Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am from south of Philadelphia, south of expectations, and currently, south of the Allegheny river.
Pennsylvania Turnpike, I Love You
The Pennsylvania Turnpike stretches 360 miles past rest stops, thorough tunnels, and beside towns that mean nothing to anyone except the people who live in them, and though it is mostly indistinguishable from every other turnpike in America, it is my favorite.
I take the turnpike on my way to and from college. I leave from Philadelphia and get off at Pittsburgh, trading one city for the other. The Rocky Statue and the Cathedral of Learning have split custody over me.
In Autumn the turnpike is surrounded by changing leaves on mountains that are so beautiful that you think it should cost money, and it does. 70 dollars each way, with your EZ-Pass. The money loads straight off your card and you don’t notice it until you’ve settled on either side and your credit card company tallies what you owe for the month. I tell myself it’s worth it, I don’t have much of a choice. I feel cosmically pulled to either side of the state every few months, and I am unwilling to add the extra two hours to avoid the tolls.
Turnpikes are measured by mile markers, but for me, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is measured by landmarks.
The road is defined mostly by disasters. Three and a half hours in, you pass the spot where I watched my friend threw up after being told her ex-girlfriend was dating someone else. An hour and three minutes from my house are the tire marks in the median where I swerved to miss a ladder in the road and crashed my car instead. A minute further is the spot where two women stopped and loaded all Lily’s and my things into their own small car. 30 minutes after that, the exit where they dropped us off at a gas station to wait for our Dad.
Sprinkled across the state are emergency pull-off areas where I’ve had to wait out rain or snow. Both of the used cars I’ve owned were the exact color of precipitation, making me completely disappear in a storm. The weather always seems to be bad when I travel the four hours between my two homes. I haven’t figured out the significance of that yet.
In the middle of the trip, a billboard advertises my university. There are white words across a photo of earth taken from space. It says something about opportunities. The billboard doesn’t mention the stained-glass window in the library, or the creek rushing with water after it rains. It doesn’t mention that at some point during my sophomore year, I started calling my dorm room home. I think it should.
✶✶✶
The Pennsylvania Turnpike is not all that different from any other road. The sidewalk outside of your childhood home is likely identical to countless other concrete slabs across the world. I don’t care that the turnpike was the first of its kind, or that other superhighways used it as a standard for design and engineering.
What makes it special is that its mine.
In 1969 Vaughn Horton wrote and recorded a tribute to the roadway titled “Pennsylvania Turnpike, I Love You.” He ends the song with the endearing line “I’m stuck on you.”
In my last February of college, Lily, sent me a link to an apartment in downtown Pittsburgh. It looked horrible from the outside, and not much better from the inside. There are boarded up and poorly-painted-over fireplaces in every room. The rent was high and there was no in-unit laundry.
But I signed the lease anyway. In Pittsburgh is my life, my future, who I want to be and can become. In Philadelphia is my family, my past, and who I was. I plan to visit often.
Pennsylvania Turnpike, I too am stuck on you.
I’m glad I am.
