Freshmen

I'm always amazed to face a classroom filled with freshmen. Most of this year's college freshmen were born in 1988. That's right, 1988! The year these youngsters were born, George H. W. Bush was elected president, but by the time they were in school and learning about the government, Bill Clinton was in the White House. Of course, as they approached political awareness, their leader presidential model has been George W. Bush.

At the 1988 Grammy Awards, the best song and best record of the year was Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy"; the best album award went to George Michael for Faith. A group of mostly light comedies ruled the television: The Cosby Show, A Different World, Cheers, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss?, Night Court and Alf. Other details about the year are available at http://www.multieducator.com/20th/1988.html, including the following stories:

• Gorbechav Announces Unilateral Troop Cuts Soviet Premier Gorbachev announced at the UN that the Soviet Union was unilaterally cutting back its conventional forces in Eastern Europe by 500,000 troops. The cutback was greeted with joy in the West, but was, in fact, forced on the Soviets by their inability to maintain the forces. It soon became academic, as Eastern Europe became independent of Moscow.
• Soviets Pull Out of Afghanistan The Soviets agreed to remove their troops from Afghanistan. There was a total of 120,000 troops in Afghanistan at the time. The Soviet losses were estimated at 16,000 soldiers killed during the war in Afghanistan.
• Iranian Passenger Jet Downed By US In a case of mistaken identity, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger plane. The Airbus was carrying nearly 300 passengers, and all were killed.

As the Cold War wound down, its long years of tension were replaced by a growing tension between ideologically charged versions of Christianity and Islam. So these students have never known a world in which these two major religions had few clashes and largely ignored each other.

The worlds of these freshmen have been defined by a culture more image-driven than ever before. An MTV that doesn't play much music. Computers and cell phones. AIDS and terrorism. Global warming (whatever is to be believed about that). The rise of soccer in kids' lives. The amazing development of video games. And so on.

As I get to know these freshman, such impressions of them will fade, but for now, I'm again amazed at what they've missed (and what they've had that might so easily--and productively--be missed).


NWT 242.8

The Swing of Things

The students are coming! The students are coming! They're already here, actually, and my regular life returned today with the beginning of classes at ETSU. I dropped Raleigh off in front of his school at about 7:45, then parked and entered these doors at about 7:50. A lot of administrative this-and-that filled the time until I left to attend my first class meeting at 10:25. When class was over, I met a couple of friends for lunch in the cafeteria. Then more office work until Raleigh was out of school. Once home, we picked up my guitar and took it to a shop downtown to get some work done on it. While there, we picked up Raleigh's guitar that Leesa bought for $6 at a yard sale. It's a Takamine, and after $75 worth of repairs, it has turned out to be a fine little instrument. Leesa brought us pizza from Papa John's for supper, but she made herself a salad. After dozing through a couple of episodes of King of the Hill, I headed out to Willow Springs to do my five miles while darkness fell. It was beautiful. And that's the day that was.

I'm teaching two classes this semester. The first is English 1218: Quest for Meaning and Values I, a course the freshman class of the University Honors Scholars is required to take. Twenty-three students are enrolled, and we meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:25 to 11:45. The course is actually two in one, the English section, in which some of the students are enrolled and Philosophy 1218, in which the rest of the students are enrolled. This semester I'm team-teaching with Dr. Leslie MacAvoy from the Department of Philosophy. We decided to do philosophy for the first third (roughly) of the semester, religion in the middle and literature in the final third. The first reading assigned for the coming Wednesday is Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and his dialog "Euthyphro."

My second course is English 4207/5207: Literature of the South, a split-level course including upper-level undergraduates and student from our graduate program. The class meets on Thursday evenings from 5:00 to 7:50. We'll survey Southern literature from its beginning--from writings about the South going all the way back to Englishman John Smith--to contemporary writers, including some songwriters. I'm thinking about beginning this Thursday with some Neil Young ("Southern Man"), some Lynyrd Skynyrd ("Sweet Home, Alabama"), some old spirituals and gospel and storytelling from a CD sampler. It'll be fun.

This weekly schedule carefully blended with Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings at Cherokee will make up much of my life over the next few months. In addition, I'll try to get in some writing, some scholarly work for publication and presentation and some creative work.

Life is good.


