Blue Highways: Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean

Unfolding the Map

William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) leaves Ghost Dancing on the shore and goes out on a fishing trawler from Cape Porpoise, Maine for a day.  The interest in fishing, or at least the more dangerous aspects of it, has skyrocketed since the success of the reality TV show The Deadliest Catch.  Since one side of my family is a fishing family, it brings back a lot of memories and reminiscences for me.  Warning, my spot on the map is probably not accurate, but it will do.  To see the area where I think the Allison E. may have been trolling around, sail on over to the map.

Book Quote

"Four o'clock:  On the open sea.  Making ten knots, fast enough to raise a wake as high as the transom.  The forty-foot Allison E. rides up the swells and down the other side.  Up, down, up, down...

"Four-fifty:  Lights of Cape Porpoise gone from the horizon.  Eastern sky cold and gray.  Tom says, 'We can fish in a good year only about two hundred days.  Whatever income from dragging we'll earn, we've got to earn then.  We can't ever make up for a day lost...

"Five-thirty:  Rain stops.  Ten miles offshore and towing at three knots over an area in the Gulf of Maine known as Perkins Ground of Bigelow Bight.  Two hundred forty feet below on the mud, sand, and gravel, the net rouses bottomfish as they bump up into the 'sweep' and on back into the rear bag called the 'cod end.'

Eight o'clock:  Sun out....The weight of the net pulls the boat backwards until we are above it.  An aura of anticipation.  A crew gets paid only for its share of the catch.  There are no salaries."

Blue Highways:  Part 9, Chapter 3

Stern of a Cape Porpoise, Maine fishing trawler. Photo by Michael O'Brien and found on his Flickriver page. Click on photo to go to host page.Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean

In my previous post, I made reference to going out on the ocean in a boat.  I would love to say that, given the fishing and oceangoing history of my family on my mother's side, I would take to the water.  Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

I have referred before to my uncles and perhaps to my grandfather.  They have all been fishermen.  My grandfather was originally a fisherman, and only left the sea for a while during the Great Depression when he became a logger and, when the logging wasn't good, worked for the Works Progress Administration.  His sons, Elwin and Bob, both became fishermen like their father.  My uncle Elwin fished halibut and other bottom fish on his boat Norcoaster much like is described by LHM on his time out on the Allison E. in Maine.  My uncle Bob, still fishing today in his 80s on his boat Kristy, concentrated on salmon and crab.  I remember when they would go out fishing, and the whole family waited for news - did Betty hear from Elwin or has anyone heard from Bob?  My aunt Betty communicated with uncle Elwin via a shortwave radio, as I believe my aunt Cecilia did with uncle Bob.

The lack of any major incidents on the high seas always masked the fact, to me at least, that fishing was tough, tough business.  I suppose I always thought of my uncles piloting their boats through pristine waters at all times.  Sure, other fishermens' boats sometimes sank, but not my uncles' boats.  Very occasionally, a fisherman would die.  But my uncles always came back from their trips.  I remember them often having good trips, and coming back with full holds.  Unlike the Allison E., whose captain tells LHM that the boat is too small to make overnight trips, my uncles would spend a week or more on the water.  They even took part at times in experiments conducted by the government, which paid fishermen to try new fishing techniques such as long-lining for tuna.  On those trips, they would fish their way across the Pacific to Hawaii and back.

As overfishing led to regulations in California, my uncles began to fish farther and farther from home, first off Oregon and Washington.  Uncle Elwin bought a home on the San Juan de Fuca Strait, and fished from there up to Alaska.  When the season went to a week, then down to three days, Uncle Elwin and his crew, which often included his son Bob and even his daughter Gina, cruised up to Alaska and then fished in deep and rough waters around the clock.  I have seen some of their home movies, showing enormous fish on the deck, and crew cutting and carrying them to the hold.

