Blue Highways: Lewiston, Idaho

Unfolding the Map

We cross the Snake River and leave the state of Washington and Clarkston behind.  Entering Idaho, we take a little time in Lewiston to explore William Least Heat-Moon's mention of a potlatch and relate it to the season that we find ourselves in at the writing of this post.  To see the close symbiotic relationship between Lewiston and Clarkston in geographical space, try navigating over to the map!

Book Quote

"Lewiston, some residents think, looks like a European mountain town, what with its old brick buildings pressed in the valley.  Maybe so, although a yellow pother over it from the Potlatch particle-board mill on the Clearwater gave it the appearance of a one-industry town anywhere.  A potlatch, by the way, was a Northwest Indian ceremonial feast in which the host either distributed valuable material goods or destroyed his own to prove his wealth.  Which conclusion the Potlatch company had in mind I couldn't say."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

Downtown Lewiston, Idaho. Photo at the Idaho Department of Commerce website. Click on photo to go to host page.

Lewiston, Idaho

Now that we are past Thanksgiving and, if the Christmas music on store and restaurant speakers is any indication, into the season where we are supposed to think charitably of our fellow humans, the topic of the potlatch that LHM brings up as he drives into Lewiston, Idaho is very appropriate.  I like how LHM points out the irony of the meaning of the potlatch with the use of the name by a corporation.  In many ways the concept of the potlatch as practiced by natives and the tenets of capitalism that most advanced nations now practice (with all the ironies and hypocrisies that occasionally arise within market-based economies) couldn't be more wide.

This Thanksgiving, many people in the United States participated in the most benign form of a potlatch-type gathering - the Thanksgiving dinner.  The Thanksgiving dinners that I experienced growing up and which I still participate in are potluck affairs.  The term potluck might be loosely adapted from the Native-American term potlatch.  In the Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps one person might cook a big turkey meal for friends, or cook the main portion of the meal and ask others to bring food to supplement the main dish.  That's how I celebrated my Thanksgiving this year.  Friends cooked the bird and my wife and I and other guests brought side meals like yams, cranberries and pies.

Whether one is celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas or simply having an office potluck or potlucks among friends, the concept is similar.  Everyone shares something, everyone gets something. Often we also invite those family or friends that might be having economic or personal difficulties and can't contribute.  The spirit of connectedness and giving associated with such events allows us to set aside the ordinary demands that everyone contribute something or provide reimbursement.

A potlatch takes this farther.  Potlatches were part of the fabric of "gift economies."  Such economies were, in the United States, associated with tribes in the Pacific Northwest but are also found in other areas of the world, particularly the South Pacific.  In such societies, wealthy individuals (however wealth was defined) gave gifts to other individuals in the society with no expectation that their generosity would be returned.  Of course, our societies now are based on barter or trade, in which the exchange of goods and services is accompanied by an expectation or a demand of recompense.  It is seen as the hallmark of the advancement of a society if exchange systems based on barter or trade develop.

The potlatch allowed for the redistribution of wealth throughout the tribal community.  A person proved his or his family's worth in the society not by endless accumulation of wealth, but by sharing it with others.  The potlatch was a ceremony in which this transfer of wealth happened, and usually occurred around other special events such as weddings or births.  Sometimes the gifts that were given weren't even used, but ritually destroyed. 

To be clear, this custom was not about equalizing society.  Potlatches were not some sort of pre-industrial communism.  Instead, they reinforced the hierarchies in society.  Those who had the most wealth cemented their importance by giving the most wealth away to others.  They weren't lassaiz-faire activities either, in which people have the ultimate choice whether they are going to give to others.  Instead, it was expected that the wealthy give up their wealth ritualistically and in practice.  Those who didn't abide by societal expectations to give away their accumulation would have been shunned and maybe even driven away.  However, such customs helped maintain the structures of society in that those who had power and wealth were accorded their due importance and it allowed those on the margins to continue to live within the society.

Both the U.S. and Canadian governments put into their federal law bans on the potlatch.  The custom of giving among the natives, evidently, was seen as being antithetical to the process of Christianizing and civilizing the natives.  In reality, the ban was difficult to enforce and the custom continued during the time of the prohibition underground with authorities often looking the other way.  The last ban on the potlatch wasn't repealed until the 1950s.

