Going, Part 1

(The travel journal of Jonathan Brown, former host of NCPR’s afternoon newscast All Before Five. He’s now on his way to Denver, where he’ll be Morning Edition host and a reporter for Colorado Public Radio.)

Driving south, Canton in my rearview mirror, the temperature goes up as gas prices go down.

Before the NCPR signal crackles into white noise, I hear the smooth, yet avauntular voice of Connie Meng. (Has the word “avauntular” been coined yet? We need a feminine form of avuncular. And the All In blog seems an appropriate nursery for terms in their infancy. Anyway…)

I am a bit at sea, unable to find NPR shows. I’m now at the mercy of my car stereo’s “Scan” button. It finds an oldies station that keeps me company through the rat’s warren of I-81 in Syracuse.

The sun dips below the horizon. I have two thoughts, almost simultaneously: now that Daylight Saving Time is ending, I would start All Before Five with “Good evening” instead of “Good afternoon…”

And I’m remembering something about the North Country I wrote to a friend shortly after I arrived, four years ago:

“Night falls here like a coffin lid. You can almost hear the latch click when the sun goes down.”

Traffic thins. The road straightens out. I twist the rheostat that dims the dashboard lights and I’m in a cradle of dark. My low beams define the visible world. And it ain’t much: the road signs that countdown to Binghamton, “Welcome to Pennsylvania” and flanking the highway, at the dim edge of my headlights, gully walls that look like nothing more than immense, unending piles of rocky road ice cream.

Then the Turnpike and toll booths. They’re all automated now. These booths used to be manned, then womanned by insomniacs writing the great American novel or learning English or both. Or just trying to keep a roof overhead and food on the table.

The road at night has become sterile, depopulated. There used to be people all along the way, especially at truck stops. Now, you slide your card at the pump, get food from a vending machine and you’re back behind the wheel having never spoken or heard anything more than motor noise or the wind.

I realize I’m getting nostalgic. And I know, at the center of all this, I am missing the people who became familiar to me: the people at NCPR and the voices I heard, day in, day out.

I’ve always loved the road and the romantic notion that it leads someplace better. Now, maybe for the first time, I know the holes in this line of thinking and it falls apart.

I know where I’m going. I know the mountains and trails of Colorado from Denver and Boulder to Aspen, Crested Butte and Telluride. I have a lot to look forward to.

But tonight, I’m missing the North Country and the people who, at times, made it feel almost like home.