Road Trip: A Journey Along Route 6

Copyright © 2008 by Bill Schneider

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ASJA Press

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

ISBN: 978-0-595-48123-1

ISBN: 978-1-4697-6997-4 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

FOREWORD

SAM CHAPMAN

FORMATIVE YEARS

AVON, CONNECTICUT

WELLSBORO, PENNSYLVANIA

SANDUSKY, OHIO

MOLINE, ILLINOIS

ATLANTIC, IOWA

HASTINGS, NEBRASKA

FRISCO, COLORADO

GREEN RIVER, UTAH

TONOPAH, NEVADA

THE GOLDEN STATE

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Also written by Bill Schneider:

Second Chapter (iUniverse)—2005

Sand Dollar (iUniverse)—2006

Crossed Paths (iUniverse)—2007

www.BillSchneider.us

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Reprint permission received from Ars Nova Music, Inc. for Epigraph.

Reprint permission received from Universal Music Publishing Group for Afterword.

For Alix, who kept me on course—and Glenn, who is always there, charming and cheerful …

I’ve been on this lonely road so long Does anybody know where it goes I remember the last time The signs pointed home a month ago I wonder if these feelings ever change How many times I’ll lift this load Come tomorrow I’ll be gone again Roads of sorrow coming to an end for me

—Dan Woodhams and Gary Sims

*          *          *

There is no darkness in this place that we’re bound Love is the only thing that matters.

—Dan Fogelberg

1951–2007

FOREWORD

Route Six is a magical journey from Massachusetts to California across the middle section of the United States. Often mistaken for Route Sixty-Six, which is a much shorter highway through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles, Route Six connects fourteen states along a picturesque three thousand, two hundred and five miles (five thousand one hundred and fifty-eight kilometers) of the Continental United States. Route Six is considered America’s longest continuous route as well as the second-longest highway in the country.

For many years, Route Six was referred to as The Roosevelt Highway (in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt); however, in nineteen fifty-three, it was formally dedicated as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

In researching this novel, I selected towns to visit along Route Six that are out-of-the-way and less-than-ordinary … in hopes that you would be inspired to follow Sam Chapman’s footsteps and take a road trip across America. While writing this book, I concentrated on story-telling and gave as much scope to the simplicity of the journey as I could.

Following is a list of the remarkable places Sam visits during his ten-day road trip, and the approximate distances from east to west:

A road trip can be whatever the traveler wants it to be. Throughout the following pages, I have created characters open to the possibility of allowing the changes in countryside, culture and climate to embrace them. In doing so, hopefully you will transport yourself along Route Six and enjoy the magic and mystery of what is truly a magnificent journey.

Bill Schneider February 2008

SAM CHAPMAN

The words turning fifty imply so much more than simply becoming someone who is over the hill. Reaching the half-century mark suggests that the party is over, or at least that is what I remember being said quite emphatically by Mr. Reilly, one of my professors, during my first year of law school. As my classmates and I contemplated our career paths in a field that promised to suck the marrow right out of one’s soul, he warned us that if we didn’t excel and make partner before turning thirty, our life would be over before we knew it. The fear of growing old is something that Mr. Reilly instilled in me and manages to surface each year as I approach my birthday.

Another recollection from my past is the philosophical promise that once you turn fifty, you don’t change. While this belief may either be a threat or a comfort, I know who I am and have no intention of changing anything about me. Yet, despite all of the age-old adages, next month, I will turn fifty … and even with my advancing age, the party is certainly far from over for me. In fact, sometimes I think the party has only just begun—especially since I am attempting to devise a plan to celebrate this milestone occasion in style.

My buddy Rex, who is a couple of years older than me, says the only problem with reaching the big five-oh is that your body eventually decides it wants a life of its own. Fortunately, my body is still very much attached to me and my soul, so there’s not likely going to be any type of separation in the near future. In fact, when I saw my doctor for my annual physical exam last month, he gave me a green light. Sam, whatever it is you’re doing, he said, just keep it up.

I credit my good health and youthful appearance to the genes I inherited from my parents, although I haven’t seen either one of them in almost a quarter of a century. When I last spent time with my father, Benjamin Chapman, I was entering my third year of law school at the University of California at Berkeley, and despite his being twice my age, he looked pretty good for an old tiger. Now that I am the same age he was when I last saw him, I appreciate the powerful gene pool I inherited—especially because I still manage to attract younger women, which is certainly a blessing.

