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Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Auden, Wystan Hugh Genre Poetry Journal or Book W. H. Auden Publisher Faber and Faber Year of Publication 1927 Pages 3 Additional information - Who stands, the crux left of the watershed, On the wet road between the chafing grass Below him sees dismantled washing-floors, Snatches of tramline running to the wood, An industry already comatose, Yet sparsely living. A ramshackle engine At Cashwell raises water; for ten years It lay in flooded workings until this, Its latter office, grudgingly performed. And further here and there, though many dead Lie under the poor soil, some acts are chosen Taken from recent winters; two there were Cleaned out a damaged shaft by hand, clutching The winch the gale would tear them from; one died During a storm, the fells impassable, Not at his village, but in wooden shape Through long abandoned levels nosed his way And in his final valley went to ground. road forest road condition engine personification risk safety death winter storm Go home, now, stranger, proud of your young stock, Stranger, turn back again, frustrate and vexed: This land, cut off, will not communicate, Be no accessory content to one Aimless for faces rather there than here. Beams from your car may cross a bedroom wall, They wake no sleeper; you may hear the wind Arriving driven from the ignorant sea To hurt itself on pane, on bark of elm Where sap unbaffled rises, being Spring; But seldom this. Near you, taller than grass, Ears poise before decision, scenting danger. affect risk car metaphor wind ocean tree spring sound safety wind ocean tree spring sound safety +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Auden, Wystan Hugh Genre Poetry Journal or Book W. H. Auden Poems Publisher Faber and Faber Year of Publication 1930 Pages 65-68 Additional information - Get there if you can and see the land you once were proud to own Though the roads have almost vanished and the expresses never run: nostalgia road Smokeless chimneys, damaged bridges, rotting wharves and choked canals, Tramlines buckled, smashed trucks lying on their side across the rails; infrastructure bridge truck Power-stations locked, deserted, since they drew the boiler fires; Pylons fallen or subsiding, trailing dead high-tension wires; infrastructure Head-gears gaunt on grass-grown pit-banks, seams abandoned years ago; Drop a stone and listen for its splash in flooded dark below. Squeeze into the works through broken windows or through damp-sprung doors; See the rotted shafting, see holes gaping in the upper floors; Where the Sunday lads come talking motor bicycle and girl, Smoking cigarettes in chains until their heads are in a whirl. motorcycle Far from there we spent the money, thinking we could well afford, While they quietly undersold us with their cheaper trade abroad; At the theatre, playing tennis, driving motor cars we had, In our continental villas, mixing cocktails for a cad. driving These were boon companions who devised the legends for our tombs, These who have betrayed us nicely while we took them to our rooms. Newman, Ciddy, Plato, Fronny, Pascal, Bowdler, Baudelaire, Doctor Frommer, Mrs Allom, Freud, the Baron, and Flaubert. Lured with their compelling logic, charmed with beauty of their verse, With their loaded sideboards whispered ‘Better join us, life is worse.’ Taught us at the annual camps arranged by the big business men ‘Sunbathe, pretty till you’re twenty. You shall be our servants then.’ Perfect pater. Marvellous mater. Knock the critic down who dares — Very well, believe it, copy; till your hair is white as theirs. Yours you say were parents to avoid, avoid then if you please Do the reverse on all occasion till you catch the same disease. When we asked the way to Heaven, these directed us ahead To the padded room, the clinic and the hangman’s little shed. Intimate as war-time prisoners in an isolation camp, Living month by month together, nervy, famished, lousy, damp. On the sopping esplanade or from our dingy lodgings we Stare out dully at the rain which falls for miles into the sea. Lawrence, Blake and Homer Lane, once healers in our English land; These are dead as iron for ever; these can never hold our hand. Lawrence was brought down by smut-hounds, Blake went dotty as he sang, Homer Lane was killed in action by the Twickenham Baptist gang. Have things gone too far already? Are we done for? Must we wait Hearing doom’s approaching footsteps regular down miles of straight; Run the whole night through in gumboots, stumble on and gasp for breath, Terrors drawing close and closer, winter landscape, fox’s death; Or, in friendly fireside circle, sit and listen for the crash Meaning that the mob has realized something’s up, and start to smash; Engine-drivers with their oil-cans, factory girls in overalls Blowing sky-high monster stores, destroying intellectuals? resources oil engine driver sky pollution metaphor Hope and fear are neck and neck: which is it near the course’s end Crashes, having lost his nerve; is overtaken on the bend? crash Shut up talking, charming in the best suits to be had in town, Lecturing on navigation while the ship is going down. Drop those priggish ways for ever, stop behaving like a stone: Throw the bath-chairs right away, and learn to leave ourselves alone. If we really want to live, we’d better start at once to try; If we don’t, it doesn’t matter, but we’d better start to die. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Auden, Wystan Hugh Genre Poetry Journal or Book - Publisher - Year of Publication 1928 Pages 39 Additional information - From the very first coming down Into a new valley with a frown Because of the sun and a lost way, You certainly remain: to-day I, crouching behind a sheep-pen, heard Travel across a sudden bird, Cry out against the storm, and found The year’s arc a completed round And love’s worn circuit re-begun, Endless with no dissenting turn. Shall see, shall pass, as we have seen The swallow on the tile, spring’s green Preliminary shiver, passed A solitary truck, the last Of shunting in the Autumn. But now To interrupt the homely brow, Thought warmed to evening through and through Your letter comes, speaking as you, Speaking of much but not to come. road animal storm season other mobilities car affect metaphor Nor speech is close nor fingers numb, If love not seldom has received An unjust answer, was deceived. I, decent with the seasons, move Different or with a different love, Nor question overmuch the nod, The stone smile of this country god That never was more reticent, Always afraid to say more than it meant. say more than it meant. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Bary, D. B. Genre Poetry Journal or Book - Publisher - Year of Publication 1912 Pages 721-722 Additional information - The open road’s a pleasure to the heart, When underneath the hood is sixty horse; I wait the moment when I may depart, To roll along the smooth and level course. road road condition affect pleasure animal engine metaphor When underneath the hood is sixty horse, Singing and spinning with the joy of power, To roll along the smooth and level course, Is surely to be happy for an hour. engine speed agency driving affect pleasure engine metaphor personification sound Singing and spinning with joy of power, Roaring up hills and winding through ravines Is surely to be happy for an hour; How else can one grasp half so many scenes? affect pleasure agency road rural wind sound scenery sublime Roaring up hills and winding through ravines, Gliding past meadows where the grass grows lush, How else can one grasp half so many scenes? So let us dawdle though we well might rush. rural driving haptic sound anthropomorphism road side scenery Gliding past meadows where the grass grows lush, By hamlets where the low-roofed houses stand, So let us dawdle tho’ we well might rush. ‘Tis pleasant thus to idle through the land. scenery plains affect pleasure nostalgia By hamlets where the low-roofed houses stand, Over the downs where feed the scattered sheep, ‘Tis pleasant thus idle through the land, Through woodlands where the western shades lie deep. infrastructure forest West metaphor Over the downs where feed the scattered sheep, Across the barren uplands, sere and brown, Through woodlands where the western shades lie deep, And so at last we turn again toward town. rural animal forest driving urban Across the barren uplands, sere and brown, We drive until the evening wind blows drear, And so at last we turn again toward town; The roar of traffic beats upon the ear. anthropomorphism driving wind town traffic sound We drive until the evening wind blows drear; I long for such a day to come once more. The roar of traffic beats upon the ear, I part with romance at the city’s door. driving night affect nostalgia sound engine traffic metaphor I long for such a day to come once more, I wait the moment when I may depart; I part with romance at the city’s door. The open road’s a pleasure to the heart. car metaphor affective pleasure town nostalgia +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Birney, Earle Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Collected Poems of Earle Birney Publisher McClelland Steward Year of Publication 1928 Pages 38-39 Additional information - & you as remote now as that range radiating heat not holding it the buttes rainstormed but instant dryers i remember you like opera ive a hitchhiker but he wont talk i keep radioing words to you but what to say you’d really like? o luvalee the peach & almond petals? sure but it’s too late in the spring now dear tease ive left ploughed earth & the green ricefields behind revved thru towns with dusty palms yes damn you im up thru spidery almonds no more wine & oranges into hot canyons between bare yellow breasts of hill something vulgar about the landscape as well as me or is it just this jalopy’s had it? my conrods clank the rad’s jerked off again will i ever make vancouver? hitchiker sound affect car part metaphor Northwest passenger scenery season spring plant agriculture desert topography my hitch decided no got out at the last crossroad & just passed waving from a new studebaker at me leaning against this robbers-roost garage with time to telepath you something while they screw in a new pump i dont need hitchhiker car model garage infrastructure car part maintenance passenger well what’s to say? the view looks edible peppered with black oaks white barns for salt a saffron sunset “there you go being physical again” i can hear you well why not? this goddamn sky’s one big red cherry now & the sacramento’s a hairy crack between the white thighs of the liveoaks & by geez if there aint a rock-prick a-purplin up in all this stagey Eden northwest taste tree sky river religion plant scenery but you’re not on my wavelength & now the crate’s cooled we'll sign off head on north you said you hoped to see more of me in the fall but will we ever fall together? that would be really operatic. metaphor technology +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Crane, Hart Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Collected Poems of Hart Crane Publisher Liveright Publishing Corporation Year of Publication 1933 Pages 31-39 Additional information - animal East The seas all crossed, weathered the capes, the voyage done... —WALT WHITMAN Imponderable the dinosaur sinks slow, the mammoth saurian ghoul, the eastern Cape.. animal East While rises in the west the coastwise range, slowly the hushed land— Combustion at the astral core—the dorsal change Of energy—convulsive shift of sand... But we, who round the capes, the promontories Where strange tongues vary messages of surf Below grey citadels, repeating to the stars The ancient names—return home to our own Hearths, there to eat an apple and recall The songs that gypsies dealt us at Marseille Or how the priests walked—slowly through Bombay— Or to read you, Walt,—knowing us in thrall West engine metaphor coast intertext To that deep wonderment, our native clay Whose depth of red, eternal flesh of Pocahontus— Those continental folded aeons, surcharged With sweetness below derricks, chimneys, tunnels— Is veined by all that time has really pledged us... And from above, thin squeaks of radio static, The captured fume of space foams in our ears— What whisperings of far watches on the main Relapsing into silence, while time clears Our lenses, lifts a focus, resurrects A periscope to glimpse what joys or pain Our eyes can share or answer—then deflects Us, shunting to a labyrinth submersed Where each sees only his dim past reversed... Native American infrastructure oil technology sound But that star-glistered salver of infinity, The circle, blind crucible of endless space, Is sliced by motion,—subjugated never. Adam and Adam's answer in the forest Left Hesperus mirrored in the lucid pool. Now the eagle dominates our days, is jurist Of the ambiguous cloud. We know the strident rule Of wings imperious... Space, instantaneous, Flickers a moment, consumes us in its smile: A flash over the horizon—shifting gears— And we have laughter, or more sudden tears. Dream cancels dream in this new realm of fact From which we wake into the dream of act; Seeing himself an atom in a shroud— Man hears himself an engine in a cloud! night animal car part stars engine metaphor driving "—Recorders ages hence"—ah, syllables of faith! Walt, tell me, Walt Whitman, if infinity Be still the same as when you walked the beach Near Paumanok—your lone patrol—and heard the wraith Through surf, its bird note there a long time falling... For you, the panoramas and this breed of towers, Of you—the theme that's statured in the cliff, O Saunterer on free ways still ahead! Not this our empire yet, but labyrinth Wherein your eyes, like the Great Navigator's without ship, Gleam from the great stones of each prison crypt Of canyoned traffic... Confronting the Exchange, Surviving in a world of stocks,—they also range Across the hills where second timber strays Back over Connecticut farms, abandoned pastures,— Sea eyes and tidal, undenying, bright with myth! intertext traffic metaphor agriculture animal The nasal whine of power whips a new universe... Where spouting pillars spoor the evening sky, Under the looming stacks of the gigantic power house Stars prick the eyes with sharp ammoniac proverbs, New verities, new inklings in the velvet hummed Of dynamos, where hearing's leash is strummed... Power's script,—wound, bobbin-bound, refined— Is stropped to the slap of belts on booming spools, spurred Into the bulging bouillon, harnessed jelly of the stars. Towards what? The forked crash of split thunder parts Our hearing momentwise; but fast in whirling armatures, As bright as frogs' eyes, giggling in the girth Of steely gizzards—axle-bound, confined In coiled precision, bunched in mutual glee The bearings glint,—O murmurless and shined In oilrinsed circles of blind ecstasy! sound pollution infrastructure oil car part thunder animal Stars scribble on our eyes the frosty sagas, The gleaming cantos of unvanquished space... O sinewy silver biplane, nudging the wind's withers! There, from Kill Devils Hill at Kitty Hawk Two brothers in their twinship left the dune; Warping the gale, the Wright windwrestlers veered Capeward, then blading the wind's flank, banked and spun What ciphers risen from prophetic script, What marathons new-set between the stars! The soul, by naphtha fledged into new reaches Already knows the closer clasp of Mars,— New latitudes, unknotting, soon give place To what fierce schedules, rife of doom apace! night stars wind speed plane Behold the dragon's covey—amphibian, ubiquitous To hedge the seaboard, wrap the headland, ride The blue's cloud-templed districts unto ether... While Iliads glimmer through eyes raised in pride Hell's belt springs wider into heaven's plumed side. O bright circumferences, heights employed to fly War's fiery kennel masked in downy offings,— This tournament of space, the threshed and chiselled height, Is baited by marauding circles, bludgeon flail Of rancorous grenades whose screaming petals carve us Wounds that we wrap with theorems sharp as hail! intertext Wheeled swiftly, wings emerge from larval-silver hangars. Taut motors surge, space-gnawing, into flight; Through sparkling visibility, outspread, unsleeping, Wings clip the last peripheries of light... Tellurian wind-sleuths on dawn patrol, Each plane a hurtling javelin of winged ordnance, Bristle the heights above a screeching gale to hover; Surely no eye that Sunward Escadrille can cover! There, meaningful, fledged as the Pleiades With razor sheen they zoom each rapid helix! Up-chartered choristers of their own speeding They, cavalcade on escapade, shear Cumulus— Lay siege and hurdle Cirrus down the skies! While Cetus-like, O thou Dirigible, enormous Lounger Of pendulous auroral beaches,—satellited wide By convoy planes, moonferrets that rejoin thee On fleeing balconies as thou dost glide, —Hast splintered space! metaphor car speed visibility driving wind car part weapon intertext technology Low, shadowed of the Cape, Regard the moving turrets! From grey decks See scouting griffons rise through gaseous crepe Hung low... until a conch of thunder answers Cloud-belfries, banging, while searchlights, like fencers, Slit the sky's pancreas of foaming anthracite Toward thee, O Corsair of the typhoon,—pilot, hear! Thine eyes bicarbonated white by speed, O Skygak, see How from thy path above the levin's lance Thou sowest doom thou hast nor time nor chance To reckon—as thy stilly eyes partake What alcohol of space...! Remember, Falcon-Ace, Thou hast there in thy wrist a Sanskrit charge To conjugate infinity's dim marge— Anew...! plane But first, here at this height receive The benediction of the shell's deep, sure reprieve! Lead-perforated fuselage, escutcheoned wings Lift agonized quittance, tilting from the invisible brink Now eagle-bright, now quarry-hid, twist- -ing, sink with Enormous repercussive list- -ings down Giddily spiralled gauntlets, upturned, unlooping In guerrilla sleights, trapped in combustion gyr- Ing, dance the curdled depth down whizzing Zodiacs, dashed (now nearing fast the Cape!) down gravitation's vortex into crashed ...dispersion...into mashed and shapeless débris.... By Hatteras bunched the beached heap of high bravery! plane * The stars have grooved our eyes with old persuasions Of love and hatred, birth,—surcease of nations... But who has held the heights more sure than thou, O Walt!—Ascensions of thee hover in me now As thou at junctions elegiac, there, of speed With vast eternity, dost wield the rebound seed! The competent loam, the probable grass,—travail Of tides awash the pedestal of Everest, fail Not less than thou in pure impulse inbred To answer deepest soundings! O, upward from the dead Thou bringest tally, and a pact, new bound, Of living brotherhood! intertext Thou, there beyond— Glacial sierras and the flight of ravens, Hermetically past condor zones, through zenith havens Past where the albatross has offered up His last wing-pulse, and downcast as a cup That's drained, is shivered back to earth—thy wand Has beat a song, O Walt,—there and beyond! And this, thine other hand, upon my heart Is plummet ushered of those tears that start What memories of vigils, bloody, by that Cape,— Ghoul-mound of man's perversity at balk And fraternal massacre! Thou, pallid there as chalk, Hast kept of wounds, O Mourner, all that sum That then from Appomattox stretched to Somme! Cowslip and shad-blow, flaked like tethered foam Around bared teeth of stallions, bloomed that spring When first I read thy lines, rife as the loam Of prairies, yet like breakers cliffward leaping! O, early following thee, I searched the hill Blue-writ and odor-firm with violets, 'til With June the mountain laurel broke through green And filled the forest with what clustrous sheen! Potomac lilies, — then the Pontiac rose, And Klondike edelweiss of occult snows! White banks of moonlight came descending valleys— How speechful on oak-vizored palisades, As vibrantly I following down Sequoia alleys Heard thunder's eloquence through green arcades Set trumpets breathing in each clump and grass tuft—'til Gold autumn, captured, crowned the trembling hill! Panis Angelicus! Eyes tranquil with the blaze Of love's own diametric gaze, of love's amaze! Not greatest, thou,—not first, nor last,—but near And onward yielding past my utmost year. Familiar, thou, as mendicants in public places; Evasive—too—as dayspring's spreading arc to trace is:— Our Meistersinger, thou set breath in steel; And it was thou who on the boldest heel Stood up and flung the span on even wing Of that great Bridge, our Myth, whereof I sing! Years of the Modern! Propulsions toward what capes? But thou, Panis Angelicus, hast thou not seen And passed that Barrier that none escapes— But knows it leastwise as death-strife?—O, something green, Beyond all sesames of science was thy choice Wherewith to bind us throbbing with one voice, New integers of Roman, Viking, Celt— Thou, Vedic Caesar, to the greensward knelt! And now, as launched in abysmal cupolas of space, Toward endless terminals, Easters of speeding light— Vast engines outward veering with seraphic grace On clarion cylinders pass out of sight To course that span of consciousness thou'st named The Open Road—thy vision is reclaimed! What heritage thou'st signalled to our hands! infrastructure road engine car part vision And see! the rainbow's arch—how shimmeringly stands Above the Cape's ghoul-mound, O joyous seer! Recorders ages hence, yes, they shall hear In their own veins uncancelled thy sure tread And read thee by the aureole 'round thy head Of pasture-shine, Panis Angelicus! Yes, Walt, Afoot again, and onward without halt,— Not soon, nor suddenly,—No, never to let go My hand in yours, Walt Whitman— so— road rainbow intertext +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Crane, Hart Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Collected Poems of Hart Crane Publisher - Year of Publication 1926 Pages 73-74 Additional information - We make our meek adjustments, Contented with such random consolations As the wind deposits In slithered and too ample pockets. For we can still love the world, who find A famished kitten on the step, and know Recesses for it from the fury of the street, Or warm torn elbow coverts. town urban animal street traffic risk anthropomorphism We will sidestep, and to the final smirk Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us, Facing the dull squint with what innocence And what surprise! And yet these fine collapses are not lies More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane; Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise. We can evade you, and all else but the heart: What blame to us if the heart live on. The game enforces smirks; but we have seen The moon in lonely alleys make A grail of laughter of an empty ash can, And through all sound of gaiety and quest Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.st Have heard a kitten in the wilderness. