Hordes of Mongols, multitudes of Visigoths, entire Tribes of Israel, and jalopy-loads of Oakies are already thronging Route 66 on their way to Chenoa, Illinois, for a lecture and reading I will deliver on Sept. 24. If you and your chain-migrating clan happen to be in the neighborhood and wish to claw and pummel your way into the crowded venue, possibly losing an eye or an ear in the melee, please join us.
Fittingly, for a handbill promoting the much-anticipated event, the Chenoa library grabbed a photograph of me in front of a circus sideshow museum in the tourist trap of Uranus, further down the celebrated highway in Missouri. Why Route 66 is so famous, beyond a forgotten TV series by that name from the early sixties, is a question for pop historians. (Fascinatingly, Jack Kerouac once contemplated suing the series for misappropriating characters and themes from his On the Road.) However, you will find many fine oddities along the way, among them a store entirely devoted to Donald Trump paraphernalia, a 19-foot fiberglass statue of a smirking lout holding a hot dog, and an octagonally shaped library in a town Abraham Lincoln used to visit as a prairie lawyer riding the judicial circuit.
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The Elephant Box 