Randolph Street: Highway 61 Visited

This is a personal look at mid-America from north to south that I shot between 1976 and 1985. At the times I shot these pix, the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 roughly followed the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then jutted northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

The work documents the people, towns and fields along...

continued below pix

Greyhound bus at the Missouri/Arkansas border.

Nybo's bar & cafe, Minnesota.

Table, Mississippi.

TV, Arkansas.

Umbrella, Keokuk, Iowa.

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

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... the way in more of a personal sense than a journalistic one.

This is the first installment - part two will run next Friday. There's a lot to look at. - JR

Visit The Third City every day. Randolph Street, camera candy from photojournalist Jon Randolph, runs every Friday. - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Hacking Like A Mug

Got a cold. Came last week. Thought it would go away. But it only got worse. Burrowed in my chest. Now it sounds like it's here to stay. Fuck....

Got me hacking like a mug. Sounds like I've been smoking two packs a day for the last twenty years. I should be up and at `em, working the phones. But all I wanna do is sleep....

I lie in bed. Tell myself -- this will only take five minutes. Just need a little rest....

Thirty minutes later I wake up and look around. Where the hell am I? In bed. Ugh. Start coughing. That leads to hacking. My stomach muscles ache. I feel sorry for myself.

I call my wife at work. "Do you have the swine flu?" she asks.

The swine flu! Damn. I hadn't thought of that.

"Take your temperature," she says.

I find the thermometer buried behind the Band-aids in the bathroom cabinet. I shove it in my mouth: 98.3. I feel better. Then I think: What if I didn't take it right? What if my mouth was open too much? I have this notion that somehow or other keeping my mouth open lowers the temperature. I take it again. And again. I become obsessive about my temperature. It's like the Bulls versus Boston one more time. I'm losing my freaking mind....

I go back to bed and look up at the fan. I turn to my right. There's a Reader's Digest on the night stand. Reader's Digest? How did that get here? I haven't seen a Reader's Digest in years.

I wind up reading an article called, "America's Funniest Jokes." Sid Caesar and seven other comics are sitting around a table in the back room of a deli, swapping jokes. Here's the first joke: "A man, shocked by how his buddy is dressed, asks him, `how long have you been wearing that bra?' The friend replies, `Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment.'"

It must be the illness. But I find that hilarious. I can't stop laughing. I laugh so hard I start to hack. Then cough. Uncontrollably. Finally, I settle down. I'm lying on the bed. The dog's looking at me.

I start calling friends: Milo, Big Mike, Norm, Daddy Dee. I gotta talk to someone. Let the world know I'm still alive. They're all healthy. Busy. Doing shit. Big Mike's making bread, for Christ sakes. I'm not kidding. He's rolling out the freaking dough himself. Jesus. The whole world's doing stuff and I'm lying in bed.

I pick up Reader's Digest -- need another joke. I read about the priest, the minister and the rabbi who want to see who's best at their job. So they go into the woods, find some bears and attempt to convert them. The priest's so good he gets his bear to its first communion. The minister talks his bear into getting baptized. "They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on gurney in a body cast. `Looking back,' he says. `Maybe I shouldn't have started with the circumcision.'"

I think that's hilarious. The rabbi cut the bear's dick -- get it? I'm roaring. Then I'm hacking and coughing. Aw, hell....

I roll on my back. I drift off. I hear a phone ringing. It's way off in the distance. I'll answer it later. When I get better....

Big Mike: Brainy Brian Learns A Lesson

A couple of guys I know are trying to start their own web site. One of them - let's call him Barney Kay - is an admitted dope when it comes to technology, the Internet, electronics, machinery and, for that matter, chewing his food. He wears his ignorance as a badge of honor. He leans on friends and acquaintances to help him through crises like computer crashes and those rare occasions when he gets a bit of celery stuck between his teeth. He has lent one ear each to his friend the track coach and his college-student daughter, who guide him through modern life's puzzles. Barney sings their praises as if they are the second coming of the Steves, Wozniak and Jobs.

