Blue Highways: Walker, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

Leeches?  Mosquitoes?  What kind of place is this?  Why, it's Walker, Minnesota!  Here a resident warns William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) that riffraff will be chased away by extreme temperatures and the previously mentioned beasties.  I'll write about my own difficulties with bugs.  Buzz on over and latch yourself to the map to see where Walker is located.

Book Quote

"Late spring had been creeping north, and suddenly that day it pounced.  Nobody was ready for the eighty-two degrees.  At Walker on the south shore of Leech Lake, I stopped at the county museum; it was closed, but the handyman, John Day, let me in to fill my water jugs....

"'This could be July,' he said.  'It can hit a hundred and five in July, and forty-five below in January.  One hundred and fifty degrees of temperature is how we keep the riffraff out.  When that doesn't do it, then it's up to the mosquitoes and leeches.  If it wasn't for them, and another thing or two, this piece of God's country would be overrun with people.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 11

Downtown Walker, Minnesota. Photo at City Data. Click on photo to go to host page.

Walker, Minnesota

Mosquitoes.  If there is anything that would keep me from wanting to spend time in a place, it's mosquitoes.

I've always been the one that mosquitoes like.  Whether it's a flawed perception or not, I don't know, but it just seems that if I am in a place that mosquitoes inhabit, even when I'm with a number of other people, I get bitten the most.  I've read that one can take Vitamin B supplements, keep one's feet clean, and wear lighter clothing to thwart them.  I've tried all of those remedies when I'm in mosquito country, and nothing seems to work.  I still get bitten.

I suppose it wouldn't bother me too much, except that when I get bitten I develop large welts.  I've noticed that when some people get bitten, they experience a little bit of itching, and maybe a raised red spot that goes away relatively quickly.  Not me.  I'm left with big welts that itch for at least a half hour if not more, which then shrink into smaller red welts that continue to itch for 2-3 days.  When a mosquito bites me, it tends to stay with me for a while.

Bug sprays and cremes work, but I don't really want to use them that much because I dislike the idea of spreading chemicals all over my body.  But I'm not willing to suffer endless bites for that cause, so I will dutifully spread the chemicals when I have to.

From my days living in Wisconsin, I remember that wandering in wooded areas in the summer meant that one became a walking Happy Meal for the insects.  In my work, we had the occasion to use a retreat center in rural Wisconsin, and on one of my first times out I decided to take a bucolic stroll in the forest near a small stream.  What I remember is getting about a half a mile before running back to the retreat house.  It wasn't just the mosquitoes, which were like clouds around me.  It was also large black flies.  Now, where I grew up, black flies were harmless.  They often landed on you and just sat there, causing a little tickling sensation with their legs.

Not in the Midwest.  The black flies were large, and they bit - hard.  Not only did they bit, but they took a small chunk of flesh with them.  In my supposedly bucolic walk, I felt something on my neck.  I swatted, and a smear of blood came away from my neck, staining my hand with scarlet.  That was when I ran.  I felt that if I stayed out there that eventually my exsanguinated body would be found and I would be one of those unsolved mysteries that is only explained by supernatural or alien forces.  The first kill by a chupacabra in Wisconsin.

When it comes to bugs, I don't know how humans can claim themselves to be at the top of the food chain.  I don't think that there is a food chain.  It's really a food circle, or a food sphere.  Sure, we eat pretty much anything, and we have the intelligence to use weaponry to kill those things that are dangerous to us.  Put us out in the forest, without weapons, and suddenly we become much more equal, if not inferior, to those animals that are bigger and stronger than we are.

All our weaponry and smarts won't allow us to truly defend ourselves against insects.  They pervade our lives.  At best we share space with them, as the constant presence of roaches in people's kitchens will attest.  At worst we share ourselves bodily with them, as in the case of mosquitoes, ticks, lice, fleas and all the other creepy nasties that infest us or feed off our bodies.  And then, for our sacrifice, they often infect us with diseases, some of which have lifetime consequences or even no cure.  Think of Lyme disease, passed on through the bite of a deer tick seeking blood.  Or worse, think of Dengue fever, a painful infection which plagues developing countries and can sometimes lead to death.  Or even worse than that, think of Chagas disease, which is born by a bloodsucking insect with the quaint name of "the kissing bug."  There is no cure once you get it.  Even insects that aren't interested in us usually can put the hurt on us, as anyone who has stumbled on a beehive or stepped in a fire ant mound can attest.

