Blue Highways: New Harmony, Indiana

Unfolding the Map

Making rapid progress to the end of Blue Highways, we stop for a while in New Harmony, Indiana with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM).  What is apparent to all of us, I think, is that a journey into the unknown, one where we don't know the road, might be a journey where we learn the most about the world and about ourselves.  To think that one of our first stops on this Littourati journey was just 10 miles north at Grayville, Indiana.  The circle is almost complete.  I find the Indiana state flag, at right, to be almost symbolic of this completion.  If you want to see where this little result of the attempt to create Utopia in middle America lies, please consult the map.

Book Quote

"Not far from a burial ground of unmarked graves that the old Harmonists share with a millennium of Indians, the mystical Rappites in 1820 planted a circular privet-hedge labyrinth, 'symbolic' (a sign said) 'of the Harmonist concept of the devious and difficult approach to a state of true harmony.'  After the Rappites, the hedges disappeared, but a generation ago, citizens replanted the maze, its contours strikingly like the Hopi map of emergence.  I walked through it to stretch from the long highway.  Even though I avoided the shortcut holes broken in the hedges, I still went down the rungs and curves without a single wrong turn.  The 'right' way was worn so deeply in the earth as to be unmistakable.  But without the errors, wrong turns, and blind alleys, without the doubling back and misdirection and fumbling and chance discoveries, there was not one bit of joy in walking the labyrinth.  And worse, knowing the way made traveling it perfectly meaningless."

Blue Highways: Part 10, Chapter 4

Downtown New Harmony, Indiana. Photo by Timothy K. Hamilton and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host site.

New Harmony, Indiana

What is the point to know the way?

I'm sure that anyone reading this can point out a number of reasons why its important to know the way, and can reel off at least five.  Here's mine.  You don't get lost.  You save time.  There's comfort in the familiar.  You'll never have any surprises.  It's safe.  These are good reasons, but I have some good questions about them.

Yes, in knowing the way one doesn't get lost.  For instance, I knew backwards and forwards the roads around my hometown.  I knew how to get here and there.  When I lived in Milwaukee, I had all the best routes to this place and that in my head.  Same for San Antonio and New Orleans.  But what happened?  Once those routes were new.  I paid attention to what was going on around me, because I had to be aware.  Then, one day, I stopped paying attention.  I missed details in the surety of my route.  I ceased to notice little changes, so focused was I on getting from Point A to Point B.  I would never take an alternate route, and therefore I ceased to be surprised, to see new things, and I denied myself new experiences and a chance to grow.

Sure, in knowing the way one saves time.  It's not efficient to be driving or wandering about on streets that you don't know.  After all, if the goal is Point B, why visit Point C, D and E in the interim?  You have places to go, things to do, people to see.  But what happens when you take your time and explore?  You see things, meet people and experience things that you might have never allowed yourself to experience.  In all my life's journey, I have never seen much of a correlation between saving time and growing personally.

Of course, there will always be comfort in the familiar when one knows the way.  But my analogy here relates to bed sores.  When you look at a soft, downy bed, what do you think of?  Comfort!  That "aaahhhh"ness of pushing your head against a soft pillow, the warmth of the blankets surrounding you, that dozing feeling.  But what happens if you spend two or three straight weeks in bed?  That familiar feeling becomes your bane.  Without movement and change you develop bed sores, which are painful and difficult to treat.  Your comfort has suddenly become your curse.  We can always come back to the familiar, but we need change and new things to stimulate us and stave off an existential putrefaction.