Rebecca Chapman, my mother, was the perfect Jewish matriarch role model during the nineteen sixties and seventies. Her aspirations were very traditional: to maintain my family’s house, instill in my brother, sister and me an understanding of the importance of our Jewish heritage, and raise the perfect family. While she was always there for us, there was a certain sense of disconnect between perception and reality, especially during the tumultuous seventies when disco and punk rock battled for radio air play, while the nation was recovering from the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, and as the sexual revolution created a new battleground. To the rest of the world, America seemed out of control, yet my mother was the product of a generation that looked the other way and focused on the way things should be.

My mother was empowered by the control she had over her household. Hancock Park provided the perfect backdrop for a Jewish family living in southern California during the middle of the twentieth century. Surrounded by the Wilshire Country Club to the east and only a short distance from the finest Jewish bakery, deli and fish market in Los Angeles, living where we did created an ideal life for my mother, especially when her two sisters, who lived in New York, had to battle the elements of the constantly changing of the seasons while living in an urban element that was surrounded by crime and less than desirable elements. My mother was the epitome of a Jewish woman in an American matriarchal society.

The most vivid recollections I have of my childhood center around every Jewish holiday, all of which were ceremoniously celebrated with an abundance of food. My mother prided herself on keeping alive the traditions that she and my father experienced as children. She was passionate about passing along her family’s Orthodox heritage to me and my brother and sister—virtues that I did not embrace while growing up, but better appreciate and admire as I approach the third quarter century of my life. Perhaps one of the most memorable examples of my mother’s passion for her family was when I was seven years old and my brother was injured after a glass panel on the kitchen door shattered and nearly severed his hand. The accident occurred while my brother was chasing me through the house, something we were not allowed to do. I can still hear my mother reprimanding us. Boys, the house is not a playground. If you want to play, there is a playground two blocks away.

As blood was oozing from my brother’s hand, he went into shock and I became catatonic as I watched him quietly drift away. My mother very calmly secured a kitchen towel around my brother’s hand before calling a neighbor to drive us to the hospital. While waiting for the neighbor, she telephoned my father and told him to meet us at the hospital. She was a woman of extraordinary strength who commanded control of any situation. Even though I was sure my brother was going to die, my mother’s confident demeanor comforted all of us and helped me remain calm.

Although my mother’s domain was her household, my father’s life was devoted to his craft as a jeweler, and his hands were his tools. In the nineteen fifties, my father took over the small retail store my grandfather founded in the Fairfax District, and Dad grew the business during the next twenty-five years. By the time I began law school in nineteen seventy-nine, Chapman’s had become a chain of jewelry stores in a dozen shopping malls throughout southern California. My sister was much more taken by the fact that our father owned a chain of jewelry stores than me and my brother were. And for all of the prestige that was associated with being the son of a jeweler, there was also a certain risk, something that I discovered in nineteen sixty-nine, on a Friday afternoon in mid-December when I was twelve years old. While I would have preferred spending the day shooting hoops with my school buddies—especially since the temperatures were in the mid-seventies—I spent the day at the jewelry store with my father. It was the eve of the fifth night of Hanukah and at four o’clock, when the store would close for the Sabbath, we were going directly to the synagogue where I was scheduled to recite from the Torah during the lighting of the menorah. As customers came in and browsed, I remained cloistered in the office behind the display cases, memorizing my recital. Just before closing, two men wearing bulky leather jackets walked in. Glancing at my watch, I wished it was later than it was, the Torah reading was behind me, and we were home, exchanging Hanukah gifts. Then I heard twelve words I will never forget—one word for every year of my life. Put the diamonds in this bag or I’ll blow your head off.

My father credits me with saving his life, because I did what I was trained to do, which was to activate the silent alarm. The robbers were apprehended as they attempted to drive away from the store, but in spite of the efforts that my father claims were heroic, I still had to recite from the Torah that night, which seemed almost unfair. The lesson I took away from this experience was no matter how great your accomplishments may be, hopefully you will be rewarded later in life. Thirty-eight years after my courageous effort was the talk of Hancock Park, I wonder when—and if—I will be rewarded.

Growing up, birthday celebrations were huge events that my parents spared no expense in their efforts to help recognize how very special each of their three children was. However, after I married Kate O’Malley, an Irish Catholic lawyer, my parents no longer remembered my birthday. Soon after becoming estranged from my family, Kate and I moved to Boston and spent the summer at her parents’ home on Cape Cod. It was a summer I will never forget, because throughout those first few weeks in New England, she and her former boyfriend rekindled their previous romance. By the time we were ready to return to Boston in the fall, Kate decided she wanted to spend her life with him, not me. So I moved to the furthest part of Cape Cod I could find—Provincetown—where the Pilgrims first landed in sixteen twenty. Unlike the Pilgrims, I didn’t leave. I was at the end of my rope at the end of the world, where no one and nothing could ever hurt me again.

