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Blue Collar Boom: Excerpts Zen and the Art of Driving 100 miles per hour past Bryan Taylor and others on Ohio County's Hwy 69 one-lane bridge between Beaver Dam and Centertown Part III: Down and Out in Kentucky The Bridge for Stan
my eyes flash open and I'm on the floor of the yellow farmhouse cross the field from mom and dad's in the middle of nowhere not able to sleep I dozed off for a second when someone turns on a light and it's blinding my eyes and here I am at the end of time down and out in Kentucky here I am whether life's worth living all the pain and someone's turned on a light and it's blinding my eyes and I'm a broken man buried in a tomb of self pity I'm failing like no others dare fail but at 3AM on this hot summer night on this plywood floor I can finally see as my eyes adjust and I see the room filled with lightning bugs come in through broken windows and they're all round me filling the room with golden light and almost in a dream I see Stan and we're in the yellow Volkswagen doing 100 on Highway 69 between Beaver Dam and Centertown and a car's coming the other way and Stan and I glance at each other and in that glance I see his struggle his fear his anger his defeat his defiance his will his desire to succeed his willingness to suffer to pay the price to see his dream become real and we look back to the road and we're doing 100 headed towards the one lane bridge and Bryan Taylor aint slowing down and neither are we eyes steady and clear and we've seen death and been told we're crazy but we're holding at 100 and without blinking we meet Bryan Taylor at the center of the one lane bridge not a breath of air between cars and walls and as we pass without blinking I see Bryan Taylor's mouth drop open and fall to his chest and in that moment of passing of seeing I know that like Stan I will pull myself up off this dirty floor and live again Ron Whitehead, the guiding force of Rant for the literary renaissance, is the hero of The Beaver Dam Rocking Chair Marathon, an anarchist with first allegiance to the heart, an agitator, and a true western Kentucky rebel.
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