I am struck by the fact that we cannot escape the question of whether, in our modern and civilized societies, we should or should not redistribute wealth.  The current debate revolves around whether those who do not accumulate enough to escape poverty deserve to be helped, and whether those who have accumulated a lot, regardless of whether they accumulated their fortunes through inheritance or through hard work and sacrifice, should be compelled through taxes and other redistributive means to share with those less fortunate.

These arguments get more heated during uncertain economic times, such as the present.  As I write, the "Occupy" protests have spread to a number of cities and among their amalgamation of concerns, one common issue that has emerged is the inequality of the distribution of wealth in our society.  In our barter and trade economies, wealth is defined by what and how much is accumulated.  With wealth comes power, and therefore those who have the most wealth and keep it are those who are the most powerful and who make the decisions for everyone.  As wealth becomes concentrated among fewer and fewer people, we entrust the our main decisions to an ever-smaller group of decision-makers.  This has fueled fears of an oppressive and tyrannical government on the right and an oppressive and tyrannical corporate structure that controls government on the left.

Like anyone, I have personal feelings on these issues.  I'm not arguing that we should regress to a gift economy.  However, I'm not opposed to more equal distribution of wealth and the redistribution of wealth through fair means.  Just as some do not trust the government to make wise decisions, I trust a democratically elected government to make wiser decisions about what is best for the country than a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals.  To be clear, I am not a socialist,  but I don't mind paying taxes to ensure a more stable and fair society.  I worry, based on history, that when societies become saddled with great inequality, that society becomes threatened.  Our major economic growth has been based, historically, on the strength of a thriving middle class.  As more people slip from the middle class into poverty, and as fewer people control the bulk of the nation's wealth, I fear that the "American dream" for most people will become more elusive and perhaps even non-existent.  I like my country, and want to see it thrive, not endanger its existence.

As we head into this season of gift-giving, we are essentially doing a radical thing by giving as the season intends.  We expect no return for our gifts to others.  We do it because for a few days each year, we can feel good about being charitable to others.  A side effect might be that we gain a reputation for being generous with what we have to others.  Not completely unlike a potlatch.

Musical Interlude

I was listening to a James McMurtry album I picked up a couple of months ago when he came into town, and was struck how this song, We Can't Make It Here, is relevant today even though this song was written in 2004.  A number of YouTube videos of this song had images that left no doubt about the political feelings of the video creators, though I suppose there's no doubt about McMurtry's feelings either.  I think the words should speak for themselves as they sum up feelings that are being articulated in the current political debate.  James McMurtry is a musician out of Texas and the son of famed author Larry McMurtry.

If you want to know more about Lewiston

City of Lewiston
LC Today: 60 Things to See and Do in the Lewis-Clark Valley
Lewis-Clark State College
Lewis Clark Valley Chamber of Commerce
Lewiston.com
Lewiston Tribune (newspaper)
Port of Lewiston
Wikipedia: Lewiston

Next up: Moscow, Idaho

Blue Highways: Clarkston, Washington

Unfolding the Map

It's the last stop in Washington with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM), and we make it a doozy by pulling out our inner nerds and comparing legends of American exploration with fictional legends of galactic exploration.  What do I mean?  Read on, Littourati, read on.  Oh, if you want to place Clarkston in an earthly context, warp on over to the map (yes, that's a hint about what to expect).

Book Quote

"At the east end of the Clearwater basin lay the twin towns of Clarkston, Washington and Lewiston, Idaho.  Clarkston used to be Jawbone Flats until it became Vineland, then Concord (the grapes, you see); in 1900, the town took the present name to parallel Lewiston across the river.  The historical pairing is nice, but give me Jawbone Flats...."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

The Queen of the West steamboat docked at Clarkston, Washington. Photo by John Harrison at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's website. Click on photo to go to host page.

Clarkston, Washington

I've only started really looking into the Lewis and Clark expedition since they've been a big part of this chapter in Blue Highways.  Other than knowing from history courses taken in high school that Lewis and Clark explored the large area of land then called Louisiana that was purchased from France by Thomas Jefferson for the United States, that it's purchase doubled the size of the United States with a stroke of a pen, and finally that the addition of the vast territory and its exploration gave impetus to the U.S. belief in manifest destiny, I didn't know much more about particulars of the expedition.

