Greetings From America's Secret Capitals
It's happened to all of you. You're in the car, headed who knows where, and you come to this town that isn't happy being just another place, because what does that mean today? It means you've got a Dunkin' Donuts and a Taco Bell, like every other place in America. Big deal.
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A town needs an identity, or it doesn't exist. Something nobody else can claim.
Welcome to the Carpet Capital of the World!
Yeah, so it's just rugs. But now they're on the map.
And don't say you haven't stumbled upon one of those places in the minivan, children strapped in behind you in those church pews--or maybe in a roadster, top down, the wind laughing through the sparse seedlings of your new plug-a-rug--and wondered how a nowhere burg like Dalton, Ga., comes to carpet the planet. Or how a look-fast town, a highway blur, becomes the Garlic Capital (Gilroy, Calif.) or the Storm-Watching Capital (Bandon, Ore.) of the universe (or so they claim).
And what's it like to live, work and play in one of those dozens of places that dress up billboards, fly flags and erect monuments and museums to a product or an idea? You've come to the right place, because we have all the answers, centered, as we are, in the news and information capital of the world. We have sat on porches and in parlors, toured factories and roamed Main Streets. We will now take you to the fireworks capital of the entire galaxy--or at least of Pennsylvania--and whisk you into the clouds to meet the too-young millionaires in sandals and cutoffs who populate the top of a Dallas skyscraper (bloody video-game capital of the world).
As different as these worlds are, they are a part of the same thing. The secret capitals of America.
The making and remaking of identities. Enterprise. Pride. Work. Survival.
America.
Get off Route 431 in northern Alabama, drive into the center square in the little town of Albertville, and you'll know the full passion of American industriousness and hometown pride. There, perched nobly atop a sleek granite platform and gleaming under a stubborn sun that hogs the sky, is a nickel-plated fire hydrant.
Albertville is the fire-hydrant capital of the world. What, you thought they just sprouted out of the ground? Somebody has to make them, and in Albertville (pop. 17,145) even dogs know what puts food in the bowl. They leave the town monument alone, despite the urge.
When the whistle blows at 3 o'clock in the hydrant factory, a redhead named Opie races away in a pickup and begins a second back-breaking job to help pay for the dream house he is building on seven lakeside acres of peace and quiet.
In Pittsburgh, Pa., a wild-haired doctor finishes a round of surgeries before noon, gets into a Mercedes and then motors an hour north to help his 73-year-old father mix chemicals and explosives in the fireworks capital of the world.
This is a story of ingenuity big and small, noble and flat out cash driven. It all began, for sure, at the very foundation of American capitalism. The lemonade stand.
Who among us, in our childhoods, didn't see some kid selling lemonade on a corner and plot to steal a piece of the action with a better drink, a nicer stand, a smarter gimmick?
In some respects this is a story of grownup lemonade stands.
Of the will to work.
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