By C.V. Wooster© June 25, 2025, Taciturn Studios LLC
File size: 3.9 MB
181 pages
ISBN: 978-1967239009
Almost everyone loves a David and Goliath story. Mrs. Orcutt’s Driveway is that in spades, only it isn’t David fighting Goliath. It’s Bonnie Orcutt, a petit, methodical, quiet but determined widow who takes on city, then state, and finally federal officials to divert the inevitable invasion of Interstate 40 across her land. And instead of flinging stones at the giant, she writes letter after letter after letter. And people hear her. They pay attention. She rouses public sentiment, so much so that… Well. You need to read the story to find out how it ends.
Bonnie might have been quiet. She might have been small. But she was fierce and had been something of a powerhouse her whole life. The book takes us through her early years, her love of music, her training in firearms and how she, later, used her expertise to train new police officers on firing a weapon during the early days of the war. She meets and marries the love of her life and is devastated when he is taken from her by a plane crash. Struggles and challenges that follow lead her to purchase a 100-acre parcel of land in the Mojave Desert, near Newberry (now Newberry Springs, thanks to Bonnie). There, she lives in her tiny Airstream travel trailer while she builds an adobe home brick by brick, all with her own two hands. There, she begins to heal from the trauma of her husband’s loss and the events that followed. And she has dreams for this land, plans to help others, as the land has helped her. Until the Interstate project comes knocking.
It isn’t like I could actually spoil the story by telling you too much, not completely. This is a biography, not a novel. The events in this book actually happened and are part of documented history. It’s a tale especially meaningful to Route 66 fans, and to race-car lovers, but you’d have to read the story to see why. Still, I didn’t read about the woman until after I’d finished the book. And that made reading it all the more exciting, since I didn’t know exactly how it would turn out.
I think the best part of this story was seeing Bonnie’s grace and determination, her absolute devotion to this piece of land and the delicate balance in the Mojave Desert. There is a touch of environmentalism to this tale, as Bonnie’s letters entreat relevant officials to consider that this roadway system would destroy something that could never be replaced. I especially loved the one scene where a big, tall, official man comes to discuss the matter with her, and she—tiny Bonnie Orcutt, all alone on her porch in the middle of the Mojave—made him nervous without saying a word. Her determination and refusal to back down was inspiring. I couldn’t put the book down and finished it all in one sitting.
This might be a true story, but it reads almost like a fable. There isn’t a lot of up-close experience with Bonnie, yet that did not matter. I fell in love with her and her cause, and if I’d been there, I would have joined her in trying to stop the bulldozers.
Definitely recommended.