In fact, Lewis and Clark's expedition was one of three commissioned by Thomas Jefferson after the purchase to confirm the boundaries and explore the unknown interior of the new territory.  The others were the Red River Expedition and the Pike Expedition.  However, Lewis and Clark's probably became the most famous since they pushed all the way to the Pacific Ocean and not least because of the participation of Sacagewea, their female Native companion and guide, whose bravery and resourcefulness became an inspiration for 19th century women's rights movements.

When I think of the Lewis and Clark expedition, however, and try to think of parallels that would make their challenge and accomplishments more real to a modern audience, the only comparison that I can draw is (and I know you'll really think I'm a nerd for this, Littourati!) Star Trek.

I can hear you groaning now.  Star Trek?  Lewis and Clark?  Really?

If you get past the initial fit of laughing and snorting, I am perfectly serious.  Why?  Because for all intents and purposes, Lewis and Clark set out on an expedition into an alien world.  Nobody knew what, or who, was out there.  Based on fossils that had been found in what was then U.S. territory, Thomas Jefferson even warned Lewis and Clark to be on the lookout for living specimens of mastodons and other living relics from the Pleistocene Age.  They might as well have been taking a spaceship to some other planet - that's how unknown the new territory was.

Star Trek's theme goes something like this:

"Space, the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  It's (five year - TOS) (continuing - TNG) mission:  to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where (no man - TOS) (no one - TNG) has gone before."

Make a few substitutions of words, and you have the mission of the Corps of Discovery, the official name of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  They headed out into what was then a huge, unknown (to Europeans) frontier.  They were to seek out new life through collection of scientific specimens and through observation.  They were to look for new civilizations and peoples in a world that could prove just as hostile and alien as any that Kirk and Spock encountered in their television galactic wanderings.  Lewis and Clark, in many cases, literally went where no one had gone before.

Unlike the explorers in Star Trek, they didn't encounter anything of the extra-terrestrial variety.  They did not see any mammoths or mastodons, since those species had been extinct in North America for nearly 10,000 years.  Like the Star Trek crew, they did meet Native Americans.  Yes, that's right.  Kirk and crew in Star Trek find a planet where American Indians had been transported by an alien race called The Preservers.  Lewis and Clark instead met Native Americans on the natives' own territory.  Both Lewis and Clark were veterans who had fought with and against Indians in the East, so they had some familiarity with tribal cultures.  However, as they went farther west each tribe they encountered had its own culture and customs, and Native culture was so unlike European culture that it really must have been like meeting an alien race where there are few commonalities other than a shared humanity.  Sacagewea, a Shoshone woman married to a trapper who accompanied the expedition, turned out to be incredibly helpful to them as a guide and go-between.  It is interesting in this particular chapter of Blue Highways that given the clashing of worlds that must have happened each time the expedition came in contact with natives, LHM writes that Lewis and Clark's conduct, especially toward the Nez Perce, was so well-conducted that the tribe didn't fight white settlers for 75 years following the expedition.

Unlike Star Trek, in which the Prime Directive is a major principle that guides and limits the crew of the Enterprise in how they deal with alien cultures, the Lewis and Clark expedition was under no such restrictions.  In Star Trek, the Prime Directive mandates that Federation personnel cannot interfere in the internal development of alien civilizations, especially those less advanced.  This serves as a way to create tension as the Enterprise crew determines how to best study and interact with less advanced civilizations.  It also provides another element of tension in Star Trek plots if they accidentally contaminate, or try to undo the contamination, of alien races.  There was no Prime Directive for Lewis and Clark, and they interacted often and frequently with native tribes.  They could not help but make contact to gain vital supplies such as meat and salt.  LHM relates a story, a clash of civilizations type story, where an Indian man, derisive of the expeditions reliance on dog meat, throws a malnourished puppy at Lewis.  Lewis throws it back at him, and then grabs the native's tomahawk and lets him know in no uncertain terms that he will punish such insults in the future.

