On The Road Again - 2

My Summer Road Trip, part 2

I understand that not everyone would drive so far just to go past a house from one's childhood, but that's me. In childhood trips with my parents, it seemed that my father loved to drive more than arrive. 

It seemed he tried to see how far he could go away from home. We did arrive at places, of course, but that was only a side-effect of the driving. I recall one trip, as we were returning home, he spent the whole afternoon/evening driving back and forth looking for the farm where he'd spent his boyhood in rural Nebraska. We didn't locate it by the time it was dark, so we continued on home.

For me, the driving is more than half the point: to drive is to move through time and space. Good music helps. It's better to traverse open spaces, away from all civilization, just grasslands and distant mountains, the horizon always retreating, giving way, teasing us. The mind becomes soft, can compose ideas, especially for me story ideas, while the other parts of the mind stay focused on the driving itself. I practically plotted the entire novel of FLU SEASON 4, which I started writing on my laptop in hotel rooms each evening.

The next stop on my summer trip, because it was on the way and I'd put off visiting for a long time, was the unassuming town of Forest City, Iowa. It's notable as the manufacturing base for the Winnebago recreational vehicles. Yet I'd long vowed to visit it out of spite. Why?

I speak of the notorious Waldorf Week, an event in my past which changed the course of my life. While I sought a long-term academic position (a.k.a., tenure-track professor) after graduating with my Ph.D., I applied to little Waldorf College in Forest City. I thought a small college, like the one where I got my B.S. degree, would be ideal for me. With this telling, I don't mean to disparage the school, now called Waldorf University. It is merely the piling on of ridiculous circumstances of this week which makes the telling a poor amusement.

In mid-May of a year more than a decade removed, the folks at Waldorf arranged a phone interview with me because I lived in upstate New York. I had a good interview. They sent additional questions by email and I replied immediately with my answers. The next day, further impressed, they invited me to visit the campus. (Usually, a school will reimburse travel expenses for the finalists.) 

The travel arrangements were rather arduous but I got them made in a single day and left home the next morning. I drove 90 minutes from my home in Utica to Albany, parked my car at the airport, flew to Chicago, changed planes and flew on to Minneapolis, and checked into an airport hotel for the night. The following morning, I picked up my rental car from the airport and drove south into Iowa, arriving in Forest City by mid-afternoon. I drove around the city and eventually checked into the designated hotel, an out of the way family-run lodge in the woods which seemed quiet. 

A realtor picked me up to show me housing possibilities were I to win the job and move here. Then I was picked up from the lodge by one of my future colleagues and taken to have dinner at the department chair's house, seven people around the table, a chance to get to know each other. So far, so good. 

Back to the lodge, I settled in, ran through my presentation and refreshed my memory on other matters for the next day. I wanted to get a good sleep because it was to be a full day of campus events. However, when I turned out the lights, a little earlier than my usual time, I noticed the noise from the TV in the next room. I tried to ignore it, expecting the guest to turn it off eventually. But it continued. This being a family establishment, there was no night manager. The noise continued, just loud enough I could not ignore it. I dared not take any sleeping pill for fear it would leave me groggy the next day.

Finally, I gave up and got up, got myself ready for the day and went over my notes again as I waited for a different colleague to pick me up and take me for breakfast. That turned out to be a rather lovely coffee cafe. I thought enough coffee would compensate for the lack of sleep. A little, yes, but my bleary eyes would not focus. I blinked through all the HR talk and additional paperwork. 

Then I was ushered into an auditorium for my "teaching demonstration", a traditional hurdle for would-be professors. I was not as prepared for the lesson as I could've been. My forte is to "wing it" and "go with the flow", drawing from the energy and interaction with my students to keep the lesson light yet informative. Into the auditorium came the entire faculty, maybe 70 professors, and I stood on a stage without even a podium as if giving a lecture. It was hardly a realistic situation for a classroom lesson. I felt embarrassed, having them leave their important work for little ol' me. Of course I bombed, not being able to think on my feet because of too little sleep. They filed out, dropping off their evaluation forms.

I believed I'd failed at that point, but I recovered during our working lunch, where I gave sharp, often profound, meaningful answers to their pre-written questions on things related to our field. I was lucid and witty, charming and professional. I thought I might have a chance. A tour of the campus followed. Then I was returned to the infamous lodge where my rental car remained parked all day.

I'd gotten rather sweaty in my suit and tie by then, but eager to get away. I was on a schedule. I drove north to Minneapolis, arriving at rush hour. I got to the airport, turned in the car, returned to the same hotel for the night. As arranged, the next morning I flew to Chicago, changed planes, flew to Albany, picked up my car and drove home to Utica. 

Monday through Friday: Waldorf Week.

I did not get the position, as I expected. They gave it to the other candidate. Just the two of us. Oh, well. I had many other interviews before and after, and went on several other campus visits before landing the position in Oklahoma where I taught for 11 years. But the intensity of that single hectic week lives on in family lore.

Returning there this month, driving up from my hotel in Clear Lake, it was still early. I stopped at the same coffee cafe and had a fine breakfast and coffee. I drove to the campus. I stood in front of their historic main hall. I grimaced while taking a selfie, confident in my rebuke: "I'm retired now."

Then I drove through the corn fields to connect with Interstate 90 just over the border in Minnesota - only to discover that the on-ramp to go west was closed for construction! I decided to go east and get off, swing around and back on going west. The two-way road was slow enough, however, that I could pull over to the shoulder and do a U-turn between orange barrels into the opposite direction to continue my trip west. 

Eventually, I entered South Dakota and stopped at a visitor center to plan the next phase of my trip. I would, however, come to discover that I-90 would remain the bane of my travelling existence for the duration of my trip. Easily 50% of I-90 was under some kind of renovation with barrels taking us down to a single lane or having both directions on one side while the other side was torn up. This was not to be the summer of I-90 love.

I went out of my way to visit Devil's Gulch, a small gorge where Jesse James supposedly leaped over on his horse while pursued by a posse of lawmen. You wouldn't notice it from the county roads through the fields, but they say it's quite deep, a cleaving of the earth under the water. Then I drove on, heading across South Dakota, lost in the endless landscape.

NEXT: The Long Way West - with a detour!

--------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.