Do you never want to be surprised?  Sure, there are bad surprises, and knowing the way will often mitigate the potential to be surprised.  The man with the machete hiding in the back seat of a car is not the kind of surprise any of us could want.  But how often does that happen?  Most often, surprises are the harbingers of change in our lives, and with change comes self-reflection and opportunity.  I've been surprised lately by many things.  A close relative's illness, a house that it appears I will buy, a nomination for an outstanding teacher award, and organizational shake-ups at my office.  Each has it's share of headaches and even heartbreak.  I hate to see my family member have to deal with a serious health issue.  The house has some maintenance issues that will cost money, as well as a major sewage issue that must be solved before I buy it.  To get the outstanding teacher award, I must write a teaching philosophy, track down letters of support, and find the class evaluations I filed away.  The change at my office has left me feeling unsure about my role.  But each change is a window of opportunity.  My relative's illness means that my family will have to change and may or may not provide a new avenue to dealing with our dysfunction.  Owning a house, after a lifetime of renting, will challenge me in ways I've never been challenged before and will be a new rite of passage in my life.  Just being nominated for the outstanding teacher award has given me new confidence in myself - imagine what I'll feel like if I win the award!  The change in my office will allow me to create my role, and maybe even expand it and my influence.  It may offer me a way toward further promotion and advancement.  It's all in how I choose to frame the surprises and the consequences that come with them.

Which brings me to the last reason for knowing the way that I want to question.  It's safe knowing the way.  Being safe is fine.  We all want safety and security.  But safety and security, while prolonging well-being and maybe even life, can become a prison.  People can hide behind safety and security and never allow themselves to see beyond the walls and disarm their personal defenses.  And what good is that?  I've been there, and I've decided that to experience and see things different than what I know, to open myself to other viewpoints and opinions, is the best way for me to grow.  It's earned me a reputation of being eclectic, maybe even a little weird in my tastes, but I like it.

New Harmony symbolizes the end of a journey of Utopians, who thought that they could tame nature and their own shortcomings, and in the strength of togetherness create harmony, unity and a sense of unchanging peace in the middle of a wilderness.  However, to grow we often need disharmony and disunity to provide us with challenges.  As the two utopian experiments at New Harmony prove, drastic and catastrophic change often messes up the best of plans and desires.  The people creating utopias at New Harmony planned their way, they had their philosophy, they created what they thought was safety, and they still couldn't overcome rapid moving challenges.  Had they gone in with flexibility, knowing that there isn't one way but many, and it's when we try to force things to conform to us rather than allowing ourselves to experience and adapt that we get in trouble, they might have survived.  LHM learned that his trip had meaning precisely because it wasn't planned, it wasn't familiar, it wasn't safe, and it sometimes wasn't comfortable.  He even got lost a few times, and found himself afraid, but he traversed the labyrinth of his journey, survived, learned and grew.  May we all allow ourselves, at least once in a while, the opportunities to get lost, make time, be uncomfortable, be surprised, and take risks.

Musical Interlude

I've used this song before, but I had to use it again here.  Youngblood Brass Band, featuring Ike Willis, with Something.

If you want to know more about New Harmony

Historic New Harmony
Indiana State Museum: Historic New Harmony
MaxKade: Historic New Harmony
Posey County News (news site)
Robert Owen and New Harmony
Town of New Harmony
Wikipedia: New Harmony

Next up: The End of the Blue Highways

Blue Highways: Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey

Unfolding the Map

When do we have bad luck, or good luck?  Or is there luck at all?  As William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) writes about the ill-timing and bad luck of Judge William Hancock during the Revolutionary War, I will reflect on my feelings about bad luck.  Hopefully, you won't feel that you came across this post by way of bad luck, but if you want to feel lucky and find the spot where all this occurs, please take a risk and look at the map. Why the horse at right?  It's New Jersey's state animal.

Book Quote

"Judge William Hancock, wealthy and influential, had no luck at all in his last year.  In 1734 at Hancock's Bridge, a few miles northwest of Greenwich, he built a grand house that he later had to flee from when militiamen took over south Jersey.  On the night of March 20, 1778, as Tories regained the area, the Loyalist judge elected to slip back; he didn't know that nearly a hundred revolutionists were bivouacked in his house.  They captured him.  Hancock probably would have been safe in the hands of his enemies had two hundred green-coated Loyalists not decided to retake the place that same night.  They surprised the patriots in their sleep and bayoneted them even as the men begged for quarter.  In the dark mayhem, Hancock's confederates killed him too.  The house still stands, a monument to the judge's ill timing."

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 12

Hancock House, mentioned by William Least Heat-Moon in Blue Highways, in Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey. Photo by Smallbones and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey

When is something truly bad luck?  When is it a random occurrence that strikes one?  What role does choice play in our bad luck?  Or, is luck just luck and there is no good or bad about it?