My uncle took my father fishing once or twice up to Alaska, in an attempt to dry him out and keep him away from the booze.  I think it worked as long as my father was on the boat.  When the trip was over, my father just went back to drinking again.  I thought about doing one of those trips myself, signing on as a crewmember with my uncle and earning some good money fishing.  I heard the stories about the poker games on board at night, after dinner and, if a crewmember was off duty, even some alcohol.  There were also stories about "exotic" fishing towns, rough bars, and lusty women.  I just had one small and minor problem.

I have always been prone to motion sickness.

I grew up in a small coastal town where the only way in and out was on winding, twisting roads.  As a child, these roads were torture to me.  We'd carry a coffee can lined with a plastic bag in the car so that I could puke in it as needed.  It took me until I was at least nine or ten years old before I could get past those roads with a reasonable chance of not vomiting.

While I outgrew my car sickness, I suppose I should have been surprised when I discovered, on a cruise vacation to Alaska that my family made on a Soviet cruise ship, that if I was inside and the ship rocked a little, I would get nauseated.  And if the ship rocked a lot, I would be full-flown seasick.

I thought the answer was being outside, on a boat's deck, in the fresh air.  A ferry trip across the San Juan de Fuca Strait from Victoria, British Columbia to Port Angeles, Washington led me into that little fallacy.  It was very windy and wavy, but I had a great time on the prow of the boat as it went up and down, up and down, like LHM describes.  The only time I had trouble was when I went inside, but as long as I was on the deck I had no symptoms at all.

But then, a whale watching expedition out of my hometown that I took with my wife dashed that belief.  On the deck of the little boat, I sat in the back, only occasionally glancing at the flukes and the spouts of the whales as the boat bobbed in the water matching the whales' speed.  I probably should have allowed myself to heave over the side, but instead, I held back the nausea and quietly rejoiced when we got back into port.

I'm afraid that I would not have made a good crewmember for my uncle unless I could have outgrown my seasickness the way that I outgrew my car sickness.  And until then, any fishing trips would have been torture.  I still think twice about taking a boat on the open water, just because I don't like feeling nauseated.  Given all the dangers of fishing, the inconvenience of seasickness seems like a small one, but my uncles always seemed larger than life to me - men who tamed the sea.  It's enough, and amazing to me that they tamed their inner ears and their stomachs while working an immensely dangerous occupation.

Musical Interlude

One of my favorite songs, is about Maine and fishing.  The song is called The Reach, by Dan Fogelberg, who lived in Maine and died of cancer only a few years ago.  At the end of the video, you can see him on the sailboat he owned in Maine, the Minstrel.

This next song is a whimsical one by Lyle Lovett called If I Had a Boat.  I don't know why I include it, except that I like how it mixes two things that are almost mutually exclusive - riding ponies on boats.

If you want to know more about the Maine fishing industry

Fishwatch - Maine Haddock
Historical Maine Commercial Marine Fisheries Landing Data
Maine Commercial Marine Fisheries
Mapping Maine's Commercial Fisheries
Saltwater Fishing in Maine
State of Marine Fisheries in Main 2008

Next up:  Boston, Massachussetts

Blue Highways: Grand Forks, North Dakota

Unfolding the Map

At Grand Forks, we say goodbye to North Dakota and look toward Minnesota ahead.  I passed by Grand Forks once.  While William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) gets his water pump fixed, I'll use this opportunity to reminisce about how the city seems to herald civilization at the edge of the Great Plains.  To see where Grand Forks does its duty, head to the map!

Book Quote

"Who in America would guess that Grand Forks, North Dakota, was a good place to be stuck in with a bad water pump?  Skyscrapers from the thirties, clean as a Norwegian kitchen, a state university with brick, big trees, and ivy.  On Monday morning the pump got replaced in an hour for $37.50.  I had expected to be taken for three times that figure, but I met only honest people."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota. Photo by David Stybr and hosted at City-Data. Click on photo to go to host page.

Grand Forks, North Dakota

I remember Grand Forks vaguely, kind of like a dream that appeared in the midst of the flat farmland of North Dakota as we (my fiancee and I) made our long drive from Dunseith, North Dakota to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The city just seemed to pop up out of nowhere, and the large buildings that LHM describes, the "skyscrapers from the thirties" stood out in stark contrast to anything else that we had seen up to that point.

