The Student Revisits the Master

Created on Thursday, 14 October 2010 11:29

Published on Thursday, 14 October 2010 11:29

Written by Randy Garbin

Rough Draft Roadtrip, Day 4

Here's the thing about GPS units. They only work if you actually listen to them. So, do yourself and favor and don't do what I did trying to find John Baeder's house: Don't talk on the phone and follow the directions of your GPS unit at the same time. I took a regretably circutuous route to John's house, turning north when I should have gone south and then missing the next set of cues provided by my unit. I keep thinking what I might have done ten years ago, and how I would have studied an actual printed map to get myself better oriented to a strange area. I took a couple of wrong turns that never would have happened if I didn't study the map better.

John Baeder with his latest painting.

To make matters more frustrating, I started not to believe the GPS. Inexperienced pilots are known to do the same thing when flying into unknown or difficult conditions, such as losing the horizon. At one point, I stopped the car and rechecked all my bearings because I believed the GPS became "confused." It didn't.

I came to my ultimate destination — John Baeder's house — at 10:15 A.M. The plan was to sit back and listen to the man who put me on this path well over twenty years ago. I came to see John for a very simple reason: Reverence. Not long after I got that diner "itch," got "bit by the bug," etc, a friend found a copy of his book Diners at the gift shop in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Of course, I spent hours at first just looking at the pictures. So many diners! How many still existed? As a designer not long out of school, I appreciated John's attention to the details and pondered how his realism enhanced the unique design of the diners themselves. Aesthetically, what other form of architecture worked so well combining form and function?

But the true inspiration for Roadside didn't come about until I took the time to finally read the narrative. As much as I loved the painting and the images they portrayed, the true genius of the book didn't shine fully until I absorbed John's descriptions of his life and his work. Taking in the stories of personal contact, subtle gestures, the pure humanity fostered in such places, the scope of the tragedy came into focus. Losing these diners meant losing big chunks of true community. Stories of the interactions and experiences John conveyed in that book did not take place in the typical fast-food places that have replaced all those spectacular diners.

For better or for worse, I saw the book almost as a call for action.

It's not without some irony that about twenty years ago today, I picked up the first issue of Roadside from the printer. The simple, four page tabloid, was not only an homage to all the great diners I have visted and would soon visit, but mostly a tribute to the guy that now stood before me as I approached his back door.

John and I embraced for the first time in years. John and I have of course met several times in the past, but I made this pilgrimage as a gesture to honor someone I consider not only a kindred spirit, a keen wit, a talented artist, and an incomparable story teller, but a true genius and an authentic American institution.

And now I had him all to myself for the whole day.