NWT 245.0

Art for Art's Sake; or, Art for the Sake of Sake (a Japanese alcoholic beverage of fermented rice often served hot)

haiku: an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively; also: a poem in this form usually having a seasonal reference

(http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/haiku)

Now and then I get the urge to write some of these. Tonight it's too late to get into the post I intended to write, so here are a couple of haiku, just for fun:

1.
Mist leaves the mountains—
Hawks circle in bluing sky—
Rising, rising up.

2.
Morning in Hot Springs—
Gray mist ghosts the mountainsides,
Hawks circle towards light.

3.
A bronze quarter moon
west of dazzling stage lights sets
while the band plays on.

The first two come from a September morning in Hot Springs, North Carolina, where about three years ago Leesa and I spent our anniversary at a wonderful bed and breakfast. The third is an image from an August evening two years ago. We sat with friends on the South Terrace of Asheville's Biltmore House and experienced a wonderful concert by Bruce Hornsby and his band (www.brucehornsby.com).

That's enough for now.

My Favorite Picture (Oddly Enough)

This rather plain (pun intended) picture of South Dakota--another picture taken one-handed from a car traveling at least 75 mph--might be my favorite out of the whole batch. I like the sense of great distance in the landscape, in the midst of which, although it's in the upper right-hand portion of the photo, is a place where somebody has claimed and created a place to live--a place claimed and created and painted red! That's bold!

I also like the way the land in the background rises and has such a gentle meeting with the sky. The horizon isn't etched sharply against that blue backdrop like the more jagged portions of the Badlands (not far from where this was taken) or the Rocky Mountains.

Today was given over mostly to church-related activities. Several of my friends I sort of spent the day with, even though we weren't always directly keeping company together. Some of us were at church together at 8:00 for opening the doors and rehearsing the band, at 9:00 for Arise!, at 10:00 for Sunday School, at 11:00 for worship, at 3:00 for Cherokee Finances 101 and across the street at Tipton-Haynes for a 5:00 meeting with the youth and their leaders and families. 'Twas a good day full of good people and Emmanuel.

Between the 11:00 service and the 3:00 meeting, I went to a Mexican restaurant--El Torito--and somehow managed to order something other than huevos rancheros! Today was a day for fish tacos. Yummmmmm. . . .

Pictures from a Trip

Taken from the car, as many of the pictures from the first part of the trip were. This is Indiana or Illinois on the first day of my trip. Another scene, not unlike this one, sticks in my mind but didn't make it into the camera. I was scooting past an exit--in Illinois between Urbana-Champaign and Bloomington, I think--and happened to glance over at a scene like this but nearer. Beneath a gray sky threatening rain, a young man was setting up a drum kit out in a grassy barnyard. I couldn't help but imagine some future rock-'n'-roll band whose drummer had developed his chops by playing to the cornfields and drivers speeding past his rehearsal hall at 75 mph.

Walnut, Iowa, home of Aunt B's Kitchen.

Aunt B's Kitchen, home of the famous taco salad special. It came in a bowl (not edible) that was perhaps slightly larger than the side salad. I had my basic salad ingredients--mostly lettuce carrot shavings (or whatever they're called)--laid over a handful of out-of-the-bag tortilla chips. Broken over top of this was a hamburger patty, which was topped with some shredded white cheese of some sort. A little cup of salsa and a little dab of sour cream came on the side.







Elk Point, South Dakota--Cody's Homestead Cafe. I don't know if it was open or closed. Either way, it was the middle of the afternoon, and I wasn't particularly hungry. But I just had to take a picture.



Chamberlain, South Dakota--This is one of my favorite views along I-90. I'm standing at a rest area that overlooks the Missouri River. Chamberlain is on the east bank. And east of it lay the plains. It always seems to me that on the west bank the West begins. The South Dakota Badlands aren't far to the west from this point.



Near Wall, South Dakota--The aforementioned Badlands in the background, South Dakota's native blurry yellow-flowering weeds in the foreground.









On I-80 near Sidney, Nebraska--A typical western landscape.












Red Rocks area just west of Denver, Colorado--I've seen concert footage of U2 performing here. What an awesome setting either to see or perform a concert!




PS--Thanks to my friend Dennis for helping me figure out why I couldn't get pictures uploaded to the blog.

Into the West -- Final Report

"Well, I'm back," as Samwise Gamgee says at the end of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I returned home just before midnight last night (Wednesday), a few hours before my intended return today by 2:30 p.m. I was lonely for my family and friends and ready to get off the road, so I manipulated my travel plans a little for an early return. What follows is a brief--or perhaps not so brief--recap of the second half of the trip.

