Road Trip Randy's Midwest and Rust Belt Report

Road Trip Randy here with another report from the road. 

First, a word of warning. 

DON'T EAT a GIANT BURRITO HALF WAY THROUGH YOUR DAY'S DRIVE. 

Billboard Beat

I know y'all want the scoop on the billboard sitch along I-90 from NY to Illinois. Here's the deal. Billboards for fireworks, adult stores and attorneys are going strong, but I have to give a special shout out to Team Jesus because the Jesus Billboard Game is fierce! My personal favorite: "Jesus was rich." Guess those sandals were Birkenstocks! 

Toledo Teaser 

Sometimes you get so tired driving that you don't reach your intended destination and you stop over night in Toledo. Then you may get up in the morning much earlier than your wife and son and read the Toledo City Pages for something to do. You may then find out that Toledo has the BIGGEST MURAL IN THE COUNTRY and you want to see it and suggest to your wife that you go see it before heading out but your wife JUST WANTS TO GET HOME so you don't do that this trip. Also, you can get pizza for grownups in Toledo. 

Highway Yays and Nays

Yay -  Illinois tourism efforts. Shout out to non-metropolitan Illinois for their promotional efforts.  Take Ottawa,Illinois. Some people would say Ottawa, IL is in the middle of nowhere. But Ottawa isn't having that! In an epic branding clap back, they are calling their city "The Middle of Everywhere." While you really have to stretch your imagination (in fact, transform your whole worldview far eastward) to get it, that is surely a better approach than the city's other branding as "Radium City" or not trying at all. 

Nay - Quaker State Steak and Lubes.  Don't call yourself that. I just ate a giant burrito, that's playing with fire. 

Yay- The farmer in southwest Wisconsin who placed a UFO sculpture containing a dog driver in his field on the side of the road. You are an American hero. 

NAY- All other farmers on hundreds upon hundreds of miles of road providing NOTHING at all of value (unless you want to count the food on our tables). Would it kill you to commission a Sasquatch or giant picture of a farmer's daughter with a circle and line through it? Our eyes need food too! 

Yay-To the I-80 Truckstop. This is unquestionably the Crown Jewel of Corn Belt Travel. I mean, just look at that beautiful t-shirt, one of dozens of products that seem positively requisite after a day and a half of driving through fields. I would say about 50% of our total trip expenses derive here. 

  

                                                                                           

Berm Beat
Somewhere along the way there was a sign, which read, "Soft Berm." 

"What is 'soft berm'?" I asked my navigator, who is also my wife. I couldn't imagine "Berm" was a real thing, but I also couldn't imagine the local department of transportation would put made up words on signs (although I would wholeheartedly approve if they did). She looked it up. 

"'Berm' is the bit of grass next to the shoulder of the road. If it is soft, that means if you drive onto it, you might get stuck." 

Oh, I will avoid the soft berm then!" 

"Good idea." 

FAQ 

Q: Is there anywhere I can go to fulfill my insatiable thirst for knowledge about the history of RV production? 

A:  Yes, as a matter of fact, in Elkhart, Indiana, besides a Perkins, you will find the RV Hall of Fame and Museum. You will tell your wife, "I want to check that out," and she will start investigating directions to the closest bus station. 

A Final Word of Warning 

If you're going to map out your road trip on paper, stop and think for one second before you come up with something not even your son's elementary teacher would accept: 

                                         Who Needs GPS?                                          

Tumbling Into My Dream Job

In the spring of 2012, I landed my dream job of small town laundromat manager. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. Here is what I thought at the time: 

I've finally made it. Six years of higher education, 40 thousand dollars in student loans, hundreds of resumes produced and disseminated, dozens of interviews— seven years of building experience in my field. And now, finally, after all this— the light at the end of the tunnel. The dream turned reality. As of today, I am now—oh, it is almost too flipping exciting to announce (my heart is pounding a gazillion beats a second; someone call a doctor!)—the manager. of. a. small town. laundromat!

That's right: laundromat manager. Mission accomplished. Game over. Expectations for my life met, completely. All of my early promise fulfilled (the sports and clubs; Hebrew school and Odyssey of the Mind— all paid off, baby!): small town laundromat manager position acquired!!! 2012!!! This is how it's done!!!

Laundromat Manager! Yes! What now, people who said I'd never amount to anything?! Eat your hearts out! That dour-faced thirty-one-year-old man you see through the window folding some stranger's underwear poorly —that's me! Never thought I'd make it this far, did you? Well, that's right, I'm now at the top of a major three-person operation. Me plus two 60-year-old-women— plus a dozen or so washing machines— equals serious flippin' enterprise! Get me the editor of my college alumni magazine: I've got the front cover story for the next edition. '03 Graduate Tumbles into Dream Job at Laundromat: From Scholar to Sudser! I'm certain my mom's on the phone right now with everyone from our temple. My son, the laundromat manager: can you believe it? Rabbi, I'm so proud; I knew he'd do something amazing, but this—this just blows the mind. The head of a small town laundromat; we are truly blessed! Happy to deliver, mom. Happy to deliver.

My god, fate has truly smiled on me. This is a freaking dream, really— from handling strangers’ dirty underwear to finding myself responsible (without qualification) for the town’s mentally ill and homeless — there is nothing I don't love about this job. For half of my conscious hours a day, I get to perform the profoundly important work of washing, drying and folding undershirts. I'm like a human conveyer belt for clothing: out-freaking-standing! Finally, I can make a real contribution to humanity! I'm like a superhero with the mind-blowing power to hastily stuff several dozen garments into a laundry bag before the customer comes to pick it up. Just doing my duty!

