Thanksgiving Debriefing
We’re back home in eastern Pennsylvania after what I termed our “Red Thanksgiving” road trip, so named because it took us through solid Republican-voting “red zone” country. Specifically, we drove through the western part of our state, plus Ohio, Indiana, and even a tiny bit of West Virginia.
One of our stops was at Fallingwater, the iconic house on a waterfall designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Aileen had already been there, but not me. As I had always wanted to see it, we took advantage of the opportunity afforded by the trip. It’s a lovely bit of architecture, but not exactly a cozy place to live.
The house is in a remote location (that was the point of it – it’s a mountain retreat) so we ended up in the “Laurel highlands” of southwestern Pennsylvania. This is the highest elevation region of the state, as was evident from the snow on the ground. It is clearly part of Appalachia – sparsely settled, rustic, with a bleak and run-down feeling.
In fact, bleak and run-down describes all of the territory we drove through. Granted, it could have been the season, as the foliage has turned its wintry brown color, the days are short, and it was overcast most of the way. Interestingly, if you follow Colin Woodward’s model of eleven regional American cultures, most of the territory through which we traveled falls into the region he calls “Greater Applachia,” so it’s not surprising that it all looked so similar.
This is territory that was settled in the 18th century by people from “the Borderlands of the British Empire,” “proud” and “independent,” as Woodward puts it. And it is definitely Trump country now, with Trump-Vance signs all about and nary a Harris-Walz sign to be seen. That was probably the most Red State part of our trip – being inundated by pro-Trump messaging in a bleak landscape of decay and poverty.
The most Red State moment of all might have been briefly listening to a jingoistic radio station in Indianapolis that was first promoting American-made products, and then had Trump himself hawking watches. I wanted to barf (at the Trump ad). They might have radio stations like that here in the Philly area, but I wouldn’t know where to find them.
The most Blue State moment of the trip was probably when we detoured into Columbus, Ohio to see Wicked. We did it on a whim, finding the venue and purchasing the tickets online while we were on the road. Power of the Internet. The venue was an indie theater in the same building as a pub and restaurant, so we were able to get pizza and beer to go with our movie.
The place was jammed, there were so many people there to see the film. They had to start it late so everyone could get settled in. We got to enjoy Wicked in a large and diverse crowd of geeky fans. And what a fantastic film it was! It’s story hit hard, too, considering what is going on in the U.S. now (I won’t spoil it for you).
We visited Springfield, Ohio, too. We toured another Frank Lloyd Wright house, the Westcott House, which is much homier than Fallingwater. We also went to a Haitian restaurant (take that, orange guy!), where we enjoyed a delicious meal of fried chicken, plantains, and pasta, served with amazing black coffee. We were treated like VIPs by a sweet, gracious, middle-aged woman, who I think was the only one in the restaurant who spoke English. She told us they had been open for eight months.
Springfield isn’t exactly a bustling city, but it plainly had at least a little more diversity and culture than the surrounding country. Our experiences there and in nearby Columbus made it clear that they were the more “blue zone” parts of Ohio. Franklin County, where Columbus is located, did indeed go for Harris in the election, though the state of course did not. It just goes to highlight how the red-blue divide is a rural-urban divide.
The visit with family in Indianapolis was wonderful. Thanksgiving – that most distinctive American ritual – is about coming home, about return and reunion. We had a traditional turkey dinner, played board games, and caught up with relations we hadn’t seen in a while.
On Friday we long-hauled it back to eastern PA, and our life in the purple zone. It was snowing pretty hard in the mountains, but Aileen bravely got us through (I can’t see good at night, so we split the trip with me driving the first half, during daylight).
All in all, a fun and satisfying trip. The only thing I could have wished for to make the trip better was if it hadn’t been quite so cold, as we didn’t get as much walking in as I might have liked.
