"ODE (and owed) TO BACKROADS"

"Two roads diverged.. and I
- I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference."

I have always had the tendency of taking things a little too literally and Frost's lines finally released my hidden gypsy — a character that had lain dormant for far too long. Ever since I began turning off onto those beautiful 'less traveled' byways of America (long before William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways made it a more palatable pastime) my life has changed beyond measure. Now I shun the pikes at every opportunity, slide Willie's Nelson's On the Road Again into the car tape deck, and become an instant backroading wanderer, measuring my way by the sun and sinuous shadow-lines, and letting serendipity and true sensuality suggest the shape and scope of the journey. I'm hooked. It's virtually an addiction. I have problems going anywhere now unless it's by "blue" of even invisible (as far as maps are concerned) highways — dirt tracks, washboards, forest "green-roads' — whatever. The dust streams out behind my car like a diaphanous bridal veil, the air is fresh and crystal, the storms ferocious and splendid, the woods deep and undisturbed, the vales and hollows bathed in sparkling mists, the mountain ridges like eagle eyries, the deserts vast, and enticingly infinite, and the deep shadowy clefts and canyons always full of mysteries and magic.

And magic always happens on these randoming journeys. Oh my — does it happen! I have enough “backroading magic" tales to keep me in the "earth gypsy" role at dinner parties for the rest of my life. And sketches too. I found the mellow pace of backroading perfectly conducive to pausing awhile, pulling out my somewhat worn and underused sketchpad and doodling away, trying to capture the essence of some old farmhouse or church or little extravaganza of carpenter-gothic architecture,

Quite frankly, I just can't understand why anyone bothers to drive the major highways at all. I mean — who needs 'em? Traffic congestion, radar traps, highway "improvement" snarls, motel mishmash, junkfood arcadia — the only reason to use them is to get somewhere fast. Well — for a start — invariably they're rarely as fast as hoped for and — primary principal of backroading — why try to get "there" quite so fast? What's an extra hour or two every once in a while out of a lifetime of regimented gotta-do-this, could-a'-done-that, affluenza-driven lists and schedules?

As they say in the urban vernacular — chill out. Put in other ways - cut some slack. Ease up. Slow down. Take a chance. Let go. See what happens...

And what happens? That old backroad bewitchment of course. That zany, crazy, serendipitous, wacky, wow-gosh-whoopee wonder where the sudden glimpse of a young deer grazing in a dewy dawn-lit field, or a hawk casing upwards on the spirals, or a farmer resting by a gate overlooking his fields and his world — when moments like these and a hundred others give you pause and peace and bestow little haiku-like memories you'll carry with you for the rest of your life. Little memories that you can conjure up on demand in the hectic hurly-burly, hype-laden day-to-day rush-rush syndromes that many of us have convinced ourselves are the ransoms we must pay to life in order to live the lives we have chosen.

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