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 a young officer named Dwight Eisenhower, and his interest in improving America’s highways may have been the result of the difficult trek of that original group of trucks.)  This summer’s ride is officially the “Military Vehicle Preservation Association 90th Anniversary Convoy.”

This revival (tribute?) convoy sounds like it could be a hoot, a lark, a very cool adventure.  Also:  an organizational nightmare, a constant road blocker, a cross-country trip in a line of unchanging traffic made up of vintage vehicles that may develop all sorts of troubles.  But why not?  And the organizers timed it to be here in South Bend for the Lincoln Highway conference.  With a parade on Friday morning!

That was just one of the many other amazing events and activities that were all put together by the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association for the edification of their fellow members. Let’s face it:  it was a great conference.

Anyway, at this dinner, they give out awards.  Awards to thank state organizations for outstanding work.  Awards to state directors for things they’ve done.  (Jerry Peppers got one for the work he did in New York City this year.)

Various awards for various people. (The conference organizers, Bill Arick and Jan Shupert-Arick, were recognized as well as all their loyal and wonderful Hoosier helpers who got this wingding together.)

And the #1 Cool Thing About The Lincoln Highway Conference in South Bend:  they gave me an award for producing the PBS program called A RIDE ALONG THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY.  I wish Bob and Glenn and Jarrett and Kevin and Matt and Paula and Frank and Buddy Nutt could all have been there too.  It’s always nice to be recognized for your work, but I don’t do any of this by myself.

Nonetheless, the award I got was the first Gregory Franzwa Award, established in honor of one of the leaders of this organization who died earlier this year.  Gregory Franzwa was one of the organizers and instigators who got the new Lincoln Highway Association started in 1992.  He was the first president of this new group, and he remained active over the years, editing the Lincoln Highway Forum magazine, writing extensively about the highway in a series of books that explained the highway and its history on a state by state basis.

As a regular reader of Brian Butko’s Lincoln Highway News blog, I remembered reading about Mr. Franzwa’s failing health and his passing (an apt term for a highway enthusiast!) and the tributes to him from other members and current LHA president Bob Dieterich.  I’m sorry that our paths never crossed last year, but I’ve heard Jay Banta talk very fondly about Gregory Franzwa, always including the points that while their political philosophies were quite different, they both had no great affection for the Bush administration, and that Greg was a wonderful friend.  And I’m encouraged that he and his small press were involved with many different national roads because I like to think that all this work on the Lincoln Highway is just a beginning.

I am delighted and inspired to receive an honor in memory of such a guy.  I want to dub it “the Gregory.”  (That way it sounds more like an Oscar or an Emmy, and “the Franzwa” sounds a bit odd.)  It’s been established to recognize folks who help promote the Lincoln Highway and the Lincoln Highway Association, and if our show did some of that, hooray!

I think we all enjoy riding these old highways because we’ve been guided by wise men like Gregory Franzwa, and his passion for all these roads is worth preserving and carrying on.  We do that by driving, by paying attention, by reading guides and histories about all aspects of the roads, and by recognizing how important these pathways are to all of us in America.

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, a Sunday morning telephone call, a 70-year-old diary, great old photos of traveling Boy Scouts, a conference speech, concrete markers and romance in California.  And like any true Lincoln Highway historian, Esther explains the outcome in terms of LHA annual gatherings:  “Before the next conference, we were married!”

Now, six years later, Bernie will soon be 97 (actually on July 14 Bastille Day), but he and Esther are still spry and active members of the LHA, and at a conference like this, they are a bit like royalty.  Even before I showed the video clip on Thursday, Bernie had come up to me and quietly asked if I would join them for a special dinner on Thursday evening.

He said it would be not too fancy.   And we didn’t get dressed up, but in South Bend I don’t think it gets any fancier than dinner at the Tippecanoe, the beautiful old mansion that had once been the home of the Studebaker family.   We had a full table with Brian Butko too and several members of the Ohio delegation to this conference, including Esther’s brother and his wife.

Good food.  Lively chatter.  Impressive surroundings.  It made for a wonderful evening.  (Butko took this picture.)  Getting to know Esther and Bernie is just a superb benefit of my work, and I can’t thank them enough for all their time and generosity.  Now I owe them a nice dinner too!