I remember the stories I was told as a child.  Don't let a black cat cross your path or it will lead to bad luck.  Don't walk under ladders.  Don't let a pole pass between you and someone else.  Don't break a mirror or open an umbrella indoors.  Step on a crack, break your mother's back.  If you did any of these things, then you would be hit with a flood of bad luck.  I guess if I had done all of those things at the same time, I would have been inundated by a tsunami of bad luck.

I think that sometimes true bad luck happens.  We somehow fall into the seemingly random patterns of the universe and we end up in a place where bad things happen.  For example, I might leave the house and get into the car at a certain time on a certain morning.  I might drive down my street and just happen to hit the intersection at a stop light at the same time as a habitual runner of stop signs (there seem to be many on my street at one particular place).  Result, major fender-bender.  That person may just happen to not have insurance, and therefore I not only lose my car to repairs (or maybe totally) but my insurance also takes a big hit.

That happens, and will happen quite a few times in our lives.  Sometimes, it is simply an annoyance, like being stuck in airports for hours on a day where storms cause major disruptions in air travel, or an accident on the freeway snarls people up in traffic.  Sometimes it is more serious and leads to monetary loss, or minor injury, or broken relationships.  Once in awhile, this randomness could lead to serious injury or death because one is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I'm reminded of the recent shootings in a theater in Aurora, Colorado and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

However, I do find it interesting that sometimes what is blamed for bad luck is just the endpoint of a series of choices that we've made and that if we trace those choices back, we can most likely find the point where the choice took us down a path that guaranteed that bad things would happen.  For example, I once met a woman who complained about her bad luck in men.  Her life was a series of relationship disasters.  And yet, if you look at the choices she made, and the actions she took in those relationships, one could easily see that her "bad luck" came always by her choices.  The men she picked, the actions she took once in the relationship, all led to bad endings.  Is that really bad luck?

We have to acknowledge that conscious choices play a part in a lot of what we call bad luck.  I believe that most of what we call bad luck is the intersection of three elements:  the information we have, the patterns that we get ourselves locked into, and the level of risk we are willing to take.  These three things guide the choices we make.  A gambler may complain about her bad luck in gambling, but a gambler relies on all of these things.  She looks around the card table and reads the other players while taking into account her own hand.  She has certain ways of playing certain hands and therefore a pattern emerges in her playing.  She also may be a risk-acceptant or risk-averse person.  If she is a risk-acceptant person, she may play a bit more loosely, a bit more recklessly.  All of these elements add up to the choices she makes in her play, which will have an effect on her winnings.  In essence, this is not luck.  Luck may play a small part in the equation, but most of the outcomes will come down to her decision to fold or stay, raise or call.  Often, you will hear a card player say that they "should have" done something else, indicating that they made a decision that led to the outcome.

If I look back on my life, and I could see all the instances where I felt myself victimized by bad luck, chances are that I could examine my choices and find that it was my decision-making and not luck that led me to most of my difficult circumstances.  Sure, bad luck has happened to me, but not in the quantity that I would like to think.  I have not been victimized regularly by the universe.  The universe has no desires, wishes nor feelings - it just is.  It acts according to its laws and patterns automatically.

We, on the other hand, are not automatic.  We make choices based on information, our own patterns, and our sense of risk and that means that many times, we will make wrong decisions.  If there's anything that I've learned, it's this:  One is better equipped to head off "bad luck" if one makes decisions with more information than less.  The more you know about any situation, and the more you know about yourself, less randomness will accompany your choices and therefore, the better your luck.

Musical Interlude

I happened to find a list of songs about bad luck.  You can find the list here.  And here's two off the list.  The first is by Social Distortion called Bad Luck, because when you have bad luck nothing embodies it like some distorted electric guitar.  The second is a rhythm and blues song by Earl King from New Orleans called Mr. Bad Luck, because New Orleans, in my opinion, sits on the boundary of all that we understand and don't understand in the world.

