Voice of America reports:
Surveys show that half of all Americans still prefer the car for summertime vacation travel — instead of a plane, bus, or train — despite rising gasoline prices. There appears to be a resurgent nostalgia for the great American road trip, a motorized odyssey that’s long been part of the popular culture.
The article goes on to interview Robert Sullivan, who wrote the recent road-trip book “Cross Country,” discusses Jack Keroac’s classic “On the Road,” and, lastly, makes a stop at the “America On the Move” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Washington actress Hilary Kacser plays a role in the exhibit, “a living history character,” she says.
“Flossie Haggard. Flossie and her family — like so many — migrated from Oklahoma to California [during the economic Depression of the 1930’s] on Route 66 and had all kinds of opportunities — economic, social, cultural — because of what the road did. It gave regular folks a chance to come and go as they wanted. She [Flossie] says, ‘We were like a new community of automobile travelers — Flossie Haggard and her family — on the road.’ She said that ‘traveling like that gave you the opportunity to meet people you’d never run into in your hometown.’”
Flossie Haggard was the mother of Merle Haggard. Yes, that Merle Haggard.
Anyone wanting to see the “America on the Move” exhibit (and it’s a good one) should make plans to do it in the next month or so. The Museum of American History will be closing after Labor Day and won’t reopen until 2008. I know nothing regarding whether or not “America on the Move” will return.