Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (30 page)

We had heard a lot about how beautifully the old homes and buildings in Franklin had been preserved. Like Madison, Indiana, it sounded like our kind of town. So we looked forward to exploring it, but as we walked into town our interest began to wane. By the time we reached downtown, we felt down-right unwelcome.

It all started on Highway 62 where it began to descend into Franklin. The road was narrow and it had little–and sometimes–no shoulder. So we had no choice but to be in the lane of traffic. It was early Thursday afternoon, the road was busy and every time we came to a place where we could pull over and let traffic get by us, we did. Usually it was a wide gravel spot, with a guard rail on the right and traffic to our left. Beyond the guardrail was a drop off into the Allegheny River Valley. Sometimes we stood in those spots for ten minutes before we could get back on the road. But that wasn’t good enough for those motorists. Twice when we pulled over, the first car to pass us honked their horn and gave us the finger. Then there was the man in a primer gray Datsun
pickup. He was in the other lane going uphill when he stopped at the yellow line and yelled out his window, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You got no business being on this road! Get that Goddam animal off the highway!”

Black smoke belched out of his tailpipe when the man stomped his accelerator.

Patricia was in the cab working the brake, and as the truck sputtered up the hill, she yelled, “What’s his problem? We’re not in his way.”

“Got me.”

She yelled back, “This is the most unfriendly road we’ve been on so far!”

We were walking into downtown Franklin when we passed an auto repair shop. In the open garage doorway stood five men dressed in matching green mechanic shirts–all with their arms folded across their chests. Obviously they had assembled to watch us walk by. So I waved and yelled, “Howdy!” But they all just stood and stared, except the man at the end of the row. He glanced to see if the others were watching before he quickly uncrossed his right arm and waved at us twice. Then he immediately recrossed it.

Franklin was indeed a pretty little city–very Victorian. Downtown was mostly two and three story redbrick buildings that had either been restored or well cared for down through the years. It was the kind of town that we liked to explore. So when I spotted an open parking space, I guided Della into it. I was tying her to a sign post when Patricia climbed out of the cart and walked up to me. “Why are we stopping?”

“This sure is a pretty town. Isn’t it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so. But there seems to be a rash of broken arms around here.”

“Huh?”

Patricia waved at me, then let her arm go limp and grimaced.

“Oh, yeah. Folks aren’t too friendly,” I said. “Do you want to explore?”

For a few moments my wife didn’t say anything as she turned around and surveyed our surroundings. Then she looked at me with a frown on her face. “I don’t feel welcome here. Let’s move on.”

On the northeast edge of Franklin, we pulled into the parking lot of the Giant Eagle supermarket. The last three times we stopped to get groceries, I ended up selling a poetry book or few. Patricia said, “You aren’t going to make anything here.”

Just as my wife walked into the store, a bent old woman with a huge purse hanging from her shoulder shuffled off the sidewalk and up to me. With a scowl she mumbled, “This is for the donkey.”

From the purse she pulled two red and white striped peppermint candies. Then, without looking up, she handed them to me.

I said, “Thank you.”

She grunted, then turned back toward the street as she grumbled, “Make sure you give those to the donkey.” Then she shuffled down the sidewalk headed for town.

Jerry said, “Yeah, well, that’s the way it is around here”.

He was a reporter for two local newspapers–Franklin’s
The News Herald
, and Oil City’s
The Derrick
. Jerry was in his early twenties, blond and immediately likeable. When he got out of his car, he had two cameras dangling from his neck, a note-pad in his left hand and a smile on his face. “Welcome to Franklin.”

I couldn’t help it. I had to say, “That’s a nice change.”

“Huh?”

Then I told him about our reception so far in Franklin. “It’s a pretty town, but folks sure have been unfriendly.”

He sighed. “Most people around here are real conservative. If they don’t know you, they’re not going to wave.”

Originally from Marshall, Minnesota, Jerry had worked at the newspapers for a little over two years. “Doing this kind of work, I deal with lots of local people. And I’ve met some really great folks around here, but they’re just not very open to strangers.”

When Patricia stopped her shopping cart in front of the reporter, she shook Jerry’s hand and said, “It’s certainly refreshing to see a smiling face around here.”

Then she turned to me. “I just met the rudest checkout person ever. I’m telling you, it was–” Patricia waved her hand over her head and said, “Never mind. I just want to get out of here!”

Jerry interviewed us and took pictures while we loaded provisions into the cart. After everything was packed, he said, “I’m going to drive ahead and find a spot to get some shots of you walking toward me.”

Highway 62 to Oil City paralleled the Allegheny River and most of it was four lanes with a shoulder. We had walked quite a ways from the supermarket when I spotted Jerry ahead of us on a corner across the highway. A policeman was standing next him as he aimed a huge telephoto lens at us. He and the cop smiled and waved as we walked by.

About two hundred yards further, I heard the sound of a car motor directly behind the cart on the highway shoulder. Then there was a short bleep of a police siren followed by an amplified man’s voice. “Would you please stop?”

Patricia said, “Now what?”

Behind the cart was the police car we had seen earlier. The officer was climbing out of it as Jerry pulled up behind him. Quickly, the reporter got out and scurried toward us with pen and pad in hand.

The officer was about the same age as the reporter–in his early twenties. A handsome, dark haired man who was smiling as he first approached us. I figured this was going to be a photo-op for the paper. But as he got closer, that smile began to fade, and his face looked strained when he said, “You have to get off this highway at Reno.”