Thursday, 10 August 2006--I arrived in Chadron, Nebraska, just after 11:00 p.m. and found my room key in an evelope taped to the front door. Because I was the last one to check in, I apparently didn't get my choice of a nonsmoking room, and the place smelled like bars used to smell at 6:00 p.m. when my band came in to set up and do soundcheck. The stale smell of cigarettes and beer in those bars somehow seemed to dissipate by the time the show started around 10:00 (probably overridden by the smell of fresh smoke and freshly spilled beer), but at 6:00, it reeked. So did my room. But after a few minutes, I barely noticed it. The day had been long--see the previous post--so I went out almost as soon as I got the air conditioner blasting and myself under the covers.

Friday, 11 August 2006--When I woke up, I read some and wrote some and then went out with music in my ears to do my five miles. Back at the motel, I cleaned up and checked out, but before leaving Chadron, I got the Elantra's oil changed. I stopped in the early afternoon in Alliance, Nebraska, and ate lunch at a little cafe and bakery downtown. While eating, I wrote a handful of postcards to wife and son and other family. I mailed them from Alliance and got on the road again. In the late afternoon, I crossed over into Colorado and stopped in the town of Sterling for a while. I ate supper there at a place called La Fiesta. I had a soupy sort of dish that featured shrimp and scallops. Good stuff. After supper, I headed further upward and west into Denver.

Saturday, 12 August 2006--At noon I arrive in Castle Rock, at the home of my friend Jack. We met in the summer of 1979 on a student tour of Europe--he from California, I from North Carolina. We've been friends ever since. (See my European journal at http://faculty.etsu.edu/codym/auto_AESUjournal.htm). After the various changes life takes us through, Jack now is part of a family of five, including, besides himself, his wife Gizelle, sons JP and Nathan and daughter Perrin. They're a great group. He's working hard to establish a wonderful business bringing technology to retirement homes and sufferers of dementia. Check it out at http://www.in2l.com/. Jack and Nathan had just come off a two-week business trip and I'd just come off the road too, so we didn't do much that evening--just visited with one another, fought off the overly amorous pup Lucky (quite attracted to me, he was), went to Mass, ate a supper of hamburgers from the grill and made a little music.

Sunday, 13 August 2006--Because we'd been to Mass on Saturday evening, we had a relaxed Sunday morning. We went downtown in Castle Rock for a breakfast at the B&B Cafe, an old western saloon established back in the 1880s, I believe, where this is an old bullet hole in the ceiling and where I had an excellent plate of huevos rancheros. Intending to hike, we drove to the Red Rocks area west of Denver. The hike never materialized, not, at least, in the time I had to allotted to spend there. Instead, we spent close to an hour in the amphitheater. What an awesome place that would be to see a show--or play a show. Afterwards I had to head out, as I a long long drive to Wichita, Kansas, awaited me. My day ended there as planned, at about 11:45 p.m.

Monday, 14 August 2006--Given the long Sunday, I took it easy this day, traveling only four hours or so to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I also avoided the interstates and took the "blue" highways, taking Highway 77 south from Augusta, Kansas (just east of Wichita), to Ponca City, Oklahoma, Highway 60 east through the Osage Nation Reservation and then Highway 11 south into Tulsa. Here I broke the Motel 6 habit and stayed at a Best Western. At Chimi's, a local Mexican restaurant, I relaxed with more huevos rancheros and a couple of Coronas.

Tuesday, 15 August 2006--I initially awoke at around 4:30 this morning but, after staying awake for a while, went back to sleep and didn't stir again until almost 8:30. Having accomplished by this morning everything I wanted to do on this trip, I was really getting homesick. So, around 10:30 the idea struck me to cancel my Little Rock reservations and push on through to Nashville, intended as my final stop. I called my good friend Mark and asked if I could roll up to his place around midnight, and he said that would be no problem. So, I drove and drove and drove, out of Tulsa, through Oklahoma to Fort Smith, Arkansas, from there to Little Rock, where I stopped and hung out for an hour and a half or so, to Memphis and through the buggy night to Nashville, where I parked in the street in front of Mark's house at about 11:50.

Wednesday, 16 August 2006--Mark runs a baseball training venue in a mall on the west side of Nashville, but he doesn't open the place up until after school hours. So, we had until a little before 4:00 to spend together. We were in the music business together years ago--he's the guitar player who plays lead the way I would if I could--and we're Christians together and husbands and fathers together and always have plenty to talk about. We spent part of the morning at Starbucks and part at the store, waiting to see if UPS had any goodies to deliver. Then we called jb, a recording engineer, Mark's friend through several lives and mine since my earliest days in Nashville. jb met us for lunch at Cancun, where, once again, I ordered huevos rancheros. (If this keeps up, I'm going to have to look into the psychology of this Mexican egg craving.) We all had lunch together, talking music and politics and culture until we ended up down the sidewalk at Starbucks again, talking about the old days, the good old 1980s. Just after this, when Mark had to go open the store, I made the decision to go home. Not directly home, however. As I was leaving Nashville, I called Noel, another old Nashville friend who now lives in downtown Knoxville. Three hours later, or thereabouts, we were sitting outdoors at a restaurant on Market Square talking and eating (no huevos rancheros this time; fish tacos instead). We'd been invited to join two of Noel's downtown friends, R and C, who already had a table. Their company was good, if slightly--at times more than slightly--pretentious. Noel saw me off at around 10:00 or so, and I walked into my house just before midnight.

