ROUTE August / September 2019

ROUTE THE MAGAZINE THAT CELEBRATES ROAD TRAVEL, VINTAGE AMERICANA AND ROUTE 66

Magazine

Roadside Kitsch Alive and Well

August/September 2019 $5.99

The Americana Issue ROUTE Magazine i

With more than 300 days of sunshine a year – and a unique mix of tranquil waters, rugged mountains, and tons of fun – it’s hard to stay inside. Discover Lake Havasu City – just a short drive from Route 66 – and play like you mean it.Ž

ii ROUTE Magazine

Williams, Arizona has something for everyone.

Plan a visit and see why visitors have fallen in love with Williams.

ROUTE 66

HIKING

RODEOS

WILDLIFE

ExperienceWilliams.com • (928) 635-4061

ROUTE Magazine 1

Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios on 66 — Tulsa With his steely gaze and rocket ship in hand, Buck Atom is Route 66’s new Muffler Man.

Tulsa — As the tallest freestanding statue along Route 66, the 22-ton Golden Driller is Oklahoma’s official state monument.

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Sapulpa — See the world’s largest gas pump. It’s 66 feet! Tour the Heart of Oklahoma Route 66 Auto Museum while you’re there.

Arcadia — One of TripSavvy’s 5 MustVisit Restaurants on Route 66, POPS is the perfect pit stop spot. Sip on one of 700 kinds of soda pop!

Discover more must-see gems on Route 66 at Travel

El Reno — Located where the Rock Island Railroad and historic Chisholm Trail intersect, this shield is the ideal Route 66 family photo op.

.com.

Elk City — Made from oil drums and scrap metal, this 14-foot kachina doll — known as Myrtle — has greeted Route 66 travelers since 1962.

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ROUTE 66 WAS COM MISSIONED IN 1926, A ND W HEN THE SIGNS W ENT UP ON JACKSON BOULEVA R D, TR AV ELER S FOU ND LOU MITCHELL’S WA ITING FOR THEM. We’ve been feeding hungr y travelers with comfort food since 1923. Drop in and enjoy our famous breakfast and/ or lunch. Lou Mitchell ’s is steeped in tradition and is the oldest continually-running restaurant in Chicago.

Lou Mitchell’s 565 W. Jackson Blvd • Chicago, IL 60661-5701 Tel: (312) 939-3111 • www.loumitchells.com

R OU T E 6 6 ’ S F I R S T S T OP S I N C E 19 2 6

CONTENTS

Big John, Eldorado, Illinois. 1993. Photograph courtesy of John Margolies.

16 Defining the American Dream, One Sign at a Time

Today, the Burma-Shave Company may be mostly known for its catchy roadside jingles, but the story behind this Minneapolis-born brand and its quirky advertising campaigns is as interesting as its catchy signs. Discover the inspirational, witty family behind Burma-Shave and the struggles that they faced on their path to success.

22 Little House: To the Prairies and Beyond

From the deep woods of Wisconsin to the rolling hills of South Dakota, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life defined the frontier experience. Meet the extraordinary women behind one of the world’s most beloved book series and discover the indelible mark that she made upon the American imagination.

56 An Unconventional Life

Located in the heart of the Mojave Desert, the Bagdad Cafe isn’t just the setting of the off-color 1980s film, Bagdad Cafe — it has a tale to tell. Dive into the restaurant’s fascinating history and meet its longtime owner, Andrea Pruitt, to learn about the journey she took to acquire this Mother Road icon and the devastating loss that she encountered along the way.

68 Parting Shot: Ally Warren

Ally Warren lives a life defined by adventure and unconventionality, and it’s not just because she’s engaged to the popular YouTube personality Justin Scarred. Read our quick-fire interview with the social media starlet to learn about the people, places and interests that make her life extraordinary.

36 A Good Citizen

Between starring on the Silver Screen, writing a book, and developing a leading role in the world of politics, Richard Dreyfuss has seemingly done it all. The Hollywood legend caught up with ROUTE to share his favorite filming memories, his love for American civics and his philosophical perspectives on life.

44 Roadside America

Photographer/architectural critic John Margolies could be called the king of Americana, having been a lifelong fan of quirky, roadside art. Join us on a captivating tour of some of Margolies’ images that capture the nation’s greatest and wackiest vintage Americana, both on and off of Route 66.

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ON THE COVER Motel Dine-A-ville sign, Vernal, Utah. John Margolies. 1991.

VisitJoplinMO.com #JoplinRocks

#TrekJOMO ROUTE Magazine 7

EDITORIAL One of the most incredible things about the United States is the country’s unique roadside Americana. There are decades of funky, quirky, odd and downright bizarre spots and stops along America’s highways and in its towns and cities that still scream out to passing motorists, urging them to slow down and take a break while they rediscover the country. Americans at times take this for granted, but it is truly unique on the global scale and something to protect and preserve aggressively.

In this issue, we celebrate vintage Americana and bring you a number of terrific stories that tell a tale of a time when America was not only a simpler place, but more unpredictable, less exact and cookie-cutter in its design and architecture also. Today, travelers want a guarantee and have little appetite for risk when it comes to where they sleep and where they dine, how they spend their time and limited resources.

But not long ago, the world was different, and the unexpected was as much a part of a road trip as the journey itself.

Personally, I feel as though I caught this at the very tail end as a child growing up in the 80s. I am sad not to have experienced roadside America during its hey-day, when it was enthralling to encounter a giant gaudy object as you turned a sharp corner or when opportunities were many to enjoy exotic wildlife at a local Texan or Arizonan snake and reptile park. Nowadays, we need to go out of our way to locate such stops, and many of them have become overly touristy or downright dangerous due to their lack of upkeep. That said, there is still a lot to see and do and summer time is the perfect period to hit the tarmac and let the car take you where it wants to go. Get out this season and consume a huge chunk of what vintage Americana has to offer.

Perhaps one of the most successful advertising strategies to come out of America at the time, the Burma-Shave company’s road signs, with their catchy jingles, still amuse and delight motorists today. Several key spots along Route 66 still display these red and white signboards, reminders that harken travelers to a time when Burma-Shave dominated the market and was a household name. But the story behind this remarkable company and their unforgettable advertising strategy is a tale that you may find equally as gripping.

John Samuel Margolies traveled over 100,000 miles over three decades to capture Americana on film. His simple but important work and what he managed to capture is now housed with the Library of Congress for all to enjoy. His images offer a glimpse into the past and a wink to the potential future of roadside architecture and Americana. We think that you will love the selection of his pictures that we’ve chosen and will be thrilled to see some of your favorite spots in their incarnation during the 1970s, while discovering some unfamiliar, but equally delightful attractions.

Also in this issue, we bring you the true story behind one of America’s most famous and influential authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder. We all love Little House on the Prairie and have grown up captivated by Laura, Nelly, Albert and all of Walnut Grove’s colorful residents and their shenanigans. Unfortunately, the author’s real story did not always finish in a happy ending. Discover more.

Famous for a host of reasons, ROUTE dives into the story of a family who invested in a dream in the desert before facing much more loss than ever imagined and the courage and tenacity of one woman who was determined to stick to the plan.

ROUTE would like you to meet Andrea Pruett and the Bagdad Cafe.

These and so much more in this August/September issue of ROUTE Magazine.

Please remember to Follow and Like us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and be sure to visit our website for a ton of additional stories and content. www.routemagazine.us.

We are so glad to have you on the journey across Route 66 and Americana.

Best, Brennen Matthews Editor 8 ROUTE Magazine

ROUTE PUBLISHER Thin Tread Media EDITOR Brennen Matthews DEPUTY EDITOR Kate Wambui ASSOCIATE EDITOR Olivia McClure EDITOR-AT-LARGE Nick Gerlich LEAD EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHER David J. Schwartz LAYOUT AND DESIGN Tom Heffron EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Amanda Schroeder Cody Powell DIGITAL Matthew Alves CONTRIBUTORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS Clarissa Dalloway Annabel Lee Chandler O’Leary Daniel Lutzick Efren Lopez/Route66Images Frank Jastrzembski Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Ian Lyons Steve Loveless James Gelway Jenny Mallon Marine 69-71 John Margolies Robyn Stockwell Editorial submissions should be sent to brennen@routemagazine.us To subscribe visit www.routemagazine.us.

Advertising inquiries should be sent to advertising@routemagazine. us or call 905 399 9912.

ROUTE is published six times per year by Thin Tread Media. No part of this publication may be copied or reprinted without the written consent of the publisher. The views expressed by the contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher, editor or staff. ROUTE does not take any responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photography.

ROUTE Magazine 9

THE YEAR OF 1985

NINTENDO

SAVES THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY

I

n 1983, the video game market in America nosedived.

Sales for Atari, Mattel and Coleco game systems, which had previously skyrocketed, quickly plummeted. Many people presumed that the gaming world would never be the same again — that is, until a Japanese-based company burst onto the scene. On October 15, 1985, Nintendo released a small batch of Nintendo Entertainment Systems in New York City, and suddenly, gaming was reborn.

Before Nintendo became the world’s leading company for electronic entertainment, it had been a producer of handmade playing cards. In 1889, an artist named Fusajiro Yamauchi began selling hand-painted cards made of tree bark for the game Hanafuda. Eventually, his company, Nintendo Koppai, became Japan’s largest manufacturer of playing cards. It eventually transitioned to developing electronic games by the 1970s, releasing the popular video game console Famicom in July 1983, selling three million consoles within eighteen months.

While the video gaming industry had been thriving in Japan, it was dying out in America. Nintendo’s president, the ambitious Hiroshi Yamauchi, saw an opportunity to jumpstart the stale market. He ordered his son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa, to introduce Famicom to America.

Arakawa traveled to America and unveiled Famicom at the January 1985 Consumer Electronics Show, rebranding it as the Advanced Video System (AVS). Not a single department store or toy company placed an order. Retailers were still

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skittish after the crash two years earlier. “We kind of all looked at it and chuckled as we walked through the show because we all knew that video games were dead,” said Greg Fischbach, founder of Acclaim Entertainment.

Nintendo started implementing changes to the AVS. First, they changed its name to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Then, they added “the Zapper” light gun to the console. The main lure, featured on the box, was the addition of Robotic Operating Buddy (ROB). “We were selling a robot game,” former chairman of Nintendo Howard Lincoln stated, “not a video game.” Retailers showed interest at the second Consumer Electronics Show in June but did not place any orders.

Arakawa gave it one last shot in New York City.

“Everybody thought that we were going to die, that it was suicide,” Arakawa said. He arrived in the city with a small team and 100,000 consoles. Against Yamauchi’s wishes, he took an enormous gamble by offering money-back guarantees to retailers who agreed to stock the NES for Christmas. It was a success, and Arakawa sold half of his consoles. The rest is history, and games like Super Mario Brothers, Zelda and Donkey Kong Jr. have cemented their way into Americana and pop culture forver.

Today, the gaming world is a booming, billion-dollar industry. If it had not been for a determined Japanese company, the gaming industry would have likely died out, taking generations of avid gamers with it.

Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Mother Road enthusiasts often think of ��85 as the tragic year that marked the final decommission of legendary Route 66. But what else was happening that year?

This series takes a look at the cultural and social milieu from which Route 66 drove its last mile — the famous, the infamous, the inventions, and the scandals that marked ��85 as a pivotal year. In this issue, we take you back to the release of Nintendo and a revolution in technology and gaming that changed the way that we experience the world.

International Route 66 Mother Road Festival

“Return Visit” Lincoln Sculpture

Discover Springfield, Illinois – one of the most iconic stops on the legendary Route 66. Take a nostalgic trip back and celebrate the highway’s golden age at the International Route 66 Mother Road Festival. Marvel at classic cars and enjoy live entertainment over a weekend of non-stop family fun from September 27-29. Then, switch gears and head over to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to snap a pic with “Return Visit,” a striking 31-foot monument of America’s 16th president. It’s all right here on Route 66.

#VisitSpringfield

PLAN YOUR JOURNEY AT WWW.VISITSPRINGFIELDILLINOIS.COM ROUTE Magazine 11

BELLE STARR W

hen most people think of women from the “Wild West,” images of a rough-and-tumble Annie Oakley and Martha “Calamity Jane” Canary most likely come to mind.

But these women were only a sample from among many female outlaws who shirked domestic life in favor of adventure and rebellion.

One such woman who took up arms instead of housework was the so-called “Bandit Queen,” Belle Starr.

Myra Maybelle “Belle” Shirley was born on a farm outside of Carthage, Missouri, in 1848. In the early 1860s, her father, John Shirley, moved the family to Carthage, where Belle attended an all-female academy.

“The school that she attended was a private academy funded partly by her father, who had come from a well-off family in Virginia before moving to Carthage, Missouri,” said Speer Morgan, author of Belle Starr: A Novel and editor of The Missouri Review. “In school, she took piano, languages and history, among other things. Part of what made her famous was that she was quite literate for the time and place.”

Despite her prestigious education, Belle was far more interested in firing bullets than reading books, and it was due in part to her older brother, John “Bud” Shirley. During Belle’s teenage years, Bud passed his criminal talents down to his sister, teaching her how to shoot guns and ride horses.

When the Civil War broke out, Bud and other Confederate sympathizers attacked Unionist farms. In 1864, Bud was shot and killed by a Unionist soldier.

When the war made its way into Carthage, Belle and her family moved to Scyene, Texas. There, she became reacquainted with her childhood crush, Jim Reed. The two quickly fell in love, and in 1866, they were wed. Two years later, Belle gave birth to their daughter, Rosie Lee, nicknamed “Pearl.” Like his gun-toting wife, Jim had a taste for crime and developed a violent, checkered past. When the family learned that Jim was wanted for murder in Arkansas, they quickly moved to California. There, in 1871, Belle gave birth to her second child, James Edwin, or “Eddie.” When local authorities discovered that Jim was a wanted man, the couple packed up and moved back to Scyene, where they received support from fellow outlaw Cole Younger.

Having grown tired of her husband’s criminal reputation and extramarital affairs, Belle abandoned her marriage.

Seeking financial support, she married a Cherokee bandit 12 ROUTE Magazine

named Sam Starr in 1880 and settled in Oklahoma’s Indian Territory. During her time there, Belle developed her criminal talents and her legendary sense of style. “It is obvious from the few remaining photographs of her — for example, wearing a feathered hat, riding gloves, a pearl-handled gun, and riding a fancy sidesaddle — that she loved dressing and paid attention to appearance,” Morgan said. “Her acquaintances included famous outlaws, such as the Cole Younger gang, but it was during the six years of her marriage to a Cherokee man named Sam Starr, that she was probably the most active as a rustler and bootlegger. There were certain towns in the eastern Indian Territory that were mortally dangerous to even visit during those years. It was an extraordinary place.”

Belle was certainly an extraordinary woman, empowered by an astonishing amount of grit and intelligence, and she stood out, even during her time. “Belle was primarily what was later called a ‘fixer’ and cattle thief,” Morgan said. “Because she was smart and educated, she helped her friends navigate criminal cases. The law in eastern Oklahoma was complicated by being technically ‘outside’ the United States, with tribal law being spotty and uncertain. However, the purpose of Judge Parker’s court across the Arkansas River in Fort Smith was to police the Indian Territory of Federal crimes, such as the one of horse theft — for which she was eventually arrested and given a nine-month prison term in the Detroit House of Corrections.”

After Sam was killed during a duel with his cousin Frank West, a deputy marshal in the Indian Territory Sheriffs Department, in 1886, Belle suffered a similar fate only three years later. She died of a gunshot wound on February 3, 1889, yet her murder remains “unsolved” to this day.

