Robert Waldmire

(two photos added Nov 15, 2009)

With the (national) Official Route 66 Festival '08 beginning Thursday in Litchfield, Illinois, I'm looking back on my experience meeting so many personalities of the mother road last year, when the festival was held in Clinton, Oklahoma.



You probably haven't met Bob Waldmire, but if you've cruised the gift shops and postcard racks of a few Route 66 attractions, you've almost certainly seen his work.



Waldmire has illustrated the Mother Road for well over two decades; his postcards are a standard rack item at many a Route 66 stop. I've been buying them for years so it was quite a treat to meet him last year in Clinton.



Artist, environmentalist, political activist, off-the-grid hippie - Waldmire's 1972 Volkswagen van speaks volumes about his life and attitudes.








For more on Waldmire's history, read this article at Desert Exposure.



The van itself is iconic to roadies (Route 66 aficionados), and found pop culture relevance with the release of the Pixar movie, Cars. Fillmore, the VW van in the movie, is based on Waldmire and was originally supposed to bear his name. True to his colors, Waldmire did not sign off on that, partly due to the fact that toy versions of the van would be offered in McDonald's Happy Meals, which would clash with his beliefs as an ethical vegetarian.



He will autograph toy Fillmores, but signs as "Fillmore's cousin."



Here's the back of Waldmire's van.



And here is the back of a die-cast toy Fillmore. I hadn't noticed the "I Brake for Jackalopes" sticker until I shot this picture.



I asked Waldmire what he thought of "Cars" and he said he liked its message of "slowing down", but objected to the scene in which the protagonist, Lightning McQueen, races a train through a crossing.



He'd also like to have seen more of the recreational vehicles shown briefly in the movie.



Serendipity gifted me a nice moment of allegory when Waldmire described the varied contents of his dashboard.



It was one of those moments novelists and biographers cherish.



"Each object represents a memory", he said.



As the objects and layers get older and the memories they represent fade and blur in detail, they are joined by newer ones.



Trains are also an interest of Waldmire. He hopes to replace this melted Santa Fe streamliner with a metal version. I thought it looked like "Dali does Santa Fe."



Waldmire told me he would not be traveling as much in the future as he hopes to settle down in southern Arizona. I hope that's not too soon, as I'm looking forward to scanning Route 66 for that groovy yellow van.



We've certainly enjoyed Waldmire and his work, and hope he'll be at this year's festival.