Route 20: Growing Up Along the Longest Road in the Country

Route 20 captured Patch readers' imagination this week with news that signs would commemorate the 3,365-mile road here in Boston and across the country in Newport, Oregon. But few were more excited by the news than West Roxbury choral director and musician Eric Christopher Perry.

To him, the name evokes memories: his hometown, his family's ice cream shop and miniature golf course, attending college in a Route 20 town, open mic nights with his dad, roadtrips for work. Now, he lives in Boston, near the head of the longest continuous road in the United States.

Route 20 winds from Kenmore Square in Boston across rolling rural hills and busy city streets to the edge of Newport. Both cities installed signs this week that mark the beginning and end.

Perry has traveled long stretches of the route before, but seeing the news rekindled a plan he's had for some time, what he calls the "Rock Across Route 20 Tour."

Drawing on his childhood memories, Perry wants to drive from one end of the 3,365-mile route to the other, stopping in towns along the way to meet the locals, play a show and write a song inspired by the people he meets. In Newport, he'd play the full album of the new songs, along with ECP and the Good Diners bandmate, Will Prapestis.

This week's news, Perry said, "It's a sign. I have to do this this year."

If Perry can pull it off, it will be part-musical experience, part-social experiment. He sees a chance to really talk to residents of the towns, many of them — like his Sangerfield, New York, childhood home — with populations of only 100 or so.

Traveling the route from end-to-end, "You get a real tableau of what America is as a whole," he said.

The idea behind the tour is a tribute to his father and a nod to his upbringing, Perry said.

Working his family's ice cream shop in Sangerfield, he remembers Route 20 travelers stopping for a bite. It was as if they had a shared secret.

"They thought they were like pioneers, you know?" he said. "Nobody took Route 20 to travel; they all took I-90."

That's a shame, he said, noting the myriad ways a trip like that could benefit not just businesses and towns on Route 20, but the people who drive along it. They might travel slower, Perry said, but discovering the towns and creating memorable experiences would be worth it.

His parents shuttered their ice cream shop in Sangerfield years ago, but the sign with its soft-serve cone still stands along Route 20. The miniature golf-course they'd erected behind it is still there, too, Perry said, even if it's covered in weeds. If you close, he said, you can still see part of a tall ship, a relic of what was once a truly challenging course.

"Maybe nobody notices," he concedes. But, "Maybe that's also the appeal of Route 20" — the markers, monuments and mementos only the people who travel it know.

Image via Google Maps