My last opportunity to travel long distances has come and gone. So sad not to be able to travel full time, but life intervenes. This trip to the Plains had a solemn duty in mind, which could easily have led to an embarrassing arrest. My wife's father died in 2002, but his dog, Troubles, a Boston terrier, lived another 9 years, before Mrs. _____ had the dog put down. My wife's sister wanted to bury Troubles' ashes above her father's plot. Oh what fun! A graveyard within sight of some busy roads of Marysville, KS, an old crossroads in the northern part of the state isn't the best place to take a shovel if you aren't the gravedigger. My wife's sister was having trouble breaking the drought-parched earth, so I had to dig the hole in our gray activity, but the Tuesday Morning urn had an ample resting place for the ashes of Troubles, back with the human he loved so much.
We survived the incident with no trouble from an angry sexton wondering why three folks in broad daylight were digging a hole in a graveyard. The final touch for the solemn occasion was to glue a Boston terrier figurine on Doc's part of the headstone he'll share with Mrs. _____ when her time comes. Not sure how she'll react to a plastic figurine on her headstone. She still knows people in the hometown who would report the fact. She'll get over it; these are her children's works. Our trip for that day would lead us to another Pony Express station, a reproduction of Rock Creek Station (Pawnee), near Fairbury, NE, where Bill Hickock committed a possible murder in his younger years over the purchase of the station. On our way, we passed Wamego and were trapped into taking a tour of the Old Dutch Mill displays. Too bad the Oz Museum wasn't open that day.
The western phase of the October trip this year took us through Lyons, Great Bend, and on to Hays for a couple of days. The Cornado-Quivira Museum in Lyons tells the story of the Santa Fe Trail and the Coronado entrada, which coincided with Hernando de Soto's entrada from Florida, passing through Arkansas encountering important Mississippi River villages Pacaha (Wapanocca?), Casqui (Parkin?), Aquixo (Horseshoe Lake?), and Quizquiz (Walls, MS?). Both parties wound up in Texas encountering Caddo tribes. The Quivira lived at Lyons in the 16th century and are a Caddoan tribe encountering Coronado who followed the rudimentary Santa Fe Trail, a migration route into the late 19th century. The museum had an excellent selection of books on the period and selections on more recent history of the region. Was a pleasure to compare notes on the expeditions of 1500s by the ruthless Spaniards. It was the true beginning of the end for native cultures in North America. Disease from Europeans and warfare with Europeans would last another 400 years until their virtual extinction.
The next town was Great Bend, passing by Ft. Zarah, named after Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis' son who was killed at Baxter Springs, KS by Quantrill's guerrillas as part of Maj. Gen. Blunt's fateful trip from Ft. Scott to Ft. Smith. Curtis lead an expedition along the Santa Fe Trail after the native uprising of 1864 across the Kansas plains and founded this dugout fort. Had a great stop at a coffee shop in town and I suppose we were in the "office" of a very busy community activist. She bought a cup for a fellow who happened by and was a bank officer who supported an event she organized. Every town requires such people. Maybe I should have bought her a cup of coffee for her work to better her community. It was a good visit, but we reserved a room in Hays and continued the lengthy trip from Emporia, where we'd stayed for a couple of nights.
Hays is in the Smoky Hill River valley and was home to Ft. Hays in Frontier days. It was a good visit, then we visited the Sternberg Museum, where the famous "fish-within-a-fish" fossil is displayed. The museum explains the natural history of this part of Kansas, which was the floor of a shallow sea millennia ago. We would not be able to go as far west as hoped on this trip, the Fick Fossil Museum is in Oakley, not too far from Colorado. I wanted to visit Colby and Goodland as well as Pueblo ruins to the south and the Ft. Wallace site. Till next time.
A real treat of the trip was visiting Salina, though we pushed on to Abilene for the night to the east. We spent most of the day in Salina after a quick visit to Kanopolis and Ft. Harker and Mushroom Rocks State Park. While in Salina, we witnessed a fuzzy headed, fuzzy bearded fellow in mirrored shades, a likely candidate for being up to no good, driving a white1980s vintage Mustang GT. The shady character was turning onto a busy highway from a side street with a mattress wedged under his car. What on earth could he have done to manage that? It looked more like the boxed springs of a bed. He was skidding his wheels a bit because the bed was lifting his car as he attempted to turn. He made a wide turn onto the highway as folks were trying to pass the mattress which protruded about six feet into the passing lane as he turned. Last I saw of the fuzzy, mirrored shades 70's refugee. But the mattress or boxed springs was in the middle of the road with what appeared to be about 5 quarts of oil saturation when we passed by again. Maybe he removed his oil plug with the massive road obstruction. Not sure what that dude was on to run over a mattress in broad daylight on a quiet side street.