Meanwhile, I get to inhale the intoxicating brew of human sweat, cotton and laundry detergent; help people find the start button on a drying machine; and feel the heavenly touch of lint in filters, like the tender fingers of aphrodite! Hello, paradise! And I get paid for this—a whole nine dollars an hour (double what I need to live in 2012). And at the end of the day, when my hands have cramped up from hours of folding, I can barely sit down from back pain, and my head is pounding from the vitriolic disputes of my two staff members— I can feel like I've really done something meaningful, transforming that crippling physical agony into an affirming reminder of the great work I've done (just like a marathon runner feels when he finishes a race, or a doctor whose spent the whole night saving someone's life). 

My dad wonders about my career and how I will ever buy a home? No worries, dad. I've found my career and my home (literally: I may have to sleep at the ‘mat soon with what I get paid). A Cinderella story, this is (mainly the part where Cinderella has to do exhausting, tedious domestic work). So, keep dreaming, folks. Success is right around the corner. With the right attitude, hard work and a cap full of luck, you too could end up starching and ironing filthy old, lab coats for some weird middle-aged man. You just have to believe.

Alumni Spotlight

Alumnus: Daniel Sennis
Year Graduated: 2003
Major: English
Extracurriculars: Drama Club, School Newspaper, Cross Country

AM: You’ve recently begun a new career. Can you tell us about your new job?

DS: Yeah, I work at a laundromat. I’m the manager.

AM: That’s incredible. How did that come about?

DS: I saw they were hiring and applied. There weren’t any other applicants.

AM: What’s it like to work as a laundromat manager?

DS: Tedious. We do linens for a hotel, and that takes up the vast majority of the time. We wrap the linens in this plastic wrap. Just bundle after bundle. And Sheila and Marge, my employees, they are just constantly arguing. Why did you do this? Why can’t you do that? It’s so irritating.

AM: Did you ever think you would find yourself working in this field?

DS: No. I don’t really understand what’s happening. I keep asking myself: how did this happen? Why am I here? Hey, can you guys stop calling me for donations. I make 9 dollars an hour.

AM: What are some of your fondest memories about college?

DS: Not working at a small town laundromat and still having hope for the future.

In This House We Believe

 My poem in Lake Affect Magazine (Spring/Summer 2023)

When Stevens Elementary Published My Haunting Childhood Lit

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming (hopefully) memoir A Portrait of the Doofus as a Young Man

I published my first book when I was 8. Entitled Dinosaurs (Jan. 1989), this illustrated debut was published by Stevens Super Stars Publishing Company. Dinosaurs masquerades as a straightforward informative text about dinosaur facts but on the second to last page the tone changes drastically. “They didn’t have anything to eat,” is all that is written and underneath those haunting words is a giant empty circle. Then the book returns to harmless fact on the last page. If only Franz Kafka, who said “we ought only to read the kind of books that wound us,” was around to read Dinosaurs. Naturally, Stevens Super Stars Publishing company wanted more from me after that and I was contracted to write two more books.

The first was Mrs. Reed, about a woman with a pig who finds twin cats in New York City and tries without success to find their owner. Continuing to explore mortality as I’d done in Dinosaurs, by the end, everyone–animal and human alike–are dead. First Loon, then the cats (never having been reunited with their owner, despite the ad Mrs. Reed places in the paper) and then Mrs. Reed herself. Everyone, everything gone—poof! Mrs. Reed, a woodwind being blown into by this author to sound the song, Carpe diem, readers! For you too may too not find the owners of the lost cats.

The last book was My Grandma Mary’s Catfish (June 1990). This way my first foray into the adventure story. Grandma Mary sets about on a mission to save a catfish from a shark after she becomes reunited with the turtle her father had kicked out of the house and the turtle tells her of the catfish’s situation. On her journey, Grandma Mary uses the resources she has packed to survive encounters with a seal who is “acting wild,” a homicidal whale and a drowning seahorse. At the end, Grandma Mary saves a goldfish from a shark and feels she has succeeded, showing not that the rising star of Stevens Super Star Publishing Company failed to notice that he had accidentally changed the type of fish central to the plot and title of the book but that he has masterfully manipulated the narrative to convey the horrors of mental illness à la A Beautiful Mind: Grandma Mary doesn’t notice the difference because she is of course suffering from Alzheimers. 

Publishing prose may have been my bread and butter but poetry was my jam. There was nothing to me like grabbing a pencil and one of my parent’s legal pads and filling the page with 6 or so obscenely-large scrawled lines in AABBCCDD rhyme scheme. I covered all of the big subjects: Love, Peace, the Earth. I also covered The Cafeteria, A Can, Cub Scouts, Crime, The Toad, The Pencil, Soccer, Baseball, and The Circus. When it came to matching words of the same sound, even when those words didn’t convey much of anything about the subject, I was unmatched.

Best Friend

My best friends name is Willy.
We always play alot.
We always play soccer.
He’s not much of a talker.
We sometimes jog with his sister.
We rearly play twister.
That’s all I have to tell
and I hope I told it well.

Did I need to have a line where I lied about Willy’s social disposition? Or a line discussing what we did not play Yes. Because the ends (which need to rhyme) justify the bends.

My most memorable poem, however was my free verse masterpiece, A Penny, written for everyone who has felt like the lowest form of currency.

A Penny

A penny is not many
A penny is something but not much.
A penny with a president sitting on top.
so little in ways.
so big in others.
A penny is real special.

Not thinking about pennies the same way now, are you, reader? Boom! Poetry-ed!