To: OnTheRoad

Fr: richdean@clark.net

Subject: Last One...

...from the road I think. I'm in Ashland Ohio, south of Cleveland and despite the overwhelming urge to go see the I.M.Pei-like Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (he *must* have done this building as it is too ugly for anyone else to claim credit), I am by-passing this lovely town. For some reason when I was a kid, the Orioles used to play the Indians on July 4th, so I spent three Independence Days in the old Cleveland Stadium... no desire to return :)

Spent three days in Urbana-Champaign with my friends from when I was a reporter [I broke the Watergate and Whitewater stories there] at the main radio news station in town. It was a great time spent hitting the old bars and some new ones and catching up on things. It was here that I came closest to actually discussing work with someone when I met a marketing person from NCSA (where it all sort of began). If you have never been to C-U, you should drop by next time you drive thru the nation's heartland... The Custard Cup on Kirby (?) and Neil Streets is a real throw-back and oddly enough there was perhaps the only good burrito place west of San Fran here [the cart in front of Filene's being the only other exception]. The weirdest part of all was that the Gap-ing of the country has hit in full force here and they have Borders, Barnes and Noble and though I didn't see a Starbucks, I am sure you can get a city mug for C-U now [how you fit that long name on a mug would be interesting]. The final nail in the coffin though was a Jillians in the old Coke building. On the one hand its nice to have all these things in town so you don't have people taking their tax dollars to Chicago, but the independence and unique character of so many places is slowly being erased.

Beer is still way cheap out this way, so is food, and they have actual drive ins. The local movie theatre in Rantoul (north of C-U) was showing the new Jurrasic Park movie for under 2 bucks. Its also real pretty here... just not as dramatic as the West.

I hopped on I-74 and 70 for part of the way through Indiana and Ohio, but the holiday traffic and boredom of the chain stores got the better of me and I skipped over to another old cross country route, US-40 which runs north of 50 and south of 20. I'm either headed back US-6, 20 or 17 into Massachusetts on Memorial Day, who knows which....

Heard "Convoy" on the radio today... scared me real bad. That song became big after people liked a commercial based on it.

Not much of real interest in Ohio or Indiana today, mainly because of the rain....

Best reason to do the 2-lanes: my pager hasn't gotten a signal since Sacramento....

Hope you all are doing well.... BTW, I am doing a commentary for NPR this coming Sunday morning on "Weekend Edition-Sunday"... check your local public radio station listings.... or read transcripts.

Rich