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Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 978-0-748-12995-9

Copyright © 2011 by Billy Connolly

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

Contents

Copyright

1 Get Your Kicks

2 Winding from Chicago

3 A Royal Route

4 It Starts in Illinois, Let Me Tell You Boy

5 Travel My Way, Take the Highway

6 Go through St Louis; Joplin, Missouri

7 You Haven’t Seen the Country ’til You’ve Seen the Country by Car

8 Springfield, Illinois … Springfield, Missouri too

9 Oklahoma City Looks Oh So Pretty

10 You’ll See Amarillo …

11 Albuquerque and Tucumcari, Make New Mexico Extraordinary

12 Flagstaff, Arizona, Don’t Forget Winona

13 You’ll Wanna Own a Piece of Arizona

14 Get Hip to This Timely Tip, When You Make That California Trip

Appendix

Mileages from Chicago to Santa Monica

Get Your Kicks

It was a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I’d been travelling along Route 66 for a few days, and I couldn’t resist a quick detour to Arthur, a small community nearly two hundred miles south of Chicago. ‘Population 800’, it said on the sign at the edge of town. Beside it, another sign warned drivers that the roads might be busy with horse-drawn carriages. And with good reason: this was Amish country.

I didn’t know what to expect. I’d always quite liked Amish folk; although, to be honest, I knew very little about them. It was just something about the look – the horse-drawn carriages, the hats, the plain, modest clothing, the way they carried themselves – that always led me to think they were really rather nice people.

I parked my trike outside a simple house that backed on to a large workshop. Waiting inside was a furniture-maker with the best haircut I’d ever seen – like Rowan Atkinson’s pudding bowl in the first series of Blackadder. Beneath the mop of hair was Mervin, a man with a thick beard, no moustache and a slow, soft grin.

Mervin makes the most outstandingly great furniture: the kind of stuff that will last for ever; the antiques of tomorrow. He showed me around his workshop, then we stood in his office while he answered every question I asked with total honesty. I could tell immediately that this delightful, decent man was being absolutely straight with me. He had nothing to hide. Men like Mervin have a ring of truth about them.

‘Why do you all grow beards and you don’t grow moustaches?’ I said.

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to grow a moustache when everybody just had a beard and no moustache,’ said Mervin. ‘We like to be the same and share and be equal.’

How humane. In this age of individualism, what a delight to find a community of people who strive for equality and lead their lives according to whatever is best for everyone. We talked some more and Mervin explained the rules of the community, although the way he told it, those rules didn’t seem like restrictions but simple guidelines for a better, more harmonious way of living. With no sign of frustration about what he wasn’t allowed to do, Mervin totally accepted the boundaries of his life. Then he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride on his buggy.

You know those black Amish buggies? I’d always fancied a ride on one of them, but first we had to get Mervin’s horse out of the stable and hitch it to the front of the wagon. Now, I’m a wee bit frightened of horses – not terrified, just a wee bit wary. So I lurked behind Mervin until he’d got the beast out of the stable, then I led it to the buggy and Mervin showed me how to hitch it up. We climbed into the buggy and off we went. After about two minutes Mervin said, ‘Here … ’ and handed me the reins. I was in charge. I was in seventh heaven. Riding along in an Amish buggy, with an Amish guy, waving to Amish people. It was a wonderful moment. It might sound ludicrously inconsequential