Today is Kerouac’s ninetieth birthday.

Like a lot of Beat writers, I have mixed feelings about him. On the Road is a spectacular book and everyone should read it, but if you chose never to read anything else by Kerouac, I’m not sure your emotional and intellectual life would suffer much for it. Dharma Bums is good, but it’s no On the Road and I’m just not going to say, ‘go out and read it now!’

In high school, we did always name whoever was driving on Saturday nights “Neal Cassady” after the real life namesake of the Dean Moriarty character. And I always remember (though I can’t recall the words) the exactitude of feeling and eloquence of the narrator looking down from the car window and seeing the road smoothly speed past them as if they were floating.

Also, Jack Kerouac spent his last days in St. Petersburg, Florida. Despite the occasional article in the paper, though, the town seems to take little or no pride in the connection. A pity.