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Delany, Philip Genre Non-Fiction Journal or Book Outing , vol. 43 , no. 2 Publisher - Year of Publication 1903 Pages 131-136 Additional information - pioneer Romance is fast being crowded out of the life of the pioneer; once he depended upon his own sturdy legs, or those of his broncho or burronow he may, if he like, ride in an automobile, the latest pathfinder of the plains. The machine has its thrilling side, too. affect car pleasure technology pioneer To climb mountain passes with a thirty-per-cent grade, to coast down rocky roads with only a few feet from wheels to the edge of an abyss of picturesque wonders, to swing along southern paths made famous by the Indians and pony express riders of only a few years ago, and along which a motor-car had never before been seen, this is an automobile trip that has exploring and sight seeing, and excitement enough to suit the most adventurous spirit. Such a journey I took this spring with Mr. W. W. Price, who has, with an automobile, re-discovered many a Western cañon, pass and desert. car road condition car part desert mountain Native American passenger scenery topography It took us two hours to run from Colorado Springs—our starting point—to Pueblo, past Pike's Peak and Cheyenne Mountain, most of the way over hot alkali plains, furrowed deep by cloud-burst and spring freshets. From Pueblo, taking supplies for the machine, we struck south across country. We were soon out of the world, drifting across a roadless land made more weird by the light which the moon threw over it. We were trying to locate the main highway to Walsenburg. For a time we crawled along where lines showed teams had once gone, until we came to a Mexican ranch of adobe houses; but the three big headlights on the machine discovered no one and we crept slowly away from the corral, the machine thudding sullenly under us. Then suddenly we blundered into the roadway and away we went at a rate of thirty miles an hour, transfixing with wonder a few Mexicans who were camping near by. adobe car part driving mountain engine highway infrastructure metaphor Midwest night passenger road side rural slowness sound Spring South from Walsenburg, the next day we swung past the Spanish Peaks, snow-white above the evergreens. Mountains were everywhere. They leaned in to- ward us threateningly through the clear air from all sides. Then down through Trinidad, toward Raton, New Mexico, the way wound around foothills, black with outcroppings of coal. From Raton we left the railroad lines, which had paralleled us, and pushed across the level plains, where cattle turned and ran in herds at the sight of a motor on the old Mexican land grant and the machine slowed down, necessarily, and followed the burro pace-maker. After a night in an old adobe house in Cimarron we went down through the cañon, its rocky walls echoing in hollow calls the throbbing of the machine. As we hurried along, a fuzzy-coated burro walked out placidly before the car and nonchalantly jogged along, and the machine slowed down, necessarily, and followed the burro pace-maker. And so we were led into Elizabethtown, whose placer diggings were the scene of a wild scramble in '68. adobe air affect animal car driving risk engine scenery Southwest Having come in to Elizabethtown through a hole we went out over a cloud. There are no other ways. The mountains surround it. The Indians call this pass “arrow stick in pole," it is so steep. Once at the summit, twisting and bending like a floundering whale, the car coasted down to the irrigated plain of Taos, where Indians, resting on their hoes, eyed us silently, and Mexicans saluted gracefully. Three miles beyond we swooped suddenly down upon the settlement of five-story, terraced houses of the Red Willow Indians. In their gaudy blankets they swarmed to the earthen housetops and watched us silently. But when, after much coaxing, we crowded the car with redskins and sent it dashing up and down at breakneck speed there were such war-whoops as city dwellers never hear. car road condition driving risk infrastructure mountain Native American These Indians believe that the Great Spirit has guided them to this promised land. They wandered here from the north, and we listened, standing with bare heads in an underground council chamber, to the recital in Spanish of the story of their faith. They are a fine example of the early American aristocracy at its best. They have some lessons for modern American society. In Taos, too, lived and lies Kit Carson, the hunter and trapper, scout and soldier. From Taos we pushed through sand for many miles. The only living thing we saw was a gray coyote. But the desert is clean and sunny, which is something. At last we reached harder soil and green things growing. Indians greeted us on the way, and finally we came to the cliff dwellings of Pajorito Park, one of the many ruins of the great centuries-ago cities of the Southwest. One of the localities showed that 250,000 people lived there in houses, some of them five stories, or about seventy-five feet high. Irrigation, agriculture, industries and arts were all parts of their daily life. desert driving road surface animal scenery Native American Southwest agriculture Running in to Santa Fé we passed wagons crowded with Indians, gorgeous in color, from bullet-headed papoose to squaw and buck. They all watched us stolidly, while the bronchos reeled and jumped with fright until we were out of sight. Then the bronchos probably received some attention. affect driving Native American Southwest Santa Fé is rich with history, and the road on to Las Vegas is rich with color and beautiful landscape. The wild green on every side is cut with clean white streams full of trout for the angler. The little Mexican adobe village of San José, which has scarcely changed in a century, nestles in the heart of this country. adobe driving road road side scenery rural Southwest When we went through San José I began to understand over again and in a new way Mark Twain's "Adventures of a Connecticut Yankee." The whole of King Arthur's court on bicycles could not have started the stir we created in that single automobile. We went through the place like the wind, the machine snorting, whistle tooting, while the poor inhabitants huddled into frightened groups out of reach. We were a kind of first thunderstorm to them. affect car intertext car metaphor personification We had a plunge in the Las Vegas Hot Springs and started north again along the old Santa Fé trail, meeting few people and seeing little that was new. One begrizzled old man, at an isolated shack, watched us so wistfully as he brought us some water that we half wanted to take him into the car and drive him into civilization, but he is probably happier as he is. From Raton it is back, over the same way we came, to Colorado Springs and home. driving rural Midwest Southwest And so the machine is conquering the old frontier, carrying the thudding of modern mechanics into the land of romance. There are many pleasures in such a journey; you bring a new thing to an old people and they re-teach you old things that should never be forgotten. You see, perhaps, the wildest and most natural places on the continent; and there's a touch of adventure, for such a trip cannot be taken without some danger. We crowded what used to take months to do in nine days-nine hundred miles up mountain and down valley. The trails of Kit Carson and Boone and Crockett, and the rest of the early frontiersmen, stretch out before the adventurous automobilist. And when he is tired of the old, there are new paths to be made. He has no beaten track to follow, no schedule to meet, no other train to consider; but he can go with the speed of an express straight into the heart of an unknown land. And he isn't in much greater danger than the man who pilots his machine between the trucks and carriages of a crowded city street. It is only the beginning of automobile exploring and frontiering in the old West. car metaphor pioneer pleasure scenery sublime technology urban +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Dixon, Winifred Hawkridge Genre Non-Fiction Journal or Book Westward Hoboes Publisher - Year of Publication 1921 Pages 1-6 Additional information - "WESTWARD HO!" [ edit | edit source ] TOBY'S real name is Katharine. Her grandmother was a poet, her father is a scientist, and she is an artist. She is called Toby for Uncle Jonas' dog, who had the habit, on being kicked out of the door, of running down the steps with a cheerful bark and a wagging tail, as if he had left entirely of his own accord. There is no fact, however circumstantially incriminating, which this young doctrinaire cannot turn into the most potent justification for what she has done or wishes to do, and when she gets to the tail wagging stage, regardless of how recently the bang of the front door has echoed in our ears, she wags with the charm of the artist, the logical precision of the scientist, and the ardor of the poet. Even when she ran the car into the creek at Nambe—— car accident river At the outset we did not plan to make the journey by automobile. Our destination was uncertain. We planned to drift, to sketch and write when the spirit moved. But drifting by railroad in the West implies time-tables, crowded trains, boudoir-capped matrons, crying babies and the smell of bananas, long waits and anxiety over reservations. Traveling by auto seemed luxurious in comparison and would save railroad fares, annoyance and time. We pictured ourselves bowling smoothly along in the open air, in contrast with the stifling train; we previsioned no delays, no breakdowns, no dangers; we saw New Mexico and Arizona a motorist's Heaven, paved with asphalt and running streams of gasoline. An optimist is always like that, and two are twenty times so. I was half-owner of a Cadillac Eight, with a rakish hood and a matronly tonneau; its front was intimidating, its rear reassuring. The owner of the other half was safely in France. At the time, which half belonged to which had not been discussed. It is now a burning question. I figure that the springs, the dust-pan, the paint, mud-guards and tires constituted her share, with a few bushings and nuts thrown in for good measure, but having acquired a mercenary disposition in France, she differs from me. car train road surface asphalt gasoline pleasure car model car part Southwest What I knew of the bowels of a car had been gained, not from systematic research, but bitter experience with mutinous parts, in ten years' progress through two, four, six and finally eight-cylinder motors of widely varying temperaments. I had taken no course in mechanics, and had, and still have, a way of confusing the differential with the transmission. But I love to tinker! In the old two-cylinder days, when the carburetor flooded I would weigh it down with a few pebbles and a hairpin, and when the feed became too scanty, I would take the hairpin out and leave the pebbles in. I had a smattering knowledge of all the deviltry defective batteries, leaky radiators, frozen steering-wheels, cranky generators, wrongly-hung springs, stripped gears and slipping clutches can perpetrate, but those parts which commonly behaved themselves I left severely alone. Toby could not drive, but a few lessons made her an apt pupil. She paid her money to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a license, and one sparkling evening in early February we started for Springfield. We were to cover thirteen thousand miles before we saw Boston again,—eleven thousand by motor and the rest by steamship and horseback. car part personification mechanic As I threw in the clutch, we heard a woman's voice calling after us. It was Toby's mother, and what she said was, "Don't drive at night!" car part night gender In New York we made the acquaintance of a map—which later was to become thumbed, torn and soiled. A delightful map it was, furnished by the A.A.A., with an index specially prepared for us of every Indian reservation, natural marvel, scenic and historical spot along the ridgepole of the Rockies, from Mexico, to Canada. Who could read the intriguing list of names,—Needles, Flagstaff, Moab, Skull Valley, Keams Canyon, Fort Apache, Tombstone, Rodeo, Kalispell, Lost Cabin, Hatchita, Rosebud, Roundup, Buckeye, Ten Sleep, Bowie and Bluff, Winnemucca,—and stop at home in Boston? We were bent on discovering whether they lived up to their names, whether Skull Valley was a scattered outpost of the desert with mysterious night-riders, stampeding steer, gold-seekers, cattle thieves and painted ladies, or had achieved virtue in a Rexall drugstore, a Harvey lunchroom, a jazz parlor, a Chamber of Commerce, an Elks' Hall, and a three story granite postoffice donated by a grateful administration? Which glory is now Skull Valley's we do not yet know, but depend on it, it is either one or the other. The old movie life of the frontier is not obsolete, only obsolescent, provided one knows where to look. But the day after it vanishes a thriving city has arrived at adolescence and "Frank's" and "Bill's" have placed a liveried black at their doors, and provided the ladies' parlor upstairs with three kinds of rouge. map It was love at first sight—our map and us. Pima and Maricopa Indians, Zuni and Laguna pueblos, the Rainbow Bridge and Havasupai Canyon beckoned to us and hinted their mysteries; our itinerary widened until it included vaguely everything there was to see. We made only one reservation—we would not visit California. California was the West, dehorned; it possessed climate, boulevards and conveniences; but it also possessed sand fleas and native sons. It was a little thing which caused us to make this decision, but epochal. At the San Francisco Exposition, I had seen a long procession of Native Sons, dressed in their native gold—a procession thousands strong. Knowing what one native son can do when he begins on his favorite topic of conversation, we dared not trust ourselves to an army of them, an army militant. map West What we planned to do was harder and less usual. We would follow the old trails, immigrant trails, cattle trails, traders' routes,—mountain roads which a long procession of cliff dwellers, Spanish friars, gold seekers, Apache marauders, prospectors, Mormons and scouts had trod in five centuries, and left as they found them, mere footprints in the dust. The Southwest has been explored afoot and on horse, by prairie schooners, burro, and locomotive; the modern pioneer rattles his weather beaten flivver on business between Gallup and Santa Fe, Tucson and El Paso, and thinks nothing of it, but the country is still new to the motoring tourist. Because a car must have the attributes of a hurdler and a tightrope walker, be amphibious and fool-proof, have a beagle's nose for half-obliterated tracks, thrill to the tug of sand and mud, and own a constitution strong enough to withstand all experiments of provincial garage-men, few merciful car owners will put it through the supreme agony. Had not the roads looked so smooth on the map we wouldn't have tried them ourselves. pioneer road train car road condition mud road surface mechanic garage personification And then, in New York, we met another optimist, and two and one make three. It was not until long afterward, when we met the roads he described as passable, that we discovered he was an optimist. He had motored through every section of the West, and paid us the compliment of believing we could do the same. When he presented us with our elaborate and beautiful itinerary he asked no questions about our skill and courage. He told us to buy an axe and a shovel, and carry a rope. A tent he advised as well, and such babes in the woods were we, the idea had not occurred to us. road affect "And carry a pistol?" asked Toby, eagerly. "Never! You will be as safe—or safer than you are in New York City." Toby was disappointed, but I heard him with relief. By nature gun-shy, I have seen too many war-dramas not to know that a pistol never shoots the person originally aimed at. The procedure never varies. A pulls a gun, points it at B. B, unflinching, engages A in light conversation. Diverted, A absent-mindedly puts down the gun, which B picks up, shooting to kill. I realized that as B my chances were better than as A, for while I would surely fall under the spell of a western outlaw's quaint humor and racy diction and thus hand over the weapon into his keeping, the chances were that he might be equally undermined by our Boston r's, and the appeal to his rough Western chivalry which we intended to make. Toby held out for an ammonia pistol. We did debate this for a while, but in the excitement of buying our tent we forgot the pistol entirely. Our Optimist directed us to a nearby sports'-goods shop, recommending us to the care of a certain "Reggi," who, he guaranteed, would not try to sell us the entire store. Confidently we sought the place,—a paradise where elk-skin boots, fleecy mufflers, sleeping bags, leather coats, pink hunting habits and folding stoves lure the very pocketbooks out of one's hands. We asked for Mr. Reggi, who did not look as Italian as his name. He proved a sympathetic guide, steering us to the camping department. He restrained himself from selling the most expensive outfits he had. At the price of a fascinating morning and fifty-odd dollars, we parted from him, owners of a silk tent, mosquito and snake proof, which folded into an infinitesimal canvas bag, a tin lantern, which folded flat, a tin biscuit baker which collapsed into nothing, a nest of cooking and eating utensils, which folded and fitted into one two-gallon pail, a can opener, a hunting knife, doomed to be our most cherished treasure, a flashlight, six giant safety-pins, and a folding stove. The charm of an article which collapses and becomes something else than it seems I cannot analyze nor resist. Others feel it too; I know a man who once stopped a South American revolution by stepping into the Plaza and opening and shutting his opera hat. Only one incident marred our satisfaction with the morning's work; we discovered, on saying farewell to Reggi, that we had been calling him by his first name! FROM NEW YORK TO ANTOINE'S [ edit | edit source ] THERE were, we found, three ways to transport an automobile from New York to Texas; to drive it ourselves, and become mired in Southern "gumbo," to ship it by rail, and become bankrupt while waiting weeks for delivery, or, cheaper and altogether more satisfactory, to send it by freight steamer to Galveston. By this means we avoided the need of crating our lumbering vehicle; we also could calculate definitely its date of arrival, and by taking a passenger boat to New Orleans, and going thence by rail, be at the port to meet it. infrastructure car mud driving train Our baggage we stowed in a peculiarly shaped auto trunk containing five peculiarly shaped suitcases, trapezoids all,—not a parallelepiped among them. Made to fit an earlier car, in its day it had been the laughing stock of all the porters in Europe. Too bulky to be strapped outside, it was to become a mysterious occupant of the tonneau, exciting much speculation and comment. It was to be the means of our being taken for Salvation lassies with a parlor organ, bootleggers, Spiritualists with the omnipresent cabinet, show-girls or lady shirt-waist drummers, according to the imagination of the beholder; but it never was aught but a nuisance. Whatever we needed always reposed in the bottom-most suitcase, and rather than dig down, we did without. Next time, I shall know better. A three-piece khaki suit, composed of breeches, short skirt split front and back, and many-pocketed Norfolk coat, worn with knee-high elk boots, does for daily wear in camping, riding or driving. It sheds rain, heat and cold, does not wrinkle when slept in, and only mellows with successive accumulations of dirt. For dress occasions, a dark jersey coat and skirt, wool stockings and low oxfords is magnificence itself. A heavy and a light sweater, two flannel and a half dozen cotton or linen shirts, and sufficient plain underwear suffice for a year's knocking about. Add to this a simple afternoon frock of non-wrinkling material, preferably black, and no event finds you unprepared. car part Our trunk made us trouble from the start. The administration had given us to understand we might ship it with the car, but at the last moment this was prevented by a constitutional amendment. Accordingly, an hour before our boat left, we took the trunk to the line on which we were to travel, and shipped it as personal baggage. It was only the first of many experiences which persuaded us to adopt the frontiersman's motto, "Pack light." Every true yarn of adventure should begin with a sea voyage. The wharves with their heaped cargoes tying together the four ends of the world, the hoisting of the gang-plank, the steamer flirtations, the daily soundings, the eternal schools of porpoises, the menus with their ensuing disillusionments, and above all, the funny, funny passengers, each a drollery to all the others,—all these commonplaces of voyage are invested by the mighty sea with its own importance and mystery. On board, besides ourselves, were some very funny people, and some merely funny. A swarthy family of Spaniards next us passed through all the successive shades of yellow and green, but throughout they were gay, eating oranges and chanting pretty little Castilian folk-songs. At table sat a man wearing a black and white striped shirt, of the variety known as "boiled," a black and white striped collar of a different pattern, and a bright blue necktie thickly studded with daisies and asterisks. He looked, otherwise, like a burglar without his jimmy, especially when we saw him by moonlight glowering prognathously through a porthole. He turned out to be only a playwright and journalist, with a specialty for handing out misinformation on a different subject each meal. The stout lady, the flirtatious purser—why is he of all classes of men the most amorous?