Officer Ryan didn’t have demand in his voice. It was more like he was just passing information on to us. So I calmly asked, “Why?”

I sensed reluctance in his voice. “My supervisor said you can’t walk through Reno on US 62. He says you can’t have a horse on a four-lane highway.”

Patricia snapped, “She’s a mule!”

I put my hand on Patricia’s shoulder to calm her down as I said, “Your supervisor is wrong. We can’t be on an interstate highway. But we can be on a US highway, no matter how many lanes it has.”

He was almost pleading when the cop said, “Look, I don’t know what the problem is. I told him you weren’t hurting anything. But he says that if you go into Reno on this highway, I’m supposed to arrest you.”

In unison Patricia and I yelled, “What?”

Officer Ryan stepped back a bit, looked down at the ground and began to shake his head. His hands were on his hips as he said, “Look, I’m just doing my job. That’s all. I don’t want to hassle you people. I think what you’re doing is really cool.”

This young man was quickly winning both mine and Patricia’s hearts. Back when she was a cop, several times Patricia was sent to do something that she didn’t want to do. My wife was gentle when she asked, “So what are we supposed to do?”

“You want to go to Oil City, right?”

He pulled a note book out of his shirt pocket and said, “These are the directions they told me to give you.”

Throughout this exchange, Jerry had been circling around us taking pictures. Then when Officer Ryan read me the directions, both the reporter and I wrote them down. “Take the first left in Reno and go to the stop signal. Then turn left on Walnut Street to Shafer Run. Take it to Route 428, that’s Holiday Run. Go right–”

Jerry blurted out, “Holiday Run? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“I’m just telling you what they said.”

When Officer Ryan pulled away in his patrol car, Jerry said, with delight, “Boy, have I got a story! The boss is going to love this. I can see the headline now, ‘Sugar Creek Cops Stop World Travelers. Reroutes Them Onto Holiday Run.”

I asked, “What’s the big deal about Holiday Run?”

“Driving it is anything but a holiday. It’s a nightmare! It’s steep, narrow and busy. I can’t imagine walking it.”

After we made the first two turns that the police prescribed, I spotted a two story house with a hose in the yard. We needed water. So I grabbed Della’s bucket, one of our blue jugs, and hiked up the dozen concrete steps that ascended the front yard. It was littered with four or five bicycles, a torn-apart go-cart, a couple of plastic rifles and a few big pieces of cardboard. When I stepped up onto the front porch, big dogs began to bark on the other side of the front door. Suddenly, it swung open and two huge Rottweiler’s lunged at the screen door. I feared they were going to bust through the screen as they growled and barred their teeth at me.

A ten year old shirtless boy smacked each one on the top of their heads with his hand as he yelled. “I said, shut up! Sweetie, you git back and sit down. Knuckle Head, that means you too. Now sit!”

They both did. I was thrilled.

With a bit of a hillbilly drawl, the boy said, “What do you want?”

The question was barely out of his mouth, when a taller thirteen year old version of the boy walked up behind him. “Say man, what’s happening?”

“I’m traveling with that mule down on the street and we need some water.”

The younger brother yelled. “Wow, look at that! He’s got a big-ass donkey.”

The screen door slammed against the front of the house as the boy sprinted past me and bounded down the concrete steps in bare feet. “Hey, how much for a ride?”

Right then, one of the dogs barged past the older brother, out the screen door and began to sniff my bare legs. The wetness from his nose dripped on my calves as the huge head moved around me. My skin, my muscles, my bones, all of me cringed. His canines were too close.

“Sweetie, get back in here!”

The older brother was shirtless and barefoot, too. He grabbed the choker around the dog’s neck and yanked her back into the house. Then
he pointed at a spot next to where the other dog sat. “Now sit down and shut up!”

She did. My flesh and bones felt much better. I said, “Maybe I should move on.”

This boy had the same drawl as his brother. “I’ll ask my grandma if we can give you some water. Wait here.”

Whenever we went to someone’s door to ask for water, or a place to camp, we always took one of our flyers with us. I handed one to the boy. “It explains who we are.”

“Cool! I’ll be right back.” He was already reading it when he turned around and headed back into the house yelling, “Grandma!”

While I stood on the porch waiting for Grandma, I surveyed the situation. Two barefoot boys, yard full of junk, a house in need of paint and repair–it felt very Appalachia. Grandma reinforced that feeling when she showed up at the door without her teeth. She was wearing a moo-moo, had our flyer in her hand and a toothless grin on her face. When she pushed the screen door open she said, “Well sir, the boy here says you need some water for your mule.”

“Yes ma’am, but if it’s a problem I–”

She had a chuckle in her voice. “No honey, it’s no problem.”

Her vacant grin got bigger as she eyed me from head to toe. It felt like she was undressing me as she held the door open. “No sir, not a problem at all. Just come on in here and make yourself to home.”

When I stepped past her, I thought I heard her mutter, “Said the spider to the fly.”

She turned to the boy, “Go git the basement key from your mama. She’s upstairs in bed watching the TV.”

When the boy left the room, both dogs got up, walked over to me and began to sniff my legs. Grandma said, “Don’t worry about them. They won’t hurt ya as long as one of us is around. Would ya like to sit down?”