On The Road
by Jack Kerouac

I purchased this book on 7/27/98 in a used bookstore in El Cajon, CA.  I don't remember what I 
paid for it, but I do remember returning to the store later in the day to look for Christy's 
credit card and driver's license which had mysteriously disappeared from her pocket and even more
mysteriously were found on the sidewalk and returned to the owner from whom we reclaimed them.

Kerouac definitely chose the less conventional path across the nation.  Although closer in
age to Kerouac, our trip had much more in common with the Steinbeck venture.

Kerouac trumped us by making four trips across the country, but he never went to some states
we were in such as Minnesota, South Dakota, and Idaho.

Of course Kerouac's trip was a search for his self-identity through a series of experiences.
I shared this philosophy on our trip, as partially evidenced by this poem I wrote which
attempts to describe the vivid emotional awakining experienced on such a journey:

Pennsylvania spruce stirs lost spirits
Dakota hills unleash clenched fears
Steep jagged Badlands peaks cut the splintered soul
Sweet warm Wyoming wind whistles upon vented pores
Deafening roars of Nevada nothingness cleanse the spirit
By a secluded Sacramento creek I cry
How will she change me tomorrow?

Thanks to Chris Hill for encouraging this read with his voracious appetite for Kerouac.


(a map of Kerouac's routes can be found at http://members.aol.com/drebs18/main.html#Home)