More from the road the next time I slow down.

Last night I began the drive to Seattle while thinking of Shalom Auslander, who Maud Newton interviewed at BEA.

Technically, I didn’t start out thinking of Auslander. Not while the rain turned from drizzle to drench while I packed the car. Not while I burned through 40 minutes of drivetime waiting my turn at the Holland Tunnel. Not when the lightning began nor when the highway became sweetly rural, the kind of rural that doesn’t believe in streetlights.

It was then, when I turned on the highbeams so I could see where the hell the road was (yikes! bend!), and I realized the raindrops were beaming down the size of grapes, and the thought “The only thing that could make this worse is hail,” popped into my head, it was then that I thought of Shalom Auslander.

This is what Maud says about his upcoming book:

Foreskin’s Lament — out this October — is a hilarious and very angry memoir that chronicles Shalom Auslander’s move from the devout Orthodoxy of his childhood into a state of perpetual war with God. Like Twain, Auslander skewers his forebears’ religion not from the outside, a la Dawkins, Hitchens, and friends, but by turning the logic of the belief system against itself.

In the interview, Auslander — who is restlessly athiest, by my guess — told of how he’d destroyed the manuscript when he found out his wife was pregnant. Because he figured that if there were a God, He’d be pissed at Auslander, and the pregancy was too good an opportunity for His revenge. The idea was not to give Him an opening.

Similarly, when driving though miserable weather (two rejected adjectives: hellish, gawdawful), one should not think of the one thing that would make it worse. Too easy — for God or fate or plain bad luck — to deliver your fear, toute suite.

I’m driving. Did I mention I’m driving? To Seattle from, now, East Stroudsburg PA. If you are anywhere in between (nearby routes 80 or 94) and would like to get together to talk books over a beverage, drop me a line at paperhaus (at) gmail.com.

Born in 1758 in Connecticut, Noah Webster first put together classroom textbooks known as blue-backed spellers, then spent 20 years creating the first American dictionary. Webster’s.

In the first half of the 20th century, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother bought the Noah Webster house and moved in, raised their family there. But by the 1950s, the low ceilings and drafty colonial styling didn’t suit them, and they built and moved into a modern house. Their son Fred, his wife Jane and their 3 kids moved into the old place. By the time I was old enough to absorb any of this, my great-grandmother, in her 90s, had all the modern conveniences, including an electric chair that carried her up the wide staircase to the 2nd floor of her new house. The family donated the Webster home to the town of West Hartford in 1962.

Until yesterday, I hadn’t seen it. When I pulled up, I realized it was closed Wednesdays. But the staff — who say very nice things about great-uncle Fred and great-aunt Jane — gave me a private tour after I told them about my family.

The most striking thing about the inside is that it smells of soot, from the enormous fireplaces, just one upstairs (chilly!). There are three downstairs — two that are 8-10 feet wide, one in the original kitchen and another in the “lean-to” – an addition that was built in the late 1700s, and contained an updated kitchen, a downstairs bedroom and a buttery. (A buttery? Yep, a cool room for dairy products. A room full of butter: mmmm.) It’s also neat that the doors’ latches are all so low (I felt normal-sized, not short), and the floorboards are 14+ inches wide from what must have been the enormous early New England trees.

I know it’s been restored to its original condition, but it’s hard to imagine my family living there in the 20th century. They had plumbing, which is gone now. And I assume electricity. I’m trying to picture a 1950s TV set back into one of those fireplaces.

More later. For now: