I might be a rube.

Dear Son,
Akron doesn't have a subway. There's Amtrak, but I never went anywhere as a kid to need Amtrak for any reason. Cleveland, the nearest "big" city has a train and I've been on it twice. Both times I rode from the Federal Building downtown to the airport about 25 miles away. Both times I was flying for the Army.

I guess I was born a rube. Until I joined the military, the only time I'd ever been on an airplane was for a school field trip. As a sixth grader I flew from Akron-Canton airport to the Cleveland airport for $15. It was a short flight considering the two cities are only 40 or so miles from each other. They gave us free plastic pilot's wings which I wore to school proudly pinned to my shirt the next day. I'm surprised someone didn't beat me up for my lunch money.

Back in those days it was possible for friends, parents and loved ones to accompany you right to the terminal. That was pretty cool. There was also an observation deck where you could go and actually watch planes take off. You would accompany your friend, relative or loved one to the gate, give them a goodbye kiss, hug or handshake, watch them board the plane, wave to them through the big plate glass window as they peered out behind that tiny hole in the side of the plane, and then run like hell up the stairs and to the end of the observation deck to try to figure out which speck on the runway was theirs as planes leapt into the air.

I have rather fond memories of the Akron Canton Airport. In addition to riding on my first airplane, I said goodbye to my grandmother as she left for far-off exotic Hawaii (or Ha-why-ya, as my southern born mumbling grandfather used to say). Another time one of my California cousins spent the summer with my family. When she left, it was pretty sad. Me, in my 13-year-old awkwardness was afraid to hug her (yuck, hug a girl?), so she cried as she waved goodbye from behind the plane's window and I cried as I waved from the end of the observation deck.

It wasn't until the Army that I really started flying regularly. In 1986 it was still possible to sit in the back of the plane, open an ashtray and smoke until your lungs turned black and burned away. Being 18 and invincible and on my way to basic training to fight the Cold War, I proudly sat in the smoking section telling dirty jokes and making fun of the other passengers, pretending to be a real jetsetter on my way to Fort Knox and my own private hell.

It was three years before I flew again. I was on my way to Fort Dix, New Jersey. From there, Fort Devens, Massachusetts. From Fort Devens, I figured the train schedule out of necessity because I didn't have a car. After the train came the subway and I became a master at navigating Boston by rail, especially since it was free to ride with a military ID. Of course, the close-cropped haircut was a pretty clear indication that I was a rube and was from one of the many local military bases-those two things combined made me a prime target for panhandlers and hustlers.

I've also ridden the New York subway. Once from lower Manhattan to Central Park and back and the other time after a Zero show at the Wetlands at three in the morning. We stayed in a dive on the Jersey side of some river. It was a real seedy place with drug deals going down in the parking lot, prostitutes coming and going and bars on all of the outside windows. The train ran from Jersey to the WTC and after the show we stumbled several blocks back to the station using the looming towers as guide markers to our departure back to the Garden State. I might have been born a rube, but by this time I'd grown, flowered, developed into a sophisticated traveler. Once, in Chicago, your mother and I (along with six other peopel) actually hailed a cab and paid someone to drive us to our destination. Boy that sure was something, and you know what? I'm not afraid to take a taxi anywhere now. What a liberating feeling!

Despite my lack of a cosmopolitan upbringing, those years in the Army helped develop an increased sense of direction (a superior sense of direction, I like to tell your mom, along with a superior sense of navigation, and a superior sense of humor-you get the point). This usually works well for me in new cities as well as the woods, but underground is a different matter altogether. It's easy to get lost in a new town, on a new subway while dragging your luggage to the airport during rush hour. I found this out in DC. How do you get a fare card? Which line takes me closest to my destination? How do I make the connections? Two different lines run through the same station? Oh, I didn't know that.

It's a real bummer when you get on the green train and you are supposed to be on the yellow train. It really sucks because you have to drag all of your crap from one platform, up the escalator, across a small bridge, and down another escalator to the other side, wait for green train to take you back to the yellow train, cross over the bridge again, and then make sure you don't get back on the green train before the yellow train comes. Obviously everyone else is in a hurry to get home, so some rube from the country, standing in the way looking dumbfounded at the subway map trying to figure out which train to take, which direction it is going and which side of the platform you should be on is truly obnoxious.

That little misadventure aside, though, I made it to the airport intact and with plenty of time to take my shoes off, empty my pockets, pull out my laptop and be searched by security before making my way to the gate. Now people say their goodbyes before entering the security line. Travelers are sent off and greeted no longer by their families at the door to the airplane, but near the metal detectors, wands, x-ray machines and armed guards. Friends, families and loved ones stand at the window and try to watch the planes take off, but it isn't the same. It's nothing like the observation deck anymore. When you fly now, you fly alone and it is harder and harder to remember what that one last hug from your mom or wife or friend or brother feels like before you get on the plane. I feel mostly safe flying these days, but some of the glamour and excitement has been removed. Now, I'm just really happy to be on the ground and driving back to the country, away from the city.

