Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 5
INTHEMORNINGIrejoinedHighway127south.Thiswasmarkedonmymapasascenic
route and for once this proved to be so. It really was attractive countryside, better than
anything I knew Illinois possessed, with rolling hills of winebottle green, prosperous-look-
ing farms and deep woods of oak and beech. Surprisingly, considering I was heading south,
the foliage here was more autumnal than elsewhere-the hillsides were a mixture of mustard,
dullorangeandpalegreen,quitefetching-andtheclear,sunnyairhadanagreeablecrispness
to it. I could live here, in these hills, I thought.
It took me a while to figure out what was missing. It was billboards. When I was small, bill-
boards thirty feet wide and fifteen feet high stood in fields along every roadside. In places
like Iowa and Kansas they were about the only stimulation you got. In the 1960s Lady Bird
Johnson, in one of those misguided campaigns in which presidents' wives are always enga-
ging themselves, had most of the roadside billboards removed as part of a highway beauti-
ficationprogram.InthemiddleoftheRockyMountainsthiswasdoubtlessagoodthing,but
out here in the lonesome heartland billboards were practically a public service.
Seeing one standing a mile off you would become interested to see what it said, and would
watchwithmildabsorptionasitadvancedtowardsyouandpassed.Asroadsideexcitements
went, it was about on a par with the little windmills in Pella, but it was better than nothing.
The superior billboards would have a three-dimensional element to them-the head of a cow
jutting out if it was for a dairy, or a cutout of a bowling ball scattering pins if it was for a
bowling alley. Sometimes the billboard would be for some coming attraction. There might
be a figure of a ghost and the words, VISIT SPOOK CAVERNS! OKLAHOMA'S GREAT
FAMILY ATTRACTION! JUST 69 MILES! A couple of miles later there would be another
signsaying,PLENTYOFFREEPARKINGATSPOOKCAVERNS.JUST67MILES!And
soitwouldgowithsignaftersignpromisingthemostthrillingandinstructiveafternoonany
family could ever hope to have, at least in Oklahoma. These promises would be supported
byillustrationsshowingeerilylitundergroundchambers,thesizeofcathedrals,inwhichthe
stalactites and stalagmites had magically fused into the shapes of witches' houses, bubbling
caldrons, flying bats and Casper the Friendly Ghost. It all looked extremely promising. So
we children in the back would begin suggesting that we stop and have a look, taking it in
turns to say, in a sincere and moving way, “Oh, please, Dad, oh, pleeeeease.”