We weren’t invited to stay the night at the Tippecanoe.  Back at the Holiday Inn, I think I normally would have gone straight to bed, but someone mentioned that Russell Rein would be opening the “book room” on the sixth floor of the hotel for one last late-evening shopping opportunity, and when I went there, I ran into Brian Butko, Kevin Patrick, and Mindy Crawford, and since we were all part of the Pennsylvania delegation, we decided to go around the corner for a beer.

The Irish-themed pub around the corner, really in the same block as the hotel, is called Fiddler’s Hearth.  I’ve been to South Bend three separate times:  Once with my video team as we were en route to a shoot in Chicago and we stopped in South Bend for lunch.  We ate at Fiddler’s Hearth.  Then, in the summer of 2007, when we came back to South Bend to interview David Hay about the Lincoln Highway, we ended up back at the Fiddler’s Hearth again for dinner.  It has good solid Irish pub food and beer, and I’m not complaining, but it seems to be the only place to go for a non-franchised experience around here.  So, this was my third visit to South Bend, and this was my third visit to the Fiddler’s Hearth.

We each had a couple of beers, some appetizer-type bar food and some salty gossip and spicy commentary on the last few days here at the conference.   Good fun.  Late night musings.  I think we were the last 4 customers.  We closed the place.  A nice end to a good and full day.   Isn’t this what any good conference on any topic is all about?

“But,” I said, “What can I tell the members of the Lincoln Highway Association?  Everything I know about the road I’ve learned from them.”  (Oh, I learned a lot from Brian Butko, his books and his blog, but he’s a member too, a founding member I believe.)

Jan said she knew I could think of something to say.  And it didn’t take me long to remember that there were things I had learned about the highway that never got into the program because I never interviewed myself.  And if nothing else, I could offer Thanks to all the LHA folks who helped in countless ways.

A month or so later, before I wrote a word of the speech, I gave Jan the title:  THE GLORIOUS & GOOFY JOYS OF CELEBRATING OLD HIGHWAYS or WE’VE GOT TO PRESERVE  SOME OF THESE THINGS OR THEY WILL DISAPPEAR FOREVER.  I love a long title.  And it was sufficiently nonspecific so Jan could put it in the conference program and I wasn’t really limiting what I could talk about in any way.

Jan also told me that my appearance would be funded by the Cornelius O’Brien Foundation, and the kind folks there would help cover my expenses and such.  Big thanks to everyone at the Foundation.

I started thinking about possible video clips to include in my talk, trying to come up with Lincoln Highway stories that maybe weren’t in the national broadcast of A RIDE ALONG THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY.

I could show clips from THE PENNSYLVANIA ROAD SHOW that I put together back in 1992 when I first met Brian Butko and he started telling me about the road. 

I had a couple of stories from my program called PENNSYLVANIA DINERS and an old favorite tale (about the giant swimming pool called Ligonier Beach right beside the Lincoln Highway in Ligonier, PA) from a local show called THINGS THAT ARE STILL HERE.

I started to concoct comments to try and link all these clips together.

Even as I drove across Ohio on Tuesday, I took notes en route to South Bend, trying to come up with a good list of the sorts of things you can see every day on the Lincoln Highway that you would never see if you were on the interstate.  I think my first note was about a console organ that had a cardboard sign on it in Lisbon, Ohio:  FOR SALE.  I love that.  Someone is simply trying to tempt passers-by with a big old musical piece of furniture.  I forgot to mention it during my speech.

On Thursday at lunchtime, I walked from the hotel down the street to the Century Center where many of the conference events happen.  I putzed with the AV equipment for a while.  The multimedia expert from the Center was named Holly (I think) and she helped me a lot in trying to figure out how best to show my DVD clips through the laptop and connected projector.

Then, shortly after 2 p.m., David Hay who’s in my PBS documentary (talking about highway paths, Indiana and the Ideal Section) and who’s president of the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association this year, introduced me, and I was on my way.

Talk talk talk.  Acknowledge my Indiana heroes:  Kurt Vonnegut & Hoagy Carmichael and one of my favorite movies:  Breaking Away, set in Indiana.  Tell a story about my Brazilian-foreign-exchange-student family in Rio and their old Studebaker (nicknamed the “Schtudeezauro” or “Stude-saurus” because of its size and age) and the universal human love of long road trips.  I figured the Schtudeezauro must have been made here in South Bend, and maybe I would still have it if I had been brave enough to drive back to Pittsburgh from Rio in 1970.  (My Brazilian family had offered to give me the old car if I’d drive it all the way back to America.)