Nevertheless, Morgan has his own theory about her death: “I believe that she was probably killed by her neighbor, Edgar Watson. She was found, shot twice, after coming home from a dance at which she refused to dance with Edgar. [He] was an interesting character himself, an escaped murderer from Florida, who was himself murdered in 1910.”

Belle is buried in the shadow of her former home outside Porum, Oklahoma, yet her unbridled spirit continues to haunt the American imagination. Like other cowboys and cowgirls in history, Belle’s life fits perfectly into the fabric of Western folklore, weaving an incredible story about a woman whose strength, intellect and notable fashion sense made her a Western legend.

Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The “Bandit Queen” of the West

FROM THE CHISHOLM TRAIL TO THE MOTHER ROAD America’s premier institution of Western history, art and culture

The Museum Store

Shop one of the largest selections of Native American-made jewelry at The Museum Store or online at store.nationalcowboymuseum.org

Open Daily • 1700 NE 63rd St. • 15 minutes north of Downtown OKC, along Route 66 nationalcowboymuseum.org • (405) 478-2250 Oscar E. Berninghaus, Arrival of the Wells Fargo Stage, n.d., Oil on canvas, 2010.17.03, Gift of Miriam S. Hogan Trust ROUTE Magazine 13

ESSENTIALS

ESSENTIAL ROADSIDE AMERICANA America is known as the land of the free, and there’s no greater freedom than that of artistic expression. Perhaps the greatest testament to this is the country’s abundance of quirky roadside Americana, which are sure to amuse — and certainly bewilder — all those who see them. In this issue, we rounded up some of our favorite eclectic attractions along Route 66 and off the Mother Road as well. Get out and experience America this summer.

LONDON BR I DGE, L AK E HAVASU, A Z Lake Havasu City, Arizona, is a wee bit far from London, England — over 5,400 miles away, in fact. But it turns out the small southwestern town is home to a British treasure called the London Bridge. In 1968, an American oilman named Robert P. McCulloch purchased the bridge from the City of London, paying $2.4 million for it and an additional $7.5 million to have it disassembled, packed up and shipped across the pond. Upon reconstruction, the bridge was reopened on October 10, 1971, and it’s now considered the second most popular attraction in the state.

If you’re traveling through Arizona this summer, make sure to stop by Lake Havasu City for a true taste of England in the heart of the American southwest.

TH E WOR LD’S L ARGEST TH ER MOM ETE R , BAK ER , CA Located in Baker, California, the 134-foot-tall World’s Largest Thermometer juts out of the arid Mojave Desert as a friendly reminder of the area’s extreme temperatures.

In 1990, a businessman named Willis Herron ordered 14 ROUTE Magazine

its construction, and it was completed two years later. In 2012, the thermometer stopped working and was put up for sale. Two years later, Herron’s daughter repaired the ailing structure, and it was lit up once again later that year. To commemorate its history, visitors can purchase signed and numbered light bulbs from the original structure. While the World’s Largest Thermometer may not necessarily be an escape from the desert heat, it’s certainly a fine example of America’s unique roadside history.

BIGFOOT DI SCOVERY MUSEUM , FE LTON, CA Deep within the Redwood forests of Felton, CA, Michael Rugg continues to research the origins and history of one of the world’s most well-known mythical creatures — Bigfoot.

Rugg operates the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, which showcases supposed evidence of Bigfoot’s existence and the creature’s influence on popular culture. Rugg’s interest in sasquatch studies began as a child and has continued to grow throughout his life, culminating in years of research and myth busting. Whether you’re a self-proclaimed Bigfoot believer or you have some doubts, the Bigfoot Discovery Museum should be a fun, entertaining experience for anyone who walks through its doors.

HOBO JOE, BUCK EYE, A Z With a height of 25-feet and a weight of 1,200 pounds, Hobo Joe certainly stands out in the small town of Buckeye, Arizona. But contrary to superficial glance, the statue harbors a rich history and a strong connection to the community within which it sits. The character of Hobo Joe was initially created by artist Jim Casey as the mascot for a regional restaurant chain during the 1960s called Hobo Joe’s Coffee Shops. While the chain no longer exists, Hobo Joe himself still stands in the Arizona desert as a tribute to its heyday, delighting travelers with his comical facial expression and urbane air — a perfect addition to any Americana lover’s road trip.

Photo courtesy of Marine 69-71.

In 2002, the Crutchfield family, owners of the Longhorn Trading Post and Rattlesnake Ranch, decided to boost business by creating something so unusual and ostentatious that people would be compelled to stop by to see it. So, they created the Slug Bug Ranch — an array of five wrecked Volkswagen Beetles with hoods stuck into the ground. Modelled after the nearby Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, the cars were initially painted a bright yellow, joined by a sign that read, “Sign a Bug.” However, over the years, visitors to the ranch have taken great liberties in leaving their mark, and now the vehicles look a lot like their graffitied counterparts in Amarillo. For road travelers, the Slug Bug Ranch calls out with the promise of quirky, off-beat fun.

Photo courtesy of Steve Loveless.

SLUG BUG R A NCH, CONWAY, TX

Visit Decatur, Illinois

Closer than You Think

Only forty miles east of Springfield, Illinois, Decatur is rich in attractions. Shortly after our friendly city was established in 1829, a lanky, 21-year-old gent named Abraham Lincoln arrived, thus establishing his first residence in “The Prairie State.” Monuments or markers commemorating important events in Lincoln’s life are scattered throughout the city, including a bronze plaque where his father’s cabin originally stood. A chair from Lincoln’s law office is on display at the Macon County History Museum and other priceless Lincoln artifacts stand proudly on exhibition.

Downtown Decatur’s scenic shopping district, including Historic Merchant Street, has dozens of cool, locally-owned shops and restaurants that are guaranteed to harken you back to yesteryear, while creating some new memories too.

The Children’s Museum is ranked as one of the country’s premier children’s museums and the Scovill Zoo exhibits 400 animals from six continents. Decatur has an abundance of wooded hiking and horseback trails and Lake Decatur’s 2,800-acres is excellent for catching catfish, walleye, and white bass and for its wonderful views. There is something for everyone in Decatur.

Whether you are planning a solo trip, a weekend getaway with your family or are making a memorable trip down iconic Route 66, our quaint picturesque town has something for everyone. We want to share it with you.

www.decaturcvb.com

ROUTE Magazine 15

Defining the American Dream,

ONE SIGN AT A TIME

By Annabel Lee Illustrations courtesy of Chandler O’Leary 16 ROUTE Magazine

B

ehind almost every great success story lies an inspiring tale of struggle, ambition and ingenuity — and in the case of the Burma-Shave Company, it also included an ingenious advertising and marketing concept that defined the Burma-Shave cream as one of the most popular brushless shaving creams in the United States.

The 1920s was a decade of rapid change. Men and women were suddenly clumped together in raucous and loose social gatherings. Prohibition ironically ignited an insatiable demand for alcohol, and innovations in all aspects of life were on the rise. Seeking relief from the horrors of the Great War, people began searching for ways to make their lives easier and more enjoyable. This newfound desire for innovation targeted the daily routines of many Americans — including the way that men groomed.

As far back as 100,000 years ago, based on cave painting depictions, it is believed that men would pull out their facial hair using seashells as rudimentary tweezers. This approach slowly advanced, and men began using makeshift razors from flakes of obsidian or shells. The Romans were known to apply pumice stones and oils to their skin after a shave, while treating any nicks with ointment. But it was the Egyptians, forced to shave under the orders of Alexander the Great, who put into practice the use of oils as shaving cream. And hence, the traditional art of wet shaving - the use of shaving creams, brushes, and initial wrapping of the face, was born.

In mid-19th Century England, a brushless shaving cream called Lloyd’s Euxesis emerged, irreversibly changing the way that men shaved. The cream did not create lather and eliminated the need for a brush or shave mug, requiring less time than a traditional shaving cream. For men looking for convenience and speed, the brushless shaving cream was the answer. However, the brand proved to be a major misfire.

Consumer reports claimed that the cream would mildew easily and adopt an unsavory green color, making Lloyd’s Euxesis a less-than-favorable option. Little did the English brand know that a more successful brushless shaving cream would soon spring up on the frosty soil of Midwestern America.

Burma-Shave, a witty, homegrown brand hailing from the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, uprooted Lloyd’s Euxesis failed attempts at reinvention and conquered the task with determination, intelligence and, most of all, an abundance of heartfelt humor. But before Burma-Shave earned its place as one of America’s most popular shaving creams, it lived in the dreams of an inventive, determined businessman named Clinton M. Odell.

First Come Struggles, Then Massive Success When Robert Odell began experimenting with chemicals during his leisure time, his son, Clinton M. Odell, should have sensed that significant changes were on the horizon.

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After all, it was the late 19th Century, and invention was on the rise. Steam engine trains were now roaring across the nation’s landscape, connecting people in ways that once seemed unimaginable.

Like many young men during the era, Robert was raised on the idea that self-reliance and hard work made a man.

According to Robert’s great-grandson, Clinton B. Odell, it was his great-grandfather’s ingenuity and grit that set his family on a sure path to success and inspired his grandfather, Clinton M., to make his own entrepreneurial dreams a reality. “[Clinton M.] was terrific,” Odell said. “He really was a self-made man. Actually, his father, Robert Ransom Odell, immigrated from New York state in about 1880… and I think a lot of my grandfather’s push and drive was from his father, because in those days, they would think nothing of having their sixteen or seventeen-year-old sons ... just telling them to get out of the place, and with this young man, that’s exactly what he did. He spent about half a year in California, and in the year 1892 or 1893, that’s when my great-grandfather [Robert] got the energy and drive he ended up having, because he was a true entrepreneur.” “[Robert] went through law school at the University of Minnesota, and consequently, he started a law business, but he got a little tired of that. After that, he went to one of the first insurance businesses in Minneapolis, formed that with a good friend of his, and it simply got to a point where that wore him out. So, he spent about four years to recover — he had a nerve disorder called sciatic rheumatism, and it evidently was quite sensational, and it almost wiped him out. But then he came back, and he had to quit the insurance business. That company was called the White and Odell Insurance Company. So, he came back, and he was looking for something to do. He had a family to feed and what have you.”

According to Clinton B., concocting the perfect formula for Burma-Shave was a matter of trial and error: “My grandfather [Clinton M.] worked on a cream with his father, Robert — he liked to dabble in chemicals and what have you, although he was a lawyer and an Indian agent from this particular area. My grandfather ended up setting up a written agreement with his dad where he could market the product, which my great-grandfather had messed around with. At the time they called it Burma-Vita. Burma-Vita consisted of oils, actually, from a ship captain my greatgrandfather got to know very well. They manufactured it, and they called it a liniment. My uncle always told me that my great-grandfather was up in an office in the old Globe Building in downtown Minneapolis. He said that he could always tell when his grandfather was messing with those chemicals because he could smell them. In those days, there were a lot of openings for successful products, or improved products, in so many different areas. So, they tried to market Burma-Vita … It just didn’t work. They couldn’t get it to sell.”

In Frank Rowsome, Jr.’s book, Verse by the Side of the Road: The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs, Clinton M.’s son, Leonard Odell, spoke to Rowsome about the evolution of Burma-Shave from an unprofitable liniment to a highly successful brushless shaving cream.

“Well, we sure starved to death on that product [the liniment] for a couple of years. With a liniment you have to catch a customer who isn’t feeling well, and even when you do, you only sell him once in a while. The wholesale drug company in town, the people that we got the ingredients from, kept reminding dad that it would be better if we could find something that we could sell [to] everybody, all the time, instead of just hunting for people who were sick. They gave dad some Lloyd’s Euxesis to see what he thought of it.”

In 1925, when liniment sales were at an all-time low, a local chemist named Carl Noren walked into Clinton M.’s office to ask for a job. Some time prior to this fateful meeting, the same man had been hospitalized for a serious illness but had made a full recovery.

Moved by the man’s story, Clinton M. wrote Noren a Christmas card with twenty-five dollars tucked inside.

Evidently, Noren felt that he should perform an act of kindness in return.

When Clinton M. asked Noren if he could try his hand at a brushless shaving cream, the chemist immediately started experimenting on a formula. After 143 attempts, he achieved the final brushless shaving cream formula, and thus, BurmaShave was born. Around the time that the Burma-Shave Company emerged in 1925, Clinton M. married Grace Evans Odell, with whom he would have Leonard and Clinton B.’s father, Allan, and later George in 1942.

Within the business realm, BurmaShave experienced setbacks like any other fledgling company. For one thing, the Arliss ‘Frenchy’ French, the winner of a trip to Moers, Germany, alongside company’s location was an impediment Allan Odell. December 8,1958. in itself. “In Minnesota, you always have 18 ROUTE Magazine

problems in the winter,” Clinton B. said. “It’s freezing. And, I can recall a time when they shipped a whole box car load of Burma-Shave, and when it got down to Chicago, it had frozen. So, they had to bring it all back, destroy it, and start over again.” At the same time, other brushless shaving cream brands emerged, including Gillette and Barbasol, threatening the stability of the small business. Nevertheless, the humble family-run brand managed to stay afloat due to a clever advertising strategy.

It’s All in the Ads With the creation of Burma-Shave, the Odells found themselves in the throes of a daunting, new commercial venture. Compared to other shaving products of the time, the Burma-Shave cream was not particularly different or unique.

Sales were markedly slow to begin with, and the company was in need of a marketing hook that would effectively showcase their new product and brand. That is, until Clinton M.’s son, Allan, came up with an inventive, amusing advertising concept, which would prove to be tantamount to the company’s success.

This was the same decade that saw the rise of Henry Ford, who had released his Model T, which sold in the millions, and automobile culture had taken off. Having recognized the success of other roadside signage during his travels through Illinois, Allan saw an opportunity to promote the new shaving cream using road signs with cheeky, quirky and memorable jingles — a humorous take on an advertising classic. So, he asked his father to give him money to start working on his sign ideas. When Clinton M. asked his

friends what they thought of Allan’s idea, they all agreed that it would never work. Nevertheless, Allan persisted, and his father finally relented and gave him $200 to purchase used sign boards. Allan and his younger brother, Leonard, created the first set of Burma-Shave rhymes and installed them on Route 65 to Albert Lea, Minnesota, as well as on the road to the neighboring town of Red Wing.

In his interview with Rowsome, Leonard discussed how the company’s early signs prompted a greater demand for Burma-Shave, despite his father’s uncertainty. “By the start of the year [1925], we were getting the first repeat orders we’d ever had in the history of the company — all from druggists serving people who traveled those roads. As he watched those repeat orders rolling in, Dad began to feel that maybe the boys were thinking all right, after all. He called us in and said ‘Allan, I believe you’ve got a real great idea. It’s tremendous. The only trouble is, we’re broke.’”

Despite his hesitancy, Clinton M. decided to give his son’s concept a chance. Backed by an ailing company and an advertising notion that was seen as a failure, Clinton M. bravely employed his superior sales knowledge to sell 49 percent of the stock in less than three weeks.

In 1926, the company acquired its first store — a nondescript, white clapboard house on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis. Here, they began manufacturing their brushless shaving cream and famous signs.

Every aspect of the Burma-Shave Company was a product of precise experimentation and calculation — even in terms of the ways in which the signs were placed along highways.

The signs were arranged in sets of six, placed 100 feet apart, making it so that travelers had exactly three seconds to read

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tougher in this country, and people enjoyed them because they were happy. They weren’t anything that was discouraging or upsetting.”

