Blue Highways: Palmyra, New York

Unfolding the Map

We pass through Palmyra, New York and then past mobile homes.  William Leat Heat-Moon (LHM) remarks on the permanence and impermanence encapsulated in these uniquely American creations, and that gets me writing on a subject which seems to be very close to me right now.  Fortunately, Palmyra sits permanently for now on the map - though the ancient city in Syria from which it took its name evidently could be moved at a moment's notice to escape a Roman invasion sent by Mark Antony.  Talk about impermanence!

Book Quote

"Palmyra was a clean town of three-story brick buildings where I turned east on New York 31 and went down along the route of the Erie Canal, through villages, over fields of deep green, under blooming locust trees, and past barns collapsing next to mobile homes that looked depressingly immobile yet also impermanent."

Blue Highways: Part 8, Chapter 5

This photo of Main Street in Palmyra, New York is courtesy of TripAdvisor.

Palmyra, New York

Permanence and impermanence is on my mind this a lot as I write this post.  The image that LHM conjures up - the "mobile" homes that look "depressingly immobile" and also "impermanent" is a really wonderful metaphor.

I'm going to digress first on mobile homes.  I've always wondered why we call them mobile when usually they are just parked somewhere on a lot or in a trailer park.  Yes, they seem to serve as housing and some of them are quite nice inside.  Recently, my wife and I stayed in a mobile home at an affordable spa called Riverbend Hot Springs in Truth or Consequences.  The inside was quite nice and comfortable though, to be fair, it was housing just her, me and our dog for an overnight.  Fitting a family of four or more in there might be a different story.

However, most of these mobile homes sit, in their permanent impermanence, like fiberglass magnets for tornadoes during the spring and summer weather seasons.  (I joke, but it seems like every summer the media reports on a mobile home park that has been decimated by a tornado.  I realize that tornadoes aren't really attracted to mobile home parks.  Media tends to report on these instances because the damage is usually extensive and the casualties can be high.  Yet mobile homes, however stationary, are cheap alternative housing for those who cannot afford to buy a more substantial home.)

Once my father and I were leaving our property near Irmulco, California and heading back up the dirt logging road to the highway near the ridge of the mountain.  About a third of the way, we were delayed for two or three hours as a group of men tried to figure out how to maneuver a large mobile home around a sharp corner.  The bank of the roadway eventually had to be dug out in order to create enough clearance for the mobile home.  I was young at the time, but even then it occurred to me that this mobile home wasn't that mobile, and that by going down into the Irmulco Valley, it was heading to its final resting place.  And, because it is made of flimsier materials than a regular home, I wonder if it is still there, some 30 years or more later, or whether it has crumbled into a ruin.

We tend to get involved in things with the illusion that they are permanent and fixed.  Yet most of what we do takes action and attention to remain functional.  An amazing show on the history channel explores Life After People.  There isn't really much hope that what we build will last very long.  I seem to recall that within 50,000 years or so, a period of time that barely even registers in the entire history of the universe and only a blink of an eye in the evolution of the earth, all visible traces of humanity would be gone except to the most discerning eye.  Our bones would last 150 million years or so, but our buildings will crumble in less than 50 years years, though some of our bridges might last for 1000 years if extremely well built.  If you think that the thousand year civilization of the Romans has only left crumbling ruins, or that the Mayan civilization is buried under jungle, and that is only after 2000 years or less, there really isn't much permanence to what we create and erect.

But, that's not the only reason that permanence and impermanence is on my mind.  Even things that we don't physically construct, but build in other ways, are subject to forces of decay and change.  Take marriage, for instance.  Most couples say "I do" with thoughts of building a marriage that will last each partner's lifetime.  Yet in the United States, a large number of marriages end in divorce.  Even with care, cracks and strains can show in relationships.  These can be patched up, but the underlying weaknesses, unless addressed, will undermine the whole structure.  Or, perhaps one partner or the other is neglectful, and weeds will begin to grow.  My wife and I have been working on an essential element of relationships, communication, because we had neglected that aspect in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives and work and eventually, that neglect mushroomed into difficulties.  We are trying to address those issues now, and it's hard work to maintain not only the edifice of a marriage, but also its foundations.

