Book Review: Pages In Heat

“Blue Highways”
William Least heat Moon
Back Bay Books
429 Pages






I read this book on the recommendation of a grade school and high school compatriot who I ran into up in Michigan. I was extolling the virtues of diners and she and a Lutheran Minister of my acquaintance began extolling the virtues of this book and his system of choosing the best diners which was to see how many calendars were on the wall. The theory was a simple one that the best diners were frequented by local and the best evidence of locals were their wall calendars for auto parts, insurance, etc... I do not know about the theory but the book is a serious one.

"Least Heat Moon was living in Columbia Missouri when with his life going apparently bad he decided to go on a little vision quest in his pick up Ghost Dancing and travel all around the country. The name of the book and the idea was to not drive on inter-states but only the blue highways on his atlas which were small roads through the “real” America. Wikipedia tells us:
“His pen name came from something that his father once said, "I call myself heat moon, your elder brother is little heat moon. You, coming last, therefore, are least." Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he attended the University of Missouri–Columbia where he joined Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and received a bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D degrees in English as well as a bachelor's degree in photojournalism. He also served as a professor of English at the University.
He is a contemporary Missouri travel writer, and author of a bestselling trilogy of topographical U.S. travel writing.
Blue Highways, which spent 42 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 1982-83, is a chronicle of a three-month-long road trip that Heat-Moon took throughout the United States in 1978, after losing his teaching job and being left by his wife. He travelled 13,000 miles, as much as possible on secondary roads (often drawn on maps in blue, esp. on the old style Rand McNally road atlas) and tried to avoid cities, living out of the back of his van "Ghost Dancing" and visiting small towns such as Nameless, Tennessee; Hachita, New Mexico; and Bagley, Minnesota in an attempt to find places in America that were untouched by fast food chains and interstate highways. The book chronicles the people he talked to in roadside cafés as well as his personal soul-searching.”

It is an interesting book. Written or experienced in 1978 and published in 1982-83, right about the time I was getting out of college and not getting into Law School immediately. It was a best seller but I didn’t have time for it then, and to be fair it was hard to make time for it now. It is an excellent book. It is most interesting in that it is just kind of a slice of life view of our country at that time and in that regard it was fascinating. He visited a lot of towns that were on the map that had literally ceased to exist and then when he had the chance he found people who told the stories and in the oral tradition, put to writing there is some brilliant stuff.

But it was kind of hard for me to read. there is no plot. He starts off heading southeast to the Atlantic coast and goes clockwise from there around the country. He sleeps in cheap motels and his truck. He meets religious people and he frequently quotes Walt Whitman to anyone who will listen. He is cold and miserable a lot. Besides sitting in diners he goes to bars a lot and talks to people there. There is some connection between diners and bars which need to be explored in some kind of scholarly article. He often has a hard time finding a place to park the truck where he will not be harassed and it is hard to feature in the post 9-11 era that anyone would be even able to accomplish this anymore.
I recommend the book as a bed side companion but it took me almost a month to get through it. He is an excellent narrator and seems to have a gift for getting people to reveal things about what they perceive the history of their places are. In that same vein I am reading a book called “Psycho-Geography” written by one of my favorites Will Self that is based on an idea that the places we live shape or psyche. More later. For this one, it is a must read if you are a reader. It is a classic, but like all classics, it takes some work. Good luck.

7 Slingers on the ten scale

Diner Review VI: Uncle Wimpy's Diner

Uncle Wimpy’s Diner
7901 S. Broadway. South...way south Broadway!
Hours Mon-Fri 6-3, Saturday and Sunday 7-3



Uncle Wimpy’s is of course named after J. Wellington Wimpy, or just Wimpy, who was one of the characters in the long-running comic strip, Thimble Theater, and in the Popeye cartoons based upon the strip.They do not do his name justice for breakfast (primary diner meal) but perhaps we will go back to try lunch. The South Broadway portion of the St. Louis Diner Review tour has been interesting. That area of Broadway a few miles south of the brewery running straight along the river in between Highwat 55 and the river. It is an awful area in a lot of ways but there is a beauty to it. A lot of old buildings and many parts of it are only 20 yards or so from the river. The people who are regulars down there are working people...hard people and probably good people...but this diner will never know because...I come...I eat...I leave.

Uncle Wimpy’s has no windows. It is a great looking place inside with a sweet counter and a bunch of tables...four tops and two tops. Once again almost packed even at 6:45 on a Saturday morning. At every quality diner on Saturday morning there is one table of 4-6 men sitting and drinking coffee, normally one paper spread between them...loudly discussing the news...world politics, local politics, last nights drunk, the waitresses breasts, a shitty food and how the new guy can’t cook...it goes on and on and it is annoying and beautiful. The customers were the best thing about the place and it is worth a trip to just to sit with these people and listen...even over bad food.

Wimpy’s however was a pretty crappy place. My ice tea had been run through the coffee filter. When I brought it to the waitresses attention see seemed perplexed as to what to do. She finally...at my suggestion brought me a water. There were 4 waitresses “working” but they each spent long periods sitting at their own table and doing...nothing. Still it was a place with a lot of character. The sausage was lightly spiced...the toast was fine but the potatoes were the dreaded “American fries” and although I have NOTHING against America my feelings about these rouch cut potatoes is well documented.
The menu was befitting a crappy place. It was a white sheet with bad typing on as is pictured above. It is a tacky menu...a menu not to be left unmocked. A cheap menu wrapped in ill fitting cellophane. To be fair it is in an ill fitting cellophane sleeve. Still it has a certain tacky charm.

There are so many quality places to get breakfast. So much ambience. Places with good food, good service and quality people or even better characters but Wimpy’s fails on almost...well not almost...Wimpy’s fails on EVERY level. The food was average to bad, the service average to bad. The place as I said looks good. it is the right size, there is none of the annoying natural light to cut through the haze of cigarette smoke, it has lots of memorabilia on the wall...it could be a a VERY good place. But instead it is shitty. Three Slingers on a Ten scale. Next time we will go for lunch and buy a hamburger and I will see if I can get someone else to buy. I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". Indeed. Words to live by.

***

An old book has been brought to my attention and as I sit here watching “Braveheart” again it occurs to me that I probably need to read his novel “Ble Highways”. Moon has allegedly expounded on a theory i am going to have to try which judges diners based on a “calendar” system which relies on the supposition that the more calendars that a place has hanging on the wall, the better a diner it is. In my recent trip to michigan I attempted to gather some documentation and to quantify this seemingly bizarre rating but in my trips to three quality establishments, the Portage Lake Diner, Hubbels Bait Shop and Diner and Captain Jacks. Sadly enough none of these establishments had more then one calendar hanging on the wall. I am going to start noting in the future the calendar count and where the calendar came from. The theory seems to be that a good diner will post any calendar that is handed to it and is a good sign of loyal local trade. So be aware...and beware. the Diner Reviewer has spoken.