Please pardon the lack of precision.  I just titled this blog entry “Getting There.” The imprecision lies in the fact that we do not yet know what or where “there” is. We just think that we are sort-of headed in the right direction.

Our goal is to eat lots of BBQ while we explore Native American history (The Trail of Tears) and African American history (The Tulsa Massacre). We plan to start hunting for “there” once we get to northeastern Arkansas, around Blytheville. (Don’t worry, we are not familiar with it either.) “Getting there,” however, is complicated: there are no Mississippi River bridges or crossings for almost 100 miles, from I-155 in southern Missouri to Memphis.

What we do know so far is that there is a Visitor Center in Blytheville at the old Greyhound Bus Station and that the oldest black-owned restaurant in the US is the James Beard Award-winning Jones BBQ in Marianna, Arkansas, about 1.5 hours south of Blytheville. Once we have jawboned the folks at the Visitor Center and filled our tummies with some of Mr. Jones’ Q (the joint has been in his family for 150 years), I expect we will be a little closer to knowing what “there” is and in what direction to go to find it.  At least we hope so!

In the meantime, our trip has taken a few expected and a few unexpected turns. Fortunately for us, Rebecca’s niece lives in Geneva, NY, an easy day’s drive from home, regardless of whether home is Vermont or Massachusetts.  She and her husband are always gracious hosts, so they are our first and our last stop on our driving adventures. Thanks guys. We appreciate the hospitality and kindness a lot!

From Geneva, we had planned to take in the Corning NY Glass Museum and the Curtiss Aviation Museum, but the weather tripped us up. The amazing cold snap of Christmas 2022 was bearing down on us with snow and sub-zero temperatures predicted. We decided to hustle our way out of the Great Lakes Region and get someplace where we could stay snug.  Thus, our two-day relaxing trip to my brother’s home in Columbus, Ohio turned into a one-day trip complete with a few hours of lake-effect snow south of Lake Ontario. Thanks for the nice lunch, Bruce and Whitney. It was good to see you.

From Columbus, we’d planned to spend a couple of days with my old friend Cap and his wife Tay, visiting the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and eating classic Dayton food. We succeeded.

Cap and I worked together in 1973 at the “Legend of Daniel Boone,” an outdoor drama in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. For two months, we sat next to each other at the make-up table. I was his understudy. I played Michael Stoner, Boone’s best friend and sidekick. Cap played Jeremy Jones, the comic lead. Cap was a graduate of the Ringling Brothers Clown College and to this day remains one of the best comic actors and funniest people I have ever known. It’s amazing: two months of working together, and 49 years later we remain really good friends, thrilled to see each other in the rare occasions when that can happen.

Cap planned our dining: Night #1 at the Pine Club, a funky Dayton steakhouse and staple of low-brow beefy cuisine. Cap loves it and insisted that we cannot miss it. Tay almost did not join us because she hates the place so much. As we approached it, she kept repeating, “I hate this place.”  Apparently, she is not alone. When we arrived, other people expressed the same sentiment. In fact, there was a whole sub-element of people there who adored hating the place: “It is too dark”; “It is too loud.” Their sentiments did nothing to counteract the reality that because of a University of Dayton basketball game, the wait for a table was 1.5 hours. Since we were all hungry, we left and found a quiet, uncrowded brew pub instead, where we got to hang out for hours. Too bad Cap got a $68 parking ticket for overstaying his welcome. (I paid for less time than Cap but got off scot-free. Maybe the Massachusetts license plates helped.)

Meal #2 was a southern Ohio must: Skyline Chili. If you know Skyline, you know what I mean. If you don’t, you’ll never understand. A “Coney” is a tiny hot dog smothered in spaghetti, cheese, and their one-of-a-kind chili. How does something like that ever become a regional staple? I’ll never know, but it does.

When the Cincinnati Bengals played in the Super Bowl last January, Cap helped me find a recipe for Skyline chili. I made a giant pot of it. In addition to the usual chili ingredients, there is also a ton of other stuff, like allspice, cloves, and a heap of unsweetened chocolate. Let me know if you want the recipe. I’ll send it to you. They guard it pretty carefully, so it’s not so easy to find.

Our time with Cap and Tay was energizing and great fun! Our day at the U.S. Air Force Museum was far more somber. We stayed all day, saw about half the museum, and walked three miles. The museum houses many hundreds of aircraft in giant, very well curated hangars.

The very first exhibit pays tribute to the liberation of the German death camps at the end of World War II. You enter the WWII exhibit through a replica of the main gate into Auschwitz with its iron-work slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work sets you free.” That gut-wrenching initiation stays with you through America’s wars and the remarkable resources we have poured into defending ourselves and killing people. Neither Rebecca nor I could hold back the tears when we unexpectedly encountered the “Bockscar,” the actual B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The emotionality of the moment literally hurt.

The Air Force One that carried JFK to and from Dallas is there and open to the public. We stood at the spot where LBJ was sworn in as President and at the spot where seats and a partition were removed to make room for JFK’s coffin. I get chills just writing these words.

For some inexplicable reason, I wanted to see a U-2 spy plane. I vividly remembered the Cold War moment in 1960 when Francis Gary Powers was shot down while taking high-altitude photographs over Russia. Damn. We couldn’t find it. It was as if the plane itself had made itself invisible. Then, as we sat for a few minutes in an upstairs café, there it was, hanging right next to us. That’s one helluva spy plane! Even in a museum it could make itself disappear.

As we left, we made the obligatory gift shop stop. I was proud of us. We bought nothing … which made the day a total financial winner: the museum is free. You definitely get your money’s worth. We bought nothing because there was nothing we needed to buy. There were, however, two things I would have bought had I not already owned them: the classic baking soda-powered diving submarine and the water-pressure-powered rocket. They were essential purchases for the grandboys a few years ago. Nothing else seemed even slightly interesting.

From Dayton, we got a small taste of what “there” might feel like at the “National Underground Railroad Freedom Center” along the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Since “there” has everything to do with BBQ, Native American history, and African American history, we could not pass it up. The Center is a mix of interpretive material and film. Oprah introduces the film experience. She obviously has invested a good deal in the Center with great effectiveness, creating a world-class experience. 

The view from the Center looks south, onto the Ohio River and northern Kentucky. We were standing on one of the spots where escaping slaves, upon crossing the river, could feel their first inkling of freedom as they made their way to Canada. The stations and conductors of the Underground Railroad come to life. The humanity of the slaves sings. Our tears flowed freely as we wondered how human beings can be so cruel and, simultaneously, at how heroic and brave other human beings can be to save the lives of and protect people they will never know.

It is that “there” that we are so looking forward to discovering.