However, most of their encounters went relatively smoothly.  Europeans were generally unknown in the area - this would change after the expedition.  And like the Enterprise crew, which could use advanced technology to smooth its way and occasionally threaten the peoples they ran across, Lewis and Clark were able to use products of European civilization like matches, magnets and magnifying glasses to impress and mystify natives.  Just as Star Trek had Dr. McCoy who often used advanced medicine to the advantage of the Enterprise crew, Lewis and Clark also used medical techniques to win over various native tribes.  Though none of the expedition was formally trained in medicine, they knew enough about dressing wounds and draining lesions that they won the goodwill of many of the tribes they ran across.

Star Trek is also infamous for the "redshirts."  These were Enterprise crew members, usually dressed in red uniforms, whose plot purpose appeared to be to die and thus demonstrate the terrible predicament facing the crew.  The Enterprise seemed to have an unlimited supply of these redshirts, and it makes you wonder, given their fatality rate, why anyone who signed up for Starfleet would ever agree to wear that uniform.  The Lewis and Clark expedition, by contrast, had remarkably good luck in potentially hostile territory.  Only one soldier on the expedition died, possibly because of appendicitis.  The only violent encounter, which occurred with a native tribe called the Piegan Blackfeet, was over the Piegans fearful interpretation of the Corps dealings with other tribes that would end their monopoly on guns and the balance of power with neighboring enemy tribes.   As the Piegans tried to steal the Corps guns in the middle of the night, they were discovered, chased down and in the struggle two of the Piegans were killed.  Other than that, the only other near fatality came when one of the Corps shot Lewis in the butt in a hunting accident.  He recovered.

I hope I haven't gone too far out on a limb comparing the Lewis and Clark expedition with Star Trek, but there certainly are parallels that can be drawn, as well as significant differences.  Both the fictional galaxy-exploring expedition and the actual American West exploring expedition had similar goals.  In the end, Lewis and Clark accomplished so much that a greater understanding of the dangers and potential resources of the newly purchased territory was achieved, and the frontier was pushed farther back.  Without them, a young United States might not have achieved its goal of a coast-to-coast unified (dare I say it?) federation.  Unfortunately, it also led to the gradual end of traditional native life and the loss of their traditional lands.  Lewis and Clark paved the way for a nation, but also began the inexorable destruction of traditional Native life as the explorers opened the frontier to the settlers.

Musical Interlude

What could be better, in a post that references Star Trek, than a video of a tune "sung" by Shatner himself.  And Bohemian Rhapsody, no less!  Enjoy!

If you want to know more about Clarkston

City of Clarkston
Clarkston.com
Hells Canyon Visitor Bureau
Wikipedia: Clarkston

Next up: Lewiston, Idaho

Blue Highways: Walla Walla, Washington

Unfolding the Map

We arrive with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) in a city that serves as a funny laugh in a lot of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.  It seems to have a lot of nice things going for it that belie its name.  The strangeness of its name leads me to think about some other interesting place names in America, and takes me off on a risque and prurient little exercise - so read on with caution!  If you want to see where Walla Walla is located, go to the map!

Book Quote

"The future passed eastward to Walla Walla ('little swift water') with its many small streams instead of navigable rivers.  Outsiders may laugh at the name until they consider the original one: Steptoeville.  Walla Walla, a pleasant little city of ivied college buildings, wasn't at all what you'd expect of a town with a name that sounds like baby babble."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

Main Street Walla Walla, Washington. Photo by Gil Langley and posted at the National Trust for Historic Preservation website. Click on photo to go to host page.

Walla Walla, Washington

I remember Walla Walla always being a name to laugh at. Bugs Bunny used Walla Walla at least once in the animated short Transylvania 6-5000 as he casts a spell against a vampire.  In another Warner Brothers Looney Tunes involving a baby mouse delivered to Mr. and Mrs Sylvester Cat, another cat trying to get the mouse poses as a salesman, by the name of Carl, for the Little Giant Vacuum Company in Walla Walla, Washington.

I currently live in a town that has also been the part of a longstanding Bugs Bunny joke.  Every time Bugs tunnels and shows up in an unexpected place - like Pittsburghe, Transylvania in Transylvania 6-5000 or Scotland in My Bunny Lies Over the Sea, he always laments that he "must have made a wrong toyne in Albuquerque!"  Now that we have our interchange fixed in Albuquerque, I'm sure that less people are making wrong turns here.

