The Lonely Kitchen Light

[Bob Boze Bell]

January 31, 2013

I've been inspired to illustrate a road trip memory. In the late 1950s we were taking our annual family road trip to the Bell family farm in Iowa. In the beginning we plowed straight across Route 66 all the way to eastern Oklahoma, then cut north, but as the years went by, my father discovered a more scenic route through Durango and Pagosa Springs, rather than the crowded and increasingly dangerous Route 66 (a few summers prior we had ended up in the ditch by avoiding a jack-knifing truck, only through the expert defensive driving maneuvers of my dad). We liked the Colorado cutoff route because we would leave Kingman in the summer heat and by nightfall we would be spending our first night of the trip in the cool pines (as opposed to say Amarillo, or Elk City Oklahoma).

 

My father had a very specific driving regimen. We left the house before sunrise, then drove for an hour or so before breakfast, which was invariably The Copper Cart in Seligman, on our first day out. He also liked tradition—bacon and eggs, over easy and tomato juice—which he has passed on to me and I, in turn, have passed it on to my kids.

 

The highlight of the day, besides the amazing scenery and Navajos in wagons, was the cool pines of the evening. But even more thrilling was the ascent over Wolf Creek Pass. Sometimes we got to Pagosa Springs too late and spent the night there, but If we were making good time we ascended the switchbacks in late afternoon light, marveling at the waterfalls and wildlife (we saw elk and deer of all kinds) and landed at Del Norte (my father did not like to drive at night). On this particular trip we stayed at a motel in Del Norte, got up early for day two and hit the road by five. As we motored out across the high country in the pre-dawn light I spied a lonely ranch house off to our right, down a dirt road, with a lone light on in the main house. It appeared to be the kitchen. I wondered what the people in that house were talking about on this early morning. I pictured a cowboy drinking coffee and talking to his wife, before starting the day. It was lonely looking, but also somewhat hopeful. That simple scene has stuck with me for all these years.

 

Yesterday, when I went home for lunch I took my first crack at it:

 

This is a little too dark and not quite right. Went home last night and did a study of big skies and lonely lights:

 

Daily Whipout #115, "Lone Light In Abandoned Adobe"

 

This morning I got up and took another approach:

 

Daily Whipout #116, "Lone Kitchen Light #2"

 

Not exactly right either, but the ranch buildings are getting better. It's interesting to me that this almost exact scene shows up in Jack Kerouac's "On The Road." Neil Cassady and Jack are cruising across Colorado when they decide to visit a friend's ranch. "Beyond we saw the lonely lights of Ed Uhl's ranch house. Around these lonely lights stretched hundreds and hundreds of miles of plains with nothing on them but twenty or so ranches like this. The kind of utter darkness that falls on a prairie like that is inconceivable to an easterner. There were no stars, no moon, no light whatsoever except the light of Mrs. Uh's kitchen."

 

Later, as they leave, Jack says, "I turned to watch the kitchen light recede in the sea of night."

 

"Now we're going to get our kicks!"

—Neil Cassaday, in "On The Road"

[Mundo Osterberg]

Painting visions of lonely abodes in the middle no-where, the smell of wet asphalt, reading Jack, longing for rolled up jeans and white t-shirts. I do believe the open road is calling you to follow the blood vein into the heart of America Bob.

Borrow a bitchen' vintage car for the ride and make a road tape for the soundtrack. Better yet, do a video. HA!

[Stan H]

BBB

You travelled one of the most beautiful stretches of road in America,, Durango to Pagosa Springs.

 

As C.W McCall would say;

 

My, ain't this purty up here,,,

[Wolfgang]

3 years back I spent the night in my "rolling bunk house" in Wolf Creek pass . . . . in a little roadside "pull out" with no facilities . . . there was a dead badger in the gravel parking area. . . . . . I've always wondered about that dead badger . . . . he wasn't squashed like he'd been run over.  I didn't get near as pr fears of plague carrying fleas on dead wildlife that are looking for a new host.  

[Bob Boze Bell]

"Dead Badgers In The Middle of Wolf Creek Pass," now there's a song title for Louden Wainwright III and C.W. Moss if I ever heard one.

[Mundo Osterberg]

You got your dead badgers and your dead racoons, the blood and the guts are going to make you swoon.........stinkin' to high heaven

[Bob Boze Bell]

Mundo, you crazy, funny mo of. I just reread your eloquent take on my current obsessions and I must say, this is probably going to end up on the dust jacket of "The 66 Kid":

"Painting visions of lonely abodes in the middle no-where, the smell of wet asphalt, reading Jack, longing for rolled up jeans and white t-shirts. I do believe the open road is calling you to follow the blood vein into the heart of America Bob."

—Mundo Osterberg, Crazy Mo Fo

[Margaret-Anne Moore]

When my mother and I would start out on our trips, we would sometimes leave at three or four in the morning.  Believe me, the lights showing in the distance--whether they were from someone's kitchen who had to get up especially early to go to work  or from an all-night cafe or gas station or the street lights of some town located a few miles from the highway--gave us assurance that there were other people out there.  By leaving as we did, we avoided the early rush hour of our metropolitan area. and by the time we stopped two or three hours later for gas and breakfast, daybreak was beginning to dawn.

[Dr. Dan Moran]

Mr. Bell, I believe that Whipout #16, Lone Kitchen light #2 is PERFECT !!! If you could just peek through that one lighted window, you'd spot the old cowboy putting the coffee pot on the stove to boil as he starts his day! That lone kitchen light is also the message to the corral animals that breakfast will soon be walking out that door!

Wish I had your talent!