Burma-Shave rhymes proved to be so popular, in fact, that the Odell family decided to hold yearly contests for people to submit their best jingle ideas, which people evidently loved as much as the signs themselves. “They were, of course, very popular — the sign contests,” Clinton B. said. “They had two a year.

And I always knew when they had a contest going because my dad … He always got off-color ones, as you can imagine, and some were very funny. So, my dad would tell his secretary to compile the off-color ones and bring them home. And my mother and he would go into our library and close the door, and I’d hear all this uproarious laughter.”

Clinton B. Odell (left) and Burdette Booth (right) making Burma-Shave signs.

In addition to promoting their product, Burma-Shave each sign driving at a rate of 35 mph. The signs consistently jingles covered a variety of topics and even approached rhymed and created interest in travelers to know what the difficult subjects, such as drunk driving. According to punch line would be. They were composed of red painted Clinton B., it was important to his grandfather that Burmaboarding and white letters — a combination of colors that Shave signs avoid controversy, and he was very meticulous made the signs stand out from other roadside signage. At the about which jingles would make it to the road. While there peak of Burma-Shave’s successful run, there were over 7,000 were many memorable Burma-Shave jingles, Clinton B. signs erected along American highways in 45 states. had his own favorite: “Does your husband — Misbehave According to Rowsome, a Burma-Shave signage scout, — Grunt and grumble — Rant and rave? — Shoot the who they called the “advance man,” would travel America’s brute some — Burma-Shave.” As for Clinton M., Allan and highways in search of ideal locations for signs. Often, such Leonard, they seem to have shared a favorite: “Within this locations were found on farmland, where there were fewer vale — Of toil — And sin — Your head grows bald — But large billboards and greater long-distance visibility. Farmers not your chin – Use — Burma-Shave.” often enjoyed Burma-Shave signs that were planted on their While Burma-Shave signs were most commonly seen along land and wished to establish long-lasting relationships with American roadways, they could also be found in other places the humble, family-run company. outside of the country. During the 1960s, the U.S. Army had In Rowsome’s words, “Mostly the relationship between the idea to plant Burma-Shave signs in Korea and Burma farmers and Burma-Shave was an amiable one, with many for servicemen to get a glimpse of a heartwarming reminder leases extending over decades. ‘Oh, occasionally we’d get a of home. The signs even made their way into the frigid man who’d pull down some signs to patch up his barn,’ noted continent of Antarctica, where servicemen were stationed John Kamerer, head of the company sign shop, ‘but it was during a series of missions code named Operation Deep mainly all the other way. The farmers were kind of proud Freeze. In truth, Burma-Shave signs had become a symbol of of those signs. They’d often write us if a sign had become America, and for this reason, they had the very special ability damaged, asking us to ship a replacement that they’d put up to comfort those thousands of miles away. themselves. In the years when we brought old signs back here to the plant, when lumber was short, I’d sometimes see where The Burma-Shave Legacy Lives On they had repaired or repainted signs on their own hook, often For decades, the Burma-Shave Company dominated the doing a fine job of it, too.’” shaving cream industry, providing quality products backed Just as Allan predicted, the signs proved to be a hit with by a humorous, loving family. The company met its end when road travelers, providing people with a bit of roadside it was sold to Phillip Morris of the American Safety Razor entertainment in an age where conversation and scenery Corporation on February 7, 1963. As a result, Burma-Shave’s stood in place of handheld technology. “They were enjoyed,” famous signs were removed from American roadways, taking Clinton B. said. “They were pleasant. A lot of this took place decades of cherished memories with them. Today, only one during the Recession. Back in 1929, ’30, ’31, things were 20 ROUTE Magazine

full set of Burma-Shave signs exists, and it’s housed in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. It also happened to be the favorite jingle of Clinton M., Allan and Leonard.

In 1958, Burma-Shave’s co-founder, Clinton M. Odell, died, leaving the family business to his sons. Decades later, in 1991, Leonard died, followed by Allan in 1994, Grace in 1999 and George in 2011. Today, the Burma-Shave legacy lives on in Clinton B. Odell, who shares his family’s story with a pride and happiness that transcends the passage of time. “It was an easy-going, fun family, and they laughed easily. These three men were wonderful men, and I really miss them.”

Although times have changed drastically since Burma-Shave sat fully stocked on store shelves, the company’s influence on men’s grooming and advertising remains unprecedented.

What began as a single liniment gave way to a wide array of products, including brushless and aerosol shaving cream, aftershave, talc, tooth powder and razor blades.

Considering Burma-Shave signs defined road travel during the mid-20th Century, there’s no question that the signs have made a profound impact on American popular culture. They were often featured in hit TV shows during the 1970s and even served as the inspiration for songs by legendary artists, such as in Roger Miller’s 1965 tune “Burma-Shave.” But Burma-Shave’s presence in popular culture is still very much alive and well today, finding its way into the 21st Century in ways many people may not realize.

Clinton M. Odell (center) alongside his two sons, Leonard (left) and Allan (right).

For the hit 2006 animated film, Cars, Route 66 served as the movie’s main inspiration, but Burma-Shave also made a subtle guest appearance. According to Michael Wallis, author of Route 66: The Mother Road, his time as a consultant for Cars allowed him to implement Burma-Shave signs into the film.

“I actually often took the whole creative team out on the road. I was able to take them to places and introduce them to people they would never have met, and all of those places made it into the film. Every car or automobile comes from real life … Mater, for instance — he comes from about four or five different bizarre characters out on Route 66. I made sure there were ample doses in the film of some of the iconic sights of Route 66, and that included Burma-Shave signs.

There are Burma-Shave signs in Cars Land in Disney, the park that Disney created, and I was their consultant as well to create this 12-acre park that is Radiator Springs cometo-life. It’s very cool. There are Burma-Shave signs along a stretch of road. They aren’t Burma-Shave, though. What they’re pushing is the product that sponsored Lightning McQueen as a race car driver — his official sponsor, which is called Rust-eze.”

Truly, Burma-Shave became an emblem of road travel, during which time the journey along the road was often as exciting as the destination. Naturally, the Mother Road was home to many Burma-Shave signs, and one town in particular is doing its part to preserve this aspect of its history. In the small town of Seligman, Arizona, in 2007, Carol Springer, District Supervisor of the Yavapai County Public Works, decided to erect a set of Burma-Shave signs along Route 66 to commemorate the town’s history. After gaining permission to use original Burma-Shave rhymes, they successfully recreated sixteen signs, which are planted along the highway that runs through Seligman and still stand today.

In addition to Seligman, the town of Towanda, Illinois, takes great measures to honor its Route 66 heritage, boasting a collection of Burma-Shave signs. At the Towanda Route 66 Parkway, visitors can learn about the vibrant history of the Mother Road by walking along the parkway’s beautiful trail, which features old Burma-Shave signs that used to sit along this old portion of the route. The parkway’s other signs showcase stories and photos illustrating other Route 66 landmarks in Towanda’s history.

Burma-Shave signs, among other pieces of vintage Americana, represent a unique aspect of our nation’s cultural heritage, beckoning to those with an appreciation of America’s past — and present. While the influence of BurmaShave on popular culture is profound, so is its place in the hearts of those with a love of roadside history, who hail from places around the globe. The hunger for vintage Americana is one that will never be satisfied as long as a love for road travel continues to thrive.

While the Burma-Shave Company is more commonly defined by its beloved jingles, the entrepreneurial genius of the family behind it deserves its own form of recognition.

In truth, the Burma-Shave Company defines the American Dream. Out of his own creativity and profound business instincts, Burma-Shave’s founder was able to conjure up his own legacy. He did so in an era unfacilitated by the Internet, drawing on his family’s hard work and enthusiasm to fuel his dream. In retrospect, it’s safe to say this dream became a flourishing reality, thanks to one recreational chemist and his advertising-savvy grandson.

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LITTLE To the Prairies and Beyond

By Olivia McClure 22 ROUTE Magazine

HOUSE ROUTE Magazine 23

L

aura Ingalls Wilder once wrote: “I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.”

For Wilder, life in a pioneer family in the late 19th Century was, truthfully, seldom simple or sweet. Born during the Reconstruction era, Wilder was thrown into a world recovering from a terrible war, with the added unpredictability of traversing untamed, often dangerous wilderness in a cramped, covered wagon.

For young readers, Wilder’s tales of harsh South Dakota winters, exploring the wild with Jack the bulldog, and the soothing, airy sound of Pa’s fiddle kindled their tender imaginations. Since the first book of the Little House series, Little House in the Big Woods, was published in 1932, Wilder’s books have made a profound impression on the minds of countless children who have found solace in the simplicity and authenticity of Wilder’s life story, as it is told through the innocent, yet keen perspective of her much younger self. Michelle McClellan, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, was one of the millions of people who fell in love with the Little House series as a child.

“I got the yellow boxed set as a Christmas gift from my parents when I was in elementary school,” McClellan said.

“I loved them immediately, I think for a few main reasons.

Laura is such a lively, multifaceted heroine, so that attracted me quite a bit. I also already liked history yet had not

Previous spread: The Ingalls family, pictured left to right: “Ma” Caroline Quiner Ingalls, Carrie Celestia Ingalls, Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder, "Pa" Charles Phillip Ingalls, Grace Pearl Ingalls and Mary Amelia Ingalls. 1891.

encountered many stories about girls or families in the past, so the Little House books drew me in for that reason.”

Through her semi-autobiographical book series, Wilder reveals the truth about life on the frontier, sharing harrowing stories about catastrophic blizzards and a grasshopper plague that destroyed their wheat crop. And yet, optimism and humor pulsate throughout Wilder’s series, revealing the author’s uniquely beautiful perspective on life. In the sixth book of the Little House series, The Long Winter, Wilder writes: “Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low, but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.” For Wilder, every terrible truth had a silver lining, which was found in the warm embrace of family and a glowing fireplace.

A Pioneer Girl’s Childhood On February 7, 1867, Wilder was born to Charles and Caroline Ingalls in a log cabin outside of Pepin County, Wisconsin. She had three sisters, Carrie, Mary and Grace, and a younger brother, Charles, who died when he was just nine months old.

Charles Ingalls, referred to as “Pa” throughout Wilder’s books, set out to provide for his family by any means possible. It was this determination that led Charles to take his family across the Midwest in search of a better life and a stable career. In 1874, Wilder and her family left behind their log cabin in Wisconsin and traveled to southeastern Kansas, or “Indian Territory.” While household duties kept the entire family occupied day after day, their chores were interrupted by intermittent catastrophes. For instance, the following spring, the entire family fell ill with malaria.

But regardless of the daily hardships Wilder and her family faced, she maintained a keen interest in the everchanging landscape in which she constantly found herself.

Nancy Koupal, Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Pioneer Girl Project, said that Wilder’s love for the natural world characterizes all of her writings.

“She was at home in nature. She truly loved the natural environment in which she lived. She had true affection for wildlife and flora and foliage. So, that stands out to me because it’s palpable in all of her writing.”

Family Matters

Charles Ingalls. 1894.

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For those who read the Little House series, one of the aspects of Wilder’s life that stands out the most is the tightknit bond of her family, which enabled them to endure constant setbacks. In Koupal’s opinion, it’s this prototypical family image conveyed in Wilder’s books, which captivates readers of all ages.

“I think it’s that universal family that everybody wishes they had grown up in. They’re very supportive of each other.

They make this unit against the world almost, and I think she captured something that almost every child wishes they had, and almost every adult.”

Wilder maintained a strong relationship with her parents until their deaths, which ultimately proved to be the motivation behind her Little House series.

“When she got the news that her father, Charles Ingalls, was on his death bed in 1902, she dropped everything and went to De Smet, for the first time in years, to be by his

to Topbar, South Dakota, next to the White River Badlands, and lived out of a tarpaper shack. Carrie settled down in Keystone in 1911 and continued to work in the newspaper business until she married David N. Swanzey the following year and became a stepmother to his two children, Mary and Harold, at the age of 42. Following in his stepmother’s adventurous footsteps, Harold later went on to help carve Mount Rushmore. Carrie died from complications with diabetes on June 2, 1946 at the age of 75.

After working as a schoolteacher in Manchester, Grace married Nathan William Dow in her parents’ De Smet home on October 16, 1901. Later in her life, she worked as a freelance journalist for several newspapers. She shared a similar fate with her sister, Carrie, and died from complications with diabetes on November 10, 1941 at the age of 64.

Almost all the Ingalls sisters were united by a shared penchant for writing, which impacted their lives in different ways. Every member of the Ingalls family, except for Laura, is buried in De Smet Cemetery, where they lay together under the vast, ever-changing South Dakotan sky, in the very place that witnessed the close of their extraordinary pioneer life.

Married Life

Mary Ingalls. 1880s.

side,” said Caroline Fraser, author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning biography, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. “And although she didn’t travel to see her mother before she died, in 1924, I think that loss was nonetheless very [melancholic] and meaningful for her.

It inspired her to write to her mother’s sister, Martha, to ask about their early lives. Those letters would become the catalyst for her long-cherished dream to write about her childhood.”

Her siblings lived the rest of their lives in South Dakota, where their pioneer adventures had ended. After attending a school for the blind, Mary moved back to De Smet to live with her parents. Following their mother’s death in 1924, Mary moved into Grace’s home in Manchester before making her final move to live with Carrie in Keystone. Unlike her TV persona, Mary never married Adam Kendall, a teacher at the blind school, nor did she teach. After having suffered a stroke and a battle with pneumonia, Mary died on October 20, 1928 at the age of 63.

Much like her literary sister, Carrie lived a notably exciting life. Carrie had always planned to be a teacher like Laura, but during her teenage years, she became a typesetter for the De Smet Leader. Eventually, Carrie managed various newspapers across the Badlands area of South Dakota for journalism mogul E.L Senn. In 1907, she traveled on her own

In the eighth book in the series, These Happy Golden Years, Wilder reminisces about the beginnings of her relationship with her husband, Almanzo Wilder, who was ten years her senior. While living in De Smet, South Dakota, at age fifteen, Wilder left home for the first time to be a teacher, which she did in order to pay for her sister, Mary, to attend a school for the blind. Since the schoolhouse where Wilder taught was twelve miles away from her family’s home, Almanzo would drive her back at the end of every school week. During these weekly rides, which sometimes consisted of risky drives through dangerous blizzards, the two fell in love.

The couple married in De Smet in 1885 and settled in a home Wilder built on land that he owned. The following year, the couple welcomed the birth of their daughter, Rose Wilder, who would later follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a writer herself under the name Rose Wilder Lane.

Like her childhood, the first few years of Wilder’s marriage were marked by profound misfortunes, which are chronicled in the final book of the series, The First Four Years.

Laura and Almonzo.1892.

ROUTE Magazine 25

In 1889, the couple’s son died when he was two weeks old from “convulsions.” Later, after both Laura and Almanzo suffered a terrible bout of diphtheria, Almanzo was left partially paralyzed. Following this setback, the couple’s home tragically burned to the ground.

For the next few years, life was chaotic and unsettled for the young family. After spending a year living at Almanzo’s parents’ home in Spring Valley, Minnesota, they decided to try to start a new life in Westville, Florida, with the hope that the warmer weather would improve Almanzo’s health.

Deterred by Florida’s unfamiliar, humid weather and feeling out of place among the locals, the Wilders moved back to De Smet in 1892.

While Laura and Almanzo’s marriage began with many obstacles, it never threatened to break the bond they formed and the love they had for each other.

“It was difficult, at times, because they weathered a lot of hardship and tragedy,” Fraser said. “But it was difficult in the ways in which many long marriages can be difficult.

