Blue Highways: Bonner's Ferry, Idaho

Unfolding the Map

At Bonner's Ferry we turn east after getting almost as far north as we can go in the United States.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) and Arthur O. Bakke are deep in discussion about spiritual and earthly matters, and LHM admires the simplicity of Bakke's life.  We'll reflect on simplicity too.  Take a look at the map for Bonner's Ferry.

Book Quote

"At Bonner's Ferry, where U.S. 2 ran a long, deep break in the Bitterroot Mountains, we turned toward Montana....

"'You've got necessities in one box, your work in a briefcase, a creed in your shirt pocket.  I admire the compression of it.  I wish I could reduce it all to a couple of boxes.  I like your self-sufficiency.'

"'Don't give me so much credit.  Paul preached how pride separates us from God....'

"'Maybe so, but for basic necessity, you come close to material self-sufficiency.'  Bakke sat quietly.  'The college students you talk to, they must admire your on-the-road work, your freedom.'

"'I don't think many would trade places with me.  Would you?'

"It was a terrible question.

"'I don't have your belief or purpose.  But I wish I knew what you know.'"

"''Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.  If any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.'  First Corinithians eight: one and two.  Knowledge of the Lord is the knowledge worth knowing.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 3

Downtown Bonner's Ferry. Photo by the Idaho Department of Tourism and posted at the Sangres.com website. Click on photo to go to host page. 

Bonner's Ferry, Idaho

I love the idea of living simply.  I just suck at it.

I don't want to give the impression that I have a lot of money.  I'm comfortably middle-class - a public-sector worker at a university medical school with a good salary, decent benefits and, barring a total collapse of the health-care economy, a job for life.  I earn some extra on the side teaching political science courses.  In a good year, I might earn up to $15,000 on top of my annual salary.  My wife also has a decent job as a business reporter.  I am intensely aware that I am lucky given that there are so many people that are jobless.  I am also lucky in that I am not under crushing amounts of debt.  Our car is one payment away from being completely paid off.  We don't have a mortgage.  I have about $20,000 outstanding in student loans which I always considered more of an investment than a debt.  We rarely keep debt on our credit cards any more.

Lately, however, the idea of living simply in a way that produces growth and harmony has come roaring back at me.

I was introduced in my early twenties to the concept of a simple lifestyle.  Just out of college I had joined a program called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC), and went to live in inner-city Milwaukee in an intentional community with other volunteers.  All of us worked in a not-for-profit social or environmental justice organizations - I worked in an inner-city school as an aide.  In exchange for our work, the agencies paid for our insurance and travel, and gave us a stipend of $300 per month.  Out of that $300 I was able to take $75 for my own personal expenses; the rest went into the pot for rent, food, utilities and other house expenses.

JVC operated according to these four tenets:  social justice, community, spirituality, and simple lifestyle - all influenced by Catholic social teaching.  The unofficial motto of JVC was "ruined for life."  I initially joined for one year, but re-joined for a second year in a different job - working with unemployed people.  It was during this time that I learned how to make $75 stretch for one month (easier, I admit, in the 1980s than it is now).  However, that meant curtailing my time on the phone (no cell phones but long distance plans back then!), not buying candy bars or sodas, limiting my time out in bars or doing other fun stuff.  As a community, we had to shop smartly and selectively and make things that we could stretch.  We were pretty good at it - we accumulated enough money to help other communities that weren't making it as well and we were able to buy an old car so that we could reduce our reliance on other people for rides to the store.

A lot of time was spent together at home.  We played games, we talked and we enjoyed each other's company as much as we could.  We watched television and we read books.  We became close as a community because there weren't many distractions, especially during the cold Milwaukee winters.  It's hard not to look at that time through rose-colored glasses, because we were also five different personalities thrown in together.  We fought sometimes, and we endured hardships - our house was broken into 6 times over two months and a group of us was attacked by gang members while walking to a bowling alley and two of us were beaten badly enough to go to the emergency room.  Though I wasn't hurt, I began to experience the first of what would become on and off again panic attacks in response to stress.