There are lots of funny and strange place names in the U.S., and it's interesting that LHM tries to seek these places out.  He mentions a few in the opening paragraphs of Blue Highways, such as Why, Arizona and Whynot, North Carolina.  While Arizona has the only Why, there is also another Whynot in Mississippi and a Ynot in Montana.  Some of my favorites are:  Hopeulikit, Georgia; Knockemstiff, Ohio; Humptulips, Washington; Tightwad, Missouri; Ding Dong, Texas; Boring, Oregon; Spread Eagle, Wisconsin; Toad Suck, Arkansas; Lizard Lick, North Carolina; Roachtown, Illinois.

Of course, there are some names that tend toward the prurient.  I remember in my early 20s being tickled by the place name of Climax, Michigan.  I could envision all kinds of marketing ideas for the town based on its name (Come to Climax for an earth-shattering experience!), but before you judge me too much, I was a young and horny twenty-something at the time.  Intercourse, Pennsylvania is always referenced when it comes to funny place names in the risque genre.  But there are plenty of other places that have such suggestive place names.  If you can't get past first base in Romance, Arkansas you might try Sweet Lips, Tennessee.  But if you are really desperate for some fun you could go to Hooker Hole or Vixen, Louisiana.  From Dicktown, New Jersey or Penile, Kentucky you might search out Sugar Tit, South Carolina which, of course, leads directly to Big Beaver, Pennsylvania.  At this point, you might get so excited that you find yourself at Erect, North Carolina or New Erection, Virginia.  Once there, it's hard to avoid Intercourse, Pennsylvania.  Of course, if you go too far too fast, you might enter Climax, Minnesota, or blast through Dickshooter, Idaho but in either case you won't be able to avoid Cumming, Georgia.  After all that action, you'll probably pray that you don't end up in Conception, Missouri, where you'll sweat out nine months hoping you don't see Baby Head, Texas - unless that's what you wanted all along.  Of course, you might just strike out everywhere, and end up in Blue Ball, Ohio.

There are plenty more place names that you can have fun with.  Here is a list I found on the internet that highlights some interesting ones by category and then lists interesting place names by state.  I think I might leave this post here, since I don't think that I can top my little risque story using place names.  A shorter post than most, but since I don't know much about Walla Walla, I'll keep it short and sweet.

Oh, one more tidbit.  There is a town in Austria called Fucking.  The pronunciation rhymes with "booking" but you can imagine how many times the town signs have been stolen by English-speaking tourists.  The town got its name because a Bavarian nobleman named Focko supposedly founded the town, and the name means "place of Focko's people."

Ok, I'm done!

Musical Interlude

The Offspring, a punk band, wrote a song about Walla Walla.  Well, more specifically, it is about someone going to prison at the Washington State Penitentiary near Walla Walla.  It's the only song I could find remotely relating to this post.

If you want to know more about Walla Walla

City of Walla Walla
Discover Walla Walla (blog)
Downtown Walla Walla Foundation
Experience Washington: Walla Walla
Through the Walla Walla Grape Vine (blog)
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin (newspaper)
Walla Walla University
Walla Walla Valley Daily Photo (blog)
Welcome to Walla Walla
Wikipedia: Walla Walla

Next up:  Clarkston, Washington

Blue Highways: Wallula, Washington

Unfolding the Map

Wallula, in William Least Heat-Moon's (LHM) estimation, is a town that once had potential but is now a has-been.  I'll look at the concept of being washed-up and of being "a contender" in the context of life.  To see where Wallula sits either living or languishing, depending on your perspective, take a look at the map!

Book Quote

"Old Wallula was one of those river settlements you can find all over the country that appeared destined to become key cities because of geographical position.  Sitting at the confluence of the Walla Walla with the Columbia and just a few miles downstream from where the Snake and Yakima meet the big river, old Wallula was a true joining of waters (the name may be a Nez Perce word meaning 'abundant water'), although if you lift your gaze from the rivers you see desert.  Astride the Idaho gold rush trail, Wallula began well: riverboats, stagelines, railroads, two highways.  But money and history came through, paused, and went on."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

The Columbia River passes through the Wallula Gap as seen from Fort Nez Perce near Wallula, Washington. Photo by Glenn Scofield Williams and hosted by Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Wallula, Washington

"I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it."