—the bounder, the bride and groom, the flappers of both sexes, the drummer, the motherly stewardess and the sardonic steward were all present. And why does the sight of digestive anguish bring out the maternal in the female, and only profanity in the male? Our plump English stewardess cooed over us, helpless in upper and lower berths; our steward always rocked with silent mirth, and muttered, "My God!" Our own stout lady was particularly rare. She appeared coquettishly the first calm day off Florida, in a pink gingham dress, a large black rosary draped prominently upon her,—which did not much heighten her resemblance to a Mother Superior, owing to her wearing an embroidered Chinese kimona and a monkey coat over it, and flirting so gayly with the boys. On the Galveston train later, we heard her say helplessly, "Porter, my trunk is follering me to Galveston. How shall I stop it?" She could have stopped an express van merely by standing in front of it, but we did not suggest this remedy. The picture of a docile Saratoga lumbering doggedly at her rear was too much for words. As to the purser, we left him severely alone. We did not feel we could flirt with him in the style to which he had been accustomed. The last night of the voyage, when the clear bright green of the Gulf of Mexico gave place to the turbulent coffee color of the Mississippi, our stewardess knocked. "On account of the river, miss, we don't bathe tonight." It was a small tragedy for us. Earlier in the voyage we could not bear to see the water sliding up and down in the tub,—so much else was sliding up and down. It was on one of those days that the stewardess informed us that there were "twenty-seven ladies sick on this deck, to say nothing of twenty-four below," and asked us how we would like a little piece of bacon. We firmly refused the bacon, but the Gilbertian lilt of her remark inspired us to composing a ballad with the refrain, "Twenty-seven sea-sick ladies we." The river which deprived us of our baths presented at five next morning a bleak and sluggish appearance. I missed Simon Legree and the niggers singing plantation melodies, but it may have been too early in the day. Most picturesque, busy, low-lying river it was, nevertheless, banked with shipyards, newly built wharves, coaling stations, elevators, steamship docks—evidences to a provincial Northerner that the South, wakened perhaps by the Great War, has waited for none, but has forged ahead bent on her own development, achieving her independence—this time an economic independence. To the insular Manhattanite, who thinks of New York as the Eastern gate of this country, and San Francisco as the Western, the self-sufficiency, the bustle and the cosmopolitanism of the Mississippi's delta land, even seen through a six A.M. drizzle, gives a surprising jolt. Six months later we were to cross the Mississippi near the headwaters not many miles from Canada. More lovely, there at the North, its broad, clear placid waters shadowed by green forests and high bluffs, it invites for a voyage of discovery. On both banks of the river, whose forgotten raft and steamboat life Mark Twain made famous, are now being built concrete boulevards, designed to bisect the country from Canada to the Gulf. Huck Finns of the near future will be able to explore this great artery through what is now perhaps the least known and least accessible region of the country. construction highway road New Orleans, those who knew it twenty or forty years ago will tell you, has become modern and ugly, has lost its atmosphere. Drive through the newer and more pretentious outskirts, and you will believe all you are told. You will see the usual Southwestern broad boulevard, pointed with staccato palmettos, but otherwise arid of verdure, bordered with large, hideous mansions which completely overpower an occasional gem of low-verandahed loveliness, relic of happier days. For such grandeur the driver of our jitney,—undoubtedly the one used by Gen. Jackson during his defence of the city,—had an infallible instinct. I don't think he missed one atrocity during the whole morning's drive. Yet we passed one quite charming "colored" dwelling,—a low rambling cottage covered with vines, proudly made of glittering, silvery tin! driving city urban highway road tree driver bus But in the old French or Creole quarters you find all the storied charm of the city intact,—a bit of Italy, of Old Spain, of the milder and sunnier parts of France, jumbled together with the romance of the West Indies. In the cobbled narrow pavements, down which mule teams still clatter more often than motors, the mellow old houses, with iron balconies beautifully wrought, broad verandahs, pink, green or orange plastered walls, peeling to show the red brick underneath,—shady courtyards, high-walled with fountains and stone Cupids, glimpsed through low arched doorways, markets like those of Cannes and Avignon, piled with luscious fruits, crawfish, crates of live hens, strings of onions, and barrels of huge oysters,—oh, the oysters of New Orleans,—here lies the fascination of the town. road cobblestone animal car urban city Set down close to the wharves is this jumble of old streets, so close that the funnels of docked tramps mingle with the shop chimneys. From the wharves drift smells of the sea and sea-commerce, to join the smells of the old town. It is a subtle blend of peanuts, coffee, cooked food, garlic, poultry,—a raw, pungent, bracing odor, inclining one to thoughts of eating. And just around the corner is Antoine's. Eating? There should be a word coined to distinguish ordinary eating from eating at Antoine's. The building is modest and the lettering plain, as befits the dignity of the place. The interior, plainly finished and lined with mirrors, resembles any one of five hundred un-noteworthy restaurants where business New York eats to get filled. There the resemblance stops. A sparkle, restrained and sober withal, rests on the mirrors, the glasses and the silver. The floors and woodwork have a well scrubbed look. The linen is carefully looked after, the china business-like; everything decent, adequate, spotless,—nothing to catch the eye. It is not visual aestheticism which lures us here, or causes the millionaire Manhattanite to order his private car to take him to Antoine's for one hour of bliss. Antoine is an interior decorator of subtler but more potent distinction. And I would go even farther than that New York multi-millionaire whose name spells Aladdin to Americans; for such a meal as Antoine served us that morning, I would travel the same distance in one of those wife-killing contrivances which are the bane of every self-respecting motorist. The waiters at Antoine's are not hit-or-miss riff-raff sent up by a waiters' employment bureau. They are grandfatherly courtiers who make you feel that the responsibility for your digestion lies in their hands, and for the good name of the house in yours. Old New Orleans knows them by name, and recognizes the special dignity of their priesthood, with the air of saluting equals. Their lifework is your pleasure,—the procuring of your inner contentment. You could trust your family's honor to them, or the ordering of your meal. Only at Antoine's and in the pages of Leonard Merrick does one find such servitors. We accepted our Joseph's suggestion that we allow him to bring us some of the specialties of the house. It was a wise decision,—from the prelude of oysters Rockefeller,—seared in a hot oven with a sauce of chives, butter and crumbs,—to the benediction of café brulôt. Between came a marvel of a fish, covered with Creole sauce, a sublimated chicken a la King , a salad and a sweet, all nicely proportioned to each other, but their memory was crowned by the café brulôt. In came Joseph, like all three Kings of Egypt, bearing a tall silver dish on a silver platter. The platter contained blazing brandy, the dish orange peel, lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon stick, four lumps of sugar, and two spoonfuls of brandy. Joseph stirred them into a melted nectar, then with a long silver ladle and the manner of a vestal virgin, swept the blazing brandy into the mixture above, and stood like a benevolent demon over the flame. An underling brought a pot of black coffee, which was added little by little to the fiery mixture, and stirred. Finally it was ladled into two small glasses. We swam in Swinburnian bliss. We paid our bill, and departed to a new New Orleans, where the secondhand stores were filled with genuine, priceless antiques, the pavings easy on our weary feet, the skies, as the meteorologist in the popular song observed, raining violets and daffodils. Mr. Volstead never tasted café brulôt. A LONG WAYS FROM HOME TWO days of downpour greeted us at Galveston while we waited for our car to arrive. It was the climax of three months of rain which had followed three drouthy years. The storm swept waves and spray over the breakwater toward the frame town which has sprung up hopefully after twice being devoured by the sea monster. A city of khaki tents dripped mournfully under the drenching; wet sentries paced the coast-line, and looked suspiciously at two ladies—all women are ladies in Texas—who cared to fight their way along the sea-wall against such a gale. Toby and I were bored, when we were not eating Galveston's oysters. The city, pleasant enough under the sun, had its usual allotment of boulevards, bronze monuments, drug stores, bungalows of the modest and mansions of the local plutocrats, but it had not the atmosphere of New Orleans. We were soon to learn that regardless of size, beauty or history, some towns have personality, others have about as much personality as a reception room in a Methodist dormitory. road Next day, news came that our boat had docked, and telephoning revealed that the car was safely landed. There are joys to telephoning in the South. Central is courteous and eager to please, and the voices of strangers with whom one does curt business at home become here so soft and winning that old friendships are immediately cemented, repartee indulged in, and the receiver hung up with a feeling of regret. That is the kind of voice the agent for the Mallory Line had. To be sure, it took us a day to get the car from the dock to the street, when it would have taken half an hour at home, but it was a day devoted to the finer shades of intercourse and good fellowship. I reached the dock half an hour before lunch time. car infrastructure "Yes'm, the office is open, but I reckon yo' won't find any hands to move yo' car," was the accurate prediction of the official to whom I applied. "Pretty nearly lunch time, yo' know." So I waited, filling in time by answering the guarded questions the watchman put to me. I was almost as fascinating an object of attention to him as his Bull Durham, though I must admit that when there was a conflict between us, I never won, except once, when he asked where the car and I came from. car personification "Massachusetts?" Bull Durham lost. A great idea struggled for expression. I could see him searching for the right, the inevitable word. I could see it born, as triumph and amusement played over his features. Then caution—should he spring it all at once or save it for a climax? Nonchalantly, as if such epigrams were likely to occur to him any time, he got it off. "You're a long ways from home , ain't yo'?" With the air of saying something equally witty, I replied, "I surely am." Like "When did you stop beating your wife," his question was one of those which has all the repartee its own way. For six months, we were to hear it several times daily, but it always came as a shock, and as if hypnotized, we were never to alter our response. And it was so true! We were a long ways from home, further than we then realized. At times we seemed so long that we wondered if we should ever see home again. But we were never too far to meet some man, wittier than his fellows, who defined our location accurately. After his diagnosis and my acceptance of it, further conversation became anticlimactic. The "hands" were still absent at lunch, so I followed their example, and returning at two, found them still at lunch. But at last the agent drifted in, and three or four interested and willing colored boys. Everybody was pleasant, nobody was hurried, we exchanged courtesies, and signed papers, and after we really got down to business, in a surprisingly few minutes the car was rolled across the street by five-man power, while I lolled behind the steering wheel like Cleopatra in her galley. At the doorway the agent halted me. car car part "Massachusetts car?" he asked. "Yes, sir," said I. Were there to be complications? In a flash he countered. "Yo' surely are a long ways from home." I laughed heartily, and with rapier speed replied, "I surely am ." They told us the road from Gal ves ton to Houston(Hewston)was good—none better. road road condition "Good shell road all the way. You'll make time on that road." This is the distinction between a Southerner and a Westerner. When the former tells you a road is good, he means that it once was good. When a Westerner tells you the same thing, he means that it is going to be good at some happy future date. In Texas the West and South meet. road We crossed the three-mile causeway which Galveston built at an expense of two million dollars, to connect her island town with her mainland. On all sides of us flatness like the flatness of the sea stretched to the horizon, and but for the horizon would have continued still further. The air was balmy as springtime in Italy. Meadow larks perched fat and puffy on fenceposts, dripping abrupt melodies which began and ended nowhere. The sky, washed with weeks of rain, had been dipped in blueing and hung over the earth to dry. After enduring gray northern skies, we were intoxicated with happiness. animal sound coast ocean pleasure The happier I am, the faster I drive. The road of hard oyster shell we knew was good. They had told us we could make time on it, in so many words. Forty-eight miles an hour is not technically fast, but seems fast when you suddenly descend into a hard-edged hole a foot and a half deep. speed pleasure road condition road surface accident When we had separated ourselves from our baggage, we examined the springs. By a miracle they were intact. In first gear, the car took a standing jump, and emerged from the hole. For one of her staid matronly build, she did very well at her first attempt. Later she learned to leap boulders, and skip lightly from precipice to precipice and if we could have kept her in training six months longer, she could have walked out halfway on a tightrope, turned around and got back safely to land. accident car part personification The holes increased rapidly until there was no spot in the road free from them. Our course resembled an earthworm's. Except for the holes, the road was all its sympathizers claimed for it. We maneuvered two partly washed away bridges, and came to a halt. road condition bridge Airplanes were soaring above us in every direction. We were passing Ellington Field. But the immediate cause of our halt was two soldiers, who begged a lift to Houston. We were glad to oblige them, but after a hopeless glance at the tonneau piled high with baggage, they decided to ride on the running board. If the doughboy on the left had only been the doughboy on the right running board, this chapter would have been two days shorter. It was Friday, and we had thirteen miles to go, and Friday and thirteen make a bad combination. hitchhiker car part Toby chatted with her soldier and I with mine, who was a mechanician at the flying field. It was a disappointment not to have him an aviator, though he admitted a mechanician's was a far weightier responsibility. Before the war, he had been a professional racer, had come in second in a championship race between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and gave such good reasons why he hadn't come in first that he seemed to have taken a mean advantage of the champion. driver driving speed "Sixty-three miles is about as fast as I've ever driven," I said in an off-hand way. speed driving "Sixty-three? That's not fast. When you get going ninety-five to a hundred, that's something like driving." speed driving "This car," I explained, "won't make more than fifty. At fifty she vibrates till she rocks from side to side." car speed He looked at the wheel hungrily. "Huh! I bet I could bring her up to seventy-five." car part Stung, I put my foot on the gas, and the speedometer needle swung to the right. As we merged with the traffic of Houston, shell-holes were left behind us, and passing cars were taking advantage of a perfect concrete road. A Hudson with a Texas number passed us with a too insistent horn, the driver smiled scornfully and looked back, and his three children leaned out from the back to grin. And they were only going a miserable thirty. The near-champion looked impotently at the steering wheel, and in agonized tones commanded, "Step on it!" speed car part affect traffic city road condition car model sound driver The Hudson showed signs of fight, and lured us through the traffic at a lively pace. My companion on the running board was dying of mortification. I knew how he itched to seize the wheel, and for his sake I redoubled my efforts. In a moment the impudent Hudson children ceased to leer from the back of their car, and were pretending to admire the scenery on the other side. Then suddenly the Hudson lost all interest in the race. car model traffic speed affect car part "Turn down the side street," yelled my passenger, frantically. I tried to turn, wondering, but the carburetor sputtered and died. car part I will say that it is almost a pleasure to be arrested in Texas. Two merry motor-cops smiled at us winsomely. There was sympathy, understanding and good fellowship in their manner,—no malice, yet firmness withal, which is the way I prefer to be handled by the police. As officers they had to do their duty. As gentlemen, they regretted it. Toby, chatting about aviation with the man on her running-board, was completely taken by surprise to hear "Ah'm sahry, lady, but we'll jest have to ask you-all to come along with us." car part What an embarrassing position for our passengers! They had accepted our hospitality, egged us on to unlawful speed, and landed us in the court-house,—with pay-day weeks behind. Their chagrin deepened as their efforts to free us unlawfully went for naught. Our indulgent captors could not have regretted it more if we had been their own sisters, but they made it clear we must follow them. passenger speed affect "You go ahead, and I'll show her the way," suggested my tempter. That he had traveled the same road many, many times became evident to us. In fact, he confided that he had been arrested in every state in the Union, and his face was so well known in the Houston court that the judge had wearied of fining him, and now merely let him off with a rebuke. So hoping our faces would have the same effect on the judge, we trustingly following his directions into town, our khaki-clad friends leading. "Turn off to the right here," said my guide. I turned, and in a flash, the motor-cycles wheeled back to us. risk Smiling as ever, our captors shook their heads warningly. "Now, lady, none of that! You follow right after us." Profusely my guide protested he had merely meditated a short cut to the station house. Elaborately he explained the route he had intended to take. Poor chap, D'Artagnan himself could not have schemed more nimbly to rescue a lady from the Bastille. I saw how his mad-cap mind had visioned the quiet turn down the side street, the doubling on our tracks, the lightning change of himself into the driver's seat, a gray Cadillac streaking ninety miles an hour past the scattering populace of Houston, then breathless miles on into the safety of the plains—the ladies rescued, himself a hero—— car part driver car model speed Instead, we tamely drew up before a little brick station-house two blocks beyond. He did all he could, even offering to appear in court the next day and plead for us, but from what we now knew of his local record, it seemed wiser to meet the judge on our own merits. Our arrival caused a sensation. The police circles of Houston evidently did not every day see a Massachusetts car piled high with baggage driven by two women, flanked by a soldier on each running board. When we entered the sheriff's office, every man in the room turned his back for a moment and shook with mirth. They led me to a wicket window with Toby staunchly behind. The sheriff, in shirt sleeves and suspenders, amiably pushed a bag of Bull Durham toward me. I started back at this unusual method of exchanging formalities. A policeman, also in shirt sleeves and suspenders, a twinkle concealed in his sweet Southern drawl, explained, car gender driver car part "The lady thawt yo' meant them fixin's for her, Charley, instead of fo' that mean speed-catcher." speed The sheriff took my name and address. "Massachusetts?" he exclaimed. Then, all of a sudden, he shot back at me. "You're a lawng ways from home !" "I wish I were longer," I said. "Never mind, lady," he said, soothingly and caressingly. "Yo' give me twenty dollars now, and tell the judge your story tomorrow, an' seein' as how you're a stranger and a lady, he'll give it all back to you." On that understanding, I paid him twenty dollars. At three next afternoon, Toby and I sought the courthouse to get our twenty dollars back, as agreed. The ante-room was filled with smoke from a group of Houstonians whose lurking smiles seemed to promise indulgence. The judge was old and impassive, filmed with an absent-mindedness hard to penetrate. Yet he, too, had a lurking grin which he bit off when he spoke. "Yo' are charged with exceeding the speed limit at a rate of fo'ty-five miles an hour." speed "Your Honor, this was my first day in the State, and I hadn't learned your traffic laws." He looked up over his spectacles. "Yo're from Massachusetts?" "Yes, sir!" Toby and I waited in suspense. We saw a faint spark light the cold, filmed blue eye, spread to the corner of his grim mouth, while a look of benevolent anticipation rippled over his set countenance. It was coming! I got ready to say with a spontaneous laugh "We surely are ." And then he bit it off! "Yo' know speeding is a very serious offense——" speed "I wouldn't have done it for worlds, your Honor, if I hadn't seen all the Texas cars going quite fast, so I thought you wouldn't mind if I did the same. I only arrived yesterday from Massachusetts." speed "Thet's so. Yo're from Massachusetts?" We waited hopefully. But again he bit it off. "It's a mighty serious offense. But, seein' as yo're a stranger and a lady at that——" His voice became indulgently reassuring. We felt we had done well to wait over a day, and trust to Southern chivalry. "Considering everything, I'll be easy on you. Twenty dollars." His tone was so fatherly that I knew only gratitude for being saved from two months in a Texas dungeon. "Thank you, your Honor," I faltered. Outside, Toby looked at me in scorn. "What did you thank him for?" she asked. Whether it be contempt of court or no, I wish to state that subsequent inquiry among the hairdressers, hotel clerks, and garage men of Houston, revealed that a fine of such magnitude had never been imposed in the annals of the town. The usual sentence was a rebuke for first offenses, two dollars for the second and so on. The judge was right. I was a stranger—— But what could you expect from a soul of granite who could resist such a mellowing, opportune, side-splitting bon mot?—could swallow it unsaid? I hope it choked him. <poem> CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO A GUIDE, who at the age of twelve had in disgust left his native state, once epitomized it to me. "Texas is a hell of a state. Chock full of socialists, horse-thieves and Baptists." Socialists and horse-thieves we did not encounter; it must have been the Baptists, then, who were responsible for the law putting citizens who purchase gasoline on Sunday in the criminal class. Unluckily the easy-going garage man who obligingly gave us all other possible information neglected to tell us of this restriction on Saturday night. Accordingly, when we started on Sunday morning, we had only five gallons and a hundred odd miles to go. We had no desire to meet Houston's judiciary again. garage gasoline A little group of advisers gathered to discuss our problem. The road our New York optimist had routed for us as "splendid going all the way" was a sea of mud. Four mule teams could not pull us out, we were told. Three months of steady rain had reduced the State of Texas to a state of "gumbo." Each man had a tale of encounter and defeat for each road suggested. Each declared the alternatives suggested by the others impossible. But, at last, came one who had "got through" by the Sugarland road the day before. He voiced the definition of a good road in Texas, a definition which we frequently encountered afterward. road condition mud "The road's all right, ef yo' don't boag, otherwise you'll find it kinder rough." road condition With this dubious encouragement we started, at nine in the morning, hoping the Baptists further out in the country would grow lenient in the matter of gasoline, as the square of their distance from Houston. gasoline law It was a heavenly day, the sun hot and the vibrant blue sky belying the sodden fields and brimming ditches. The country, brown and faintly rolling, under the warmth of the Southern springtime was reminiscent of the Roman Campagna. Song sparrows filled the air with abrupt showers of music, and now and then a bald and black-winged buzzard thudded down into a nearby field. For miles on both sides of the road we saw only black soil soaked and muddy, with rivers for furrows, and only a few brown stalks standing from last year's cotton or rice crop. The eternal flatness of the country suggested a reason for the astounding height of the loose-jointed Texans we had seen; they had to be tall to make any impression on the landscape. It accounted, too, for their mild, easy-going, unhurried and unhurriable ways. What is the use of haste, when as much landscape as ever still stretches out before one? sunshine sky spring scenery animal sound mud plant topography Before we reached Sugarland, a lonesome group of houses on what had once been a huge sugar plantation, our misgivings began. Mud in Texas has a different meaning from mud in Massachusetts; it means gumbo, morasses. Sargasso Seas, broken axles, abandoned cars. From the reiteration of the words, "Yo' may git through, but I think yo'll boag" we began to realize that it was easier to get into Texas, even through the eye of the police court, than to get out of it. mud accident car part At Sugarland we took on illicit gasoline and a passenger. He was bound for a barbecue, but volunteered to steer us through a particularly bad spot a mile further. We roused his gloom by a reference to the Blue Laws of Texas. law gasoline passenger "Ef this legislatin' keeps on," he said, "a man'll have to git a permit to live with his wife. Texas aint what it used to be. This yere's a dry, non-gambling county, but this yere town's the best town in the state." We followed his gesture wonderingly toward the lonely cluster of houses, a warehouse, a