Love,
Dad

The desert to Las Vegas.

Dear son-
You can feel Las Vegas long before you get there. It's something in the air-it thickens with exhaust from the hundreds of thousands of rental cars and taxi cabs that clog the streets by the main strip of casinos. Planes seem to hover in the air as they line up and wait their turn to drop off the thousands of tourists with fat bellies and silicone breasts that arrive here every hour of every day.

At night the lights of Las Vegas are almost blinding as you come over the last rise and out of the darkness of the desert, careering at 85 miles an hour down interstate 15 from Utah. As you approach-me with the moon roof open to view the stars-the spot light of the Luxor reaches into the sky, which apparently you can view from space. You know you are getting close because the stars which were bright and clear a few short minutes ago are suddenly blotted out by the bright lights of the artificial city.

What is it about a place like this that attracts so many people? Is it the allure of easy money and the illusion of instant millions? Everyone knows someone who knows an aunt of someone who put their last quarter into a slot machine on the way out of the casino and hit it big. I wonder how many people come here and play that life-altering nickel slot so they can buy that new Dodge Ram with the double tires and Calvin urinating on something, anything, that isn't American enough.

We're obviously afraid to travel to the real Paris and see the actual Eiffel Tower and why should we go? It's here, along with the Statue of Liberty and some pyramid that has to be as good as the ones in Egypt without all that sand and camels and people who don't speak English.

The actual airport is a real treat. People wonder around aimlessly from one side of the concourse to the other. Stop. Search through a bag. Turn around. Switch directions again. Oh, there it is, the bathroom. Cut left and head straight there. Four double wides stretch across the walkway, bags, carry-ons, a couple of kids run in circles and block your every move to get around them. I just smile because this is the country I love. The one I joined the Army for and why I get so angry every time I see the president's face on TV telling lie after lie-and the marks, they all eat it up.

Love,
Dad

The son in Utah.

Dear Son,
When you grow up, people will tell you stories about me. Many of them will be true, some of them will be embellished and a couple will be outright lies. If you ask me, I’ll tell you the truth. Always. The things I’ve done in my life aren’t necessarily the things I hope you do in your life, so don’t be surprised if I seem a bit hypocritical. I had a hard time taking advice from otheres and had to learn everything on my own. Some of those things I hope you try once or twice.

For my 29th birthday I spent two weeks wandering around the desert in southwest Utah with four friends. We spent a couple of days at the Grand Canyon, a couple of days at Zion, a couple of days at Bryce and a couple of days at Capital Reef. The temple of the sun and the moon is where I reached one of the greatest (so far) epiphanies of my life. Jesse was there, and so was Chris Goodheart, and Kelly and Anita. I took your mom there and I’ve been back twice since. I plan to take you there when you are old enough, and I hope you take your friends there when you are old enough to travel on your own.

The drive is important. In the desert it’s the one place where you can see forever, and the sky is as big as the horizon. Blues and browns and orange and red--rain, driving fast down the highway out of New Mexico into Arizona, through the north country and into Utah (stop for a photo), get Kern’s in Kanab, stop at Best Friends (now—but not then), stop when you see the majestic canyons made of magnificent rock. Get out and touch the Earth, walk the canyons, wear funny sandals and wade through the Virgin River for miles. Take a walk in the back-country to the Subway (when you see it you will know why).

Bryce is like another planet. Orange, mostly, with amazing hoodoos, which—I think—means old souls. Wall street and canyon lands and the fairyland loop trial are all essential. A long day on the trial is rewarded with a good friend on the porch of the store.

A side trip to Devil’s Garden and Spooky, a night on BLM land with a rattlesnake, and then two nights in Calf Creek Falls. Swim to the falls even if it takes your breath away. If you don’t make a move, your life passes by your eyes like so many gallons of water over the edge of the dark green cliffs—touch the water, start your life renewed. Don’t be afraid to pet the dogs and if there is a bird there, it’s your great-grandmother (who I will tell you about someday) looking over your shoulder.

Look for the white birch trees as you drive north towards Capital Reef. Take a four-wheeler for miles into nowhere—it’s worth it—until you find the temple of the sun and moon. Watch the sunset there. Breath, relax and think about life.

If Jesse or Chris tells you I forgot the tent poles to my brand new tent (which the three of us were supposed to sleep in) they aren’t lying. When they tell you Chris slept with an ax after hearing strange animals outside the tent, that’s true too. It’s not an over-exaggeration that Nebraska, at 85 miles per hour with an overheated tape deck, smells like pig poop. And it’s not a lie that the desert in Southwest Utah is filled with an amazing amount of energy, and is a place to go to recharge, meditate and figure out your life.

I can’t wait to show it all to you.
Love,
Dad