If you want to know more about Hancock's Bridge

Discover Salem County: Hancock House
Revolutionary War Sites in Hancock's Bridge
Wikipedia: Hancock's Bridge
Wikipedia: Hancock House

Next up: Salem, New Jersey

Blue Highways: Lakewood, New Jersey

Unfolding the Map

Travel, people!  Go to places that you've never been and even never thought of going!  That's the overwhelming message of this post.  As William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) eats in a diner and waitress tells him not to go someplace, don't listen.  I'm telling you to go wherever you want and don't let anyone persuade you not to go.  You'll thank me later.

Book Quote

"When I paid the waitress, she filled with motherly counsel.  'Look, you're a nice boy.  Go to the shore.  Go to Atlantic City.  But for godsakes don't go to no middle.  The Pineys breed like flies in there.  Live like animals.'

"I'd heard those words across the country.  It was almost an axiom that anyone who lived off a main highway was an animal that bred like a fly...."

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 8

I couldn't find a real exciting picture except for these storefronts in Lakewood, New Jersey. Photo by Kevin Knipe and hosted at City Data. Click on photo to go to host page.

Lakewood, New Jersey

When I was a little kid, I guess I was typical.  Whenever my mother or father told me I couldn't do something, it just made we want to do it more.  "No, Michael, you can't jump off the roof."  "No Michael, I won't let you walk down to the ocean by yourself."  "No, Michael, you are too young to go hunting with your dad."

Each time I heard "No" or was told "You can't..." I immediately didn't hear the rest.  I didn't hear the reason why I couldn't do something, which usually (though not always) made perfect, reasonable sense.  I blocked it out as my affronted brain feverishly tried to work out a way that I could do it, and would do it.

Luckily, I grew up.  Luckily, my frontal lobes finally developed, giving me (usually) a healthy sense of caution.  While I am not always risk averse, and like a good adventure, I'm not foolhardy either.

But when faced with a situation, especially when I'm traveling, where I'm discouraged to go somewhere or try something new, I still get like that young, past self of mine:  I start trying to figure out a way that I can do it.

I've heard it a lot in my life.  "Why would you want to go there?"  Or, even better:  "Don't go there, it's (place appropriate adjective here) and not worth your time."

I usually don't take heed.  There have been very few places that I've gone that I haven't found something, or some reason, to have made it worth my while to go.

Like LHM's waitress, most people measure the worth of a place by comparing it to what they know.  If it matches somewhat, with maybe a few differences, they are happy.  It is this mentality that leads people to always choose Applebees just off the interstate regardless of what culinary delights might be just five minutes drive into downtown.  We know what we like, and we stay with it.  As I write this post, I am eagerly awaiting a global music festival in Albuquerque, Globalquerque, which starts tonight and is one of the best things about this city.  It brings the world to our little corner of the desert.  Yet most people in Albuquerque don't know about it, and many of those wouldn't go because they aren't willing to open themselves up to something new.  Their rationale is, quite possibly, "I won't like it, and so I won't try it."  That's not me.

If I had that mentality, I would have never gone to Bangladesh.  I wouldn't have had the thrill of being scared half to death by a crash and a pair of gleaming eyes in a tree as I went from a hut to the outhouse very early one morning, only to realize that it was a giant fruit bat.  I would have never experienced the countryside, in the space of two weeks, fill up with water as the monsoon unleashed its fury.

I would have never gone to El Salvador and experienced the kindness of most of the people and also the fear that pervades the capital as dangerous drug gangs roam the streets.

I would have never gone to Northern Ireland as an observer during the parading season, where Protestant Irish groups parade with huge drums, desperately holding on to a tradition based on subjugating Catholic Irish groups because it's the only tradition they have.  I would have never seen the might of the British police and military apparatus, supposedly protecting the Nationalist communities from encroachment by more radical Protestant marchers but whose intentions were not trusted by anyone.

I would have never gone to Milwaukee to do volunteer service, lived in the inner-city, lived in Texas (you can't imagine how many "why would you want to move there?" questions I got then), lived in New Orleans, or visited half of the places that I've gone to.

