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Ben Stein's Diary
Not Cambridge
All roads lead to Knoxville — and beyond.
Tuesday
Here I am at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. It is a drizzly, cool day. I am heading off to fly to Knoxville, Tennessee, on a US Air flight. I have an uneasy feeling and now I know why. The smiling ticket agent who has been processing my ticket suddenly looks up from her computer screen and tells me the bad news.
“Your flight has just been canceled,” she says.
“Do you mean it’s delayed?” asks the meek passenger.
“No, I mean it’s not going,” she says cheerily.
“When’s the next flight?” I ask.
“Ten p.m.,” she says, “but that one might not go either. Our flights have been getting canceled all day.”
Oh, great. US Air is a fascinating airline. Incredibly terrible service and incredibly high fares. Good combination. The flight attendants and ticket clerks are fine, but the people who arrange the service don’t really care a lot about us passengers.
Anyway, I called my driver, Bob Noah, who had just dropped me off. He raced back and scooped me up and off we headed on Route 66 and then down mighty highway 81 into the Shenandoah Valley toward Knoxville. What a great guy he is. No clothes, no reservation, just changes his plans on a dime for little me. What a GREAT GUY!!!
The truth is that I love being driven. I’m like a dog. I love going for rides with my human driver, in this case, Bob. Plus, the Shenandoah Valley is beautiful. Green rolling hills. Valleys. Passes. Small towns with cute little gas stations. We stopped at one in the tiny hamlet of Buchanan, which, for some odd reason, the man at the gas station pronounced “Buckhannon.” Oddly, even though it was early April, snow fell on and off, along with a cold rain. I took videos from the back seat of the scenery and sent them to my pals with my fabulous Verizon Voyager handheld phone computer miracle machine.
I slept for a really long time and soon we were in the outskirts of Knoxville. Well, not that soon. It took eight hours. But what the heck? I didn’t have to drive, so no problemo. Actually, Houston, we do have a problem. We got very lost. The directions someone had printed for Bob Noah really were poor and we wound up in some godforsaken suburb. A kindly Realtor working late in his office gave us directions to our hotel, but we couldn’t follow them. Miracle! My Verizon Voyager had a built-in navigator. I simply entered the hotel’s address and a talking woman in the phone and a tiny little map showed us the way to the hotel, block by block.
I had called the only person I know who hails from Knoxville, the beautiful Kay Kinkaid, and gotten a dinner reservation suggestion for a place called Chesapeake. Bob and I walked there in bitter cold rain and had a good meal while watching the hapless Michigan State squad get killed by the mighty Tarheels. Actually, I do know someone else near there. A lovely woman named Jennifer who lives in Maryville, a small town nearby. But I was too tired by then to call anyone. Back to my room and into a deep sleep.
Wednesday
NOW, THIS IS THE KIND OF DAY a man lives for. I got up, rendezvoused with Bob, got into his car, and headed off to brunch at a sparkling new Waffle House. Get this: The All-Star Breakfast served all day. Two eggs any style. Toast with butter and jam. Bacon or sausage. Potatoes or grits. Seven dollars and ninety-nine cents. Made fresh before your eyes. How can you beat it? It is perfection in a meal.
Then over a scary mountain pass where a middling snow was falling. Past a million fireworks stands and motels. Into a forest. Then down the mountain and into Williamsburg, Kentucky, and the University of the Cumberlands.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
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Jay| 6.11.09 @ 6:42AM
Mr. Stein is the intellectual first breath of spring. That first soft wind carrying a hint of warmth; the scent of life renewed. I have long been a fan of his because he seeks and writes about the just plain good that is the soul of America.
He is the antithesis of the Hollywood narcissistic culture, finding smiles for us to share in a Waffle House; or at the cash register in a gas station. Mr. Stein is to be commended for his efforts on behalf of our young men and women who choose to put them selves in harm's way so that we may be free of attacks by adherents of a stone age religion demanding death as some sort of murderous tribute to its fanged, vampire god who needs to drink endlessly of the blood of others.
Mr Stein,I thank you for your views; columns and travel-tales. I enjoy them immensely.
Michael Jay| 6.11.09 @ 7:11AM
Ben gets it regarding the blessings of the simplicities of life in Red State America. Last night my beloved and I marvelled at the fact that I went to close up the chicken coop just as a racoon was about to enter and get our chickens. Good timing! Then we sat on the front porch of our Arkansas home and gazed at a rainbow and enjoyed the fireflies, believing that God was putting on a show just for us. This morning, just before dawn, we delighted in a nearly-full moon and the planet Venus decorating our rural front yard.
