BLACKBIRDS

Day after Thanksgiving, feeling a bit nuanced, a bit nostalgic, feeling peaceful, not a trace of contention. It’s kind of nice. I’ve been at odds with mankind in general for decades. At first I thought I had a mild case of Misanthropy (Hatred of Humans) but it’s not that. Think of misanthropy as a full blown case of pneumonia and I would be a simple sneeze. But I am terribly disappointed with Homo sapiens as a species. We have the capacity for incredibly high minded cooperation and pursuit of a greater good but we resort to selfish, narrow, self serving hypocrisy when it suits us. We all do it; human nature. Maybe that’s why I love nature and wild things: no pretense.

Murmuration: by definition it is a large, really large, flock of blackbirds that assemble in the fall and through winter. They go unnoticed while on the ground but perched on power lines you can’t miss them: in the air it’s mesmerizing. In the air obviously, they have a leader and thousands if not tens of thousands blackbirds follow in close formation, so dense you can hardly see though it. In dense clouds, stretching out into long bands, dipping, climbing, changing direction, swooping; it looks like some kind of digital, special effects. Experts agree they gain safety in numbers with this behavior and unmatched efficiency finding food. But when you see one it’s magical and that’s hard to beat. 

It was cloudy-gray, trying to rain on my way to the gym this morning. Pulling in I noticed, nobody there, parking lot was empty. They are taking the full holiday and I’m glad that they are but I miss my workout. The loop through the parking lot put me back at the entrance, looking out across an open field. From the left, across a backdrop of early morning gray I saw a few blackbirds, then a few more. Then it was blackbirds by the thousands, dipping, weaving, up and down, down and up, expanding, contracting, reversing course, coming back across my line of sight; my first murmuration of the season. I caught myself holding my breath, grinning like the 11-year old trapped inside my head. After several reversals, multiple passes, left to right and right to left, they descended upon the field. Many went for the power lines across the road. Like NASCAR drivers racing down pit row, blackbirds were speed parking just meters away. Within a few seconds, all three high voltage wires were shoulder to shoulder with perched starlings,( Sturnus vulgaris), not to be confused with (Quiscalus quiscula), common grackles, a sleeker, more attractive blackbird that practices the same behavior. As far as I could see in both directions they perched there as if they were watching me. With nobody behind me, streets empty, I sat there as if I had just been party to a miracle. 

My most memorable murmuration was several years back, in Dayton, Ohio. We visited a small church with stain glass windows. As the minister preached her sermon a sizable murmuration swooped low, up and over the building, their shadows blurring the windows and the compression from thousands of wing beats registered in the ears and on the chest. The distraction subsided but the birds turned, came back from the other direction. Again and again, they buzzed the church. The preacher had a dilemma, keep preaching or acknowledge nature. She stayed with her text and lost her audience; everyone was watching the windows and each other. Just when it felt like they had moved on, they made another pass. It went on for a long time. I don’t remember anything about the minister or her sermon but the murmuration is forever archived inside my head. 

Starlings are nuisance birds, vectors for disease and unacceptably aggressive with other birds at the feeder. Grackles are only slightly less offensive but in the murmuration, they make up for a bad reputation. If reincarnation is the norm after all, I hope to come back as a humming bird or a tern. But as easily as I denigrate my own kind I would probably slip in with the grackles and starlings for some tightly choreographed, close formation, murmuration-aerobatics. Birds don’t have morals or egos, no ideologies or world views. They don’t have anything to gain or lose with Making America Great Again, like we were greater when we practiced genocide on Native Americans or pillaged Viet Nam rather than appear weak to our allies. The other human paradigm is that, Make America Great Again really means, Make America White again. Even if you can’t keep people of color from gaining majority status, you can gerrymander voting districts to favor white candidates and suppress minority access to the polls. Birds don’t know, don’t care. People do the damnedest things. I’ve oversimplified to a fault. But that’s what we do. I don’t really want to be a bird, just able to fly like one. Being able to know where I came from and that I will die someday, they cancel each other out. But knowing our ultimate destination, I want squeeze all of the juice out of the time that we have and I like that. I can do math, write songs and make furniture out of dead trees and I wouldn’t want to give that up either. But I’m starting to sound preachy and neither do I want to do that. It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I’m still feeling good about my human being nature. 

HOW I WAS RAISED

Waco, Texas: Helen Keller said, “The highest result of education is tolerance.” She also said, “Life is either a great adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller is credited with many, many inspiring quotes. We can not know how she would have turned out had she been sighted but we do know how she turned out. Another quote, Orrison Madden; I have no recollection of Orrison but he made the observation, success is measured more so by struggle than by accomplishment and Hellen Keller could have easily been his model. 

