1418 Miles

Radio dials, road maps, oil changes, body aches, family practice co-pays, gas money. Daybreak, coffee breaks, car brakes, car horns, Longhorns, shorthorns, devil horns, brass horns, sound the horns. Train cars, street cars, matchbox cars, Japanese cars, whaling ships, Navy ships, overnight shipped. Leather, pleather, Swedish furniture, Italian meatballs, Oscar Meyer, food stamps, rolling papers, White flight, suburban sprawl. Farm towns, small towns, ghost towns, no towns. Bison graves, food deserts, Right to Work, Section 8, hippy communes, Section 9, cul de sacs, reservation lands, Union cards, draft numbers, passport stamps, state lines, travelers, waiters, takers, givers, die-ers, livers, hearts, kidneys, drunk drivers, drunk talkers, sober walkers. Toll roads, high road, low road, the road less traveled, paved roads, dirt roads, back roads, no roads. Gramma’s house, magnolias, high school dances, hot asphalt, Traumatic Brain Injuries, Camel Blues, koolaid, bagels and lox, Paczki day, Veterans’ day, Armistice day, Election Day, no school today. Summer break, winter break, bones break, heartbreak, promise break, broke. Body crime, property crime, car crash, market crash, farmers’ market, bull market, slave markets, strong economy, weak economy, fuel economy. Road work, Right to Work, General Motors, Tesla motors, NASA funding, meth houses, 2 x 4's, 4 x 4's, American made, American assembled, American purchased. Levi Jeans, Vietnamese cotton, longshoreman, NAFTA, hammers, paint, faith, penance, work, play, mom, dad, ghosts, you, me, we. Quinceneras, bar mitzvahs, debutantes, mosh pits, christenings, protestors, stage divers, campaign financiers. Garter belts, divorce courts, gas station bathroom condoms, railyards, gang tags, No Attendant On Duty. Suits, punks, thugs, warlords, fathers, mentors, artisans, ganbangers, bongrippers, fakers, shakers, just don’t swim out past the breakers. Sangre de Cristo, plum wine, Pasbt Blue Ribbon, soda pop, colt 45, sweet tea, AA coffee, gas station coffee, funeral coffee, fair trade coffee, moonshine, maker’s mark, baby formula, nestle strawberry milk powder, foreign famine, mothers’ milk, Folger’s cans, your ashes, my ashes. Hollows, gulleys, ravines, knolls, slurry, COPD, voter turnout, unexposed ordinance, exposed ordinance, local ordinance, mountaintop removal, mountaintop replacement. West Virginia, Dust Bowl Oklahoma, Graceland, Chicago, Queensbridge, Bakersfield, West Side, South Side, North Side, Inside, Outside, strong side, weak side, Their side, Our side. Woody Guthrie, Otis Redding, Nina Simone, Tom Petty, Slayer, Kendrick Lamar, Tom Waits, You and I Wait, Til the Midnight Hour, When My Money’s Gone, How Sweet the Sound, When I’m Up to No Good, We Gotta Be Extra Careful, We’re Not Gonna Take It, We Shall Overcome, Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down.