John Sutherland, In Front Of His Home, 3704 35th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN. 11:05 AM
…The following passage from Robert M. Pirsig's novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", early along the ZMM Route, introduces us to John Sutherland, and his Wife Sylvia =>
…“ John Sutherland and his wife, Sylvia, have pulled into a roadside picnic area. It’s time to stretch. As I pull my machine beside them Sylvia is taking her helmet off and shaking her hair loose, while John puts his BMW up on the stand. Nothing is said. We have been on so many trips together we know from a glance how one another feels.
…The picnic benches are abandoned at this hour of the morning. We have the whole place to ourselves. John goes across the grass to a cast-iron pump and starts pumping water to drink. Chris wanders down through some trees beyond a grassy knoll to a small stream. I am just staring around.
…After a while Sylvia sits down on the wooden picnic bench and straightens out her legs, lifting one at a time slowly without looking up. Long silences mean gloom for her, and I comment on it. She looks up and then looks down again.
…"It was all those people in the cars coming the other way," .
. "The first one looked so sad. And then the next one looked exactly the same way, and then the next one and the next one, they were all the same.” ….
……."It’s just that they looked so lost," she says. "Like they were all dead. Like a funeral procession." Then she puts both feet down and leaves them there.

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