I met my wife in the JVC.  She was more in tune with Catholic social teaching than I was and already believed in the tenets of the program prior to her volunteer year.  They made a big impression on me.  Since that time, I have been drawn to social justice causes, and in doing work with the poor and disadvantaged.  I continued to live in inner-city Milwaukee, and since I left there have never shied away from going into any inner-city areas.

But as our incomes began to rise, we gained a lot more physical and, for lack of a better term, metaphysical clutter.  We became busy, and we did more.  In my twenties and thirties, this seemed fine for me.  I liked being busy.  I enjoyed the things I did.  However, focusing on all of the things we were doing let me ignore and avoid looking at things that I probably should have been putting more attention to.

About four years ago, I realized something was wrong.  I wasn't exactly happy with the way things were going in my life.  Upon some examination, I realized it was because my life was so busy.  We have no children, so evenings were often (and still often) spent out.  There were weeks where I wasn't home in the evening for 6-7 days.  We weren't partying or anything like that.  Instead, one night it might be a work function that my wife needed to attend, another night it might be a movie, a third night might be taken up by a late day at work then a late dinner, a fourth night might be another function, a fifth night might be dinner with a friend, the sixth night a play, and the seventh night, if it wasn't off, was perhaps devoted to some other gathering or event.

I looked around my house, and saw a cluttered lifestyle that was difficult to keep in check.  The lack of time at home meant that we had let things build up and weren't putting things into their place or even paying attention to what we brought home and put down.  The clutter of things was bad enough - the clutter of events and happenings was even worse.  I realized that I had ignored myself.  I wasn't giving myself any space to be alone, to ruminate on questions, to read and grow.  All of this was leading to strain between my wife and I.  We hadn't had kids, partly because of how active our life was, and suddenly when we thought we might try, we discovered we couldn't.  This was a real blow to me.  I had always pictured myself with a child, a daughter, and it was hard to accept that it might not happen.

I started examining myself, and my instinct was telling me that I had to de-clutter my life.  I needed to make time for myself and get with reacquainted with me.  And to that end I have been devoting myself with more or less success for the past two years.  I say more or less success because I got sidetracked once, and at other times I have found it difficult to say no to people, including my wife.  But I've worked my way to an awareness of what I need to do, and hope that it will translate into action.

Which is why, coming back to the quotes above, LHM's talk with Arthur O. Bakke resonates with me.  Both in their way are seeking answers for themselves.  Arthur believes he's found the answer in God and Jesus and in showing others the way to what he sees as truth.  He has de-cluttered his life of earthly things in service to what awaits the good on the other side.  LHM is also seeking answers to questions about himself and his life.  He seeks them on the road, in literature and in making sense of his experiences and how they relate to his life as he travels.  Both have left their previous lives behind in the hopes of finding something.  They aren't dissimilar, which is probably why they grow to like each other.  It is also symbolic that they are at a place that was a ferry.  In a ferry, you cross a physical boundary to another place - from riverbank to riverbank, from city to country or vice-versa, or even from life to death.

I too seek answers.  I've gone down some wrong paths, and yet I feel that I understand more than I did.  I have a vision for what life must look like for me to be satisfied as I head into its second half.  Unlike in the past, I also now have some motivation to cross my own boundaries to get there.

Musical Interlude

I heard this song on a strange little movie called Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.  The song is a traditional ballad called Wayfaring Stranger and it is sung by David Eugene Edwards.  I like how the road through symbolic darkness and woe leads to beauty and light.  It's the life that most of us travel until we find what we need.