Yet each place I've been, even if others think I'm nuts for going, has given me something precious.  Bangladesh was my first true immersion into a developing country, and the curiosity and generosity of its people, as well as the sheer mass of people, gave me an appreciation for where I live and where I am from as well as an overwhelming admiration for those who somehow, some way eke out a living in very, very difficult circumstances.  El Salvador gave me a respect for a people who, politically, were starting to come out from under the heel of decades of paternalistic and autocratic governments as well as many memories of trying to learn how to communicate with people with less than adequate Spanish.  Northern Ireland, even in the midst of hopeless division, showed me that even the hardest cases can have deep cracks that will one day open and that where hope seems small, it might only be the tip of the iceberg.  It too had fundamentally good people who were trying to find a way out of a decades-long nightmare.  Had jobs not called, I might have made Milwaukee my home base.  I came to love Texas.  I still see New Orleans as a spiritual home.

I'm not trying to elevate myself over everyone else in this post.  I don't think of myself as superior simply because I'm open to trying new things or going places that others say I shouldn't or would never think of going themselves.  However, I believe that those who isolate themselves into certain routines, that play it safe, that always stay with what they know probably have a narrower world view than others.  There is a cartoon that I found that, while a bit over the top, captures this spirit.  It shows an obvious racist Klansman-type with home decorations consisting of various fascist symbols.  Someone hands him a ticket for an around the world trip.  It shows him meeting new people of all ethnicities and doing new things in various countries.  Finally, when he comes back, his extremist decor is replaced by mementos from his trip, and he is placing a picture of himself with some African kids in the center of his bookcase.  I believe that challenging oneself to do things, even a small thing like trying a new restaurant or tasting a new type of food, expands our horizons.  I believe that travel, especially going to places that in some ways challenge us, opens our minds and helps us appreciate not only the places we go and people we meet, but also ourselves and where we live.  It gives us perspective.

I always take inspiration from my grandmother, who was a self-described "backwoods bunny."  Yet well into her fifties and sixties she made two trips of a lifetime to Europe to visit family that she had found in Austria.  She hated to fly, but she did.  Her photos and stories of Austria inspired me to travel there too.  I waited until I was in my thirties, but I did, and once I did there was no stopping me.  I'm a better person for it.  As my wife told an audience she was speaking to recently, "I like who I am when I travel."  I'll go her one further.  I especially like who I am when I travel to places I never thought I'd go.

Musical Interlude

I had a song for this, but I couldn't find it.  Oh well.  Terri Hendrix singing "Take me places I've never been before" will do.

If you want to know more about Lakewood

Township of Lakewood
Wikipedia: Lakewood

Next up: Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey

Blue Highways: Pattison State Park, Wisconsin

Unfolding the Map

Have the signs ever seemed against you?  Have you missed the signs, or sometimes just ignored them completely?  Has it come back to bite you, or have you been okay or even better off by not heeding the warnings?  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) just walks away from the signs at Pattison State Park, but I'll reflect on warnings, signs and labels, both the good and the bad, before we move on.  If you want a sign of where we are, read the map!

Book Quote

"It was dark when I turned south, and I couldn't find a place for the night.  Pattison State Park drove me away with a board full of regulations."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 11

Big Manitou Falls, in Pattison State Park, Wisconsin. Photo by Bobak Ha'Eri and is hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Pattison State Park, Wisconsin

Like many people, I've often had a checkered relationship with rules and regulations.  Now, let me clarify when I mention this history.  Of course, there are the rules and regulations that all of us break every day with no ramifications.  Some of them are simply silly, like the warning on mattresses that seems to promise dire consequences if the tag is removed (though my understanding is that it will void the warranty).  When I read that tag as a kid, I thought that even touching it would bring the strong arm of the law down on me.  Scenario:  "Hey Kowalksi, let him go." "But he's murdered 17 teenagers, cut off their heads and made them into stew."  "Yeah, I know, but we've been called to arrest a kid who tore the tag off his mattress."  "It's your lucky day, punk.  We've got worse scum to clean up.  Lock and load, and let's go."

To be fair, there are some warning tags and signs that just aren't needed.  And some warnings that you should heed are in fine print or spoken really fast or understated.  I'm thinking of drug commercials, where a wonder drug that makes everything great can have side effects, all spoken by the announcer in a commercial in a soothing voice, such as barking like a dog, foaming at the mouth, incontinence and uncontrollable flatulence.