While I’m at it, John Muir said, “If we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”  Muir was no doubt, contemplating the universe at the time but it also touches on the difficulty I have staying on task. Reading, writing, making saw dust or digging in the dirt, I get distracted easily and wander off on a new adventure long before anything constructive gets done. But getting back to Helen and the connection, like three legs on the stool, education and tolerance both lean heavily on the struggle/accomplishment-adventure equation. 

So what’s the point? In Helen’s lifetime, tolerance was a high water mark for liberal thinkers. Today it’s not enough. Tolerance is still a hurdle that has to be cleared. It doesn’t accommodate the spirit she modeled. Tolerance doesn’t require growth, only turning the other cheek. I think today Helen would have accepted rather than tolerate. It doesn’t mean that you embrace as your own but it does require the courage to be wrong and an open window to change. That’s the difference between tolerance and acceptance. I can accept major religions of the world without embracing any of them. 

I hate it when people rebut a challenge with, “That’s how I was raised.” Still, I realize the part I hate is when the strategy is simply to change the subject in lieu of defending something they truly don’t understand. But I accept that the values of our ‘Growing Up’ are important and try as we like, we can’t undo their influence on us. That influence on me contributed largely to keeping a low profile. Humility was a virtue and that show-boating self promotion was as sinful as pride and thievery. That being said, considering my experience with Texas and Texans, both privatey and in public life; I’ve always been suspicious of their moral worth and let that predisposition shade my thinking. My perception has been that a healthy ego had morphed into self absorption and narcissism. So I’m letting myself stretch, accepting that Texans are just people who not only rise from a different gene pool but also another subculture and I have transcended tolerance there. I accept them and hope someday to disarm my suspicions altogether. The lessons of my upbringing are still deeply rooted but I accept that is about me, not them. I now have ‘Lone Star’ natives for friends and loved ones. Where they hang their hat and the lessons of their upbringing are acceptable and I love them. 

PIT STOP

Missouri: Up and down the Mississippi, all the river towns have their flood gates closed. Almost all of the green spaces and parks along river banks are under water and you need a boat to get to your boat. But I guess high water is a way of life on the big river, no less than mosquitoes on the screen and catfish on the menu. In Muscatine, Iowa we had to detour uphill and across to get into town. Nauvoo, Illinois is high and dry on the bluff, but quaint and picturesque, full of tradition and story. Mormons settled here in early 1840’s. It’s had to imagine a population of 12,000 but the Temple they completed in 1846 would be considered a mega-church today. The Mormon story reads like fiction; nothing like that could ever happen, so one would think. They literally took over the area and the locals turned hostile. Their trek west is well known and Nauvoo remains a simple, little town of just over a thousand, mostly Roman Catholic, with an RLDS shrine that could accommodate them all with room to spare. I could go on but I do have a Mormon bias and it would be unfair for me to take that liberty. 

Every place we went on the Great River Road tour was new to me except at the end. I’ve been to Hannibal, Missouri many times and I like it. The old buildings are well maintained and you don’t see darkened shops or boarded windows. It’s a busy, big town-small city. No one should have to be told that Hannibal is the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens - “Mark Twain”. There must be a dozen businesses there that bear some form of his name. There are several museums, the restored Clemens’ home, and other Twain characters homes, then gift shops, bars, restaurants, that would have no appeal if not for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Twain was 43 and 49 when he published those two works. Assembling and associating quotes from letters, stories and his auto biography, one can not mistake or dismiss his complete rejection and loathing for slavery and the culture that propelled it. If he weren’t already a hero in my eyes, that would have made it so, pushing back against the culture that had shaped his character. We do have a need to belong and loyalty cements that sacrament but few ever challenge the system that nurtured them. There is something surreal about standing on the spot or tracing old, disappeared footsteps of your heroes. I stood on the levee; of course there were no levees on the Mississippi when Sam Clemens tied up his steam boat there but he was most certainly there. I was 170 years late but I was there and aware. Hero is a weighty title for ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, flawed for sure but that comes with the human condition. They don’t have to change the world, only yours. Don’t pick your heroes lightly. 

Flood gates on the levee were closed but water was seeping through. Standing up on top it was easy to see flood water, five or six feet deep against the flood gate, above the curb on the 1st Street side. That leakage was not serious but it pooled then ran down a seam to a drain in the street where it disappeared. The irony was irresistible. Billions of tons of water waiting like a predator, ready to rush through any gap and the little spill coming around the seam was going down into a drain. If the drain is several feet below the bottom of the flood gate, where does the spill go? Somewhere they had to be pumping water back over the levee. But the sight of flood water going down a drain was novel and stuff like that makes me smile if not chuckle. 

