Road-Trip-Back-Roads-Only-Bob Davis Podcast 839

Road-Trip-Back-Roads-Only-Bob Davis Podcast 839

Whenever I feel like I am in a rut these days, a road trip is always the best medicine. Even more a road trip on the back roads. I’ll tell you all about it in Road-Trip-Back-Roads-Only-Bob Davis Podcast 839.

Mobile Podcast Command has been up and down both coasts. I’ve traveled in this old ambulance across the Midwest, out west, out east, around Florida and the gulf coast many times. Lately though I have become a back roads snob.

Especially relevant is my new mantra. Unless it is absolutely necessary, I prefer the old National Highway system, state roads, county roads or even rural routes. I feel this is where you really get a feel for what’s going on in this country.

Moreover big city people and especially big city media people seem to harbor a belief that there is something sinister and dangerous about rural America.

In Road-Trip-Back-Roads-Only-Bob Davis Podcast 839 I wonder whether some people can travel back roads, and see small town and rural America for what it is, without judgement. Because there is a lot to like about some of the places I have been.

It’s most noteworthy that the lessons you learn hitting America’s back roads seem to coalesce in your mind a few weeks after the trip is over. In addition, I have crisscrossed parts of this country so many times I’ll remember an experience I had, but forget just exactly where it happened.

What’s important in rural America? For one thing, small business and local business.

As I blog I am sitting in a shopping center parking lot about fifty miles south of Roanoke. I’ve rolled through Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and now Virginia.

Truth is some of those back roads are really back roads. Switchbacks through the mountains.

In conclusion, the best part of it all? You get to enjoy all this amazing scenery without being bothered. Usually you’re the only vehicle on the road.

It’s been that way most of this trip, and it’s well worth the effort.

Sponsored by Reliafund Payment Processors

Road-Trip-Back-Roads-Only-Bob Davis Podcast 839

 

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Bonnie-Clyde-1930s-America-Bob Davis Podcast 830

Bonnie-Clyde-1930s-America-Bob Davis Podcast 830

Nothing Sweeter Than The 1930’s

If you study history you know we all have our favorite periods. These days I turn more and more to 1930’s America. Specifically the story of Bonnie and Clyde. Learn more in Bonnie-Clyde-1930s-America-Bob Davis Podcast 830.

Highwaymen

There’s a new movie on Netflix called ‘Highwaymen‘. The movie details the search for Bonnie and Clyde and their inevitable end and stars Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson. I like this movie because it does a better job telling more of the real story, than other efforts.

The Ford V8

Especially relevant to the story is the automobile and the then new national highway system. For Clyde Barrow there was no equal to the then brand new Ford V-8. This was Barrow’s number one choice to steal. Bonnie Parker died with a map of the old national highway system on her lap.

National Highway System

Most noteworthy Barrow was famous for covering as much as a thousand miles in one day in one of his stolen Ford V-8’s. The duo sped across New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota and Kansas on those brand new blacktopped two lane interstate highways, and many a dirt road or field during their crime sprees.

Depression and Crime

The height of the depression in the early 1930’s comes down to us in faded black and white photos, and speed graphic newspaper photos taken in tourist camps, abandoned farms and failed banks. Yet the people then, experienced it in color. Find out why this era fascinates me in Bonnie-Clyde-1930s-America-Bob Davis Podcast 830.

Criminal Minds

Finally there is this question of criminal behavior. Bonnie and Clyde have a special place in 1930’s history. To a certain degree their story line is a lie. Foolish young people pushed into a life of crime by life circumstances? Or criminals that terrorized local communities across the rural Midwest?

Mystery and Legend

In conclusion Highwaymen, three books I read before for a podcast I did about the mystery and legend of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. Those links are here. I did these podcasts because so many inaccuracies and lies have become part of Bonnie and Clyde lore.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating Of Saint Paul

Bonnie-Clyde-1930s-America-Bob Davis Podcast 830

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Podcast 206

Boardwalk Empire and the 1920’s. A new guilty pleasure and obsession is HBO’s award winning ‘Boardwalk Empire’. 1920’s America was a time of great upheaval, social change and prosperity. Innovations like Radio, telephones, automobiles, commercial flight, electricity and mass production enabled some to make enormous sums, but also created a burgeoning middle class. As the nation’s wealth doubled, the Jazz Age began. Prohibition, depressed crop prices, waning unions and progressivism, the shift of population from small towns to cities gives this era real bite. What’s not to like about the 1920’s. ‘Boardwalk Empire’ is doing a great job showing the good – and the bad – from 1920’s America. If your image of the 1920’s is crowds milling around Wall Street in October of 1929, you’re really thinking about the 1930’s. In fact the 1920’s was an era throughly embraced by its young people, for its raw growth, music and opportunity. But it was also an America that had not been fully transformed by a national ‘image’, a time when cities were smaller (Chicago only could claim 2.5 million citizens), and every place still still claim some level of ‘uniqueness’. Even train travel as we know it today was still relatively new. Still ahead was the depression, the run up to World War II, and the post war world. Behind the 192o’s was World War I. It was a time of peace and prosperity. Generally speaking, good times. How does this era compare to the 1920’s? What kinds of discoveries, innovations and developments are on the horizon to explode, and transform our world – for the better – if and when prosperity returns? Sponsored by Autonomouscad.com. 

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