I try to pepper my talk with video clips.  I ramble.  Apologize for things, even whole stories, that weren’t included in the final program.

I show the story we made about Woodbine, Iowa.  (Losing any story is hard, but it’s part of this business, and it’s never predictable which piece will slide out of a program.  We had five fully edited stories that we had to cut to bring our show down to its just-under-an-hour time limit.  Woodbine was especially difficult to cut.  But I’m happy to say that PBS Video allowed us to include all 5 of the extra stories on the DVD.)

In the speech, I try to explain my love for the Lincoln Highway.  I love its scope, its many layers of  history, its multiple routes (or “alignments” as the LHA people like to say.)  I love that there’s a group of people who get together to celebrate a road, and I find it reassuring that these people seem to get along and look forward to going to a different place on the highway every year for this get-together called the Annual Conference, and they enjoy seeing each other.

But the thing I like most is simply that the Lincoln Highway lets everyone travel across America, not in the shortest time anymore, but in one of the most interesting and time-tested fashions.  This road is a route (and variations) that have been tried by drivers and truckers and various travelers since 1913, and the original paths take you through the hearts of towns and cities, along roads where you can see things: beautiful and depressing locations, colorful and decaying buildings, all depending on where you happen to be.  And you don’t see just landscape and greenery. You see EVERYTHING.   I recited some of my list of things from the car, happy to point out that on a highway like the Lincoln, you see it all:   dry cleaners and day care centers, dead shopping malls, car washes, trailer parks, moving vans in driveways, cheese factories, Chinese restaurants, downtowns, laundry hanging on lines in backyards, chiropractors’ offices, used car lots, bars and taverns, schools, drive-thru beverage shops, funeral parlors, beauty parlors, municipal buildings, county courthouses, welding shops, cemeteries, flower gardens, homemae signs signs saying FRESH STRAWBERRIES, laundromats, VFW halls and Granges, frustrating banners for church book sales next week, bait shops, hog markets, cool old restaurants where you might find an unforgettable sandwich.  On top of that, you’ll see people walking, jogging, window shopping, sitting on benches, on front porches, going about the everyday business of life.  It’s all super-wide-screen, full-vision pictures of a country that you can’t see on the interstates.

But I always like to say a good word about interstates.  They have pulled most of the mind-numbing traffic and trucks off the older back roads, including the Lincoln Highway, making the older roads more pleasant and passable.

I have to remember:  keep talking.  Walk around the theatre.  Try to keep energy up.  Try to prevent people from falling asleep.  Show another video clip.

The video clip that gets the biggest reaction is the short video-diary-entry that my cameraman Bob Lubomski taped on our unexpected morning in Fish Springs, Utah, last summer.  Bob is tall, and he’s a very persnickety sleeper, and unless the conditions are ideal, he finds it hard to fall asleep, and the bunkhouse at the Fish Springs National Wildlife Preserve just weren’t exactly to his liking, so he was up early and started playing with the camera.   Glenn Syska (who’s the featured actor in the clip) edited it, put it in our blog, and it’s funny in its mock-Apocalypse Now style.

I also wanted to be the kind of down-to-earth key-note speaker who wasn’t too proud to show himself snoring in the bunkhouse, his big old butt in his underwear.

Also Henry Joy was the first president of the original Lincoln Highway Association, and there are many beautiful old black-and-white photos of him in his Packard in the Lincoln Highway collection at the University of Michigan Library.

Well, the great-grandson of Henry Bourne Joy was at this conference!  He’s a filmmaker in Michigan and he was part of one of the morning sessions on Thursday, offering some familiar insights into the life and attitudes of his great-grandfather.

Then that afternoon about 5:15, he and his family helped unveil a new plaque that was installed on the American Trust Bank Building at the corner of Washington and Michigan Streets in downtown South Bend.  That would have been an intersection of the original Lincoln Highway and the Dixie Highway, and the bronze plaque honors both of the highways, the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, and both Fisher and Joy for their work that helped get Americans onto the highways.

