Reflections on the Road to D.C.

After the heady experience of winning a seat in the U.S. Congress in November, I assumed there would be time to recover and recharge from the intense 15-month campaign. Nothing was further from the truth. In addition to new-member orientation, there were offices and an apartment to close and the daunting decision of where--and how--my family would live.

I never doubted the wisdom of moving my wife, Christine, and our 4-year-old twin daughters, Dana and Claire, to Washington. At least that way, we could see each other most days, and I would be free to focus on constituent concerns when at home in California. With time short, I rented sight unseen a small furnished apartment, and packed. Rather than ask my future Capitol staff to drive a rental van cross-country, I decided to do it myself.

I would not be alone on the road: Frank Ambrose, my friend since junior high school, would accompany me. This trip would be, in Yogi Berra’s words, “deja vu all over again.” When I was in law school, Frank and I drove to Atlanta and back in 1983. We bickered, reminisced about stealing each other’s girlfriends and laughed most of the way. Coming home, in an Oklahoma City motel, Frank got a little bossy: He wouldn’t get out of bed one day so we could hit the road.

“Get it straight,” he sarcastically said to me that morning. “I’m the oldest, so we leave when I say, or you leave alone.”

Knowing Frank respected strength, I left--alone! I never did ask how he got home to Los Angeles, and this was not the time.

*

On Dec. 28, a Saturday, Frank and a few friends stood in the rain with me as we loaded the 15-foot van, then strapped my car to the heavy trailer. We finished late in the afternoon, dirty, soaked and tired. There was no time to rest; we were leaving at 6 that night.

I kissed Christine and the girls goodbye; Frank started the van’s engine. From out of nowhere neighbors began approaching the truck. Christine and I had moved into our house the day after our honeymoon almost 10 years ago; these are the folks who saw me go from a young deputy district attorney to judge to legislator to Assembly majority leader to congressman, and from bachelor to husband to father. With tears and hugs, they said goodbye. Although we would be back often, there was a melancholy sense that things would not be the same.

As the truck rolled slowly down the darkened street, a terrible pang went through my heart. For the first time I felt doubt and uncertainty over what I was doing.

My eyes began to glisten. “Franko,” I muttered, “why the hell have I done this?”

Not one to suffer whining lightly, Frank cut me no sympathy slack.

“Hey, jackass,” he snarled. Frank pointed to the truck’s passenger side mirror and motioned for me to look. There, illuminated under a street light, was the reflected silhouette of Christine, Dana and Claire.

“That’s why you’re doing this,” Frank said. “So shut up and go serve your country.”

I smiled, my resolve again steeled. I started to thank Frank for the emotional shot in the arm, but he would have none of that.

“You know,” he interrupted, “this is going to be a long, slow drive. I don’t want to hear you whimpering all the way to Washington.

“By the way,” he said with a grin, “we’ll be going through Oklahoma City. If there is any more sniveling in this truck, we just may have to stop . . . and pay that town another visit.”

*

The notion of driving across America on my way to Congress had a certain romantic appeal. Soaking up the spacious skies, fruited plains and amber waves of grain seemed an appropriate preface to my induction into office. I wanted to savor and absorb each mile while I reflected upon my forthcoming responsibilities.

Contemplating this, I neglected to calculate Frank’s lack of appreciation for such melodrama. To him there was nothing “romantic” about a cramped truck cab, sleeping in a sitting position, no radio and stacks of ill-tied boxes tumbling when the brakes were applied. Frank did not see the road as poetry. It was big game to be bagged and conquered. He fancied himself some incarnation of an interstate great white hunter. He viewed motels, showers and sleep as a sign of weakness.

“We’re driving nonstop to Washington,” Frank said. “When I drive, you sleep. When you drive, I sleep.”

“Just remember,” he added with a smirk. “I’m the oldest, and I’m captain of this ship. You may be in Congress, but in this truck, I’m big daddy.”

And so it was to be. Other than pulling over for gasoline about every 150 miles, gobbling down the greasiest of fast food and visiting an occasional restroom, we drove nonstop. Frank would not break.

*

It was dark when we left Glendale. We took Interstate 210 to the I-10 near Pomona. After a brief northern jaunt through the San Bernardino Forest up Highway 15, we connected before midnight near Barstow onto I-40 eastbound.

“Take a good look around,” Frank said. “You won’t see another freeway for a long time.” He was right. We would remain on I-40 for almost 2,000 miles.

That first night we traversed California, then passed through Kingman and Flagstaff, Ariz. By late morning we were nearing Albuquerque, N.M. The majestic flat-topped red mountains almost looked painted against the pastel-colored sky. It was a beautiful, desolate sight. Meanwhile, we freshened up with packaged moist towelettes. And we kept driving.

“How about stopping for a real breakfast?” I eventually suggested.