The other fellow - call him Brainy Brian - tells his pal Barney that he knows this computer business like the back of his hand, that the two of them have no need for such self-proclaimed experts as track coaches and college-student daughters. He holds Barney Kay's hand through countless phone conversations wherein the two try to navigate the treacherous waters of the cyberworld.

Barney Kay and Brainy Brian made the decision to go online with their rants and flights of literary fancy early last fall. First, they honed their voices on a free blog site. Once they became good at it, they told each other, they'd create their own free-standing site. By Christmas, they knew they were ready to strike out on their own. They'd never missed a day of posting and kept each other entertained throughout.

As any schoolchild knows, it takes the click of a Buy This Package Now! button to start a web site. But Brainy Brian has convinced Barney Kay that they should study web hosts, web builders and the like with all the zeal of Marie and Pierre Curie trying to decipher the mysteries of radium.

"We must do this the right way," Brainy Brian proclaims.

"Yeah sure, but how do we know what's the right way?" responds Barney Kay.

"Don't worry," Brainy Brian says, giggling at his dear friend's timidity. "Leave it to me. I'll get you all the information you need so we can make a rational, considered decision."

At which point, Barney Kay shrugs and says, "Well, you know me. I'm a dope when it comes to technology, the Internet, et cetera. In fact, I'm proud of my ignorance!"

"Hah," says Brainy Brian. "You're lucky you have me as a partner. My knowledge of the topic is second only to that Gates guy, and he only knows about a few more details that I consider extraneous."

The preceding conversation has taken place, in one form or another, at least a dozen times since early last fall. Since then, Brainy Brian has immersed himself in the world of web sites. He's even written up a glossary for Barney Kay so the two can chatter in geek language.

Here's an example of one such conversation:

Brainy Brian: "Let's look for a company that offers 10 or 15 gigabytes of disk space and guarantees 99.9 percent uptime."

Barney Kay: "What's disk space?"

"Jesus Christ! I sent you the glossary. Didn't you read it?"

"Yeah, I read it, but I don't remember disk space."

Brainy Brian again explains disk space.

"Okay, got it," says Barney Kay. "Now, what's uptime?"

"Aaaaarrrggghhh!"

So, Brainy Brian returns to his lonely task of finding the perfect web host for the pair's new web site. He reads countless web host reviews. He thumbs through Wired and PCWorld at the Barnes & Noble magazine rack. He visits every conceivable web host's site, comparing prices, features and options.

Brainy Brian has contemplated MySQL, POP3/IMAP/STMP, Box Trappers, Coppermines, PHP-Nukes, Mambo and Joomia, Zen Carts, Apache Watchdogs, Pythons, PERL 5, CGI-BIN, AWStats, SSI, SSH, and ASP.NET AJAX.

Brainy Brian has also mulled the attributes of Red Hat ES Linux 4 OS, RAIF functionality, the EXTJS control panel and Putty. When he encountered this last feature, Brainy Brian sat back in his chair and let out a mighty sigh. He shook the cobwebs out of his head and yelled:

"WHAT IN GOD'S HOLY FUCKING NAME ARE THESE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!"

As the cats ran for cover, Brainy Brian banged his head against the dining room wall. Then he went into the den and banged his head against three of the walls in that room. Finally, he collapsed into his bed and cried himself to sleep.

If any of you can guess who these two fellows are, please don't tell Barney Kay what Brainy Brian has been going through. See, Brainy Brian has sent Barney Kay a monograph explaining precisely why they should choose a certain company to be their web host. It's chock full of all the aforementioned arcana. When Barney Kay reads it, he'll think that Brainy Brian has made a momentous choice based on all the available information at hand. It is the model of a rational, considered decision. Now, Barney Kay and Brainy Brian's web site can be up within days.