If you want to know more about Bonner's Ferry

I want to highlight that near Bonner's Ferry in 1974, the Kootenai Tribe declared war on the United States and posted tribal guards on the entrances into the towns where they asked motorists to pay a toll to drive through lands they claimed as theirs.  While most tribes are forbidden by treaty to declare war on the U.S., the Kootenai never had a formal treaty.  The United States conceded a small bit of land to end the dispute.  The land became the Kootenai reservation.

Bonner's Ferry Chamber of Commerce
Bonner's Ferry Herald (newspaper)
City of Bonner's Ferry
newsbf.com
Sandpoint.com: Bonner's Ferry
Wikipedia: Bonner's Ferry

Next up:  Kalispell, Montana

Blue Highways: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Unfolding the Map

William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) and Arthur O. Bakke stop for the night in Coeur d'Alene, where Bakke sets himself up with a bed for the night and LHM with a place to wash up.  Before that, however, LHM has an opportunity to see how the honest directness of Bakke in peddling his Bible classes and his beliefs takes people aback.  I'll reflect on this directness and how I could use a little more of it in my life.  And now I'll be direct with you:  go see the map and locate Coeur d'Alene!

Book Quote

"Bakke knew of an Adventist Church in Coeur d'Alene and figured finding a place for the night there.  It began to rain - waving sheets of water the wipers couldn't handle...I stopped at a gas station for directions to the church, and Bakke went into his routine again.  'Salvation's just around the corner, brother.'

"The pumpman lighted a cigarette and looked helplessly at me to see if it was a joke.  'I'm already done up with the Presbyterians,' he said, retreating, watching us carefully as if Bakke had said, 'Is the safe just around the corner?'

"I was getting interested in the way people reacted to the offer of a free Bible course.  Whatever the response, Bakke's directness unnerved them."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 2

Downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Photo at Schneidmiller Realty's website. Click on photo to go to host page.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Being a passive-aggressive sort, I rarely say what I mean.

Okay, I'm being too harsh on myself.  I have my moments of passive-aggressiveness, but mostly I hardly ever say what I really want because of a number of misconceptions that I'm trying to shed.  Misconceptions like "nobody is really interested in what I have to say."  Or "if I put my wants and needs out there, it will inconvenience everyone else."

What I really need is some of that unnerving directness that LHM describes as the hallmark of Arthur O. Bakke, Seventh Day Adventist and would-be savior of men's souls.

We've all met them, those honest and earnest but unnervingly direct people - and perhaps some of you reading this are that type of person.  Such people say what they think and more importantly what they want.  They don't have the baggage that a lot of us are saddled with from our families or our upbringings where saying what you think or want is discouraged.  They just do it.

Such people usually aren't trying to make people uncomfortable, but their directness confronts people in an interesting way.  It is discomfiting because it is earnest and honest and therefore presents a challenge.  The first thing that I think, when a person is direct and honest with me in such a way, is something like "what's the catch?"  As a society, we tend to walk around with our guards up.  It is not safe to trust someone we don't know, and we also may even have some doubts about people we do know.  Everyone is hiding something, right?  At least that's the landscape a lot of us paint for ourselves, so when honest and direct comes crashing into that worldview it doesn't make sense.

I remember having a conversation with someone about the simple phrase "how are you?"  Or it could be "how's it going?"  These are stock questions that people often use when meeting someone else in passing.  It might be someone who you don't know who says "Hi" or perhaps someone you know but you aren't going to visit with them.  The exchange goes like this: Person 1 says "hi" as they walk past and Person 2 says "how are you doing?"  The stock answer from Person 1 to this question is usually "okay."

Now, imagine if Person 1 actually took that question literally, and stopped to tell Person 2 just exactly how they were doing?  Person 1 might respond with how he's feeling fine now but this morning woke up with a headache and is afraid that if he doesn't continue popping some aspirin it might come back.  Oh, and he's had a little bit of an argument with his wife, but he figures he'll buy her some flowers on the way home from work tonight and perhaps they can have some makeup sex.  His hemorrhoids were acting up last week but he thinks he's got them under control, and he has some long-term questions about the viability of his job but thinks that it will be okay for the foreseeable future, though there might be some financial difficulties coming down the way since the kid is going to need braces.  Well before this time, Person 2 is backing away, like the pumpman in LHM's quote.