Many of us have, at some point, pirated CDs or DVDs, or enjoyed a pirated copy of some movie or album. Many of us run software that we haven't paid for or obtained lawfully.  Despite it being against the law where I live, I sometimes drive and talk on my cell phone though as I read more about horrible accidents caused by this activity I don't do that much any more (and I never text while driving).  When I was in high school, like many of my friends I smoked pot, though I do not partake now.

Sometimes, a regulation or rule is broken unintentionally.  Usually these are straightforward mistakes and the result of misunderstanding or lack of attention.  Not noticing a "Keep off the Grass" sign, for instance or missing a speed sign and getting pulled over for going too fast.

Sometimes, when the rule is broken unintentionally but someone in authority treats us as if we did it on purpose, or worthy of suspicion, that can result in anger and resentment.  The latest incident like that in my life, for instance, was at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.  My wife likes to take pictures of me posing like museum statues.  There was a statue installation on some steps at the Getty of a woman reclining.  She wanted me to go near the statue where I would recline in an imitation of the work and she would snap my picture with her phone.  There were no signs at the steps, and I climbed up to the statue.  All of a sudden, a security person with an imperious voice told me to get down.  I came down, but was dumbfounded.  Where was the sign?  I could see none.  I asked him.  He just said it wasn't allowed.  I suggested, irritated, that they put a sign up.  He said that there was a sign.  Yes, there was a sign, on the side steps which I hadn't traversed yet and which could not be seen from down below where one could get the best view of the artwork.  I had a few choice words about incompetence that day, irritated as I was for being treated like a troublemaker when for all intents and purposes I had not known I was in transgression.

These are minor occurrences, however.  When rules and regulations, especially on signs and notices, are put up, it is usually for two purposes.  First, they are for our (the public's) protection.  Many times, we can get hurt.  It's that simple.  Second, they are for the protection of the object behind the sign.  By allowing us access to touch things, or walk on things, or go inside them, or whatever we do, there is a risk that there will be damage or destruction.  In essence, the rules, regulations and signage indicate there is something that someone feels is worth protecting.  Third, and especially in the case of privately owned areas, the signs protect the proprietors.  If we get hurt, we can sue.  In our society, where sometimes our only recourse to being hurt or wronged is through litigation, nobody is truly safe from a lawsuit but a sign listing restrictions and rules goes a long way toward protecting owners and operators.

In parks like Pattison State Park, signs are there for all of those reasons.  I just finished reading a fascinating account of deaths in the Grand Canyon.  You may think this book would be morbid and dull reading, but in reality it is like watching a car wreck.  I couldn't keep my eyes away from it.  I turned page after page to read about how the next person died, and then how the next person died.  Would you believe that there's been quite a few deaths blamed on the young male urge to piss off a cliff?  These are the kind of weird deaths that kept me interested.

Some of the deaths were simply due to not heeding warnings, rules and regulations.  What kinds of warnings?  Warnings against hiking down and back out in one day, for instance, without adequate water or protecting oneself from the heat or cold.  Or perhaps going off the main and well marked trails in order to find a short cut to the river and getting lost in the labyrinth of side canyons.  Or trying boat through rapids without any experience or swim across the Colorado River despite it's extremely cold temperatures.  Or hiking side canyons during monsoon season when flash floods are known to happen with little warning.

Sometimes ignorance, willful or unintentional, can mean the difference between life and death.  When I was younger, I was more willing to flout the rules and take risks.  Perhaps the unfinished development of my frontal lobes when I was a teen and in my early 20s led me to take more risks than I do now.  As I am older, I am more likely to obey rules, heed warnings and be more of a law abiding citizen.

There is no doubt that rules and regulations can be a hassle and take some of the fun out of things, as LHM seems to suggest in his quote, where the sign board with rules and regulations in Pattison State Park drove him to seek someplace simpler and less constrained.  For its part, Pattison State Park has two large waterfalls - Big Manitou Falls and Little Manitou Falls.  Big Manitou Falls is the highest waterfall in Wisconsin, at 165 feet.  As I am writing this, we are not too too far past tragedies surrounding waterfalls in the United States.  At Niagara Falls in August of 2011, a 19 year old Japanese woman ignored warning signs and climbed a safety rail.  She slipped, fell into the river just above Horseshoe Falls and was swept to her death.  In July, 2011 at Yosemite Park's Vernal Fall, three people climbed over a safety railing, slipped and plunged over the edge.  They didn't survive.  It stands to reason that people, wanting better views or better photos, get too close to something which is dangerous.  Sometimes it works out and they get that wonderful shot.  Sometimes, it doesn't and in the worst case scenario, they die.  If they'd respected the rules and regulations and had not taken the risk, they would probably still be alive.