I graduated with honors from law school in nineteen eighty-two, and while I did not follow in my father’s footsteps that summer, I later discovered I also prefer working with my hands. Then my life changed. When I selected carpentry as my career craft, I began to find work during the ever-changing New England seasons, from late spring, throughout the summer and into early fall. Throughout the winter, I would parlay my legal expertise into providing assistance to small law firms throughout Cape Cod. One of the attributes of my seasonal career choice became my ability to keep in good physical shape. Even though I have not made a lot of money doing what makes me truly happy, some folks might agree that I am truly my father’s son because of my good looks, debonair personality and the fact that I love to work with my hands.

Since moving to Massachusetts in nineteen eighty-two, my birthday celebrations have been spent quietly with friends on Cape Cod. Because I was conceived just before Thanksgiving in nineteen fifty-six, my June twenty-first birthday has become more of a celebration of the beginning of summer than a commemoration of my birth. Clambakes and overnight sojourns to Race Point Beach, at the tip of Cape Cod Bay, have highlighted my recent birthday celebrations. However, turning fifty deserves something a little more adventurous, celebrative and memorable.

Ron Martin, whom I’ve known since I was ten, has extended an open invitation for me to visit him and his wife in southern California. Ron and I grew up together in Hancock Park, an upper middle-class enclave in Los Angeles that was, during the mid-twentieth century, predominately Jewish. Surrounded by doctors, lawyers, executives and other successful business entrepreneurs, our lives were destined to follow the paths of our parents.

While growing up, my sister, brother and I were not allowed to watch television during the week except for special events, such as the Olympics, Presidential debates or other historic occasions. On weekends, I developed my limited familiarity of the outside world as it was presented through a medium that was sponsored by household products, automobile manufacturers and soft drink vendors. One of my favorite shows was the long-running television series Perry Mason, which debuted in nineteen fifty-seven. For nine seasons, this court room drama found a way into our home and made an indelible impression on me. I fancied having a secretary as attractive as Barbara Hale, who portrayed Mason’s assistant, Della Street, and when I was just nine years old, I developed my first crush. Shortly after I realized my interest in a television actress was not going to materialize, the Martin family moved into the corner house on June Street.

I immediately liked Ron because he shared the same birthday as me, had an older sister who was the same age as my sister, and his parents were not old fashioned, like mine were. Ron’s father worked as an account executive for an advertising agency, and his mother was a homemaker who could bake better than anyone else in Hancock Park. The amount of consumer products the Martin family collected over the years was quite impressive, yet despite their material excess, Ron and his sister were surprisingly well-adjusted kids and quite down-to-earth.

Our friendship developed during the summer of nineteen sixty-seven. By the time the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox got underway, Ron and I had become best friends. During that summer, we built a tree house in my parents’ back yard where we created a haven safe from everyone else. It was there that we devised all sorts of plans to conquer the world. Even though I had an older brother, Ron and I shared secrets that were our own, and I felt closer to him than anyone else.

I was more of a history buff than Ron, but his sense of adventure captured my heart and when we felt compelled to conquer parts of Hancock Park beyond the perimeter of our sacred tree house, we would return home with assorted wildlife that always frightened my mother and ended up becoming a resident of the Martin household. One day, while frolicking in a creek near the Wilshire Country Club, we stumbled upon a tortoise. Bringing the reptile into my family’s home became the biggest sin imaginable, and the scream which emanated from my mother was all Ron and I needed to hear before realizing we were in serious trouble. Samuel Ethan Chapman, get that thing out of here right now! was all I remember hearing for quite some time afterwards. Ron, a nature enthusiast, was more concerned about the well-being of Mr. Turtle, and because of his caring nature, Ron and I have remained close friends.

Perhaps one of the biggest fears that faced us while growing up was the ill-fated proposal to develop an extension of the Santa Monica freeway that would have cut through the northern portion of Hancock Park. As a result of the efforts of the Hancock Park Homeowners Association, our parents galvanized support and solicited donations from the community to fight the freeway plan. Ron and I crafted an essay about how important keeping our neighborhood intact was to us, which my father sent to the editor of the Los Angeles Times.I remember how proud my parents were that their younger son was published at such a young age. Ultimately, our efforts succeeded in defeating the Beverly Hills freeway plan, which saved our sacred play ground and nature paths.

During the early nineteen seventies, Ron and I fantasized about our plans for the future. While he envisioned becoming a landscape architect and making an