The point is, we rarely ever say what we truly mean and think.  Perhaps the example above is a bit extreme.  Who really wants to know all of what we are thinking?  But a little more directness and honesty wouldn't hurt.

My wife and I are dealing with this.  Both of our upbringings, for different reasons, left us with a legacy of not saying what we want but expecting the other person to somehow know.  For me, the difficulty is that I don't want to disappoint other people.  A small example might be when we are deciding where we want to go for dinner.  I might really want a burger, but I hold back voicing my desire.  My wife suggests Vietnamese.  All of a sudden my assumptions and caretaking start.  I assume that she really wants to go for Vietnamese.  I like Vietnamese.  It wouldn't be my first choice in this instance but I can live with it.  And she really wants it.  So we go Vietnamese, and in the course of the conversation she finds out I really wanted a burger when she was just suggesting a place and wasn't really wedded to the idea.  I would have been better off had I just stated what I want directly and honestly.

Of course, there are people who seem to be direct and honest and really aren't.  I've run into a few of these people in my life.  Some crash your boundaries, make you feel unique and special, and make you think that you are important to them.  However, when you pull back the curtain, the motivations are completely self-serving.  Most of the time, if you look a little farther, you see a pattern of bad behavior and broken relationships.  But, for a time, the wool is pulled over your eyes until that person gets what they want, and then they are gone.  In my case, the ability to see through the curtain is neutralized by a desire to please others based on a deeper need for others' acceptance, and that's a deep-seated need from way back in my childhood.

So what's the middle ground?  Obviously, we can't trust everyone and we shouldn't.  At the same time, it does us no good personally or as a society to be constantly on our guards when we don't need to be.  I think that knowing ourselves and trusting ourselves to be able to pick out dangers on the one hand, but also being willing to voice our needs and opinions openly, on the other hand, is that perfect place we seek.  And lastly, we won't be able to avoid all the hurts of life, but just trusting we'll survive them and will move on is the biggest act of compassion we can give ourselves.

Again, look at the example of Arthur O. Bakke.  He keeps putting it out there, and most people give into their discomfort and back slowly away.  It doesn't stop him.  He has a belief and it gives him strength.  We don't have to believe as he does, but believing in ourselves will make a lot of difference.

*****

Addendum:  In May of 2011, a couple picked up the only hitchhiker they have ever stopped for.  Here is their story of their encounter with Arthur O. Bakke.

Musical Interlude

For some reason, probably because we are passing through Idaho with LHM, The B-52s Private Idaho comes to mind.  The lyrics even seem to fit this post, for some reason.

If you want to know more about Coeur d'Alene

City of Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene Press (newspaper)
Coeur d'Alene Visitors Bureau
North Idaho College
Wikipedia: Coeur d'Alene

Next up:  Bonner's Ferry, Idaho

Blue Highways: Potlatch and Tensed, Idaho

Unfolding the Map

All I can say right now is wow.  If you go to the map to identify Potlatch and Tensed, Idaho you'll see that Tensed is the 200th point we've marked on the Blue Highways reading journey.  Pat yourselves on the back, Littourati!  Since I've combined some map points into one post, I've done about 175 posts on Blue Highways, and we still have a long trip to go.  I think we'll make 300 map points before the book is finished.  In this post, William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) picks up a hitchhiker who happens to be an evangelist for the Seventh Day Adventists.  Despite a rough start, LHM comes to like him.  I'll reflect on what there is to admire in evangelists, even if you don't necessarily want, like or agree with their message.

Book Quote

"...he climbed in, smiling, introducing himself.  His name was Arthur O. Bakke...

