Observations: Notes from the Great American Highway...

For those of you who do not know, I have been on the road since August 11 - the day I slipped the surly bonds of Lake Worth and headed north.  Since then, I have traveled a total of 5,000 miles by vehicle - first to Madison, Indiana where my father lives, then we both went off to Michigan where we met up with friends from long ago.  Then it was back to Madison for a few days and then off to Massachusetts and then to Portland, Maine and then back to Massachusetts - before the storm hit there, as it turned out!  I was watching Irene and the forecast track last Monday when we were in western Mass and actually bought "insurance" plane tickets for last Wednesday back to West Palm Beach if the course of Hurricane Irene hadn't changed like it did.  We are now back in Madison and will head up to West Layfayette, Indiana tomorrow so that I can meet up with one of my college roommates and my Dad will chase down another Packard car contact.  Then I fly back home to Lake Worth on Wednesday.  When all is said and done, I would have traveled a total of 5,300 miles plus or minus - probably about one hundred hours in a vehicle.

This traveling is the major reason that I have been lagging on the posting here recently.  Between that and sparse Internet access in western Mass.  Catching up on the Lake Worth goings-on, it seems that the other blogger has realized that the people she supported on the dais can no longer allow her to continue to pay the lowest property taxes allowed by law, so she is a little upset.  It seems that she has a new found interest in testicles and the protection thereof.  Well, she should, as we should all be concerned about such things.  So, I imagine later this week, I will get back into the swing...of things and post more about current events.

But, before I do so, I thought I'd share with you some things I saw along the road that made me pause, think or contemplate more than is usual and some do have some relation to Lake Worth.  Many concern planning issues and the like, so here we go:

Georgia:  Have you traveled on I-75 recently through this state?  You could go daffy reading all of the highway billboards.  They seem especially congested in the southern part of the state, but the proliferation throughout the entire state is off-the-charts.  Most of these billboards are stacked two high.  Most are repeatedly redundant - lol.  Entire towns - Tifton, GA comes to mine, go all out as well to tout themselves and the oodles of food and goodies that await just off their exit.  It is actually distracting to drive as I found myself reading them more than looking at the road in front of me from time to time - probably the effect is something close to texting and driving at the same time.  Where there is a thick tree canopy, they can then tower what looks to be 200 and 300 feet above the ground, making them almost illegible.  Enough about those, the cows are definitely out-of-the-barn and it looks like no one cares about getting them back in.

Madison, Indiana:  This is where my father lives now and I spent much time last summer here (where I am writing now) - it is a historic community in the southeast part of the state, right on the Ohio River.  It is famous for its historic downtown and was the first National Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street Program community.  It's downtown area, near the river, is like a time capsule of the early to mid part of the Nineteenth Century.  If you are here for any length of time, you discover that there are essentially two parts of the town - one that is by the river and the one that is on the hill.  The one that is on the hill is a child of the mid to late Twentieth Century, for the most part, and is dominated by the automobile and uses that support it.  Strip commercial retail centers, car dealerships, a technical school and some single family curvy road subdivisions.  The two physically are very different, but Madison's identity is tied to its historic downtown, the waterfront and one of the relatively few bridges across the Ohio River that connect Kentucky and Indiana.

One of the major draws to the historic downtown Madison area - the lower part - is the existence of a full service, regional hospital.  It turns out, as some of the locals tell the story, when the hospital first located or expanded its campus in a significant way many years ago, it displaced many in the African-American community.  It was an area of town where family properties and histories went as far back as the town's as a whole.  The location of the hospital in its current location uprooted and did a lot to upset community unity and identity.  When controversy erupted over this, way back when, the hospital vowed never to leave downtown so that it could play a key role in its overall economic success.  It pledged to aid in the preservation of the town's history by providing an economic engine that would eventually include adaptive re-use of surrounding historic structures into doctors' offices and clinics that had ties and required proximity to the hospital.  Visitors to the hospital and patients going to doctor appointments in the downtown were drawn there - it was a destination.  Someone going downtown on a health-related trip may stop at a grocery store, a bank, the post office or a restaurant or all of the above.  This relationship worked well over the 40-to 50 years since that original, questionable decision was made in the first place.

Guess what - now the news in town is about layoffs at the hospital.  The hospital bought a significant amount of property "on the hill" and is underway with an entirely new hospital.  This new hospital required water and sewer extensions to serve it.  It's location is east on the same strip as the other automobile related uses.  Any guess where the sprawl will now be headed?  Word is now that the existing hospital will be closing its doors downtown within a year - by the time the new hospital on the hill is built.  People are generally and genuinely concerned - what do you do with an empty hospital in your downtown area?  What about all the clinics and doctors' offices that occupied space in historic building's surrounding the hospital's property?  Where will the dollars go that used to come from people using the hospital as a destination to spend money in the downtown?  People are concerned that this is a blow from which Madison may have a hard time recovering from...

As far as the hospital is concerned, its decision remains shrouded in mystery.  The community hears of problems related to a tired physical plant in the form of the existing building - but there are cures for that, aren't there doctor?  It also seems that the new hospital will be almost exclusively single occupancy, private rooms...hmmmm.

Michigan:  My father started his career in the education field as a seventh grade teacher in social studies and math in North Muskegon, Michigan.  He went on to get his doctorate in education, as did my mother, at the Ohio State University.  My father was a professor of education at Michigan State University for 35 years and had many doctoral advisees of his own.  Anyway, he never forgot about his seventh grade classes and the students in them - he was at North Muskegon for five years.  He went back for every graduation and, now, he tries to attend the reunions of those classes.  This year was the 55th reunion of the Class of 1956 and it was held at a charming resort in Whitehall, a small community north of Muskegon.

The Class of 1956 - circa 1950-1- my father is the tall one in the back row.

Unfortunately, many from this class are no longer with us.  But, of the ones that attended the reunion, it was fascinating to hear of the long relationships and large families these young people created over the years.  Some were second marriages, some more.  It just got me to thinking what the expectations of the people of this Class of 1956 were and what the expectations of the Class of 2016 are.  How will our society and environment change over the next 55 years with the expectations of our youth?

Here are some pictures from the location of the reunion...Michigan is still a great place for a vacation!  We sure see enough "Pure Michigan" commercials in Florida reminding us of that.

To be continued...