first draft of kerouac's "on the road" rolls into SF

Last week, an airtight black suitcase passed through a security checkpoint at the Indianapolis International Airport on its way to San Francisco. A guard ordered the case opened and found inside a tattered and frayed scroll of yellowed paper 119 feet and 8 inches long.

"Oh, I know what this is," the baggage screener said to Jim Canary, a conservator who was accompanying the artifact. "This is one of them religious scrolls, ain't it?"

Not a bad observation. The scroll was in fact the manuscript of one of the most famous and iconic novels of the 20th century, Jack Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness Beat generation bible, "On the Road," which is on exhibit for the next three months at the San Francisco Public Library....

Read more in the SF Chronicle article by Delfin Vigil.