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It usually went like this: In a compact rental car considered midsize only by some rental company’s dubious standards, I would adjust the driver’s seat to fit my question-mark frame. I’d then check the radio, making musical scat of the syndicated provocateurs before choosing a local station on the inferior AM bandwidth, where every word seems to pass through the filter of an indefinable past.

Depending on mood and place, I would absorb the aching wails of Hank Williams, or maybe the fire-next-time portents of some storefront preacher. With any luck I’d find a program called Tradio, or Swap Shop, through which callers engage in a sort of on-air eBay. Once, while driving through West Virginia, I heard a woman announce that she was looking to sell a house, 16 acres, a bowling ball and a sequined dress slit up the side.

Seat; check. Mirrors; check. Now all I’d have to do is put the car in drive and point it to Somewhere, America.