You produce a documentary.   You put it out on DVD.   You post promo clips on YouTube.  There’s no telling where it will go.  A while ago, we had a request from a teacher in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who was using A HOT DOG PROGRAM in his classes.  He wondered if he could get [...]

[Read more →]

On the last night of the conference, the LHA usually holds a big dinner.   This year the Awards Banquet is at South Bend’s Century Center. There’s a guest speaker: Terry Shellwell, the very serious and sincere leader of this summer’s vintage-truck-and-military-vehicle convoy that has been re-creating the famous military convoy of 1919.   (That original convoy included [...]

[Read more →]

In my previous post, I didn’t mention that, as part of my key note presentation, I did show one clip from the PBS documentary: the last story, the amazing tale of Esther Oyster and Bernie Queneau, and how the Lincoln Highway brought them together. It’s such a satisfying tale of old newspaper clippings, on-line research, [...]

[Read more →]

It was months ago.   Jan Shupert-Arrick, a friend from the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association and a past president of the national organization, called and invited me to this Lincoln Highway Conference. She asked if I would give the key note address on Thursday afternoon, and I was way too flattered to say No.  Flattered [...]

[Read more →]

Among Lincoln Highway fans, two of the biggest, most important names are Carl G. Fisher and Henry B. Joy.  Carl Graham Fisher was the Prest-O-Lite headlights man who came up with the idea for the cross-country highway, and Henry Bourne Joy was the Packard Motor Car man who decided the road should be made a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. [...]

[Read more →]

I don’t go home from the conference the same way I came.   I don’t follow the Lincoln Highway back.  I have to stop outside the town of Delaware, Ohio, at my sister’s house to get my mother who has been staying there for a couple of months.    My sister told me to watch for Route [...]

[Read more →]

I collect things.  I own too many books, CDs, DVDs, postcards, bookmarks, promotional cards and various pieces of printed matter.  But many of these Lincoln Highway Association members are collectors too, and I love them for that.  And at these conferences, they set up a “book room” where people can display, sell and swap all [...]

[Read more →]

I’m not a big fan of museums. I get overdosed pretty quickly on displayed stuff: historic artifacts, art, sculpture, insects, natural history whatever, it doesn’t matter. I love the idea and the mission of such places, but after an hour or so, I’m usually sated on inspiration and information and I’m looking for a way [...]

[Read more →]

Yes, my room was a highlight of the Conference experience.  Weeks ago, conference co-director Jan Schupert-Arick told me that she’d get me a good corner room in the Holiday Inn that served as the main hotel for this gathering.  I thought:  OK.   Whatever. But when I got to this Holiday Inn Downtown South Bend, and [...]

[Read more →]

A bit weary and not looking forward to another 130 miles at the wheel, I slightly dreaded the ride back to South Bend from the Indianapolis Speedway, so I was really happy when Jerry Peppers, the Pillsbury Winthrop lawyer from New York City who’s been working to get some Lincoln Highway signs and an Eastern [...]

[Read more →]