Foreign Travel

Many have heard the phrase "publish or perish." It's the notion in fields such as mine that in order to prove yourself worthy of keeping your job, you must do research and publish your findings. Fortunately, at the institution where I work, the greater focus is on teaching, so the "publish or perish" model isn't as important as it is at other places. I've written and published a book, some literary articles and some short stories, and this helped get me tenured and promoted to associate professor. An acquaintance of mine just lost her position at Yale, probably because she didn't publish enough as expected; a more established scholar with higher firepower was awarded her job. I'm not in that situation and glad of it, but I have one further level of promotion to go--promotion to what we call "full" professor. So I continue to research and struggle to write in an attempt to make my case for the next promotion undeniable.

Many of my colleagues are scholars of British literature, and when they travel for research, they find themselves in London or Stratfor-upon-Avon. They might go to Scotland--somewhere I've always wanted to go--or Ireland. I don't know many scholars of other literatures, but I can imagine traveling to places such as Paris or Rome or Istanbul or Moscow, to India or Japan or Nigeria, to Cuba or Colombia or New Zealand. Yes, books have been written--and great authors have lived--in all of these places.

I chose to be an Americanist, an early Americanist at that. So my fields for scholarly digging are not so exotic. I could find myself in Philadelphia or New York or Boston. I might end up in Maine or Charleston or New Orleans, although these are less likely. My major research trip so far in my career--way back when I was researching the dissertation that became my book--took me to Kent State University in Ohio, for cryin' out loud!

Now I'm working on a new project, and I'm just in the stage of seeing if it leads anywhere. So far, it has led me to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which is where I am now. I'm spending my days in a big lower-level room in the Alexander Library--in Special Collections and University Archives--going through folders containing manuscripts of family papers that are at least two hundred years old. And I'm fighting construction traffice between Rutgers and the Days Hotel where I'm staying.

After yesterday's research, I went out to eat, and on a whim stopped in this little Italian place run by a very Italian family. I bought two huge slices of pizza--one steak and cheese, one chicken marsala and both pretty bland. I ordered a Diet Coke, which was fairly flat. To get something enlivening out of the meal, I set the soda aside and asked for a beer. That helped.

My destination for the evening was the theaters at Brunswick Square Mall, where I saw the 6:55 showing of Hot Fuzz, a new British comedy spoofing cop movies and British countryside mysteries. It was great!

The most magical moments of the evening came just after I left the theater. I decided to drive south on Highway 18 to find a Wal-Mart. I'd forgotten to pack underwear, and I needed some cash back as well. Believe it or not, I couldn't find a Wal-Mart! But I started to notice street signs mentioning Matawan and Freehold, and I suddenly realized--or remembered--that I was in Springsteen country. To be so close to a place so dear to one of my idols was a breathless sort of feeling. Heck, I might have been within a few miles of The Boss himself!

So, I didn't find a Wal-Mart, but I'd passed a K-Mart between the hotel and the theaters, so I backtracked to there. When I walked into this huge cavernous space, the sound system was playing Springsteen's version of his "Pink Cadillac." I was walking back from the underwear racks to the front of the store when I looked to my right, and there, at the end of a long aisle, in the large appliances between washers and dryers, a forty-something Oriental man--the salesman for that area, who wore white shirt and tie, gray dress slacks and his thick black hair spiked--was up on his toes and doing a slow twist to "Pink Cadillac." A moment of relief and release from boredom--both his and mine, I guess.