No Center Stripe

In late 2005 the author and his father load a 1966 pickup and take off across North America, wandering for two months from coastal South Carolina to California. Under the broader skies further west, their modest slide-in camper transforms itself into a medium for deeper reflection. Humorous moments and arduous driving on remote roads frame more complex digressions, digressions that touch on some of the issues that gnaw silently at American society. The route also compelled the two to think more deeply about the unexpected violence of a Sunday morning some 20 years earlier that shattered the father's side of the family. The causes and consequences of this event pushed painfully to the fore at certain landmarks. The memories later sat with them by the fires in the darkened forests, asking difficult questions. The recounting of the trip is less of a travelogue. It is more about stepping outside self-constructed confines, touching the world around and within, and weaving it all more intimately together.