store, an ex-saloon with the sign badly painted out, and "refreshments" painted in, and the usual group of busy loafers at the store. "Yes ma'am. It's a good town. Twice a year on Gawge Washin'ton's birthday and the Fo'th we hold a barbecue an' everyone in the county comes. I'm right sorry I cain't take yo' ladies along; I'm sure I could show yo' a good time. Whiskey flows like water, we roast a dozen oxen, and sometimes as much as fifteen thousand dollars will change hands at one crap game. We whoop it up for a week, and then we settle down, and mind the law again." Under the guidance of our kindly passenger, we learned a new technique in driving. In first gear, avoiding the deceptively smooth but slimy roadside, we made for the deepest ruts, racing the engine till it left a trail of thick white smoke behind, clinging to the steering wheel, while the heavy car rocked and creaked in the tyrannical grip of the ruts like a ship in the trough of the waves. Without our friend, we never should have got through. He walked ahead, selected the impassable places from those which merely looked so, and beamed, when rocked and bruised from the wheel I steered the good car to comparatively dry land. A little further, where the barbecue began, he bade us a regretful farewell, and requested us to look him up when next we came to Texas. passenger driving skill road side road condition engine speed car part sound haptic pollution "I sure would 'a liked to have went to Boston," he added, "but I aint sure ef I had 'a went theah, whetheh I could 'a understood their brogue." Since Houston we had learned the full meaning of Texas optimism. "Roads are splendid, ma'am. I think you'll git through," we mentally labeled as "probably passable." But when we heard, in the same soft, gentle monotone, "Pretty poor roads, ma'am; I think yo'll boag," we knew we should "boag"—bog to the hubs in a plaster of Paris cast. At Richmond, where they told us that the roads which Houston had described as "splendid" were quite impassable, we sadly learned that to a Texan, any road twenty miles away is a "splendid road," ten miles away is "pretty fair," but at five, "you'll sure boag." road condition car part affect Again we faced the probability of progressing only a few miles further on Texas soil, but the town flocked to our aid, told us of two alternate roads, and promptly split into two factions, each claiming we should "boag" if we took the road advised by the other. A friendly soda clerk gained our confidence by asserting he never advised any road he had not traveled personally. He was such a unique change from the rest of Texas that we took his advice and the East Bernard road to Eagle Lake. It was only the fourth change from our original route planned when overlooking the asphalt of New York, and each detour decreased our chances of getting back to the highways. But there was no alternative. The soda clerk as he served us diluted ginger ale, reassured us. "It's a pretty good road, and ef yo' don't boag, I think yo'll git through." road highway asphalt road condition We bogged. We came, quite suddenly to a tell-tale stretch of black, spotting the red-brown road, and knew we were in for it. At each foot, we wondered if we should bog in the next. Eliza must have felt the same way, crossing the ice, especially when a cake slipped from under her. As directed, I kept to the ruts. Sometimes they expanded to a three-foot hole, into which the car descended with a heart-rending thump. Once in a rut, it was impossible to get out. The mud, of the consistency of modeling clay, would have made the fortune of a dealer in art supplies. At last, a wrong choice of ruts pulled us into this stiff mass to our hubs, almost wrenching the differential from the car, and we found ourselves stopping. As soon as we stopped, we were done for. We sank deeper and deeper. road condition affect risk sound mud car part accident We got out, sinking ourselves halfway to the knees in gumbo. We were on a lonely road in an absolutely flat country, with not a house on the horizon. We had no ropes, and no shovel. We looked at the poor car, foundered to her knees in sculptor's clay, and wondered how many dismal days we must wait before the morass dried. mud road topography equipment personification And then came the first manifestation of a peculiar luck which followed us on our entire trip. Never saving us from catastrophe, it rescued us in the most unlikely fashion, soon after disaster. Along rode a boy—on horseback—the first person we had seen for hours. We stopped him, and inquired where we could find a mule, a rope and a man. Having started out to make the trip without masculine aid, it chagrined us to have to resort to it at our first difficulty, but we were not foolish enough to believe we could extricate the car unaided from its bed of sticky clay. The boy looked at us, looked at the imprisoned machine, and silently spat. Texas must have a law requiring that rite, with penalties for infringement thereof. We never saw it broken. road condition animal accident gender The formality over, he replied, "I don't know." We suggested planks,—he knew of none. We put him down, bitterly, as an ill-natured dolt. But, as we learned later, Texans move slowly, but their hearts are in the right place. He was only warming up. Finally he spat again, lighted a cigarette, got off his horse, silently untied a rope from his saddle, and bound it about our back wheel, disregarding calmly the mire sucking at his boots. I started the engine. No results. All three watched the fettered Gulliver helplessly. Then, while Toby and I lifted out heavy suitcases and boxes from the seat which held the chains, he watched us, with the mild patience of an ox. car part equipment animal mud engine metaphor Reinforcements came, a moment later, from a decrepit buggy, containing a boy and two girls. They consulted, on seeing our plight, and the girls, hearty country lasses in bare feet and sunbonnets, urged their escort, apparently to his relief, to stay the Sunday courtship and give us aid. Of more agile fettle than our first knight, he galvanized him into a semblance of motion. Together they gathered brush, and, denuding their horses for the purpose, tied bits of rope to the rear wheels. The engine started, stalled, and started again a dozen times. animal equipment car part engine plant At last the car stirred a bit from her lethargy, the two boys put their country strength against her broad back and pushed; the engine roared like a man-eating tiger—and we got out. personification engine sound But we still had to conquer a black stretch of about one hundred yards, in which one of our rescuers had broken an axle, so he cheerfully told us, only yesterday. We were faced with the problem to advance or retreat? Either way was mud. We might get caught between two morasses, and starve to death before the sun dried the roads. We might turn back, but why return to conditions we had worked two hours to escape? We decided to advance boldly, and, if need be, gloriously break an axle. "Race her for all she's worth," counseled the livelier of our rescuers, from the running board where he acted as pilot. I raced her, though it nearly broke my heart to mistreat the engine so cruelly. We wavered, struck a rut, and were gripped in it, as in the bonds of matrimony, for better or worse. It led us to a gruesome mass of "soup," with a yawning hole at the bottom. car part risk road condition mud speed passenger affect engine accident "Here's where I broke my axle," shouted my pilot. To break the shock meant to stick; to race ahead might mean a shattered car. There was no time to think it over. I pushed down on the gas. A fearful bump, and we went on, the mud sucking at the tires with every inch we advanced. Cheering, the others picked their way to us. Our friends piled our baggage into the tonneau. Toby and I looked at each other, worried by the same problem,—the problem that never ceased to bother us until we reached Chicago;—to tip or not to tip? car part accident speed mud affect They were such nice lads; we already seemed like old friends. Yet they were strangers who had scratched their hands and muddied their clothes, and relinquished cheerfully the Sunday society of their ladies on our behalf. Too much to offer pay for, it seemed too much to accept without offering to pay. We learned then that such an offer outrages neither Western independence nor Southern chivalry when made in frank gratitude and good- fellowship. The first suggestion of payment invariably meets an off-hand but polite refusal, which tact may sometimes change to acceptance. If accepted, it is never as a tip, but as a return for services; offer it as a tip, and you offer an insult to a friend. We found it a good rule, as Americans dealing with Americans, to be graceful enough to play the more difficult role of recipient when we decently could, and in the spirit of the West, "pass it on to the next fellow." Eagle Lake seemed as difficult to attain as the treasure beyond seven rivers of fire and seven mountains of glass. An hour's clear sailing over roads no worse than ploughed fields brought it nearly in sight,—seven miles to go, under a pink sky lighted by a silver crescent. And then Toby, seeing a grassy lake on the side of the road, forsook two tried and trusty mud-holes for it, and ditched us again! road condition metaphor sky twilight accident mud Nearby was a farmhouse, with two men and a Ford standing in the driveway. Hardly had we "boaged," our wheels churning a pool deep enough to bathe in, when we saw them loading shovels and tools into the car, and driving to our aid. They came with boreboding haste. They greeted us cheerfully—too cheerfully, we thought; joked about the hole, and admitted they spent most of their time shovelling people out. They knew their job—we had to admit that. They wrestled with the jack, setting it on a shovel to keep it from sinking in the swamp; profanely cheerful, fussed over the chains, which we later guiltily discovered were too short for our over-sized tires, backed their car to ours, tied a rope to it, and pulled. We sank deeper. They shoveled, jacked, chopped sage-brush, and commandeered every passing man and car. The leader of the wreckers was a Mr. Poole, a typical Westerner of the old school,—long, flowing gray whiskers, sombrero, and keen watchful face. He had also a delightful sense of humor,—was in fact so cheerful that we became more and more gloomy as we noted the array of Fords and men clustered about. It looked to us like a professional mud-hole. car model car part equipment plant They hitched two Fords to the car, while eight men pushed from the back, but nothing came of the effort. A fine looking man named Sinclair, with gentle manners, was elected by the crowd to go for his mule team, "the finest pair in the county." An hour later he came back. He had gone two miles, changed to overalls, and hitched up his mules in the meantime, returning astride the off beast. car model animal At sight of the fallen car, the mules gave a gently ironic side-glance, stepped into place, waited quietly, and at the word of command, stepped forward nonchalantly, while I started the car simultaneously. It took them exactly five minutes to do what eight men, two women, two Fords and a Cadillac had failed to do in two hours' hard work. For days after, when we passed a mule, we offered him silent homage. accident animal While Toby, looking and acting like a guilty wretch, piled the baggage into the car, I approached Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Poole, who stood watching the rescued leviathan with eyes gleaming satisfaction, and put the usual timid question. "Will you tell me what I can offer all these people for helping us out?" Mr. Sinclair, owner of the stalwart mules, smiled and said: "I shouldn't offer them a thing. We all get into trouble one time or another, and have to be helped out. Just you tell them 'thank you' and I reckon that'll be all the pay they want." And before we could turn around to carry out his injunction, half the crowd had melted away! To all motorists who become "boaged," I beg to recommend the mud-hole of my friends, Mr. Poole and Mr. Sinclair, of Lissie, Texas. mud driver +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Frost, Robert Genre Poetry Journal or Book New Hampshire Publisher Henry Holt Year of Publication 1923 Pages 110-111 Additional information - IT snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm The flakes could find no landing place to form. Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold, And still they failed of any lasting hold. They made no white impression on the black. They disappeared as if earth sent them back. Not till from separate flakes they changed at night To almost strips and tapes of ragged white Did grass and garden ground confess it snowed, And all go back to winter but the road. Next day the scene was piled and puffed and dead. The grass lay flattened under one great tread. Borne down until the end almost took root, The rangey bough anticipated fruit With snowballs cupped in every opening bud. The road alone maintained itself in mud, Whatever its secret was of greater heat From inward fires or brush of passing feet. infrastructure plant snow temperature mud personification road scenery spring weather winter In spring more mortal singers than belong To any one place cover us with song. Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng; Some to go further north to Hudson's Bay, Some that have come too far north back away, Really a very few to build and stay. Now was seen how these liked belated snow. The fields had nowhere left for them to go; They'd soon exhausted all there was in flying; The trees they'd had enough of with once trying And setting off their heavy powder load. They could find nothing open but the road. So there they let their lives be narrowed in By thousands the bad weather made akin. The road became a channel running flocks Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks. I drove them under foot in bits of flight That kept the ground, almost disputing right Of way with me from apathy of wing, A talking twitter all they had to sing. A few I must have driven to despair Made quick asides, but having done in air A whir among white branches great and small As in some too much carven marble hall Where one false wing beat would have brought down all, Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover, To suffer the same driven nightmare over. One such storm in a lifetime couldn't teach them That back behind pursuit it couldn't reach them; None flew behind me to be left alone. air animal affect risk road safety driver driving skill metaphor spring tree weather Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown The country's singing strength thus brought together, That though repressed and moody with the weather Was none the less there ready to be freed And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed. weathert and seed. weather +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Frost, Robert Genre Poetry Journal or Book Selected Poems Publisher Henry Holt and Company Year of Publication 1920 Pages 132-135 Additional information - Brown lived at such a lofty farm That everyone for miles could see His lantern when he did his chores In winter after half-past three. And many must have seen him make His wild descent from there one night, ’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything, Describing rings of lantern light. Between the house and barn the gale Got him by something he had on And blew him out on the icy crust That cased the world, and he was gone! Walls were all buried, trees were few: He saw no stay unless he stove A hole in somewhere with his heel. But though repeatedly he strove And stamped and said things to himself, And sometimes something seemed to yield, He gained no foothold, but pursued His journey down from field to field. Sometimes he came with arms outspread Like wings, revolving in the scene Upon his longer axis, and With no small dignity of mien. Faster or slower as he chanced, Sitting or standing as he chose, According as he feared to risk His neck, or thought to spare his clothes, He never let the lantern drop. And some exclaimed who saw afar The figures he described with it, “I wonder what those signals are Brown makes at such an hour of night! He’s celebrating something strange. I wonder if he’s sold his farm, Or been made Master of the Grange.” He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked; He fell and made the lantern rattle (But saved the light from going out.) So half-way down he fought the battle Incredulous of his own bad luck. And then becoming reconciled To everything, he gave it up And came down like a coasting child. “Well—I—be——” that was all he said, As standing in the river road, He looked back up the slippery slope (Two miles it was) to his abode. road roadside river road condition risk safety Sometimes as an authority On motor-cars, I’m asked if I Should say our stock was petered out, And this is my sincere reply: car Yankees are what they always were. Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope Of getting home again because He couldn’t climb that slippery slope; car metaphor Or even thought of standing there Until the January thaw Should take the polish off the crust. He bowed with grace to natural law, And then went round it on his feet, After the manner of our stock; Not much concerned for those to whom, At that particular time o’clock, It must have looked as if the course He steered was really straight away From that which he was headed for— Not much concerned for them, I say. road navigation car driving driving skill But now he snapped his eyes three times; Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s ’Bout out!” and took the long way home By road, a matter of several miles. road affect navigation +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Hughes, Langston Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes Publisher Vintage Classics Year of Publication pre 1930 Pages 120 Additional information - Albert! Hey, Albert! Don't you play in dat road. You see dem trucks A-goin' by. One run ovah you An' you die. Albert, don't you play in dat road. road car truck accident death risk trafficcar truck accident death risk traffic +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Huntington, Julia Weld Genre Poetry Journal or Book Poetry Magazine Publisher - Year of Publication 1921 Pages 81 Additional information - infrastructure roadside Lilacs lift leaves of cool satin And blossoms of mother-of-pearl Against the tarnished silver of the deserted house. Tall, exquisite grasses fill the door-yard with spray. Through the sun-drenched fragrance drifts the hazy monotone of bees. Tints of opal and jade; the hush of emerald shadows, And a sense of the past as a living presence Distil a haunting wistful peace. plant animal sunshine road side scenery smell metaphorshine road side scenery smell metaphor +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Jamison, Roscoe C. Genre Poetry Journal or Book Negro Soldiers (“These Truly are the Brave”) and other poems by Roscoe C. Jamison Publisher Press of the Gray Printing Company Year of Publication 1918 Pages - Additional information - metaphor metaphysics death Along the Road of Human Life, So very near, on either side, With winds and storms and billows rife, There is a sea that's wide; And woe to him who trips and falls Into that darkening tide. road metaphor affect death Oh! it is all that Hope can do To keep lifted our eyes And day by day our strength renew With visions and dream-lies; To lead us by that awful flood From which no soul may rise. affect Despair! Despair! That is the sea Which ever is at our feet, Seeks to envelop you and me, In ruin full, complete, Cause us to deem this life a curse And make death's name sound sweet. affect coast death Work, Laugh and Love! Thus only can The trembling spirit hold, Its journey true across the span Of years that doth unfold, Amid earth's barren scenery Until life's tale is told! affect scenery! affect scenery +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Josephson, Matthew Genre Poetry Journal or Book Merz6 Imitatoren , watch step! / Arp1: Propaganda und Arp Publisher Merz Verlag Year of Publication 1923 Pages 62 Additional information The poem was simultaneously published in a German and an American journal. With the brain at the wheel The eye on the road And the hand to the left Pleasant be your progress Explorer producer stoic after your fashion Change Change to To what speed to what underwear Here is a town here a mill Nothing surprizes you old horseface Guzzle guzzle goes the siren And the world will learn to admire and applaud your concern with the parts your firmness with employees and your justice to your friends. Your pride will not be overridden Your faith will go unmortified. car part vision haptic sound metaphor driving road affect pleasure speed urban ruraload affect pleasure speed urban rural +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Lowell, Amy Genre Poetry Journal or Book A Dome of Many-Colored Glass Publisher Houghton Mifflin Company Year of Publication 1922 Pages 53 Additional information - ode I know a country laced with roads, They join the hills and they span the brooks, They weave like a shuttle between broad fields, And slide discreetly through hidden nooks. They are canopied like a Persian dome And carpeted with orient dyes. They are myriad-voiced, and musical, And scented with happiest memories. O Winding roads that I know so well, Every twist and turn, every hollow and hill! They are set in my heart to a pulsing tune Gay as a honey-bee humming in June. ‘T is the rhythmic beat of a horse's feet And the pattering paws of a sheep-dog bitch; ‘T is the creaking trees, and the singing breeze, And the rustle of leaves in the road-side ditch. road agency personification river hill scenery metaphor music sound smell sublime tree wind summer A cow in a meadow shakes her bell And the notes cut sharp through the autumn air, Each chattering brook bears a fleet of leaves Their cargo the rainbow, and just now where The sun splashed bright on the road ahead A startled rabbit quivered and fled. O Uphill roads and roads that dip down! You curl your sun-spattered length along, And your march is beaten into a song By the softly ringing hoofs of a horse And the panting breath of the dogs I love. The pageant of Autumn follows its course And the blue sky of Autumn laughs above. animal sky sound music fall road sky sunshine topography And the song and the country become as one, I see it as music, I hear it as light; Prismatic and shimmering, trembling to tone, The land of desire, my soul's delight. And always it beats in my listening ears With the gentle thud of a horse's stride, With the swift-falling steps of many dogs, Following, following at my side. O Roads that journey to fairyland! Radiant highways whose vistas gleam, Leading me on, under crimson leaves, To the opaline gates of the Castles of Dream. music pleasure affect sound animal road highway sound animal road highway +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Lowell, Amy Genre Poetry Journal or Book Ballads for Sale Publisher Houghton Mifflin Company Year of Publication 1927 Pages 199-200 Additional information - Hush, hush, these woods are thick with shapes and voices, They crowd behind, in front, Scarcely can one’s wheels break through them. For God’s sake, drive quickly! There are butchered victims behind those trees, And what you say is moss I know is the dead hair of hanged men. Drive faster, faster. The hair will catch in our wheels and clog them; We are thrown from side to side by the dead bodies in the road, Do you not smell the reek of them, And see the jaundiced film that hides the stars? Stand on the accelerator. I would rather be bumped to a jelly Than caught by clutching hands I cannot see, Than be stifled by the press of mouths I cannot feel. Not in the light glare, you fool, but on either side of it. Curse these swift, running trees, Hurl them aside, leap them, crush them down, Say