I've been home about 24 hours, and I'm still somewhat buzzing from the road. Now it's off to the second night in my own bed, where I can snuggle down into the covers and think to myself, Well, I'm back.

Into the West -- Third Report

On Thursday the 10th, I awoke to a blustery morning in Mitchell, South Dakota. The wind whistled around my corner room at the Motel 6, and I expected to see a stormy sky when I pulled back the curtains. To my surprise, all looked rather pleasant—gentle sunshine, sky a haze-softened blue. Wind blows almost constantly across these prairies just as it does at the beach. In the parking lot, bikers heading west for the Sturgis rally moved among their shiny bikes, talking and laughing and checking their saddle bags. I showered and dressed and headed out for the Rapid City area, wondering what condition I'd find my uncle's family in—if I found them at all.

The interstate speed limit in South Dakota is 75, so I pushed my car up to that—or just a bit more—and rolled along nicely for 60 miles or so. When both my stomach and my gas tank needed immediate filling, I stopped at one of my favorite places—Chamberlain, South Dakota, a small town that sits on the east bank of the Missouri River. On the little main street, I saw a Curves, which reminded me of my wife, so I gave her a call and then went into the Anchor Grille for brunch.

I had steak and eggs, and as I ate, I looked around at the small late-morning group scattered around through the tables. At one booth, a group of four or five that must have been part of the breakfast or lunch crew sat relaxing and talking, either finishing a shift or waiting for one to begin. These were mostly young—late teens and early twenties. The booth just in front of mine held a woman in her thirties, who sat with her back to me, and opposite her an old, watery-eyed fellow in a red plaid shirt and overalls. I think I heard them tell the waitress that they were headed for his doctor's appointment and were stopping in for some fortification—plates of biscuits and gravy, it looked like. At a table to my left sat two interesting fellows. They sat side by side facing the window looking out on the street, apparently unconcerned about the silly cultural taboo we've developed these days about the distance men should keep from one another. The man on the left wore a straw hat, a blue plaid shirt and blue jeans. I don't know what the style of whiskers he wore would be called, but it was basically like my goatee with the center of the chin shaved clean—or at least shaved to stubble. The man on the right was hatless, gray-haired and clean shaven. He wore a white shirt and gray dress slacks, and when I was leaving sometime later, he was walking up and down the sidewalk talking on a cell phone. The two of them seemed to be talking a good bit about Chamberlain itself. By far the most interesting pair in the Anchor Grille that morning sat in a booth away from the window but near the entrance. The old man—he looked old—arrived first and ordered. Just tea, I think. He wore a cap with a Lynyrd Skynyrd design on it and glasses. His complexion was quite pale, and his long beard was yellowish white. At some point—I missed the arrival—this very white man was joined by a young African-American man of dark complexion, his hair in a little bun at the back of his head. Besides the basic visual contrast these two offered, their communication—if you can call it that—was curious. The young man talked almost non-stop and gestured broadly with hands and arms. I couldn't make out what he was talking about, as they were on the exact opposite side of the room from me. Across the table from this animated talker, the pale man sat absolutely motionless, his eyes apparently fixed on the cup of tea in front of him, his left arm laid on the table between the young man's drink and his own, his right elbow on the table and the right hand held up near his right ear. The two men were still just like that when I left the Anchor Grille and Chamberlain.

I drove back to the interstate and exited again after only a mile to drive over to a large rest area that sits up on the edge of the prairie. This place offers a wonderful view down into the valley cut by the Missouri, a bit of Chamberlain and the arid, rolling landscape on the west bank of the river.

Except for the moment-to-moment changing of the landscape as I moved into the western part of South Dakota, the trip was relatively uneventful. Anxious to get on with learning about my family, I didn't even stop to look at the Badlands up close or to get my free ice water at Wall Drug. Something else influenced my passing these up as well. By this time, day four of the trip, I was missing wife and son and wishing they were with me to share this experience. I just kept driving and arrived at the Box Elder exit, just east of Rapid City, at around 1:30.

