Kerouac 2

Louis, the Budget rent-a-car guy at Dorval airport in Montreal (the airport still has 2 names), looked impressed, maybe just surprised, when I told him where I was going. “Oh,” he said. “I have relatives in Lowell.” Confirming what I’d worked out from studying the maps, he wrote directions to the Champlain bridge on the back of my rental agreement, and handed over the keys to a white Impala, an “upgrade".

By 6:00 I was heading south through the snarliest freeway system I’ve ever experienced. Two or three times I was sure I’d missed a turn but found myself heading to, then on, Vermont 89, an Eisenhower-era interstate, just as Louis and I had planned it.

The border agent asked my what my business was in Lowell. I wasn’t sure if she asked out of interest or national security concerns. When I told her a bit about Kerouac, she asked if I’d known him. “He’s been dead for 40 years,” I told her.

By 8:30 or so I’d had enough driving and stopped in Montpelier (pronounced mont-peelier by the locals), the state capital. Angelino’s pizza looked like the right place for a beer and a feed. Enjoying a Samuel Adams lager and a Copper Mountain ale, I asked the waiter if he could recommend a reasonably priced hotel. He paused before suggesting the Economy Inn up the hill. “There’s a closer one,” he said, “but my dad died there.” Turns out this waiter had been born in Lowell but hadn’t heard of Kerouac. I told him about the commemorative square in downtown Lowell, which I plan to see tomorrow. He’d seen it there but hadn’t realized what it was about. “I’ll check it out now for sure,” he promised.