prison in 1968.<\/p>\n
I know two things about the next week or so. I will be listening to this music wherever I drive and I will not be wearing mascara.<\/p>\n
You could fly around the world on a jet plane in 1968. But Johnny Cash was playing the guitar like a railroad train. A train. And everything about it made sense. It still does as I am driving the interstate.<\/p>\n
Who made this interstate? Some high school dropout making Davis Bacon?\u00a0 As the white lines flick past me making a trip for a boss I don\u2019t like to fix a machine that nobody uses and somebody broke on purpose\u2014the story of John Henry is making me cry.<\/p>\n
John Henry killed himself to prove a point nobody believed, but everyone hoped could be made.<\/p>\n
Everyone.<\/p>\n
Trains take you places. Maybe it was your idea. But once you are on it, it\u2019s not a choice anymore.<\/p>\n
Chugga chugga Chugga chugga<\/p>\n
The highway, now, that\u2019s freedom! On the Road! Great Gatsby<\/p>\n
aaOOOgah<\/p>\n
Once you are on it, though, maybe it\u2019s not a choice. Keep up with the flow of traffic, stop and go or break your neck.<\/p>\n
This automobile that we don\u2019t even know how to fix anymore without calling in a specialist, that we pay and clean and park and house\u2014we think it\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n
At least a train would let you ride for free if you were fast enough to catch it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying that we should go back to trains\u2014as if we could! That train left the station even before Johnny Cash and the other country and blues artists made it a symbol.<\/p>\n
In 1968 Johnny Cash was singing to the rhythm of the train tracks. The same radios were playing songs that led to protests and \u201cdamn the man!\u201d and \u201cFight the power!\u201d and teaching people to resist the establishment.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not what\u2019s on the radio now.<\/p>\n
We are products of our times. Shall we admire the jail cell with GPS that we spend the teaspoons of our life on–maintaining and paying for? Yes we shall. Yes, I do. I do not always recognize that Automobile and that interstate and that parking space as the non-choice it is.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what the answer is. I\u2019m so sorry for all the John Henrys. But I do not want the guitar music of the train tracks, as my car bumps over the potholes and jagged asphalt to be lost on me, even if I don\u2019t know what exactly to do about it. Even if I can\u2019t make as many choices as I\u2019d like right now.<\/p>\n
John Stuart Mill, I have to drag you into it again,<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am not asking for a revolution. I can\u2019t do a revolution right now. But I don\u2019t want to forget the other sides of the question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Had to make a long haul drive for work today in an old company van. Because he felt sorry for me, my sweet husband burned some music CD. \u201cNothing that makes me think,\u201d I said. \u201cI have to drive for … Continue reading