Try as he might, though, Brainy Brian has no more familiarity with MySQL than he does with the inner workings of the Illuminati. He made his web host choice based on Barney Kay's offhand mention that that is the company his track coach friend uses for his successful web site. Brainy Brian secretly hopes Barney Kay's college-student daughter approves.

Letter From Milo: Keeping Secrets Isn't Healthy

A long time ago I discovered that a married man has to keep some things to himself. For example, I never tell my wife about my affairs, gambling debts, opium habit, prison record, or the child support payments I've been making for the past 30 years. Its not that she wouldn't be totally supportive, you understand, its simply a matter of not wanting to worry her needlessly.

For the last six weeks, however, I've been keeping a secret from her and it's been eating away at me.

If you recall, I recently enrolled in the VA hospital health care system. One of the first things they wanted me to do was take a physical. I thought it was a good idea. I haven't had a physical in years, which is stupid, considering my somewhat advanced age.

They put me through a battery of tests - blood, x-rays - the usual shit. The doctor told me that I seemed to be in pretty good shape, considering that I'm a smoker, drinker and eater of red meat. He'd have to wait until the test results came back, however, before he was prepared to give me a clean bill of health. I made an appointment to see him again the following week.

When I met with the doctor again, he had a grim look on his face. He had one of my x-rays on his desk. He held it up, pointed to it and said, "It looks like you've got an enlarged heart."

I think I can speak for most people when I say that the last things you want to hear from your doctor are the words cancer and anything having to do with the heart.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, nervously.

"I can't tell until we do a couple of more tests. But if it's an enlarged heart it's not good."

We made an appointment for six weeks later for more extensive testing.

When I left the VA hospital, I decided not to tell my wife about my possible enlarged heart. She's a worrier and right now there's a lot of stress in our lives. I didn't want to add another layer on the shitcake. Besides, I wouldn't know for sure whether I did, indeed, have a heart problem for another six weeks. I decided that the only person that should be worried during that time period was me.

It was a long six weeks. I tried to carry on normally, but my family sensed something was amiss. One day my wife said, "The girls think there's something wrong with you."

"Why would they say that?"

"Because you're acting weird."

"Shit, honey, I'm a weird guy."

"Yeah, but you're acting weirder than usual."

"Heh, heh, I'll have a talk with them later."

I'll admit I was nervous when I went back to the VA hospital for the additional testing. I've always taken my health for granted. I come from hearty peasant stock. I figured I was like Keith Richards, someone who defied the laws of nature. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe my time was up. Maybe I had just made a down payment on 40 acres. Maybe I was on my way to Graceland and didn't even know it. All sorts of odd thoughts went through my mind, the majority of them gloomy.

I went through a whole series of tests. One of them was, I think, called an echocardiogram. It involved me lying flat on some sort of conveyor belt while I was slowly fed through a contraption that looked like an iron lung on steriods. All in all, I spent about two hours at the hospital, being poked, prodded, bled, x-rayed and magnetically imaged.

"I'll let you know the results as soon as they come in," the doctor told me.

The doctor called the next morning. "I've got good news for you," he said. "You don't have an enlarged heart. You have an enlarged artery and that's not really anything to worry about."

As soon as I got off the phone, I told my wife the whole story. She looked at me in disbelief.

"You ASSHOLE! Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"I didn't want you to worry. Besides, I wanted to know for sure if there was a problem."

"So, that why you've been acting like an idiot for the last few weeks."

"I thought I was acting normal."

"No you weren't. You've been moping around like a 10-year-old. Plus you've been drinking way too much."

"Honey I was a little out of sorts. A little wine helped me sleep better."

"No it didn't. The wine just made you drunk."

"Well, yes, that too."

"Promise me you'll never keep secrets like that from me again."

"Sure thing, honey. Whatever you say."

"Liar."

Milo Samardzija's great American novel, "Schoolboy," is on sale now. If you haven't bought a copy yet you are a cheap illiterate. Is that how you want people to think of you? - The Eds.

Benny Jay: Who Raises Gorillas?