I know that these insects are all part of the chain, or circle, or sphere.  But when I'm around them, I have to wonder why there have to be so damn many of them and why they all have to come after me?  At least I've never had experience with the other creepy thing in LHM's quote - leeches.  I've seen them in places, most recently being sold as health aides in an Istanbul market.  I hope I never run into them.  A scene from the movie Stand By Me, where Wil Wheaton looks into his underwear and finds a leech attached to something down there, has ended any curiosity I might have had with leeches before it could even start.  Since I live in a desert, I am blissfully free of both mosquitoes and leeches.

I'm good with most insects, as long as they leave me alone.  But mosquitoes and other blood suckers angling for my sweet plasma?  When I'm around, I don't care if the place is carpet bombed.  Just keep them away from me.  John Day, I don't think you'll see this piece of riffraff around Walker during mosquito season!

Musical Interlude

I have a friend named Hannes, who was a big Queens of the Stone Age fan for awhile.  He tried to get me to listen to them, but I didn't really listen much.  But as I was looking for a song to accompany this post, I ran across The Mosquito Song.  The song has a Eastern European sound, the lyrics are mysterious and creepy, and there is an occasional set of strings that comes in resembling the sound of mosquitoes on the wing.  Exactly complements how I feel about them.

If you want to know more about Walker

Annual International Eelpout Festival (okay, this needs explanation...eelpout is a fish and apparently the festival is an icefishing festival.  You gotta love that they have an icefishing bikini team!)
City of Walker
Leech Lake Area Chamber of Commerce
The Pilot Independent (newspaper)
Wikipedia: Walker

Next up: Whipholt, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Lake Itasca, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

After a brief layoff, we resume our trip at the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) crosses it in five steps, and as we cross with him, I'll reflect on the importance of the river and relate a haunting experience I had next to it some years ago nearly two-thousand miles downstream in New Orleans.  Get to the source by following the map to Lake Itasca.

Book Quote

"The lake was Itasca and the stream, a twelve-inch-deep rush of cold clarity over humps of boulders, was the Mississippi River.  I crossed it in five steps.  The Father of Waters, beginning a two-thousand-mile journey to join the source of all waters, was here a newborn - small and pure."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 11

Where Lake Itasca begets the Mississippi River. Photo by Christine Kar and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Lake Itasca, Minnesota

On this literary journey, we have already crossed the Mississippi twice.  The first crossing was at St. Louis, very early in LHM's trip, where I focused on the city in my third blog post about Blue Highways.  I also referenced an earlier post from my On the Road series, on which I wrote about the Gateway Arch.

The second time we crossed the Mississippi on our Blue Highways journey, we did it at Vicksburg as LHM sat on the bluffs and gave some facts about the siege of the city in the Civil War.  My post for Vicksburg was focused on the Civil War as our first modern war.

The only post where I've really looked at the Mississippi River was in my On the Road series when Sal Paradise crosses the Mississippi into Davenport, Iowa.  The river fascinates me, however.  I've seen it in a number of different states, and most recently I stood alongside its bank in New Orleans a few days ago.  It travels so many miles that it is difficult to believe that the river I saw in Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Louisiana is the same river.  It is even more difficult to believe that this vast collection of water draining America's heartland could have a source, and at its head could be something that one could step over in five steps.

I've not visited Lake Itasca, but I'm certain that some of the drops of that lake, escaping down the Mississippi sometime in the past, passed by me as I stood on the bank at the New Orleans riverfront in the midst of costumed Mardi Gras revelers. Whenever I stand on the banks of the Mississippi in New Orleans, I'm reminded of one of the most haunting images I've ever had.  It's a Mardi Gras story, and it's on my mind since I was just there for that unique American celebration.

It was probably my second or third attendance at Mardi Gras, 2002 or 2003.  My wife and I had developed a tradition by then of spending Fat Tuesday costumed in the French Quarter, wandering around in and out of bars and enjoying the cavalcade of costumed people, walking parades, and coordinated krewes of merry revelers assembled on the flimsiest of themes.  That year the fog was thick over the Quarter, making everyone nearby seem very close and yet, 50 feet down the street, fantastic shapes dark in the afternoon gloom flitted on the edge of imagination in the narrow streets.  The famous Society of St. Anne walking parade came by, and we jumped into the midst of the costumed parade, lost them in the fog and maze of streets, and then found them again as they made their way to the Mississippi.  The krewe has a tradition of carrying the ashes of departed members for their last parade through the French Quarter, and then sprinkling their ashes into the Mississippi.  We didn't know of this tradition at the time, but we followed the krewe up to the levee and to the landing where they gathered and then performed a ceremony with streamered hula hoops.  They dipped the hula hoops into the river and then waved them over the assembled members, droplets baptising the participants.  Then they spread ashes.