Downtown Salina was a treasure. The century old buildings, the towering grain elevator , Mokas coffee shop, the Stieffel Theatre, the Thursday night art crawl, and the beauty of downtown Salina will certainly earn another visit by my wife and I, perhaps next year. I loved what I saw of this town. The Smoky Hill Museum, around the corner from Cozy Inn, the quirky little burger joint where the slider was born was a fun visit. The Museum had a great selection of books on Kansas history and was a free museum, which is a treasure for the community and I would recommend a visit. On to Abilene for a night's stay. On our way to Abilene, an important terminus of the Chisholm Trail until the rail was spurred to Newton to the south.
Abilene is most famous for the Eisenhower Presidential Library, but I wasn't there for 20th century history just yet. Abilene's Old Cow Town is a joke, much like Dodge City's joke of a "tourist attraction". The treasure of Abilene for this trip was the American Indian Art Center. I've never seen such a selection of books about veritably every tribe in North America. In the least, every region had selections on the shelves. I could have bought at least 50 books in this place and still have a bunch I wish I'd bought. The art and jewelry selections were cool too and my wife bought a decorative piece. I must return there next year, hopefully. Maybe next time I'll visit the Eisenhower Library.
The final weekend of our journey took us to Clay Center, not far from the Nebraska border. From there, we traveled to Concordia to see the National Orphan Train museum, dedicated to remembering the estimated 200,000 children shipped to the Plains and middle America from the east along the train corridors. It was a sad place, but offered the stories of their finest successes. Many of the featured orphans survived a hundred years of life and relatively happy lives. However, the museum didn't avoid the failures, such as the children returned to the benevolence organizations which placed them for ridiculous offenses, such as reaching for a handful of jelly from a cellar, or childless couples who adopt a child, then return the child once they conceive their own offspring. The next day, we visited Manhattan on game day against Mizzou. I always love visiting Aggieville and visited the Dusty Bookshelf, where my wife's father would buy his western fictions. I found a few good books about Nebraska and not a single Kansas Historical Quarterly. I was hoping to score a number of valuable historical periodicals on Kansas history, as I find a good selection of used Arkansas Historical Quarterly periodicals at Dickson Street Bookstore here in Fayetteville. It's always fun to visit Manhattan and game day with some much needed rainfall in the region made for a good day, plus my wife's sister and Bob wanted to try the Cozy Inn slider joint franchised in Manhattan, I suppose. The Salina Cozy Inn didn't mention the location at Aggieville, so more oniony burgers, don't even ask for a cheeseburger, for the week.
The trip back to Fayetteville took us through Emporia, again. We visited my wife's mother before our return. We bought a lot of books and enjoyed the visit to the Flint Hills and the Plains. The only sad commentary was the discovery that Tallgrass Prairie had scrapped their bookstore, although they were building a new visitor center and we were told the new gift shop wouldn't be the bookstore they once had. I love that site, but I'm disappointed. At least Town Crier, a bookstore in downtown Emporia, had some of the selection the Prairie once offered. Much fun. I love this state, as I love every state I have visited over the years. Some states I enjoy more than others, but I always manage to find something good about a place to overcome the shortcomings. Can't wait for my next trip next spring. Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama are likely places for that week of travel.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
The Plains
Vacation time again. The Kansas Plains await. Not sure exactly where I'm going, but I want to see Hays, Great Bend, McPherson, Oakley, Colby, and Goodland. Museums and historic and natural sites abound in the region and I'm looking forward to buying books at their shops. From Emporia, we hope to visit Lawrence, Junction City, Abilene, Topeka, and Atchison. Probably will need to cut some destinations from the schedule, but not too many. I must see the Kansas Historical Museum in Topeka to check out their book selections. If not, I'll make up for it at the other bookstores. Most of the historic sites and museums in Kansas have some thoughtful people selecting and buying the books to sell. Ft. Hays, Ft. Riley, Ft. Zarah, and Ft. Riley are the military sites I want to see. College towns are always attractive to me and Lawrence is no exception. Manhattan is a neat little town where Kansas State University sets and I've been through there a few times. Lawrence, however, is more reminiscent of Fayetteville and I enjoyed my last visit. My late father-in-law called KU campus Snob Hill (he was a K-State grad), but he liked the town.
I had so much fun in central Tennessee last spring, but missed out on spending much time in Oxford. We ate lunch at Ajax and had a book-buying binge at Square Books and Square Books Jr. before heading over to West Helena to visit family, but we wanted to spend a few days visiting Mississippi sites. We may spend our 2 week vacation on the Plains next year because Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Montana are high on my list of visits. I need to buy some books on the mining industry because my railroad study now requires understanding the history of mining, particularly in the West. There's a salt mine museum in Salina I would love to visit; never enough time or money for everything I want to do. My wife needs to find outlets to sell her purse designs in the West because her purses with scenes from the Plains have sold. It seems to me we need to find some fairs and festivals where she can set up and sell her portable works of art.
