Phil Biggs covers the automotive industry for NewsTalk 1340 WJRW
December 10, 2013 – 6:30 am ET
CHICAGO, IL – Quite a feat for me the last few days trying to creatively draw up a plan to get home from Dallas to Michigan. With the weather causing havoc not only in Texas but throughout the middle and eastern parts of the country, a challenge to say the least.
Over the past three mornings, each time I would make another airline reservation it has been…wait for it…canceled within several hours. So you can imagine that waking up each day has sort of made me feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and now, as I board Amtrak’s Texas Eagle and we finally begin to head north, I can pretend I’m Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This train will be my ticket to Chicago, by way of Little Rock, Joplin, St. Louis and Bloomington, before I rent a car at Union Station to drive around Lake Michigan and finally get to Grand Rapids. Thus far, it’s been a circuitous and sometimes frustrating effort to make my journey home.
But without question there is something nostalgic and romantic about traveling on an overland train. Listening to the lonesome whistle, or trying to count the clicks and clacks along the rails, it makes for such an enjoyable ride and a uniquely memorable way to see this part of the country. Now as evening falls and twilight settles in, we’re going through Mineola on our way to Texarkana. Here the countryside is dotted with scrub trees and open fields that decades ago played host to the lumber and cotton industries, and today support the oil field services sector.
We just passed through Longview, which is known as the place where actor Matthew McConaughey grew up and went to high school. And now, as we’re about to cross over the Arkansas state line, not far from the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, all that remains of the day is the pitch black outside my window and the tiny lights of a pickup truck riding down the two-lane against the now-darkened skyline. The hard-working, authentic people that have lived here for generations are the fabric of our heritage. I can’t imagine a United States without the enduring snapshot of life that’s found in the Cotton Belt, the Corn Belt, and the Rust Belt of this country.
It can be argued that what makes us uniquely American is the ingenuity and sometimes bleeding-edge innovation found on our coasts in places like Palo Alto or Boston, and that’s certainly true. But for my money, there is profound value in the rugged and soulful faces you see along the roads and towns we are passing through here in America’s Heartland. Unlike a growing number of their urban counterparts, many teenagers here still have a deep desire to own their first car, maybe a used Chevy Camaro or a rebuilt Ford Mustang. That’s a bit of tradition the automakers are very grateful for.
Despite the inconvenience I had to endure as a result of all the canceled flights, in some strange way this may have been just what the doctor ordered: an opportunity to reflect on this magical, spiritual season and remember life’s bigger picture. Sure, schedules need to be kept and goals must be achieved, and the hustle and bustle of the holidays can often times be pure fun. But rarely anymore do we stop and think about who and why we celebrate at this time of year.
Once in a while we need to step away from all the self-imposed deadlines and the craziness of this world long enough to realize what’s really important…like remembering the fun you had with your model trains when you were a kid, or the sheer delight of bouncing on the rails in the middle of the night. And most importantly, we all should take a moment to stop and recall what the holidays and Christmastime truly mean as we gather with family and friends over the next few weeks.
Phil Biggs is Partner, Automotive Markets, for the Bethesda, MD-based management consulting firm The Highland Group.
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