Jobs, also, are fleeting.  One might take a new job that one likes very much, only to find in two years that everything about it has changed.  A supervisor leaves and another takes her place, and suddenly everything is affected.  Sometimes the change is for the better, a lot of times it can be for the worse.  Soon, that job that you thought you'd be at for 10 years or more, or even until you retire, becomes intolerable and your whole life is thrown into flux.  My wife is in the middle of this.  Her career landscape, once so full of opportunity and very clear paths, has become muddled and frightening.  Yet even in the midst of uncertainty, there is hope that she can open new pathways and build new bridges and roadways to a modified or even new career.

Civilization, as Life After People tells us, needs attention if its structures and institutions are to be maintained.  So do our own structures - those constructs of relationships and identities that we build. We put a lot of emphasis on the physical things - our mighty architecture and our creations in arts and sciences.  Ultimately, though, we are nothing if we cannot maintain our own internal constructs that define our identities - our sense of purpose, our knowledge of ourselves and our needs, and our self-esteem.  Collectively, each persons attention or lack of attention to our internal identities work on a micro and macro level to either fight or hasten .  We can give the illusion of permanence to those things we want and care about.   I write "illusion" because eventually, all things will fade and go but the illusion allows us to feel, to know, that in this time and place we matter.  Just like we build bridges, roads, skyscrapers, institutions, and countries with the expectation that they will last, we must constantly maintaining the structure and meaning of our lives.  Our lives are all we have and, if we, like all other things, are impermanent in an unforgiving universe, we can still construct our temporary mobile homes where we are and turn them into shelter and our own stationary place where we can feel safe and secure in time and space.

Musical Interlude

A double shot for this post.  I love the idea of Airstreams, and I'd love to own an Airstream - they seem to tap into the impermanence that is part and parcel of our lives, for those who are willing to accept it.  Miranda Lambert, in Airstream Song, wishes to be a gypsy moving from place to place and never putting down roots.  Fastball, in Airstream, wants to "leave the world behind."  Impermanence isn't a bad thing - one just needs to embrace it because ultimately, we're always fighting against it and it's a losing battle.  Sometimes it's good to just give into it.

If you want to know more about Palmyra

Historic Palmyra
History of Palmyra
Official Palmyra Home Page
Wikipedia: Town of Palmyra
Wikipedia: Village of Palmyra

Next up: Savannah, New York

Blue Highways: Jonesboro (Jonesborough), Tennessee

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapIt's amazing the little facts of history learned when reading this book.  First we learn of a secret Tennessee city.  Now we learn of the lost state of Franklin.  Click on the map thumbnail to see the location of this important town in the establishment of a forgotten American state.

Book Quote

"The 14th state in the Union, the first formed after the original thirteen, was Franklin and its capital Jonesboro....But history is a fickle thing, and now Jonesboro, two centures old, is only the seat of Washington County, which also was once something else - the entire state of Tennessee....

"Main Street in Jonesboro, solid with step-gabled antebellum buildings, ran into a dell to parallel a stream; houses and steeples rose from encircling hills.  After breakfast, I walked snowy Main to the Chester Inn, a wooden building with an arched double gallery, where Andrew Jackson almost got tarred and feathered, for what I don't know.  Charles Dickens spent the night here as did Andrew Johnson, James Polk, and Martin Van Buren (whose autobiography never mentions his wife)."

Blue Highways: Part 1, Chapter 19

Jonesborough as William Least-Heat Moon might have walked it

Jonesboro (Jonesborough), Tennessee

Tennessee is full of secrets.  That's the conclusion I'm coming to as we make this last stop in the state with William Least-Heat Moon (LHM).  I know that in the heady days after the Revolutionary War, nothing was completely settled and the United States had some precarious moments.  Lest we think that the new American country was in a love fest with each other and completely united, remember that the new country was rife with divisions.  Slavery was an issue that was beginning to be recognized as a major divide between states.  The new U.S. government, now faced with responsibilities of running a country, had to now impose its own taxes, and taxes were just as popular then as they are now, which is to say not very popular.

The State of Franklin was born out of confusion and frustration with the new federal government of the Thirteen States and anger at the government of North Carolina.  The federal government was deeply in debt, so North Carolina ceded 29 million acres of its territory in what is now Tennessee to the federal government to help out.  The people living in this area were deeply fearful that Congress would become desperate and sell the land to France or Spain.  When Congress didn't act on the North Carolina gift, North Carolina took back its territory a few weeks later.  However, the damage was done, and a group of counties got together and declared self-government.