The Prairie Grove Clothesline Fair attracts buyers of Western art locally and she needs to sell her wares there for sure. The ideal for future vacations is to bundle book-buying sprees, historic site and museum visits with sales opportunies for her functional artwork. We're exploring some 30 day vacations in the future, but we're still learning to plan the perfect North American vacation. I need to follow the SFT all the way to Sacramento, down the American River by steamship to San Francisco some day. My study of the SFT has been a rewarding experience and I'm hopeful of a spectacular conclusion that I'll treasure forever. Planning and executing a vaction plan requires time and effort. This vacation has required several weeks so far. Facebook has been an invaluable tool in checking out potential sites to visit as well as the state atlases. I'm ready to buy an rv and travel the roads of this continent. Canada is definitely on the list with their interesting 19th century history on their western plains and mountainous regions. Can't wait!
I had so much fun in central Tennessee last spring, but missed out on spending much time in Oxford. We ate lunch at Ajax and had a book-buying binge at Square Books and Square Books Jr. before heading over to West Helena to visit family, but we wanted to spend a few days visiting Mississippi sites. We may spend our 2 week vacation on the Plains next year because Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Montana are high on my list of visits. I need to buy some books on the mining industry because my railroad study now requires understanding the history of mining, particularly in the West. There's a salt mine museum in Salina I would love to visit; never enough time or money for everything I want to do. My wife needs to find outlets to sell her purse designs in the West because her purses with scenes from the Plains have sold. It seems to me we need to find some fairs and festivals where she can set up and sell her portable works of art.
The Prairie Grove Clothesline Fair attracts buyers of Western art locally and she needs to sell her wares there for sure. The ideal for future vacations is to bundle book-buying sprees, historic site and museum visits with sales opportunies for her functional artwork. We're exploring some 30 day vacations in the future, but we're still learning to plan the perfect North American vacation. I need to follow the SFT all the way to Sacramento, down the American River by steamship to San Francisco some day. My study of the SFT has been a rewarding experience and I'm hopeful of a spectacular conclusion that I'll treasure forever. Planning and executing a vaction plan requires time and effort. This vacation has required several weeks so far. Facebook has been an invaluable tool in checking out potential sites to visit as well as the state atlases. I'm ready to buy an rv and travel the roads of this continent. Canada is definitely on the list with their interesting 19th century history on their western plains and mountainous regions. Can't wait!
Fear/Pity
Saw a black cat outside his door. Did he own the cat? Not sure. Every day since his body was found in the woods near his apartment, the cat crouches outside the door where the fella' living there would give it water, milk, or table scraps. The property owner wasted no time in hammering the "For Rent" sign on the front lawn and removing the bowls that had been set out for the cat. Before his obituary posted, the sign was in the yard.
Not from here, he just lived here. Most folks come from somewhere far away in this boomtown. The region has benefited from the largess of some huge global corporations. Many were brought here despite their wishes in an economy which requires keeping the job you have. Very few jobs offering actual retirement plans these days are to be found. Not sure what brought this fella' to town, possibly the university. Always a lot of frustrations and broken hearts in a town where a major university is located. Grad. programs attract the folks with the most to lose in failure to receive the degree. A whole life's planning could be flushed down the toilet.
The property owner must have been relieved that the troubled renter ended it all in the woods and not in the apartment, like some. No need to clean up or disclose such events, limiting the pool of potential renters who get "creeped out" by ghosts and such. Not sure if I'm not sympathetic to the "creeped out" sensation. No one wants to be in such a state as to want to do mortal harm to oneself and the possible presence of a wandering spirit could promote unrest in the future inhabitants of the apartment. Folks like Albert Camus have written about the ethical ramifications of such an action. I agree with his thoughtful assessment in Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel, or The Plague. Death needs no help in doing its dirty work. Humans who aid and abet death are guilty of complicity in an evil act. Sound thoughts from one of the world's treasures, his life cut short in an automobile accident. He survived the Nazis and their Vichy co-conspirators while in North Africa during World War II only to die on the peaceful roadways in France years later. Had the poor hopeless fella ever read Camus or the passages in the Bible where Haman hung himself or Judas? These were desperate men reacting to their existential duties in the grand scheme: Mutual arising (Zen and the art of Occidental/Oriental fusion).
Nevertheless, kitty misses him. It's certain his family back home miss him too. Why? The storm and stress of life claims another relatively young victim. Compassion and love are required for folks who feel the need to die in this manner. Life is worth living and worthy of defense from the inevitable. Fear, pity, and longing were too much to bear for yet another soul. Adieu.
