Are We There Yet?

Bruce Barcott begins his review of Cross Country by Robert Sullivan:

In the summer of 1981 my parents packed my sister and me into our 1973 Gran Torino station wagon and drove, on a route resembling a fishhook, from our home in Ventura, Calif., to Ensenada, Mexico, and then straight up the spine of I-5 to our grandparents’ house in Everett, Wash. Along the way, things happened. The Torino lacked air-conditioning, so we sucked motel ice cubes as we drove the length of California’s broiling Central Valley. My sister and I stared daggers at our father when he vetoed our plan to see the Trees of Mystery, a tourist trap near Crescent City. It was getting late, he said, and we had to make time. The next day the Torino’s transmission blew out near Grants Pass, Ore., and we “made time” sitting in a laundermat waiting for the parts to arrive. Agony in the doing and ecstasy in the telling, the trip has become a central part of our family lore. My sister and I can still crack each other up by muttering, “Trees of Mystery.”

Cross Country is subtitled: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily Post, … kids, and enough coffee to kill an elephant.

“Cross Country” tells the story of one such trip: a simple west-to-east crossing that takes the Sullivans from his wife’s cousin’s wedding near Portland, Ore., to New York. Riding with the author in a rented Impala are his wife, his teenage son, his younger daughter and a rooftop luggage pack that threatens to disintegrate at highway speeds. Though technically a travel memoir, “Cross Country” aspires to be much more: a survey of cross-country road trips written with the languid pace and arcane detail that might characterize a six-day drive with a charming, talkative history buff.

Thanks to Veronica for the tip.

And click here for Jill’s take on our own family vacations.

The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier

A recent study by sociologists at Duke and the University of Arizona found that, on average, most adults only have two people they can talk to about the most important subjects in their lives — serious health problems, for example, or issues like who will care for their children should they die. And about one-quarter have no close confidants at all.

From an article in The New York Times

Key quote: “But gosh, the number of friends you have is a strong predictor of how long you live.”

The Second of July

It’s the date on which the Continental Congress approved a resolution declaring independence (1776) — the Declaration of Independence stating the reasons was approved two days later.

It’s the date on which the second day of battle was fought at Gettysburg (1863).

It’s the date on which Charles J. Guiteau assassinated President James A. Garfield (1881).

It’s the date on which Thurgood Marshall was born (1908).

It’s the date on which Amelia Earhart was lost (1937).

It’s the date on which the Air Force says a weather balloon crashed near Roswell, New Mexico (1947).

It’s the date on which Ernest Hemingway committed suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho (1961).

It’s the date on which President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act (1964).

It’s the day Richard Petty turns 69.

It’s the day Luci Baines Johnson, the younger daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, turns 59.

Larry David turns 59 today as well.

Lindsay Lohan is 20.

Mr. Justice Marshall

It’s the birthday of the first African American to serve as a Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, born in Baltimore, Maryland (1908).

He applied to the University of Maryland Law School, but he was rejected on the basis of race, so he enrolled at Howard University instead. The first thing he did, upon graduation, was use his law degree to sue the University of Maryland for racial discrimination, and he almost couldn’t believe it when he won. Thanks to his efforts, the University of Maryland Law School admitted its first black student in 1935. It was the first time that a black student had ever been admitted to any state law school south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Marshall became the legal director of the NAACP, and of the thirty-two cases he argued for that organization, he won twenty-nine. His biggest case was the landmark Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. He went on to serve as an appeals court judge under Kennedy, and Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1967.

Thurgood Marshall said, “None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody—a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns—bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”

The Writer’s Almanac

The President Shot, 1881

On July 2, 1881—125 years ago this weekend—President James A. Garfield was shot at the Baltimore & Potomac station in Washington by a failed lawyer named Charles Guiteau. The President took two months to die, and the trial of his assassin raised issues of criminal responsibility and the insanity defense that American jurisprudence struggles with to this day.

So begins a solid summary of the event and its legal aftermath by David Rapp at AmericanHeritage.com. Be the first kid on your block to know any details of the second presidential assassination in American history.

Gettysburg, Day 2

On July 2, 1863, the lines of the Battle of Gettysburg, now in its second day, were drawn in two sweeping parallel arcs. The Confederate and Union armies faced each other a mile apart. The Union forces extending along Cemetery Ridge to Culp’s Hill, formed the shape of a fish-hook, and the Confederate forces were spread along Seminary Ridge.

General Robert E. Lee ordered General James Longstreet to attack the Union’s southern flank, aiming for the hills at the southernmost end of Cemetery Ridge. These hills, known as the Little Round Top and Big Round Top had been left unoccupied, and would have afforded the Confederates a good vantage point from which to ravage the Union line.

General Longstreet, disagreeing with Lee’s orders, and hoping that the cavalry under the command of General J.E.B. Stuart would soon come up with the army to participate in the attack, was slow to advance on the hills.

Although Longstreet’s soldiers broke through to the base of the Little Round Top, Union General G. K. Warren perceived the Confederate plan in time to rouse his men to take the strategic hill, fending off the Confederate attack.

General Lee had also commanded General R.S. Ewell to attack the northernmost flank of the Union Army. On one occasion Ewell’s troops took possession of a slope of Culp’s Hill, but the Union remained entrenched both there and on Cemetery Ridge, where General Meade was headquartered.

Library of Congress

Map: National Park Service

10 Days That Changed History

Adam Goodheart suggests 10 Days That Changed History. He begins:

It’s a badly kept secret among scholars of American history that nothing much really happened on Thursday, July 4, 1776.

Although this date is emblazoned on the Declaration, the Colonies had actually voted for independence two days earlier; the document wasn’t signed until a month later. When John Adams predicted that the “great anniversary festival” would be celebrated forever, from one end of the continent to the other, he was talking about July 2.

Hump day

2006 is half over at 1 PM Sunday (noon if you aren’t on daylight savings time).

How those New Year’s Resolutions working out so far?