Friday, October 9, 2009

Column 2: Finding America


When I came through the door of the Hanford Sentinel and said I wanted to write a column, the editor I spoke with agreed to let me try it out.  I'm pretty sure he figured he was signing up for a one off deal.  I had different ideas.  So, a couple of days after my first column ran, I sent him another one.  This one charted the course for weeks of columns to come.  Basically I used this column to tell the paper and the readers they'd be hearing from me weekly.  Amazingly, the Sentinel published it too...and another 28 after that.



Finding America by Tamara Keith (June 1995)

Chevy Chase did it. So have the guys from Easy Rider (a cult turned main stream film that came out in the 60’s. It starred Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, and Peter Fonda.). But it somehow seems different with my family. The great American family vacation can be a pretty scary thought. Movies like National Lampoon’s Family Vacation, Lost In America or Easy Rider have glamorized the idea of crossing America in (or on) a motor vehicle.

For the next six weeks I will be putting up with my little brother, motion sickness, unfriendly locals, and strange insects (I’ve heard Texas has some really huge misquotes) all on the quest to find America, or what’s left of it.