A Spring Watch Nighthawk
+ In Praise of The Open Road
Vol. 194, March 3rd, 2026 Published a day early online
Go Set A Watch
The light has changed again. It lingered a little longer this evening, catching the broom sage by the pond, golden in a last dried bloom of winter. It’s time to set the spring watch. A patriarchal oak stands tall and wide over the cow pasture, showing signs of that softening, like some sleeper breathing hard just before they wake up.
The cold bitter gray of countless trees is starting to splinter into countless hints of green, as if the warming air is a prism ready to fracture the grip of Winter into something more hospitable. Color plots a return from exile. This is the time to pay attention.
“Well, Mr. Kirby, I have time–time even to notice when spring comes around” drawls Grandpa in the play You Can’t Take It With You. Hard-bitten Wall streeter Mr. Kirby seems taken aback. So was I, when I first saw a tape of Jason Robards deliver that killer line. So no matter how many miles I put under the wheels now, I try to notice when spring comes around. The sound of the spring peeper frogs floats in through the screen door. A patch of sunlight shows up on a new place on the wall. And yesterday, rolling down the mountain pass, I saw a trees with red and yellow buds. ‘
Go set a watch. It’s time.
(Speaking of You Can’t Take It With You, here’s the film. The line is at 1:40)
Lookin’ Dandy, Lion
The first dent-de-lion–“Tooth of the Lion”, spied by a warm wall, March 1st.
Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week
Extree (extra): “Cook some extree bacon this time, will ya?”
Alexander Is On The Line (1847)
Mr. A. Graham Bell is born today in Edinburgh. His life of prolific invention and relentless curiosity is worth reading about.
The Good Word
“He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
–John 8:12, KJV
Song of the Week
“Windy and Warm” (Doc Watson)
As the season slowly changes, this tune seems to welcome in the mystery of spring–and Doc is good any time of year.
A Place To Write Back
The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect: neighbors writing neighbors. We’re real people, with real things to say. Does one of our stories remind you of one of yours? Drop a line: P.O. Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com
Letters from Josh
(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #274)
Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc.: The Open Road
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show. America’s birthday is rolling up as fast as the dashed lines on the Interstate. We’re celebrating by relishing snapshots and stories of our great nation, and today it’s road trips.
There’s a rumor that floats by on the breeze every now and then: Oh, you Americans with your cars and houses everywhere. You should all live crammed together in cities and take the bus or the train instead.
Well, no, thank you, Mr. EuroGuilt and posh city latte sipper. I like my car. I mean, it’s slow and it’s cheap, but it shows me the highways and byways of the nation–and something more.
You should have been there yesterday. I saw a dog gnawing on something in a ditch on a lonely stretch of the road. “My cooking tastes like that too, bud” I hollered, flying by at 59 miles per. 60 is a bit of a stretch for the little squirrel motor, requiring advance planning when there are hills involved.
The car ahead poked along, going even slower, then turned off to a side street, and there it was: the open road, stretching into the blue distance, running free through winter pines and oaks dreaming of spring, ready to take me up to a bustling city and then back again. I flipped on some CCR, and followed their advice, meeting the rising wind, going up around the bend.
The mountains to the far northwest waved goodbye as I turned east to the day’s long work. I’d pass at their feet later that night on the return trip, racing a freight train up the pass. The little squirrel motor barely beat him.
The road is a place of its own. Sometimes you’ll find yourself there, thoughts drifting in over the hum of tires and the endless dashes flying by in the dark, or a lonely country stretch during the hush of the afternoon, or in the vastness of heavy traffic on the Interstates, lost in the crowd. There’s the stops by the waysides: the fruit stands, the rest stops, the maps tacked up behind grimy glass showing here and there while trucks thunder by. Simon and Garfunkle touch on this in “America.” Countin’ the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, they’ve all gone to look for America.
I can’t explain what that means, but in a way, you already know. There’s something important about roaming, even if we’re traveling for work. There’s something linked to freedom, seeing what’s out there, what we’ve got, who we are, and what’s real. It’s a way to appreciate, and if we don’t appreciate, it’s easy to lose.
The billionaires might lecture us about pollution, and say we should all take the bus or pay more road taxes as they hop on their private jets, offering us a trade to “a lead role in a cage”, as Pink Floyd might put it.
I’ll take the green fields and my little squirrel motor any day that I can be at the wheel, chugging along that endless asphalt ribbon, rolling through leafy old towns and lonely pines, glittering cities and concrete raceways, wide open fields and rugged mountains, waving at roadside dogs and the splendor of it all, gone to look for America.
–Josh