The book Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon puts it this way.  Wilderness areas and parks are two edged swords.  Governments can put them completely off limits to preserve safety.  That would not go over well.  In the U.S., park visitation rises every year, even as budgets fall.  Parks can sign themselves to death, but that is not cost effective.  So, the rules and regulations are posted at the entrance, and then you are free to ignore them or respect them as you wish.  Respecting them gives you better odds of living longer.  If you feel hemmed in, you can move on down the road.

I will say, though, that a warning label on people would be extremely helpful to all of us!

Musical Interlude

This old song, Signs by the Five Man Electrical Band, is a protest against all the rules, regulations, restrictions, warnings and signage in our society.  I imagine the members of the band, all probably in their 60s at least, obey signs more than they did then.  (The song was also covered by the band Tesla).

If you want to know more about Pattison State Park

America's State Parks: Pattison State Park
Big Manitou Falls (in Pattison State Park)
Little Manitou Falls (in Pattison State Park)
OnMilwaukee.com: Big Manitou Falls
Stateparks.com: Pattison State Park
TravelWisconson.com: Pattison State Park
Wisconsin State Park System: Pattison State Park
Wikipedia: Big Manitou Falls
Wikipedia: Pattison State Park

Next up:  Moose Junction, Dairyland and Cozy Corner, Wisconsin

Blue Highways: Roosevelt, Whitcomb and Paterson, Washington

Unfolding the Map

We are riding and clenching our buttocks with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) as we hope to find a gas station somewhere along the Columbia River in Washington before we have to get out and walk.  Have you ever run out of gas, or almost run out of gas?  Feel free to leave a comment if you have.  If you want to see where all this butt-clenching is taking place, go to the map.

Book Quote

"On the highway again: at a cluster of closed buildings called Roosevelt, I noticed my gas was low.  The next town, according to the atlas, was Moonax five miles away.  Ten miles on, McCredie; fifteen, Alderdale; twenty, Whitcomb.  I drove unconcerned.  But Moonax was another Liberty Bond.  Same with McCredie.  Down went the needle.  I could see stations along the interstate a mile south across the bridgeless river.  No Alderdale.  I locked the speedometer needle on forty-five and my arms to the steering wheel.  A traveling salesman once told me that if you tense butt muscles tight enough, you can run on an empty tank for miles.  And that's what it was going to take.  Whitcomb was there, more or less, but the station was closed on Sundays.  Paterson, the last hope.  If it proved a ghost town, I was going to learn more about this deleted landscape on foot.  I drove, tensed top to bottom, waiting for the sickening silent glide.  Of the one hundred seventy-one thousand gas stations in the country, I needed one."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

Biofuel crops in Paterson, Washington. Photo at Washington State University's Biofuels Cropping Systems Research and Extension Project's site. Click on photo to go to site.

Roosevelt, Whitcomb and Paterson, Washington

We've all been in LHM's position, haven't we?  We're driving down a stretch of freeway, no exit in sight, and the needle on the gas gauge (or the digital graphic readout) is actually below the empty line.  We are tense, hoping that over the next small rise, or around the next corner, we will see our salvation in the form of a road sign that tells us that in one mile we'll find gas, food and lodging.  Or perhaps, peeking over the trees, a Conoco or Shell or Valero or some other gas station sign.

I used to drive on a lot of out-of-state trips on a job I had.  I would go from Wisconsin to New York, or perhaps down to the DC area, or to Philadelphia.  And I must admit that I was not one who was very risky when it came to gas.  If I noticed the needle down to, oh, lets say an eighth of a tank I would find the next gas station and fill up.  However, when you're driving roads you don't know, the problem is one of making the right choice mixed with a little bit of luck.  At the time I was traveling, in the early 90s, the internet was in its infancy.  Cell phones were huge contraptions with big antennae that only wealthy people or government workers in security agencies used.  Atlases and road maps were all we had to inform us of what was ahead on the road.  If it was on the map, then it should be there.