“I already got us breakfast the last time we stopped for gas,” Frank replied. He reached down and produced bags of pretzels, beef jerky and red licorice.

My earnest expression immediately was transformed into a grimace. “Did you get us any bottled water to drink?” I asked.

“No,” Frank replied. “I found these.” He threw a small box in my direction, a carton of Nestle’s Strawberry Flavored Milk, with a little straw taped to the side.

With deep apologies to the Nestle Corp. (headquartered in my congressional district), I must confess that I have never liked strawberry-flavored milk. Frank, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of it. “This stuff is hard to find,” he told me. “That’s why I bought all they had!”

*

Many motorists find the drive across the Texas Panhandle to be bleak and boring. To us, it provided blessed flatland after the torture of climbing hills--at 15 mph, tops--in the van. When we took a short break at a truck stop outside Amarillo, my stomach was at near-revolt from our junk food diet. I went inside to look for real nourishment.

Instead of caloric Nirvana, I found the Twilight Zone. The shelves were stocked with the locals’ four basic food groups: pretzels, beef jerky, red licorice--and Nestle’s Strawberry Milk.

*

Exactly 24 hours after leaving Glendale, I called Christine and the girls from a pay telephone. “We’re in Oklahoma City,” I boasted. Although we had averaged under 50 mph, we still covered 1,200 miles in the first day.

It was sometime after midnight on the second day that we passed into Arkansas. We kept driving. We crossed into Tennessee and cruised by Memphis. Finally, I put my foot down and made one demand. I had never been to Nashville, and we were going to pass through. I told Frank I wanted to see it, and this expectation was nonnegotiable.

Frank was now driving like a man possessed and viewed my directive as insubordination to the captain. We drove through Nashville faster than the proverbial speeding bullet.

Knoxville, Tenn., marked the end of our journey on Interstate 40 and our 48-hour milestone. We rounded the Great Smoky Mountains, then traveled northeast up Interstate 81 along the Appalachian Mountains. As the sun rose Tuesday, we entered the final leg of our drive, in Virginia.

The countryside was beautiful, with Civil War landmarks sprinkled along our path. Low, rolling fog spilled across the now-quiet Shenandoah battlefield. The silence and serenity had an eerie peacefulness.

*

By late morning we were eastbound on I-66. We made our final stop at a convenience store an hour outside Washington. There we waited while a single mother with a careworn face kept her four runny-nosed children in tow. A slight look of embarrassment crossed her deeply lined features as she paid for her groceries with food stamps.

We said nothing about the scene until we were again on the road.

“That sure looked familiar, didn’t it?” Frank said with an air of melancholy.

Indeed it did. A quarter-century ago, my own mother was a single welfare mom buying groceries for her four children with food stamps. As the oldest child, I dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to go to work selling vacuum cleaners. Next door to me lived Frank and his mother, who was also single and on welfare. Like me, Frank dropped out of high school to work.

Now, 25 years later, I had been given the rare privilege of being able to help families like the one we had just seen. I did not intend to let the opportunity be wasted, or the memory forgotten.

*

Shortly after noon on New Year’s Eve we caught our first glimpse of the Washington Monument on the horizon. We drove a victory lap around the Capitol, then parked under its shadow.

We slumped down in the seats, exhausted. We sat silently and just looked at that magnificent sandstone shrine of liberty. We were deep in thought when we heard rapping on glass. I looked to my left and saw a policeman motioning to roll down the window.

“Hey you bums, move this truck!” he ordered.

Frank and I looked at each other. We hadn’t showered or shaved in three days; our hair was matted from various rainstorms. Our clothes were dirty and had not been changed. The truck was covered in mud. Suddenly we broke into gales of laughter.

“Officer, you’ve got it all wrong,” Frank assured him. “I’m an American citizen and a veteran.”

Then, pointing to me, Frank added, “This guy’s a new member of Congress--he’s the tramp, not me!”

After I produced my identification, we again laughed as the blushing cop walked away.

When we pulled the truck into the parking lot of the Cannon House Office Building, Frank looked at me with a knowing smile of a lifetime of friendship.

“You’ve come a long way, brother,” he said. The gleam in his eye told me he wasn’t just talking about the 2,717-mile truck drive.

“No, Frank,” I told him, “We’ve come a long way. And there is nobody on this Earth I would rather have made this trip with.”

We toasted our accomplishment with the last two cartons of Nestle’s Strawberry Milk.

“I’ll be damned,” I thought. “Right now, nothing ever tasted quite so good.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Mr. Rogan Goes to Washington

Freshman Congressman James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) was elected in November to represent the 27th Congressional District. To make the move from Glendale to Washington, Rogan boxed up family belongings, rented a van, and enlisted the help of a longtime friend Frank Ambrose. Their 2 1/2 day journey across America took them through Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Memphis and beyond, as well as through vast territories of memory and friendship.