Phil Hoey| 6.11.09 @ 7:29AM
Ben: Isn't life great outsite the Beltway!!!! Those of us who never moved very far from home need to get out more.
TennesseeVolunteer| 6.11.09 @ 7:48AM
I just returned from the funeral of my Mom in small town America, Mt. Healthy, Ohio. Being with my salt of the earth family..people with real jobs, raising their families, loving each other.
My cousins organized a luncheon after the funeral, my sisters were exhausted from taking care of my sick MOM for two months and sons, like me, from out of town aren't much good at setting a luncheon up at last minute. We had home made cakes, potato salad (no better german potato salad than in Mt. Healthy!), lots of beer (German again).
As usual, there was a private plane that circled the cemetary (a private plane circles the cemetary every time we lose a loved one in that town ever since my Uncle Barney died, he loved planes! We can't explain it but it has happened four times in a row).
When I read Ben's articles, I appreciate these times even more. It is a shame Mr. Obama did not grow up in my town with the love of a family like mine around him. He would have been the President he should be. If he had marched in Memorial Day parades, played for my Catholic grade school football team, gone to Daily Mass every school day for eight years,done the Pledge of allegiance to start the class day every day, sold candy to the neighbors to raise money for a band trip, cut the grass every week, searched for pop bottles to get the two cents deposit, put baseball cards in the spokes of your bike to make noise, built your own jitney with the motor of an old lawn mower, buy firecrackers on 4th of July, play kick the can every night in the neighborhood...he might understand all of us better.....Thanks Ben for continuing to point out what is really real.
ARealist| 6.11.09 @ 9:15AM
Once again an otherwise very wise and commen-sensical individual, Ben Stein, draws the wrong conclusions in regards to Obama.
Obama is NOT desirous of placing lawyers on trial for rendering opinions or for disarming the USA because he is "listening" to the wrong folks.
Obama pursues these objectives because HE, OBAMA, believes in this rubbish.
He is a MARXIST, and like all Marxists believes that the USA and capitalism are the root of all evil in the world and are, in fact, the worst thing this planet has ever been exposed to.
Ergo, Obama's goal is simply to destroy the USA ; politically , economically and socially.
He is simply a 5th columnist that has pulled off the biggest coup d'etat in world history, courtesy of our ignorant electorate.
He is rapidly rendering the USA bankrupt and will very soon have the US dollar worth a Weimar Reichsmark; best to get out those wheelbarrows now.
The speed with which he is accomplishing these goals is simply breathtaking.
If you think I am crazy, please witness the disaster in California, in which the state legislature - the most politically coincident with the ruling extreme left wing democratic rulers in the US Congress and Obama - still insists that more govt., more control, more taxes, more bureaucracy is the solution to their mess.
All countries that have fallen under the Marxist system have had their economies disappear into the toilet and the standard of living of its denizens go with it straight into the sewer.
This is 100% intentional, because misery, poverty and malaise all promote the centralization of power in the hands of the ruling, elitist, mostly millionaire, "progressive" ruling class.
Obama knows this and he is simply following the Marxist M.O.
Ben Stein, please stop giving Barack Hussein Obama the benefit of the doubt. His actions are purposeful, deliberate, destructive and truly wicked and harmful.
Tom| 6.11.09 @ 10:53AM
ARealist is 100% correct and I have heard this from many. He is the instrument of destruction of all that is good in this world. The definition of evil.
Sorceressss| 6.11.09 @ 11:26AM
I agree with ARealist 100% as well. I live in Wisconsin and the same thing that is happening in CA is happening here only worse. Our budget deficit is one of the highest in the nation and our idiot Liberal Democratic govenor, senate and congress are even now, trying to pass a budget that taxes EVERYTHING. They've left no stone unturned to find places to tax us. If this is where (N)Obama is leading us, then we are all in very much trouble. I only hope I still recognise the United States in 4 years.....
chicagobutamerican.anyway| 6.11.09 @ 11:41AM
Random thoughts:
1. Ben is a genius.
2. Arealist is also correct.
3. jim Doyle and obama: full blown idiots
Me, Myself, & I| 6.13.09 @ 9:48AM
Ben's right about middle America. Those who live on the coasts and who sneeringly refer to the rest of the country as "flyover country" are really missing out on what makes being an American so special. But then again, if they were to know about Searcy and Williamsburg, they might be tempted to visit, and those towns would be less special as a result. No, it's better for the elitists to believe that the middle of the country is little more than trailer parks and meth labs and to continue to fly over it. We know better... but, "shhh!" don't tell anyone. ;)