prayers if you like, Do anything to drown the screaming silence of this forest, To hide the spinning shapes that jam the trees. What mystic adventure is this In which you have engulfed me? What no-world have you shot us into? What Dante dream without a farther edge? Fright kills, they say, and I believe it. If you would not have murder on your conscience, For Heaven’s sake, get on! forest tree car car part driving speed risk road condition death smell vision haptic personification metaphor intertextion metaphor intertext +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author MacKaye, Percy Genre Poetry Journal or Book Scribner’s Magazine Publisher - Year of Publication 1910 Pages 114 Additional information - Fluid the world flowed under us: the hills, Billow on billow of umbrageous green, Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen One rapturous instant, blind with dash of rills And silver rising storms and dewy stills Of dripping boulders, then the dim ravine Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills. pleasure topography sound metaphor Then all of nature’s old amazement Sudden to ask us: "Is this also Man? This plunging, volant land-amphibian— What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed? Reply!" And piercing us with ancient scan, The shrill primeval hawk gazed and screamed. intertext sound animalintertext sound animal +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author MacNeice, Louis Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Faber Book of Modern Verse Publisher Faber and Faber Year of Publication 1923 Pages 304 Additional information - Down the road someone is practising scales, The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails, Man’s heart expands to tinker with his car For this is Sunday morning, Fate’s great bazaar, Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now, And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow, Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past, That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme. pleasure speed maintenance car part road But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire To tell how there is no music or movement which secures Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures. architecture music sound metaphor haptic death metaphor haptic death +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author McKay, Claude Genre Poetry Journal or Book Constab Ballads Publisher London Watts & Co. Year of Publication 1912 Pages 40-42 Additional information - When you want to meet a frien', Ride up to Papine, Where dere's people to no en', Old, young, fat an' lean: When you want nice gals fe court An' to feel jus' booze', Go'p to Papine as a sport Dress' in ge'man clo'es. When you want to be jus' broke, Ride up wid your chum, Buy de best cigars to smoke An' Finzi old rum: Stagger roun' de sort o' square On to Fong Kin bar ; Keep as much strengt' dat can bear You do'n in de car. car When you want know Sunday bright, Tek a run up deh When 'bout eight o'clock at night Things are extra gay : Ef you want to see it cram', Wait tell night is dark, An' beneat' your breat' you'll damn Coney Island Park. night When you want see gals look fine, You mus' go up dere, An' you'll see them drinkin' wine An' all sorts o' beer : There you'll see them walkin' out, Each wid a young man, Watch them strollin' all about, Flirtin' all dem can. When you want hear coarsest jokes Passin' rude an' vile, Want to see de Kingston blokes,— Go up dere awhile: When you want hear murderin' On de piano, An' all sorts o' drunken din, Papine you mus' go. Ef you want lost póliceman, Go dere Sunday night, Where you'll see them, every one Lookin' smart an' bright : Policeman of every rank, Rural ones an' all, In de bar or on de bank, Each one in them sall. Policeman dat's in his beat, Policeman widout, Policeman wid him gold teet' Shinin' in him mout'; Policeman in uniform Made of English blue, P'liceman gettin' rather warm, Sleuth policeman too. Policeman on plain clo'es pass, Also dismissed ones; See them standin' in a mass, Talkin' 'bout them plans: Policeman "struck off de strengt' Physical unfit," Hear them chattin' dere at lengt' 'Bout a diffran' kit. When you want meet a surprise, Tek de Papine track; Dere some things will meet you' eyes Mek you tu'n you' bac: When you want to see mankind Of "class "family In a way degra' them mind, Go 'p deh, you will see. When you want a pleasant drive, Tek Hope Gardens line; I can tell you, man alive, It is jolly fine: Ef you want to feel de fun, You mus' only wait Until when you're comin' do'n An' de tram is late. road condition affect trainaffect train +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author McKay, Claude Genre Poetry Journal or Book Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay Publisher Harcourt , Brace and Company Year of Publication 1922 Pages 43 Additional information - The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills. Almost the mighty city is asleep, No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet. But here and there a few cars groaning creep Along, above, and underneath the street, Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by, The women and the men of garish nights, Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry, Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights. The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York. And I go darkly-rebel to my work. city urban car metaphor sound personificationcar metaphor sound personification +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author McKay, Claude Genre Poetry Journal or Book Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay Publisher Harcourt , Brace and Company Year of Publication 1922 Pages 55 Additional information - No engines shrieking rescue storm the night, And hose and hydrant cannot here avail; The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light, And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale. The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls, And the big building bends and twists and groans. A bar drops from its place; a rafter falls Burning the flowers. The wind in frenzy moans. The watchers gaze, held wondering by the fire, The dwellers cry their sorrow to the crowd, The flames beyond themselves rise higher, higher, To lose their glory in the frowning cloud, Yielding at length the last reluctant breath. And where life lay asleep broods darkly death. engine night deathy death. engine night death +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author McKay, Claude Genre Poetry Journal or Book Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems Publisher Grant Richards Ltd Year of Publication 1920 Pages 18 Additional information - About me young and careless feet Linger along the garish street; Above, a hundred shouting signs Shed down their bright fantastic glow Upon the merry crowd and lines Of moving carriages below: O wonderful is Broadway—only My heart, my heart is lonely. urban Desire naked, linked with Passion, Goes strutting by in brazen fashion; From playhouse, cabaret and inn The rainbow lights of Broadway blaze All gay without, all glad within; As in a dream I stand and gaze At Broadway, shining Broadway—only My heart, my heart is lonely. urban is lonely. urban +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author McKay, Claude Genre Poetry Journal or Book Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems Publisher London Grant Richards Ltd Year of Publication 1920 Pages 36-37 Additional information - The tired cars go grumbling by, The moaning, groaning cars, And the old milk carts go rumbling by Under the same dull stars. Out of the tenements, cold as stone, Dark figures start for work; I watch them sadly shuffle on, ‘Tis dawn, dawn in New York. car anthropomorphism personification sound sky urban But I would be on the island of the sea, In the heart of the island of the sea, Where the cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing, And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree, Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn, And the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing, And dear old Ned is braying, braying, braying, And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously! There, oh there! on the island of the sea There I would be at dawn. The tired cars go grumbling by, The crazy, lazy cars, And the same milk-carts go rumbling by Under the dying stars. A lonely newsboy hurries by, Humming a recent ditty; Red streaks strike through the gray of the sky, The dawn comes to the city. personification sound car urban sky But I would be on the island of the sea, In the heart of the island of the sea, Where the cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing, And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree, Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn, And the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing, And dear old Ned is braying, braying, braying, And the shaggy Nannie goat is calling, calling, calling From her little trampled corner of the long wide lea That stretches to the waters of the hill-stream falling Sheer upon the flat rocks joyously! There, oh there! on the island of the sea There I would be at dawn.the sea There I would be at dawn. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Moore, Marianne Genre Poetry Journal or Book Observations Publisher - Year of Publication 1924 Pages - Additional information - They answer one’s questions, a deal table compact with the wall; in this dried bone of arrangement one’s “natural promptness” is compressed, not crowded out; one’s style is not lost in such simplicity. The palace furniture, so old-fashioned, so old-fashionable; Sèvres china and the fireplace dogs— bronze dromios with pointed ears, as obsolete as pugs; one has one’s preferences in the matter of bad furniture, and this is not one’s choice, The vast indestructible necropolis of composite Yawman-Erbe separable units; the steel, the oak, the glass, the Poor Richard publications containing the public secrets of efficiency on paper so thin that “one thousand four hundred and twenty pages make one inch,” exclaiming, so to speak, When you take my time, you take something I had meant to use; the highway hid by fir trees in rhododendron twenty feet deep, the peacocks, hand-forged gates, old Persian velvet, roses outlined in pale black on an ivory ground, the pierced iron shadows of the cedars, Chinese carved glass, old Waterford, lettered ladies; landscape gardening twisted into permanence; highway infrastructure plant tree garden straight lines over such great distances as one finds in Utah or in Texas, where people do not have to be told that a good brake is as important as a good motor; where by means of extra sense-cells in the skin they can, like trout, smell what is coming— those cool sirs with the explicit sensory apparatus of common sense, who know the exact distance between two points as the crow flies; there is something attractive about a mind that moves in a straight line— the municipal bat roost of mosquito warfare; the American string quartet; these are questions more than answers, road car part car haptic smell sense and Bluebeard’s Tower above the coral reefs, the magic mousetrap closing on all points of the compass, capping like petrified surf the furious azure of the bay, where there is no dust, and life is like a lemon leaf, a green piece of tough translucent parchment, where the crimson, the copper, and the Chinese vermilion of the poincianas set fire to the masonry and turquoise blues refute the clock; this dungeon with odd notions of hospitality, with its “chessmen carved out of moonstones,” its mockingbirds, fringed lilies, and hibiscus, its black butterflies with blue half circles on their wings, tan goats with onyx ears, its lizards glittering and without thickness, like splashes of fire and silver on the pierced turquoise of the lattices and the acacia-like lady shivering at the touch of a hand, lost in a small collision of the orchids— dyed quicksilver let fall to disappear like an obedient chameleon in fifty shades of mauve and amethyst. Here where the mind of this establishment has come to the conclusion that it would be impossible to revolve about oneself too much, sophistication has, “like an escalator,” “cut the nerve of progress.” technology In these noncommittal, personal-impersonal expressions of appearance, the eye knows what to skip; the physiognomy of conduct must not reveal the skeleton; “a setting must not have the air of being one,” yet with X-ray-like inquisitive intensity upon it, the surfaces go back; the interfering fringes of expression are but a stain on what stands out, there is neither up nor down to it; we see the exterior and the fundamental structure— captains of armies, cooks, carpenters, cutlers, gamesters, surgeons and armorers, lapidaries, silkmen, glovers, fiddlers and ballad singers, sextons of churches, dyers of black cloth, hostlers and chimney-sweeps, queens, countesses, ladies, emperors, travelers and mariners, dukes, princes and gentlemen, in their respective places— camps, forges and battlefields, conventions, oratories and wardrobes, dens, deserts, railway stations, asylums and places where engines are made, shops, prisons, brickyards and altars of churches— in magnificent places clean and decent, castles, palaces, dining halls, theaters and imperial audience chambers. technology factory infrastructure engine car part +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Murphy, Thomas D. Genre Non-Fiction Journal or Book On Sunset Highways Publisher - Year of Publication 1921 Pages 1-18 Additional information - construction infrastructure West I. A Motor Paradise [ edit ] California! The very name had a strange fascination for me ere I set foot on the soil of the Golden State. Its romantic story and the enthusiasm of those who had made the (to me) wonderful journey to the favored country by the great ocean of the West had interested and delighted me as a child, though I thought of it then as some dim, far-away El Dorado that lay on the borders of fairyland. My first visit was not under circumstances tending to dissolve the spell, for it was on my wedding trip that I first saw the land of palms and flowers, orange groves, snowy mountains, sunny beaches, and blue seas, and I found little to dispel the rosy dreams I had preconceived. This was long enough ago to bring a great proportion of the growth and progress of the state within the scope of my own experience. We saw Los Angeles, then an aspiring town of forty thousand, giving promise of the truly metropolitan city it has since become; Pasadena was a straggling village; and around the two towns were wide areas of open country now teeming with ambitious suburbs. We visited never-to-be-forgotten Del Monte and saw the old San Francisco ere fire and quake had swept away its most distinctive and romantic features—the Nob Hill palaces and old-time Chinatown. Some years intervened between this and our second visit, when we found the City of the Angels a thriving metropolis with hundreds of palatial structures and the most perfect system of interurban transportation to be found anywhere, while its northern rival had risen from debris and ashes in serried ranks of concrete and steel. A tour of the Yosemite gave us new ideas of California's scenic grandeur; there began to dawn on us vistas of the endless possibilities that the Golden State offers to the tourist and we resolved on a longer sojourn at the first favorable opportunity. city infrastructure urban A week's stay in Los Angeles and a free use of the Pacific Electric gave us a fair idea of the city and its lesser neighbors, but we found ourselves longing for the country roads and retired nooks of mountain and beach inaccessible by railway train and tram car. We felt we should never be satisfied until we had explored this wonderland by motor—which the experience of three long tours in Europe had proved to us the only way to really see much of a country in the limits of a summer vacation. affect car driving mountain nostalgia road And so it chanced that a year or two later we found ourselves on the streets of Los Angeles with our trusty friend of the winged wheels, intent on exploring the nooks and corners of Sunset Land. We wondered why we had been so long in coming—why we had taken our car three times to Europe before we brought it to California; and the marvel grew on us as we passed out of the streets of the city on to the perfect boulevard that led through green fields to the western Venice by the sea. It is of the experience of the several succeeding weeks and of a like tour during the two following years that this unpretentious chronicle has to deal. And my excuse for inditing it must be that it is first of all a chronicle of a motor car; for while books galore have been written on California by railroad and horseback travelers as well as by those who pursued the leisurely and good old method of the Franciscan fathers, no one, so far as I know, has written of an extended experience at the steering wheel of our modern annihilator of distance. car city coast infrastructure road road condition scenery urban It seems a little strange, too, for Southern California is easily the motorist’s paradise over all other places on this mundane sphere. It has more cars to the population—twice over—and they are in use a greater portion of the year than in any other section of similar size in the world and probably more outside cars are to be seen on its streets and highways than in any other locality in the United States. The matchless climate and the ever-increasing mileage of fine roads, with the endless array of places worth visiting, insure the maximum of service and pleasure to the fortunate owner of a car, regardless of its name-plate or pedigree. The climate needs no encomiums from me, for is it not heralded and descanted upon by all true Californians and by every wayfarer, be his sojourn ever so brief?—but a few words on the wonders already achieved in roadbuilding and the vast plans for the immediate future will surely be of interest. I am conscious that any data concerning the progress of California are liable to become obsolete overnight, as it were, but if I were to confine myself to the unchanging in this vast commonwealth, there would be little but the sea and the mountains to write about. car construction highway infrastructure road Southwest sublime traffic Los Angeles County was the leader in good roads construction and at the time of which I write had completed about three hundred and fifty miles of modern highway at a cost of nearly five million dollars. I know of nothing in Europe superior—and very little equal—to the splendid system of macadam boulevards that radiate from the Queen City of the Southwest. The asphalted surface is smooth and dustless and the skill of the engineer is everywhere evident. There are no heavy grades; straight lines or long sweeping curves prevail throughout. Added to this is a considerable mileage of privately constructed road built by land improvement companies to promote various tracts about the city, one concern alone having spent more than half a million dollars in this work. Further additions are projected by the county and an excellent maintenance plan has been devised, for the authorities have wisely recognized that the upkeep of these splendid roads is a problem equal in importance with building them. This, however, is not so serious a matter as in the East, owing to the absence of frost, the great enemy of roads of this type. asphalt construction infrastructure road road condition risk Southwest urban Since the foregoing paragraph was first published (1915) the good work has gone steadily on and despite the sharp check that the World War administered to public enterprises, Los Angeles County has materially added to and improved her already extensive mileage of modern roads. A new boulevard connects the beach towns between Redondo and Venice; a marvelous scenic road replaces the old-time trail in Topango Canyon and the new Hollywood Mountain Road is one of the most notable achievements of highway engineering in all California. Many new laterals have been completed in the level section about Downey and Artesia and numerous boulevards opened in the foothill region. Besides all this the main highways have been improved and in some cases—as of Long Beach Boulevard—entirely rebuilt. In the city itself there has been vast improvement and extension of the streets and boulevards so that more than ever this favored section deserves to be termed the paradise of the motorist. city construction highway infrastructure pleasure road road condition San Diego County has set a like example in this good work, having expended a million and a half on her highways and authorized a bond issue of two and one-half millions more, none of which has been as yet expended. While the highways of this county do not equal the model excellence of those of Los Angeles County, the foundation of a splendid system has been laid. Here the engineering problem was a more serious one, for there is little but rugged hills within the boundaries of the county. Other counties are in various stages of highway building; still others have bond issues under consideration—and it is safe to say that when this book comes from the press there will not be a county in Southern California that has not begun permanent road improvement on its own account. highway infrastructure road condition I say “on its own account” because whatever it may do of its own motion, nearly every county in the state is assured of considerable mileage of the new state highway system, now partially completed, while the remainder is under construction or located and surveyed. The first bond issue of eighteen million dollars was authorized by the state several years ago, a second issue of fifteen millions was voted in 1916, and another of forty millions a year later, making in all seventy-three millions, of which, at this writing, thirty-nine millions is unexpended. Counties have issued about forty-two millions more. It is estimated that to complete the full highway program the state must raise one hundred millions additional by bond issues. construction highway infrastructure law The completed system contemplates two great trunk lines from San Diego to the Oregon border, one route roughly following the coast and the other well inland, while lateral branches are to connect all county seats not directly reached. Branches will also extend to the Imperial Valley and along the Eastern Sierras as far as Independence and in time across the Cajon Pass through the Mohave Desert to Needles on the Colorado River. California's wealth of materials (granite, sand, limestone, and asphaltum) and their accessibility should give the maximum mileage for money expended. This was estimated by a veteran Pittsburgh highway contractor whom I chanced to meet in the Yosemite, at fully twice as great as could be built in his locality for the same expenditure. desert law mountain reasources road California was a pioneer in improved roads and it is not strange that mistakes were made in some of the earlier work, chiefly in building roadways too narrow and too light to stand the constantly increasing heavy traffic. The Automobile Club of Southern California, in conjunction with the State Automobile Association, recently made an exhaustive investigation and report of existing highway conditions which should do much to prevent repetition of mistakes in roads still to be built. The State Highway Commission, while admitting that some of the earlier highways might better have been built heavier and wider, points out that this would have cut the mileage at least half; and also that at the time these roads were contracted for, the extent that heavy trucking would assume was not fully realized. Work on new roads was generally suspended during the war and is still delayed by high costs and the difficulty of selling bonds. construction highway infrastructure road road condition traffic At this writing (1921) the