Not from here, he just lived here. Most folks come from somewhere far away in this boomtown. The region has benefited from the largess of some huge global corporations. Many were brought here despite their wishes in an economy which requires keeping the job you have. Very few jobs offering actual retirement plans these days are to be found. Not sure what brought this fella' to town, possibly the university. Always a lot of frustrations and broken hearts in a town where a major university is located. Grad. programs attract the folks with the most to lose in failure to receive the degree. A whole life's planning could be flushed down the toilet.
The property owner must have been relieved that the troubled renter ended it all in the woods and not in the apartment, like some. No need to clean up or disclose such events, limiting the pool of potential renters who get "creeped out" by ghosts and such. Not sure if I'm not sympathetic to the "creeped out" sensation. No one wants to be in such a state as to want to do mortal harm to oneself and the possible presence of a wandering spirit could promote unrest in the future inhabitants of the apartment. Folks like Albert Camus have written about the ethical ramifications of such an action. I agree with his thoughtful assessment in Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel, or The Plague. Death needs no help in doing its dirty work. Humans who aid and abet death are guilty of complicity in an evil act. Sound thoughts from one of the world's treasures, his life cut short in an automobile accident. He survived the Nazis and their Vichy co-conspirators while in North Africa during World War II only to die on the peaceful roadways in France years later. Had the poor hopeless fella ever read Camus or the passages in the Bible where Haman hung himself or Judas? These were desperate men reacting to their existential duties in the grand scheme: Mutual arising (Zen and the art of Occidental/Oriental fusion).
Nevertheless, kitty misses him. It's certain his family back home miss him too. Why? The storm and stress of life claims another relatively young victim. Compassion and love are required for folks who feel the need to die in this manner. Life is worth living and worthy of defense from the inevitable. Fear, pity, and longing were too much to bear for yet another soul. Adieu.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Middle Tennessee
I can't believe the vacation has ended and I'm back to the grind of mere survival again. Luckily, we missed all the really bad weather around Nashville, where we stayed for 8 days on West End on Vanderbilt campus. Had a lot of fun in Middle Tennessee where the historically significant sites abound. We took several side trips in the Nashville vicinity. Dickson, TN, for instance, has a wonderful new museum dedicated to its railroad past. Grant ordered the completion of that stretch of the rail during the war. Tennessee state parks are a true rival of the wonderful parks in AR. Tennessee state parks are well-maintained and exhibit a lot of pride and concern for publicly-owned places. I will be back if I live so long.
Pinson Mounds in Jackson is where we began the vacation. Saul's Mound is a spectacular piece of remaining evidence of pre-entrada life in North America. The nature trail was in a sad shape after the first wave of bad storms for that region, but a ranger had cleared the worst obstructions on his own time(Thank you!). It was a beautiful Sunday morning and was nice and cool, but still warm enough for my wife to take several shots of a snake in the grass. Along the I-40 corridor are signs for the TN historic sites, like Parker Crossroads, Johnsonville, and several others. Really enjoyed all the little side trips on the way to Nashville. My goal on this trip was to follow Maj. Gen. Cleburne to his death at the cotton gin at Franklin, TN, so I was eager to get there ASAP. Franklin is reminiscent of Fayetteville, but with much more wealth accumulated. Carter House, Lotz House, and Carnton Plantation are must-see locations on the south of city center. The bookstores and the staff are knowledgeable and helpful to the cause of understanding the past. 10,000 Americans reported as casualties in 5 hours is a horrible thought to behold. A shameful waste of America's best citizens and recent arrivals. The Civil War was a horrible occasion that I had to temper with a visit to a pre-Civil War historic site, the James K. Polk ancestral home at Columbia, TN.
Interestingly, Polk's presidency is considered to be the beginning of the end of the the unified nation, since he launched the war with Mexico that opened the rest of the continent to European and African settlement. The newly settled areas, wrestled permanently from native inhabitants and the Mexican government, would want to organize as territories and states where the issue of legalizing or banning slavery would become an issue. The slavery v. abolition factionism had existed since the very beginning of our democratic republic. The issue raged from 1788 to 1865 when ultimately the issue was resolved through bloodshed. Nevertheless, Polk house was still a respite from the gruesome actions of war. The widow Polk remained in the home throughout the Civil War and she was on neither side. Her husband was the president of the entire United States. Understanding the Mexican War is important for understanding the Civil War, so I begin that series of readings with a visit to Polk's home.