I do think they loved each other very much to the end: They argued and fought and made up again. Almanzo spoke about Laura’s temper almost with admiration, at times.”

The Move to Missouri In 1894, the Wilders moved to Mansfield, Missouri, located about an hour’s drive from the beautiful city of Springfield, and purchased an undeveloped property outside of town with the money they had saved up. The home they built there, in which Laura and Almanzo would spend the rest of their lives, would eventually serve as the place where Wilder’s Little House series came to fruition.

“Rocky Ridge, the farmhouse that Wilder and her husband built on their land outside Mansfield, was the culmination of Wilder’s lifelong dream of having a rural home in a lovely, wild place,” Fraser said. “But while the farm was indeed in a glorious setting, life there involved virtually unending labor until the Wilders ‘retired’ late in the 1920s. I put that in quotes because retirement for them hardly involved putting their feet up and taking it easy. That’s when Wilder started writing her books.”

During the 1910s, both Laura and her daughter, Rose, embarked upon their writing careers. While Rose began

Laura and Almanzo’s home in Mansfield, MO. 26 ROUTE Magazine

writing for the San Francisco Bulletin, Laura began work as a columnist at the Missouri Ruralist. During her time at the Ruralist, Laura wrote columns, which advocated for the rights of farm women and shared her tips for the grueling farm work that characterized her days at Rocky Ridge Farm.

“When you read Wilder’s farm columns from the Missouri Ruralist, you see how her days unfolded — caring for chicks and hens, cleaning chicken coops, milking, hauling slops to pigs, separating cream, churning butter, gardening, canning, cleaning, ironing, washing dishes, baking, cooking,” Fraser said. “It’s incredible, the work these women did.”

For Rose Wilder, her writing talent sparked a taste for yellow journalism, which is interesting considering she would later work with her mother on the Little House series.

“I was particularly surprised by the revelation that Rose Wilder Lane began her career as a newspaper reporter in Hearst’s San Francisco, and became a kind of notorious yellow journalist – [journalism that presents little or no verified well-researched news] – inventing ‘autobiographies’ of Charlie Chaplin and writing bogus celebrity biographies,” Fraser said. “That’s an astonishing revelation, given that Wilder and Lane eventually end up collaborating, as writer and editor, on another fictionalized autobiography — the Little House books.”

While Rose developed her career on the West Coast, the Wilders settled into their new life in Missouri, continuing their farm work and getting to know their new neighbors.

Laura, in particular, fully integrated herself into the local community.

“She became very involved in the community of Mansfield,” Koupal said. “She joined clubs, she advocated for farm women, [and] she worked in various capacities in Mansfield at various times in her life. So yes, I would say she was very invested in that community.”

From the Prairies to a Publisher Under her daughter’s persuasion, Wilder penned the first of her autobiographical works, Pioneer Girl, around 1930.

Wilder’s autobiography remained unpublished until Koupal and others from the Pioneer Girl Project and the South Dakota Historical Society Press published an annotated version of it in 2014.

According to Koupal, Rose and Laura initially believed they would be able to publish the autobiography in magazine installments. When this proved unsuccessful, they determined Laura should compile her memories into children’s novels.

Despite the success of the Little House series, Laura and Rose’s relationship was undoubtedly strained. Fraser described unearthed letters exchanged between the mother and daughter as “fairly unguarded” and “pretty frank.”

Ultimately, the discord between Laura and Rose that had been growing over the years resulted in estrangement.

“But the relationship between Laura and Rose was strained and was a disappointment to them both,” Fraser said. “In addition to the normal tensions of any motherdaughter relationship, they had the additional burden of their professional collaboration, which existed almost from the time they both became professional writers, in the 1910s.

That tension grew particularly intense during the time they were working on the Little House books. On top of that,

Laura and Almonzo with neighbors. 1929.

Lane lived with her parents for significant periods, and these were times when she experienced deep depressions and felt a lot of resentment toward her mother. Ultimately, they ended up living apart.”

Wilder’s Legacy and Its Impact With an imagination as vibrant and colorful as her memories, Wilder was destined to create a cherished children’s book series. And yet, within the hope and love that permeates her books, there is a tinge of darkness that cannot be ignored.

Located about an hour’s drive from Route 66, the Wilder’s Mansfield farmhouse is open nine months out of the year.

Visitors to Rocky Ridge Farm’s museum can view artifacts from Wilder’s life, including Pa’s fiddle, Laura’s handwritten manuscripts and Rose’s writing desk.

“A visit to the Mansfield home is just like a trip through the novels,” Koupal said. “It’s something everybody should do who has any fondness for [Laura Ingalls] Wilder or her novels or just has any appreciation for that era of American literature.”

Recognizing the success of the Little House book series, Ed Friendly decided to create a television show based on Wilder’s novels during the 1970s. Friendly asked Michael Landon to direct the two-hour pilot movie, which aired on NBC on March 30, 1974. Landon agreed, under the promise that he be allowed to portray Charles Ingalls in the series.

When the entire TV series aired in September of 1974, the Wilder family’s pioneer travels entered the homes of millions of American households. Melissa Gilbert, who portrayed Laura Ingalls Wilder, became the face of the famous author, while Karen Grassle portrayed Caroline Ingalls, Melissa Sue Anderson played Mary and sisters Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush portrayed Carrie.

Unlike Wilder in real life and in the book series, Gilbert’s portrayal of Laura was exceptionally adventurous, traveling

to the Pacific Ocean and getting trapped inside in an abandoned cabin during a blizzard. Likewise, Grassle portrays Caroline as a meek wife and mother with an occasional fiery side, which wasn’t true for the actual Caroline or her literary persona. For his part as Charles, Landon remained fairly true to the real person and his literary equal, although he didn’t grow Charles’ beard.

Interestingly, Dean Butler’s portrayal of Almanzo Wilder was more accurate in terms of the age difference compared to Wilder’s illustration in the novels, considering he was eight years older than his co-star, Melissa Gilbert. Regardless of the occasional disparities between the televised Ingalls family and their literary and real-life counterparts, the popular TV series made millions of viewers fall in love with Laura and her close-knit family.

Nevertheless, with fame often comes controversy. In 2018, the American Library Association (ALA) stripped the Laura Ingalls Wilder Children’s Literature award of the author’s namesake, due to the presence of derogatory depictions of Native Americans and African Americans in Wilder’s novels.

Regardless of the nature of these descriptions, the novels shouldn’t be deprived of their literary value. In McClellan’s opinion, the Little House books should be used to gain a better understanding of past prejudices.

“The books themselves are a historical artifact,” McClellan said. “They describe events that took place during the 1870s and 1880s, and they were written during the 1930s and 1940s. So, it’s not surprising that attitudes have changed a great deal. I’m not saying that we should excuse or ignore language and attitudes that are troubling to us today, but I don’t think that means that the books have no value. For one thing, Wilder expresses a diversity of views about American Indians and African Americans in her books, which helps us understand the range of attitudes in any one time period, as well as changes in attitudes over time. For another, I think the challenge for readers, teachers, historians, and literary ROUTE Magazine 27

The End of a Pioneer Era Wilder truly lived a complicated, ever-changing life. From her younger years, traversing the undulating prairie lands inside a covered wagon, to her later years as a wife, mother and novelist, Wilder defined the image of the pioneer woman. She embraced change with alacrity, endured the darkest of tragedies and sought happiness through it all.

And unlike many authors, she chose to share her story through the eyes of her childhood self, so that children could learn about the landscape, people and places that characterized the American frontier.

After suffering two heart attacks, Almanzo died on October 23, 1949 at the age of 92, in their farmhouse in Mansfield. On February 10, 1957, Wilder succumbed to the diabetic complications that claimed the lives of two of her sisters. She died at the age of 90 in their Mansfield home.

Rose Wilder Lane died on October 30, 1968 at the age of 82 in Danbury, Connecticut. All three of them are buried alongside each other in Mansfield Cemetery.

According to Fraser, Wilder’s complex life can be seen as a great play composed of distinct, influential acts. Wilder bore her role as one of America’s greatest authors with ease, leaving behind a literary legacy that speaks for itself.

28 ROUTE Magazine

Laura Ingalls Wilder in her later years. 1930.

“As I say in Prairie Fires, her life falls into three acts, like a play: There’s the very dramatic first act of her childhood, when she experiences all the adventures and disasters that she writes about in the Little House books,” Fraser said.

“But then there’s a profoundly important and tragic second act — the catastrophes of her early married life, when she and her husband, Almanzo, lose crop after crop to bad weather, go deeply into debt, and fall ill with diphtheria.

It’s at that time that her husband is left permanently disabled by a stroke. Then they lose their second child shortly after his birth, and their house burns down. All of these losses set them on a path away from Dakota Territory. That exile from her family, I argue, is the event that ultimately inspires her desire to write her childhood. And finally, there’s her difficult but triumphant third act, as she becomes a writer during the Depression, helping to save their fortunes and memorialize her parents. It’s all a wonderful story, but for me, it’s her extraordinary persistence in that second act of her life — her bravery and tenacity in facing down loss after loss — that truly stands out.”

Wilder once stated: “Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.” In truth, Wilder’s legacy can only be remembered with smiles and laughter, for that is exactly what her books teach — the eternal power of seeking joy in the simple, heartwarming facets of life.

Photographs courtesy of Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.

scholars is to use books like these to prompt important conversations about race and equality in the past and the present — not simply dismiss or ignore them.”

In an article published in the Washington Post, Fraser voiced her disagreement with the ALA’s decision, stating, “Whether we love Wilder or hate her, we should know her.” In her mind, the Little House books allow children to understand the harsh reality of American history. Regardless, Fraser said the ALA’s decision was one that should have been expected.

“I understand the ALA’s decision,” Fraser said. “It was a long time coming, and children’s librarians had been talking about the issue for decades. So, it wasn’t a snap decision, made at the spur of the moment. Children’s librarians voted on it and ultimately felt that their award needed to reflect a wider audience and a more inclusive sensibility.”

Whether readers love or hate Wilder’s books, the author’s influence on American literature cannot be undermined.

Undoubtedly, the Little House series defined the frontier experience for readers. Yet, Fraser argues, the romanticized depiction of pioneer life illustrated in the books and in the TV show evade the complications and difficulties of early settlement.

“Since Wilder completed her series in 1943, the Little House books have had a tremendous influence on how generations of schoolchildren viewed homesteading, farming, and American settlement … By the time the television show came along in the 1970s, a whole new generation was primed to receive what became a very sentimentalized and nostalgic view of the Little House: the idea that homesteading and American settlement were a rousing success and reflected American values of independence and self-reliance. But as I argue in Prairie Fires, if you look at the ways that the books, and especially the TV show, fictionalize the Ingalls’ experience, you begin to realize that settlement and homesteading were a far more complicated affair, one that cost everyone involved, from the settlers to the Indians they displaced, dearly.”

Some people reminisce

About the past.

Some people get out and

iT! Relive it!

Find out more at

SpringfieldMo.org

(On Old Route 66 in Downtown SpringďŹ eld) Open Mon. - Fri., 8am - 5pm ROUTE Magazine 29

“People don’t take trips, trips take people.”

– John Steinbeck

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ROUTE Magazine 31

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ROUTE 32 ROUTE Magazine

NAT LOVE

B

orn on a slave plantation outside of Nashville, Tennessee, Nat Love didn’t assume the stereotypical image of a future Western legend.

Following the abolition of slavery, Love and his family began work as sharecroppers on their former plantation. When Love’s father died, the future cowboy icon was faced with the unwieldy task of caring for his mother and two siblings. So, on February 10, 1869, at the young age of fifteen, Love gathered his grit and resolve and headed West, where he would later make his mark upon American history.

Historians’ knowledge of Love’s life stems from his 1907 autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, in which he recalls the horrors of slavery and the cowboy experience in raw, unfiltered detail — a testament to his profound storytelling talents. It is within the pages of Love’s memoir that the African American experience in the West comes to life.

“It was typical for many African American men (especially those who weren’t married) to head West,” said Roger Hardaway, Professor of History at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and co-editor of African Americans on the Western Frontier. “People started ranches, rounded up wild Texas longhorn cattle, as well as cattle that had escaped from Texas farms during the Civil War, branded them, and claimed ownership of them. Several thousand cowboy jobs developed very quickly. The pay was often something like $15 a month, plus room and board. This was more money than most African American men could make doing anything else. The work was hard, but there was not as much prejudice on this so-called ‘cattle frontier’ as elsewhere.”

The first place where Love found work was in the legendary cowboy town, Dodge City, Kansas. “Dodge City was one of the most important cattle towns,” Hardaway said. “The cowboys would be paid at the ‘end of the trail;’ that is, when they delivered the cattle to the buyers or agents. Usually, before going back down the trail, they would buy new clothes and hit the bars in the particular cattle town they happened to be in at the time. He talks in his autobiography about

34 ROUTE Magazine

drinking, gambling, and making the acquaintance of women who worked in the dance halls and saloons in Dodge City.”

During the 1870s, Love took his cowboy profession into Arizona, and in 1876, he drove a herd of cattle all the way to Deadwood, Dakota Territory, where he won a rodeo contest. Having witnessed his uncanny cowboy skills, impressed onlookers gave him his legendary nickname, “Deadwood Dick.”

In his memoir, Love recounts harrowing encounters with Native Americans during his Western travels. While these accounts may be true, they may also be a figment of Love’s bold imagination. “The truthfulness of all of these adventures has often been viewed with skepticism because Love exaggerated things often and greatly in his autobiography,” Hardaway said.

“Remember, too, that ‘dime’ novels about cowboy heroes were popular during the late 19th Century, and so an autobiography of a cowboy would be more fun to read if it included runins with Native Americans, outlaws, and others — and Love delivered these things in his autobiography.”

By the 1880s, Love had grown tired of the cowboy life. In 1889, he married his wife, Alice Owens, and settled down in Denver, Colorado, where he got a job as a Pullman porter with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. “Being a porter was certainly a service job — much like a steward or stewardess today on an airplane — serving drinks and food, running errands for the passengers, stowing away baggage, etc.,” Hardaway said. “Many porters were black, and many trains went through Denver, so it made sense to get such a job as a married man who was getting too old to do cowboy work.”

Love’s time as a Pullman porter took him and his family through several Western states, before they finally settled in Los Angeles, California, where he worked as a bank security guard. There, in 1921, Love died at the age of 67, and his fate as a Western figure of note was sealed.

Regardless of whether Love fabricated some of his experiences, his fascinating story is a testament to the lives of other African Americans who bravely sought opportunities in the West in the wake of abolition. And for this reason, it’s a story that should not soon be forgotten.

Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

and the African American Experience in the West

ROUTE Magazine 35

A GOOD CITIZEN

By Brennen Matthews Photographs by Christian Anwander 36 ROUTE Magazine

F

or six decades, Richard Dreyfuss has been a staple on television and cinema screens worldwide, starring in popular shows, like Parenthood, and iconic films, such as The Goodbye Girl (1977), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and huge blockbusters like Jaws, What about Bob?, American Graffiti, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mr. Holland’s Opus and Stand By Me. Offscreen, he has

made headlines in the realms of political activism and educational reform, launching The Dreyfuss Civics Initiative (TDCI) in 2006, to educate young people about the power of citizenship and American values. For Dreyfuss, his role as a societal changemaker is by far his greatest one yet — and it’s one that he’s proud to own for a lifetime. In this annual Americana issue, we can think of no one more appropriate to be featured than the unretractable, Richard Dreyfuss.