The next morning I happened to end up sharing an elevator with the young Henry Joy and his kids, and I had a chance to chat and say hello.  I think they might have been pleasantly surprised by how much attention is paid by the Lincoln Highway Association to their ancestor’s work with this road.  I gave them a DVD of A RIDE ALONG THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY.

In our PBS program, we didn’t include anything specifically about the Henry Joy monument out in Wyoming, but we shot it back in 2007 when we stopped at the Lincoln Statue at the rest area on I-80 near Cheyenne.

I still think that’s the most interesting rest area I’ve ever been to.  Interesting art.  A welcome center full of information.  And an Art Deco style Henry Joy monument that might lead you to believe he’s buried here.  But he’s not.

As I understand the story, the old Henry Joy once said that he hoped to be buried out in Wyoming at the spot (on the Continental Divide about 30 miles west of Rawlins) where in 1915 he saw the most beautiful sunset of his life.    But he wasn’t interred there.   Instead, in 1939, this striking monument was erected at that remote spot, and it sat there for years, but fears of vandalism led to its being moved to the rest area off I-80 in 2001.  I don’t care where it is.  It’s beautiful and well sculpted, and striking. And surrounded by 4 Lincoln Highway markers.

I especially like how the stone cutters used little simplified Lincoln-Highway-sign marks at the top and bottom of the main text.

The Joy quote at the top of the stone is simple and direct:  “That there should be a Lincoln Highway across this country is the important thing.”

Some people leave pennies near the base of the monument, leaving a little copper Lincoln as a tribute, a thank you, a token of hope that one day you’ll be back or that one day you’ll drive again along this stretch of the Lincoln Highway.

I’m not sure why people throw nickles, dimes and quarters.

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 33 that essentially connects Van Wert, Ohio, with Delaware, or nearly so.  And the relaxing return-ride turned out to be another highlight of this conference experience too.

On that Saturday morning in South Bend, I sat next to Russell Rein at the final breakfast meeting.  I learned from Russell (who in addition to being an avid postcard and Lincoln Highway collector is also an enthusiastic foodie) about several Indiana food opportunities, and he told me about Nick’s Kitchen, the place that claims to have invented the pork tenderloin sandwich.  It’s in Huntington, Indiana, and if I alter my route just a bit, I can be in Huntington for lunch.  Yes.

I don’t dawdle getting out of South Bend.  I head south on the Dixie Highway until it meets Route 30, and I turn east, riding on the 1930 route of the Lincoln, but I’ll turn farther south on Route 5 before I get to Fort Wayne.

It’s not hard to find Nick’s Kitchen.  It’s on North Jefferson, the main street of downtown Huntington, and there’s a cool old neon sign hanging out front.  (I later find out that it’s a reproduction of the old sign, but it’s a beauty.  Every classic eatery should be so aware of the potency and power of old neon.)

It wasn’t till I got inside and sat in an empty booth near the front window that I remember Russell had mentioned that Dan Quayle used to come to Nick’s when he lived here in Huntington, and in 1988 he announced his candidacy for Vice-President here or somewhere just outside this cozy little place.  (Look at the old sign in the historic photo!)

Who cares about stupid politics when there’s a regional food specialty to be sampled?  And I see on the menu:  there’s a history of how a veal cutlet, a wiener schnitzel, became such a popular sandwich, especially once the veal was replaced by locally raised pork.  This is where the sandwich originated.  OK.  Good idea!

The waitress is fun and helpful.  She suggests the onion rings (made here!) and says that the pork tenderloin is a good choice, especially if I’ve never been here before.  They have a grilled tenderloin on the menu (and that’s what I liked so much at the Whitehouse the other day) but I don’t see it till after I’ve ordered.  Who cares?  It’s the breaded pork tenderloin that they invented here.

My food is delivered by a slightly older woman, not my waitress, and she’s friendly too, so I ask, Are you the owner?  And she says Yes she is.  And we start talking about how I found out about the place, and I tell her a friend in South Bend, and she confesses that her business has increased significantly and so has her own enjoyment of the place since Jane and MIchael Stern included it in one of their Roadfood books.  ”I was tired of the same thing every day, the same people, then after they recommended us, people from all over the world have been coming here.”  She seemed genuinely happy.

