We cats have a suggestion for the subject of Ken Burns's next PBS documentary: the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
Yes, we know that Burns is working on a big show about Vietnam. But as surely as that unnecessary war marked our baby boomer childhoods, so also did the Eisenhower highways. After all, weren't we the generation whose family driving vacations have become home-movie legends? Didn't we learn about the history of America — Fort Ticonderoga, Mount Rushmore, Monticello — by traveling those storied roads (and fighting in back seat when we weren't playing Auto Bingo)?
The biggest reason we want Burns to celebrate the interstates is because of politics, of course. Would the national highway system pass today's Congress? Please don't make us laugh. Would Dwight D. Eisenhower even be welcome in today's Republican Party? We wish that Susan and David Eisenhower would come forward and make a stink about that.
At a time when our infrastructure is falling apart, when people are dying on Amtrak, and the US is lagging behind countries like China in transportation investment, we cats can't help thinking about what a huge accomplishment our country made in the '50s with the highway system — and how much we all benefited from it. Some day, perhaps, a new generation of Americans will realize that a government effort like the interstates can not only build roads, but the economy as well — and how it's worth the trouble. Until we can get out from under the yoke of the Boehner Congress, however, we cats will just have to HISS.
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