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American Road Magazine
Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

"road Books"


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For those who are interested in what being on the road was like in yester-year, here are two good books.

 

The first, "By Motor To The Golden Gate", was written by Emily Post (yes, THE Emily Post) about her 1915 motor trip from New York to San Francisco with 22 year old son, Edwin, and her cousin Alice Beadleston. There are photos and numerous maps.

 

Somewhere over the next hill, or perhaps around the next corner, is a place called Diddy Waw Diddy - and that's the title of the 2nd book. "Diddy Waw Diddy", by Billy Porterfield, a former reporter for the Houston Chronicle, the Detroit Free Press, The Chicago Daily News and the Dallas Times Herald, is a memoir of life on the road in the 1930's and WWII. Billy's father was an oil field driller in the Oklahoma/Texas area and this book tells the story of their wanderings from one oil field to another in the family's 1938 Terraplane. The title comes from his mother telling everybody, when they were on the road from here to there, that they were headed for "Diddy Waw Diddy, a place where they'd live like arcadian lords and never have to leave".

Tho not strictly a "road" book, like "By Motor...........", it is, none-the-less, a story that chronicles the rootless life of so many family's during the depression - perhaps something like Steinbecks "Grapes of Wrath". Well worth reading.

 

Both books are still available thru amazon.com in paperback or thru abe.com (Diddy Waw Diddy available in hardcover).

 

If you buy I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

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