two trunk lines from San Diego to San Francisco are practically completed and the motorist between these points, whether on coast or inland route, may pursue the even tenor of his way over the smooth, dustless, asphalted surface at whatever speed he may consider prudent, though the limit of thirty-five miles now allowed in the open country under certain restrictions leaves little excuse for excessive speeding. It is not uncommon to make the trip over the inland route, about six hundred and fifty miles, in three days, while a day longer should be allowed for the coast run. asphalt driver driving highway law road condition speed In parts where the following narrative covers our tours made before much of the new road was finished, I shall not alter my descriptions and they will afford the reader an opportunity of comparing the present improved highways with conditions that existed only yesterday, as it were. Road improvement has been active in the northern counties for several years, especially around San Francisco. I have gone into the details concerning this section in my book on Oregon and Northern California, and will not repeat the matter here, since the scope of this work must be largely confined to the south. It is no exaggeration, however, to say that to-day California is unsurpassed by any other state in mileage and excellence of improved roads and when the projects under way are carried out she will easily take first rank in these important particulars unless more competition develops than is now apparent. Thus she supplies the first requisite for the motor enthusiast, though some may declare her matchless climate of equal advantage to the tourist. construction road condition If the motor enthusiast of the Golden State can take no credit to himself for the climate, he is surely entitled to no end of credit for the advanced state of affairs in public highway improvement. In proportion to the population he is more numerous in Southern California than anywhere else in the world, and we might therefore expect to find a strong and effective organization of motorists in Los Angeles. In this we are not disappointed, for the Automobile Club of Southern California has a membership of more than fifty thousand; it was but seven thousand when the first edition of this book was printed in 1915—a growth which speaks volumes for its strides in public appreciation. Its territory comprises only half a single state, yet its membership surpasses that of its nearest rival by more than two to one. It makes no pretense at being a “‘social’’ club, all its energies being devoted to promoting the welfare and interests of the motorist in its field of action, and so important and far-reaching are its activities that the benefits it confers on the car owners of Southern California are by no means limited to the membership. Practically every owner and driver of a car is indebted to the club in more ways than I can enumerate and as this fact has gained recognition the membership has increased by leaps and bounds. I remember when the sense of obligation to become a member was forced upon me by the road signs which served me almost hourly when touring and this is perhaps the feature of the club’s work which first impresses the newcomer. Everywhere in the southern half of California and even on a transcontinental highway the familiar white diamond-shaped signboard greets one’s sight—often a friend in need, saving time and annoyance. The maps prepared and supplied by the club were even a greater necessity and this service has been amplified and extended until it not only covers every detail of the highways and byways of California, but also includes the main roads of adjacent states and one transcontinental route as well. These maps are frequently revised and up-to-the-minute road information may always be had by application to the Touring Department of the club. highway infrastructue map navigation road traffic sign When we planned our first tour, at a time when road conditions were vastly different from what they are now, our first move was to seek the assistance of this club, which was readily given as a courtesy to a visiting motorist. The desired information was freely and cheerfully supplied, but I could not help feeling, after experiencing so many benefits from the work of the club, that I was under obligations to become a member. And I am sure that even the transient motorist, though he plans a tour of but a few weeks, will be well repaid—and have a clearer conscience—should his first move be to take membership in this live organization. We found the club an unerring source of information as to the most practicable route to take on a proposed tour, the best way out of the city, and the general condition of the roads to be covered. The club is also an authority on hotels, garages and “objects of interest’’ generally in the territory covered by its activities. Besides the main organization, which occupies its own building at Adams and Figueroa Streets, Los Angeles, there are numerous branch offices in the principal towns of the counties of Southern California, which in their localities can fulfill most of the functions of the club. The club maintains a department of free legal advice and its membership card is generally sufficient bail for members charged with violating the speed or traffic regulations. It is always willing to back its members to the limit when the presumption of being right is in their favor, but it has no sympathy with the reckless joy rider and lawbreaker and does all it can to discourage such practices. It has been a powerful influence in obtaining sane and practical motor car legislation, such as raising the speed limit in the open country to thirty-five miles per hour, and providing severer penalties against theft of motor cars. One of the most valuable services of the club has been its relentless pursuit and prosecution of motor car thieves and the recovery of a large percentage of stolen cars. In fact, Los Angeles stands at the head of the large cities of the country in a minimum of net losses of cars by theft and the club can justly claim credit for this. The club has also done much to abate the former scandalous practices of many towns in fixing a very low speed limit with a view of helping out local finances by collecting heavy fines. This is now regulated by state laws and the motorist who is willing to play fair with the public will not suffer much annoyance. The efforts of the club to eliminate what it considers double taxation of its members who must pay both a horse power fee and a heavy property tax were not successful, but the California motorist has the consolation of knowing that all taxes, fines and fees affecting the motor car go to the good cause of road maintenance. accident car driver law risk speed Another important service rendered by the club is the insurance of its members against all the hazards connected with operation of an automobile. Fire, theft, liability, collision, etc., are written practically at cost. The club also maintains patrol and trouble cars which respond free of cost to members in difficulty. law risk Besides all this, the club deserves much credit for the advanced position of California in highway improvement. It has done much to create the public sentiment which made the bond issues possible and it has rendered valuable assistance in surveying and building the new roads. It has kept in constant touch with the State Highway Commission and its superior knowledge of the best and shortest routes has been of great service in locating the new state roads. My story is to deal with several sojourns in the Sunset State during the months of April and May of consecutive years. We shipped our car by rail in care of a Los Angeles garage and so many follow this practice that the local agents are prepared to receive and properly care for the particular machines which they represent and several freight-for-warding companies also make a specialty of this service. On our arrival our car was ready for the road and it proved extremely serviceable in getting us located. Los Angeles is the logical center from which to explore the southern half of the state and we were fortunate in securing a furnished house in a good part of the city without much delay. We found a fair percentage of the Los Angeles population ready to move out on short notice and to turn over to us their homes and everything in them—for a consideration, of course. car garage train On our second sojourn in the city we varied things by renting furnished apartments, of which there are an endless number and variety to choose from, and if this plan did not prove quite so satisfactory and comfortable as the house, it was less expensive. We also had experience on several later occasions with numerous hotels—Los Angeles, as might be expected, is well supplied with hotels of all degrees of merit—but our experience in pre-war days would hardly be representative of the present time, especially when rates are considered. The Alexandria and Angelus were—and doubtless are—up to the usual metropolitan standards of service and comfort, with charges to correspond. The Gates, where we stopped much longer, was a cleanly and comfortable hotel with lower rates and represents a large class of similar establishments such as the Clark, the Stillwell, the Trinity, the Hayward, the Roslyn, the Savoy, and many others. One year we tried the Leighton, which is beautifully located on Westlake Park and typical of several outlying hotels that afford more quiet and greater convenience for parking and handling one’s car than can be found in the business district. Others in this class are the Darby, the Hershey Arms, the Hollywood, and the Alvarado. Los Angeles, for all its preeminence as a tourist city, was long without a resort hotel of the first magnitude, leaving the famous Pasadena hostelries such as the Green, Raymond, Maryland and Huntington, to cater to the class of patrons who do not figure costs in their quest for the luxurious in hotel service. This shortage was supplied in 1920 by the erection of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard—one of the largest resort hotels in the world. The building is surrounded by spacious grounds and the property is said to represent an investment of $5,000,000. It is one of the “objects of interest’’ in Los Angeles and will be visited by many tourists who may not care to pay the price to become regular guests. After our experience with hotels, apartments and rented houses, we finally acquired a home of our own in the “Queen City of the Southwest,” which, of course, is the most satisfactory plan of all, though not necessarily the cheapest. city construction infrastructure parking Prior to the Great War Los Angeles had the reputation of being a place where one could live well at very moderate cost and hotels and restaurants gave the very best for little money. This was all sadly changed in the wave of profiteering during and following the war. The city acquired a rather unenviable reputation for charging the tourist all the traffic would bear—and sometimes a little more—until finally Government statistics ranked Los Angeles number one in the cost of living among cities of its class. The city council undertook to combat the tendency to “grab” by passing an ordinance limiting the percentage of rental an owner might charge on his property—a move naturally contested in the courts. At this writing, however, (1921), the tendency of prices is distinctly downward and this may reasonably be expected to continue until a fair basis is reached. It is not likely, however, that pre-war prices will ever return on many items, but it is certain that Los Angeles will again take rank as a city where one may live permanently or for a time at comparatively moderate cost. Public utilities of the city never advanced their prices to compare with private interests. You can still ride miles on a street car for a nickel and telephone, gas and electric concerns get only slightly higher rates than before the war. Taxes have advanced by leaps and bounds, but are frequently excused by pointing out that nowhere do you get so much for your tax money as in California. Naturally, the automobile and allied industries loom large in Los Angeles. Garages from the most palatial and perfectly equipped to the veriest hole-in-the-wall abound in all parts of the town. Prices for service and repairs vary greatly but the level is high—probably one hundred per cent above pre-war figures. Competition, however, is strong and the tendency is downward; but only a general wage lowering can bring back the old-time prices. Gasoline is generally cheaper than in the East, while other supplies cost about the same. The second-hand car business has reached vast proportions, many dealers occupying vacant lots where old cars of all models and degrees brave the sun—and sometimes the rain—while waiting for a purchaser. Cars are sold with agreement to buy back at the end of a tour and are rented without driver to responsible parties. You do not have to bring your own car to enjoy a motor tour in California; in fact this practice is not so common as it used to be except in case of the highest-grade cars. car garage gasoline infrastructure maintenance Another plan is to drive your own car from your Eastern home to California and sell it when ready to go back. This was done very satisfactorily during the period of the car shortage and high prices for used cars following the war, but under normal conditions would likely involve considerable sacrifice. The ideal method for the motorist who has the time and patience is to make the round trip to California in his own car, coming, say, over the Lincoln Highway and returning over the Santa Fe Trail or vice versa, according to the time of the year. The latter averages by far the best of the transcontinental roads and is passable for a greater period of the year than any other. In fact, it is an all-year-round route except for the Raton Pass in New Mexico, and this may be avoided by a detour into Texas. This route has been surveyed and signed by the Automobile Club of Southern California and is being steadily improved, especially in the Western states. driving East highway train Although California has perhaps the best all-the-year-round climate for motoring, it was our impression that the months of April and May are the most delightful for extensive touring. The winter rains will have ceased—though we found our first April and a recent May notable exceptions—and there is more freedom from the dust that becomes troublesome in some localities later in the summer. The country will be at its best—snow-caps will still linger on the higher mountains; the foothills will be green and often varied with great dashes of color—white, pale yellow, blue, or golden yellow, as some particular wild flower gains the mastery. The orange groves will be laden with golden globes and sweet with blossoms, and the roses and other cultivated flowers will still be in their prime. The air will be balmy and pleasant during the day, with a sharp drop towards evening that makes it advisable to keep a good supply of wraps in the car. An occasional shower will hardly interfere with one’s going, even on the unimproved country road. driving plant pleasure rain road road condition scenery sublime summer winter For there is still unimproved country road, despite all I have said in praise of the new highways. A great deal of our touring was over roads seldom good at their best and often quite impassable during the heavy winter rains. There were stretches of “adobe” to remind us of “gumbo” at home; there were miles of heavy sand and there were rough, stone-strewn trails hardly deserving to be called roads at all! These defects are being mended with almost magical rapidity, but California is a vast state and with all her progress it will be years before all her counties attain the Los Angeles standard. We found many primitive bridges and oftener no bridges at all, since in the dry season there is no difficulty in fording the hard-bottom streams, and not infrequently the streams themselves had vanished. But in winter these same streams are often raging torrents that defy crossing for days at a time. During the summer and early autumn months the dust will be deep on unimproved roads and some of the mountain passes will be difficult on this account. So it is easy to see that even California climate does not afford ideal touring conditions the year round. Altogether, the months of April, May, and June afford the best average of roads and weather, despite the occasional showers that one may expect during the earlier part of this period. It is true that during these months a few of the mountain roads will be closed by snow, but one can not have everything his own way, and I believe the beauty of the country and climate at this time will more than offset any enforced omissions. The trip to Yosemite is not practical during this period over existing routes, though it is to be hoped the proposed all-the-year road will be a reality before long. The Lake Tahoe road is seldom open before the middle of June, and this delightful trip can not be taken during the early spring unless the tourist is content with the railway trains. adobe bridge construction infrastructure mountain rain risk road road condition snow spring summer weather winter Our several tours in California aggregated more than thirty thousand miles and extended from Tia Juana to the Oregon border. The scope of this volume, however, is confined to the southern half of the state and the greater part of it deals with the section popularly known as Southern California—the eight counties lying south of Tehachapi Pass. Of course we traversed some roads several times, but we visited most of the interesting points of the section—with some pretty strenuous trips, as will appear in due course of my narrative. We climbed many mountains, visited the endless beaches, stopped at the famous hotels, and did not miss a single one of the twenty or more old Spanish missions. We saw the orange groves and palms of Riverside and Redlands, the great oaks of Paso Robles, the queer old cypresses of Monterey, the Torrey Pines of LaJolla, the lemon groves of San Diego, the vast wheatfields of the San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys, the cherry orchards of San Mateo, the great vineyards of the Napa and Santa Rosa Valleys, the lonely beauty of Clear Lake Valley, the giant trees of Santa Cruz, the Yosemite Valley, Tahoe, the gem of mountain lakes, the blossoming desert of Imperial, and a thousand other things that make California an enchanted land. And the upshot of it all was that we fell in love with the Golden State—so much in love with it that what I set down may be tinged with prejudice; but what story of California is free from this amiable defect? agriculture architecture lake plains mountain road road side scenery Southwest topography tree +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Newsome, Mary Effie Lee Genre Poetry Journal or Book Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers Publisher Harper & Row Year of Publication 1927 Pages 26 Additional information - The baker's boy delivers loaves All up and down our street. His car is white, his clothes are white, White to his very feet. I wonder if he stays that way. I don't see how he does all day. I’d like to watch him going home When all the loaves are out. His clothes must look quite different then, At least I have no doubt. car road whitenessdoubt. car road whiteness +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Oppenheim, James Genre Poetry Journal or Book Songs for the New Age Publisher The Century Co. Year of Publication 1914 Pages 115-116 Additional information - Starless and still... Who stopped this heart? Who bound this city in a trance? With open eyes the sleeping houses stare at the Park: And among nude boughs the slumbering hanging moons are gazing: And somnambulant drops of melting snow glide from the roofs and patter on the pave... I in a dream draw the echoes of my footfall silvery sharp... Sleep-walking city! Who are the wide-eyed prowlers in the night? What nightmare-ridden cars move through their own far thunder? What living death of the wind rises, crackling the drowsy twigs? urban car personification sound In the enchantment of the ebb of life, In the miracle of millions stretched in their rooms unconscious and breathing, In the sleep of the broadcast people, In the multitude of dreams rising from the houses, I pause, frozen in a spell. We sleep in the eternal arms of night: We give ourselves, in the heart of peril, To sheer unconsciousness: Silently sliding through space, the huge globe turns. I cannot go: I dream that behind a window one wakes, a woman: She is thinking of me.ne wakes, a woman: She is thinking of me. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Oppenheim, James Genre Poetry Journal or Book Songs for the New Age Publisher The Century Co. Year of Publication 1914 Pages 7-8 Additional information - Why did you hate to be by yourself, And why were you sick of your own company? Such the question, and this the answer: I feared sublimity: I was a little afraid of God: Silence and space terrified me, bringing the thought of what an irritable clod I was and how soon death would gulp me down... This fear has reared cities: The cowards flock together by the millions lest they should be left alone for a half hour... With church, theater and school, With office, mill and motor, With a thousand cunning devices, and clever calls to each other, They escape from themselves to the crowd... urban car engine technology Oh, I have loved it all: Snug rooms, the talk, the pleasant feast, the pictures: The warm bath of humanity in which I relaxed and soaked myself: And never, I hope, shall I be without it—at times... But now myself calls me... The skies demand me, though it is but ten in the morning: The earth has an appointment with me, not to be broken... I must accustom myself to the gaunt face of the Sub- time... I must see what I really am, and what I am for, And what this city is for, and the Earth and the stars in their hurry... To turn out typewriters, To invent a new breakfast food, To devise a dance that was never danced until now, To urge a new sanitation, and a swifter automobile— Have the life-surging heavens no business but this? car technology? car technology +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Oppenheim, James Genre Poetry Journal or Book Songs for the New Age Publisher The Century Co. Year of Publication 1914 Pages 83-84 Additional information - You and I in the night, spied on by stars... You and I in the belovéd night... You and I within these walls. A breath from the sea is kissing the housetops of the city, Kissing the roofs, And dying into silence. Earth and stars are in a trance, They dream of passion, but cannot break their sleep. They pass into us, and we are their passion, we are their madness, So shaped that we can kiss and clasp... One kiss, then death, the miracle being spent. Watchman, what of the night? Sleep and birth! Toil and death! Now the light of the topmost tower winks red and ceases: Now the lonely car echoes afar off... Helen looked over the wine-dark seas of Greece, and she was young. But not younger than we, touching each other, while dawn delays... car sound night intertext Dare we betray this moment? Dare we die, missing this fire? Whither goes massive Earth tonight, flying with the stars down eternity? We are alive: we are for each other.e are alive: we are for each other. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Oppenheim, James Genre Poetry Journal or Book Songs for the New Age Publisher The Century Co. Year of Publication 1914 Pages 90-91 Additional information - city urban Where may she of the hall bedroom hold the love-hour? In what sweet privacy find her soul before the face of the belovéd? And the kiss that lifts her from the noise of the shop, And the bitter carelessness of the streets? Neither is there garden nor secret parlor for her: And cruel winter has spoiled the shores of the sea; The benches in the park are laden with melting snow, And the bedroom forbidden... But ah, the love of a woman! She will not be cheated! Up the stoop she went to the vestibule of the house, And beckoned to me to come to that darkness of doors: Here in a crevice of the public city the love-hour was spent... Outside rumbled the cars between drifts of the gas-lit snow, And the footsteps fell of the wanderers in the night... Within, the dark house slept... But we, in our little cave, stood, and saw in the gleaming dark Shine of each other’s eyes, and the flutter of wisps of hair, And our words were breathlessly sweet, and our kisses silent... car sound night snow Where is there rose-garden, Where is there balcony among the cedars and pines, Where is there moonlit clearing in the dumb wilderness, Enchanted as this doorway, dark in the glare of the city?ark in the glare of the city? +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 104 Additional information - Every man from day to day Should save a portion of his pay. If what you save is only small, Still it’s more than none at all. There’s not a man who doesn’t know, To pay is better as you go. You'll find if you do not keep up, You'll be forever on the jump. It’s not the savings that you make That turn into a rich man’s stake. It’s lessons soundly learned of thrift, That are to you a priceless gift. Do not discouraged ever be Because the end you cannot see. Many possessing the lion’s part, Had to make the poor man’s start. If some investments have not paid, From the savings you have made, The gift for thrift to you He gave, You cannot lose if still you save. The man who says no use at all, Because his pay is only small, Will say the same when multiplied, For saving he has never tried. Just save a five and then a ten, And when you add some more again, You’re bound to make your saving score, Each little makes a little more. A motor car is like a man, Some cannot save and others can, The one of all that saves the most, It’s Studebaker’s right to boast. car car model metaphor pleasure safety —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 131-132 Additional information - In years of yore it made us sore, When teacher called our name, And said next Friday afternoon, You’re one that must declaim. Now we were always timid quite, To stand before the school, But declamations once a week, Was teacher’s golden rule. There’s nothing to declaim about, We then did fairly shout. Then teacher said with nasty flout, Keep still or you go out. But teacher loaned us many books, And all she did indorse, And that is how we came to tell The school about the horse. One book had pictures and a tale That sounded very fine, But we could never memorize No more than just a Iine, We then proceeded right away To join a horses’ band, And study horses in their play, And learn them out of hand. We then declaimed to all the school, Don’t take us for a fool, We find the horse is good to work, And bigger than a mule. He has two eyes so very keen, They see when you are coming, In front two feet and two behind, That move when he is running. He has two ears with which he hears, And tail to scare the flies, Sometimes he balks but never talks, By eating he survives. Some are bay and some are gray, And some of color muggy, The big and tall look best of all, In a Studebaker buggy. equipment car model If we again had to declaim And take a teacher’s jars, We'd tell you all about mistakes Of certain motor cars. We’d tell it true in words a few, The car of any maker, Is one we sell, the best for you, And made by Studebaker. car car model —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 24 Additional information - Somebody said it can't be done, Salaries to all and commissions none. We smiled till tears were in our eyes, For can't is a word we do despise. We have done the thing that couldn't be done. Somebody scoffed it can't be done, Seven per cent to every last one. No compound rate or broker's fee, Will send you sure into bankruptcy. We have done the thing that couldn't be done. Somebody sneered it can't be done, Carry your paper for each mother's son. You can't collect, your loss run high, Let broker and banker cut the pie. We have done the thing that couldn't be done. Somebody croaked it can't be done, Service by night without the sun. Expenses great will bring you ruin, We heard them not with all their wooin'. We have done the thing that couldn't be done. Somebody mocked it can't be done, Back with you name the cars that 'ave run. Your profits will in them surely go, The public be d—d so take them low. We have done the thing that couldn't be done. car Somebody gibed it can't be done, This thing and that and the other one. So we took off our coat and defied the whole ring, And we started to sing as we tackled the thing. We have done the thing that couldn't be done. Some people live neath clouds of dread And never see a single star. Happier, they would be, if dead And riding in a Studebaker Car. car model —The Car with Character. —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 240 Additional information - sublime technology You may have your blooded speeding horse, We have given him up without remorse. The glory that all the nerves can feel, Is in a Six Studebaker wheel. car car model car part The swift and silent pedal machine, We once considered no wise mean. O’er us its magic has ceased to steal, Since turning a Six Studebaker wheel. car part sound speed The rushing of racing motor boats, Our mind no longer on them dotes. Flying through water has not the appeal, Of a Six Studebaker steering wheel. car part metaphor There is joy in a limited fast express, If a first class ticket you possess. But you'll better enjoy an evening meal, From holding a Six Studebaker wheel. car part Give us the still California night, When the moon is full and shining bright. Then life to us is never so real, If turning a Six Studebaker wheel. car part sky time West With miles of road like polished floor, At sixty per and sometimes more, We glide with ease mid laughters peal, Safe at a Six Studebaker wheel. car part infrastructure pleasure road safety speed Like a panther leaping through the air, With plenty of power and some to spare, For a Six Studebaker more of zeal, You'll have when once you turn the wheel. car model car part metaphor We'll warrant your mind will quickly fill With thoughts for a Six so full of thrill. To drive the ideal Six Automobile, Get back of a Six Studebaker wheel. affect car car model car part metaphor —The Car with Character. —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 25 Additional information - nostalgia Nothing can make our heart so warm, As visions of where we first were born, As the memory of that first Christmas tree, Where the old homestead used to be. The smile and song and the merry laughter, That rang from the cellar clear to the rafter, Each loved one's face we yet can see, Where the old homestead used to be. The fires were burning the coals were glowing, From all of our hearts affection was flowing, In honor of Him was our Christmas tree, Where the old homestead used to be. Pictures of those long passed away, Hung on the walls and watched our play, They shared with us in all our glee, Where the old homestead used to be. Those hearts of the long ago we treasure, In the memory with unstinted measure, All gathered around that Christmas tree, Where the old homestead used to be. The beauty that gathered in that dominion, Was though it had dropped from angel pinion, For the birth of Him who made us free, Where the old homestead used to be. The place to us was one of splendor, And cherished yet in our memory tender, And the glory of that first Christmas tree, Where the old homestead used to be. Some day again we will see the place, And, too, in our memory each one's face, In a Six Studebaker so easy and free, Where the old homestead used to be. car model —The Car with Character. —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 38 Additional information - religion We know a good old Missouri town, Where "niggers" a-plenty live all around. On a little hill down near the mill, The "nigger" church is standing still. When we were there some years ago, This church each night gave quite a show. To enter the house we had to strive, For the building was packed to all revive. The snow outside the church was deep, Inside were shouts while some did weep. The preacher's voice above the din, Proclaimed to all their awful sin. He said, "I's read de Good Book thro', I's fahmiliar with all de ol' an' new. Now you's all bette' believe in dis story, If you's a gonna get yo' a home in glory." Just then a gal, big, black and tall, Shouted, "Fo' de story I sho' does fall. With de dev'l I's fightin' both day an' night, But with yo' story I's winnin' de fight." The preacher replied, "My siste' host, You's get on de side o' de Holy Ghost. He'll look down deep in yo' po' ol' heart, You'll sho' beat de dev'l if yo' do yo' part." "lf yo' read de Book fo' to get yo' light, Yo' can dodge de ol' dev'l an' keep out o' sight. Jus' read fo' to keep from makin' colleesions, 'Bout Paul with his 'pistle after the 'Phesians." "If yo' faith go to shakin' an' yo' go to slippin', Jus' read de Good Book without no skippin', De dev'l am swif', but yo' stick to yo' Maker, Yo' can beat him to glory in de Six Studebaker." car model —The Car with Character. —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 40 Additional information - If you are inclined to lament and say, There are no opportunities found today, With the rest of the world you're out of step, Your body and mind are short on pep. Opportunities once flew thick and fast, In years far in the distant past, You'll know they are here today, instead, If you read the lives of men that are dead. Read Abraham Lincoln, American, Enshrined in the heart of every man. He was born honest in humble obscurity, He made for himself his opportunity. To the White House and the President's chair, No American boy need have despair, There is nothing a boy can't overcome, With talent and energy making the run. Read Horace Greeley, in poverty born, His name does history's page adorn, Benjamin Franklin's life and deeds, Give inspiration for youthful needs. John Jacob Astor started poor, He peddled goods from door to door, Thomas Edison of our present day, Has traveled far along the way. These men did not lament and say, No opportunities are there today, By grit and ambition, pluck and skill, They made opportunity through, "I Will." Today is the golden day of days, Opportunity all around you plays, Much depends that you keep on a-trying, If you climb like Studebakers people are buying. car model —The Car with Character. —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 52 Additional information - At a certain round-table a good-natured bunch Of finest of fellows met daily for lunch. An hour’s interchange of thoughts and ideas, All would depart each feeling at ease. They talked of the weather careless and free, A topic on which they did all agree. When one would mention the income tax, It was an occasion to give it some whacks. Golf came in for a share of discussion, There’s nothing in golf to cause any fussin’, If business was good or if it was bad, They tackled the matter and never got mad. When they discussed our time parking limit, All were agreed on keeping within it. But when they brought up our boulevard stop, Not one but said it was all tommy-rot. parking slowness Around this table without any jars They freely debated on all motor cars. They praised or condemned without any heat, Each claiming his car did all others beat. car model Things they discussed to no one was vital, Subjects were chosen for safety of title Till they took up a question a million years old Of vital concern to every one’s soul. time Of God each took a different stand, Divided on Nature, Spirit and Man, While one did declare God didn’t exist, The good-natured bunch has since been missed. religion On most every subject when men don’t agree, They smile, shake hands and part cheerfully. There’s danger in topics of soul and heart, Talk Six Studebaker and friends you will part. car model —The Car with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 55 Additional information - It’s known to all to be the law, That interest should you wish to draw, On something that you have within, You first must put that something in. For you, your business does not pay, And you lament from day to day, You have not to your business given, That from which pay is deriven. Your goose it lays a golden egg, Marks up your interest just a peg, But feed, you must, your goose of old, If you would get your egg of gold. If interest in your church has died, It doesn’t revive although you’ve tried, Just ask yourself and look within To see what you are putting in. If your home is not going right, You stay out late most every night, You have no longer interest there, You’ve no investment worth the care. If you have brothers in your lodge, You now quite often try to dodge, Then your interest’s growing slim, You must put in if you would win. All through life as taught by Him, If you take out you must put in, It’s things you do for all about, You take your biggest interest out. With motor cars it’s just the same, What’s been put in comes out again. Now you can make your own deduction, From the Studebakers’ big production. car car model metaphor technology —The Car wih Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Reynolds, Elsbery Washington Genre Poetry Journal or Book AutoLine o'Type Publisher The Book Supply Company Year of Publication 1924 Pages 75 Additional information - efficiency Fortune comes through diligence and skill, There is always a way where there is a will, Industry of hand as well as of brain, Makes everything easy that’s worthy of gain. Our labor should always be well directed, No slighting for cause to be rejected. Genius may all great works begin, Labor’s the thing that makes them win. This rule is good for most every man, The more we do, the more we can. More busy we are, more leisure we have, For play to serve as our safety valve. The mind of man has been so made, That happiness in him will quickly fade, If slothful habits he does acquire, And industry is not his chief desire. Industry will our talents improve, Deficiencies from our abilities remove. With energies noble it is in accord, It brings to all its highest reward. Industry travels the road with joy, Duty is also along to convoy. There is no possible way to progress, If we no love for labor possess. The bread we earn by sweat of the brow, Is bread most blessed we must allow. It is far sweeter may all confess Than the tasteless loaf of idleness. As long as one lives and stirs all around, There’s food and dress for him to be found. Industry is said to be a health maker, We find it in selling the Six Studebaker. car model —The Car with Character.ar with Character. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Sandburg, Carl Genre Poetry Journal or Book Chicago Poems Publisher Henry Holt and Company Year of Publication 1916 Pages 52 Additional information - Riding against the east, A veering, steady shadow Purrs the motor-call Of the man-bird Ready with the death-laughter In his throat And in his heart always The love of the big blue beyond. driving personification zoomorphism sound Only a man, A far fleck of shadow on the east Sitting at ease With his hands on a wheel And around him the large gray wings. Hold him, great soft wings, Keep and deal kindly, O wings, With the cool, calm shadow at the wheel. car part drivert the wheel. car part driver +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Sandburg, Carl Genre Poetry Journal or Book Chicago Poems Publisher Henry Holt and Company Year of Publication 1916 Pages 96 Additional information - In the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires. In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not yet dreamed out in the heads of men. car car part engine risk sound technology In the old wars clutches of short swords and jabs into faces with spears. In the new wars long range guns and smashed walls, guns running a spit of metal and men falling in tens and twenties. In the wars to come new silent deaths, new silent hurlers not yet dreamed out in the heads of men. In the old wars kings quarreling and thousands of men following. In the new wars kings quarreling and millions of men following. In the wars to come kings kicked under the dust and millions of men following great causes not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.s not yet dreamed out in the heads of men. +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Sandburg, Carl Genre Poetry Journal or Book Chicago Poems Publisher Henry Holt and Company Year of Publication 1916 Pages 99 Additional information - I shall foot it Down the roadway in the dusk, Where shapes of hunger wander And the fugitives of pain go by. I shall foot it In the silence of the morning, See the night slur into dawn, Hear the slow great winds arise Where tall trees flank the way And shoulder toward the sky. metaphor pedestrian road sound sky tree wind The broken boulders by the road Shall not commemorate my ruin. Regret shall be the gravel under foot. I shall watch for Slim birds swift of wing That go where wind and ranks of thunder Drive the wild processionals of rain. metaphor roadside scenery animal wind rain The dust of the traveled road Shall touch my hands and face. road road condition duste. road road condition dust +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Sandburg, Carl Genre Poetry Journal or Book Smoke and Steel Publisher Harcourt , Brace and Howe Year of Publication 1920 Pages 41 Additional information - New neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets. The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nun's bonnet. One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard cartons. The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the ways loose and the wheels whirled dust—there was dust of hoof and wagon wheel and rubber tire— dust of police and fire wagons—dust of the winds that circled at midnights and noon listening to no prayers. car truck car part pollution dust "O mother, I know the heart of you," I sang passing the rim of a nun's bonnet—O white curtains—and people clean as the prayers of Jesus here in the faded ramshackle at Congress and Green. Dust and the thundering trucks won—the barrages of the street wheels and the lawless wind took their way—was it five weeks or six the little mother, the new neighbors, battled and then took away the white prayers in the windows? car truck car part dust pollution wind sound +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Shanks, Charles B. Genre Non-Fiction Journal or Book Scientific American , vol. 52 , no. 1335 Publisher - Year of Publication 1901 Pages 81-90 Additional information - infrastructure road condition risk driving skill Covering the North American continent from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic Ocean in an automobile has been attempted by Alexander Winton, president of The Winton Motor Carriage Company, of Cleveland. That the expedition failed is no fault of the machine Mr. Winton used, nor was it due to absence of grit or determination on the part of the operator. Neither was the failure due to roads. The utter absence of roads was the direct and only cause. car ocean driver road infrastructure Having been with Mr. Winton on this trip, I saw and experienced things the like of which automobile drivers in every civilized portion of the North American continent know not of, nor can an active imagination be brought to picture the terrible abuse the machine had to take, or the hardships its riders endured in forcing and fighting the way from San Francisco to that point in Nevada where the project was abandoned—where Mr. Winton had forced upon him the positive conviction that to put an automobile across the sand hills of the Nevada desert was an utter impossibility under existing conditions. car infrastructure risk road condition Rock roads and deep snow in the high Sierras were encountered and mastered, streams were forded and washouts passed, adobe mud into which the machine sank deep and became tightly imbedded failed to change the plucky operator's mind about crowding the motor eastward toward the hoped-for goal. It was the soft, shifting, bottomless, rolling sand—not so bad to look upon from car windows, but terrible when actually encountered— that caused the abandonment of the enterprise and resulted in the announcement by wire to eastern newspaper connections that the trip was "off." adobe car car part driving mud road road condition To those who are interested in knowing what was met and mastered during the days we were out from San Francisco; to those who wish to learn some facts about automobiling in a section of this country where all kinds of climate and every condition of road may be encountered in a single day, the experiences of the short trip will satisfy. road condition Our expedition left the government building in San Francisco and started across the bay for Oakland at 7:15 A.M., Monday, May 20. Left ferry foot of Broadway and got on road at 8 A.M. Turned off Broadway at San Pablo Avenue heading for Port Costa, distance thirty-two miles, hoping to reach there in time to catch the Sacramento River ferry to cross with Southern Pacific Express No. 4, which left Oakland at 8:01 with schedule to reach Port Costa at 9:15 A.M. driving river West Instead of running the thirty-two miles, we clipped off forty-four between Oakland and Port Costa as a consequence of mistaking the road to San Pablo and going around by way of Martinez. Reached Port Costa too late for the No. 4 trip and had to wait until 11:17 A.M., when the transcontinental express (The Overland Limited) was ferried over. river train West All morning the sky, which during the three weeks preceding had been clear and bright, was heavy with clouds. Before the opposite bank of the Sacramento was touched, the clouds opened. And what an opening it was. Adobe roads when dry and hard hold out opportunities for good going, but when the sponge-like soil is soaked with moisture, when your wheels cut in, spin around, slip and slide from the course and suddenly your machine is off the road and into the swamp ditch—buried to the axles in the soft "doby"—then the fun begins. adobe weather car part driving risk river road road condition Pull out block and tackle, wade around in the mud, get soaked to the skin and chilled from the effects of the deluge, make fastenings to the fence or telephone post and pull. Pull hard, dig your heels into the mud, and exert every effort at command. The machine moves, your feet slip and down in the mud you go full length. Repeat the dose and continue the operation until the machine is free from the ditch and again upon the road. mud road driving slowness Tie ropes around the tires to prevent slipping. It may help some, but the measure is not entirely effective, for down in the bog you find yourself soon again and once more the block and tackle are brought into play. Slow work—not discouraging in the least, but a bit disagreeable, considering that it is the first day out and you are anxious to make a clever initial run. car part risk affect After twelve hours' severe experience and the rain still pouring down, halt is made abreast of a lane leading to a ranchman's home. This ranchman is A. W. Butler. He came down to the road and replying to interrogations tells you that to Rio Vista, nine miles ahead, the road is particularly bad because of plowing and grading. Arrangements are made for our staying all night with him. The machine is run in his barn, we eat supper with intense relish, go to bed and get up early to find more rain, but a breaking up of the clouds with prospect of sunshine later. road road condition night road surface Got upon the road 7:40 A.M. Reached Rio Vista and two miles further on to "Old River" at 8:40. Go east on the levee road, which is of adobe formation with steep descending banks on both sides. On the left side is the river; the opposite bank runs down to a