The Great River Road adventure took eleven days and now it’s history, with photos to prove we were there. I’m in the turn-around mode, doing laundry, paying bills, getting the car serviced; it’s sort of like a geriatric pit stop. I won’t smoke the tires but we will be back on the road in a couple of days. 

GREAT RIVER ROAD

La Crosse, Wisconsin: “Best laid plans of mice and men . . .” - I had a friend, a football coach; once after losing a game we were supposed to have won he soberly observed, “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear easts you” Robert Burns didn’t waste words either, making the same observation. Lake Itasca should have required two days at most but I made reservations for five. My best laid plan anticipated inclement weather so it worked this time. I just wanted one, sunny day and that’s what we got on the last day. This time, we ate the bear. 

Bemidji, Minnesota claims the title, “1st City On The Mississippi.” Driving into town from the south, you notice the lake on the right but not the unpretentious little bridge or the placid, backwater creek below. Still, you are some thirty miles downstream on the mighty ‘Mississip’. Another fifty miles to the east is Grand Rapids, Minnesota. A paper company has backed up a reservoir with a dam there. The river on the down side of the dam had grown respectably. Their claim was to the Navigable Headwaters of the Mississippi. 

One day of sunshine was all we got. South bound again, we had bluster and drizzle again. We stayed with a couple of teachers that night in Saint Cloud. Their little B&B had us sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the living room.  They had company and charged just enough to cover our breakfast. They were interesting and fun. Breakfast was great and we would stay with them again if passing this way.

By the time you get to the Twin Cities, the Mississippi has widened and its channel accommodates barge traffic. Traffic on the freeway doesn’t allow for river gazing but then concrete and steel have a way of making everything feel mundane. It’s not until you cross over into Wisconsin at Prescott that you get a feel for “The Great River Road”. At the end of the river bridge the road goes up a long, steep hill or you can turn to the south. Freedom Park is up on the bluff. According to the literature, this is where the Great River Road begins and you have this wonderful view, up and down the river, as wide as a football field is long with woods ashore and an island midstream. That morning we spent a couple of hours at the Minneapolis Art Institute Museum. In the Minnesota Room, I noticed a large oil painting from the 1860’s of a paddle wheel steamboat on the river.The artist was from Minnesota but the view was suspiciously similar to the view from Freedom Park, in Wisconsin. After negotiating 200 miles of wetlands and tributaries, the meandering little race had grown up with still another 2,000 miles to go.

The Great River Road is the network of highways that hug the river on either side, touted by the tourism industry in river cities all the way to the bird-foot delta at the end. The little hamlets might not offer anything more than a chance to stop for fuel and a view of the river but they tell a story without trying. I wondered how many times had flood water been up the walls of those buildings and how many times had those people put the pieces back and started over.  For dinner I had a batter fried, Walleye sandwich so big it would have taken a full loaf of bread to contain the fillet. Football was on the big screen but I can’t remember even who was playing. I wouldn’t be there again and it was river culture I was soaking up. 

It will take another day or so to reach Hannibal, Missouri where our Headwaters & Great River Road adventure will wrap up. I’m sure I will have some Mark Twain influences to write about and with a little luck, a fish fry at the local Methodist Church or put on by the Knights of Columbus. 

47.21 N - 95.20 W

Bemidji, Minnesota: I can remember far back in history, my history; hearing detailed weather reports about the coldest spot in the nation that day. Fraser, Colorado natives took pride in that distinction, “Coldest Spot In The Nation” Located on U.S. 40 Highway, it used to be on the main line over the mountains but Interstate I-70 has bypassed it now. If you find yourself in Fraser it’s because you made a wrong turn or have business with one of the thousand or so residents there. If Fraser wasn’t the “Most Cold” on a particular winter day it was, most likely, Bemidji, Minnesota. No mountains there but what they lack in altitude they make up in latitude. Land locked in northern Minnesota, in the path of 30-below-polar-cold-fronts, they sell lots of long underwear in Bemidji. 

I had hoped that early October would be fresh and crisp with great fall color but rain is on the menu. Rainy-gray mist and low clouds spoil the view surely as frost on the windowpane. After several days we’ve kept to our schedule. Even with poor visibility our reason to be here hasn’t changed. Down the road about half an hour, fresh lake water spills over an unimpressive, man made riffle on its way down stream. Lake Itaska is the source, the birthplace of the Mississippi River. Water spilling over and between those stones level out in a shallow, sandy bottom stream, inches deep, maybe 30 ft. wide. Headwater to over 2,500 miles of river with all of its meandering, we have made it special. Humans do that. 

