Since its publication in 1982, Blue Highways has become a significant part of American travel literature. In the book, William Least Heat-Moon (the pen name of William Trogdon) explores the country's backroads "in search of places where change did not mean ruin and where time and men and deeds connected."
In this passage from Chapter 14 of Blue Highways, Least Heat-Moon describes a cafe in Darlington, South Carolina. Note his reliance on detailed lists to convey a sense of place.
The Deluxe Cafe in Darlington
from Blue Highways* by William Least Heat-Moon
Then Darlington, a town of portico and pediment, iron fences, big trees, and an old courthouse square that looked as though renovated by a German buzz bomb. But on the west side of the square stood the Deluxe Cafe. The times had left it be. The front window said AIR CONDITIONED in icy letters, above the door was neon, and inside hung an insurance agency calendar and another for an auto parts store. Also on the walls were the Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance, a picture of a winged Jesus ushering along two kids who belonged in a Little Rascals film, and the obligatory waterfall lithograph. The clincher: small, white, hexagonal floor tiles. Two old men, carrying their arms folded behind, stopped to greet each other with a light, feminine touching of fingertips, a gesture showing the duration of their friendship. I went in happy.
I expected a grandmother, wiping her hands on a gingham apron, to come from the kitchen. Instead I got Brenda. Young, sullen, pink uniform, bottlecaps for eyes, handling her pad the way a cop does his citation book. The menu said all breakfasts came with grits, toast, and preserves. I ordered a breakfast of two eggs over easy. "Is that all you want?"
"Doesn't it come with grits and so forth?"
"Does if you ast fort."
"I want the complete, whole thing. Top to bottom."
She snapped the pad closed. I waited. I read the rest of the menu, the Gettysburg Address, made a quick run over the Pledge of Allegiance, read about famous American women on four sugar packets, read a matchbook and the imprints on the flatware. I was counting grains of rice in the saltshaker (this was the South), when Brenda pushed a breakfast at me, the check slick with margarine and propped between slices of toast. The food was good and the sense of the place fine, but Brenda was destined for an interstate run-em-thru. Early in life she had developed the ability to make a customer wish he'd thrown up on himself rather than disturb her.
Selected Works of Nonfiction by William Least Heat-Moon
- Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, 1982
- PrairyErth (A Deep Map), 1991
- River-Horse: Across America by Boat, 1999
- Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, 2008
* Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat-Moon was published by Little, Brown and Company in 1982. The book is currently available in a paperback edition published by Back Bay Books (1999).
