Too far to go?

It was a golden autumn day, the town as traffic-troubled, as neon-plastered, as cluttered and milling with activity as any other up-and-coming town … I drove through the town as usual, seeing little but the truck ahead of me and the Thunderbird in my rearview mirror. It’s bad to have one’s myth shaken up like that.

This is how John Steinbeck described his passage through Fargo, North Dakota. Since childhood, he had considered the town to be a romantic location – a frontier town that enjoyed an extreme climate, “kin to those magically remote sports mentioned by Herodotus and Marco Polo.”

My experience, earlier this week, was quite similar – if shorter in duration. I scooted past the city on a four-lane bypass at 60 or 70 miles per hour. I hoped to make a brief stop at North Dakota State to thumb my nose at the Bison (whom my San Diego State Aztecs defeated in football back in 1966 and replaced them in the small-college rankings); but before I knew it I had passed the last exit without having seen a signpost directing traffic to the campus.

Steinbeck complained throughout his trip about heavy traffic in cities. I share his limited sense of direction and am increasingly grateful for my handy GPS system. Despite frequent missed exits, I no longer get lost; the machine simply re-calculates my route and I always reach my destination.

But even the GPS can’t completely remove the sense of stress I feel in city traffic. Everyone else seems to know where he or she is going – and they all want to get there in a bit hurry. I feel like some sort of obstacle and find it hard to relax and enjoy the scenery.

Just before knifing through Fargo, Steinbeck dropped in on Sauk (pronounced “sock” Center, Minnesota. Heading in the opposite direction, I hit the two towns in the reverse order.


I believe the famed writer was very much affected by thoughts of his own mortality when he pulled into the birthplace of a former colleague, Sinclair Lewis. Lewis was older and had become famous earlier. Steinbeck obviously had great respect for the Sauk Center native; and this visit provided some foreshadowing for a later stopover in Steinbeck’s own hometown on the West Coast.

Steinbeck chose to recall rather sad memories of Lewis, including their last meeting when the older man said, “I seem to be always cold. I’m going to Italy.”

Italy is where Sinclair Lewis died – apparently alone, as Steinbeck reports with obvious sorrow.

Noting that Sauk Center enjoyed a steady stream of tourists since Lewis’ death, Steinbeck noted, “The only good writer is a dead writer.”

Setting aside this rather morose outlook, I enjoyed my short visit to Sauk Center. The visitor’s center included a very informative display of memorabilia and information; and a very appropriate and professionally produced video provided a clear exposition.

I drove a couple of miles farther away from my route to visit Lewis’ boyhood home. I drove down Main Street (the title for his first book) and took a look at the lake. Walking on the lawn and into the back yard (where a detached garage that the writer converted to his literary purposes still stands) I got a little of that feeling one sometimes experiences knowing that something amazing grew in that spot.

Across the alley from the garage/workshop, neighbors have painted a mural over an entire wall of their house. They were sitting in the shade on a large concrete slab that comprised their back yard, all in plain view of visitors like myself who might wander behind Lewis’ house to see the shed.

I took a step toward these neighbors, who seemed by virtue of the huge mural to be inviting attention. But I noticed that they had only two folding lawn chairs set out – one for each of them. That seemed rather inconsiderate to me, for some reason, and so I refused to set foot into whatever snare they may have laid for readers and wanderers.

Thoughts about fame and fortune, about life and death and hospitality and exploitation filled my head as I returned to the interstate and made my way to the Twin Cities. With a pair of writers who occupy a category to which I don’t even aspire along for the ride, the miles sped by and I completed my longest drive of the trip with ease.