Terry in On the Waterfront

Remember that line?  It's Marlon Brando's character Terry bemoaning his fate as a washed up fighter who took too many dives and never got his shot at fame.  Many of us have had the feeling at least once in our lives.  What might I have been?  To what heights might I have risen?  If I'd only gotten that chance I deserved!

Look at me, for example.  I have had lots of dreams in my life.  Some of them, dreams I had when I was really young, were unrealistic and were rightfully discouraged, destroyed or set aside.  I had the usual childhood dreams of being a football player or an astronaut.  Of course being a somewhat wimpy kid with glasses, asthma, a huge overbite, and a lack of coordination made those dreams a little difficult to achieve.  Later, as I grew into my body and some of the other issues were addressed, my dreams became a little more realistic, but only marginally.  In high school, my fascination with space led me to want to be an astronomer.  But sometime, a guidance counselor set me straight as to the career prospects of astronomers so my fascination just stayed a fascination, but nothing else.

My first real "I coulda been a contender" regret could be traced back to college.  I entered my freshman year as a computer science major.  My whole first year I took classes that taught me how to write code in Pascal, the popular programming language that was used to teach students about computer programming at the time.  My chosen major and I didn't get along.  I had a 1.8 GPA as I entered my sophomore year, and one last class in programming killed off any illusions I had about being a computer scientist.  That was too bad, since now in my late 40s I have found that when I put my mind to it, I can write programs that work.  The map that accompanies this blog, for example, is a direct result of my being able to understand basic code.  I inspiration from javascript examples I found on the internet, but by cobbling those pieces of code together and through trial and error of seeing what works and what doesn't, I made a passable Google map that I could use to portray Littourati journeys.  Still, every so often I have that what-if moment.  What if I had stayed with computer science?  Would I have been a Bill Gates or a Sergey Brin?  I'll never know, but I still wonder...

There are other things that I regret.  Don't tell my wife but I've sometimes wished that I had been more adept at dancing when I was younger.  I tell my young male friends now, and they never listen to me, that if they want to have more options for dating they have to learn how to dance.  Most women I know love to dance.  Most men I know do not.  Yet, what's the harm in learning something new and opening up opportunities to meet people?  Had I known how to ballroom dance, or swing, or salsa when I was a young man looking for fun and companionship, I would have had a hell of a lot more dates and probably a better time.  I would have been a contender, despite my awkwardness, with the ladies.  Besides, I've discovered that dancing is fun!

I regret sometimes also that I am not working in my chosen field of teaching political science.  I love teaching.  I love being able to connect with people and introducing them to concepts and to new ways of thinking that they may have not or been unable to consider before.  I love getting people excited about something.  I live for opening someone up to new concepts.  And I must say that I get to teach - I'm teaching an online class and a face-to-face class this spring.  But I still find myself regretting sometimes that I'm not in a political science department somewhere teaching full-time.

But that's the irony about regrets.  The only reason we have regrets is usually because we aren't happy today and we look back on the "missed opportunities" as unexploited gateways to a better life that passed us by.  In reality, unless our lives are completely horrible, we usually follow the paths we tread and we find the good, the joyful and the wonderful in them.  We may have the occasional regret when we are under stress or something has gone wrong and it's only then that we think that we "coulda been a contender" with some other life.  In fact, in getting where we are now, where I can write a post on being a contender and you can sit and read it, then we were contenders and we contended well!  We got our shot at a title and we made the most of it.  We could have taken shots at other titles, but we didn't.  Who knows what might have happened had we taken another path and fought another fight?  Instead of standing, we might have been on the mat.

I watched a Twilight Zone episode recently, notable for the starring role of African-Americans in this episode, about another washed up fighter who, through the powerful wish of a little boy, gets a chance to be the fighter he always wanted, instead of the has-been he is.  On the mat after being knocked out, suddenly he finds himself declared the winner.  The young boy tells him the fighter that he wished really hard for him to win.  However, the fighter can't believe that the wish is actually responsible for turning his fate around, and refuses to believe.  At the end of the episode, he is back on the mat and has lost the fight.