A great bookstore at the site boasts the friendliest guides and a pretty house and grounds to tour in a beautiful town that cast a broad shadow over Helena's past. Lucius Polk was a Confederate brigadier general Helena claims, though he was from Columbia vicinity. Gideon Pillow, a Columbia native, owned two plantations in Helena and his brother Jerome Bonaparte was a resident during the Civil War, where he looked after the plantations requisitioned by Maj. Gen.(later) Curtis where the Union authorities housed freed slaves (contraband, as described in the day) and put them to work on Pillow's lands. Lt. Gen.(post Civil War) Sherman mentioned the Pillow complaints in his autobiography and was appalled that a Confederate general in rebellion against the U.S. would petition a U.S. general on campaign against the rebellion to enlist his aid in receiving compensation for mules and other assets lost in the Union war effort to subdue his rebellion. Jerome had taken the oath of allegiance by then, so he was allowed to stay. Gideon Pillow was a political player of note among the Jackonian proponents of the national Democracy. He was instrumental in the nomination and subsequent elections of James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce (a brigadier general during the Mexican War along with Pillow). St. John's Church at Ashwood was built at the point where all the Polk plantation property lines met. It's a nice church and graveyard. I've been reading about Bishop Leonidas Polk (killed at Kennesaw Mountain and nephew Lucius was severely wounded again) who presided as Missionary Bishop of the Southwest, then Bishop of Louisiana in the Episcopal church. He was also credited with founding the University of the South, though it opened after his death. Helena's history, despite my absence, is still rather important to me and Columbia, TN was important to pre-Civil War Helena's history as well as the nation. Nashville to Columbia was a crucial stretch of road where there was a large accumulation of wealth that was home largely to Jacksonian Democracy advocates. Memphis was a center of Whig advocates and the mountains of Tennessee were Johnson country. Andrew Johnson would certainly have an interesting run in American political history.
My wife and I spent a great deal of time along the old pikes extant during the war. I will begin studying the Battle of Nashville that was scattered through various locations and will be a bit more of an effort to study, so I will have to return someday. Plenty of reading on the subject should lead me in the right direction. The catastrophe of the Army of Tennessee in the last days of 1864 and the poor leadership of Lt. Gen. Hood is sad to ponder on a strictly human level. Certainly, the politics of the war boiled down to moral issues, under a cloud of legal issues, but the humanity lost and scars that remained are important to me to remember. So many suffered the most shocking of reversals and ends during the conflict. In northwest Arkansas, there were no battles fought on the scale of Franklin and Nashville, but the human toll was nearly unbearable in the power vacuum that resulted from small numbers of occupying troops and the lawless wilderness full of bushwhackers and "guerrillas" who claimed allegiance to both sides of the conflict. Misery and death were widespread throughout the battleground states.
The Civil War was important to me in this trip, but not so much from my wife's perspective. Cheekwood Gardens and Museum is one of the gems of the region. A visit there will keep you busy for an afternoon. I've tried my hand at gardening and my yard still looks as if it was once carefully maintained(careful embellishment). When I've had time, digging in the soil and promulgating life was an enjoyable exercise. Life is preferable to death in my view, and I hope most humans feel the same way. We must have taken hundreds of photos of the grounds (no photography in the galleries, however); Rebecca probably took at least 90 percent of the photos. Nashville has been a cultural center of the Middle South for generations and a city of such prestige should have its share of great museums and botanical gardens. I regret not making it to Frist Museum, the Tennessee State Museum, Fisk University (Crystal Bridges?), the Parthenon, the Vanderbilt museum, the Hermitage,....(the list of regrets could be rather long, after several months of visits for Tennessee because there are so many worthy activities and sites)
Ernest Tubb Records, Ryman Auditorium, and the thoughtfully mixed architecture of downtown, ranging from mid-19th century architecture to modern glass and steel high-rises, were fun destinations we visited. It's nice to see the riverfront predominated by the old, while spires in the sky are tucked behind the old districts enhancing the view. Urban "renewal" hadn't destroyed the past as effectively as cities like Memphis and Little Rock. It was unbelievable to fathom the thought that the old Ryman was nearly demolished. What a tragedy that would have been. It must be holy ground because it experienced a miracle in its survival, and those gorgeous stained-glass windows beam today in the sunlight. The banks of the Cumberland were tame during our stay, but not so long ago the place was under water. Hardly noticed evidence of the disaster.
Centennial Park is a beautiful part of the west end of the city and was full of life, particularly joggers from Vanderbilt and surrounding neighborhoods and we were happy to take a walk and take lots of pictures of the arboretum on the grounds of the Parthenon. Natchez Trace Parkway is a truly remarkable biking magnet for the intense roadriders. It would be a bit of a challenge for folks like me who get all their mileage in the saddle of a mountain bike. I will need an actual roadbike to have a great time on the Trace. I enjoyed hiking practically every hiking trail from the northern origin to near the AL border during our stay. There were hundreds of photo opportunities along the Parkway. The Trace all the way to Natchez is a month long visit in the least to do everything related to the Parkway. The sidetrips to the neat towns and historic sites could require a visit of several months.
