SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the legendary Route 66. In 1984, as the last stretch of the highway was being bypassed by the Federal Interstate System, The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, traveled the length of 66 and made a documentary for NPR. Today, we're re-airing (ph) a portion of their homage to this historic American ghost road. Our narrator is actor David Selby.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE KITCHEN SISTERS PRESENT")
DAVID SELBY: John Steinbeck called it The Mother Road - 66 - the first continuous span of paved highway linking East and West. From the corner of Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue in Chicago, it ran more than 2,000 miles to the Pacific Ocean. From its beginnings in the 1920s until the federal interstate system replaced it 50 years later, U.S. 66 was the most traveled route in the country. Today, all that remains are unconnected fragments of the old road and memories of the highway that was once known as The Main Street of America.
BOBBY TROUP: My first wife and I were eating at a Howard Johnson's...
SELBY: Songwriter, Bobby Troup.
TROUP: ...And looking at the road map, and she looked at me. She went, why don't you write a song about Route 40? And I said, well, that's kind of silly because we're going to pick up Route 66 right outside of Chicago and then take it all the way into Los Angeles. So we're driving along, when she said, get your kicks on Route 66. I said, God, that's a marvelous idea for a song. And then I thought, if you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that's the best, get your kicks - and I finished the lines from Chicago to LA, more than 2,000 miles on the way. They have a scale on road maps, you know. And I remember taking a ruler and seeing how many inches it was from Chicago to LA and was over 2,000 (laughter) - I counted over 2,000 miles away.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(GET YOUR KICKS ON) ROUTE 66")
NAT KING COLE: (Singing) Get your kicks on Route 66.
GLADYS CUTBERTH: In the year of 19 and 26, when the government named it Route 66, it was barely just cow trails, but they still called it Route 66. Their ultimate goal was just to have a two-lane paved highway from Chicago to your West coast.
JACK CUTBERTH: That was back when there wasn't any highways hardly, see. Sixty-six was just boards. And one car at a time could travel on those boards, see, over the desert.
SELBY: As work on the highway began, a 66 Association was formed by the owners of businesses and attractions to develop and advertise the route. Jack Cutberth was the executive secretary of the 66 Association for over 30 years. Jack's wife, Gladys...
G CUTBERTH: He was called Mr. 66. He promoted it from the time he got up of a morning till he went to bed at night. He just ate it up. He lived it. That was his first love. I came second (laughter).
SELBY: Another 66 booster was Lyman Riley, who worked the cave and cavern business in the Ozarks for over 50 years.
LYMAN RILEY: It was The Main Street of America. This is what we tried to get people to believe that - well, you have the side streets and so forth, but the main attractions were all on 66 - Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Santa Monica Beach.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
G CUTBERTH: In the early days, they had a lot of curio shops. They were thick between here and California. They would offer anything from a pit full of rattlesnakes to Indian moccasins.
J CUTBERTH: Well, there was one right out of Afton, Oklahoma. They had unusual chickens. Some of them taught the chickens to ring bells, play pianos and anything to get you to stop so they get you into a bunco game. One of the best ones at Sanders, Arizona - signs all along the way. See the burl (ph) with a human head.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SELBY: The hard times of the 1930s found thousands of people on the road traveling Route 66. For some, it was a way out, a long path west, away from the dust and depression of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas. For others, like musician Clarence Love, Route 66 was a way of life.
CLARENCE LOVE: First time I came, and they didn't have any clubs here. So I opened a club. I named it Clarence Love Lounge, and it was an instant hit in the city of Tulsa. Jam sessions - Lionel Hampton, Buddy Johnson, Route 66, boy, Nat King Cole, top musicians - those are bands that traveled 66.
WOODY GUTHRIE: I remember the particular evening of April the 14, 1935, that this dust storm here blowed (ph) up.
SELBY: Singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie.
GUTHRIE: We had seen dust storms of every other different color, flavor, description, shade, design. And I'm telling you, it got so black when that thing hit, I just said, well, this is the end. This is the end of the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GRAPES OF WRATH")
HENRY FONDA: (As Tom) Where's my folks, Muley?
JOHN QUALEN: (As Muley) Why they gone. Going out to California. Your folks, my folks, everybody's folks.
STUDS TERKEL: When I think of the '30s, the Depression, and the move westward by the Okies, Arkies, too, those from Arkansas, to the land of milk and honey, California, all of us think of that highway, Highway 66.
SELBY: Historian and writer Studs Turkle.
STUDS TERKEL: That's the one that John Steinbeck, of course, memorializes in his great novel of the '30s, "The Grapes Of Wrath." Highway 66 is the main migrant road - refugees from dust and shrinking land, 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILL ROGERS HIGHWAY")
GUTHRIE: (Singing) My 66 highway, this Will Rogers road. It's lined with jalopies as far as you can see.
SELBY: Greg Ganning (ph) grew up in Chicago, taking family vacations along Route 66.
GREG GANNING: We would take off for our heaven-on-Earth spot, the Mickey Mantle Holiday Inn in Joplin, Missouri. It was a shrine for my brother and I.
MICKEY MANTLE: We had my trophies all around the walls, It was called The Dugout, which was the lounge.
SELBY: Mickey Mantle.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #1: Yogi Berra on first base. Mickey Mantle...
MANTLE: And we had a Yogi Berra suite and a Billy Martin suite and a Whitey Ford suite. I guess probably the most important thing that ever happened to me is I started playing for the Baxter Springs Whiz Kids. Their ballpark was right on Highway 66. Tom Greenway, who was a Yankee scout, was driving by there one day when we was having a game, and I hit three home runs. All three of them went in the river, which was a long ways off. If I hadn't been for Highway 66, I probably wouldn't have been a Yankee.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SELBY: October 1984.
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR #2: This weekend near Williams, Arizona, the last 5 miles of Route 66 will be bypassed. It will be possible to drive from Chicago to Los Angeles without a stoplight.
(SOUNDBITE OF HARMONICA MUSIC)
SELBY: From John Steinbeck's "Grapes Of Wrath."
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: (Reading) And here's a story you can hardly believe, but it's true, and it's funny, and it's beautiful. There was a family of 12, and they were forced off the road. They had no car. They built a trailer out of junk and loaded it with their possessions. They pulled it to the side of 66 and waited. And pretty soon, a sedan picked them up. The man who pulled them fed them. And that's true. But how can such courage be and such faith in their own species? Very few things would teach such faith. But people in flight from the terror behind, strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.
(SOUNDBITE OF HARMONICA MUSIC)
DETROW: You can listen to The Kitchen Sisters' entire journey down Route 66 on their podcast "The Kitchen Sisters Present."
(SOUNDBITE OF HARMONICA MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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