J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Friday, August 8, 2014

1947 Ford F-1. Ellsworth, Maine.


 Ellsworth is our shire town. It's where the nearest big-box stores are. Some call it Hellsworth. Lots of traffic, especially in summer, when the beige RVs lumber through, towing their adjunct day-trip vehicles, and all headed to Acadia National Park. The problem with Ellsworth, like most Maine towns of any size, is traffic. Or rather, the terrible consequences of increased traffic with zero effective planning. That means miles of strip malls and traffic lights and a feeling of nowheresville. It's impossible to be a pedestrian anywhere near the big-box stores. Impossible to cross the big-box shopping street, which is combined Maine Hwy 3 and US Hwy 1A, on foot, without risking your life.
Strip-mall territory. It's the real American landscape: from sea to shining sea. Acadia, like any national park, is a performance; Ellsworth, Maine is us, as we are.
Ellsworth does have a downtown Main Street of some residual character. Yes, it is also US 1, so Main Street churns with through-traffic, but the really massive traffic shot comes into town on Highway 1A from I-95 at Bangor,  heading for Acadia NP and Bar Harbor, and misses Main Street. Do our towns have to be wreckage? Everyone seems to think so. Our towns are like talk radio given material form; they are what talk radio would look like if it were a landscape.
Are we really about nothing but buying and selling?
And who gave the real estate industry the power to decide how we actually live on the American land?
Anyway, the Ford.
Beauty, eh? Old Henry Ford certainly had a lot to do with the sprawling way we live now. But the truck has lasted 67 years and that's bucking the odds. Heck, machines this old--I think of them as part of the natural landscape. Organic, almost, not to mention beautiful.


















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