Do You Remember Station Wagons?

Do you remember station wagons? 

Not the crossovers everyone drives now, station wagons. 

My family had a few Volvo wagons. They were slow as fuck, this tank of a car with a four cylinder engine. 

But people were more patient then; didn’t need a four hundred horsepower engine, zero to sixty in five seconds or whatever. 

You’d load the family in the Volvo wagon and have a leisurely trip up to a campground; put the tent up. 

Very few people had these quarter million dollar trailers with outside televisions, jacuzzi tubs, and an electric ass wiper. 

You’d park at your spot with your station wagon and set up the tent. 

The kids didn’t have electric bikes or the latest iPhone, they’d just run around like maniacs, chasing squirrels. The adults would start a fire, start drinking beer, sit around in camp chairs talking or marveling at the dark blue of the lake and at night being able to see the stars. 

There was no television plastered on the side of an oversized trailer that had put them even deeper into debt, people still enjoyed nature then. 

They didn’t bring their suburban life with them, they didn’t need to be checking their phones every eight minutes, they could slow down and just listen to the crackle of the fire, enjoy it when a cottontail hopped nearby, the cheap bay of coyotes. 

When you drove home, you saw local restaurants, very individual and regional. It wasn’t all beige chains. 

I remember when we drove up I-80 to Sacramento from Petaluma, the Milk Barn and the Red Top and others; all gone now.

In other words, I am just another old person missing the late Bronze Age.

Next I will be going on about how the interstate highway system fucked everything.

But we lost something; no, we let it slip away.

On my days off I walk to my new bar, Toby’s. It’s two and a half miles round trip. 

A lot of trees, a lot of lovingly cultivated yards. 

I watch the crows, the little chirpy dudes that may be chickadees, the spreading trees difusing the light—

I have to watch out for speeding crossovers. Some of the busy streets lack sidewalks. 

You can see they had sidewalks in the past, but no longer. 

There are just the ghosts of sidewalks. 

I try to focus on the birds, on the yards, but you have to watch your ass around here because everyone is in a big hurry. 

Every day is a race, race to Starbucks, race to work, race to do everything you have to do at work, race to pick up Jersey Mikes or Carls Junior as you race home.

I want to live in a village where I can walk everywhere, without speeding crossovers.

Without a McDonalds and a Wal Mart and a car accessory store—

But that isn’t here, in the United States.

Small towns here are spread out so you have to drive everywhere. There are no sidewalks.

They’re also deeply conservative, I know because I spent four years traveling through them.

But I will, mostly likely, spend the rest of my life here, in this country I no longer understand or feel I belong in.

The reality is I lack both the money and the “marketable skill” to move to Italy or Spain or Greece or wherever.

But I can envision a village—

A tiny apartment above a bookstore or something. 

A compact village where you can walk end to end in ten minutes.

On sidewalks framing narrow streets where the traffic is bicycles or scooters.

A bookstore, a bar, a restaurant, a single screen theater where they play old movies.

I see it so clearly and then have to let it go because, honestly, it’s painful.

Because I understand I will never get there and will die here, in America.

I will live out my life here, in this frenetic, beige world, seeking out life on the edges—

I watch birds, worship trees, take country roads because I have to.

If all I saw were strip malls and hectic motorways I would end my life within the hour.

Not a joke, not a pithy statement.

I seriously cannot deal with this shitfest we call modern America—

Watching trees and birds, marveling at rocks and faded farm towns is not a hobby of mine—

It’s oxygen.

It’s blood moving from my heart to all parts of my body.

I escaped once. 

Six years ago on Sunday I set out in a badly converted minivan. 

I travelled all over the western United States, lived without a schedule.

Lived with indoor plumbing, heat, air conditioning, electricity.

To be honest, it could be harsh.

I try not to be overly nostalgic about it, but it was very real.

Living off grid is not for the faint of heart—but there was zero bullshit.

The pace was very human—

But it’s over and I have to let it go.

Somehow.

Do you remember station wagons? 

Do you remember a time before people voluntarily locked themselves in this gulag of modern life?

Do you force yourself to look away, at majestic trees and birds hopping through grass?

At faded shops and houses like ghosts from another time?

You’re not alone….