Lonesome Traveler

Road sign near Klamath, California - Photo: Jacques Miller

Today I finished reading a book I purchased in Amsterdam called Lonesome Traveler. It took me an oddly long time to finish it, but the second half went a lot faster than the first. It made me go on a walk afterward, and I wrote a bit. This is an excerpt from that writing:

And so I returned to the land, and made my way to the lights. My fight is not abandoned, for I won. Just as the sun peeked and peaked, and then submissively but not unconsciously dipped behind the more powerful gray clouds, so too I win battles and return home, to brighten my glow, becoming only more ready for the ultimate show.  

Below are some of my favorite passages in Lonesome Traveler:

Kerouac quoting poet friend Gregory Corso:

"Standing on the street corner waiting for no one is Power” (p. 97)

Solitary Man in Albany, California - Photo: Jacques Miller

Gallery in Galway, Ireland - Photo: Jacques Miller

 


































 






The author tales of his time spent on Desolation Peak, in solitude with nature, screaming at the top of his lungs because he had to: 

"Sometimes I’d yell questions at the rocks and trees, and across gorges, or yodel – ‘What is the meaning of the void?’ The answer was perfect silence, so I knew-" (p. 113)   

Dead Horse Point, Utah (Not Desolation Peak) - Photo: Jacques Miller

On America's profound distaste for hobos and poor people:

Original drawing by Jacques Miller

“In America camping is considered a healthy sport for Boy Scouts but a crime for mature men who have made it their vocation.—Poverty is considered a virtue among the monks of civilized nations—in America you spend a night in the calaboose if youre caught short without your vagrancy change…” (p. 149)