We’ve built a monument and a state park to celebrate that new beginning. People come by the thousands to have their photos taken by the post, tiptoe across the stones or wade across the Mississippi, pant-legs rolled up and shutters tripping. A different explorer, another year; they could have chosen the Ohio River or the Missouri to be the mother of this great river system. It might have been in Pittsburg, PA or Brower’s Springs, MT but it’s not; it’s here in the bush, just southwest of Bemidji, Minnesota. It’s here because someone decided it should be here. The nature of glacial lakes and beaver ponds, of watersheds in particular is predictable and consistent with natural laws. The way people determine what is special and what is not is neither predictable nor consistent. But I drove all the way to see something special and I’ve decided, after looking at the lake and its modest contribution, that it is special. Down stream at the other end, along with input from thousands of other tributaries, at New Orleans the river’s flow rate is well over half a million cubic feet per second. From my perspective, it’s not just about this trickle but it represents the idea; things begin small, combine and interact. If it changes the world, the humble beginning and unfathomable resolution certainly does make it special. 

Yesterday we drove east for an hour, to Grand Rapids, Minnesota. We crossed the Mississippi River several times as it bends and twists its way down hill. Folks around here take advantage of the tourism dollars but otherwise, it’s just a stream. They know where it goes but most have never driven across the Crescent City Bridge in New Orleans. If they had, then Lake Itaska and its little seep take on new significance. Imagine a Red Maple leaf like the one I saw yesterday, floating downstream, under the bridge where I was taking photos: no bigger than a cookie, all of its chlorophyl leached out so only xanthophyll was left, the yellow pigment made it burst against the dark water like a neon light. Even though unlikely, that little leaf has a ticket to New Orleans. If it could avoid decomposing, swirling eddies and a maze off stagnant back-waters, it might float under the Crescent City Bridge someday. What a story that would make. The average Minnesotan would have to reflect on all the miles and such volume; hard to imagine. But they might think about the transition and the scope of such a river system and it is special, whichever end you start with.

It snowed last night. Probably not a record, it can show here anytime after Labor Day. It was 28 degrees when the dawn grayed up, no record there either. We had hoped for better weather, at least some sunshine which is forecast for tomorrow. So, a good chance for bright lit photos tomorrow and a four day journey, down stream on the Great River Road. The plan is to be in Hannibal, Missouri on Tuesday.  

AIRBNB

“Seeing things that I may never see again; and I can’t wait to be on the road again.” Willie Nelson. So here I am, early in the a.m., my companion is sleeping in, I’m writing in my journal, on my second cup of coffee. This is a first, staying with ordinary folks who I never knew before last night, at Airbnb. Fey & Mike are fifty-ish with three cats and more bedrooms in the downstairs than they need. We are in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on our way to Bemidji, MN, Lake Itaska and the headwater of the great Mississippi River. We have photographs of the spillway at the lake, a chain of stepping stones across the 20 ft. wide, sandy bottom, river in the making. Even though it’s been flowing for so long it needs rebirth, every minute, every day. In the next few days we’ll step, stone by stone across the Mississippi like so many tourists before us. My intent is to go barefoot with pants rolled up, wading the great river just a few feet downstream from its source. 

Yesterday was a rainy, rainy, dismal day to drive. Trucks on the interstate kept the air full of swirling mist and water. I guess it makes sense; speeding into the unknown after taillights, beacons at best that will disappear if you don’t keep speed, trusting that someone ahead can actually see the road. But you suspect they are following another set of taillights just a few car lengths ahead of them. Then I question just how smart we high functioning monkeys really are. But we reached our destination unscathed, no dents or scratches before it turned dark. Fey & Mike welcomed us like newly discovered, long lost relatives. We shared experiences and interests for over an hour. Tom Bodett has been telling us for years that they will keep the light on for us at Motel 6 but I’ve been there and nobody there is interested in where you were that morning or let their cats dance between and around our feet. 

I was up when they left for work. It’s on us to turn off the lights and lock the door behind us. I see gray sky out the window and the forecast last night called for more rain so we’ll see what the day brings. It’s only a few hours drive to Bemidji and our Airbnb reservation there. My sleepy-head sweetheart is finally up. I hear the shower and sense she will require coffee shortly. I really like this time of morning which seems a mysterious anomaly to her but it’s like our coffee; she takes cream and sweetener while I like mine black. 