thicket, beyond which are orchards. Slide off the treacherous road on either side and nothing short of a derrick and wrecking crew could serve to a practical and satisfactory end. adobe risk river road road side road surface rural scenery A few miles from the ferry, a tree had fallen across the road. Mr. Winton used the ax to splendid advantage and, after some delay, the road was clear, and we were going ahead once more. Reached Sacramento at 1:15 P.m., but delayed in California's capital city just long enough to take on five gallons of gasoline. One we went toward the Sierras, passing through Roseville, Rocklin, Loomis, Penry, New Castle, Auburn, Colfax, Cape Horn Mills, and when darkness was fast approaching halt was made in the little gold mining town of Gold Run. accident driving gasoline risk road tree West From Auburn the climb commenced, and when Colfax was reached and passed, Mr. Winton was busy with his skillful knowledge in crowding the machine up steep mountain grades, along dangerous shelf roads from which one might look deep into canons and listen to the distant roaring of rushing waters below. driving mountain risk driving skill road condition Ordinarily there would be great danger in speed under such conditions—and there may have been risk to life and limb at the time, but I knew Mr. Winton, I knew him for his skill and that there was no call for nervousness with him at the wheel, so I sat back and enjoyed the scenery. driver driving skill speed passenger risk scenery Reached Gold Run at 7:40 P.M., just in time to escape darkness and avoid going into camp on the mountain side. On such roads, or, rather, surrounded as we were by canons, operation in the dark could not be regarded as safe. Our run that day was 123 miles. risk road mountain road condition Next morning, May 22, at 6:45 o'clock, the ascent was recommenced. Up and up we went, winding around and turning in many directions--but always up. From Gold Run we passed along through Dutch Flat, Towle, Blue Canon, Emigrant Gap, Cisco, and on to Cascade. Roads became particularly rugged after leaving Gold Run, and when we reached Emigrant Gap the few inhabitants who make that their home told us fully what rock roads and snow deposits would have to be encountered between their station and across the summit down to Donner Lake. driving mountain snow road condition It was the universal opinion that if the machine could stand the punishment sure to be inflicted between the Gap and Donner Lake, it would not be troubled at any point east of the Sierras, between Truckee, Cal., and New York City. Leaving Emigrant Gap, the game commenced in earnest. Unbridged streams were encountered and the machine took to the water like a duck in high spirits. Splash she would go in, and drenched she would come out. The water would many times come up as high as the motor and up would go our feet to prevent them getting wet. driving infrastructure river personification car part road condition When the New Hampshire Rocks were met, trouble seemed to be ahead. I asked Mr. Winton if he would put the machine to what appeared to me the supreme and awful test. "Of course I will," was the short and meaning answer, and on went the machine. One big bump and I shot into the air like a rocket. I was not thrown from the machine, however, and thereafter busied myself hanging on with hands and bracing with feet. At every turn and twist in the road, the rocks grew larger, and I wondered if anything mechanical could stand the terrible punishment. passenger car part road condition The motor never flinched, its power never lagged, it pulled us through those rocks and up the stiff grades. Emigrants westward bound in the early days would never trust horses or mules to convey their wagons safely to the bottom of one particularly stiff and rugged grade which Mr. Winton caused the motor to ascend. Those early day pathfinders would tie a rope to the rear axle of the wagon, take a turn around a tree and lower it gently. car car part engine driving personification tree We at last got through the New Hampshire Rocks and began calculating what would be our fate in the snow immediately to be encountered. The Cascade Creek, swollen by the melting mountain snows to river proportions, caused a halt about one-half mile west from the commencement of what was expected to be bothersome snow. The water in the stream was clear and sparkling, the current swift, and the bottom filled with huge sharp rocks. Mr. Winton pulled in the lever, the machine forged ahead. Splash and bump, bump and splash. Front wheels struck something big and hard, they went up in the air and when coming down, almost at the east bank, the right front wheel with a wet tire struck a wet slanting rock. The wheel was hard put, something must give way—and it did. The front axle on the right side sustained an injury, and after a lurch ahead the machine came to a sudden standstill. accident car part driving personification river Mr. Winton sent me to hunt a telegraph station. Walked east for about a mile until I could look up the mountain side and see the railroad snow sheds with some sort of a station in an opening. I climbed up through the snow, over fallen trees, broke passage through tangled bushes, and finally came upon a surprised operator, who asked what the trouble was. It was a little telegraph station for railroad service only, but the dispatcher took my messages and repeated them to the Gap, from which point they were sent, one to the Winton factory at Cleveland, asking for duplicate of part damaged, and another to L. S. Keeley, of Emigrant Gap, to come for us and our effects and take us back to the Gap, where we would wait for the repair parts. The machine was left alone in the mountain wilderness. car car part maintenance risk road side Arrived at the Gap and Mr. Winton soon developed uneasiness because of the enforced delay in the trip. Next morning he announced his intention of making a temporary repair and working ahead slowly through the snow. maintenance snow road condition On the following morning (May 24) at 7 o'clock, the repair had been completed. When darkness enveloped us that evening, the machine had covered seventeen miles. And such a day of battle. When it was over, we had reached and passed the summit of the high Sierras, the machine was hard and fast in a snow bank at the bottom of "Tunnel No. 6 hill," a treacherous descent, along which there was great peril every moment. driving mountain risk We walked back to Summit Station and stayed at the hotel that night. Next morning, aided by some kindly disposed railroad men who could handle shovels most effectively, the machine was dislodged. equipment Since the day in the snow banks, I have called it to Mr. Winton's mind. He says that the frightful experiences of that day, the abuse and hardship to which the machine was subjected, stay in his mind like the remembrance of an ugly nightmare. During the entire day, working up there among the clouds, we were cold and drenched. When it did not rain, it snowed or hailed. On the 25th, after getting free from the snow bank and passing through a number of small deposits, we got to Truckee, where we took on fuel and went on to Hobart Mills, a delightful lumber town, where Mr. Winton decided we would stay during the following day, Sunday, and dry our clothes. Reached Hobart Mills in a terrific downpour. gasoline city The officials of the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company (the "company" owns the town and all there is in it) were particularly generous in bestowing upon us many courtesies and making the time we spent with them in Hobart Mills that of delightful remembrance. Monday, May 27, started 6 A.M. from Hobart Mills, and that afternoon, toward evening, reached Wadsworth, Nev., the western gate to one of the worst patches of desert sand in that section. That day was another of rain. The early morning hours were bright, but when Reno, Nev., was left behind the skies changed from blue to white, then to a dark color and the clouds that had so quickly formed opened and spilled their contents about and upon us. desert rain road condition Reached Wadsworth splashed and covered with mud, wet through and hungry. Spent night at Wadsworth. Residents warned Mr. Winton about sand, more especially the sand hill just east of the town. Next morning we took on stock of rations and drinking water. That "sand hill," or rather the remembrance of it and the balance of our trip to Desert Station that day, are like the remembrance of another beastly nightmare. desert mud road condition All during the afternoon, it rained and the wind blew a gale, but the temperature was high and we did not mind. Had it not been for the rain and its cooling effect there on the sand and sage brush desert, I doubt whether we could have stood it. desert wind temperature The storm that day caused us to speculate largely as to whether some of the many bolts of lightning hitting close around us would not strike the machine, demolish it completely, and incidentally put the operator and passenger out of business. driver lightning passenger car risk personification But a kind providence was with us during the storm, and the lightning kept off. Getting up the Wadsworth sand hill, we cut sage brush and kept piling it up in front of all four wheels to give them something to hold to and prevent slipping and burrowing in the soft sand until the machine was buried to the axles and it became necessary to use block, tackle, and shovels to pull up to the surface. Got to the top at last, but found no improvement in sand conditions. It was the hardest kind of work to make the slightest progress, but at 5:45 in the evening halted at Desert Station, a place inhabited by D. H. Gates, section boss, his wife, Train Dispatcher Howard (his office, cook house, etc., were all combined in a box car which had been set out on a short siding), and a dozen Japanese section hands. storm car part desert equipment road condition Passed the night comfortably, and when the road was taken next morning (May 29) at 6 o'clock, the sun was shining and Mr. Gates predicted no rain for the day. We found the roads somewhat improved and on and on we went through that vast country of magnificent distances. We were in the country where rattlesnakes were thickest, near Pyramid Rock, of which one writer says: "This rock pyramid is alleged to be the home of rattlesnakes so numerous as to defy extermination." road road condition When out of the machine and walking around bunches of sage brush care was exercised in keeping out of striking range of these venomous reptiles. Mr. Winton has some tail end rattles as trophies, but I was not so anxious to get close enough to kill the snakes and cut off their tails. parking road side animal That day we plunged through four unbridged streams, and in one place where a bad washout had occurred, it became necessary for us to build a bridge before the machine would “take the ditch.” We lugged railroad ties—many ties from a pile close to the railroad tracks some distance away. And they were heavier than five-pound boxes of chocolate, but we finally got enough and bumped the machine through and on its way. river infrastructure Mill City was reached shortly before 5 o'clock. The Southern Pacific agent there said we could never get to Winnemucca (thirty miles to the east) that night because of the sand hills; the quicksand would bury us, he said. Another man who came up discussed the sand proposition with Mr. Winton and told him that there would be only one way in which "that there thing" could get through this thirty miles' stretch of quicksand. "How?" asked Mr. Winton. "Load her on a flat car and be pulled to Winnemucca." "Not on your life," retorted the plucky automobilist; into the carriage I jumped, he pulled the lever and off we went. The course led up a hill, but there was enough bottom to the sand to give the wheels a purchase and from the hill summit we forged down into the valley where the country was comparatively level. Nothing in sight but sage brush and sand, sand and sage brush. car part driving desert driver passenger plant Two miles of it were covered. Progress was slow, the sand became deeper and deeper as we progressed. At last the carriage stopped, the driving wheels sped on and cut deep into the bottomless sand. We used block and tackle, got the machine from its hole, and tried again. Same result. Tied more ropes around wheels with the hope that the corrugation would give them sufficient purchase in the sand. Result: wheels cut deeper in less time than before. car part equipment road condition slowness It was a condition never encountered by an automobilist in the history of the industry. We were in soft, shifting quicksand where power counted as nothing. We were face to face with a condition the like of which cannot be imagined—one must be in it, fight with it, be conquered by it, before a full and complete realization of what it actually is will dawn upon the mind. risk road condition Mr. Winton said to me: "Do you know what we are up against here? I told the Plain Dealer I would put this enterprise through If it were possible. Right here we are met by the impossible. Under present conditions no automobile can go through this quicksand." I suggested loading the machine and sending it by freight to Winnemucca. "No, sir," he flashed back emphatically. "If we can't do it on our own power this expedition ends right here, and I go back with a knowledge of conditions and an experience such as no automobilist in this or any other country has gained." road condition car When, after serious deliberation, he decided to abandon the trip he said: "If I attempt this game again, I will construct a machine on peculiar lines. No man who expects to operate in the civilized portions of this continent would take the machine for his individual service about cities and throughout ordinary country, but I tell you it will go through sand—and this quicksand at that." There is nothing more to tell. We left Mill City that night and rode into Winnemucca on a freight train. The machine, aided by its own power, had been hauled from its bed by horses and returned to Mill City, where arrangements were made to load it for Cleveland. We left Winnemucca May 30, at 2:40 P.M. on a Southern Pacific passenger train, and arrived in Cleveland June 2, at 7:35 P.M. train +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Stoner, Dayton Genre Non-Fiction Journal or Book Science , vol. 61 , no 1568 Publisher - Year of Publication 1925 Pages 56-57 Additional information Here you can find Sam Kean's 2022 article on Dayton Stoner's work. animal death risk We hear and read a good deal of the enormous annual toll of human life due to the mania for speed so generally prevalent among automobile drivers. On this account our city streets and country highways are dangerous places for pedestrians as well as for other and more discreet motorists. Even the widely heralded "dirt roads" of Iowa are tainted with human blood. "As a killer of men, the automobile is more deadly than typhoid fever and runs a close second to influenza. ... Up to August of this year (1924) 9,500 lives were sacrificed, chiefly in preventable accidents." Thus reads a recent account in one of our popular magazines. accident car death driving highway infrastructure risk road speed Not only is the mortality among human beings high, but the death-dealing qualities of the motor car are making serious inroads on our native mammals, birds and other forms of animal life. animal death risk This matter was most forcefully brought to my attention during June and July, 1924, when my wife and I made the journey overland from Iowa City, Iowa, to the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, on West Lake Okoboji, Iowa, a distance of 316 miles. Parts of two days were occupied in the going journey on June 13 and 14, while approximately the same time was required for the return trip on July 15 and 16. Within a few minutes after we had started from Iowa City and a considerable number of dead animals, apparently casualties from passing motor cars, had been encountered in the road, it occurred to us that an enumeration and actual count of those that we might yet come upon during the remainder of the tour would be of interest. Accordingly, we undertook to do this on both the going and return trip which, although not over the same routes in their entirety, were of exactly the same length. animal car death risk road In this count only freshly killed carcasses of vertebrate animals lying in or immediately at the side of the highway were taken into consideration, and only those forms of whose identity we were certain as we passed along were included. Since we seldom exceeded 25 miles per hour we had ample time to identify the more familiar things. Stops were made for a few of the less common and unusual finds. animal car death driving highway infrastructure risk road road side rural slowness Our route took us through typical Iowa farming communities, for the most part moderately thickly populated and supplied with the usual farm buildings. Prairie, marsh and woodland were also represented as were various types of soil and vegetation supported by them. All these conditions make for a diversity of animal life, and we found it well represented on the highways. animal car infrastructure topography rural About 200 miles of the road were graveled; the remainder was just "plain dirt," most of which had been brought to grade. Of course the surfaced roads permit of greater speed, together with more comfort to the speeder and correspondingly greater danger to human and other lives. gravel risk road speed road surface In general, the greatest number of casualties were encountered on the good stretches of road. By way of illustrating this point it may be noted that on the return journey between the Laboratory and Marshall town, Iowa, a distance of 211 miles, all well graveled, 105 dead animals representing 15 species were counted; of these, 39 were red-headed woodpeckers ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ). Several other forms that could not be identified in passing were met with. animal death gravel infrastructure Midwest risk rural As will be seen from the appended table the mortality among red-headed woodpeckers is higher than that of any other form observed, and I believe that a combination of circumstances will account for this situation. In the first place, these birds have a propensity for feeding upon insects and waste grain in and along the roads; second, they remain as long as possible before the approaching car, in all probability not being keen discriminators of its speed; and third, they have a slow "get-away," that is, they can not quickly acquire a sufficient velocity to escape the oncoming car and so meet their death. However, I feel certain that a speed of from 35 to 40 miles an hour is necessary in order to catch these birds. Of course this is not true for some other forms such as turtles and snakes which depend upon terrestrial progression and are comparatively slow movers. In most cases all animals, if given a reasonable time to escape, will cause the hurried motorist little if any delay. animal car death infrastructure road speed risk weapon Further comment need not be made upon the various factors entering into the situation here discussed. It will be sufficient to point out that on a summer motor trip of 632 miles over Iowa roads, 29 species of our native and introduced vertebrate animals, representing a total of 225 individuals, were found dead as a result of being crushed by passing automobiles, and that this agency demands recognition as one of the important checks upon the natural increase of many forms of life. Assuming that these conditions prevail over the thousands of miles of improved high ways in this state and throughout the United States the death toll of the motor car becomes still more appalling. animal car death highway infrastructure Midwest road speed risk +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Weeks, Carrie Foote Genre Poetry Journal or Book The Outing Magazine Publisher - Year of Publication 1906 Pages 687 Additional information - A at the start was an Automobile. It answers to motor car, just as you feel. car B is the Brake that gives you control. If the Bubble Breaks you, you're in a Big hole. car part C stands for Cylinder, and your Chauffeur, Who takes many Chances at sixty-five per. car part speed D is the up-to-Date Dealer serene, And the Dance that he leads you about the machine. E is Experience for young and old; We pay dearly for it, and often are sold. F is the Factory where you will find It is Foolish to Fuss, if they're four months behind. G is Garage, and the God, Gasoline, Who Guides all his subjects, yet never is seen. gasoline infrastructure H is H. P., your Heaven and Hell. What pace are you making? The police can tell. law speed I is Ignition, Insurance and Ice. These three you must have on an expert's advice. car part J might stand now for a new Jeremiah, Who foretells disasters by flame, speed, or tire. car part risk speed K stands for all Kinds of cars on the mart. To pick the Kingpin would take cleverest art. car L stands for License, and Lawyer, and Lie— You're in touch with them all when an auto you buy. car law M is the Model you choose with great care, The Map that you follow for roads that aren’t there. car car model road map N is the Number attached to your car, And the Name (not a rose) that proclaims it a star. car law O is the Oil used for food and for drink, By this Ogre, half human, the real missing link. metaphor oil P stands for "Plain Clothes Men" always about. Police you can spot. For the others, watch out. Q is the Quest for a feminine hat, That will stay on the head, and have style, and all that. R stands foe Rules which must be obeyed, And the Races we win,—in our dreams, I'm afraid. law S means the Songs that we sing late at night, As the Search light weaves Shadows, now ghostly, now bright. T is the Tonneau for five, three or two. If a Tack finds your Tire, it’s all up with you. car part U is the Unruly, and also Uncertain. On the manners of autos and maids drop the curtain. car law V is Vibration—in sunshine, in gale, It's with us like goggles, or long auto Veil. W stands for Weight, and all kinds of Wheels. (Not Wheels in your head, or Weight in your heels) car part X is Xcess. Pray keep well in hand, For motor-car maniacs people the land. car risk Y stands for Yearnings to go far and fast. O bright Yellow Moon! we'll reach you at last. affect speed Z is the Zany so puffed up with Zeal, That he thinks he has mastered the automobile. car skill car skill +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Williams, William Carlos Genre Poetry Journal or Book Spring and All Publisher - Year of Publication 1923 Pages - Additional information - In passing with my mind on nothing in the world but the right of way I enjoyed on the road by road law virtue of the law – I saw law an elderly man who smiled and looked away to the north past a house – a woman in blue who was laughing and leaning forward to look up into the man’s half averted face and a boy of eight who was looking at the middle of the man’s belly at a watchchain – The supreme importance of this nameless spectacle sped me by them without a word – speed Why bother where I went? for I went spinning on the driving four wheels of my car along the wet road until car car part road road condition I saw a girl with one leg over the rail of a balconyalcony +
Bibliographic Information Author … Bibliographic Information Author Williams, William Carlos Genre Poetry Journal or Book - Publisher - Year of Publication 1916 Pages - Additional information - At ten A.M. the young housewife moves about in negligee behind the wooden walls of her husband's house. I pass solitary in my car. car driver Then again she comes to the curb to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair, and I compare her to a fallen leaf. road roadside The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling. car car part driver sound speed plantcar car part driver sound speed plant +