To me, just as St. Louis once signaled the end of civilization and the beginning of the frontier, as memorialized in its massive and spectacular Gateway Arch, Grand Forks seems to signal for travelers passing toward the east the onrush of civilization again from the sparse emptiness of the West.  First Grand Forks, modest in size and scale but seemingly gigantic after a thousand miles of prairie and farmland.  Then Minneapolis/St. Paul, the twin cities, positively cosmopolitan on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, one seemingly frozen in time with older architecture, the other with sleek, modern, glassy buildings reflecting the sunlight from a distance.  Then Chicago, which veneers a rough, wintery, no-nonsense type of grit with its own combination of past and present architecture.

But Grand Forks comes as an initial shock to the senses.  It almost seems, after all the miles and all the flatness and the sparseness of North Dakota, like it shouldn't be there.  It's buildings shimmer in the hazy distance like a mirage that you expect to disappear until you are right upon it and discover that indeed, it is there.  It has sprung, like a flower (or a weed depending on your perspective and your like or dislike of civilization), and persists despite the blazing summers and the freezing, blizzardy winters.  It persists despite the devastating floods along the Red River of the North that occurred in 1997, inundating the downtown and neighborhoods and causing the destruction of many buildings and the displacement of many people.

LHM refers to the hardiness and toughness of the people when he makes a reference to "Norwegian."  With typical midwestern and old world industriousness, the people of Grand Forks cleaned up after the floods.  They demolished some old neighborhoods to put in a levee system, and made a riverfront park to buffer and secure the city from future flooding.  In other words, nature gave Grand Forks its best shot, and staggered it, but the flower continues to sprout on the Great Plains, welcoming people back from the hinterlands to civilization.

Yes, I remember Grand Forks, which after a long drive through North Dakota, past flat farmland punctuated by occasional trees and missile silos, seems to sit as a beacon on the plains.  I was grateful to Grand Forks for providing something besides the occasional water tower to arrest my sight.  I wish that I had time to stop there and visit and experience the "honest people" that LHM mentions.  Perhaps one day I'll get to all the places I want or feel that I should have seen.

Musical Interlude

I've been waiting to use this song, and now that we're moving out of Grand Forks and North Dakota, I have to use it.  Lyle Lovett's North Dakota is a winsome and melancholy song, juxtaposing the loneliness along borders, and the search for and loss of love.

If you want to know more about Grand Forks

The City Beat (blog)
City of Grand Forks
Dakota Student (student newspaper of University of North Dakota)
Grand Forks Convention and Visitors Bureau
Grand Forks Herald (newspaper)
Grand Forks Life (blog)
High Plains Reader (alternative newspaper)
Travel North Dakota (blog)
University of North Dakota
Wikipedia: Grand Forks

Next up: Oslo, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Carthage and Mount Enterprise, Texas

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapNow in the Lone Star State, William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) drives Ghost Dancing into a state that has many interesting facets, not the least of which is a pride as big as all of Texas.  Mount Enterprise and Carthage are right at the beginning.  Click the thumbnail of the map at right, and you'll see where they line up along the trip.

Book Quote

"The true West differs from the East in one great, pervasive, influential and awesome way: space. The vast openness changes the roads, towns, houses, farms, crops, machinery, politics, economics, and, naturally, ways of thinking. How could it do otherwise?....

"....The long horizon gave a sense of flatness, but in truth, it was only a compression through distance of broad-topped hills....

"The towns: Carthage, Mount Enterprise..."

Blue Highways: Part 4, Chapter 1

See, everything is big in Texas! Photo taken by Amy Evans Streeter somewhere near Carthage, Texas. Click on photo to go to her site.

Carthage and Mount Enterprise, Texas

The magnificence of the sky over Texas is truly startling if you've never experienced it.  It may seem that Texans overblow things when one listens to how "the stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas."  In fact, if one listens, it might seem that everything in Texas is overblown.  How can people think so much of a particular place?