The sandwich was pretty great too.  Fresh and moist.  BIG.  I had thought I’d probably get one to go for in the car too, but one tenderloin was so much food that I couldn’t even consider it.  It wants to flop and wiggle out of your hand sometimes, but I managed to keep it all together.

Then the owner, Jean Anne Drabenstot Bailey, says I’d be crazy to leave without having a piece of her sugar cream pie.  ”My recipe was featured in Gourmet magazine,” she bragged.  It was simple, delicious and cinnamon-y.  I could love that pie for breakfast.  I asked Jean Anne about breakfast (because I’m gonna make a program called BREAKFAST SPECIAL for PBS starting later this summer), and she said they make a great breakfast and she gave me a quick lesson in how to make a consistently tasty sausage gravy.  A definite possibility.

I love this lunch, but eventually I head southeast out of Huntington toward Ohio.   Just after I cross under Interstate 69 at the town of Markle, I see a large Antique Mall on the right, and I turn in there to see what I might see on a Saturday afternoon.  Lots of good stuff.  I buy a set of old cotton pillowcases with blue stitching on them, a couple of CDs, and I see lots of things I want.

I spend too much time looking at a rack of postcards, and I find one that shows the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and a flagpole terminus for the Lincoln Highway.  Had to have it.  Souvenir of the conference and the nice ride home.

Russel Rein from Ypsilanti, Michigan, is one of the biggest — if not THE biggest — collectors of Lincoln Highway stuff, and he was in charge of this year’s book room on the 6th floor at the South Bend Downtown Holiday Inn.  He had some postcards and books and magazines to show and sell, and many are really reasonably priced, some on sale big time!  And I got some stuff from him:  a “Greetings from Ambridge Pennsylvania” postcard (the Lincoln Highway went through Ambridge from 1913 till 1930), and John Baeder’s book on American signs as folk art called Sign Language, among assorted other things.

One evening, while people were looking over the stuff on his table, Russell told a tale about bidding what-he-thought-was-a-preemptive $170 on eBay (his highest opening bid ever) for one postcard — a photo postcard — of waitresses outside a barbecue restaurant, and then his surprise when he lost the item to a higher bidder!  This tells me Russell is in a bigger collectors league than I am.  I’m just a piker.

The book room had odd hours, essentially anytime there wasn’t some other activity planned, and it was always interesting to go and see who and what was there at any time.  But if you stayed at the conference till the final dinner on Friday night, at each place setting on every table, there was a small polypropylene archival envelope with a white card inside and a small, vintage, printed label. 

The mint condition wrapper was colored gold, red, white and blue and was printed once upon a time for a LINCOLN HIGHWAY cigar made in Frankfort Indiana at the National Cigar Company.   Oh, a little gem in a clear plastic sleeve!  It’s a real beauty.  I heard Russell say that he got a big supply of the labels, and he thought he’d give one to everyone, and he even tried to find a cigar company that would put them around cigars, but that didn’t happen.  People are way too brand-conscious these days.

I think it’s a perfect souvenir.  Indiana.  The highway.  A collectible item.  A far away whiff of a cheap cigar.  One more thing for me to hang onto and cherish.

So I didn’t hurry to get to the Studebaker Museum right on time after lunch on Friday. When I got there, the woman at the ticket counter told me I was lucky because “the house tour group” would be leaving in just a minute or two, and my LHA admission got me a free ticket for the house tour too. OK, I said. I didn’t even know whose house I was gonna see. This tour actually took us to two houses. 

First, we visited a small working family’s house that really needed a new paint job, especially in the back where we entered.   Just off the museum’s parking lot, this little vintage frame structure houses a recreation of what the home of a Polish immigrant worker and his family might have looked like in Indiana in the early 20th century. It looks a bit like my grandparents’ houses, with some Polish memorabilia added.

Our tour guide himself was classic. Brusk, formal, somewhat jaded, smug, and in a bit of a hurry because this would be his last tour of the day.

After the low-rent worker house, he walked us to the nearby grand mansion of the Oliver family.  The Olivers profited mightily from James Oliver’s innovations with cast iron plowing equipment in the nineteenth century, and the Oliver Chilled Plow revolutionized farming in the American Midwest and its huge success set this family up for many lives to come. 

The mansion’s impressive and early-twentieth-century excessive but actually no great shakes in terms of a tour.  They had a lot of money and not any special quirks or secrets, no unusual sense of style or taste, and the family’s history got tedious before we ever got to the carriage house.  Enough!

