Highways and Hunger
A short reflection on the ecology of the PA Turnpike; Two Springsteen shows 14 years apart show what little progress we've made on food security.
In the day we sweat it out in the streets
of a runaway American Dream…
Sprung from Cages on Highway 9
Built in 1955 to augment the nation’s first true superhighway, the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike runs from Plymouth Meeting to Clarks Summit, connecting the east-west route from the Philly Metro through the Lehigh Valley, the Poconos, and into Lackawanna County.
Before and after the Lehigh Tunnel, bored by Army engineers in the 50s, there are stunning views of expansive green. North of the tunnel, which crosses Blue Mountain and the Appalachian trail, farmland yields, for a good while, to more ancient vistas: these are the full-bodied, tree-covered valleys fed by the Lehigh River. There is also the constant road-side ecology, the almost-always dead or dying leaves that rust, at any rate, by early August. This is due, I’m sure, to one of the few things we contribute to the landscape (our emissions).
I drive this road often, and for various reasons. A poem I wrote about it has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can read it here.
The lyrics above are from “Born to Run.” Driving the extension (which used to be PA 9, though I’m sure Bruce is signing about the one in Jersey) recently, I caught two Springstreen concerts on satellite radio. The first, which I also happened to be at, was from October 20, 2009 at the old Spectrum in Philadelphia. It was one of the last shows ever staged there. The second was from September 27, 1985. “Dancing in the Dark” had already been released, but “Born in the U.S.A” was about a month away.
Bruce is, among other things, a masterful liturgist who’s only gotten better with age. Both shows were powerful, cathartic, uplifting, confessional, commiserating, empathetic, empowering (etc) surveys of his catalog and of the history of American rock. Both shows also had interludes where Springsteen asked the gathered to support local food banks.
We might not think very much of this now. Springsteen is known for his social justice message, and of course the rich rock star would spare a few minutes to highlight local needs. It’s quite literally the least someone in his position, with his platform and his politics, could do. Meanwhile, the fact that we have come to accept the necessity of food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens in the first place is a genuine scandal.
At the 2009 concert, Springsteen spoke in the context of the Great Recession. He encouraged everyone to support food banks (he’d partnered with Philabundance) if they could, but didn’t have to explain what food banks were or how they worked. That’s a sad contrast from the ‘85 show, where he went into some detail about the entire concept, beginning with “if you don’t know what a food bank is….” I say the contrast is sad because it’s hard to imagine a concert-going adult not knowing what a food bank was in 2009, it’s sad because the gaps between rich and poor have only gotten bigger and food insecurity has only gotten worse. Adam Smith’s invisible hand, is, for far too many people, more like a middle finger. Whether or not you contribute to food banks, you likely have accepted them as a para-capitalist solution to a problem capitalism itself was supposed to solve.
In 1985, the world’s first food bank wasn’t even 20 years old. More to the point, the early 80s saw an explosion in need and, thankfully, an explosion in community response. Soup kitchens, food pantries, food banks, and homeless shelters opened in record numbers. In most cases, these organizations were thought of as short term solutions, things that would go away once economic uncertainties trickled down and away. At the same time, our leaders in Washington famously cut social spending. In the last 45 years, the needs have only increased.
Hunger wasn’t always the issue it’s become. The 2012 film A Place at the Table does a very good job showing how far we’d come from the Depression into the 1970s, and how we got from that nadir of food insecurity to where we are now. Check out Feeding America for ways to help.
