The Road I Still Walk

I think about Steinbeck sometimes.
Not the book itself, but the people under that dust—the workers who moved because they had no other choice.
The road they took was long, but what they were really chasing was something that stayed in one place: stability, record, belonging.

That’s what I’m after too.
I just call it Dust & Ledger.

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The Dust

Dust is what’s left when nobody writes anything down.
When work is done and forgotten.
When an artist’s name is painted over.
When the budget line disappears.
When the wall cracks, and no one knows who to call.

I’ve seen that dust in coal towns, in mural towns, on Main Streets where the paint fades faster than the promises.
It’s the same story everywhere: people show up, do the work, and the paper trail blows away.

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The Ledger

The ledger is the opposite of dust.
It’s the part that stays.
It’s a binder, a spreadsheet, a brass plate on a wall.
It says who did the work, who owns it, when it was last checked, and when someone’s coming back.

It’s a small thing, but it means everything.
Because when a name is written, that person exists in the system.
When a maintenance date is set, a wall gets to keep standing.
And when wages are logged, youth know their effort counted.

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The Road Between Them

The road still matters.
Mine runs from a coal town to Cuba, Missouri, along Route 66, through the orchard roads of the Okanagan, and out toward New York.
Different places, same rhythm: people working, making, trading, and waiting for someone to write it down.

So we built a way to do that—Route Commons.
It’s simple:
one wall, one market day, one workshop space, one shared ledger.
Each town keeps the same checklist so the next one doesn’t have to start over.
Inspect, trade, pay, log, close.
Do it again next month.

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The Workday

A day on the route starts with unlocking the lift.
Youth clock in.
Vendors roll up.
The wall has a tag that says: who made it, when it was last fixed, who to call.
The receipts from the market split the same way every time:
60 % wall upkeep / 20 % route fund / 20 % youth wages.
No speeches, no mystery.
Just math, daylight, and names spelled right.

That’s how dust turns into data.
That’s how a mural becomes infrastructure.
That’s how a community becomes accountable to itself.

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The Lesson

Steinbeck wrote about a road that scattered people.
I’m writing about one that gathers them.
He showed us what happens when systems break;
I want to show what happens when they hold.

The ledger is our answer to the dust.
It’s not romantic, but it’s solid.
It says we were here.
It says we’ll be back next month.
It keeps art and work from being temporary.

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The Call

Every town has enough to start:
a wall that needs care,
a market corner,
a shop,
and someone who can keep a spreadsheet.

Start there.
Pick a wall.
Post a date.
Write the names.
Run the market.
Publish the totals.

That’s the route.
That’s Dust & Ledger.