I began this trip last August with no preconceived notions, or none that I was aware of. I like to think of myself as an innocent abroad, open to new experiences with a slow turn to judgement, and a frequent reassessment. It is all discovery.

Off the road in an attempt to better understand my Southern experience, I picked up Paul Theroux’s “The Deep South”. I had loved his travelogues of riding trains, the most second-most popular form of long distance travel for my late wife. She loved the train, especially when confirmed by her orthopedists following a bad ankle break, that walking the train was almost the best therapy. The gentle rocking of the train forced balance, while the floor was firm and smooth beneath the foot. In “The Deep South” I learned as much of Paul Theroux as I did of his travels. The fly leaf lists his books. And boy, does he write. Some fifty-one published books – about half fiction, about half travel – and all substantial. He is a writer, with as we say, with a practice, when we’re really mean a devotion, like a daily prayer. Sometimes on the road I play mental math: 51 books, let say 50, at 400 pages, that’s 20000 pages, at 3 pages per day, lets call it 21000, the math is easier, that 7 thousand days. Years is more manageable, say, 300 days – gotta have time off, even as your own boss, makes for 70 divided by 3 — or approximately 21 years. Every day, 21 years, and all I do with constancy is breath. Oh, just realized, that 1000 pages a year, I did not need to go through all the detail and back. Well, that’s mental math on the long road to wherever I am going.

“The Deep South” is not my story of travel. Theroux drove through the south through four seasons on four trips. He had an agenda, along with his method. He planned to stop and talk to people. He also knew people and had specific stops in mind. His overarching motivation is to understand the black and white relationship, especially in areas passed by development or struggling against factory loss and economic distress. More than once he comments upon the poverty he sees, and compares it less favorably to poverty he has seen across the globe, especially in the global south. Former President Clinton comes in for harsh criticism because of his well financed global initiatives often contrasts with a paltry grant to a local county or regional social service agency. His travel is different as he has reporters’ tactics and habits, often mentioning his notebook or his taking of notes while at a diner or in the office of a local informant. He interviews. And asks the questions he wants answers to, that he already half knows.

My travel has been very different. I rarely eat out — partly parsimony, partly preference for my own meal planning and prep (although I have had some boners of meals like a recent pasta carbonara), and partly not wanting to hazard a cocktail and/or glass of wine on the road with the potential to be separated from my dog should I be pulled over. ‘Bull Connor’ – or some sherif, unfold of outsiders from films remain lodged in a corner of my mind. I don’t connect or have extended conversations with other people — only once have I had a conversation where both of us hinted at our displeasure with the current administration’s recent actions but even that was sotto voce, although our location was likely safe. We still self-censored.

Am I all surface? A tourist or a traveler? I have been more interested in what I have been learning and in discovering histories I thought I knew were incomplete. I am very comfortable with that.

My new concern, as I hit the road again, however, is what will be my anchoring theme on this long trip. The Civil War is past – I am comfortable with what I now know. My understanding of the Civil Rights struggle in the south is now at an end (although, I’ll later discover odd corners as I move out of the south). The past seems easy given the current political turmoil and divisions.