Which brings me back to LHM's quote.  He presents Wallula as such a place.  It could have been a contender because it had things going for it.  It had geography and gold rush money and all of the trappings such as steamboats and trains and highways.  It had money coming in.  But, for some reason Wallula didn't become a major place; it became an out-of-the-way town in the eastern end of a largely rural state.  Is that bad?  No.  It just is.  Perhaps some who live in Wallula wish for bigger and better things, but probably many who live there like it just the way it is right now.  Sure, it coulda been a contender, and coulda been something different.  Maybe Wallula didn't believe enough in itself and got passed by.  But maybe that's all just as well.  Maybe Wallula is just what it is supposed to be.

Musical Interlude

The first song that came to my mind with the theme of this post is the wonderfully melancholic Billy Strayhorn classic, Lush Life.  I am going to list the lyrics after the video because they are so amazing - Strayhorn wrote the bulk of this sophisticated song when he was only 16.  One wonders what he had experienced to be able to write such a song at such a young age.  To me, it speaks of loneliness, and of people washed up bedraggled on the shores of life and not willing to jump back into the currents and swim.  It's easier to be caught up in a backwater and "rot with the rest," as the song so poignantly states.  This version is by the incomparable Nat King Cole .  Though the photo says that it is from his 1958 album The Very Thought of You, the song was not on that album, so either this version is from 1952's Harvest of Hits or 1961's retrospective The Nat King Cole Story.

Lush Life
by Billy Strayhorn

I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktails

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there, you could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day...
Twelve o'clock-tails

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness
I thought for awhile that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
of a great love for me

Ah yes, I was wrong
Again, I was wrong

Life is lonely again
And only last year everything seemed so sure
Now life is awful again
A troughful of hearts could only be a bore
A week in Paris will ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it

I'll forget you, I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain
Romance is mush
Stifling those who strive
I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I'll be, while I rot with the rest
Of those whose lives are lonely, too

If you want to know more about Wallula

The Columbia River: Wallula
The Columbia River: Wallula Gap
ENotes: Wallula
Oregon History Project: Fort Nez Perce
Wikipedia: Fort Nez Percés
Wikipedia: Wallula
Wikipedia: Wallula Gap

Next up: Walla Walla, Washington

Blue Highways: Umatilla, Oregon

Unfolding the Map

For the first time since we started traveling with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM), we go back into a state that we've already visited.  Okay, so a technicality might be when we passed through the Navajo and Hopi reservations from Arizona and back into Arizona, but the reservations aren't really carved out as separate states.  In my mind, then, this is a first and I attach to it some symbolic qualities of a new beginning in William Least Heat-Moon's journey, especially since he had been so emotionally low in Oregon before.  Where does Umatilla fit in the geography of the journey, take a look at the map!

Book Quote

"Across the Columbia at Umatilla, Oregon, and up the great bend of river into country where sage grew taller than men."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

From McNary Dam Overlook in Umatilla, Oregon. Interstate 82 bridges over the Columbia River in foreground, and Mount Adams in the background. Photo at the Columbia River-A Photographic Journey site. Click on photo to go to host page.

Umatilla, Oregon

Here is a first for LHM's journey in Blue Highways.  In the nearly 200 places that we've visited so far, he has never doubled back into a state after leaving it.  He may have meandered, and he may have wandered, but he has pretty much kept himself moving straight through states, seeing some of what they have, and then moving on without a backward glance.

So why does he dip down into Oregon again, crossing the border at Umatilla (pronounced yoo-ma-till-a - I live in a Southwest border state and my inclination is to pronounce it ooh-ma-tee-ya)) and then going up the south and east side of the Columbia River?

A simple answer is that it's where the road has taken him.  If you look at the map of the area, the road he has been driving upon in Washington, state route 14, ends at Interstate 82 across the river from Umatilla.  He evidently decided to cross the river on the interstate, and then pick up the Columbia River Highway (US 730) to continue his drive along a blue highway.

He also has tended, whenever possible, to avoid interstates.  An alternative route might have taken him up Interstate 82 to Kennewick, where he could have then taken US 395 across the river and then started making his way east on US 12 from there.  But he chose not to.  Instead, he dips back into Oregon.

I don't put a lot of stock into this, but just go with me for a minute here as I look at some possible symbolism of this return to Oregon.  It may be a bunch of crap, but all of my posts are my own interpretations of what I'm reading so far, so I can go out on a limb once in a while, like I have a few times in my posts.