I'm sitting at a table on the corner outside Starbuck's -- my dog at my feet -- drinking my coffee and reading my book, a Graham Greene novel about an English double-agent.

I'm enjoying the moment. The sky's blue -- the day warm, but not hot. The plots got me hooked. I'm eagerly turning the pages -- something big and bad's about to pop.

My cell phone rings. It's my mother.

"Did you see the story about the lady who raises gorillas?" she asks.

"No...."

"She raises gorillas in her front yard. Who raises gorillas?"

"I didn't see it...."

"It's in the paper...."

"I haven't seen the paper yet?"

"You haven't read the paper? It's almost noon and you haven't read the paper -- did you just get up?"

"I've been reading a book...."

"I'm about to eat lunch and you haven't read the paper...."

I sip my coffee. This could be awhile.

"She went to your college...."

"Who?"

"The lady who raises the gorillas...."

"Oh...."

"It says she's two years older than you, so you would have been there where she was there. Did you know her?"

"What's her name?"

"I can't remember...."

"How do I know if I know her if I don't know her name?"

"Well, she went to your college...."

Pause. I'm not sure what I can say.

The phone beeps. "I got another call coming in -- hold on." I put her on hold to take a call from Merlin, the computer wizard, who tells me he's coming by to fix my computer. I come back to my mother and I catch her mid-sentence. I don't think she realizes I put her on hold.

"She keeps the gorillas in her front yard. Can you imagine liking gorillas so much you raise them?"

"No...."

"She said she used to go to Milwaukee and visit the zoo. Ever go to Milwaukee?"

"Yes...."

"I can't imagine anything worth seeing in Milwaukee...."

I fight off the urge to defend Milwaukee. My phone beeps. "Hold on." I put her on hold to take a call from my oldest daughter who tells me she and my wife will be home soon.

I come back to my mother who, again, not aware that she was on hold, has moved on to another subject -- the Preakness horse race.

"The filly won...."

"Yes, Rachel Alexandra...."

"A filly is a girl horse...."

"I know...."

"A gelding is a horse that's fixed...."

"Right...."

"A colt is a male horse -- did you know that?"

"Yes...."

"You didn't know that...."

"I did know that...."

"I'm just tweaking you...."

A lady walks by with a dachshund. My dog, who had been resting, rushes out from under the table. My coffee spills. No more left. I think about buying a new one. But, nah, Merlin's on his way. Time to get home.

I gather my stuff and cross the street. Got the book and the leash in one hand and the cell phone in the other. My mother's telling me about her friend's illness. Guess I'll read my book later....

Big Mike: A Tale Of Eternal Love

Sometimes I think my history of love and marriage is downright weird. Thankfully, I keep my ears open so I can hear other people's tales and I don't feel so odd. I heard one from a woman at Dick's Pizza last week.

Let's call her Tammy. She's not exactly a regular but everyone knows her and the bartenders know what she likes to drink. She's short with flashing blue eyes and is smartly dressed like, oh, a real estate agent. In fact, she's in the house-trading racket, working for a mortgage company.

It was a perfect May evening. With the sun setting gold beyond Goose Creek Road, I sat out in the patio with Tammy, Mayor Janey and her husband Tim, and Old Gus. As Tim and Old Gus studied their respective cocktails intently, Tammy and Mayor Janey regaled me with tales of Tammy's home life. Mayor Janey and Tammy are fast friends. Mayor Janey is the garbage commissioner of the town of Goose Creek. She runs for the post every year and wins in a landslide each time. One year, her vote total almost hit a hundred. I like to call her Mayor. She gets a kick out of it.

Tammy held a cell phone and peered at the screen. She told us she'd grounded one of her two teenaged daughters for some hijinks at a party over the weekend. She'd also seized the teen's cell phone, a torture on a par with waterboarding. Now she was monitoring the messages that came in one after another.

"Oh," Tammy said, "look at this! 'Big party Friday night. Maybe. If you're not there, you're square - ha ha ha!'"

