46 pages • 1 hour read
Blue Highways: A Journey into America
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Chapter 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “East by Northeast”
Heat-Moon departs Melvin Village and heads east to Kennebunkport, Maine. It is immediately apparent that the summer season is imminent, which brings with it all the novelty of commerce—something Heat-Moon has purposely avoided during his journey. Naturally, Heat-Moon drives away from the crowds and toward a small fishing hamlet called Cape Porpoise, where he catches the crew of the Allison E, a fishing trawler, unloading its daily catch of flounder. Heat-Moon strikes up a conversation with the skipper and secures himself a fishing trip the following day. At 3:30 the next morning, Heat-Moon joins skipper Tom West and his two mates and heads out to sea for the day.
The weather causes a small craft warning, and the ride out to the fishing grounds is a rough one. As the crew goes about casting the nets and hauling in the catch, Heat-Moon interviews Tom West and asks him about life as a commercial fisherman. Once again, the industry has experienced drastic change since West’s earliest days. The day ends early because of a turn in the weather, and the crew heads back to shore.
From Maine, Heat-Moon heads down the Eastern seaboard and realizes that staying off the main interstate will be a challenge. Doing his best to avoid the major thoroughfares, and contemptuously marveling at the ugliness of modern highways, he ends up in Newport, Rhode Island. Heat-Moon spent some time here earlier in his life, as a member of the US Navy, and he is disappointed to see that the town has lost some of its ruggedness. He notices that the town and Thames Street in particular have become gentrified.
Heat-Moon leaves Rhode Island, crosses the Long Island Sound between Connecticut and Long Island, New York, travels the length of the island, and eventually ends up in New Jersey. While in New Jersey, Heat-Moon visits a place known as the Pine Barrens, an out-of-the-way natural area with its own mythology. He continues his journey to Greenwich, another storied locale, where he interviews Roberts Roemer, a member of the Greenwich Emergency Committee. The group formed in response to the insidious real estate practices of an industrial energy company. The committee’s purpose, according to Roemer, was to fend off the corporation—otherwise, the historic town would be overtaken. Roemer says the group recognizes the need for energy, but they oppose the company because the committee wants to preserve the town’s history: “We’re not trying to hold back the future, but […] [t]he future should grow from the past, not obliterate it” (380). The energy company would have figuratively paved over the town–or, as in the Palouse of Idaho, buried it.
The chapter concludes with Heat-Moon visiting the historic Smith Island of Chesapeake Bay, where he meets and interviews an elderly former teacher, Alice Middleton. Once again, Heat-Moon hears a similar refrain; Middleton has had to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
Chapter 9 Analysis
After Heat-Moon travels to Maine, he lands himself an opportunity to head out fishing with a small commercial crew headed by skipper Tom West. The labor recalls his work with his friend Scott Chisholm. He admires the men for their work ethic and resolve while the work is dangerous and financially insecure. The crew and the skipper, like many others in the book, are a testament to the value of hard work for its own sake. Also like others, West’s story centers on perseverance and adaptability.
Much of the author’s contempt for industrialism, up to this point, has emphasized questions of human dignity and historical preservation. However, as Heat-Moon proceeds along the East Coast, he expresses a purely aesthetic grievance that takes on symbolic significance. Heat-Moon points out “the main thing here was concrete” and that “trying to find blue highways down the Northeast seaboard wasn’t going to be difficult—it was going to be impossible” (357). As Heat-Moon tries to maneuver his way around, he chooses US 1 rather than I-95. He says, “[The famous highway] was still a nightmare vision of the twentieth century” and quotes H. L. Mencken that highways represent “the American lust for the hideous” (357). Heat-Moon has many such diatribes throughout his travels, and when he leaves Maine, the interstate ugliness he so despises seems to converge on him. For the author, the interstate’s visual offense symbolizes the spiritual bankruptcy of unbounded industrialism and overcommercialization.
This chapter also highlights a difference between individual and communal experience. The interview with Roemer shows the power of people who come together with a single purpose and, despite seemingly insurmountable odds, stave off the perpetual onslaught of industrialization. It also shows how a community can disrupt the corporate, industrial machine and maintain some of its heritage. This contrasts with Alice Middleton, whose story illustrates how people are forced to adapt to the constant march of time and the change that it brings.
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