This episode of the PBS-TV’s “Bill Moyers Journal” begins on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue, aka Route 66. In fact, the Route 66 shield can be seen in a couple of shots (one in the screen shot above). The program can be viewed online here.
A podcast of “The Business of Poverty” also can be heard here:
The program’s focus — about BusinessWeek’s expose of companies’ “audacious drive” to extract more money from the working poor — may seem peripheral to the Mother Road.
But it does serve to remind us of Route 66’s darker side — its sharks, its predatory businesses and its dashed dreams. For every Good Samaritan on Route 66, you have folks like Bud Rice gouging travelers and service stations that made unneeded but lucrative repairs (as exposed by “60 Minutes” in 1979).
Route 66 isn’t like Disneyland. It is like America — mostly benevolent, but with a cruel side as well.
(Hat tip: Ace Jackalope.)