They named their state Frankland, and petitioned the Congress to grant them statehood.  Seven of the thirteen colonies supported their petition.  However, they needed the support of nine.  The Frankland legislature then changed the name to Franklin, in order to hopefully draw the support of Benjamin Franklin, but this did not work.  North Carolina sent in troops and established a territorial government, and for a time two governments worked independently of each other.  Finally, the arrest of the leader of Franklin, John Sevier, and increasing attacks by Indians on area settlements led to a reunification with North Carolina, who could send troops to aid in defense, and the pardon of Sevier.  North Carolina later ceded the territory again to the U.S. government, and it eventually became the eastern part of Tennessee, of which Sevier was the first governor.

One person of later historical importance born in Franklin while it was a state was pioneer and participant at the Alamo, Davy Crockett.

I find it very interesting that a group of people, right after our country became independent, decided to secede from North Carolina and join the United States in the name of protecting their interests and freedoms.  Lest we think that the fledging U.S. was living high on the euphoria of defeating the British and becoming its own country, it is good to remember that we had our own problems and divisions.  The debt from the war was very high, leaving the new U.S. government in a position of having to impose its own taxes on the citizenry, who just finished fighting a war in part because of taxes.  Taxes were just as popular then as they are today, which is to say not very popular.

Freedom is an ideal with many consequences.  As a professor teaching American government, I constantly lectured on the balancing act between freedom and other ideals, such as order and equality.  The more freedom one wants, the less order can be maintained.  The more freedom one wants, the less equality can be achieved.  The more order one wants, the more freedoms will be taken away.  The more equality one wants, the more freedom is impinged upon.  This is the crux of our political battles today.  American conservatives cry out for more order.  They fund the military to protect the U.S.'s place in the world order.  They decry social freedoms as undermining the moral order.  Liberals demand more equality as the basis of freedoms.  They argue for raising the welfare of the poor and disadvantaged.  They push for equal opportunities for disadvantaged minority populations.  Demands for order and demands for equality both entail government interference in ordinary lives, and curtail freedoms.  Libertarians want to scale government back to its bare essentials, so that freedoms are maximized.  However, a country with many freedoms and little order or equality may lead to class warfare and/or a more dangerous, defend yourself world.  Government does many good things, and provides us with many services and protections that we take for granted.  Thus, maintaining the dream that is the United States of America involves a delicate balancing act.  The State of Franklin could not maintain that balance.  Seceding from North Carolina may have bought them freedom for a time, but they could not maintain order when the US Congress rejected their petition and then Indians began to attack their settlements.  Ultimately, they saw a better mix of freedom and order back under the jurisdiction of North Carolina, and eventually, the State of Tennessee.

The history of Franklin also reminds me of the impermanence of human institutions.  Sometimes this notion can be frightening or depressing.  Franklin didn't last very long, but it is part of a United States that has lasted for about 235 years.  Americans tend to see the United States as a permanent fixture, that we will always be a great nation, but this is not guaranteed.  The entirety of world history indicates that we will wax and wane, and one day disappear.  The Romans had a great empire for nearly 1000 years, yet today their cities are either crumbling away into oblivion or are living museums of impermanence.  In a 1000 years, the United States may not exist anymore, done in by war, pestilence, dwindling natural resources, climate change, or the breakdown of our political system.  Who knows what country or countries, if any, will occupy the geography we now claim as ours?  Perhaps the United States, like Franklin, will be forgotten except by a few - our passage marked by a faded plaque outside a crumbling capitol building in an ancient and deserted city once called Washington.

Yet I also find hope in our impermanence.  The idea that we can leave something that aids or advances humanity, and the potential that our screw-ups will be heeded or perhaps even be fixed after we are gone, makes me believe that there is some sense of cosmic justice.  It's not that what we do now doesn't matter.  It does to us, and perhaps it will to the next generations.  But in the end and on a universal scale, it probably doesn't matter that much, and in the end, as Julian of Norwich once said, all will be well.

If you want to know more about Jonesborough or Franklin

Franklin: The Lost State of America
Historic Jonesborough
History of Western North Carolina: The State of Franklin
Jonesborough Herald and Tribune (newspaper)
Jonesborough Online
State of Franklin History
Town of Jonesborough
Wikipedia: State of Franklin
Wikipedia: Jonesborough

Next up: Winston-Salem and Greensboro, North Carolina