On any other day, a beautiful day for example, it would have been special.  But the fog over the Mississippi, the darkened bulk of a giant cargo ship passing in the middle of the river, the stark colors of the costumes standing out against the gray river reflecting the gray sky, added up to one of the most haunting scenes I have ever seen.  I won't forget it.  Given that I probably won't have a jazz funeral in New Orleans, I told my wife that I too would like my ashes paraded through the French Quarter when I die, and some - not all but some - sprinkled into the Mississippi to become part of that great river flowing through that great city.

Without the Mississippi, we would miss so much that defines the United States.  Without the Mississippi, one of our greatest pieces of literature, Huckleberry Finn, would not exist and possibly Mark Twain would have just been known as a good writer.  Without the Mississippi our economy would not have developed as it did by trade down its length and through its tributaries.  My favorite city of New Orleans would not exist without the river, and St. Louis might only be a decaying frontier town. The Mississippi Delta blues would sound a lot different if they existed at all.  And certainly, a haunting and wonderful event would have never crossed my experience without the muddy waters rolling past a Carnival celebration.

As I write these words, it is still difficult to believe that somewhere on a small glacial lake in Minnesota, an otherwise unimpressive stream that takes five steps to cross not only gives birth to one of the great rivers of the world, but also a river of history, culture, celebration and everything else pertaining to life along its banks.

Musical Interlude

I have a double shot for you in this post.  The first song that put the Mississippi in my mind was Black Water by The Doobie Brothers.  The second, Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman, shows that the river can give life and take it away as well.

If you want to know more about Lake Itasca

Crooked Creek Observer: Lake Itasca (blog)
Itasca Area Lakes Tourism Association
Itasca State Park
Lake Itasca Region Pioneer Farmers
MinnesotaBound.com: Lake Itasca
Wikipedia: Lake Itasca

Next up: Walker, Minnesota

Littourati News: On hiatus for a few days

Hi Littourati!  I'm sorry to say there will be no more new posts until after February 23rd.  There are two reasons for this, one fun and one stupid.

1)  I am going to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  I have done this every year since I moved there in 2000, and have continued it even after I moved away.  It is a great time of year where people just have fun up to Lent, where then one becomes sober and turns one's mind to self-reflection and spirituality.  I don't know if I do that, but I enjoy the fun.  And it's not THAT kind of fun, either.  My Mardi Gras is mostly family friendly.  Yes, I did say mostly...

2)  Oh no!  I somehow have misplaced my Blue Highways.  I laid my copy down and now I can't find it.  So even if I wanted to do a new post, I'll have to buy a new copy.  I had hoped that I could get a Kindle version for my phone, but it isn't coming out until April.  Oh well...

For those reasons, there will be a few days until the next post centered on Lake Itasca, Minnesota.  But don't worry...the posts will come back in style after the 23rd.

In the meantime, laissez lais bontemps roulet!

Michael Hess

Blue Highways: Bagley, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

Spring is in the air, where I live, as the days are starting to get incrementally warmer.  And that means baseball season is starting.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) talks with an old man in Bagley who misses the imagery and imagination of the old baseball terms.  I agree with him, and this post will tell you why.  To find your location, I'll give you an inside pitch:  Here's the map - I promise, no curveballs!

Book Quote

"'Hear that?' a dwindled man asked.  He was from the time when boys drew 'Kilroy-Was-Here' faces on alley fences.  'Did you hear the announcer?'

"'I wasn't listening'

"'He said 'velocity'...He's talking about a fastball...This is a baseball game, not a NASA shot....'

"'....That's how they tell you speed now.  They don't try to show it to you: 'smoke,' 'hummer,' the high hard one.'  I miss the old cliches....'

"....The man took a long smacking pull on his Grain Belt.  "Damn shame.' he said.  'There's a word for what television's turned this game into.'

"'What's the word?'

"'Beans,' he said.  'Nothing but beans and hot air.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Lake Lomond at Bagley City Park. Photo at the Bagley City website. Click on photo to go to host site.

