"Liberty's Highway" (July 2010)

A strange and wondrous experience on the busiest road in the Union.

Southern summer is here again. Days too hot even for a dog. Weeks without rain. Grass gasping for any shred of green to cover its parched brown wispiness. The epic winter of 2010 has given way to the daily drenchings of the dreaded 3 H’s – hazy, hot and humid.

Such was the setting for the 4th of July weekend: one that like many other holidays, we typically celebrate at home to avoid rubbing elbows with millions of interstate travelers. A visit from family, tickets to see our phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg (this year’s “can’t miss” DC tourist attraction), and a chance to meet my now 4-month old nephew for the first time conspired to put us in our little Honda Fit and on the roads through the Northeast corridor.

The game, thanks to the looming influence of corporate interests in Washington and anywhere on the airwaves, was moved from a 7pm to 4pm start to cash in on “Strasmania”, so there we sat in the hot July sun at the ballpark with an $8 beer and a Ben’s Chili Bowl half-smoke, the legendary DC treat. When our hometown Nationals coughed up three easy runs to the NY Mets in the 8th inning, and with their record this season when trailing after 8 innings at an epic 0-39 fail, we played the odds and headed to the exits, bound for my mother-in-law’s apartment in Philly and the game on the radio.

Amazingly enough, the fireworks started early with the season’s first 9th inning comeback while we traced the Baltimore-Washington Parkway towards the Harbor Tunnel and Fort McHenry, the 1812 battle site which inspired our National Anthem. (Special note – home team radio announcers quote, “for those of you who left this game early, YOU BLEW IT! We’ve been waiting all season to say that.”).

But what turned out to be the real highlight for this Saturday evening, July 3rd, was to be be on one of the busiest stretches of the nation’s busiest interstate, the dreaded I-95. We crossed the head of the Chesapeake at Havre de Grace in fairly light traffic at about dusk, and as we continued north into the 10-mile stretch of Delaware I’ve grown to think of as “Robin Hood’s Eternal Revenge” for its high tolls and thicker congestion, the fireworks displays began in little towns and bigger cities along the way. My daughter, mother-in-law and I occupying the three non-driving seats in the tiny Fit had little trouble spotting the next displays on the horizon in most every direction.

That’s when it hit me that this modern, truck and traveler-choked stretch of interstate connects the dots between the pools of primordial ooze that gave birth to it. Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia – between them lie dozens of small places with rich stories of revolution and liberty. And here we were, speeding along from one to the next, enjoying their celebration in full hearty display. It was an awe-inspiring experience, that didn’t truly end until we’d seen Grand Finales in the skies above north Philly’s suburbs and Camden NJ, and the wildcat celebrations going on in my mother-in-law’s densely populated neighborhood.

Truly for all of the things that divide us still, on this particular holiday we found ourselves part of a great and unified national celebration. And while the big cities that rose from that land of liberty – Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC – all had massive and amazing celebrations on the 4th of July, the rest of us simply couldn’t wait to start the party.

Happy Birthday America – you still are an ever-amazing place, with your amber waves of grain, your iPhone, your Golden railroad spike, your Martian rovers and your purple mountains majesty.