When I pushed through the door of Amy’s Candlelight Fine
Dining and Sports Bar and stepped into the parking lot it was snowing harder
than ever. I got out my scraper and
brushed snow from my windows, headlights, tail lights, and off the roof. I didn’t think it could snow any harder, but
it was. I pulled back onto Route 2 and
headed south once again. Only this time
slower.
Ruts were still visible in the right lane, but the left lane
and the shoulder were impossible to see.
Luckily I was able to pull out as a truck passed, so I could keep its
taillights in sight. There would be no
passing on my way to Parkersburg.
How do they measure visibility anyway? When the weatherman says “visibility is down
to a quarter-mile in some places” how do they know that really? Is there a guy set up in a flat field
somewhere with flags every hundred yards in front of him, like a golf driving
range? Does he sit there and wait for
calls from Tom Skilling and other weathermen on his cell? How would that go?
“Frank, how’s the visibility out there?”
“Pretty damned good Tom.
I can see clear across the road and beyond. I’d call it unlimited if I were you.”
Or conversely, “the fog’s rolling in and I can’t see but a
hundred yards.”
Then there’s the ultimate “Jesus Christ Tom, I can’t see my
hand in front of my face.”
Someday when I have nothing else to do I’ll report on how
the visibility thing works. All I know is
on that day, I could see the tail lights of the truck in front of me and that
was about it. The Ohio River was on my
right, always within 50 to a hundred yards, and I could see it all wide and
dark. I had stopped seeing the hills
on my left because of the low clouds, fog, or snow. I kept those red lights about the same
distance away all the time so that if he stopped I could stop.
Occasionally, something huge would loom out of the
whiteness, a giant smokestack, a vast building, a mammoth pile of
material. That stretch of the Ohio River
Valley is home to a number of industrial sites, power plants, coal loading
operations, God knows what. The names
on the signs, when I could read the signs, told me little or nothing of what
they actually were. By one plant entrance fronting a jungle of
gray concrete buildings, smoking chimneys, railroad cars and giant yellow
loaders was a sign with a snazzy logo proclaiming it to be “Blue Racer.”
I crept through Paden City and then Sisterville. I’m sorry but I can’t tell you much about
either. Friendly was next, right before
Ben’s Run, then Raven Rock and St. Mary’s.
Just me, the Buick, and the truck ahead of me, slow and steady. I almost pulled over in Ben’s Run. Snow was hitting the Buick as if kids were
pelting it with snowballs. Sheets of snow,
waves of snow. It was incredible. At least the wind wasn’t blowing. I was driving through a carpet of snow but
there were no drifts.
At about St. Mary’s, a little town with but a few
businesses, I realized how cramped up I was.
I had been hunched over the steering wheel, peering forward, my eyes
close to the windshield, for hours it seemed.
If I thought I could tail another truck I would have pulled over. But as far as I knew it was just he and I on
the road. I couldn’t see far behind me
and nothing passed me. I was tired, but
more than that I was stiff. This was not
the carefree drive through West Virginia I had planned.
Then I remembered my yoga class. I straightened up. I consciously pressed my sitting bones down
on the seat while extending my head and neck as far as I could toward the roof
of the car. I thought about stacking my
vertebrae one on top of the other and making a very straight line from my ass
through the top of my head. It felt
good. On top of that I decided to play a
CD. I’d forgotten all about the music I
had at my fingertips in that brown paper bag.
I needed a wakeup call, so I reached out to Steely Dan for
help. There’s nothing like loud but
complex rock and roll to brighten your day.
I have four Steely Dan albums, two early ones on vinyl and two on
CD. I put in Countdown to Ecstasy
and turned up the volume. If it wasn’t
snowing so damned hard I would have rolled down all the windows. That album starts out with the hard driving
beat and great drums of a song called “Bodhisatva.”
One of the nice things about Steely Dan is you don’t have to
ponder the lyrics. Donald Fagen would at
times admit they’re not terribly meaningful.
Sometimes you get a few poignant lines, maybe a whole song’s worth, but
mostly it’s the music. The lyrics are
catchy, I know them all, but they are largely nonsense. I began belting them out.
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Can
you show me
The
shine of your Japan
The
sparkle of your China
Can you show me
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
I’m gonna sell my house in town
When the lyrics faded and Jeff
“Skunk” Baxter launched into that long and terrific guitar riff, my mood was
lifted. You have to work through these
things on a solo road trip. I found
myself feeling good, speeding up, and gaining on my guide truck. I had to slow down. It was not the day I’d imagined on the back
roads of West Virginia but it still wasn’t bad.
Near Belmont, something huge loomed ahead of me, above the Buick, that literally
made me duck my head. The biggest
smokestack yet, as wide as it was tall it seemed, rose out of the snow and
fog. The white smoke or vapor coming out of it lazed upwards and formed a giant cloud. It was
like that giant alien spacecraft in the movie Independence Day. It seemed to fill the whole sky. A sign on the chain-link fence surrounding that
plant proclaimed it “First Energy Mondova.”
Whatever they’re doing in that part of the river valley, I say it no longer
qualifies as an environmental paradise. I’m not sure I’d eat many fish out of that
stretch of the Ohio River.
Once past Waverly I made it to Parkersburg and turned left
onto Route 50 towards Clarksburg.
Even though I was going east the road stayed fairly flat. I was tempted to stop but my trucker had made
the same left. If he can keep going, I
thought, so can I. The snow may have let
up some. Then again maybe not. I went
through Ellenboro, Greenwood, and Smithburg.
You couldn’t see the sun, but the afternoon was getting on and the clouds
were getting brighter in the West. I
told myself, and assured the Buick, that I sure as hell wasn’t going to drive
in the dark on that day. I snuck a peek at
the atlas. If I could make it to Weston
I’d be happy.
I moved on to Steely Dan’s Aja album, maybe their
best. Jeff Baxter had left the band and
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were doing all the writing in 1977. Tim Schmit from the just broken up Eagles played bass and
sang backup vocals. I couldn’t pick a
favorite among those seven songs if I had to.
“Peg” comes the closest I guess. Produced
flawlessly, it has in addition to guitars and percussion an electric piano, a
synthesizer called a lyricon, and a clavinet.
The lyrics mean nothing without the music and very little with it. But together it’s a sweet crisp song. I’m happy to report it goes perfectly with
snow and a long drive. It’s a song, and
a whole album, that keeps you going.
I got your pin shot
I
keep it with your letter
Done
up in blueprint blue
It
sure looks good on you
‘ And
when you smile for the camera
I
know I love you better
Peg
It
will come back to you…
It’s
your favorite foreign movie.
I turned
south onto Route 19 in Clarksburg but my truck, the Buick’s symbiotic pal,
turned north. It had been a great run,
but it was over. The snow was slowing
down and the temperature was dropping. The
flakes were smaller. It looked like the snowplows were beginning
to get ahead of the storm down here. I
passed through Goodhope and Jane Lew, ignoring gas stations and bathrooms, to
make it to Weston before dark. I hadn’t
come that far since Columbus Ohio but the day turned out to be a long one.
It’s a good
feeling when the road sign marking your destination becomes clear in the
distance. I immediately looked for
motels, spotting a Holiday Inn Express first. A little pricey for my taste normally, I
turned in immediately and got their last room.
I parked the Buick, gave it a little pat for a hard day's work, grabbed
my backpack, and went inside, not asking about nearby restaurants. All I wanted was to go to bed.
Weston, West Virginia
Altitude 1,026 feet
Latitude 39.04
Longitude -80.47
Ahhhh. The Dan...
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