A Question
by Gary Johnson

His wife said, "Please be careful," and he smiled patiently
And said, "Hey, don't worry about me."
And he buckled right in with a confident grin
And his screwdriver touched a live wire.
And he let out a cry and proceeded to die
In a shower of sparks and fire.
And the people who gave the eulogy
Spoke of honor and love and ambition.
They spoke well of the dead, and nobody said,
"Why didn't he call an electrician?"
 

“A Question” by Gary Johnson. Reprinted with permission of the poet.

It was on this day in 1776 that the first mass was conducted for settlers at the Misión San Francisco de Asís, in the place that became the city of San Francisco. The colonists had arrived at their new home two days earlier, after a journey of many months. Spain was the major colonial power in the western half of the Americas. They were well established in Baja (lower) California, but wanted to expand into their territory of Alta (upper) California. They established five missions and two military garrisons throughout Alta California, but these outposts were run by just a handful of soldiers and Franciscan friars. The settlements were dependent on supply ships sent up from Baja California, which had such a hard time sailing against the winds that they were often blown out to sea or destroyed on the rocky coast. The Spanish viceroy sent Captain Juan Bautista de Anza to search for an overland route. He was successful, so the Spanish authorities decided to continue their settlement northward, all the way to the port at San Francisco. This time they hoped to have a real settlement, with a group of families.

Captain Juan Bautista de Anza was an excellent soldier and a much-admired leader. He recruited more than 200 people for the journey. In September of 1775, the settlers set out from Horcasitas, about 175 miles south of what is now the Mexican border. They were often thirsty and exhausted, and they journeyed through treacherous conditions during a bitterly cold winter. In March of 1776, they reached Monterey — a journey of nearly 2,000 miles. Leaving the settlers behind in Monterey, Anza set out with a small group to explore the San Francisco Bay and choose a spot for a settlement. One of his companions was a priest, Father Pedro Font, who wrote in his diary: "The port of San Francisco is a marvel of nature, and might well be called the harbor of harbors," and, "Indeed, although in my travels I saw very good sites and beautiful country, I saw none which pleased me so much as this. And I think that if it could be well settled like Europe there would not be anything more beautiful in all the world." Anza and his party chose a spot for the mission. That day was the Friday of Sorrows, one week before Good Friday, a holy day of remembering the sorrow of the Virgin Mary for her son's suffering. Anza named the spot Laguna de los Dolores. He went back to Monterey full of enthusiasm, but the governor of California didn't think San Francisco would make a good settlement, and refused to let Anza take the settlers there. Anza went back to Mexico. It was said that the settlers wept openly when he left.

Soon the Viceroy of New Spain ordered the governor of California to settle San Francisco. Anza's second-in-command, Lieutenant Moraga, led the settlers from Monterey to San Francisco in June of 1776. They arrived on June 27th and made a temporary camp at the place that is now the intersection of Dolores and 18th Streets. The next day they built a makeshift chapel out of branches. On this day in 1776, a priest named Father Palou offered the first Mass underneath those branches — just five days before the Declaration of Independence was signed on the other side of the continent. This is considered the founding date of the Mission of San Francisco de Asís, nicknamed the Mission Dolores.

It's the birthday of French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (books by this author), born in Lyons in 1900. He joined the French army in 1921, and that's where he flew his first plane. He left the military five years later and began flying airmail routes into the Sahara Desert, eventually becoming the director of a remote airfield in Rio de Oro. Living conditions were Spartan, but he said, "I have never loved my house more than when I lived in the desert." He wrote his first novel, Southern Mail (1929), in the Sahara and never lost his love for the desert.

In 1929, he moved to South America to fly the mail through the Andes, and he later returned to carry the post between Casablanca and Port-Étienne. He worked as a test pilot and a journalist throughout the 1930s, and survived several plane crashes. He also got married in 1931, to Consuelo Gómez Carrillo. She wrote of him in her memoir, "He wasn't like other people, but like a child or an angel who has fallen down from the sky."

He rejoined the French army upon the outbreak of World War II, but when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, he fled to the United States, hoping to serve the U.S. forces as a fighter pilot. He was turned down because of his age, and, homesick and discouraged, he began his best-known book, The Little Prince (1943). The following year, he returned to North Africa to fly a warplane for France. He took off on a mission on July 31, 1944, and was never heard from again.

It was on this day in 1956 that President Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act, which established the Interstate Highway System.

The Interstate Highway System had been in the works for a while. During World War I, the Army determined that the condition of national roads needed to be improved for national defense, so they produced a map for the government of the major routes they felt were important in the event of war. In 1938, President Roosevelt drew out a map of "superhighways" to cross the country.

The American public had its first taste of the "superhighway" system in 1939, at the New York World's Fair. The most popular exhibit there was the General Motors Futurama ride, which showed a vision of the future in 1960. Fairgoers sat in chairs that moved through a diorama of the future America, where everyone owned a car and the entire country was connected by freeways. On these freeways, the lanes going in one direction were separated from the traffic coming from the other direction. Drivers could go up to 50 mph, and could travel from one coast to the other without a single traffic light. These ideas were so exciting that 28,000 people attended the Futurama exhibit every day.

As a general during World War II, Eisenhower was impressed by Germany's autobahn system, and he decided that the United States needed something comparable. After the war, the economy was booming, and Eisenhower decided the time was right to push through the Interstate Highway System. It was the largest public works project in American history. It took longer than expected to build—35 years instead of 12—and it cost more than $100 billion, about three times the initial budget. But the first coast-to-coast highway, Interstate 80, was completed in 1986, running from New York City to San Francisco.

It was a great boon for hotel and fast-food chains, which sprung up by interstate exits. It was also a boon for suburban living, since commuting was faster and easier than before.

But it was not necessarily good for American literature. When John Steinbeck took a cross-country trip with his dog and wrote Travels with Charley (1962), he only traveled on the interstate for one section, on I-90 between Erie, Pennsylvania, and Chicago, Illinois. He wrote: "These great roads are wonderful for moving goods but not for inspection of a countryside. You are bound to the wheel and your eyes to the car ahead and to the rear-view mirror for the car behind and [...] at the same time you must read all the signs for fear you may miss some instructions or orders. No roadside stands selling squash juice, no antique stores, no farm products or factory outlets. When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing."

Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in 1951, and by the time it was published, in 1957, construction had begun on the Interstate Highway System. In 1969, shortly before his death, Kerouac said: "You can't do what I did any more. I tried in 1960, and I couldn't get a ride. Cars going by, kids eating ice cream, people with hats with long visors driving, and, in the backseat, suits and dresses hanging. No room for a bum with a rucksack."

William Least Heat-Moon wrote Blue Highways (1982) about the cross-country trip he took after losing his job and separating from his wife. He took only back roads. He wrote: "Life doesn't happen along interstates. It's against the law."