Home is Where the Heart is, or Maybe it s a Car. On April 24, 1967 a black, four-door, 67 Chevrolet Impala rolled off the line at a

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1 Kayla Achten October 23, 2018 Roadside America Final Research Project Home is Where the Heart is, or Maybe it s a Car On April 24, 1967 a black, four-door, 67 Chevrolet Impala rolled off the line at a manufacturing plant. It would go on a small journey before finding its home with the Winchester family. At the end of his novel, Travels with Charlie, Steinbeck remarks, And that s how the traveler came home again (202). The Winchesters though, they traveled in search of a home almost their entire lives; the Impala was right by their side the entire time. In both the season finale of season five, entitled Swan Song, you can clearly see the integral role the Impala plays in the life of the Winchester brothers. Sam and Dean Winchester. Two brothers raised on the road by their father after the supernatural murder of their mother. They travel across the country in their beloved Impala saving people from supernatural monsters and trying to find a family, a home. They lose everyone they love along the way, and sometimes get them back. Baby, that is what Dean calls his beloved Impala, a car that he went back in time and convinced his father to buy. Though that is a story for another time. The boys spent most of their lives in this car: sleeping in it when there was not a motel, being drug all over the country by their father, forcing their toys into the vents,

2 and etching their initials in the door. Most buyers would start out with the practical and inexpensive Chevrolet (Ingrassia, 21) and eventually move on to better cars, but for the Winchester brothers their Chevy was just right. The car was theirs, even their dad knew this, so he gave Dean the keys. Swan Song. One of the saddest episodes in the entire series. At the beginning of this episode the boys agree to let Sam be possessed by Lucifer so that he can walk them both into Hell. Dean was going to lose his brother and he had to be okay with it because that was what it would take to save the world. Now, do not let the supernatural oddities of the plot turn you away from the message of the show. I promise it is worth it. This episode is occasionally narrated by Chuck, a man writing a book series about the boys adventures who we eventually find out is God. In the middle of this episode Chuck tells us that in the Impala [t]hey could go anywhere and do anything. They drove 1,000 miles for an Ozzy show, two days for a Jayhawks game. And when it was clear, they'd park her in the middle of nowhere, sit on the hood, and watch the stars... for hours... without saying a word. This is one of the first times in the five years that this show had been running that you see the boys in their car driving somewhere just for the fun of it. They spend the episode showing you the history of their lives in the car. You see a flashback of them as children shoving Lego s into the air vents, forcing army men into the ash tray, and carving their initials into the back door on the driver side. And you learn that after a car crash from a previous season that caused the death of their father Dean rebuilt the car from the ground up and put all those things back in place. Those things made the car truly theirs. At the end of the episode Lucifer, in Sam s body of course, kills their father figure, Bobby, and angelic best friend, Castiel. He begins to beat Dean to death right up against their beloved Impala; then a

3 tear-jerking montage plays of so many memories of their memories together in the car. Laughing, crying, dying, and finally a brotherly hug. Sam regains control of his body and says, It s okay, Dean. It s gonna be okay. He then jumps into a pit that leads to Hell. Leaving Dean alone with just the Impala and the bodies of the rest of his family. Of course, Chuck brings Bobby and Castiel back to life, but not Sam. The rest of Chuck s quote reads, It never occurred to them that, sure, maybe they never really had a roof and four walls... but they were never, in fact, homeless (Season 5 Episode 21). The car was home for the boys, but it was not home unless they were both there. Dean behind the wheel and Sam right by his side. In the next episode you learn that Dean put the Impala under a tarp in a garage and goes outside to sit next to it when he misses his brothers. A quote that I thought of as Dean drove away from the place where his brother was trapped was, What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye (Kerouac, 46). The brothers were not ready to say goodbye and the car does not take to the road until Dean sees his brother again. They never realized until after they lost each other that the home they had been looking for was with them all along. Even later when they acquire a home they affectionately call The Bunker, they still feel more at home on the road and in the car than in a place with a foundation. But they are not the only ones that feel more at home in a car on the road than in a house with a roof and four walls. There have been hundreds of movies, television shows, and books about people hitting the road in search of home. Tsh Oxenreider and her husband swore when the got married that they would never settle down. Flashforward a decade later, they have three kids and are itching to get back onto the road. So they packed up their children and went on an adventure. It was full

4 of the general shenanigans and mishaps that occur in most road novels, but the journey was different from those stories because she was not alone. In her novel she remarks, I didn t travel around the world with my family to find myself, but I was curious what I would learn about home (Oxenreider, 259). I think that is a curiosity that many other novelists and travelers can relate to. What is home? Where is home? Where do I belong? So many people start their journeys hoping to find themselves or someone else, but when you have those things you get to learn about the littler things in life. And when you are on the road you have nothing but [t]ime to think. This is the greatest luxury of travel. One thought, one subject. An idea, an emotion. Pry deeper and deeper and lo and behold sometimes find something there (Wisner, 107). After her adventure was over, Tsh came to realize that, while the road will always be calling to her, there is something comforting in the stability of home. You travel the roads and when you get back home you might realize that it is truly your home, you may find that it is not your home anymore, and you might even discover that your home is with someone, in a car, and on the road. Much like Sam and Dean discovered after many years of being with the Impala. They say that the Impala is one of the better behaved full-size muscle monsters of the late 1960 s, (Cheetham, 94) but this is not why she was chosen. She was chosen because someone commented to the creator of the show, You could fit a dead body in the trunk. That did not stop the Impala from becoming a symbol of home on the road for a generation. Of course, this family and this car are not real, but that does not stop their story from touching the hearts of all those people searching for the same things. Sometimes it is hardest to find what you are looking for when it is right beside you. The Winchester s found their home. They chose the

5 Impala. They chose family. And, well when you are on the road you find home, isn t that really the whole point.