But if you're LHM, or me at that time, you liked to take drives along the blue highways instead of the interstate.  And that meant taking some risks.  Because, like LHM, you might find that the map was wrong and a listed town was actually not much or worse yet, it folded up some years before leaving behind a collection of morose, empty and rotting buildings.  Because I wasn't much of a risk taker, I would actually fill the tank more often during these times, so I wouldn't find myself out of gas on a lonely stretch of road where I might have to wait.  In winter, this was even more imperative.  The last thing I wanted to do was freeze to death in my car.

But despite my planning, I too had a few sphincter-tightening moments where I wondered if I'd make it.  It usually involved being on a blue highway, and it usually occurred in a very rural, if not forested, area where there were few settlements, and often on a Sunday.  I can remember, butt clenching rhythmically as I drove past small town after small town where either there was no gas station or the station was closed.  I would longingly look at the pump and wonder if I could shake out a few drops from the bend in the hose that would get me perhaps a few feet farther down the road.  I'd then hope for the best and drive for the next town.  If I saw a sign for an interstate, I would head down that way because chances were better that a gas station might be at the junction and, because people traveled interstates on all days, might actually be open, Sundays be damned.  I can remember at least two below-the-empty-line moments where I was sure I would experience, as LHM puts it, "the sickening silent glide."  But it never happened.

In the pantheon of risk and reward, riding on empty is probably not as high up the chart as, let's say, summitting Everest or surfing a monster Hawaiian wave or hang-gliding or jumping out of an airplane or even heading out to hike in the woods on a day that looks like it might become vaguely threatening.  And today the level of connectivity we have has made it even less risky.  Looking for gas?  You probably have an application on your sleek new Android phone or your handy new IPhone that will tell you where all the open gas stations in a fifty mile radius lie and direct you by synthetic voice along the shortest path to the place.  It'll even tell you the price and may, because you used it, get you a discount in the convenience store on your favorite bag of chips.  Out of gas?  Just call your auto club of choice on your cell, or I just found out, if you are out of cell range you can buy a device that allows you to turn your cell phone into a satellite phone and it will use your GPS to guide your would-be rescuer to you.

But where's the fun in that?  Where's the sense of adventure and thrill, when you drive into a gas station on the last remaining fumes of your previous 87 octane purchase, that you beat the odds once more and lived through something slightly dangerous?  Something that might have made you get out of the car and depend on the kindness of strangers to get you to a gas station where you could purchase a gallon in a plastic jug and then find a ride back to your car so that you could get a few more miles back to the gas station.

I was always a lukewarm watcher of Seinfeld, because I had a love-hate for the characters who seemed to me to be spoiled and whiny even as I thought the plots were clever.  If you'll remember, each show usually had 3-4 story arcs going through them that all tied back together at the end.  In one story line in an episode, the character of Kramer is test driving a car with a dealer representative, and the car is on empty.  (to see the clips from this episode relating to this story arc, click here.)  They choose to see just how far they can go, if they can push the needle farther below empty than anyone ever has.  At one point, the salesman says that the experience has expanded his horizon more than anything and has given him a heightened sense of what's possible.  After all, we are at our best in our work, thinking and problem solving when there's a little risk involved.

Musical Interlude

I can't think about this topic without Jackson Browne coming to mind.  Browne's music was a staple during my junior high, high school and college years.  This is a nice live acoustic version of his song Running on Empty, though in the video the sound appears to be slightly off from his performance.  Still, it's a great song and would have been relatively new when LHM was driving around the U.S.  I bet he probably heard it on the radio in Ghost Dancing while he traveled.

If you want to know more about Roosevelt, Whitcomb and Paterson

Columbia Crest Winery (in Paterson)
The Columbia River: Paterson Ferry
The Columbia River: Roosevelt
The Columbia River: Whitcomb Island and Whitcomb
Wikipedia: Paterson
Wikipedia: Roosevelt

Next up: Umatilla, Oregon