Bagley, Minnesota

Like many a kid, summers were lazy times for me.  My family was lucky enough to own some property in the wilderness along a river, and we would go there every weekend in the summer, and sometimes for a week or even two weeks.  We only had a cabin on the property which was used mostly for storage in the summer, so all the time spent there was outdoors.  We ate outdoors and slept outdoors after roasting marshmallows over a large campfire.  My father had hooked up lights to a generator, so we did have lights courtesy of a large, gas-powered machine.

TV was out of the question.  So afternoons were spent swimming, eating and listening to baseball games.  In fact, I got my formal education in baseball not by going to baseball games, because we lived a four-hour drive from the nearest major league parks, but by listening to announcers for the San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's and occasionally, the Los Angeles Dodgers on the radio.

In other words, I learned baseball through the lingo, the universal patois that announcers used and the individualities that they brought to their craft.  You couldn't listen to a Dodgers game without hearing Vin Scully.  The Dodgers were my favorite team at the time (even though the Bay Area was closer, I couldn't bring myself to root for the Giants or the A's).  Every time Scully would call a home run, you'd hear the crack of the bat on the radio and then Scully would say "Forget it!" or "She - is - gone!!" followed by a description of the home run.  Always especially exciting was when the Dodgers played the Giants, because most of my friends were Giants fans.  The Dodgers always seemed pretty good year after year, but the Giants were always dangerous because of the rivalry, and Willie McCovey was a great home run hitter.  The Giants also had some good announcers, including Lon Simmons, Bill Thompson, Al Michaels and Gary Park.  In Milwaukee, I always enjoyed the announcing of Bob Uecker, the voice of the Brewers.

Radio announcers had to use colorful and descriptive language in calling games because they had to put the pictures of the game into the listener's mind.  It was one thing to call a single, but the game came more alive, more exciting, if the single was a frozen rope, or a Texas leaguer.  A home run was much more meaningful if it was a shot, or a four bagger, or a round tripper.  I never realized just how more vivid these games were than watching games on television or even attending the game.  A great announcer could add nuances and depths to the game that you just couldn't get anywhere else.

On television, however, announcers could become lazy.  They didn't have to describe the game vividly because the action unfolded in front of the viewer on the screen.  The camera could only capture certain aspects of the game, however, and mostly focused on pitcher, batter and catcher.  What the camera couldn't often capture, except in brief bursts, were the infield cheating in on the hitter if they suspected a bunt was coming, or the second baseman moving in on the runner to try to get a quick throw from the pitcher and tag him out, or the outfield cheating to the right because they knew that the hitter tended to hit to the opposite field.  All of those little bits of strategy were lost as the game became primarily about the battle between pitcher and batter on the small screen, and the other players reduced to bit parts in that drama.

On the other hand, nothing beats going to a baseball game and watching from the stands.  You can take in the whole field and see the game in its wholeness and entirety as it unfolds.  But again, something is missing.  Unless you take a portable radio (or now something that live streams audio), you don't get the benefit of the announcers, so the vividness of the presentation is replaced by your own inner monologue of what is happening.

To me, the picture painted by a good announcer is one key to really understanding and loving baseball, and for me it was the major key given my lack of access to major league parks.  It's unfortunate that baseball has declined in popularity over the years, giving way to football and basketball though it still calls itself the national pasttime.  To give you a sense of how descriptive it is, I hereby present a ninth inning of a close game, called by a fictional announcer in my head, using baseball's colorful and unique language.

As we head into the ninth inning, the Isotopes find themselves down one with the top of the order coming up.  The Zephyrs' Carmine is taking his warmup pitches.  Since taking over the closer role, Carmine has been bringing it to hitters, but he occasionally throws wild.  Robinson will be the first to bat for the 'Topes.  He's had a tough year this year, hitting only this side of the Mendoza line but in this game he's gone 2 for 3 and barely missed with a line shot to center.  If he gets on, he's a problem for the Zeph's because he's got wheels.

Carmine looks in, deals and Robinson takes it for a strike.  Robinson looks at the ump as if he doesn't agree.  Carmine shakes off the catcher and deals high heat, but Robinson holds back for ball one.  Carmine looks in and brings it.  Robinson swings late but connects!  Its a Baltimore chop that bounced over the head of the first baseman into right field.  Robinson's on!

Carmine has to pitch from the windup to Stokes, who might be called on to sacrifice.  He looks over at Robinson, who is taking his lead.  He throws to first hoping to catch Robinson off the bag, but Robinson dives back in.  Carmine looks in at the signal, shakes his head, and seems to accept.  Stokes is not giving anything away.  Carmine deals...Stokes lays down a perfect bunt, a dribbler up the third base line.  Sanchez charges in from third, barehands it, and beats the runner with the throw by a step.  Robinson goes to second on the sac bunt!