"'Maybe' huh?" I said. "Sounds like code for, 'As long as my parents aren't around.'"

"Right. 'Maybe' is capitalized," Tammy said. "Well, looks like she's gonna be square."

The conversation got around to marriage. I told the group that I make a stellar ex-husband. Tammy raised her hand for a high five. "Oh yeah! Same here!" she crowed.

Tammy has a boyfriend now. She has no plans to wed. "He has his job and his kids, I have my job and my kids. We see each other when we can. Listen," Tammy confided, "it's better this way. If we had gotten married, we'd have been separated and divorced already."

With that, she launched into the tale of her first and only marriage. "He's really lucky he has me as an ex-wife," she said. "Any other woman would have killed him."

Tammy and her husband separated about ten years ago. For the first few months of the separation, he remained in the home with her for the sake of the kids and because, apparently, that perfect job seemed to elude him.

"Then, about six months later," Tammy recounted, "I found out he was having an affair with the woman who lived two doors down. It was funny because she'd been our babysitter. And my best friend!" All of us sitting around the table dutifully clucked our tongues.

"Oh, was I pissed! I told him to get out. Two days later, I see the woman's husband pulling out of the driveway to go to work. I chased him down. He stopped, rolled down the window, I leaned in and said, 'Did you know your wife and my ex-husband are fucking?'

"Of course, he didn't believe me at first because his wife was already poisoning his mind against me, saying things like I was delusional. But he found more evidence over the next couple of days and he couldn't deny it anymore. He moved out a week later. My ex-husband moved right in - shoom!"

Tammy followed this with a laundry list of her ex-husband's failings, a bill of particulars that would make Bernie Madoff blush. He lost money, he wasted money, he gambled money away, and he rarely, if ever, made money. He was, said Tammy, the classic Peter Pan. She felt as though she'd been raising three kids rather than two. He lied, he philandered and he left his underwear and socks on the floor.

"Still, I treated him with respect even after we split up," Tammy said. "It's for the kids. But it's really about me: I take the high road. I never say anything bad about him. If he had another ex-wife, she'd be talking about him all over town! Not me. I get along great with him."

Tammy then iterated that she never speaks ill of the man in front of the kids. Never has, never will. "But, man, the things I could tell them. Him and that woman."

Mayor Janey laughed. "Tell them about the time in the car," she said.

"Oh, yeah! Janey and me are in the car going out to dinner. The kids are in the back seat. I'm telling Janey about this woman, what a witch she is and how she deserves my ex-husband. All of a sudden, we get into an accident. The woman put a hex on me - she knew I was talking about them!"

Tammy took a sip out of her can of Coors Light and dragged on her Salem. "I took the high road. I had to work three jobs as a single mother just to put food on the table for my girls. I was only 30 years old. I don't know how or why I did it but I chose to be the better person. I took the high road.

"The only thing I regret is that he's such a no-good asshole. His daughters can't even respect him. They don't respect him. He doesn't give them any reason to respect him. He ought to grow up. But I've never said anything bad about him. I took the high road."

Tammy then told us that a couple of years after the divorce, her ex-husband and ex-best friend now were both unemployed and unable to keep up with the mortgage payments on the house two doors down. "As soon as I saw the bank's for sale sign on the front lawn, I called my mortgage company and bought the house. I waved bye-bye to them the day they moved out.

"She got my ex-husband and I got the house. I got the best of that deal."

It was getting late. Tammy stubbed out her last cigarette and drained her final can of Coors Light. She stood up. "That's my story," she said, exhaling menthol smoke. "I have to go now. But really, don't get me wrong - I love my ex-husband. I'm just not in love with him. But I'll love him till the day I die."

Benny Jay: Here Come The Hawks

At the bowling alley, they got the Blackhawks game on TV -- all five of them, to be exact. It's game six of the playoff series against Vancouver. If the Hawks win, they move on to the next round.