"Now the first question from a hitchhiker never varies:  'How far ya goin'?'  ...Arthur O. Bakke's first question was, 'Do you want a free Bible course?'  Oh, god, not this, I thought.  'Jesus is coming,' he said.  Save me, I thought and started working on a reason to turn back and head the other way.

"'....The Spirit's moving in you, but never mind that.'  He pulled out a palm-sized notebook made of two pieces of linoleum.  'Where did you pick me up?'

"'Near Potlatch, Idaho.'

"....When I pulled in for gas, he checked his watch and said aloud as he wrote:  'Fueling stop at Tensed, Idaho.'

"Tensed is on the Coeur d'Alene reservation.  As a young Indian scrubbed the windshield, Bakke leaned out the window.  'Would you like a free Bible course?'  The boy never stopped wiping, but he looked in at me.  I shrugged.  'Jesus is coming soon,' Bakke chirped.

"The Coeur d'Alene said, faltering, 'No read white man word.'

"Bakke thought for a moment.  The Indian finished wiping, and I followed him inside to sign the credit slip.  Filling out the form in a precise hand, he said, 'What's wrong with your buddy?'

"'He's okay.  Just a friendly fellow.'

"'That's what they say at the funny farm.'"

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 2

Downtown Potlatch, Idaho. Photo at the Palouse Country website. Click on photo to go to host page.

Potlatch and Tensed, Idaho

What do you do when you're confronted by a person who wants to talk to you about God or Jesus?  A person who fervently believes that by doing so, they will plant the seed to your salvation?

If you're like me, you probably close the door or walk away.  You hang up the phone or you quickly change the channel from that religious station you accidently switched to when you dropped the remote.

When your own life is racked by doubts and fears, iffiness and uncertainties, and then someone tells you that the answer to everything is to simply let Jesus into your heart, is it surprising that many people feel like they are being exposed to a scam by some salesperson?  I still go to a Catholic church relatively regularly, and I still sometimes feel that way after a sermon.

Perhaps you might think the person is a little bit crazy.  Who in their right mind not only gives themselves over to the teachings of a person who lived over 2000 years ago, but also has based their daily life around that person and feels compelled to share their obsession with everyone else?  Crazy, right?

Or, take my father's.  When a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses came to our house and asked if he would be willing to talk about his salvation, my father did a masterful job of pretending that he was simple and only interested in the strawberries he was tending.  Only later did I realize that as they were trying to point him toward the beauty of salvation, he was trying to point them toward the simple beauty of a garden of strawberries.  My father was a damaged man which had major ramifications for me in my childhood, but that was one time that I was able to see some of his often hidden wisdom.

That's what I enjoy about these quotes from LHM - which I've culled from a much longer passage.  We'll continue to ride along with LHM and Arthur O. Bakke, Seventh Day Adventist and earnest adherent of Christ, for a few more posts.  From this dubious beginning, where LHM just wants to get him out of Ghost Dancing (his van) and where people, like the young Coeur d'Alene native man, smile and slowly back away from his offer of a free Bible class, LHM grows to like him and to admire him.  In a way, I have also found admiration for these self-appointed messengers because I find that if you put aside religion, my thoughts and their beliefs can find common ground.

Evangelizers often preach that society is too materialistic.  We focus on things rather than what's important.  As I take in news reports this season of a woman pepper-spraying people in a store to get one of a dwindling supply of XBoxes on Black Friday, or mobs stampeding to grab two-dollar waffle irons at a Wal-Mart, I agree with those who would want to save me.  We are too materialistic.

Evangelizers often preach that life has become too complicated, and that accepting Christ and putting our energies toward him will make things clearer.  Currently, I am trying to slow my life down.  I want to simplify and to de-clutter so that I can put my energies toward things that will lead to personal growth and happiness and which will make a positive influence in the world.  I have no disagreement with making space in one's life for such meaningful things.