You’ve had an enviable career, starring in over 122 film and TV projects, a number of which went on to destroy at the Box Office and inadvertently create the label of summer “blockbuster.” Perhaps your most iconic one has been Jaws, a film that you were almost not a part of and that blew enormously past what was then a respectable budget.

had a fair choice of reaching for a pistol and putting it in my mouth, I would choose that before I chose talking about Jaws again. But, I have a deal. I will say to [an] audience, “If you ask me a question about Jaws that I have not heard, I will give you ten bucks. However, if you ask me a question that I have heard, you owe me ten bucks. Ladies and gentlemen, I am way ahead on this one.”

Well, we ended up spending $14,000,000, but when we went to make the movie, it was with an approved budget of $4,000,000.

That is a bit over budget! When you guys were filming, Jaws famously had quite a bit of frustration and tension on the set due to location and technical problems. At that time were you able to envision that the film would have such a big impact with audiences?

I wasn’t. (Laughs) Everyone else was. Everyone else was absolutely sure we were making an incredible movie.

The original schedule for Jaws was May 2nd to June 28th, okay? And, we started shooting on May 2nd without a script, without a shark and without a cast. I wasn’t hired until May 3rd and the script was all over the place, and no one realized that we, as a film unit, were the first film ever attempted on the real ocean. Just imagine the unanticipated consequences of that ignorance. And, when Freddy Zendar, who was our stunt wrangler and, you know, special effects guy, when he heard over the radio, “The shark is working, the shark is working, the ship is sinking, the ship is sinking,” when he heard that, he jumped to the wheel of the Orca [infamous shark fishing vessel in the movie] and tried desperately to land it on the beach of Chappaquiddick Island, and all the time screaming, “This is the worst! This is the worst!” And, Robert Shaw decided that if he was going to drown in the Atlantic, he was going to be neat. So, he buttoned up his shirt and his sleeves, and he anchored his hat on the top of his head, and he stood at the bow with his arms crossed while 17,000 safety boats were just criss-crossing and trying to get everyone off the boat. And Steven, using a megaphone, was yelling, (in a megaphone like voice) “Get the actors off the boat please, get the actors off the boat please.” And, I was trying to help a 70-year-old sound man with a $50,000 Nagra tape recorder over the side, lifting his legs over the side, and Steven kept on saying, “Get the actors off the boat,” and I said, “Steven, he’s 70 years old,” and he said, “F**k ‘em, get the actors off the boat.” (Laughs) And, that was the second Nagra (portable audio recorder) that went down.

That is really funny!

You have no idea how funny. I mean, seriously.

I know everything about Jaws, I really do. I know every f**king nail, and I will say this, if there’s a subject that, if I 38 ROUTE Magazine

The score from the film was so simple, yet it scared the hell out of lot of people! What was your response to it when you first heard it?

I was walking by Steven’s office one day after we got back, and he said to me, “You want to hear the music?” And I said, “Has [John Williams] written it already?” And he said, “No, you want to hear it?” And I said, “Okay.” And, he played me a cut of — now I’m forgetting the name — an English composer who does beautiful landscape things, and then he did a cutting of a nautical piece that I had not heard and one other — short little snippets, and by the time the third one was over, I had heard the score.

And you liked it right away? You could see how it could be imposing, how it could be effective?

Oh yeah, I mean, immediately. I knew that it would work.

I didn’t know how well, and one day when I was hosting John Williams at the Boston Pops, he turned to the audience and said, “I am so sick and tired of people talking about Jaws, and they don’t know how movies are made, and so I’m going to challenge my audience.” And, he turned on some of Jaws visually with no music, and he kept it on for about 15 minutes, and it was a big snore, and then he turned the music on, and everyone jumped. Because, whatever mind melds going on between those two men … I once said to him, “How long did it take you to figure out the five notes from Close Encounters?” (hums notes) and he said, “Oh, I sat down at the piano and I went (impersonates playing notes)”

Did you always want to be famous?

Well, I wanted to be a star. And a star, to me, when I was growing up, meant that you had influence and power, so that you could, if not name the project and the amount of money and the director and everything else, you were certainly allowed in the decision-making room, and that’s what I knew as a 12-year-old. Now, I have to admit that there’s a certain picture of Cary Grant and Randolph Scott at the Santa Anita Racetrack in, I don’t know what, ‘37, or something like that, and Grant is laughing. He’s throwing his head back, and he’s kind of laughing, and this would be very familiar to you if you knew Grant. And, that picture stayed with me until this second, and I said, that’s what I want. I want that

gut-wrenching laugh that comes from knowing that you’re leading such a rare and wonderful, blessed life.

After Jaws, you obviously got a lot more notoriety. How did you handle the fame that came and the notoriety that followed? Was it comfortable for you or a bit overwhelming?

It really wasn’t then. It was after the Oscar that all of that happened. What happened was that there was a bunch, a small bunch that was American Graffiti, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and Jaws. And when I had made Graffiti, and I was making Duddy Kravitz in Canada, Cindy Williams called me and said, “Ricky, you want to be a star?” And, I said, “Yeah.” And she said, “Well, get your ass down to Joe Allen’s [in New York]. You walk in there, they’ll give you a standing ovation.” And, I was in the Laurentian Mountains in Canada. What the f**k was I doing there? By the time I did get out of there, it was yesterday’s news. But then, Duddy Kravitz opened, and Duddy Kravitz is arguably the best role for any young actor ever, ever. It was just an amazing opportunity, and it opened.

I’m sitting on a boat off the coast of Chappaquiddick Island, [shooting Jaws] and someone brought out the Sunday New York Times, and there was a two-pager advertisement for Duddy Kravitz, and all of a sudden, these girls started to come out from these little safety boats flirting with me.

Then Spielberg said, “What the hell is going on here?” And, I turned to him, and I said, “Steven, if you had a 40-foot face, (size of a movie theatre screen) it would happen to you.” Then, I got to New York, and I saw Jaws. I decided I was not going to sit downstairs with the exhibitors, but I was going to sit upstairs in the balcony with the real people.

And so, I went up to the balcony, and I watched the film for the first time without ever having seen it before. I screamed where everyone else screamed. I went crazy, and when that screening was over, that film got the most amazing compliment I’d ever heard, which was, when the film ended, and the crawl began, the entire theatre went berserk and lifted the ceiling, and then they applauded and applauded and screamed and yelled and applauded.

What’s wrong with that picture? That’s a good way to start a career.

Before the film or even after, did you have a fear or a healthy phobia of sharks?

Am I now? You betcha. But was I then? I was like Peter Benchley (author of Jaws). Peter probably has a fear of finding himself alone with a great white shark, yes. But, did he expect to come into that situation? No. The thing that he went to his grave mourning was the fact that the film scratched open this intense human phobia about sharks, and he never intended that, and he spent the rest of his life trying to tell people that sharks were not that thing. You know, the story of the USS Indianapolis was not — it was still classified when he wrote the novel, so he didn’t include it in the book, but by the time the film came around, it had been declassified, so Steven used it in the movie. And, let me tell you, there are stories like — you know, Peter Benchley was the [grandson of Robert Benchley], one of the great wits of the ‘30s and ‘40s. [Peter’s father] Nathaniel Benchley, was [a writer and actor]. And, one day, his (Nathaniel’s) housekeeper called right after the film

opened, and she said that she was not coming into work the next day because her son had died on the USS Indianapolis, and she had never known anything more about it until she watched it in the film. So, that totally freaked her out. Then I got a call from a woman who worked for me on an answering service, and she said, “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure.” She said, “My dad was on the Indianapolis.” And I said, “Oh my,” and she said, “No, no, he got out of the water.” And I said, “Is he still alive?” “Oh yeah, he’s down in Long Beach. He’s an automobile mechanic for six months out of the year.” And I said, “What does he do for the other six months?” “He kills sharks.” And, she told me a story that would just raise the hair on your whole body.

When she was a child, she went on a charter with her father, and they steamed out of San Pedro, and they went about nine hours out, and they hooked a great white. The charter party was, I guess, about nine or ten people, and the boat was about the size of the Orca. And then, her father put three barrels into that beast, and the shark took them down.

And when that happened, the people in the charter, excuse my expression, began to piss in terror, and then the shark came up at the stern of the [vessel] and began to eat the boat.

In the movie, I try to kill the shark with 20cc of strychnine nitrate. In real life, her father put two shotgun shells of 300cc of strychnine nitrate into a shotgun, walked up to the beast, and blew its head off. They tied the remains to the side of the boat, and for the nine hours that it took to go back to San Pedro, he sat in the hold of the boat with a bottle of rye or something, and he just kept saying, over and over again, “He’s gonna wake up.” And, he had a reason to say that.

I know a shitload about sharks now, obviously, and when we first moved to San Diego, the next week, a doctor was ROUTE Magazine 39

killed by a shark. And, the San Diego Tribune’s headline was, “Dreyfuss moves to San Diego, brings his shark with him.”

That’s awful!

I will never walk in from the sand into the water. That, I can’t do. I can scuba, and I do because you can see, but the whole idea of not knowing what’s going on below your waist? Forget it. And by the way, when the film opened, it was never — it wasn’t official, but no one allowed their children to see the movie until they were, like, twelve. Now, five-year-olds see the movie.

What About Bob? is perhaps your most revered comedy film. You and Bill Murray play very well off of each other and it seems quite real that his character is honestly irritating you. Murray has always struck me as a guy who never quite knows when to stop. That could get grating.

You think so? (Laughs) He and I didn’t get along, and I used to not talk about it, and then one day I said, “F**k this,” and I talked about it. And then I grew up, and I don’t talk about it, and it just — it’s one of two or three working relationships I’ve ever had that just was a trial. And also, I have to admit, regardless of him being hard to take, he’s also a much better golfer than I am, and I can’t stand that.

What was the atmosphere like working on that picture?

Not great. It was very difficult — a lot of stress. I’d much rather create the necessary stress out of acting than have to endure it in real life. It was rough, but there were some really great saving graces. One of them was

[Smith Mountain Lake], in Virginia, about half a mile from where the recreation of the Battle of Cedar Creek from the Civil War took place. So, I went to the recreation, and there were thousands of people, and I’m a Civil War buff, and they invited me to march, and I did. And, it was incredibly moving and strange and goofy. Then when that day was over, I went back to the set, and I was doing some scene in the front of the house with Julie and the kids, and all of a sudden, I heard this clatter. And, I looked up, and there was an honor guard of Confederate cavalry, and I had forgotten that it was my birthday, and they had come to honor me. And, I mean, one of them drew his sword and bowed, and his horse bowed, and I burst into tears. That was worth the price of admission.

Most people don’t know this, but I was the voice of the Gettysburg Cyclorama for twelve years. And, American history, that war and what it meant, is deeply inside of me.

And, when this honor guard — and I’m not Confederate, I’m not a Southerner. The whole of my sentiment is for the Union. When this guy bowed, and his horse bowed, it just, wow. I felt like an American.

Have you done any road trips across America?

I have! The summer of 1965, after I graduated high school, I went with two Larrys. One was Larry Bishop, the son of Joey Bishop, and the other was a friend named Larry Levine, who, I will add quickly, was one of the first teachers killed in one of those insane attacks up in Oregon, about three years ago.

I can tell you two quick stories. So, the two Larrys and I stopped somewhere in, I think, northern Mississippi, and we went into this fast food place to get some hamburgers and stuff, and … on the way back into the parking lot, there was this old black guy sitting there, and he was just looking at us, and we were looking at him. ‘Hi, how are ya?’ As we were getting into the car, he kind of raised one hand and was trying to get our attention, or wasn’t he? We weren’t sure. So, we drove off, and then Larry Bishop realized, holy sh*t, he left his wallet on top of the car, and so we raced back to this place.

As we drove, the old black man said, “I’d seen you leave that wallet on top of the car, and I was trying to get your attention, but I knew you’d be back,” and we all cracked up.

The other was, we were stopped by a highway patrolman, I guess in Mississippi and, you know, we were three naïve Jews from Beverly Hills, and there was this 19 or 21 year-old-cop that stopped us for speeding, and we didn’t really try to get out of it. I mean, we were guilty, and not by a lot, but we were, and all of a sudden the cop goes, “Why don’t you get on out of here, just go on,” and we just went, “Thank you, thank you, really,” and he went on, “I’m a shit, I’m usually a shit, get on out of here.” So, that’s how we were introduced to northern Mississippi.

What was it like growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s?

Well, we thought it was perfect. It wasn’t until quite a ways down the line that we realized that we were experiencing the end, the beginning of a spiral of decay. Into the ‘70s and the ‘60s — when people refer to the ‘60s, they usually refer to the years between ‘65 and ‘75, and those were the 60s, and … it was brought home very clearly that America had been going off the rails.

By the time things rolled around to the turn of the century, I retired, and I went to England to study at Oxford, 40 ROUTE Magazine

and I stayed for four years, and when I came back, I was trying to proselytize for the revival of teaching civics — of teaching government. I would say to people, “The Ten Commandments are not known at birth. You have to teach them. What makes us crazy enough to think that we don’t have to be taught about the American government?” So, that’s how my whole thing with civics started. And, it’s a very different America — very different. It’s not healthy.

There’s, you know, goofy things going on, and they’re going on everywhere. Not just politics — socially, politically, and in business and education and everywhere. We’ve just seemed to come unstrung.

With all of that in mind, how would you compare American values of the ‘50s to what you’re seeing today?

Well, we have none now, and we had some then. We have no values. We have none. You know, I mean, if you asked kids in school, “What are the values of the Ten Commandments?”

They couldn’t tell you — the ten Bill of Rights? They couldn’t tell you. We don’t teach them, so why would we expect them to know? There’s a phrase that’s thrown around like crazy, where people say, “Oh, the kids today, they feel so entitled.”

Well, what’s wrong with feeling entitled to get a great education? I felt that way, and I got it.

I hate to tell you, [but] American values and the government, and how it works with society and how we interact, civility or civil discourse or anything like that has not been taught in America since 1982, and that’s 40 years ago.

I think that at the beginning there was an intentional move — supposedly, for our benefit, because the ‘60s so scared the ones that were in power, that they said, “We’re just not going to emphasize participatory democracy — participatory citizenship. We won’t emphasize that.” We do not study the revolutionary aspects of the American Revolution, because we have become so successful, a kind of middleclass bourgeois something or other, that we don’t want to be revolutionary. So, it’s a big problem because the chances are that it’s early in the century and the United States of America as I knew it, won’t be there at the end of the century. There’ll be a country called that, but it won’t have anything to do with its past.

I’ve always found Americans, especially outside of the big cities, to be very patriotic.

Patriotism is usually referred to as the feeling you get when you say, “America is truly exceptional because it’s south of Canada.” For no particular reason, America is an exceptional country. The fact is, of late, because of my involvement with civics, I’ve turned to a lot of friends of mine who are on the conservative side, and I say, “If you use that phrase ‘American exceptionalism’ one more time without proving it, I’m going to hit you right in the mouth.” Because, American exceptionalism can be historically proven, and it has nothing to do with its might, with its reach, with its riches. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that, for the first time in human history, the very first country, nation, that ever officially openly allied itself with the common person, was us.

If you want one quick one, it’s this: if you were having a conversation like you and I are having right now anywhere

in the world, earlier than 225 years ago, we would be whispering. That says a lot.

[People] don’t know what it is that they could take for granted. You know, there was a famous thing that happened last year. Someone went to Yale and was taking names for a petition to rescind the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and within an hour he got 75 signatures. Wow, I mean, wow.

And, the fact is, every [person] has a right to know who they are and why they are who they are, and we don’t.

