Around the Map at Last: Stories of Travel to All 50 States of the U.S.A.

By Bob Garrison

In these difficult times, when cultural, political and geographic differences are contributing to a climate of distrust and outright animosity, we need a reminder that we in the United States live in a great nation comprised of 50 interesting states, each with fascinating people and inspiring locations to visit. Over the course of his lifetime (no short-term travel blog here), Bob Garrison finally managed to visit every state and find something thoughtful or funny (sometimes both) to write about each one. And what’s more, he has plans to visit each state again and writes about those destinations too.

Whether getting extricated from a locked Montana campground, assisting a rollover accident victim on a Louisiana highway or waxing lyrical about Nebraska’s Sand Hills, Garrison writes authentically about time spent in each state in the country we call home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663231222

Bob Garrison

Bob Garrison is a veterinarian who has worked in private practice and public health, taught at the college level, served in the U.S. Air Force, holds a black belt in Combat Hapkido, is certified as an EMT and is still trying to learn juggling. This is his first book.

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Copyright © 2021 Bob Garrison.

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of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-3121-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-3122-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021922285

iUniverse rev. date: 11/15/2021

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Introduction (Thoughts On The Organization Of This 50-Part Mess)

Alabama: 1/50th Of Our National Melting Pot

Alaska: Smoke 10,000 If You Got ’Em

Arizona: Beep, Beep

Arkansas: Mighty Green Is Thy State

California: Habemus Omnia Optare

Colorado: Yogi Berra Nailed It

Connecticut: I Hardly Knew Ye

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, The First Horseman

Florida: Blub, Blub, Blub

Georgia: (Acting Was) On My Mind

Hawai’i: Land Of The Living Lava Lamp

Idaho: Not Just Potatoes, Dig It?

Illinois: Thank You, Harry Caray

Indiana: Who’s Here?

Iowa: Call It Fly-Over Country And I’ll Sock You

Kansas: My Hippie Days

Kentucky: Stay With Me Here, Readers

Louisiana: A Moment That Changed Me

Maine: It’s Way Up There, All Right

Maryland: That Is One Jaw-Dropping State Flag!

Massachusetts: Steeped In History

Michigan: Navigation By Hand Map

Minnesota: A Loon-Y State Of Mind

Mississippi: The Name That’s Fun For All Ages To Spell

Missouri: Paging Sherlock Holmes, Please

Montana: That Is One Big Sky, All Right

Nebraska: There Is More To The State Than Football

Nevada: The House Always Wins (Even If It’s In The Single Digits)

New Hampshire: The Home Of…Franklin Pierce (?)

New Jersey: Been There, Done That, Got The T-Shirt

New Mexico: Christmas For Me, Please

New York: More Than Just The Big Apple

North Carolina: An Enigma, Wrapped Inside A State

North Dakota: Rodney Dangerfield, Channeled

Ohio: Lions And Tigers And Bears (And Ticks), Oh My!

Oklahoma: Soon, Sooners, Soon!

Oregon: A Hoppin’ Place

Pennsylvania: History Left, Right, Top And Bottom

Rhode Island: Land Of The Cool Chicken

South Carolina: Palmetto Tree/Bug Land

South Dakota: A Troubled Past

Tennessee: I Have To Look It Up, Most Of The Time

Texas: It’s Certainly One Of A Kind

Utah: The Beehive (?) State

Vermont: A Double-Dip Pleasure

Virginia: In Honored Glory

Washington: Geoduck Paradise

West Virginia: Heaven, Almost

Wisconsin: Is It Something In The Water?

Wyoming: Equality For All, And A Round For The House On Me

Inspiring Books On Inspiring Subjects (To Me, At Least)

DEDICATION

For Jeff and Jaden,

the brightest lights in my sky

PREFACE

A common bit of gift-giving advice is to give the gift that you would like given to you. In that vein, I decided to write a book that I would clutch with both paws if I happened upon it in the remaindered section of the local second-hand bookstore (where I anticipate this book will land shortly. I’m optimistic by nature, but I’m also a realist—Tolstoy and Twain have already seized the literary high ground). I love travel writing, not guidebooks and the like, but rather deeply personal musings by thoughtful writers about places they traveled to and persons they encountered who enriched their journey in completely unexpected ways. And I’ve always been drawn to lists of stuff; a delicious find for a curious 15-year-old in 1977 was the then-popular Book of Lists, by David Wallechinsky et al, an annotated compilation of the most diversely delicious lists one could imagine: the five most despotic dictators, 15 unusual stolen objects and famous people who died during sex. It wasn’t intellectual stuff, not a chance, ranking right up there with the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader series, but just irresistible for someone who loved descriptions of things organized into lists.