Things happened and our trip had to be cut short, however, I'm not complaining. We had to cut through Helena to see family and my brother, who had taken ill during our trip. I decided to avoid I-40 the day of our return from Nashville and opted to take I-65 south to Hwy 72 through AL and MS to Hwy 278 because no rain was expected and it was a beautiful drive. We just missed the worst of the rain as it reached Nashville. The day after we passed through AL and MS, the tornado outbreak destroyed much of the lovely sun-splashed landscape we saw as we drove the previous day. At least we got to visit a favorite city of my wife and I, Oxford, MS. I love Ajax and 208 on the square. 208 has the best duck soup next to the one my wife made with pure duck stock (not chicken or beef or any other stock or broth). Ajax had excellent home-cooking along with some really good cheesy grits. Square Books and Off Square Books are favorite bookstores. I usually stock up on Hannah, Faulkner, and Welty, but only had time for several photo books and Barry Hannah novels I hadn't seen stocked anywhere in Fayetteville. Not real proud of our first graduate of the MFA writer's program at UA apparently, since the new UA Bookstore on Garland didn't have any of his books in the UA graduate or professor's section of the shelf. Sad. One of the great Southern fiction writers of our day should be on their shelf.
On our way back to Fayetteville from Helena, we were caught by one of the weather systems that nearly destroyed the Southeast, but all the tornadoes had been spotted north of I-40. We still encountered some harsh winds at Brinkley. Rebecca was born and raised in one of the worst tornadic regions, KS, and she was deeply troubled about this storm, but we made it. No hidden tornadoes at nightfall twisted us to death at least this time. We have a penchant for driving through floods and tornadoes on our return trips from vacations. Hwy 166 and Route 66 in southern KS and SW MO was flooding on our way back from Dodge City a couple of years ago, but we made it to AR before a stretch of road we followed south from Joplin was closed because of flash flooding. All-in-all we had things happen to our vacation that was suited to saving our necks in harsh weather, so no complaints about cutting our vacation short in Tennessee. I missed Old Stone Fort in Manchester, Stones River Battlefield in Murfreesboro, and Chucalissa Village in Memphis. I had planned trips to Parkin, Wilson, and Wapanocca to see entrada sites, but another day I hope will lead us to those historic places.
We took a lot of photos, bought a bunch of books and enjoyed the cultural center of the Middle South and I was glad to have taken this trip. Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama are calling my name. I must visit every possible site in all those states, including my home state AR before I draw my last breath, or my life's mission will have been a failure. We missed all the decent live music of Nashville because no one we like was performing, except Marty Stuart at the Opry with god-knows-who. Lady Gaga was performing whatever ritual of screeching at the moon (I'd rather hear Hank Williams howl at the moon) with canned noise she describes as music at the Bridgestone; we opted to no-show (just like Goerge Jones) that venue for the evening.
We remedied our dearth of live music performances by pre-ordering tickets to Billy Joe Shaver and Lucinda Williams at Fayetteville, so we had a musical treat to top off our two weeks of bliss-away-from-home on our last Sunday night of vacation. Just an old chunk o' coal down at Green Gables hawkin' them tables honky tonk heroes like me wacko from Waco is my love still in Helena eatin' sweet potato pie I changed the locks on my front door born and raised in Pineola from Nagacodoches that's in East Texas not far from the border but he told everybody he was from Lake Charles... a great night for words and writers and excellent musicians. Two weeks well spent. If only we lived longer, worked less, and could play more with limitless funds. Ah, the life of leisure. Live life every day.
Fayetteville, May 8, 2011
BB
Pinson Mounds in Jackson is where we began the vacation. Saul's Mound is a spectacular piece of remaining evidence of pre-entrada life in North America. The nature trail was in a sad shape after the first wave of bad storms for that region, but a ranger had cleared the worst obstructions on his own time(Thank you!). It was a beautiful Sunday morning and was nice and cool, but still warm enough for my wife to take several shots of a snake in the grass. Along the I-40 corridor are signs for the TN historic sites, like Parker Crossroads, Johnsonville, and several others. Really enjoyed all the little side trips on the way to Nashville. My goal on this trip was to follow Maj. Gen. Cleburne to his death at the cotton gin at Franklin, TN, so I was eager to get there ASAP. Franklin is reminiscent of Fayetteville, but with much more wealth accumulated. Carter House, Lotz House, and Carnton Plantation are must-see locations on the south of city center. The bookstores and the staff are knowledgeable and helpful to the cause of understanding the past. 10,000 Americans reported as casualties in 5 hours is a horrible thought to behold. A shameful waste of America's best citizens and recent arrivals. The Civil War was a horrible occasion that I had to temper with a visit to a pre-Civil War historic site, the James K. Polk ancestral home at Columbia, TN.
