Wisecracking Across America - 57. Chapter 57

Thursday, July 8, 1999

Our supposedly easy day's drive got chewed all to pieces. The plan was to hang out with Tom's mom till late afternoon, then drift the less than two hours to Scottsdale, to have dinner, then stay, with some of Tom's friends. But when we got there, Syd's mother was too sick for me even to be introduced, though Tom, who's known the family for years, did sit by her bedside. The dog trotted in and out as well, but I was confined to the living room.

I studied the map. We were two days from home, and our next stop was Victorville, to pay respects to Roy and Dale. She was still alive and supposedly frequented the ranch gift shop, so I thought we might even get to say, "Howdy." But Victorville was too far to go that night, since it was almost dinnertime, and though it was suggested, we didn't really want to stay in a motel in suburban Scottsdale,

"Syd's mom might be better in the morning," Tom offered. "We could all have breakfast."

He didn't sound convinced though, so we soon pushed on. But not before the dog made an unscheduled romp of the neighborhood.

"I thought she was with you," I said.

"I thought she was with you."

We dug out the horn, and then she was back, doing her Clever Puppy dance. Nothing more fun than starting heart attacks.

Wickenburg seemed to be a pleasant hour north, along a larger road than I would have chosen, but, as consolation, it was designated Scenic.

Seemed.

Designated.

Route 60 was actually an ugly, two-hour crawl through industrial parks, finally relieved---relieved?---by miles of cellblock retirement condos. Sun City? El Mirage? Not places I wanted to be. When we reached Wickenburg, it was dark, and, as we were eating dinner, I wished it had stayed that way.

Our waiter was another one of those dueling banjo kids---squinty-eyed, pale, and fish-faced like pictures of dead Jesse James. I wasn't sure whether to order or give him all my money. The dining room was overly-friendly Andy Griffith, six different kinds of flowered wallpaper fighting it out. And maybe that was fitting, 'cause Merv Griffin had an expensive horse spa just down the road. We could've been eating race track losers.

But the motel had a history: it was the first Best Western. Back in the thirties, this family of earnest-but-desperate Clampetts coaxed their flivver west till it croaked in Wickenburg---what a place to die. "Fate just chose it for us," Ma is cheerily quoted on the plasticized menu, and, once there, they abandoned their previous lives: he was something like an accountant; she was a grade-school teacher. Instead, they cooked in a greasy spoon. This was the Depression. You took what you could find. Eventually, they bought the diner they slaved in, then expanded their franchise to the motel across the street.

Still, people weren't exactly flocking to Wickenburg. World War II helped---the Army built a glider school nearby and trained thousands of men. Then, construction of the Phoenix-To-California Highway---dull Route 60 to us---turned Wickenburg into The Dude Ranch Capital of the World. Billboards and brochures steadily exhort people to come "Out Wickenburg Way," but I'm not sure where the phrase began. Not with Henry Wickenburg, I suspect. He was merely prospecting gold in the 1860's when he staked out the Vulture Mine. That eventually produced 30 million bucks, but somehow spared the town being named Vultureburg. Still, getting back to our family: by 1946, the oldest of the kids went off to college, in California. Of course, everyone had to visit---one hopes in a more dependable car---and where else would they stay but a motel? Papa liked what he saw and ended up chatting with the owner. Neither bought the other out, this was too early for that kind of greed, though they did form the first independent motel chain: Best Western. (B is for the Beautyrest you sleep on. E is 'cause there's Everything to Eat...)

Or something like that: names and facts have been changed to protect the absent-minded. And, over the years, the motel had been expanded with success. The restaurant, too, which was sold, then franchised, then---when that expansion was botched by overstepping new owners---bought back by the family---gotta protect the ancestral name. On its dining room walls are many pictures, one of the still-existent, now hyphenately-named clan. Ma is somewhat shrunken in her wheelchair and breathing though a tube, but there are lots of business-minded offspring.

For breakfast, we were back in the restaurant, kind of by default. There were other places in town, The Refried Bean, for one, but they weren't air-conditioned. Not Air-Conditioned! And I'd started getting sticky even as I dried from my shower. As unfortunately, our waiter was the zombie-twin of the guy last night.

"You're sure it's not the same one?" Tom whispered when the ghoul was away.

I didn't want to look that carefully, direct eye-contact sometimes bringing out chain saws. But I was almost positive the other waiter had a skimpy moustache.

Breakfast was just as greasy as it probably had been in the thirties, but it went down easy. Leaving, we paused in their gift store---you knew there had to be one. Tom bought a small bronze lizard---I don't know why. I happened on postcards of the Mona Lisa done in Southwest colors and decked out as a tanned Native American. Trying not to laugh rudely till I got free of the store, I bought every one.

240 miles