Driving to Urbana

Every summer I drive from NYC to Urbana, Illinois. My two homes (no, I’m not rich), two places I feel are home.

It’s both wonderful and difficult, feeling at home in two places, two places I have deep roots. I taught at the University of Illinois for three decades, and now have been at Barnard for two.

I like driving. No, I love driving long distance, and alone. I am on my own, don’t have to make conversation. I don’t use cruise control, in part because I want to be in control, not controlled by something that might not work right. It’s bad enough that these days the cars have so much tech stuff that sometimes seems to update itself without me asking. Sometimes apple car play disappears for a time. Or Siri doesn’t cooperate. I asked her yesterday where the nearest gas station to me was in Ohio, and she said, “we have a problem.” That was what she was supposed to solve!

I’ve been making these back and forth drives (alone) since June 1997, when I got a new black Camry, with tan leather seats and a moon roo. Tony, my husbfand, said as long as I had the phone and a new car, he wouldn’t worry. I loved that trip so much. The sense of freedom, that I could just pull off the main road if I saw something interesting. I remember somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, I saw a sign, “Antiques, theatre, food”, and pulled off. For the next couple of years, I would pull off and visit. Small, nice friendly people, empty, but with great chili. Then one year it was gone.

I love driving west from New York on 80, into Pennsylvania, through the Delaware Water Gap, which always feels magical to me, through the beautiful forested hills , ever changing until it all flattens out in the middle and then more beautiful hills. It makes me happy. I like being alone with my thoughts, thinking. Sometimes an insight comes into something I’m writing, but I prefer to just concentrate on the present, my driving, everything I see. If I feel drowsy, I listen to music. That too makes me happy.

But it was more complicated this time. On Audio/Music, first thing that popped up on my screen was “Carole King and James Taylor,” at the Troubadour” album. One of my favorites; just love their songs. As I listened and sang, I thought back to the time when I was in grad school at UCLA and often went to the Troubadour, heard Laura Nero singing “Eli’s Coming.” A whole other life, a lifetime away. By the time the album finished playing, so many different feelings had risen up in me, so many years of new experiences, but also as the years have passed, the increasing number of losses of friends and loved one.

I shook myself out of this thought. Enough. Take a break (just for now) from music that takes me back to the past. I will just look at all the roadwork being done---lanes closed, traffic stopped for miles. Large tractors mowing the grass on the sides of the highway.

As I circled Columbus Ohio, heading towards Route 70, I thought I’d better fill up and took the next exit. Turned out to be “Cemetery Road.” Not auspicious. I quickly got back onto I-70. Once in Indiana, my eye caught a billboard set back from the road standing proudly on a hill. It was large, yellow and black, edged in red, announcing: “URANUS “, “FUDGE FACTORY”. OMG, I thought, you’ve got to be kidding. Is this for real?

I made it home to Urbana, safely, and in good time, even picked up groceries to cook dinner for myself, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that sign. Being an obsessive thinker (yes, a researcher!), I poured a nice glass of red wine, got on the internet, and there was “Uranus, Fudge Factory,” with two places in Indiana and one in Missouri. The first Uranus Fudge Factory opened in 2015 in Missouri on the famous Route 66! Its “founder” “wanted to capture “the spirit of old-school Americana: fun, family, and a good laugh.” Their Website reads: “Fudge from Uranus,” “Snack on Uranus,” and more I won’t print Their YouTube video is hilarious. Yes, gross, but a hell of a lot better than all the news.

You can always find something to interest or amuse you on a long drive if you look.