The home crowd is into this one!  Next up is Williams.  He can hit the ball a country mile but he's also among the leaders in whiffs.  Carmine takes a look back at second.  The second baseman is cheating in toward Robinson but Carmine winds and deals.  A called strike on the outside corner.  Carmine looks again, deals, ball one in the dirt.  Williams steps off the plate, looks toward the bench, and steps in again.  Carmine takes a quick look at Robinson's lead, winds, and here's the pitch.  Williams swings under it and it's a high pop...Rodriguez is under it and shags the routine fly in shallow left.

Bert Johnson, the Big Bertha, is striding to the plate.  He is having an outstanding year this year, leading the team in ribbies and round-trippers.  The catcher calls time and comes out to make sure he's on the same page with Carmine.  Here comes blue to get them back to the game.  The plate ump brushes off the plate, and here we go.  Carmine looks in, Bertha stares back.  Carmine throws high and inside and brushes Johnson back.  Big Bertha isn't happy with that, and steps back in with a glare.  Another high and inside from Carmine, and this time Johnson has to go down.  That was close to being a beaner.  Johnson picks himself up, and you know he's angry.  The ump calls time and warns Carmine.  Carmine takes the ball and goes back to the rubber.  He looks at Robinson, who's just fine where he is.  Carmine turns and fires.  A hanging fastball!  A swing and a hit!  It's a monster out toward left center.  The left fielder is racing back, he leaps at the wall and he's got it...wait, he lost it over the wall!  He had a snow cone that popped out over the wall when he hit the padding.  The crowd has gone berserk.  The 'Topes win on a downtowner by Big Bertha!  What a game!

I wasn't completely fictional...the two team names are Triple-A clubs from the last two cities where I have lived, New Orleans and Albuquerque.  Any resemblance otherwise to baseball players living or dead is purely coincidental. 

When a radio baseball announcer is on, the results can be poetry.  I do not flatter myself that I've reached that level in my example above, but I hope that it has given you a sense of what you might hear.  I think that the old man in Bagley, who pronounces that television has turned the game into "beans," is right on the money.  The poetry, the cadence, the vividness, and most importantly, the epic human drama of baseball is lost when you aren't lead to images through the words of a skilled announcer.  Listening to many of those announcers can be equivalent, to a rabid baseball fan or a young boy with a transistor radio in the 70s, to listening to an epic recited by Homer (pun only slightly intended) or Virgil.

Musical Interlude

I believe (I may be wrong but I believe), that baseball, more than any other sport, has inspired songs.  I have put two of my favorite baseball songs for your musical interlude.  Steve Goodman sings about a dying Chicago Cubs fan's last request, and Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball, by Buddy Johnson and Count Basie, about the pioneering baseball player who integrated the major leagues.

If you want to know more about Bagley

City of Bagley
Farmers Independent (newspaper)
Lakes 'n' Woods Guide to Bagley
Wikipedia: Bagley

Next up: Lake Itasca, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Thief River Falls, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

Thief River Falls sounds like an ominous place, but actually appears to look quite nice.  It also has an interesting history about its unique name.  I'll examine the allure of secret places in this post.  To locate this once hidden and secret location, steal on over to the map.

Book Quote

"Thief River Falls, another town of Nordic cleanliness, reportedly got its name through an odd mingling of history and language.  A group of Dakota Sioux lived on the rich hunting grounds here for some years.  Although the bellicose Chippewa controlled the wooded territory, the Dakotas managed to conceal a remote settlement by building an earthen wall around it and disappearing inside whenever the enemy came near.  They even hunted with bows and arrows rather than risk the noise of guns.  But the Chippewa finally found them out and annihilated them.  Because the mounds hid a portion of the river, the Chippewa referred to it as 'Secret Earth River.'  Through some error, early white traders called it 'Stealing Earth River'; through additional misunderstanding, it came to be 'Thief River.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Photo at Menupix. Click on photo to go to host page.

Thief River Falls, Minnesota

I remember the first "big" book that I ever got.  I can't remember the exact date but I must have been about 10 or 11.  It was a thick paperback book, and it had more pages than I'd ever seen in my life.  I was a good reader, but I felt a little daunted by this book and masked it with indifference.  I couldn't see why I should read it, after all, I was doing just fine.  I was a good reader, and had impressed my third grade teachers by reading at an eighth grade level.  But as I looked at this heavy book, it made me nervous.

