September 7, 2019 (Saturday)
When President Eisenhower saw the Autobahn in Germany, it gave him the idea that the United States could have an entire network of super highways. The result was our Interstate Highway system, which is a truly remarkable phenomenon. It has saved many lives, and shortened travel time across the country.
There is one negative factor, however. The new Interstate system has bypassed many interesting roads. Perhaps one of the best is Route 66. Bobby Troup wrote a song about it in 1966. If you are going that way, you might like to take the road that is now “less traveled.”
Route 66 (Get Your Kicks On)
Bobby Troup
1966
If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, take the highway that is best
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
It winds from Chicago to LA
More than two thousand miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Now you go through Saint Looey
Joplin, Missouri
and Oklahoma City is mighty pretty
You see Amarillo
Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona
Don’t forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino
Won’t you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Won’t you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Bobby Troup
1966
If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, take the highway that is best
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
It winds from Chicago to LA
More than two thousand miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Now you go through Saint Looey
Joplin, Missouri
and Oklahoma City is mighty pretty
You see Amarillo
Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona
Don’t forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino
Won’t you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Won’t you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six
I took the title of this blog from a classic poem by one of history’s greatest poets, Robert Frost:
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
1916
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
1916
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.