May 12 – Made the five miles to Port Clinton by 11. On the fringe of town was a quiet railroad, the trains that once ran it forgotten and graffiti-emblazoned alongside the tracks. 
Cosmo and I wandered behind an old couple for a while, wondering in an unworried sort of way if they were heading the direction we wanted to go. They waved to everyone and seemed the grandparents of the town, the man replete with a straight-handled walking stick and the woman a tight wool cap. I was struck with the revelation that they were just like characters out of an old sitcom. The tune of the Andy Griffith show echoed in my head from nearly forgotten childhood memories.
It proved to be a premonition of what was to come.
When Cosmo and I entered the town proper it was, sure enough, dignified in grandiose fashion by a standoff of small-town proportions. Along one side of the main avenue was the post office with the welcoming wooden porch. Directly beyond was a family-run diner whose door seemed perpetually wedged open. And across the street — right where I instinctively knew it would be — was the barber shop, behind whose door would be lounging old men from another era, guys with thinning-hair and gruff voices but an uncanny eye for detail and a knack for judging character, the Dons who don’t take no shit but can spit it with the best. That’s who I wanted to sit down with in this podunk little town: the class behind the crass.
And man, that’s exactly what I found. Steve an 80-something Southern Jersey retiree pulled I don’t know how many fast ones on me despite the wrinkles and his “damned Hepititus whatchyathing.” I pride myself on my wit, but this man’s was lightning quick. The machismo was there too. “I don’t care who ya are,” he shouted at the dash as he ferried us around town, “I’ll go toe to toe with anybody. People these days’ll walk all over you. But, me, me I’m a straight shooter an I’ll let em’ know that with a –” he punched a fist at the car ahead of us.
He dropped us at the biggest Cabela’s in the world with a promise to come get us if we were in a pinch.
I didn’t like Cabela’s. All it took to get lost was that one step inside the automatic doors. Too many things I didn’t need and would never use. Three aisles of bucket hats, twenty different camp-lanterns, a portable stove with a usb charger for your phone, backpacks with waist straps and backpacks without, boots for hiking next to boots for hunting next to boots for getting the mail when your live someplace where it’s normal for driveways to be covered in snow. It was too much, the ceiling was so far away I felt like a bug on the living room floor. The place just swallowed me whole.
Not to mention it was a zoo, but the zookeeper was a taxidermist. Big gaping animal eyes stared from heads on every wall. “Taken by (insert dentist’s name here)” read their respective placards. And while most customers gawked at the big teeth and fierce expressions, I had trouble admiring the views.
Fair game. Overpopulation. Yadayada. A bullet can stop a heart, who knew?
I blame the stuffed six-ton elephant for bringing on most of my moral guilt.
I only lasted about thirty minutes or so, then edged towards the exit, moving with a quiet desperation away from the place with glassy-eyed dead animals on the walls and glassy-eyed live people below, all buying big guns and eating burgers and fries and fudge at the indoor cafe while the whole time gazing blankly around.
Got back to the barber shop. Back in the familiarity of someplace small, where a small voice can be big. A woman came in just to sing (yodel to be precise) and the barber set down his clippers to play guitar for her, chord of A.
Before long it was time to go, so I gathered my stuff, packed my bag, dumped my trash, and grabbed some squares of toilet paper for the road. There’s nothing sad about it anymore, I’ve just got somewhere to go, I’ve got to move. I won’t forget the town or the barber or Steve or the heads on the wall.
I won’t.

Nomad