My other motivation for writing was to underscore a message that I think we all need to be reminded of in these darkly partisan times: we live in a great nation, comprised of 50 unique and wonderful states that are home to intriguing and genuinely good, decent people. They’re justifiably proud of the states they call home; it has been my pleasure to have set foot in all 50, and now to write about it. Although much ink has been spilled in documenting the reasons for our regional differences, my opinion is that not enough has been spilled in documenting the converse—that is, why we’re called the UNITED STATES of America, not the 50 INDIVIDUAL STATES STUCK WITH ONE ANOTHER IN A BAD MARRIAGE of America. I deeply love our country, and it tears at my heart to witness the political vitriol being driven as a wedge between us, dividing us into Red Hats and Blue Shirts, Yankees and Confederates, coastal elites and real Americans. News flash to the nattering nabobs of negativism (hat tip to the late Spiro Agnew): we’re all real Americans, each of us with a unique story as to how our people ended up here, and each of us chipping in differently. Writing briefly about what I’ve experienced in all 50 states over decades of living and travel, recounting some of my amusing and profound moments therein, and how much I look forward to visiting each state again—this is my gift to the country I love and its people.

INTRODUCTION (THOUGHTS ON THE

ORGANIZATION OF THIS 50-PART MESS)

One, my criteria for what counted as an official visit to a state. That’s easy: being old enough to remember it (which in my case applied to all the states, actually, but my kids will have to sort that one out for themselves in their own quests, since they visited a few states they don’t remember now) and putting feet on the ground, doing something, even if it’s just walking around a little while drinking a soda (sorry, New Jersey, that was my visit, but more on that later). To put it another way, landing in a state and changing planes without leaving the airport didn’t count as a visit. Even if driving across a state comprised my only visit, and there were a few of those, I wasn’t doing the Smokey and the Bandit thing and trying to break the land-speed record to deliver a load of beer, so it counted. Some might argue that transiting Arizona on Interstate 10 wasn’t enough to count as a visit, but let’s not split hairs. As long as I stopped for a while, maybe stayed overnight, but nevertheless did something, I had feet on the ground, and it counted as a visit. Besides, I also wrote about where I want to visit when I return, so I can assuage any lingering guilt.

Two, and it’s a minor point, for those states I’ve visited only once, that visit obviously constituted the point on my life timeline when I first experienced it, and I’ve chronicled it as such. In contrast, for those ten states in which I’ve lived, rather than describing my first entry into the state (in Nebraska, it would definitely change the movie rating for this book, since I was hatched there), I’ve simply tried to give a sense of what it was about living there that spoke to my soul, or was at least memorable in some way, which is often tied to a place.

Three, since the order that I visited the states is irrelevant to this collection of stories, I didn’t bother to list my visits chronologically. I probably could recall the order, but it wouldn’t add much, and only in a few cases do I attach a date to any of the stories for a bit of context. Besides, I’m guessing that readers will look up their own state first when they pick up this book, because that’s what people naturally do, and I wouldn’t want to vex anyone because Alaska was sandwiched between New York and New Hampshire, for example.

Finally, it’s inevitable that some readers will have strong opinions about what I’ve written and likely will not be sending me best wishes on major holidays. (WHAT? He came here and THAT’S what he chose to write about?!) That’s OK. As I stated in the Preface, I love our country deeply, and a piece of that love is rooted in something we’ve lost in the currently turbulent political climate: we can agree to disagree, no matter what the topic, and still be civil to one another. Besides, this is simply a fun book, mostly, about visiting all the states. Lighten up, Francis.

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ALABAMA: 1/50th OF OUR

NATIONAL MELTING POT

I N THE DECADES since World War II, a progressively smaller slice of the American population has a connection to the military, either by their own service or that of a friend or family member. Predictably, this has led to some misunderstandings, small and large. Little stuff: errors that keep appearing in print, news reports, TV and movies, none of which are earth-shattering but nonetheless are mildly irritating to veterans, akin to that rattle in your car that you can’t quite locate. For example, reading in a veteran’s obituary that he had served in the Marine Corp or that a World War II veteran had served in the U.S. Air Force during that conflict. (It’s Marine CORPS, please, and the U.S. Air Force wasn’t an independent branch until 1947, two years after the war ended.) The much larger disconnect, however, which weighs upon me greatly is the loss of what military service provides: exposure to people of other races and ethnic groups, and if not an understanding of our differences, at least some appreciation of them. Ask anyone who served. America’s military is truly our