I often part ways with evangelizers, though.  They often literalize the Bible and have an idea that they can slice through the mass of conflicting messages and know exactly what God and Christ intended for us.  I am more aware of the conflicts inherent in the Bible, a document written by different people at different time periods and in different cultures that has been translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English with all kinds of meanings lost and new meanings added.

Like evangelizers, I also choose what I think are the true messages of the Bible.  Do we, as the Old Testament says, take an eye for an eye, or do we, as Jesus in the New Testament commands, love our enemies and turn the other cheek?  Do we condemn to Hell those who can't or won't accept Christ, or do we walk among the sinners, the poor and the outcast as Jesus did?  I tend to be one who wants to love enemies and turn the other cheek in most cases.  I'm the guy who wants to walk among the sinners, the outcast and the poor.  Not only do I find them more interesting than most of the supposedly pious, but I also learn and grow from them and their experiences.  I don't see the evangelizers as being open to all except in the context of getting people to renounce everything and accept their Christian beliefs.  Otherwise, they have no time for you.  This has been driven home to me by the actions of a local evangelical homeless shelter in Albuquerque which won't shelter people for the night unless they promise to accept Jesus into their hearts, and a local, wealthy, evangelical mega-church who, according to one woman my wife met, refused to help her when she was down and out and advised her to go see the Catholics instead.

There are times, however, when I think it is very attractive to be so certain - to be so sure of one's convictions that all of the cloudiness and uncertainty of life disappears and things become quite clear.  That's why I sometimes envy the evangelizers.  If I can gain just a little of that serenity and conviction in my own life, I think I would be a lot more satisfied.  I don't see giving myself completely over to Christ as the answer for me.  I'm perfectly happy with the level of my participation in my church.  For me, the challenge is accepting and believing in myself.  That's why to me the message of the evangelizers is so deceptive.  If I did completely devote my life to Christ, I would be subsuming myself.  I finally feel, at the age of 47, I'm just truly getting to know who I am and I don't want to lose myself again.

Musical Interlude

Evidently the great guitarist Ry Cooder is known for his rendition of Jesus on the Main Line.  I found at least five or six of his renditions on YouTube and this one is from his younger days in the 1970s.  It's a great song, even if you're not into the message.

If you want to know more about Potlatch and Tensed

City of Potlatch
Potlatch.com
Wikipedia: Potlatch
Wikipedia: Tensed

Next up: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Blue Highways: Moscow, Idaho

Unfolding the Map

We arrive in Moscow - not Russia, but Idaho!  I haven't even considered doing a Russian book yet...though who knows.  And we feel as good as pigs in s*** because we're in a place that was considered Hog Heaven.  Check out Moscow on the map, and enjoy a little reflection on pigs.

Book Quote

"I spent the night in Hog Heaven, as early settlers called Moscow, Idaho, after they saw the gustatorial excitement pigs got into snorting up camas roots.  Although settlers refused to eat the tubers, they were an Indian staple that helped sustain the Lewis and Clark expedition.

"Citizens later tried to counteract the swinish name by changing it to Paradise, but that was much too unbelievable.  In 1877, a transplanted Easterner applied for a postal permit under the present name to honor Moscow, Pennsylvania. That ended the silliness; but, as best I could tell, many residents, unable to agree whether the last vowel is long or short, don't like the toponym Moscow any better than Hog Heaven."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 1

Downtown Moscow, Idaho. Photo by Wiley1 and hosted at Panoramio. Click on photo to go to host page.

Moscow, Idaho

My wife likes pigs.  I'm waiting for it...  "That's why she married you, Hess."  Okay, fair enough.  I should rephrase that.  My wife likes piglets.  This might not be surprising since she is from Iowa, an agricultural state that has its share of pig farms.  But that isn't why she really likes piglets, because she never grew up on a farm.  She simply likes them because they are cute.  I think it might be related to Piglet from Winnie the Pooh.

Her love for piglets doesn't necessarily extend to their adult versions, when they get big, fat, and sometimes a bit aggressive.  But piglets...she's all over that.

