The Road Trip

I recently took a road trip in the Midwest from St. Louis with my old (and I do mean old) friend Martin Sneider. You undoubtedly recall that Martin is the author of a memoir of his retailing career entitled “Toast: from Toast of the Town to Just Plain Toast”. Actually I find this title inspirational for my own future memoir if I can identify a subject that involves buttered bagels. The first part of the trip from St. Louis north, was prompted by my long held bucket list ambition to visit the University of Notre Dame on a football weekend. From the beauty of the campus to the rollicking tailgate encampment to the celebratory mood of a massive number of folks with connections real or imagined to and in support of the institution to the pageantry of the marching band playing the fight song to the packed stadium, this visit exceeded my highest expectations. Particularly inspiring were the portraits of Notre football coaching icons such as Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy and Lew Holtz as we entered the stadium and the band’s renditions of America the Beautiful and The Star Spangled Banner. And the Fighting Irish football team treated 80,000 fans to a big victory over the Wolfpack of North Carolina State. This experience was made even more special by the fact that our sons Mark Sneider and Nick Ostroff were with us.

Before and after the trip to Notre Dame, we hit old haunts in Chicago. Chicago has had its challenges in recent years but it is a beautiful city. On a warm sunny fall weekend the city was enhanced by more than 54,000 participants in the Chicago Marathon and their supporters. Martin and I dragged our sons to Pizzeria Due’s and Gibson’s Steakhouse. Due’s has the world’s best deep dish pizza and is a place that I visited dozens of times during the four harsh winters I spent in Chicago. (Have I mentioned that Chicago is not a place fit for human habitation during the winter months?) Gibson’s is a very popular steak joint that is hard not to love.

All in all a wonderful way to check off one of the items on my bucket list. Lamentably, that list grows longer as my life expectancy diminishes but I must do it while I can.

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The second part of the trip from St. Louis south provided a helpful reminder of how different our southern California bubble is from the rest of the country. I do not pretend that this trip is akin to Margaret Mead’s visits to New Guinea or Samoa but there are undeniable similarities not limited to observations of the customs and habits of some of the indigenous inhabitants. For example, a visit to one of the 655 Cracker Barrel locations provided an insight into the staples of the diet of the locals. Featured menu items include chicken fried “steak”, deep fried catfish with a timbale of grits and okra with white gravy.

This part of the country is not without its cultural attractions. We visited Bentonville Arkansas, the home of the late Sam Walton and the headquarters of the first of many thousands of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club locations. Thus, the culture and habits of the inhabitants have been exported to the world. Bentonville does have a highly regarded art museum founded by the Walton family, Crystal Bridges. Regrettably the exploration team neglected to note that the museum was closed on Tuesdays which happened to be the day that we visited Bentonville. But all was not lost. This oversight had a silver lining. It allowed us extra time for our visit to the Wal-Mart Museum which traces the history of this commercial phenomenon. The artifacts on display included a replica of Sam’s office, his actual pick up truck with a prominent gun rack on the rear window with a paper mache model of his dog Ol’ Roy. We were able to conduct in depth research into the history of the Wal-Mart institution by interviewing the late Sam Walton. This was made possible, notwithstanding his demise more than 30 years ago, because the museum thoughtfully made a hologram available to the team programmed to answer our questions. Thus we were able to overcome his unavailability.

In Bentonville, we stayed at the inexplicably penguin-themed 21C Museum Hotel. We could go on and on about our stay but, as you undoubtedly know, what happens in Bentonville stays in Bentonville.

After Bentonville, our local guide suggested that we stop at to the Candy Factory and World’s Largest Gift Store located in one of the nicer suburbs of Marshfield, Missouri exit #118 of Interstate-44. It is conveniently located near the Uranus Fudge Factory (our guide stumbled on the pronunciation-try it yourself). You can’t miss it — There is a large billboard proclaiming “BIG FUN IN URANUS.” Another suggested that we “EXPLORE URANUS” Unfortunately due our tight schedule, we were precluded from probing into the precise nature of the fun or delving further into the exploration. If you have time or the inclination (and who am I to judge?) you will find Uranus at exit #163 on Interstate-44. Research revealed that the modifier “World’s Largest” to describe the Gift Store probably referred to the number of gifts not the square footage but the evidence is not clear. And, as luck would have it, both the candy and gift store were open on the Wednesday of our visit. In the Candy Store the Caffe Latte Malt Balls appeared to be a customer favorite. But if this does not appeal to you there were several thousand palate pleasing alternatives. But the Candy Store was but an amuse bouche to the adjacent piece d’resistance, The World’s Largest…. We had to step back about 100 yards to capture the entire front of this massive structure in our carefully selected camera equipment, aka iPhone.

As you might expect the selection was enormous and apparently directed to appeal to the store’s target demographic. Unfortunately our research was insufficient to identify just who or what might comprise that demographic. Suffice it to say that it would not include anyone who lives in our bubble.