I wish I had spent all that time in the Studebaker National Museum.  There was less than an hour left before closing when I finally got back there.  I ran around, hopped in the elevator, quickly checked out the beautiful old cars on the three floors of the place. 

I glanced at the Harley Davidsons on display, skimmed the surface of the Lincoln exhibit, which included the carriage that took Abe to Ford’s Theatre, and I had about two and a half minutes in the gift shop before they kicked us out.

I ended up really liking the Studebaker.  I didn’t get tired of it.  It houses a lot of what made South Bend an important city in years gone by, and I wish I had more time to check out some of the interpretive signs and the information behind some of the cars and other vehicles on display. 

Like any memorable entertainment, a good museum leaves you wanting more.

But when I got to this Holiday Inn Downtown South Bend, and I opened the draperies (why would they close them?), the view was panoramic and very interesting.  My room was on the 12th floor, at the end of the hallway, and two entire walls were glass, giving me an incredible wide-angle bird’s-eye view of downtown South Bend.  As I sat in my room at the small desk there, I could see the dome of the St. Joseph County Courthouse far below.  (Could they have produced children’s aspirin around here as well as Studebakers?) 

I usually don’t pay much attention to any hotel room, but this one was a beauty.   Thanks to Jan for knowing how much difference a snazzy corner room can make.

Last year, when my sound man Glenn Syska and cameraman Bob Lubomski drove with me on the Lincoln Highway to New York City, we shot and interviewed Mr. Peppers standing beside a jersey barrier in the middle of busy traffic in the honking heart of Times Square.  It was a great location.   And he was a great interview.  He’s a lawyer; he’s a talker. And he ended up being a great part of the finished RIDE ALONG THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY.

He’s passionate about his commitment to the Lincoln.  He’s the director of the New York Chapter of the new Lincoln Highway Association, but there’s only a mile or so of the highway in Manhattan before it heads west to the Hudson and New Jersey.  Short in length but high powered because of real estate, the New York stretch is important and exciting, and everybody in the association seems thrilled that a powerful attorney like Jerry is working on getting some recognition for the road in NYC.

I get the impression that Jerry really just loves cars and driving and all sorts of highways.  He did some preliminary research for a BARBECUE show (which he thinks I should do next) but I really love his idea for a series on NUMBERED HIGHWAYS.

That morning, Jerry had ridden south on the bus that was guided by LHA legend Russell Rein from Michigan.  Jerry said Russell talked lots of history, pointing out distinguishing marks of the Dixie Highway, and acknowledging the history of older Native American paths that established the basic route of this (and so many other) roads.  (Be sure also to check out the Comments on my entry #10 and Jim Grey’s website about the nineteenth-century Michigan Road, which also helped set the route of the Dixie Highway.)

Jerry said Russell also talked about Indiana’s prominence in the world of pork tenderloin sandwiches.  And having had a grilled tenderloin at the Whitehouse that morning, I was hoping Jerry might be willing to stop there at the Whitehouse now for a sample of their breaded tenderloin for dinner.  “I’m ready,” said Jerry.  Unfortunately, when we got to Logansport, the Whitehouse was closed.  We moaned and drove on.

But it wasn’t far to the Char-Bett, the cute little roadside ice cream and sandwiches place where I snapped some shots that morning.  We could get a tenderloin sandwich here.  I pulled in.  The place was obviously named for some Charlie and Betty, right?

It’s one of those places where you bend down to talk into the little window that’s a bit above waist high.  The girl at the window endorsed the tenderloin.  The guy I talked to that morning in the parking lot recommended the hamburgers but I can get hamburgers anywhere. 

We ordered tenderloins, fries and one order of fried cauliflower which was highly recommended by the girl at the window.

Last year in New York, Jerry took us for a delicious and memorable lunch at one of his favorite Italian restaurants, Tre Colori on West 47th.

Oh, perfect calamari and extraordinary grilled sardines! Great lively conversation, and dessert with Jerry’s wife Sue and daughter Amy.  It was pretty sublime.  He picked up that tab, so I insisted that I pay here at Char-Bett.