I eventually read it, and I was glad I did.  It was the perfect book for young kid who thought that going outside and playing army men and riding his bike was the epitomy of a perfect day.  I couldn't put the book down, and when I finished, I was sorry that the book had to end.  It also cemented my love of fiction, works that (prior to my knowing about Homer) had an Odyssey like quality to them (predating my love of travel books) and also sent me down the fantasy road that introduced me to works like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Silverlock.  What, you haven't read Silverlock?  Well, go get yourself a copy and read it as soon as you can!

The book was Watership Down, and I'm associating it with this post because of the quote above.  In Watership Down, a group of rabbits is driven by a tragedy at their original home to travail cross-country to find a new home.  They encounter and surmount dangers, and find a new home in an abandoned rabbit warren under a copse of trees on a small hill.  The hidden and isolated nature of their new home protects them from predators and from being discovered by other rabbit warrens.  Eventually, their need for females to help populate the new warren brings them into contact with an authoritarian and fascist warren and they eventually are discovered.  Unlike the Dakota Sioux in LHM's quote, however, they survive being discovered after winning a decisive battle.

There are lots of references to groups of people who have used the hidden nature of their surroundings to thrive and survive.  J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the aforementioned Lord of the Rings, writes in The Silmarillion about the hidden and mighty city of Gondolin in the age before the events of the Lord of the Rings.  Those who entered the city were never permitted to leave.  It was only when Gondolin was betrayed that it was destroyed by the forces of evil.

In Turkey, in the Cappadocia region, there are as many as a hundred hidden underground cities near established towns and villages.  They were used by villagers to escape wild animals and people that meant them harm.  Carved in the tufa, or ancient volcanic rock, they could use up to 5000 people on multiple levels.  They were utilized by early Christians to escape persecution, and some fine Byzantine-era churches complete with fantastic frescoes can be found carved in the rock there.

Of course, there have often been cities and cultures hiding in plain sight among us.  National Geographic recently had a feature on the catacombs underneath Paris that draws a whole host of "cataphiles," even though it is illegal to go there.  I've read about underground scenes in other cities as well.  I took a tour of the Seattle underground, and New York has a whole set of abandoned subway stations.  So does Berlin - phantom stations that were closed off after the Berlin Wall was built.

I wonder how the Dakota Sioux were able to get away with such a ruse in what would become Thief River Falls, Minnesota?  Did the Chippewa just not traverse the area very much to see the earthen wall?  Did the Dakota do such a good job of building the wall that it appeared a natural feature of the riverbank?  Was there some superstitions at work that are an untold part of the story?  Was the place sacred to the Chippewa and therefore they overlooked a people living right under their noses until one day they discovered the affront to their religious sensibilities?

In my experience, we tend to see things that we want to see and miss things that we don't.  In my personal life, I'm often amazed how I can be frantically looking all over the place for something, like car keys, that are hanging on a hook that my eye gazes at over and over.  Why don't I see the keys?  Or, I might be looking for something in the refrigerator that is front and center and I just don't register it.  Perhaps the Dakota had the right idea - if you don't want to be seen, hide in plain sight.  Our paper just had a story about a man who was indicted for murder and who was just caught after 25 years on the run.  He had been a street musician in San Francisco, seen by a lot of people every day.

I recently read a book called The Secret Garden, which was not only a coming of age book about children but also a study in selective perception.  The father in the story, a hunchback, lost his beautiful wife at a young age and as a result lost his ability to enjoy life.  He began to selectively ignore and avoid anything that reminded him of his wife, particularly the beautiful garden they built together and the young son they made.  The garden, the son, and the girl who befriends him were all metaphors for beauty ignored and left to develop on its own.  It becomes flawed, but will spring back if given the right attention, love and care.  Finally, the father is able to see his son after he and the garden have been tended and become strong and beautiful again.

We daily use such selective perception, which can serve us well or ill.  It would not be a stretch to think that hidden places that elude our awareness exist right in front of us, and will be revealed, if ever, in their due time and when we are ready.

Musical Interlude

I found this 70s progressive rock song completely by accident.  It is called Secret Places, and was recorded by Gary Moore.  The lyrics are very appropriate to the theme of this post.

If you want to know more about Thief River Falls

City of Thief River Falls
Northland Community and Technical College - Thief River Falls
Thief River Falls Times and Northern Watch (newspaper)
Wikipedia: Thief River Falls

Next up: Bagley, Minnesota