Symbolically, it seems as if Oregon was a difficult state for LHM.  Really, beginning in California, he had some despair and began questioning why he undertook this journey.  He began to perceive life and our travels in it as an unending circle that just keeps bringing us back to the same point.  He didn't really see the utility of that, especially since that same point always seemed to be a low point.  As he moved up through Oregon, these feelings became more intense.  In Corvallis, Oregon he reached his nadir.  Sitting in Ghost Dancing, while it rained for days, he called his wife and she didn't want to talk to him.  At that point, he decides he wants to see "what the hell is next."  He continues to the coast of Oregon where Lewis and Clark reached the end point of their westward journey, and that association with the explorers seems to enliven him.  After touching the coast, he turns east and at Portland, he heads into Washington.  In Washington, he briefly flirts with a woman who fires his imagination.  Then he meets some hang-gliding folk who discuss the thrill of the unknown and the risks involved.  As we read, and travel with him, we can see his writing change as well - he gets back into the trip again and seems more excited to see what else might come his way.

Here's my stretch with the symbolism.  His dip back into Oregon seems to be a return to the same state where he once languished in turmoil and low spirits.  Except that now, he isn't languishing anymore.  It's therefore a return to a former area of weakness but now with strength and a groundedness that lets him move through and not get stuck.  It is a repudiation of negativity that put him in the blues before.  And, as we'll see, he stays forward looking, moving without pause on to Wallula and to points beyond as he heads back into the state of Washington.

I do counseling because I've dealt my whole life with being stuck in places that aren't necessarily the best places for me to be.  These are self-critical, self-pitying and ultimately soul-sucking places that want me to stay there.  I've learned that when I leave those places they don't just disappear, just like Oregon was not going to fall off the map once LHM left it.  Instead, my hard places sit there and wait for me, seemingly knowing that I'll come back by roundabout routes.  If I'm not paying attention, often I end up back in them.  Then I get stuck again.  But lately, I've been doing something different.  I've been visiting those places but in a different frame of mind and with a different reference point.  Sometimes, it's hard.  But other times, with a new vision and outlook, I can remake those places into something much nicer.  It becomes me deciding when, how and even if I will visit, not fate or life dictating to me where I go.

Another very important and real symbol - by "real" I mean not my imagination - in the passage above is LHM's mention of sage.  Sage has symbolized a number of positive concepts throughout history.  On this page, I learned that sage stands for or was thought to contribute to the following:

immortality
increased mental capacity
healing
life creation
prosperity
business
curative powers
spiritual cleansing
banishing of evil spirits

In addition, sage is at the heart of a Christian legend that relates how Mary and Jesus escaped from the soldiers of Herod after Jesus' birth.  They asked a rose bush to open its petals and shelter them, but the rose bush refused and told them to go to the clove plant.  The clove also refused and referred them to the sage.  The sage blossomed abundantly and sheltered them, and the soldiers passed them by.  Since that time, the rose has been cursed with thorns, the clove with flowers that don't smell very good, and the sage has been blessed by curative powers.

Since LHM drives into an area abundant with sage, it doesn't seem to be a stretch that he is driving through a cleansing place, a healing place, and a place where the bad and even evil of the past can be banished.  And maybe this is all a coincidence and means nothing.  Sure, LHM could have decided to take the interstate and avoid going back into Oregon again.  But he didn't, so you can draw your own conclusions.

So, that's my little foray into symbolic territory.  Perhaps I've overthought this, but that's the beauty of symbolism.  It doesn't have to be something that one plans out.  LHM probably never even thought of this - he was just looking for a blue highway rather than the interstate.  It was up to me to make whatever symbolic allusions that I perceived.  But, I can take these flights of fancy because I am an unique reader and I can interpret as much as I want and I can allow my thoughts to go whither they wish.  That's the beauty of reading, Littourati!

Musical Interlude

Once again, I had a song come to mind for this post.  I'm not sure why it this song wanted to come forward, but it did.  The title is appropriate to the post, and so enjoy Get Back by The Beatles in their famous last rooftop concert at their Apple Studio in London.

If you want to know more about Umatilla

Center for Columbia River History: Umatilla
City of Umatilla
Wikipedia: McNary Dam
Wikipedia: Umatilla

Next up: Wallula, Washington