You can get served in your car with those hook-on-the-window trays that are mighty rare these days, but Jerry and I walked over to the picnic tables on the one side of the building.   As we waited, I noticed the little igloo that held an air conditioner or condensor unit of some sort.  Folk art.

Before our dinners were delivered, a huge 18-wheeler pulls onto the berm on the far side of the road.  A huge silver tanker truck.  The driver gets out, crosses to the Char-Bett, and almost immediately he’s jumping back up into the cab with a small brown paper bag.  We find out that truckers on the Dixie Highway often call ahead, put in their orders, then grab it to go in a flash.  The efficiency of the road.

Our dinners arrive.  Served even at the picnic table on one of those snazzy old trays.  The tenderloins are pure Indiana. The fries hot and crisp.  The fried cauliflower surprisingly tender and good.

I say we have to get ice cream because the guy in the parking lot that morning had said their ice cream was really good.  The three girls behind the counter are chatty now.  I ask for a vanilla cone, and I get a soft serve but Jerry gets a scoops of butter pecan.  The girls say all the ice cream is made here on the premises.  I am disappointed with my dull old soft serve.  The girls say I should have gotten real ice cream, and I say that’s what I expected.  They said they should have asked which I wanted:  soft serve or hard ice cream,  They have vanilla in both.  They suggest I try one of the more unusual flavors:  orange pineapple.  I say OK.  Two cones for dessert.  I ask if we can get a picture.  They are the Char-Bett beauties.

It’s a great little dinner.  A roadside moment.  Jerry and I hop into my Honda and head for South Bend, happy with our tenderloin sandwiches and the chatter at the Char-Bett.

I was up at 7, showered, shaved and dressed by 8:15, when I found the wireless now to be working fine, I went on line and found the conference schedule, and I learned that the busses to Indianapolis were loading at 7:45 to leave by 8.  I missed the bus.

I figured I could jump in my Honda Element immediately and get on their trail.  I could catch up with the busses.  Certainly I could drive the 130 miles to Indianapolis in time for the fancy lunch at the old Athenaeum Rathskellar where the visionary Carl Fisher held one of the first meetings that started the idea rolling for the creation of the Lincoln Highway.  And in order to get there, I would take the Dixie Highway which was another big successful project of the brilliant-idea-generator Carl Fisher who also created Miami Beach, the Indianapolis 500 and assorted other great American things.

The Conference brochure told me the routes that made up the Dixie Highway in Indiana:  US 31, IN 25, IN 29, US 421, and I mapquested the trip.  I got on the road as soon as I could.  I headed out of South Bend on Route 31 which soon became a divided four lane highway, and just as things were getting really dull, I got a text message from my editor and good friend Kevin Conrad back in Pittsburgh.  A text!  Why didn’t I think of this?  I could text my friend and Lincoln Highway historian Brian Butko who is probably on the tour bus!  He’s guided me on so many drives along the Lincoln, I’m sure he could be of help on the Dixie Highway.  But I had never exchanged text-messages while driving.  It’s insanely dangerous and distracting and probably leads to many accidents.  Call me irresponsible.

ME to BRIAN BUTKO:  Are you on the bus?

BB:  Yep

ME:  Still north of Kokomo?

BB:  In tiny town of Mateo.

ME:  I’m following, hoping to meet for lunch.

BB:  Cool!

ME:  Are you on some cool old route?  This 31 is boring.

BB:  No main road, not much to see.

ME:  Cool.  Then I’m not missing a lot?

BB:  It is 2 lane at Logansport // Just passed old Char Bett drive in rest – get a pic, we couldn’t!

ME:  I have no map.  Town names mean little.  What’s a Char Bett?

BB:  Named for owners.  Were stopping in Logansport  Can u use phone maps?

ME:  Duh.  I’m 22 miles north of Logansport.  Just got on 25.  Much better road.

BB:  Were @ Whitehouse wrestaurant – me & Kevin P

[Ah, that would be Kevin Patrick, geography professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and co-author with Brian of DINERS OF PENNSYLVANIA.  He's also featured in my show called UNDERGROUND PITTSBURGH.  I later found out that the busses stopped for a restroom break, and Brian and Kevin ran back to check out an intriguing little roadside eatery they'd spotted called The Whitehouse.]

ME:  Back on bus now? // Still 8 north of Logansport.

