The Beginning

July 4, 2015

Finally, after long minutes of menus, the credit card customer service rep began asking questions about the dates and locations of the trip I was planning. When she asked which states I’d visit I pulled out my (yes, actual paper) map and started listing them. After eight or nine states the woman said, “wait, I don’t have room in my computer fields for more…”

And it was at that point I really looked at the map (after months of studying and planning) and felt just a tad overwhelmed. By the time I got to the second credit card company rep I had honed my reply to “everything west of Ohio and north of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.” (I really don’t have Michigan in my plan, but didn’t want to complicate the issue.) And, in truth, I will choose between Kansas and  Nebraska on my return circle home in six weeks, but why make all those decisions now?

So the plan is to begin with a 300-mile jaunt from Logan, Ohio to Dana, Indiana, which Don and I visited last September. Dana epitomizes one intent of my journey – to discover “realtown” America and listen to the stories of “realpeople” of the U.S.A. Ernie Pyle, journalist extraordinaire, was born in Dana in 1900 and made his mark as a journalist by telling the stories of real people, both as he traveled extensively across the U.S. and as a war correspondent. I will once again visit the small museum and home that is a re-creation of the one in which Ernie was born. And I will once again come from the dim interiors wiping tears from my cheeks, for Ernie was a person about which a story can be told, as well as a person who could tell a story.

I also am fascinated with John Steinbeck, whose three-month tour of the U.S. in 1960 to regain a perspective on real people resulted in “Travels with Charley.” Eerily, 55 years later, one of the issues Steinbeck was concerned with has re-bubbled to the surface in our nation – race relations was undergoing in 1960 what should have been pretty much settled 100 years prior. Now, in the year of 2015, it would seem our steps forward have melted as surely as our globe is warming.

My own humble career as a journalist began with freelancing stories for magazines and newspapers – writing while wearing gloves and hat at a Royal typewriter in the barely-above-freezing tower room of our “castle.” That was in 1972, the year before I graduated from Ohio University’s journalism program. I went on to work at two newspapers during the next 10 years as both a writer and photographer, then went back to college for a masters degree (which is still pending) and have continued writing and photographing till present. Throughout my career, telling stories of people has been my passion.

And so I set off two weeks from today with my canine friend, Lyla, to meet and listen to our fellow Americans. Lyla gets to have a voice in these journalist posts, so you will next get to hear from her.

Your observer,

Joy S. MillerUpton