The First Amendment has always been the point of attack on the part of the right. Last year, when children of the left shut down speakers of the right on campuses, I wanted to puke.

I’m a product of the old left, you know, the guys who fought Hitler twice in Spain in World War II, and they were all blacklisted when they came home, but they loved America like nobody’s business, and I grew up a red diaper baby in that kind of community. And then, the First Amendment was the left, and to see that professors in that, you know, the hoity toity whatever, eastern seven sisters, had been treating the Bill of Rights and the Constitution as if they were an irreparable evil, unable to be corrected, and everyone goes to hell ...

I’ve had people helping me write this book I’m writing, and two very, very bright people — one a Republican, one a Democrat, and to get them to admit that America had done anything right, it took pliers, because they just don’t accept it. At one [point] they ganged up on me and said, “You know that you’re exaggerating this whole thing. America didn’t revolutionize the whole world, it wasn’t like that.” And, I said, “Really? Well, give me an example.” And, to make a long story short, they couldn’t. There is no example in history of achieving what we achieved in what I call a nearperfect political miracle. And, what we did was, when we offered it to the world, it took them about a hundred years to believe us, and then we started the largest, most ongoing, voluntary mass movement of people in the history of civilization, and it has never ended. And, no one in this world ever wakes up and says, “I can’t wait to get to Norway.”

In the world of Hollywood, where you’re surrounded by hordes of tall leading men, has your height ever been an issue that bothered you?

I’ll tell you, I have the best story in the world about this.

I have always been 5’ 6½”. And that means that from the time I was nine, I surrounded myself with stories about Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson and other short actors. (Laughs) And, I knew that you didn’t have to be Cary Grant or Gary Cooper. And, I was in Italy at a press conference once, and I had brought my mom because I had the opportunity to bring my mother, so I did, and these people in the press conference said, “How does it feel if you’re, like, out of the mainstream, you’re not a classical leading man?” And, I gave them a lesson in film history because I said, “Well, actually, you’re wrong. Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson and Spencer Tracy were all my height, as is Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and so your idea that there were all these tall, lean Midwesterners is crazy, and you’re wrong.” And, they decided to get back at me by calling me a homosexual, because I had brought my mother to Italy.” (Laughs) ROUTE Magazine 41

That’s crazy.

But then, I was doing a movie when I was 19 where I had to be in an asbestos suit because it was a fire, and the wardrobe guy, as he was taking my measurements, did a half hour on short actors — Jimmy Cagney, and after about a half hour I turned to him and I said, “Are you trying to tell me that you think I’m short?” And he laughed, and I looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself, “This guy is a f**king fruit loop.” I said, “This is the funniest thing ever!” So, I went to my best friends, Rob Reiner, Albert Brooks, Larry Bishop, Carl Borack, and as I went to them to tell them about this crazy wardrobe guy, I realized that I was craning my neck and looking up and I saying to Rob, “Hey, did you ever…”

And, it had never occurred to me that I was shorter than my friends until that minute.

Do you feel 71, Richard?

(Laughs) Not by choice, no. When I turned 50, I said to my friends, “We’re entering the third act,” and promptly, two of my best friends dropped dead. It’s a kind of undignified, humiliating experience of lessening and worsening until you hit the cliché of all clichés, and you’re sitting on a park bench describing your prescriptions to your friends. Let me tell ya, it’s kind of like God sets you up and says, “You’re gonna aim for wisdom. Wisdom can come.” And, you spend your whole life trying to become a wise person, and right before, you get a stroke, and you’re dead. And, you spend your whole life trying to understand men and women, and just before you get there, stroke, and you’re dead. Oscar Wilde said, “Oh Lord, please forgive the little jokes I play on thee, and I’ll forgive the great big joke you played on me.” The funniest part of it is, as you get older, and you get closer to death then you are to high school, your thoughts change, and you know, a big part of that is hope and fear. But ideas that you never would have entertained in high school, like reincarnation and life cycles and stuff, all of a sudden, you’re going, “Gee, that sounds pretty good.” (Laughs)

When you watched Stand By Me for the first time, did it speak to you in the same vein as what we’re talking about now, creating a deep and mature need to look back and reminisce about those times when you were young?

Oh yeah, the most important line, obviously, to me in that film was, “You’ll never have friends [like] the ones you made when you were a young teenager,” whatever that line was.

That’s the most important line in the movie. I did not see the film before I recorded it. I had read the book — I’d read the short story, and I really felt ... of course now, I must admit that I get it mixed up with the actor and the character. The actor who played the best character in the movie, you know, they say at the end he was killed in a knife fight.

Oh, River Phoenix’s?

Yeah, River died in such a short span of time after the film that I get, I get my emotions confused. I don’t know whether I’m grieving for River or for the character. You know, he had a wonderful, wonderful reputation as an actor. He was young, he was just beginning, and he had limitless potential. So, on all of those levels, it was a real human tragedy, and Rob [Reiner] 42 ROUTE Magazine

has this knack for being able to, what’s the word, memorialize our collective youth. There’s something about Rob’s memory, which is almost always a kind of collective.

You know, when Steven Spielberg and I started to work together, I would say that Steven had a love affair with the suburban middle class. And Rob is able to distill the memory of American people, American men, and go back to really the most powerful and impactful moments of our lives. You know, my best friends are still the ones I made [back] then.

So, I hope that someday, someone does that in a monograph or a biography of Rob, because there are very few people who’ve ever been able to slice the experience, the human experience, and the human experience of being boys.

Do you worry at all as an actor about your bankability and your relevance at this stage of your career and life?

Yeah. I have to revise the approach to the subject because, for me, it was a question of what I was passionate about. And, I had been passionate about acting my whole life, and it wasn’t until years and years and years later, until really after the turn of the century, that I realized that I had something other than acting that I was as passionate about, and that was America. And I, you know, couldn’t deny that I felt deeply that, if someone didn’t do something and say something and keep saying, that we were gonna lose the greatest compliment ever paid to mankind. And so, I stopped having only one intense love affair with a theme of my life.

Most of my themes have gone back to when I was nine. I still feel the same way about everything. But I knew that it does take — it does take a single individual to make a difference, and no one else is even bringing it up, and they’re still not. So, my life, in a sense, became something else. It had become something else when I became a parent, and it became something else when I stopped acting like a schmuck, and I know I am one of the luckiest, blessed people in the world. I can’t say that without it sounding pompous, but that’s what it is.

As I was growing up — and I knew I was going to be an actor — I had not a scintilla of doubt that I would make it. And I, as opposed to all my other friends who doubted like crazy, I didn’t. I was patient. I knew I was in the apprenticeship of my life. I was in no hurry, and I was able to enjoy every part of it — losing a role, getting a role, learning, all that stuff. It wasn’t until I was in my mid ‘50s [when] I decided that I should write this book, that I got all of the insecurities that all of my friends had had when they were 17, and I’m — that has made me tremble because it certainly is as important, and I wish that I had half the facility that I felt when I was younger.

What else fuels and impassions Richard Dreyfuss?

One of the third or fourth run missions of my life, is to make people hungry to see films of the ‘30s and ‘40s, which changed my life, and I — to be able to talk to them and say, “Charles Laughton was the only actor ever to achieve rhythm in prose,” and then I’d show them what I mean. Or, “Irene Dunne, who was the most underrated actor of the ‘30s and ‘40s, and who could not only play a Howard Hawks dame — she could play Queen Victoria in mourning. To watch her is, sometimes — it’s just, your mouth hangs open in awe.” And, there’s a whole bunch of people and directors and, and you want to say, “These things affected my life,” and they really did.

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ROADSIDE Photographs by John Margolies

44 ROUTE Magazine

AMERICA

ROUTE Magazine 45

P

erhaps best known for his pictures of America’s vernacular and novelty architecture, John Samuel Margolies’ work is the focus of this issue’s pictorial due to his keen eye for the odd, the quirky and the downright bizarre. Margolies spent over three decades and drove more than 100,000 miles in pursuit of classic Americana. His hunting ground: America’s highways.

Many of the mom and pop shops and restaurants, motels and attractions that he shot in his decades of travel have disappeared now, and those that still remain have for the most part been dramatically altered. But not all. Some have been lovingly spruced up and still call to motorists today who travel the country via its two-lane highways.

Margolies’ journey resulted in the publishing of a wonderful photography book, John Margolies: Roadside America, published in 2010. Margolies’ book is the pure celebration of the wacky and odd. In modern times, it is truly a reminiscing of a chapter when America was significantly less predictable and less generic, and road travel was a guaranteed means to adventure and exploration. Down roads like Route 66, it still is.

Margolies died in May 2016, at the age of 76, but his work has been uploaded and made public by the Library of Congress, and his influence continues on. Enjoy this walk down Memory Lane, and get out there this August and take a big breath of Americana.

PREVIOUS SPREAD:

BELOW:

Big Fish Supper Club, Bena, Minnesota. 1980.

Wigwam Village #6, Holbrook, Arizona. 1979.

46 ROUTE Magazine

RIGHT: Trail Drive-in Theater, Amarillo, Texas. 1977.

ROUTE Magazine 47

ABOVE: Reptiles Galore, east of McLean, Texas. 1982.

LEFT: Harold’s Auto Center, Sinclair Gas station, Route 19, Spring Hill, Florida. 1979.

48 ROUTE Magazine

BELOW: Iceberg Restaurant, Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1977.

RIGHT: Indian Trading Post, Elk City, Oklahoma. 1982.

ROUTE Magazine 49

ABOVE: The Whale Car Wash, N. 50th & Meridian, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 1979.

LEFT: Stork Cafe, 3rd Street, Winslow, Arizona.

1979.

50 ROUTE Magazine

RIGHT: Hat & Boots Texaco, Seattle, Washington.

1977.

ROUTE Magazine 51

RIGHT: Snowman statue, Margaret Street, North St. Paul, Minnesota. 1984.

BELOW: Pig Stand, San Antonio, Texas. 1982.

BELOW: Pocahontas Gift Shop, Pocahontas, Iowa.

52 ROUTE Magazine

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EXPERIENCE A TEXAS ROUTE 66 LANDMARK

DINING z LODGING z SHOPPING z MUSIC Way out west in 1960, R. J. “Bob” Lee opened The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo on Route 66, the “Mother Road. Its distinctive architecture soon became recognized across the Mother Road as a good stopping place for great steaks grilled over an open flame.

The restaurant maintains the traditional spirit and atmosphere that it started with in 1960 while offering new and exciting experiences such as a brewery, sweet shop, gift shop, an RV park, as well as a summer music venue.

All of which still strive to carry on that steak loving, horse riding, gun slinging, wild wild west spirit.

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ROUTE Magazine 53

The Spirit of the

W

hen the stage lights dim, echoes of footsteps, gunshots, door slams and piano keys resound within Constantine Theater’s walls.

Perhaps these sounds are a mere gust of Oklahoman wind, or maybe they belong to something of a spectral persuasion. Local legend deems the theater to be a paranormal hotbed, due to its vibrant history, a violent family feud and the untimely death of a piano teacher.

Rife with mystery and rich history, Constantine Theater stands as a proud landmark within the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. During the 1880s, Constantine Theater originally emerged as a prominent hotel named Pawhuska House Hotel. During this time, a 20-year-old piano teacher named Ada Frye died in the hotel from typhoid fever.

To this day, the occasional bing, bing of two piano keys can still be heard floating through the theater — perhaps an echo of Ms. Frye’s pianist days.

Around 1909, a heated family feud broke out, leading to the fatal shooting of a gentleman in front of the hotel. It is even rumored that the man’s blood streamed into the hotel’s front lobby. In recent years, visitors have aptly reported hearing the sound of gunshots. “I always tell people, maybe [the gunshot sounds] are the echo of gunshots up the street from the man that bled through the Constantine,” said Gary Hartness, Constantine Theater’s president.

Hartness himself has witnessed the theater’s paranormal activity firsthand. One day, when he was cleaning the basement, Hartness heard footsteps above him. “I came out saying, ‘Hello? Who’s here?’ And, of course ... nobody.”

One evening, Hartness locked all the theater doors to prevent intruders from entering while he was working inside. In the dead of night, without a soul in sight, he heard a door slam three times. After the third slam, 54 ROUTE Magazine

Hartness decided to go home before he “started seeing shadows on the walls.”

In 1914, the Pawhuska House Hotel was transformed into the Constantine Theater, showcasing a stunning opera house. At the time, the opera house boasted the largest proscenium and the second largest stage in all of Oklahoma. Its reputation grew quickly.

To accommodate to the times, the Constantine Theater was refurbished in 1951 for primary operation as a movie theater. Hartness remembers spending much of his childhood at the movie theater watching films like Peter Pan, Eyes of Laura Mars and Jaws 2. Some local couples even recall sharing first dates and kisses together at the theater, whose incarnation was to last three decades.

After the Theater was shut down in 1981, plans to tear it down were discussed in 1986. Stirred by a vision to save this community icon, Janet Holcombe surmounted opposition and immediately set to work scraping gum off the walls.

Along with Ms. Holcombe’s invaluable efforts, Greg Spencer and his carpentry class poured countless hours and work into renovations. In fact, the entire community banded together to contribute funds, supplies and effort into renovations. “If it hadn’t been [for] that kind of team effort, the Constantine would not exist today,” Hartness said.

Because of the community’s tremendous devotion to restore this town icon, the Constantine Theater continues to unite the local community, even as ghostly patrons wander its historic halls.

Whether it’s the hauntings, the operas or the memories, the Constantine Theater is undoubtedly one of its kind.

From hotel to opera house to movie theater to icon, the history of the Constantine Theater lives on in Pawhuska, like two piano keys twanging in the night.

Photograph courtesy of Constantine Theater.

Constantine Theater

ROUTE Magazine 55

AN UNCONVEN

By Frank Jastrzembski and Kate Wambui Opening photograph by Efren Lopez/Route66Images

56 ROUTE Magazine

TIONAL LIFE

ROUTE Magazine 57

In the midst of some truly amazing stops and attractions along the �,��8 miles of highway, one slightly unusual landmark is located in the heart of the Mojave Desert—in the dusty-desert, albeit, pretty-sounding town of Newberry Springs. Enveloped by the yawning desert, but sitting only �3� miles east of Los Angeles, Bagdad Cafe has become a sort of pilgrimage for Route 66 enthusiasts and foreigners obsessed with a ��8�s cult film that shares the same name. And if that is not interesting enough, ��-year-old owner, Andrea Pruett, is just as colorful as this little café’s history.

I

n his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), author John Steinbeck called iconic Route 66 the “path of a people in flight.” While they may not be fleeing the Great Depression like the fictional Oklahomans in Steinbeck’s book, modern travelers still look to California as a means of escape. Their struggle is not so much of an economic sort as it is a spiritual one.

Long stretches of remote highway, bursting red and yellow sunsets, the desert’s endless landscape of brown and beige, the panoramic mountain range, and peculiar sites are all trademarks of road travel on California’s Route 66. The solitude and vastness of the region is therapeutic to its travelers, allowing them to escape from the responsibility and burdens of modern society. Surrounded by long stretches of desert and vast expanses of lonely road, the desert stretch of California’s Mother Road does not disappoint.

Where’s Bagdad?

“I love being on your open roads where there’s nothing but rich fields and flat land,” declared Munich-born, director and writer Percy Adlon during an interview with the Los Angeles Times in May 1988. “It’s where I let all my wounds heal.” Adlon had fallen in love with the vastness and solitude of the Mojave Desert when he first journeyed through southern California with his family on a road trip in 1985, and quickly found the therapeutic qualities of the desert too alluring to ignore. It was on this trip that he saw the word Bagdad on the map and sought to find the town.

