Speech #1050206819

Route 66 is 2.448 miles long. It crosses 8 States and three time zones. stretching from Chicago all the way down to Los Angeles. and it is firmly rooted in Americana. Almost every child in America who studies English in high school reads "The Grapes of Wrath." where John Steinbeck writes Highway 66 is the migrant road. 66. the long concrete path across the country. weaving gently up and down on the map from the Mississippi to Bakersfield. over the red lands and the gray lands. twisting up into the mountains crossing the divide and down into the bright and terrible desert. and across the desert to the mountains again and into the rich California valleys. 66 is the path of a people in flight. refugees from dust and shrinking land. from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership. from the deserts slow northward invasion. from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas. from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these. the people are in flight and they come into 66. From the tributary side roads. from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road. the road of flight. 250.000 people over the road. 50.000 old cars wounded. steaming wrecks along the road. abandoned.