08 September 2010
 
HoJos

 
I was 548 miles from my most immediate set of problems, and the tension oozed out of me with each one. There is a peace and tranquility that comes with V8 power, though as the sun lowered in west behind me and the ground rose in western Pennsylvania the technical skill required to flog the Bluesmobile accurately rose exactly as my attention span faltered.
 
There are stretches of the Turnpike in the mountains that are under permanent reconstruction. The Jersey barriers line the road surface; traffic rules are inverted, with large and slow moving traffic directed to the left lane, so the trucks can better observe how many inches there are to spare for their fenders.
 
I was getting tired and decided to not tempt fate any further at New Stanton, conveniently located at exit 75, or maybe it is vice versa.
 
I did not like the trucks or civilian rigs I was flowing with through the concrete channel, and there was no way to accelerate past them. It was close enough to quitting time, with around four hours left to get down from the highlands to the placid waters of the Potomac, and a glance at the signage indicated there were several inns available to stay until first light.
 
I veered off the turnpike at the ramp and onto the unregulated highways. The cluster of lodging establishments was located in a sort of industrial sleeping park: the Red Roof, Super 8, Holiday Inn Express. They were surrounded by a thicket of fast food and fuel: Subway, Mickie D’s, Quiznos and anchored firmly with Sheetz, Exxon and Sunoco.
 
I hate the new cheap lodgings. They rise three or four stories, not like the old motels that sprawled on one or two levels where you could park in front of your room. Built for efficiency, or a smaller America, I don’t know. The footprint is certainly smaller and greener with central HVAC and no smoking.
 
As I slipped past the Subway, I saw an iconic symbol from days long gone: the vaguely pagoda-shaped orange rood and weathervane of a Howard Johnson’s motel. I had not seen one in years. I stepped on the accelerator and headed for the covered entrance.
 
Howard Deering Johnson used to own the Pennsylvania Turnpike. His empire started with a $2,000 loan in Quincy, Mass, to buy a corner drugstore. Noting that most of his profits came from the soda fountain, added high0butterfat ice cream to his line, and eventually deployed 28 flavors, which became his trademark. He got out of the drugstore business altogether, founding his first eponymous restaurant just before the Crash in 1929.
 
Howard served a menu of All-American beach-front comfort food: fried clams, baked beans, chicken pot pies, frankfurters, ice cream, and soft drinks.
 
In 1929, Howard got the career break of a lifetime. Boston banned the production of Eugene O'Neill's play “Strange Interlude,” on grounds of indecency, and the five-hour production was moved to a venue in Quincy adjacent to Howard’s restaurant. The production could as well been banned for its stultifying length, but with the Great Depression looming perhaps people had nothing better to do.
 
With a lengthy intermission, and the prospect of salacious content to whet the appetite, the restaurant became famous among the artsy crowd of Boston. With fame, Howard set his sights on expansion even as the nation lurched into Depression.
 
The credit squeeze that came after Black Friday made it difficult, though, and Howard had to be as innovative in finance as in recipe. He created one of the first franchise operations to open his second restaurant in Massachusetts, and he was on his way.
 
When the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, and New Jersey Turnpike were built, Johnson bid on and won exclusive rights to serve drivers at service station turnoffs through the turnpike systems. That is where I first encountered the clam strips, an alien food to a Detroit kid, and the concept of “fast food” had not yet arrived.
 
The chain went on the skids by the sixties, and passed through several corporate holding companies on the road to dissolution. The Turnpike icons were long gone. The distinctive gray limestone buildings, sturdy and comforting like the food, are still there but now staging lots for the endless construction on the pike.
 
I pulled in and a buxom dark-haired girl named Liz greeted me at the 1950’s style desk. We negotiated a deep discount for a ground-floor room under the orange roof, and I looked out over the pleasant though somewhat bedraggled campus.
 
I drove around back and parked the Bluesmobile directly in front of my rented door. As I worked the key card in the door- the only update I could see- a young woman came down from upstairs, followed by a workman who got into a white F-150 pickup festooned with tools and roared off. The girl was on the phone, of course, and climbed into a battered Chevy. She stared back at me as she cruised away, and I wondered what Howard would have thought about his motels having come down so far in the world as to be rented by the hour.
 
The sun was setting and my shoulders were tense from gripping the wheel all day. I dragged a bag in and poured a strong drink.
 
Four hours in the morning, I thought, and all the madness of Michigan would be behind me. I knew that was wrong, and that I would be on the road again sooner than I anticipated. I opened the back door to the room- imagine that, two doors- and looked at the transom window that actually opens, or did before it was painted over.
 
I ambled on over to the pool, which was closed for the season, though of course there was no lifeguard and it was still warm and there was no reason for the closure. I strode over to look at it. Real American 1950s, kidney shaped. Eight feet in depth at the deep end, not like the glorified indoor tubs at the new motels.
 
Symbol of a gone world. I took a sip and looked at the skyline of neon that could be seen from the Pike. I made a mental note to remember this place: 548 miles from the little city by the Bay, and my new favorite stop at Exit 75 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
 
I imagine I am going to be seeing a lot more of this place before things get resolved back home.
 



Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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