One of the obvious ways to save money (pending various costs and the number of folks in motion) when making a micro-budget movie is to drive your own car to the location. Once you arrive, you’ve got an insured vehicle, avoided airfare, bonded with crew, and seen some of the country.
On this trip, there’s been the added benefit of seeing some of how America‘s built environment evolved since 1959, the Cold War era in which we’ve set Thursday’s Child.
Upon hitting St. Louis, the Eero Saarinen designed Gateway Arch flashes by the highway - inspiring awe at the prowess and ego that mixed together to say, “let’s do this!” Completed in 1965, it echoes the passion that the pilots, mathematicians, physicists, and engineers who were determined to break the speed of sound and then gravity itself were throwing into pushing planes and rockets into the air at Edwards and all the other air and space bases in the West.
This glimpse of an elegant triumph was followed much later night by another example of American design - a motel. Weather and fatigue forced a quick reservation and equipment in the car ruled out a roadside nap. Because it was late, the fact that what looked online to be a perfectly fine and inexpensive motel was actually falling down and several steps towards filthy didn’t matter - sleep took over. But in the morning, stepping past beer cans and the other detritus of our neighbors’ partying, the full parking lot and families with kids made one thing clear. Our incredible talent and confidence in building things hasn’t translated to building the one thing everyone needs: a home, In places across Tulsa and the country, for more money than they can afford, but less than the cost of a home deposit, families and individuals trying to stay off the streets are camped out in motels that are just barely tolerable. They raise families and scramble to stay above water, all the while trying to figure out how a country that could rise out of the Great Depression, combat global fascism and the Holocaust, and send humans to the moon can’t quite engineer enough places for each American to lay their head at night.
As we packed up, the manager inspected our room before giving us back our deposit. I wondered how the mother and kids who might be moving in next would be able to secure theirs.
Far To Go
