One summer in the late 1950's my great-uncle Harry and his wife Velma (Is that a name out of the '50's, or what?) took their summer vacation by driving cross-country (Is that a '50's vacation, or what?). President Dwight D. Eisenhower's visionary interstate highway system, begun in the summer of 1956, made such a thing possible for the first time in American history. Millions of Americans did the same.
Imagine Uncle Harry's surprise when, somewhere in the empty Mid-West, Kansas or Missouri, he was driving along on Ike's brainchild and encountered a banner strung clean across the highway,
DR HARRY GARMAN PLEASE CALL HOME
HOOO-DOGGIE.
A relative had died. I imagine Uncle Harry and Aunt Velma checking in with the folks back home whenever they stopped for the night at a motel, probably checked in the night before from Illinois or someplace. Would call again when they stopped for the night in whatever, if anything, there is between Kansas and California.
But when they were on the road...When you were on the road in the '50's, you were unavailable.
Until Ike's interstate highway system. The states had to work together on maintenance, law enforcement, every damn thing. The states had to communicate. And so when the folks back home called Illinois as Uncle Harry's last known stop heading west for parts unknown, Illinois called Kansas and Kansas strung a banner clean across Ike's new road, the only road you could take from Pennsylvania through Ohio to Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and beyond.
The Interstate Highway System, begun June 29, 1956, thirty-five years to completion, revolutionized
American life. Ruined Uncle Harry and Aunt Velma's vacation but at least they made the funeral.
Imagine Uncle Harry's surprise when, somewhere in the empty Mid-West, Kansas or Missouri, he was driving along on Ike's brainchild and encountered a banner strung clean across the highway,
DR HARRY GARMAN PLEASE CALL HOME
HOOO-DOGGIE.
A relative had died. I imagine Uncle Harry and Aunt Velma checking in with the folks back home whenever they stopped for the night at a motel, probably checked in the night before from Illinois or someplace. Would call again when they stopped for the night in whatever, if anything, there is between Kansas and California.
But when they were on the road...When you were on the road in the '50's, you were unavailable.
Until Ike's interstate highway system. The states had to work together on maintenance, law enforcement, every damn thing. The states had to communicate. And so when the folks back home called Illinois as Uncle Harry's last known stop heading west for parts unknown, Illinois called Kansas and Kansas strung a banner clean across Ike's new road, the only road you could take from Pennsylvania through Ohio to Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and beyond.
The Interstate Highway System, begun June 29, 1956, thirty-five years to completion, revolutionized
American life. Ruined Uncle Harry and Aunt Velma's vacation but at least they made the funeral.
