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• Beretta subculture

  I write about my faith, my personal growth, and my roadgeekery hoping that my posts will resonate with you and that you will leave comments that share your experiences. Last July I wrote a post called “What’s the use?” about enjoying what God has given us. I told the story of my first brand new…

  28 February 2008

• No fallow season

  Wer rastet, rostet! – German saying (Whoever rests, rusts!) The Germans may be industrious, but we Americans are driven. Just before Christmas I read a Texas preacher’s blog entry in which he quoted an author’s observation of how Americans like to push themselves past burnout and then spend a weekend on the couch in a…

  19 February 2008

• The National Road revisited

  “I know!” someone at the highway maintenance barn exclaimed. “Let’s get drunk and go stripe some road!” This and many other adventures, including an abandoned bridge, 10 miles of abandoned brick highway, and an 1830 stone arch bridge still carrying traffic, in my report on the Indiana and Illinois National Road, Revisited.

  14 February 2008

• Bursting the nostalgia bubble

  How visiting a fellow who lived his whole life on US 40 changed my view of the old roads.

  8 February 2008

• Wrongly imprisoned

  I can think of some times when something happened to me that was neither right nor fair, and all I could do was suffer through it. Perhaps you’ve been there, too, and know the anger and grief injustice brings. In Terre Haute yesterday, David Scott was freed after spending 23 years in prison for a…

  29 January 2008

• Blizzard of ’78

  Thirty years ago yesterday the TV weatherman warned of a coming blizzard. By afternoon thirty years ago today, I sat in school watching a wall of white through the window as the storm moved in. School let out early. I leaned hard against the wicked cold winds, stinging snow against my face, as I walked the…

  25 January 2008

• Exploring Old US 31 in Indiana

  Taking a drive down old US 31 in Indiana from the Michigan line to Indianapoils, and exploring all the old alignments along the way.

  14 January 2008

• I don’t get sports

  Even though I was unathletic, sometimes I’d play vacant-lot sports with the neighborhood boys. I was marginally competent as a goalie in soccer and on defense in football, the latter largely because I was a little bigger than the other kids. Otherwise, I couldn’t catch, I couldn’t hit, and I threw so badly that the…

  3 January 2008

• A cappella

  Ten years ago my wife and I visited a little Church of Christ in a plain building that stood on an empty highway in a rural corner of the city. The warm and friendly members eagerly accepted us as guests. The service began simply with a welcome and a prayer. Then a man walked to…

  12 December 2007

• Honoring my inner longhair

  When I was a teenager, I kept my hair very short. Mil spec. People sometimes asked if I was in ROTC. Then in college I developed a used-record habit that Harold, my supplier at Headstone Friends, was happy to support. I skipped haircuts to buy more records. At first, when I’d go home on break…

  1 December 2007

• Holiday lights along the Michigan Road

  After a nice Thanksgiving in South Bend, I drove home Friday evening. I always start my trip on US 31, but I like to exit at Rochester and follow the old Dixie Highway and Michigan Road back to Indianapolis. The old road follows State Road 25 to Logansport and exits on old State Road 29,…

  25 November 2007

• A kink in the National Road

  Last year I wrote on my Roads pages about a trip I took with a friend down US 40 and the National Road across western Indiana. We enjoyed finding forgotten and sometimes abandoned segments of the road’s original alignment. Since then, thanks to the gang at the American Road forum, I’ve discovered the Automobile Blue…

  16 November 2007