This search for the desert town, named after a Middle Eastern capital, is what inspired Adlon to shoot his first English-language film in California, two years later.

The town of Bagdad, California, was established in 1883 as a railroad stop. Being 72 miles from Barstow and smack dab in the middle of the desert, it became a thriving hub for the railway and mining companies, sprouting homes, hotels, a post office, the Bagdad Cafe and even a school.

At the time, Bagdad, considered the hottest spot in America, had the most populous community between Needles and Barstow. However, by the 1940s, the town’s prosperity, as did its population, declined, leaving but a few homes, the Bagdad Cafe, a gas station and a few cabins that served Route 66 travelers, who in turn, kept the town alive. With nothing else for miles, the town became a must-stop as a reprieve from overheated vehicles, for gas, and for food and a cold drink at the café. The eatery also become a popular spot for the local desert community who came from all over the Californian vastness to enjoy the only jukebox and dance floor for miles. Then, along came the Interstate, which bypassed the town in 1972, and put the proverbial final nail in Bagdad’s coffin. Route 66, the two-lane highway that had kept the town alive, was largely abandoned. The iconic Bagdad Cafe, which closed 58 ROUTE Magazine

by 1968, the motel, and the remaining few structures were vandalized. The town of Bagdad, California, had breathed its last breath. By the time that Adlon and his family were trying to track down the settlement on their map, there was nothing left of the town, nothing to even show that the town once existed. Today, a lone tree, commonly referred to as “The Tree,” marks the spot where the town of Bagdad once was. Other than the faint memories of a few, the desert has reclaimed the rest.

Spot on a Map On the heels of his unexpected success with the movie Sugarbaby, and the desert happenstance with the ghost town of Bagdad, Adlon was inspired to bring his imaginings of the desert to the Big Screen in the 1987 film, Bagdad Cafe. The picture was based around the real Bagdad Cafe, but was shot at the existing Sidewinder Cafe, in the nearby community of Newberry Springs, some fifty miles to the west from the site of the original café. The movie told the fictional story of a German tourist named Jasmin Münchgstettner (Marianne Sägebrecht) who abandons her husband on the side of the road after their car breaks down and ends up wandering to an isolated roadside diner, motel and gas station in the Mojave Desert that is managed by a black American woman named Brenda (CCH Pounder).

Jasmin helps to transform the run-down, neglected, and mismanaged café into a warm, clean, and welcoming place for visitors. Brenda, who is at first resentful and mistrusting of the German woman, comes to respect her for how she boosts the café and for the impression she has on its customers. The café’s unusual customers – a washed-up Hollywood set painter (Jack Palance) and a tattoo artist (Christine Kaufmann) – are captivated with Münchgstettner’s character and hidden talents, which include the ability to do magic tricks.

As questionable as the plot may be, this quirky, feel-good film became a cult classic, with a die-hard following that is alive and well today. The movie even had a CBS network comedy spin-off starring Whoopie Goldberg as Brenda and Jean Stapleton as Jasmin, that ran for 15 episodes before it went off the air in 1991. Pounder, who played Brenda, recalls three decades later why viewers are still captivated with the picture: “Bagdad Cafe is the only film I’ve experienced that motivated many of the viewers to rise above their fears and take a leap of faith in a dream they wanted to realize,” Pounder said. “I think the contrast of such opposites – black and white, fat and thin, from a cold place, from a hot place, and a motley group of people working together – gave so many hope that their personal desires could be realized, and not from any standard way of doing things! Bagdad somehow gave them permission to dream what’s possible.”

A Young Girl from Arkansas Andrea Pruett was no stranger to picking up and relocating.

She was born on the road. “I was born in Arkansas on the way to Florida. So it doesn’t bother me to travel,” Pruett said. Yet, although born in 1940 in Arkansas, Pruett could not remember the exact city where she was ushered into the world. “My grandfather was a minister. We stopped at his house, and I was born. Two days later we were in Florida.”

Andrea’s father wrote country gospel music for a living, causing her and her siblings—two sisters and brother—to regularly pick up and move. The young family traveled throughout Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia.

Pruett became pregnant with her first son, Corky, at the young age of 15. This was 1955. Pruett married her son’s father, who was in the service, but the marriage didn’t last.

The couple split up a short time after. Despite the moralistic undertow of the time, where being a young, single mother was scandalous, Andrea’s family provided a strong network of support. Her mother, Mary, moved in with her in Atlanta, Georgia, to help watch Corky, while Andrea worked at the Domino Lounge, located below the Old Imperial Hotel. “Everybody loved her,” Andrea recalled of her devoted mother. “She was the sweetest, most thoughtful woman in our family.”

One afternoon, while at work, Pruett had an unexpected encounter with one of her customers, a young man who began to flirt with her. “You didn’t go with the customers,” Pruett recalled, but something was special about this charming man. She could not resist him. Her instincts proved right this time and the couple married in 1966. The man’s name was Harold Pruett, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, born in 1939.

Harold’s mother and father had moved up to Alaska, so the newly married couple packed up during Christmas the same year and moved to the Arctic wonderland. They spent nine years in Anchorage, during which time, Andrea’s second son, Harold Jr., was born, in 1969. They then moved back to California in 1975 and spent the next 20 years in Los Angeles. It was different from anywhere they had lived before, and the Pruetts found the scenery majestic.

Desert Laced Serendipity In 1995, Harold, a nature and wildlife enthusiast, made the potentially odd, but certainly unique, decision that he wanted to raise ostriches, and the couple began searching for a piece of property outside of Hollywood. Besides starting an ostrich farm, Andrea wanted to dedicate time to one of her own passions, writing. The Pruetts intended to purchase 600 acres in Newberry Springs, California, but their plans fell through when they found out that the plot that they were considering did not have a well on the property, and because it bordered the mountain, water would be hard to obtain. It would be far too expensive to drill for water so they shelved that plan.

Frustrated by the harsh realities of the desert, they stopped at the Sidewinder Cafe to grab a bite to eat before heading home. While there, fate would step into Pruett’s life once again when the couple struck up an unexpected conversation with the café’s owner, Shirley Trueman. Talking over the counter to the couple, Shirley told Harold and Andrea that she was looking to sell the café and move on with her life.

Andrea and Harold Pruett Sr.

“She said that she didn’t want to work anymore, or deal with it anymore,” Andrea recalled. Shirley then told them that there was a movie shot at the venue in 1987 called the Bagdad Cafe. “My husband said, “Oh really,’” Andrea recalled. “And she [Shirley] said, ‘Yes! Jack Palance was in it.’” Palance was one of the most conspicuous actors in film at the time, known for his noteworthy portrayals in 1950s Westerns. “And of course, Harold loved Jack Palance.”

Harold bluntly asked Shirley how much she wanted for the café. “He turned around and looked at me, and I said, ‘Don’t you even think about it. I came out here to write.’” Andrea thought the matter was settled but Harold had already been won over.

That evening, on the drive home, Harold continued to rehash the idea of purchasing the café and its two acres. “He knew that I didn’t really want it,” Andrea stated. She had tried working in the restaurant industry at one point in her life, but it left her dissatisfied. “I tried that in Atlanta for a minute and I didn’t like it.” But Harold reasoned that the family that lived next door to them wanted to get out of Los Angeles and could operate the café. “We wouldn’t even have to go down there,” Andrea remembered Harold telling her.

When they returned home, Harold called their son, Harold, Jr., a budding television and film actor, and told him that they had found a place to live in Newberry Springs. He then proceeded to tell his son that the film Bagdad Cafe was shot in the café on the property that he wanted to purchase, but that Andrea didn’t want to do it. Harold, Jr. pleaded with his mother to reconsider. “So they roped me into it,” she said with a laugh.

“Anyway, we bought it, and the people never showed up of course,” she said, referring to the family that was supposed to move there from Los Angeles. “We never owned a restaurant, we owned a nightclub, but we never owned a restaurant. We bought it and changed the name to the Bagdad Cafe. And that’s the beginning of history.” Changing the name from Sidewinder Cafe to Bagdad Cafe to capitalize on the film’s link was the best decision that the Pruetts could ROUTE Magazine 59

have made, as was the decision to leave the café as authentic as it was in the movie.

In 1995, with their arrival, Newberry Springs residents initially resisted the Pruetts taking over the business and changing the name of the little café that they regularly visited on Sundays after church. “I was known as the lady from Hollywood,” Andrea recalled. People are frightened of change. Business was slow in the beginning, but through trial and error they learned how to operate a restaurant business.

It took a while for some residents, reluctant to approve of the new owners, to warm up to Andrea and Harold. But with time, they did.

Double Tragedy Life is nothing if not unpredictable, and Andrea Pruett is no stranger to the pain that rains into our lives at times. Soon after their new journey began, life dealt Pruett not one, but two, devastating blows.

“Our son died. And then two months and 13 days later, my husband died. That was in 2002.” Harold Pruett, Jr. was a rising actor who began his career at the age of five.

The young thespian would go on to make appearances in over 30 films and TV series, most notably alongside Sally Field in Sybil (1975), Lucky Chances (1990), and Precious Find (1996). He also guest starred as Cooper Voight in three episodes of the hit TV drama, Party of Five.

Tragically, Harold, Jr. died of an accidental drug overdose and forever altered the trajectory of his family. He was only 32. He is survived by his son, Tanen Pruett, and his wife, Jennifer Cattell.

Affectionately known as “P,” Andrea had helped manage her son’s career and was especially close with him. Soon after his death, Andrea and her husband established the Harold Pruett Drug Abuse Foundation to honor their son’s struggle with narcotics. A stone tablet with his headshot mounted to it was erected at his grave in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in Hollywood, California.

Henning Motel sign. Photograph courtesy of Robyn Stockwell.

60 ROUTE Magazine

The French proverb “Un malheur ne vient jamais seul’ (Misfortune never comes alone) held true for Andrea, when two months after the tragic death of her son, pain piled on pain when her beloved Harold died of a heart attack.

Maybe it was from a broken heart. He was laid to rest alongside his son. Multiple losses in such a short period of time pose unique challenges for anyone, and for Andrea it did not seem worth living without her husband and son.

The cumulative grief was too much to bear. “Everybody wanted me to come back to Hollywood,” Pruett recalled.

Her oldest son Corky insisted that she move back to Los Angeles and live with him. She had a tough decision to make: leave the café that she had only reluctantly agreed to buy in the first place, or continue on managing it with an unpredictable future ahead.

“But I got to thinking about it. This was the last place I was with both of them before they died. I decided to buckle in.” And with the decision made, Andrea did her best to try and pick up the pieces and continue on with her life, out in the desert, on her own. But the desert is not only the bearer of death, but of hope and restoration, too.

Suddenly, visitors began to stop by during the summer months, little by little, from the unlikeliest of places, France. Then busloads of French tourists began to show up.

Word spread and tourists from Europe arrived in droves to this little café in the Mojave. Pruett now claims that over seventy percent of her customers come from France.

“It’s like it’s calling people to come from all over the world. I’m glad I stayed.”

The Effects of Film The film Bagdad Cafe was a hit in Europe, especially in France, where it won a César Award in 1989 for Best Foreign Film. Noémie Taylor-Rosner, a French native working as a journalist in Los Angeles, recalls the impact that the film had in France when she was growing up: “For me, it was very significant as a child. My parents were big fans of the movie.

I think they still have the VHS. I remember children, adults, and my parents listening to the song. It was on the radio everywhere. The movie became kind of a classic for the French.

It is something that everybody knows. The French have a particular connection to Route 66. When you talk about the U.S., a lot of French people want to go on road trips. There is also the mythical element of Route 66 and the atmosphere.

I think the French love certain ideas of America, such as road trips and the adventurous idea of America. The Bagdad Cafe is pictured in the movie as a lost place in the middle of nowhere, in the desert. [This] is something that is really appealing to French people.”

In the film, Jasmin discovers a new life and reinvents herself

in the unlikeliest of places. “Maybe that’s an inspiration for French people to change or reinvent themselves,” Taylor-Rosner mused.

On a road trip to do research for an article on Roswell, New Mexico, Taylor-Rosner decided to stop by and visit the café, to see what the hype was all about for herself.

She was captivated by what she encountered.

“I was not expecting [to discover] so many French people. The whole place is decorated with all these French souvenirs, police badges from everywhere in France, and different regional flags. You wouldn’t expect that in the middle of California. I talked to a lot of French people there. There were people Andrea Pruett. Photograph courtesy of Ian Lyons. with their kids, and Pruett currently lives on a 40-acre property, only a mile a lot of young people who were my age in the 1980s, and and half from the café, that has been blessed with lots of remembered the movie. They all love that when they go there, trees and has added raising ostriches to her resumé. She has they know that they will meet French people in the middle no plans to leave Newberry Springs in the immediate future. of nowhere. It’s kind of like the movie; they are reproducing “[Living in the desert] grows on you … It was the last place their own whimsical universe. It’s become a pilgrimage.”

I was with my son and the last place I was with my husband.

“Visitors leave notes, pictures, everything,” Andrea stated I just feel better here,” said Pruett. The café and the desert of the souvenirs left behind by her many foreign visitors. community is a constant reminder of her late family. “It “We have flags hanging from the ceiling. We were so full makes me feel good in my heart that my husband and son that we had to put some of them on the walls. We’re totally evidently made the right decision. People come and they are covered in memorabilia. They always leave stuff. I have one happy, and I see their face and how they come running to me, man that sent me this handmade little thing and on one side ‘Andrea, Andrea, how are you doing?’ They come up to me was the Statue of Liberty and on the other side a monument and hug me.” from France. I almost cried when I saw it. I couldn’t believe These same visitors comforted Andrea after her losses somebody did that. I have it up on the wall.” and got her through the rough times. In turn, Pruett has returned the favor to tourists and Route 66 enthusiasts by Going Local welcoming them into her establishment with open arms and “I heard about it when I got involved in Route 66. I definitely good old-fashioned southern hospitality. Petite in build, wanted to check it out,” stated Delvin Roy Harbour, vice blond-haired with a soft-spoken voice that is laced with president of the California Route 66 Association. “At one traces of a southern drawl, Andrea’s story has become rooted point there was a hotel there, when the film was made in in the colorful history of the building. Her resilience and 1987. The buildings have since been torn down but the founfortitude to live out hers and her late husband’s dream can dations are still there. The sign is still there near the Bagdad only be matched by the fierceness of the desert that she calls Cafe.” The Henning Motel’s original sign continues to attract home. People come to see her, as much as they come to see sign enthusiasts. the eatery.

“We stopped at the Bagdad Cafe one evening, and sure In 2008, her dreams to write were realized when she wrote enough, there was a tour bus there with a bunch of French and produced a screenplay titled, “The Real Bagdad Cafe.” people. They just loved it. There’s an interesting mystique of Pruett plans to continue to operate the café for as long as it. It’s amazing how, from that movie, the Bagdad Cafe, it’s a she can to honor the memory of her late son and husband. highlight for a lot of people, especially French people, to stop “I just like to keep my memories around me.” The café and there and check it out, to see where the movie was made,” its visitors are therapeutic to her, just as Route 66 and the continued Harbour.

Mojave Desert is to its innumerable road travelers.

ROUTE Magazine 61

A Saloon With A Story

By Clarissa Dalloway

N

ew Mexico is a state unto itself — built upon the bones of ancient mythology, deep-rooted history and utterly breathtaking scenery. Poets, painters and writers have continuously been inspired by its mythical aura, which is reflected within every inch of its curving, twisting landscape. The colors that sweep across its mountainous ridges and curved desert plains are astounding.