Interestingly, Polk's presidency is considered to be the beginning of the end of the the unified nation, since he launched the war with Mexico that opened the rest of the continent to European and African settlement. The newly settled areas, wrestled permanently from native inhabitants and the Mexican government, would want to organize as territories and states where the issue of legalizing or banning slavery would become an issue. The slavery v. abolition factionism had existed since the very beginning of our democratic republic. The issue raged from 1788 to 1865 when ultimately the issue was resolved through bloodshed. Nevertheless, Polk house was still a respite from the gruesome actions of war. The widow Polk remained in the home throughout the Civil War and she was on neither side. Her husband was the president of the entire United States. Understanding the Mexican War is important for understanding the Civil War, so I begin that series of readings with a visit to Polk's home.
A great bookstore at the site boasts the friendliest guides and a pretty house and grounds to tour in a beautiful town that cast a broad shadow over Helena's past. Lucius Polk was a Confederate brigadier general Helena claims, though he was from Columbia vicinity. Gideon Pillow, a Columbia native, owned two plantations in Helena and his brother Jerome Bonaparte was a resident during the Civil War, where he looked after the plantations requisitioned by Maj. Gen.(later) Curtis where the Union authorities housed freed slaves (contraband, as described in the day) and put them to work on Pillow's lands. Lt. Gen.(post Civil War) Sherman mentioned the Pillow complaints in his autobiography and was appalled that a Confederate general in rebellion against the U.S. would petition a U.S. general on campaign against the rebellion to enlist his aid in receiving compensation for mules and other assets lost in the Union war effort to subdue his rebellion. Jerome had taken the oath of allegiance by then, so he was allowed to stay. Gideon Pillow was a political player of note among the Jackonian proponents of the national Democracy. He was instrumental in the nomination and subsequent elections of James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce (a brigadier general during the Mexican War along with Pillow). St. John's Church at Ashwood was built at the point where all the Polk plantation property lines met. It's a nice church and graveyard. I've been reading about Bishop Leonidas Polk (killed at Kennesaw Mountain and nephew Lucius was severely wounded again) who presided as Missionary Bishop of the Southwest, then Bishop of Louisiana in the Episcopal church. He was also credited with founding the University of the South, though it opened after his death. Helena's history, despite my absence, is still rather important to me and Columbia, TN was important to pre-Civil War Helena's history as well as the nation. Nashville to Columbia was a crucial stretch of road where there was a large accumulation of wealth that was home largely to Jacksonian Democracy advocates. Memphis was a center of Whig advocates and the mountains of Tennessee were Johnson country. Andrew Johnson would certainly have an interesting run in American political history.
My wife and I spent a great deal of time along the old pikes extant during the war. I will begin studying the Battle of Nashville that was scattered through various locations and will be a bit more of an effort to study, so I will have to return someday. Plenty of reading on the subject should lead me in the right direction. The catastrophe of the Army of Tennessee in the last days of 1864 and the poor leadership of Lt. Gen. Hood is sad to ponder on a strictly human level. Certainly, the politics of the war boiled down to moral issues, under a cloud of legal issues, but the humanity lost and scars that remained are important to me to remember. So many suffered the most shocking of reversals and ends during the conflict. In northwest Arkansas, there were no battles fought on the scale of Franklin and Nashville, but the human toll was nearly unbearable in the power vacuum that resulted from small numbers of occupying troops and the lawless wilderness full of bushwhackers and "guerrillas" who claimed allegiance to both sides of the conflict. Misery and death were widespread throughout the battleground states.
The Civil War was important to me in this trip, but not so much from my wife's perspective. Cheekwood Gardens and Museum is one of the gems of the region. A visit there will keep you busy for an afternoon. I've tried my hand at gardening and my yard still looks as if it was once carefully maintained(careful embellishment). When I've had time, digging in the soil and promulgating life was an enjoyable exercise. Life is preferable to death in my view, and I hope most humans feel the same way. We must have taken hundreds of photos of the grounds (no photography in the galleries, however); Rebecca probably took at least 90 percent of the photos. Nashville has been a cultural center of the Middle South for generations and a city of such prestige should have its share of great museums and botanical gardens. I regret not making it to Frist Museum, the Tennessee State Museum, Fisk University (Crystal Bridges?), the Parthenon, the Vanderbilt museum, the Hermitage,....(the list of regrets could be rather long, after several months of visits for Tennessee because there are so many worthy activities and sites)
Ernest Tubb Records, Ryman Auditorium, and the thoughtfully mixed architecture of downtown, ranging from mid-19th century architecture to modern glass and steel high-rises, were fun destinations we visited. It's nice to see the riverfront predominated by the old, while spires in the sky are tucked behind the old districts enhancing the view. Urban "renewal" hadn't destroyed the past as effectively as cities like Memphis and Little Rock. It was unbelievable to fathom the thought that the old Ryman was nearly demolished. What a tragedy that would have been. It must be holy ground because it experienced a miracle in its survival, and those gorgeous stained-glass windows beam today in the sunlight. The banks of the Cumberland were tame during our stay, but not so long ago the place was under water. Hardly noticed evidence of the disaster.
