Innocents on the Lamb

  I tried to read to get through the boredom of the miles, never fully appreciating how wide America was until having it rumble under the wheels of the bus. How did the pioneers endure it traveling at ten miles an hour rather than 60, mile after mile after mile passing by the window, looking – for the most part – primarily the same. Inside the bus, the other passengers looked as bored as I felt, some staring out at the empty space of the roadside in search of some easy distraction. Others dosed or read or talked in whispers to their seat mates, the content I did not catch. At Catoosa, we were greeted by a huge, blue whale made of stone and a sign called it The Big Blue Whale, a water attraction that featured an open mouth displaying its teeth, a big white eye, a hole on top, and a series of holes along its forehead, with a gap in the back, and a water slide out its side. No water showed around it anywhere nor splashing kids. Perhaps it was the wrong season, yet I got the feelin

    Billboards on the roadside outside the bus boasted of the world's largest totem pole on display at Foyil just a mile or so away. I staggered to my seat and struggled to light a cigarette when I got there; Mrs. Warton reached over and squeezed my arm.   "Don't you think you should wipe the lipstick off your face?" she asked. I nodded, dug a dug a handkerchief out of my suit jacket pocket and rubbed the red revelation from around my mouth. Foyil passed, and so did its celebrated totem pole, although it was not a pole at all, but a brown, mud-looking business with a door at its center and several windows leading up to its tapered top. A smaller building beside it, echoed its shape although this second one lacked windows or doors. Someone had decorated both with Indian art, whether a white man's marketing ploy or a legitimate Native American effort I could not tell, though electric wires stretched between the two structures, connecting them to the more