I couldn't care less. I wouldn't even be paying attention except there's a dozen or so Hawks fans hanging around the bar, making so much noise.

I stand between Bob and Pat -- two stone-cold, crazy Hawks fans. They're standing still as statues. Eyes stuck on the tube. I'm not even sure they're breathing.

I turn to Norm. "They never put the Bulls on all the TVs," I say.

"Don't hate," he says.

"I'm just saying...."

"No, you're hating...."

I watch the Hawks skate round and round and round. Truth is, Norm's right. I am hating. I know I should be happy that they're doing so well after so many dismal seasons. But, hell, I don't care about the Blackhawks. Don't know any of their players. Can't remember the name of their coach. And my not caring has turned to hate cause I'm jealous. Every one's paying attention to the Hawks and every one's forgotten about the Bulls. I mean, this is even weirder than my normal weirdness, which is pretty weird.

"I used to like the Hawks," I tell Norm.

"Yeah...."

To prove it, I sing a snatch of their ancient fight song: "Here come the Hawks, the fighting Black Hawks/take the attack and we'll back you Black Hawks...."

Norm's laughing.

"But then they dumped Bobby Hull," I say.

"That was forty years ago, dawg...."

"Yeah, but he was the Golden Jet, man -- they dumped the Golden Jet...."

"You gotta get over that shit, dawg...."

"I hope they lose...."

"Aw, that's terrible, Benny. How can you say that, dawg? That don't make no fuckin' sense. They Chicago, Benny. As long as they from the Chi, you got to be goin' for them...."

"I can't...."

"Try...."

"Okay, man -- for you...."

So I try. I really do. I ask Bob for the name of the guy who scored a goal and he says that it's Pat Kane. I ask him who's the goaltender and he tells me -- something. I don't know. The name's a jumble of vowels. When the Hawks tie the game at five, I cheer. But it's an empty cheer. I just don't care.

I'm starting to worry about Pat. He looks pale. I'm watching him watching the Hawks and I'm thinking -- so this is what I must look like when I'm watching the Bulls on TV. All hunched over, a nervous wreck. Pat's a grown man, too -- past fifty. He's wearing a team jersey with Pat Kane's name an number on the back. Man, he's got it bad -- maybe even worse than me. At least I never wear a Derrick Rose team jersey.

Bored with the game, I go to the bar and order a coke. I page through the Sun-Times that's lying on the counter. I'm looking for a story about the Bulls -- any story will do. Turn page after page. Nothing. Nothing but Hawks this and Hawks that. I don't want to hate, but....

Roar! I look up to see the Hawks have scored. They're up six to five. Folks at the bar are cheering. Except for Pat. He looks even worse than before. Lips clenched. Hands tight. Whiter than white. I recognize the symptoms. I know what he's thinking -- he's dreading the worst. He's thinking if he cheers too soon -- if he counts those proverbial chickens before they proverbially hatch -- he'll blow it for his boys. As though anything he does can ever impact the game. I can related. If it were the Bulls, I'd be thinking the same stupid thing....

"Maybe you should take a walk," I suggest to him.

"Fuck," he says.

Clearly, he's in no mood for conversation. "They're gonna win," I tell him.

"Shut the fuck up -- don't jinx `em...."

"What do you mean jinx them? I got nothing to do with them. They're up one and they're playing at home. They have the home-court advantage...."

"Ice," says Bob.

"Huh?" I ask.

"Home ice advantage -- it's hockey, not basketball, dickwad...."

"Ice, court -- whatever...."

I walk to the jukebox. The younger guys have taken it over, playing shitty `80s rock. Is it just me or did the `80s suck when it came to rock `n roll?

Another roar. Hawks score -- up two. Vancouver looks devastated.

"It's over," I tell Pat.

"Not yet," he insists.

The game ends. The bar erupts. Bob and Pat are pounding each other on the back and talking about the next big series.

Aw, hell, it looks like it's gonna be at least another two weeks of this crap. If I were a drinking man, I'd have to have another....