Centennial Park is a beautiful part of the west end of the city and was full of life, particularly joggers from Vanderbilt and surrounding neighborhoods and we were happy to take a walk and take lots of pictures of the arboretum on the grounds of the Parthenon. Natchez Trace Parkway is a truly remarkable biking magnet for the intense roadriders. It would be a bit of a challenge for folks like me who get all their mileage in the saddle of a mountain bike. I will need an actual roadbike to have a great time on the Trace. I enjoyed hiking practically every hiking trail from the northern origin to near the AL border during our stay. There were hundreds of photo opportunities along the Parkway. The Trace all the way to Natchez is a month long visit in the least to do everything related to the Parkway. The sidetrips to the neat towns and historic sites could require a visit of several months.
Things happened and our trip had to be cut short, however, I'm not complaining. We had to cut through Helena to see family and my brother, who had taken ill during our trip. I decided to avoid I-40 the day of our return from Nashville and opted to take I-65 south to Hwy 72 through AL and MS to Hwy 278 because no rain was expected and it was a beautiful drive. We just missed the worst of the rain as it reached Nashville. The day after we passed through AL and MS, the tornado outbreak destroyed much of the lovely sun-splashed landscape we saw as we drove the previous day. At least we got to visit a favorite city of my wife and I, Oxford, MS. I love Ajax and 208 on the square. 208 has the best duck soup next to the one my wife made with pure duck stock (not chicken or beef or any other stock or broth). Ajax had excellent home-cooking along with some really good cheesy grits. Square Books and Off Square Books are favorite bookstores. I usually stock up on Hannah, Faulkner, and Welty, but only had time for several photo books and Barry Hannah novels I hadn't seen stocked anywhere in Fayetteville. Not real proud of our first graduate of the MFA writer's program at UA apparently, since the new UA Bookstore on Garland didn't have any of his books in the UA graduate or professor's section of the shelf. Sad. One of the great Southern fiction writers of our day should be on their shelf.
On our way back to Fayetteville from Helena, we were caught by one of the weather systems that nearly destroyed the Southeast, but all the tornadoes had been spotted north of I-40. We still encountered some harsh winds at Brinkley. Rebecca was born and raised in one of the worst tornadic regions, KS, and she was deeply troubled about this storm, but we made it. No hidden tornadoes at nightfall twisted us to death at least this time. We have a penchant for driving through floods and tornadoes on our return trips from vacations. Hwy 166 and Route 66 in southern KS and SW MO was flooding on our way back from Dodge City a couple of years ago, but we made it to AR before a stretch of road we followed south from Joplin was closed because of flash flooding. All-in-all we had things happen to our vacation that was suited to saving our necks in harsh weather, so no complaints about cutting our vacation short in Tennessee. I missed Old Stone Fort in Manchester, Stones River Battlefield in Murfreesboro, and Chucalissa Village in Memphis. I had planned trips to Parkin, Wilson, and Wapanocca to see entrada sites, but another day I hope will lead us to those historic places.
We took a lot of photos, bought a bunch of books and enjoyed the cultural center of the Middle South and I was glad to have taken this trip. Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama are calling my name. I must visit every possible site in all those states, including my home state AR before I draw my last breath, or my life's mission will have been a failure. We missed all the decent live music of Nashville because no one we like was performing, except Marty Stuart at the Opry with god-knows-who. Lady Gaga was performing whatever ritual of screeching at the moon (I'd rather hear Hank Williams howl at the moon) with canned noise she describes as music at the Bridgestone; we opted to no-show (just like Goerge Jones) that venue for the evening.
We remedied our dearth of live music performances by pre-ordering tickets to Billy Joe Shaver and Lucinda Williams at Fayetteville, so we had a musical treat to top off our two weeks of bliss-away-from-home on our last Sunday night of vacation. Just an old chunk o' coal down at Green Gables hawkin' them tables honky tonk heroes like me wacko from Waco is my love still in Helena eatin' sweet potato pie I changed the locks on my front door born and raised in Pineola from Nagacodoches that's in East Texas not far from the border but he told everybody he was from Lake Charles... a great night for words and writers and excellent musicians. Two weeks well spent. If only we lived longer, worked less, and could play more with limitless funds. Ah, the life of leisure. Live life every day.
Fayetteville, May 8, 2011
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