U.S. 36

I just finished "Home Country" by Ernie Pyle, which now ranks as one of my fav books. He travelled around our great country, and wrote about quirky people. I love quirky people. I call them "characters". Characters keep me laughing and entertained.

I love what he wrote about Highway 36. If you don't know this road, let me tell you, it is nothing to write home about. It is a quaint road, mostly two lane, that travels across the rural Midwest. In fact, Kansas has a whole society dedicated to loving Highway 36. Who knew?

My parents' farm is about 3 miles from 36, so any time we wanted to go any where, we jumped onto 36.

Here is what Ernie Pyle wrote about this seemingly unimportant highway in 1935:

"U.S. Highway 36, the transcontinental road knows as the Lincoln Highway, might be called the road of great men's homes. Practically every fifty miles from Kansas to Ohio you pass through a town where some remarkable figure was born or spent his early days: Jesse James, St Joe, Missouri; J.C.Penney, the chain-store man, Hamilton, Missouri; Mark Twain, Hannibal, Missouri; Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois; and E. Trocadero Pyle, Dana, Indiana."

I like to repeat anything that puts me in the same category as Abraham Lincoln, so, there you go. ;) What's that you say about Jesse James? Who??