一路向西的66号公路

AS IT IS 2015-11-08 Going West for Decades on Route 66 一路向西的66号公路

America’s tallest monument dominates the skyline of St. Louis, Missouri, the largest city on Route 66 between Chicago and Los Angeles.  

The Gateway¹ Arch represents the beginning of the American West. It also commemorates³ St. Louis’s role in the nation’s westward⁴ expansion.

Early settlers in the 1800s depended on the city as a final chance to stock up on food and other provisions before making the long journey west.

The Gateway Arch towers above St. Louis on the banks of the Mississippi River. The 192-meter-tall stainless⁵ steel arch is the tallest structure of its kind in the world.

Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen won a national competition for a design of the proposed monument in 1947.

Construction of the Gateway Arch was completed in 1965.

Karen Stoeber works at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, which includes the Gateway Arch.

“The arch commemorates the 300,000 people who, after Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, moved from the eastern part of the country west...and this was kind of the meeting place for all of them. This was the last big city, where they could provision up before they went west.”

The Gateway Arch has an internal tram system. Visitors can ride to the top of the arch for a good view of St. Louis and the Mississippi.

"And Eero Saarinen, the architect, made it in the shape of a gate...kind of like you open the gate and step into the new country.”

That “new country” held promise. But it held tragedy too.

The “Westward Expansion” of the 1800s brought many Americans to settle on the Great Plains of the United States. Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas offered good land for farming and raising cows in the early years of settlement.

The Dust Bowl

Then, in the 1930s, disaster struck. A severe and long-lasting drought destroyed crops across the southern Great Plains. Over-farming, or planting too many crops, had destroyed the area’s natural grasslands⁶. This left the land unprotected from the wind storms that arrived with the drought.

The result was several years of massive, deadly dust storms. The huge area of prairie land in the U.S. became known as the “Dust Bowl.” The period of time came to be called the “Dirty Thirties.”

Farms, equipment and homes were sometimes buried in the huge dust storms.

At the same time, the U.S. was experiencing a major economic crisis known as the Great Depression.

Mother Nature and the failed economy displaced millions of people who lived in the Dust Bowl. And so began the largest human migration⁷ in the United States. Route 66 played a major part in that westward movement of  desperately poor people.

Hundreds of thousands of people headed west. Many were poor farmers. But teachers, doctors and other professionals also fled the Dust Bowl. Entire towns disappeared. Whole communities “hit the trail.”

For many, that trail was the newly commissioned Route 66. The highway crossed much of the Dust Bowl into the more fertile land of California.

The migrants collected their families and the possessions they could keep. They loaded them into wagons⁹ and cars. The trek¹⁰ west continued through the 1930s until the beginning of World War II.

“Dust Storm Disaster” by American folk legend Woody Guthrie paints a picture of the Route 66 travelers.

It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns,

It covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm.

We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in,

We rattled¹² down that highway to never come back again.

Migrant camps sprung up along Route 66. Most were along narrow manmade waterways used to water crops. This provided the migrants with water for drinking, cooking and bathing. These poor, temporary villages were called “ditch bank camps.”

The Mother Road

The writer John Steinbeck traveled Route 66 and visited some of these camps in 1936 and 1937. He reported about them for a newspaper. Steinbeck’s news stories were central to the creation of his most famous novel, “The Grapes of Wrath¹³.” The novel made the road famous and gave it its most popular nickname, the “Mother Road.”

That book tells the story of the Joads, a poor migrant family that travels Route 66 from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl period.

Steinbeck writes:

“66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward¹⁴ invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary¹⁵ side roads, from the wagon⁸ tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.”

Today, it is mostly tourists who travel the full distance of Steinbeck’s “mother road.” The Dust Bowl and the Depression have long passed.

Route 66 is no longer a “road of flight.” But it remains¹⁶ a powerful symbol of America’s westward migration that continues to this day.

Words in This Story

provision – n. a supply of food and other things that are needed

tower – v. to be much taller than (someone or something)

commemorate² – v. to exist or be done in order to remind people of (an important event or person from the past)

migration – n. the movement of people from one country or place to live or work in another

trek – n. a long and difficult journey

jalopies – n. (informal) an old car that is in poor condition

rattle¹¹ – v.to make quick, short, loud sounds while moving

tributary – n. a stream that flows into a larger stream or river or into a lake

1 gateway   

n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法

参考例句：

• Hard work is the gateway to success.努力工作是通往成功之路。
• A man collected tolls at the gateway.一个人在大门口收通行费。

2 commemorate   

vt.纪念，庆祝

参考例句：

• This building was built to commemorate the Fire of London.这栋大楼是为纪念“伦敦大火”而兴建的。
• We commemorate the founding of our nation with a public holiday.我们放假一日以庆祝国庆。

3 commemorates   

n.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的名词复数 )v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A tombstone is erected in memory of whoever it commemorates. 墓碑是为纪念它所纪念的人而建的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A tablet commemorates his patriotic activities. 碑文铭记他的爱国行动。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

4 westward   

n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西

参考例句：

• We live on the westward slope of the hill.我们住在这座山的西山坡。
• Explore westward or wherever.向西或到什么别的地方去勘探。

5 stainless   

adj.无瑕疵的，不锈的

参考例句：

• I have a set of stainless knives and forks.我有一套不锈钢刀叉。
• Before the recent political scandal,her reputation had been stainless.在最近的政治丑闻之前，她的名声是无懈可击的。

6 grasslands   

n.草原，牧场( grassland的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Songs were heard ringing loud and clear over the grasslands. 草原上扬起清亮激越的歌声。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Grasslands have been broken and planted to wheat. 草原已经开垦出来，种上了小麦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

8 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

9 wagons   

n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车

参考例句：

• The wagons were hauled by horses. 那些货车是马拉的。
• They drew their wagons into a laager and set up camp. 他们把马车围成一圈扎起营地。

10 trek   

vi.作长途艰辛的旅行；n.长途艰苦的旅行

参考例句：

• We often go pony-trek in the summer.夏季我们经常骑马旅行。
• It took us the whole day to trek across the rocky terrain.我们花了一整天的时间艰难地穿过那片遍布岩石的地带。

11 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

12 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

13 wrath   

n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒

参考例句：

• His silence marked his wrath. 他的沉默表明了他的愤怒。
• The wrath of the people is now aroused. 人们被激怒了。

14 northward   

adv.向北；n.北方的地区

参考例句：

• He pointed his boat northward.他将船驶向北方。
• I would have a chance to head northward quickly.我就很快有机会去北方了。

15 tributary   

n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的

参考例句：

• There was a tributary road near the end of the village.村的尽头有条岔道。
• As the largest tributary of Jinsha river,Yalong river is abundant in hydropower resources.雅砻江是金沙江的最大支流，水力资源十分丰富。

16 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。