Adios and Gracias, Flying J

Where the Lowes sits now in Conway, AR, there used to be back in the day a small truck stop named Clawsons, run by the family of a guy who was a fellow Wampus Cat. You might not recognize the place by its real name, and probably knew it as G.J.'s, an abbreviation for the Glittering Jesus Christmas decoration placed in the front window at yuletide. At G.J.'s you could get a burger and fries that would change your life, a honey bun as big as a manhole cover slathered in real butter, and a little taste of the subculture that brings you your food and your stuff and everything else you consume in your life. Clawsons and places like it have been fading out steadily for several years, and as cafes like Pharoah's in Shippenburg PA and Johnson's Truck Stop north of Denver struggle to hang on, they have been replaced by franchised operations like Flying J, Pilot, Petro, TA, and Loves.

When I left 22 years of parish ministry 12 years ago many friends and acquaintances were confused as to why I wanted to acquire a commercial driver's license and hit the road at the wheel of a big rig. There are many ways to address this and I maybe in the future I will, but for now let us say that I left a life fairly rich in amenities and took up a life with very few at all. And because the amenities are few and far between, the ones I do enjoy I also cherish and tend to guard rather jealously.

For several years I and the outfit I drive for have patronized the Flying J Travel Centers across the country. Although it is a part of the driver culture to bitch about truck stops and truck stop food, the Flying J has actually done an excellent job providing services: clean showers with clean towels, fresh (mostly) and reasonably priced food, friendly waitresses and c-store clerks, and enough merchandise to take care of modest material needs and mechanical repairs. At times, at the end of a particularly hard road, a Flying J somewhere on the road has been a virtual oasis for a tired driver.

Word has come down that Pilot, another national chain of travel centers, has merged with Flying J (read: 'bought out'), and rescued it from bankruptcy. Binness is binness, as they say, and anyone with enough sense to rub two nickels together can hardly blame either of these companies for undertaking this task. The stores will be remodeled to resemble Ma Pilot, and the Country Markets, the Flying J restaurants/buffets, will replaced by scaled-down Dennys and maybe even an IHOP or a fast food franchise of some kind.

I will freely admit that I suffer more and more these days from a grouchiness that may or may not be age-related. And I notice that my resistance to change seems to expand as I add on years. But I dread this transition. I hated seeing the Mom and Pop truck stops and cafes slowly wither away years ago, and I hate seeing travel centers which offer a wide range of services and amenities get turned into convenience stores and chain restaurants with truck parking. We have yet to see what this hybridization will yield, and for that reason I am still willing to give the benefit of the doubt to this merger. But this definitely sucks.

The trend toward homogenization of American culture continues to encroach upon all segments of society, even the fairly remote world of the professional trucker. Whatever flair still exists is being inexorably swallowed up in familiarity and monotony, the sadness of which is exacerbated when places give themselves throwback names like Cracker Barrel and Po Folks. Rocking chairs on the porch and clever handles that feign illiteracy will never bring G.J.'s back to us, or the Flying J for that matter.

So, Flying J, goodbye and thank you very, very much.