From the Editor
We do not go into the desert to escape people, but to learn how to find them.
Thomas Merton
It was just after 2 a.m. on I-10 east of Riverside, CA. I’d been following the glowing taillights of a Chevrolet pickup for about 15 minutes when the boat it was pulling fell off its trailer and crashed onto the pavement in front of me.
On the road from Seattle for more than 30 hours straight, I was hopped up on NoDoz and eager to get home. But my reflexes were shot. I saw the boat tumbling toward me, mashed the brake pedal, and locked up the brakes. My hands clamped down on the steering wheel and I braced myself against the seat, closing my eyes as the tires screeched toward the impending impact.
This was supposed to be my great adventure: I was 17 when I drove my 1967 Triumph Spitfire more than 3,500 miles from Phoenix, AZ, to Alaska.
In 1973 much of the 1,300-mile-long Alaska Highway was still unpaved. We’d rebuilt the Spitfire’s 1147cc engine, and put wire mesh around the headlights and grill. I pulled out the passenger seat to make space for my Yamaha 12-string and tools to rest by day, and me by night.
My car was ready, but I was not.
The walls of my bedroom had been plastered with maps since I was 12, and my copy of The Milepost—the Alaska Highway’s official publication—was dog-eared and fringed with bookmarks. But I was still a shy, self-conscious young man with many zits and few social skills. So I drove thousands of miles like the new kid in school getting on the bus—eyes forward, afraid to catch anyone’s eye, much less talk to them. I camped to avoid meeting people. I slept in the car to avoid meeting bears.
I did have one long conversation at Liard River Hot Springs in British Columbia with members of The Children of God cult. They warned that my destination—Anchorage—was soon to be destroyed in the Apocalypse (“You’re going the wrong direction, man”). They questioned my aspiration to become a teacher (“The wisdom of this world is foolishness, Brother.”). But one of the guys fixed my Coleman camp stove, and the girl was pretty and seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being. I counted it a win—I had actually met and talked with Alaskans, even if they were fleeing.
Anchorage was still intact when I arrived, but the Spitfire’s u-joints were history. Clattering through downtown, I needed to find a mechanic. I knew no one in Alaska, but my Aunt Marian had lived in the city years earlier and had given me the name and address of a friend. I’d had no intention of contacting the woman; now I had no choice.
I took a deep breath, walked up to the door, knocked, and was greeted by the person who would save my trip. Jeannette George had been expecting me (thank you, Aunt Marian) and knew just the mechanic who could fix the car. She had a wry sense of humor, a casual “make yourself at home” way of welcoming. She invited me to stay for dinner and until the car was repaired. (She may not have realized that it would take 10 days just to get the parts!)
During those days she took me to museums (one with an eight-foot-tall stuffed Kodiak bear with five-inch claws only increased my appreciation for Jeannette’s hospitality), the Matanuska Valley, and nearby glaciers.
At night, her daughter, Laurie, would come home from her summer job at the airport, and we would talk until the midnight sun nudged the horizon. She was a year older and a decade wiser than I was. Lovely, of course, with kind eyes and a delightful laugh I still hear in my memory. She makes me smile as I write this. We reveled in making fun of Mother Moose, Alaska’s version of Captain Kangaroo. Laurie had just gone through a tough breakup and was grieving the death of her father; my own family was falling apart and I’d recently been rejected by a girl I thought I loved. We talked about it all the way two people do when it’s late and you should probably go to sleep but you don’t want the conversation to end. She was my Juliet; I was more like the weird little brother she’d never had. But she gave me back scratches and let me down gently. My fear of “talking to girls” was replaced by wonder at the real person beneath that alluring surface. I left the George’s home feeling more confident, worthy of love, my world a friendlier place (though I’ve still got a thing about bears). On the way home I even reached out to strangers, playing my guitar and singing with people during the ferryboat ride to Washington.
That trip’s long stretches of solitude punctuated by rich encounters also established an oft-repeated pattern for my life that I recognized only years later in the words of Thomas Merton: “We do not go into the desert to escape people, but to learn how to find them.”
When I finally skidded to a stop on I-10 outside Riverside and opened my eyes, the boat was gone. So was the Chevy pickup. The only vehicle on the road was a semi in the westbound lane. At some point while following that truck I’d fallen asleep at the wheel—the falling boat must have been a dream, my brain’s last shot at saving my life.
Travel can be a wake-up call, as you’ll read in the stories contributed by alumni, students, and teachers in these pages. It may change the way we see and move in the world, or just stir us from our complacency.
Seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar place—as the magazine staff did when we traveled with the Little Giant football team to Albion for their first game—can be a revelation, too.
Considering those benefits, the phrase “traveling well” is practically redundant.
Thanks for reading.
STEVE CHARLES
Editor | charless@wabash.edu