On a typical summer’s day, shades of blue and purple oscillate between light and dark, as the steady movement of clouds overhead casts extended shadows on the ground, throwing a veil of mystery over this already enigmatic region.

Situated in the heart of northern New Mexico, the extremely small town of Lamy is no exception to New Mexico’s otherworldly charm.

As a reflection of the town’s Spanish colonial heritage, Lamy was named after the Archbishop of Santa Fe, JeanBaptiste Lamy. In Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, Archbishop Lamy’s life story is chronicled and set against the tumultuous backdrop of the SpanishAmerican War, much of which took place in the area

encompassing Lamy. The town also sits near the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range, the translation of which means “Blood of Christ,” and aptly so — at dusk, on especially snowy evenings, its jagged peaks drip with the color of muted crimson, casting an ethereal light across the entire landscape.

And yet, despite its seemingly perfect surroundings, Lamy never grew into a burgeoning southwestern town. Instead, it closely retained its quaint, primeval essence, paying homage to both its colonial past and its Native American heritage.

Around 500 years ago, following the onset of a devastating drought, the surrounding Native American population left, leaving their folklore and traditions behind. In truth, to gaze at the vast New Mexican sky is akin to reading the beliefs and desires of our native ancestors, whose influence exists in every aspect of the enchanted landscape — from its rocky, copper earth to its striking, azure horizons.

The town has few buildings, since its primary function was to help travelers along their journey between the West Coast and the city of Santa Fe. Built in 1909 for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Lamy’s railway station was designed in the Mission Revival style, featuring a red-tile roof, stucco walls and an interior with carved wooden beams and benches complemented by Spanish floor tiling.

Besides the station, there are only two structures of significance, considering the El Ortiz, the town’s Harvey House hotel, was torn down in 1943.

One of them is Our Lady of Light Church, an abandoned place of worship dating from 1880, defined by white adobe walls, red-tile roofing and a solitary blue cross that stands outside its weatherThe John Pfluegger General Merchandise Store, as it appeared in 1899. worn doors. The other 62 ROUTE Magazine

The Legal Tender Saloon. May 2019.

structure is the Legal Tender Saloon — the oldest operating bar in the state. When the Legal Tender was opened in 1881, it operated as Pfluegger’s Mercantile, serving as a general store for the tiny community in Lamy.

Last year, it was announced that Allan Affeldt and Daniel Lutzick of the Winslow Arts Trust (WAT) acquired the Legal Tender from the Lamy Railroad and History Museum with the aim of renovating it and reopening it as a restaurant and bar, with Chef Murphy O’Brien of the famed Café Fina as its restaurateur. For those unfamiliar with WAT’s work, Affeldt and Lutzick are known for restoring various southwestern masterpieces, such as the Harvey House hotels La Posada and La Castañeda. Along with Affeldt’s wife, Tina Mion, the group are very aware of the culture and history of the region.

According to Affeldt, the building has undergone three extensive renovations throughout its history. Yet, no one knew exactly how to get business at the Legal Tender booming — that is, until the WAT team decided to take the task of renovation upon themselves.

According to one of the founders of the Lamy Railroad and History Museum, Sam Latkin, the area that now makes up the small town was nothing more than remote, uninhabited land prior to the railway’s introduction. “There was no town before they came. It was just a goat pasture.

The railroad built the town. They built all the houses, and

they put in a water system, and they built the train station, and they owned everything, except for the general store.

And the general store took care of the 300 people that lived here after the railroad moved on. There was no way for people to go into Santa Fe to buy. I mean, people could, but it took all day to get there and all day to get back, you know, 20 miles in a horse and wagon. So, the people had to go to the general store.”

Like WAT’s other restored properties, the Legal Tender has its own unique story to tell, which speaks volumes about its place in both southwestern and American history. “It is a period piece like our other buildings, so a part of the building is adobe, a part of the building is stone, and it was added onto a couple of times over the years,” Affledt said.

“It carries that whole architectural history of what it was like to build here in the 1880s to the early 1900s. But then, a secondary dining room was added on in the 1970s, and of course, the great big kitchen in the back, but they were done in period style, so it has that kind of Western frontier town motif on the façade. It’s just like a movie set, except it’s the real deal.”

In terms of retaining the Legal Tender’s authentic Western charm, Affeldt remarked, “You want to walk into that building and feel like you’re in the 1880s.” In truth, the establishment has been remarkably preserved through the ROUTE Magazine 63

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Photographs courtesy of Daniel Lutzick.

centuries, with help from various owners who did their part to maintain the structure.

Thus, many of the interior and exterior details are original, including the saloon’s vintage, wooden bar.

“In the 1880s, most of the fancy bars were made by a company called Brunswick, and we think that this is an authentic Brunswick bar,” Affeldt said.

With the rise of road travel and the steady decline of railroads, the Legal Tender saw its mercantile days start to fade, as new business ventures began to appear on the horizon. “Over time, the railroads had a lot of trouble [during Fred Harvey Days celebration. November 3, 2018. the] ‘30s, ‘40s because automobiles came out,” Latkin said. “The roads survived after the war was over, and For WAT, preserving the Legal Tender’s history doesn’t with gasoline, they could go to Santa Fe and buy things a lot just come down to the building it’s in. The restaurant’s cheaper than [at] the general store.” entire atmosphere, from the food they serve to the music During World War II, the establishment operated as a they play, is meant to immerse people in the true Old West restaurant and bar and consequently played a surprising role experience. “Our directive in each of these properties is that in one of the most crucial moments in American history. At the food has to tell a story of the place, so we want to have this time, people making their way to a top-secret scientific something kind of special and memorable and unique but enterprise in Santa Fe would stop by in Lamy and spend time [which] also lends some thought to the historical recipes, at the Legal Tender. not only at the El Ortiz, but the historic recipes of this “They were going to Los Alamos, which is what is called part of New Mexico. It will be a hybrid of local food and the Manhattan Project,” Affeldt said. “That’s where they upscale continental with a definite historic nod. There’s all developed the nuclear bomb during the war, and that was kinds of really cool period cocktails and stuff like that, so probably the greatest scientific project in American history. we’ll be doing all of that as well — local beers, local wine, They gathered the greatest scientists from all over the world things like that. We expect that we’ll have live music on a and brought them all together in Los Alamos, and they all regular basis, and of course, we’ll do a lot of events there, arrived through Lamy. It’s an amazing story, and, of course, like weddings. We’ll have a lot of cowboy Western music, all undercover. So, they all had code words for who they [and] cowboy poetry. It’s also got a big patio and two were and what they were doing there. But, that’s just the dining rooms.” typical kind of Lamy story. Everybody going to Santa Fe, at In Affeldt’s mind, the Legal Tender makes manifest the the turn of the century, through World War II, they all went interconnected mystery of southwestern heritage. “All of the through Lamy. So, of course, they all ate and drank at the history of the town is still carried on in the Legal Tender Legal Tender.” more than anything else in the town. It’s the Legal Tender In 1952, Carolyn Yorsten restored the bar and building and that ties together the railroad history of Las Vegas and Lamy named it the Pink Garter. A little more than a decade later, and Albuquerque and Santa Fe and Winslow. So, it’s a really Robert O. Anderson of ARCO Petroleum purchased the important part of the puzzle for us to tie the southwestern property and gave it the name the Legal Tender. Anderson railroad history back together.” owned it until 1984, when it was sold to the Castle Creek For both historians and self-proclaimed history buffs, the Company and acquired a liquor license. Three years later, Legal Tender is a must-see stop on any road trip through the it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. southwest. Those passing through Lamy should undoubtedly By 1995, the building belonged to Richard Fisher and visit the saloon to relish its rich history and unique beauty, the Tumbleweed Associates, during which time extensive while marveling at WAT’s determination and skill in bringing restoration was done to the kitchen and the building’s this antiquated treasure back to life. The West really is being electricity and plumbing. It was finally donated to the Lamy re-won, one saved piece of history at a time.

Railroad and History Museum in 2006.

Let’s go to The Plaza! and Range Café!

The finest historic hotel in Northern New Mexico The P laza hoTel has Presided in VicTorian sPlendor oVer beauTiful P laza Park since 1882, when l as Vegas was The richesT and biggesT ciTy in new M exico. JusT one hour norTh of sanTa fe , l as Vegas is one of The PreTTiesT and MosT inTeresTing Tow ns in The s ouThwesT, wiTh 1000 hisToric buildings , h ighlands uniVersiTy, aMazing hoT sPrings , and eVen a casTle! The P laza & casTaneda are now being renoVaTed by The TeaM which resTored The legendary l a Posada hoTel in winslow a rizona (www. laPosada . org).

230 Plaza Park, Las Vegas, New Mexico 87701 505-425-3591 ~ info@plazahotellvnm.com www.plazahotellvnm.com The newly opened Range Café at the Plaza serves ordinary food, made extraordinarily well, featuring breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dining room as well as craft cocktails, local beers and full menu in Byron T’s Saloon. Fresh baked pastries and desserts from the in-house bakery compliment the coffee bar in the lobby. ~ 505.434.0022 ~ www.rangecafe.com ROUTE Magazine 65

The Wackiness of

T

ruckhenge began with one phrase: “Pick up the trucks.” In 2000, Shawnee County, Kansas, officials ordered Ron Lessman, owner of Lessman Farm, to pick up some rusting trucks that laid resting around his farm. Like the law-abiding citizen he is, Lessman obliged; however, he added a bit of artistic flair.

After picking up six trucks, Lessman planted one end of each truck in the ground, attached 42,000 pounds of concrete and spray-painted slogans on the side.

Rising like thick flag poles, the trucks raise proverbial rubber fists and display phrases like “Rise up,” “Freedom isn’t lost,” and “Rome didn’t kill Jesus, bureaucrats did.” Thus, literally and metaphorically, Truckhenge arose from the Earth.

After seeing Lessman’s display, the county stated that Lessman’s method of “picking up” wasn’t exactly what they had meant. Lessman replied, “I don’t care what you meant.

I did what you said.” From there, a political struggle ensued.

“They [Shawnee County] took me to court and called me a public nuisance. I said, ‘Your honor, I’m not a nuisance.

I’m just obnoxious,’” Lessman recalled. The judge told Shawnee County to either file contempt charges or leave Lessman alone.

Unsatisfied, Shawnee County brought Lessman to a second court. County officials argued that if another flood occurred, the 25 tons of concrete and trucks “might, maybe, possibly,

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[are] going to float 300 yards to the river, float 30 miles to Lawrence and wipe out the whole city of Lawrence, killing everybody,” Lessman said. The second judge fined Lessman, but no one could dampen the Oklahoman’s fiery spirit.

When the county further demanded Lessman to clear out any “loose metals” on his farm, including boats, rebars and various other materials, Lessman rose to the challenge. He created Boathenge, Beer Bottle City and the World’s Largest Ball of Christmas Lights. Ever the artist, Lessman’s creations extend to chainsaw carvings, paintings and a forklift elevator invention inside his house.

Each year now, more than 3,000 people from across the world visit Truckhenge in Topeka, Kansas, including notable names like William Shatner and TLC’s TV show, Sister Wives. Though Truckhenge’s name resembles Stonehenge, it draws its inspiration more from Carhenge in Nebraska, and the famed Cadillac Ranch on Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas.

For guests visiting this grassroots art project, Lessman welcomes a little rebellion and lots of fun. Visitors can bring a can of spray paint to decorate the school bus and boats or pile lights onto the World’s Largest Ball of Christmas Lights.

“Well, we try to have a little fun here, that’s the whole point,” Lessman said. That’s what America’s all about.

People say, ‘Well, that’s too simple.’ [I say,] ‘Nooo, it’s not.’

It isn’t about making a lot of money; it’s about making and having a little fun. You can’t take money to your grave, but you can take a smile.”

Lessman Farm, which has been in the Lessman family for four generations since 1879, boasts everything from a fishpond, campgrounds, events and much more. You might even spot a pet peacock fanning his feathers proudly. He fits right in. Lessman encourages everyone to “come on out and have a good time.”

The author William Allen White once said, “When anything is going to happen in this country, it happens first in Kansas.” Nowhere is this truer than in Lessman’s creation of Truckhenge, which stands out in the Kansas landscape as the only one of its kind, reminding people to find joy in the little — or should we say, big — things.

Photograph courtesy of Wichers Photography.

Lessman Farm

ROUTE Magazine 67

PARTING SHOT

Ally WARREN If you were to describe yourself in two words, what words would you use? Compassionate and easy-going. What do you consider to be your greatest passion in life? Personal growth! I grew up being told that I was “too shy” to do certain things and it made me more shy than I actually was. I’ve definitely come a long way, but I’m still trying to find new ways to improve myself everyday. Biggest fear? Bugs, especially spiders and bees! If you had to be stuck on an island with one person, who would you choose? My fiancé Justin! He would definitely keep me entertained. Strangest place you’ve traveled to? One time we went to stay at this tee-pee shaped Route 66 motel in California. The man that worked there screamed at my fiancé for asking to film it and said that my friend and I were “models” and made us pay him $400! It was weird and scary in the moment, but now it’s just a funny story that we all joke about. What is your must-play song on a road trip? Drive My Car by The Beatles. Or any Beatles song! What was the last great movie you saw? My fiancé made me watch the movie Harvey with Jimmy Stewart a few months ago and it was so good. If you could be an animal, what would you be? Some sort of bird. I’ve always wanted to be able to fly and I think birds are hilarious.

If you could get coffee with one famous person, dead or alive, who would you choose? Audrey Hepburn. I have so many questions I’d love to ask her.

If you could choose any place in the world to live, where would it be? I would buy a van and travel all over! But I have to say, I honestly love living in Orange, CA! Favorite place you’ve 68 ROUTE Magazine

visited along Route 66? Seligman, Arizona. I love going to the Snowcap for lunch. Favorite place to shop? Asos. They always have exactly what I’m looking for. What was your dream career growing up? I wanted to be an artist, dancer, actor, and then a filmmaker. I always wanted to do something creative. Favorite Disney character? I can never choose between Bambi and Peter Pan. Current favorite TV show? The Office, always! Other than Mr. Scarred, favorite vlogger? I don’t watch a lot of YouTube, but Pewdiepie has always been my favorite. Your favorite trait in other people? Loyalty. Your least favorite trait in others? Narcissism.

What was the last thing that made you laugh? Justin! He makes me laugh everyday! What was your favorite subject in school as a child? English, I liked reading and writing. Biggest inspiration growing up? Walt Disney. When I was in school, I would check out books in the library about him and read about how he became successful. What was your favorite hobby as a child? Drawing. If you only had one more day to live, how would you live it?

I would want to spend it somewhere beautiful like the Grand Canyon. Who do you consider your greatest inspiration?

Audrey Hepburn. She was so classy and confident. If you could travel back in time, what era would you go to?

Probably the 50’s or 60’s. I love the way everyone dressed back then, and the cars were so nice. If you could choose someone to narrate your life, who would you choose? Jimmy Stewart. Most annoying habit with a travel partner? Radio hogging, for sure! Coolest Americana ever personally visited? The Flinstone’s Bedrock City.

It was like a miniature abandoned town. I’m sad it closed!

Illustration: Jenny Mallon.

When Ally Warren isn’t spending time with fiancé and YouTube sensation Justin Scarred, you can find her traveling the world or perfecting her social media phenom status. Read our rapid-fire interview with Warren to learn about the people and places that define her adventurous, extraordinary life.

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ROUTE Magazine 69

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