BB:  Yeah our illicit food stop slowed em down – pulling away now – The Whitehouse tenderloin place is a must-stop!

Meanwhile, I’ve spotted the aforementioned Char Bett and pulled over to get some pictures. 

While I was doing that, my SONY camera zonked out and so I had to use my iPhone camera for the rest of the day.  While I was snapping, a young man came out of the back of the Char Bett and asked, “What are you doing?”  And I said, “Oh, just taking some pictures.”  He then asked, “Why?” and I said “No reason.  It’s just a cool little place.”  “It is,” he agreed, “and it’s got a cool big house attached on back, and the whole thing’s for sale if you’re interested.”  He went back in.  The place wasn’t open yet, but it looked honest and genuine in a way that franchised places just can’t seem to duplicate. I got back in the car and started texting when I got back up to speed.

ME:  Guy at Char Bett wants to sell.  House included.

BB:   Hmm, got a house…  Just wanted a pic

When I get to Logansport and see the vintage Whitehouse, I have to take Brian’s advice and stop.

Butko and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on worthwhile stops, but this was a classic.  I snap some phone-pictures, and I don’t know how I did it but I got this great curved shot of the Whitehouse with a distorted road.  Like we’re seeing the curvature of the earth. 

I go inside.  The waitresses are fast and funny.  They recommend the grilled tenderloin.  I ask for one to go.

“Is this the best thing here?” I ask?  “No,” the redheaded waitress responds, “He is.  That’s Lester.  He’s been at the grill here for more than 50 years!”  I wish I could stay and eat breakfast but then I’ll never catch up.

ME:   Now I’m at Whitehouse.  Genuine.

BB:  Go in tell em yer with the bus tour nuts

[I'm eating and texting and calling up the iPhone Maps app as I drive.  Beware of me.]

ME:  Mmm.  Great loin.  Let me know if you stop again.

BB:  Yeah cool place.  Toolin along, near Michigantown 48 mi from Indy.

ME:  I was too busy eating, missed turn for 29.  Backtracking.

BB:  You’ll loin!

ME:  Ouch.

BB:  Were headed for cemetery where Fisher is buried.

ME:  I had to stop for gas & pee.  How will I recognize cemetery?

BB:  A mile past toll house & historical marker (4702 N Michigan) turn east @ 38th St, take to Boulevard Place, go south to 34th, rt into huge arched entrance.  It’s one of 190,000 graves!  Sec 13 lot 42.

ME:  Are you there?

BB:  No @ 53rd St

ME:  I’m still 25 miles out.

BB:  We’re nearing entrance

ME:  16th Street

BB:  We’re leavin but never saw Fisher!

[I found the Fisher Mausoleum picture on the great Find-A-Grave website.]

ME:  See you at lunch

BB:  Yep goin to Meridian St

ME:  Rathskellar right?

BB:  Yep @ Athenaeum 401 E Michigan // We’re pullin up

ME:  25th.  Is this what Twitter is all about?

BB:  Yeah but to everyone.

I got to the Athenaeum as the tour bus riders were filing into the front door.  I made it right on time.  I snap an iPhone picture and it’s again slightly distorted.

The lunch was German, and we were in the same building where Carl Fisher first proposed his coast-to-coast paved highway.  The Conference organizers had an actor come and play Carl Fisher, and all went according to plan.

I saw old friends, talked to Brian in the flesh, and I ate my lunch with Jerry Peppers, the New York lawyer who’s in my program and who this year succesfully got New York City to put up a sign acknowledging that the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway is at Times Square.  He says he’s not done campaigning yet.  He wants to get a plaque up on a building there, and if Time Square stays a pedestrian mall, maybe a concrete Terminus marker is a possibility too.

After lunch, Esther Queneau tips me off that she’s pretty sure the room where Carl Fisher had his meeting is just a few yards down the hall.  She knows the old photos of the event and recognizes some of the artifacts on the walls and the big fireplace with carved figures on both sides of the hearth.  I take a picture of Esther and Bernie there.

Then the busses load up, Jerry Peppers agrees to come with me in my car, and we all go to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Museum.  There we all get on another set of busses and go around the Indy 500 track.

And then some time to walk around the museum full of beautiful vintage race cars.

I love the yellow speedster that won the first 500.  It has what is believed to be the world’s first rear-view mirror on an automobile.  So much to learn.