Small Town Commerce

From the highway, a road trip is a blur of sameness. The same rest stops, the same chain restaurants, the same mile after mile of pavement. While this is the fastest way to get from “A” to “B”, it’s certainly not the most satisfying.

John Steinbeck noted this frequently in his landmark road trip book Travels with Charlie. Published in 1961, one year before Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature; it was his most commercially successful work. It chronicled a long road trip taken with his dog, Charlie, a standard poodle. They traveled in a converted pickup reminiscent of a small camper today. This book was very important in the planning of our trip because many of Steinbeck’s observations ring true today.

Steinbeck hated the highway, always choosing the slower, more local routes on his trip when possible. He ruminated on the loss of region dialect noted as he passed from town to town. He suggested that the highways and their accommodation of ready migration from place to place were homogenizing the American regional speech into a national language. I’m not sure that this has come to fruition, but I do think our commerce is a sea of sameness.

Every waypoint along the interstate is the same: McDonald’s, Exxon, Starbucks, etc. In developed areas, these exits often nestle up against suburbs, which again exude a sameness of commerce: Bed, Bath & Beyond next to Target next to Petco. It’s not a bad thing to have this convenient, consistent supply of goods that are in demand. But, it sure is boring. This becomes much more clear when we leave the highway and take the smaller routes through the smaller towns.

In Oklahoma, we leave the highway to track down an automotive-themed roadside oddity called the Spider Bug. In a field next to a local auto business, the Spider Bug is a 30-foot tall – the body of which is a VW Beetle. We snap a few pictures. Then head back to the highway through one of the most picturesque small towns in America, Purcell, OK.

The town is one wide avenue with angle parking on both sides and down the middle. The traffic splits one way on either side of the central parking median. Turn of the century buildings in beautiful condition flank the road on both sides for what seems like half a mile. It’s beautiful and it’s filled with local, small businesses. A small café is hear a barber just up from the post office. We stop to send postcards and are greeted by friendly locals who enthusiastically help us locate a restaurant for lunch. Not a Blockbuster in sight. No homogenized commerce.

We go through a few more towns like this, many not as lovely as Purcell. But, we do notice the lack of chain stores and a certain density of car-related commerce. Many small used car lots, tire stores, auto parts, windshield repair, etc. seem to thrive in small towns and outnumber other types of businesses. Ford seems to be the only brand of any stature in these towns and the lots are filled with trucks. Is this because auto repair is the one thing you can’t drive very far to get? You could certainly drive the 30 miles or so to Wal-Mart if you needed a particular type of laundry soap, but if your car doesn’t run, you can drive it to get it repaired, right? That’s my theory. Let me know what you think.

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