PATAGONIA 35 - LENNON DRANK BEER

Santiago, Chile: The day before I left for Patagonia I was focused on my preparation. The big leap would have to wait for the next day. I remember when I was 10 I wished I was 12, then at 12 I wished I was 16, My mom shared the same advice every time; “Don’t wish your life away.” So the day before I left Patagonia, on my way home, I was focused on finishing strong. I had people to see, work to do and more than anything else, I wanted to feel good at the end of the day. There would be plenty of time on the plane to reflect. I told the Sisters I would see them that night, walked to Terra Australis and had coffee with Juan and Olvia. I had no reason to go through my suitcase, it had been organized and packed before I left on my walk-about. Everything else had to fit in my duffle bag and backpack. Juan called, confirmed my flight the next day. Students arrived and the day began just like every other day. I sat in on class with Olvia and the British guys. Sometimes I helped when she wanted them to listen to us talk. The review was good for me as well. 

I made sure I was early at Library For The Blind. Alone in the audio lab, I took the guitar out and was practicing as my blind students began to arrive. Some were new to me. My three star pupils were right on time, Claudia, Javier and Ruth. We retold the stories on both songs and did some singing. Jet Plane was our best song. Claudia thought it should sound more sad so we put in a “Boo hoo” after the “Oh babe, I hate to go.” At the end, they all thanked me in both Spanish and English. Ruth was the last to go. She was more dressed up than usual. I asked what was up and she had a date. I asked if he was a “Novio” , a sweetheart, and she laughed. She said she didn’t need one, just someone who could pay for their own whiskey. She said she liked Cutty Sark Scotch Whiskey but without ice and that Lennon only got to drink beer. I stopped to see the Librarian, the lady who interviewed me. She said the students liked my lessons, that I was welcomed to come back any time. 

On the short walk back to Terra Australis it occurred to me; I’ve done everything I could squeeze in. There was no walk-about field trip that day; students got a free afternoon. I asked Juan if he and Olvia would like pizza for an early dinner; picked up two large pizzas and we shared a pleasant supper. They both had work to do at school so it was dark when we closed up. I was going to take a taxi with the guitar and suitcase but hey insisted they drive me back to Sisters B&B. I would’t see them again; my flight was early and I would take a taxi to the air port. 

I was afraid that time would drag but I was wrong. I napped down stairs, fully dressed, with my travel alarm set in my pocket. It went off at 1:00 a.m., my hosts called a taxi and I was checked in, ticket in hand, through security and at my gate by 2:30. It went so smooth I forgot to change my pesos back into American dollars. Still going on cash I had left over from my credit card fiasco in Bariloche, I didn’t want to bring it back in pesos but I didn’t want to get stuck outside the security gate either. Boarding was easy, they let my guitar go in the overhead and my back pack under the seat. My flight home was direct, no stops on the way so I was able to sleep. 

The International Terminal at Miami International is a far, long walk from everywhere. I walked past the gate where I had seen the flight attendants and crew, boarding on the night I left the USA. There were several check points where everyone had to funnel through, look at passports, get permission to keep going. I had time to make my next flight but none to waste. Food could wait. There was a point where it occurred to me that I might be waling back to Kansas City. At the end of every long tunnel was a turn into another tunnel where I couldn’t see the end. Then another turn and another long tunnel. Finally, there was a zig and zag where all you could see was the security officer at his kiosk. The people ahead of me made it through with no difficulty. The officer wasn’t in the blue TSA uniform, his was tan and his badge was different. He was Latino, in his 40’s with a thin mustache, looked like an actor on a movie set. He shined his light on my photo, thumbed back to see where I was coming from, where I had been. He gave me two short glances and then a long third look, handed my passport back and nodded his head for me to move along. I was several steps toward the zag in the zig-zag when he called me by name, “Frank.” I stopped and turned his way. We made eye contact but his expression didn’t tell me anything. “Welcome home,” he said, and he said it again, “Welcome home.” 

I didn’t know, I hadn’t thought about how I wanted my journey to end. But there should have been a moment when I sensed, that story was over and a new one soon to begin. I made my flight, changed planes in Atlanta and it was still daylight in K.C. when I collected my baggage. I’m not particularly patriotic, being an American has as many drawbacks and down sides as it does privileges. When someone asks me where I’m from I tell them, “I try not to be from:” But making that long walk, feeling in limbo and being welcomed home the way I was, in my own tongue, seriously, twice by the same officer: I couldn’t have written a post script that would have pleased me more. It made me feel so good then, and still does every time I reboot that memory. 

It was full summer in Missouri, hot by any measure. I had three days before I needed to be in Oklahoma City for a Story Telling Conference. It was a little strange to hear so much English, with no accent. I found myself automatically translating what I was hearing into Spanish. But that door was closing and a new one would open when I woke up the next day.