American Quilt

BUFFALO, New York – It’s the America I’ve long wanted to see. Far from the asphalt jungles and forests of concrete, steel, and glass skyscrapers of the mega cities.
One enters another – and more pleasant – world in the great American universe, as it were, in small-town USA. That is the countryside, the pocket of communities by the network of well-paved highways paralleled north to south and crisscrossing east to west, farther, way farther than the bespectacled eye can see.
A 398.7 mile-ride from Philadelphia to Niagara – taking all of nine hours, including periodic “relief stops” – makes more a deeply absorbing than a simply observing experience. One not only sees, but also feels America. One gets enwrapped and enraptured in the colorful American quilt, to idiomize it.
Green America – its towering pines, shady maples, mighty oaks and assortment of other hardwoods line up the rising, sloping, meandering interstate highway through the Poconos and the Appalachian mountain ranges; a kaleidoscope of wild blooms carpeting the road shoulders and the dividing lanes.
Here and there, white-washed picket-fenced houses and spired little churches make picture postcard perfection in summer green. “Even better in burnt-orange fall, and best in winter white,” my sister-in-law Agnes Fuentes was quick to add.
So do the ubiquitous red barns and white or gray grain silos amid rows upon rows of green and gold cornfields, some so terraced they reminded one of our own wonders of Banawe.
Silver, shimmering silver flashes where the Keuka, Canandaigua and Conesus Lakes manage to peek from their emerald blinds. Can’t help but think fish, especially when the township Trout Run comes in sight. And there’s Canton too, to top off this culinary mindset.
Speaking of food, one never goes hungry on the interstate highways. Rest stops are a combo of restaurants – MacDonald’s, Denny’s, Dunkin’ Do-nuts, KFCs, Starbucks, etc. – gas stations, and even hotels. And the rest rooms there are divine, from a Third World perspective. Mostly no-touch sensors do the work of flushing, washing, and even dispensing paper hand towels.
A journey this delightful is a joy by itself. Hence, the bored and agitated “Ain’t we there yet?” did not even come to mind in our group of eight in a Dodge Grand Caravan – the wife and her sisters Agnes and Celia with husband Edgar, cousins Bing and Boy with wife Jessie.
Joy turns to awe upon reaching the journey’s end – mighty, spectacular, Niagara Falls.
The feeling is wanting for words to describe. It is akin to a religious, nay, spiritual awakening. An epiphany, even. I saw Niagara and the first thing that came to mind was to praise God for this wonderful creation. Sprayed all over by its mist, I felt a new baptism, a renewal, a new closeness to Him. God bless America. This America.