On the old paper maps and the Rand McNally road atlas, rural two-lane highways were colored blue, the major Interstates were red.

The ‘blue highway’ mapped by the cartographers identified the more scenic routes, the backroads traveling through small towns. A quick glance at the map told you the blue route was definitely going to take more time then the red one in getting from point A to point B.

That was the inspiration for the 1982 memoir Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon, who documented his cross-country trip avoiding all major freeways.

That too is the inspiration for Backroads, Bars and Blue Highways. Although not all roads were backroads, some were eight lane freeways.

But there were always the bars …and the people, whether behind the bar or on a stool. The roads were for the scenery, I realize now that this is more the stories about the people met at those bars.

Or, if ever used as educational or historical reference material… many of the locations have historical and/or factual data in the text. However, many may contain language or images that someone could possibly consider objectionable in some way or fashion, and regardless of how ridiculous the objection may be and the fact that they were accessing and viewing a private url and in doing so may have committed at least two possible crimes; (a) hacking into a private domain without requesting or being granted permission, and, (2) every webpage on the site is included under the privacy description in the terms and agreements section. The terms and agreements section is one of a few that cover non-disclosure, privacy and the rules if a violation occurs. It’s lot of legal stuff, and well it should be!    Moving on.

My hope was to finish this before the people, the places and the memories fade.   Too late.

Sadly, many of the places no longer exist, and a greater sadness as many of the people mentioned within are no longer with us.

///years later

Well…shit.

Something went wrong as something always does and the site* had to be rebuilt, including this ‘preface’. What I originally wrote has faded from my memory. I do remember it was meaningful, yes, probably one of the most meaningful things I have ever written.  …and I remember reading it and thinking; hmm, that was a very well written preface. .

Too bad I can’t remember what it was, but I think it was something about the bars and the people in them, something good, I would think. Complimentary, for the most part, probably, of course, why wouldn’t it be?

* “WordPress. The root of the problem, but also the flower and the fruit as well.” ~David Gogel

Developed using a theme that the author later discontinued. Consequently it could not be updated and was not compatible with newer WordPress releases. Pages and post content was not easily accessible or in a format which could be reused or transferred. Lesson learned, but not applied. How can you get around it?