Mother’s Day comes every May, and even after it passes, mothers stay on our minds.
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This year, there’s another one worth celebrating, one that just hit a milestone birthday. The historical one turns 100 this year. Route 66, the iconic highway stretching 2,448 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica,was established in 1926. John Steinbeck gave it its enduring nickname, the Mother Road, in “The Grapes of Wrath.”
During the Great Plains Dust Bowl, desperate families loaded everything they owned into whatever would run and headed west on Route 66. Along its path grew the classic American road trip experience – neon-lit motels, home-cooking diners, and roadside attractions that became landmarks as beloved as the road itself and still draw travelers today.
I have my own history with Route 66. When I was growing up, we lived near it and drove it often. It wasn’t a tourist attraction to us, just the road we drove going to LaVerne or San Dimas.
But my mother wanted to learn more about it. When she retired, she joined a group devoted to studying Route 66, attended meetings and saved every issue of the monthly newsletter. She followed the road’s history the way some people follow a favorite author with genuine devotion and curiosity.
On Christmas of 1992, I gave her a book that matched her enthusiasm perfectly: “Route 66: The Mother Road,” by Michael Wallis. It’s a beautiful, detailed book, the kind that makes you feel like you’re behind the wheel before you’ve left your armchair.
I wrote a lengthy inscription inside the front cover telling her how grateful I was that she had introduced me to the history of that road, to the stories it brought and to the idea that a highway could be something worth knowing.
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My mother passed away some years later, and the book came to rest on my bookshelf of favorites.
Recently, I pulled it from the bookcase, and when I opened it, my own handwriting was staring back at me. I was not prepared for what I had written or for how much it would mean to read it again.
In that inscription, I mentioned our shared dream – to rent a 1957 Chevy and drive Route 66 together, end to end. We humorously called it our “Thelma and Louise” trip without being on the run. We never took that drive, but I still think about that dream.
May is for mothers, the ones who raised us, the roads they put us on, and the inscriptions we leave behind that say, thank you for showing me the way.
Writer, editor and speaker Cheryl Russell is a Laguna Woods Village resident. Contact her at [email protected].
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