The sky itself is the first indication that there may be something more to Texas.  It is not that the sky isn't brilliant and encompassing in other places.  I imagine that if you are standing in the flat farmland of North Dakota, the effect might be similar.  In these areas of Texas, the sky bends up and over one like a huge dome.  In the day, it seems to stretch on forever.  One can feel extremely lonely if one is in the middle of nowhere in Texas, or one can feel extremely connected to the universe.  It is not difficult to feel both things at the same time.  There are endless possibilities over the horizon, where more emptiness is just waiting for someone to come along and make something of it.

At night, the stars do burn bright.  How could they not in a state that has so many people, and yet so many open spaces that one can easily find places where ground light from the state's major cities does not interfere with one's enjoyment of the cosmos in its vast infiniteness?

If one takes LHM's contention that there is a boundary between the West and East in the United States, and that Texas stands on the West side of that boundary, then one will notice a change crossing into Texas.  The towns are more spread out, because they are not bound by geography or landscape.  Roads travel straight to the horizon, because they are not limited to the confining contours of an overabundance of hills.  People have the mindset that the land is a limitless resource to be exploited, not a limiting feature.  I'm not saying that all of Texas is like this - certainly the western side of Texas becomes desert and mountainous.   But for better or worse, if one sees Texas from this angle, it is easy to see, in part, why Texas has become what it is.

For better or worse, Texas exceptionalism grows out of these very features.  Many Texans are convinced that their state is different, and better.  It was built on the backs of independent and enterprising pioneers who came to the state to ranch, to grow, and later to drill and prospect.  Those who do well in Texas are those who do well for themselves.  Having lived in California and in the Midwest by the time I got to Texas, I could relate to both those who lived and breathed this ideal and those who criticized it.  After all, I grew up in a town made up of the same types of people, who felt that where they lived was exeptional.  But, also being a person who identified with those who had neither the means nor the resources to do well for themselves, I could relate to those who lamented the lack of social services and good public transportation.  Despite my misgivings (and I will admit that I moved to Texas with the conviction that I would hate it) I came to be fascinated by the state and literally shed tears when I moved away from San Antonio. 

Having lived all over the country now, I'm not sure that I can bring myself to say that Texas is better.  But I'm not a native Texan.  I still get angry especially when I hear some of the things that come out of Texas politics.  Those are feelings and beliefs, but not the essence of the state.  I gently chide my fellow liberal friends who think that Texas (along with the rest of the South) should be allowed to leave the United States. 

When I think of Texas, I think of people who in many ways are generous and kind, who have created some of the most moving music I have ever heard (see the link to the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame below), and who do live in a great state full of surprising cultural and geographical diversity.  I think of a state that encompasses one of the most wonderful places I have ever been, Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park.  I think of swimming with friends in the beautiful downtown retreat of Barton Springs, whose waters are maintained at a constant temperature that cools you down on a hot Texas day, or swimming with my wife in Balmorhea in a hole that draws recreational swimmers and people learning how to scuba dive.  I think of drinking a Shiner Bock made by Czech immigrants between San Antonio and Houston, in the German town of Fredericksburg and watching an African-American couple shop next to a Hispanic family not too far geographically from where the architect of the Great Society, Lyndon B. Johnson, was born and raised.

Lyle Lovett sang an anthem that manages to encompass both Texas exceptionalism and its welcoming attitude in the same breath.  The song says "that's right, you're not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway."  When I lived there, I felt that there was a space for me.

If you want to know more about Carthage and Mount Enterprise

Carthage, Texas Official Home Page
Panola College
Panola Watchman (newspaper)
Texas Country Music Hall of Fame
Texas Escapes: Carthage
Texas Escapes: Mount Enterprise
Texas State Historical Association: Carthage
Texas State Historical Association: Mount Enterprise
Wikipedia: Carthage
Wikipedia: Mount Enterprise
Wikipedia: Texas Country Music Hall of Fame

Next up: Nacogdoches, Texas