Pigs get a bum rap.  We insult people by calling them pigs.  Pigs are associated with uncleanliness, indolence, gluttony, and other human traits we consider less than desirable.  In the Odyssey, the sorceress Circe turns Odysseus' sailors into pigs after they gorge themselves on her drugged food, as she thought it resembled their nature.  Judaism, Islam and some Christian groups forbid eating pork, though Islam makes an exception in cases of extreme need.  These restrictions are based on the perception of uncleanliness of pigs, and the fact that they tend to scavenge and eat pretty much anything.

But reading this article, I learned that pigs do some amazing things.  They are smarter than dogs, and even smarter than a human three year old.  They dream.  They can solve complex problems.  Pigs learn words and they can recall words even after a few years of not hearing them.  And this is touching.  Mother pigs sing to their piglets while nursing them.  That's right.  Sows sing to their piglets!  Could anything be more touching than that?

I once visited a pig farm in Iowa and held some piglets.  Unfortunately, all the dust in the air made my allergies act up so I wasn't able to spend a lot of time in the pig barn, but holding a piglet was extremely fulfilling.  The piglet nestled into my arms and just lay there, content that it was being held by someone or something.  When I looked over at the mother, she appeared watchful, but not distressed that I was holding her piglet.  It was if she gave me permission to hold it.  I have also watched a huge specimen of porcine bulk trundle his bulk as quickly as he could in answering his name.  His eagerness to come over and see us was actually quite cute, if you could get past the fact that he was huge and not very attractive among the pig set.

On the other hand, pigs have been associated with power and cunning.  The intelligence of the pig is not only evident in its domesticated version, but wild hogs, feral pigs and boars are also known to have keen intelligence and can be quite dangerous.  The boar has been used as an heraldic insignia for throughout the centuries.  Boars were also sacred to the Celtic goddess Arduinna, and in Hindu mythology the third avatar of Vishnu is a boar named Varaha.

In Big Bend National Park, I saw a wild hog called a javelina.  They don't see very well, and I was on a road above the arroyo in which the javelina was sniffing about.  It heard me, and looked around, but because it didn't see me it continued until it disappeared in the underbrush.  I remember it having stripes, and looking nothing like the domesticated pigs I'd seen on farms.  In fact, Texas is trying to figure out what to do with these wild pigs whose population has grown.  A story some years back on that I heard on NPR mentioned that one of the risks of census takers in rural Texas were wild javelinas.

Modern stories about pigs have also touched us.  E.B. White's novel Charlotte's Web was one of the first books to make me cry when I was a young boy, and I got the same kind of feelings when I was older and saw the movie Babe for the first time.  Yes, I'm a romantic softie.

To me, there is nothing better than a good piece of pork.  I like pigs, and I also like to eat them.  Especially a good pulled pork sandwich, or carne adovada which is pork slow-cooked in red chile.  I've found myself, when confronted with a choice between chicken, beef or pork, usually choosing the pork dish.

Given all of the great things about pigs, religious texts notwithstanding, I'm surprised that they are so maligned.  In my imagination, not unlike LHM, I think that a small city in western Idaho could do a lot worse than be known as Hog Heaven.  In fact, give me Hog Heaven over Moscow - no offense to the residents of Moscow.  I just think that Hog Heaven has a hook and might make a person think about visiting just to see what a Hog Heaven actually looks like.

Musical Interlude

Bessie Smith, one of the most powerful chanteuse's ever to sing the blues, did a popular song in the 1930s called Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer).  She was an amazing artist who was taken before her time in a car wreck, but she knew the value of a pig.  Turn her up and enjoy!

If you want to know more about Moscow

The Argonaut (university newspaper)
City of Moscow
Moscow.com
Moscow-Pullman Daily News (newspaper)
University of Idaho
Wikipedia: Moscow

Next up: Pullman, Washington

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