Like most things we lose, we find them right where we left them. That's true for people as well. I drove down into Box Elder and, with a little luck, found their mobile home without any difficulty. I drove by a couple of times to be sure of the place, then parked and went to the door. My aunt answered and stood there without recognizing me. I told her who I was, and the reunion was on. I really got lucky. She had suffered some kind of mild upset that morning—it was nothing serious and had passed at this point—and my cousin, who otherwise would have been at work, was there with her. Their disappearance from our lives seems to have been the result of a couple of difficult years they had in 2004 and 2005, perhaps even since 2001. These included illness and accident, work troubles, a changing of telephone service after getting angry at the telephone company, a misplaced letter thought to have been mailed and so on.

When I mentioned I'd wanted to see my uncle's grave in Sturgis—a little town currently hosting some 300,000 bikers—my cousin said we could get in there and out more easily that I'd guessed. So we went and visited the cemetery and then took a turn through the Black Hills. When we got back to my aunt's place, she was ready to go out, so we went to a Chinese restaurant run by a friend of my cousin. I thought I would spend the night with them and cancel my reservations for Chadron, Nebraska, but the girl I spoke to on the telephone said that because of the event in Sturgis, cancellations had to be made a week in advance. So, rather that be overcharged for a room that I didn't even stay in, I left my aunt and cousin about 9:00 Thursday night and headed to Chadron.

Into the West -- Second Report (Same Day)

Because I expect tomorrow (Thursday, I think) to be hectic, here's a look back at today.

After some early morning blogging, I went out and did my five-mile walk-run. Although the midsection of Iowa is not generally as flat as those of Indiana and Illinois, Iowa being more a more rolling landscape, the roads are as straight as they are in flatter country. I left the Super 8 and got on the highway. After I crossed over I-80, I traveled a mile or so into Walnut, passing through a residential area before entering the little downtown area. The road led me straight through downtown and right out the other side, and I continued on another mile or so before turning and heading back.

Back at the Super 8, I cooled down a little bit and then showered and checked out. By the time I'd filled up the car, it was nearly 11:30, so I decided to go have lunch in Walnut. On my walk-run I'd seen a place called Aunt B's Kitchen, which looked interesting. It was. When I walked in, I was told to sit wherever I wanted and that the special was taco salad. I ordered the special, which turned out to be interesting but maybe not so special. It came in a bowl (not edible) that was perhaps slightly larger than the side salad. I had my basic salad ingredients--mostly lettuce carrot shavings (or whatever they're called)--laid over a handful of out-of-the-bag tortilla chips. Broken over top of this was a hamburger patty, which was topped with some shredded white cheese of some sort. A little cup of salsa and a little dab of sour cream came on the side. The first thing I did when I began trying to eat this was accidentally dump a portion of it out onto the table. The tortilla chips on the bottom don't get much traction on the bowl, and they slide around beneath the fork and push other things out. As I was leaving, a woman trying to eat the same dish at a table near mine asked for a plate to dump everything out on, saying that she couldn't eat it out of the bowl.

Walnut (pop. 897) is largely antique stores of various kinds, some seeming neat and clean and orderly, others seeming a jumbled mess. I went into only one, the latter type, and walked through without seeing anybody. I could hear voices upstairs, but because I'd been drawn in by the promise of "old books,"I followed signs that led me to the bookshelves in the basement. Nothing jumped out at me, and I quickly realized that the books were subject to so much humidity that they wouldn't have much value. So, I went back upstairs and out the door, still seeing nobody.

I drove I-80 to I-29 to I-90. The west coast of Iowa is my favorite part of the state. As you travel north up I-29 toward Sioux City, Iowa, the Missouri River is somewhere off to your left (west). The river plain (bottom, as we call it in regards to mountain creeks) through which you're traveling is flat as can be off to your left and your right (east). In the distance to the east is a low stand of rugged bluffs that begin to give the feel of the real West. I wanted badly to stop and explore Sioux City, but this trip doesn't allow that kind of time.

Tonight I'm in Mitchell, South Dakota, at another Motel 6. I checked in and even before going to the room, I went back along I-90 two miles to Mitchell's main food exit. Wanting something I couldn't get everywhere, I was disappointed to find that my quick search yielded mostly chain stuff. I finally decided on a restaurant called Twin Dragons. The pork potstickers and the Chinese beer were great, but the main dish I ordered--crispy steak cubes--was fairly disappointing. Back at the motel, I did a little workout and hit the pool for a few minutes, then talked to my wife and son. And now here I am.

Again, I expect tomorrow to be hectic and somewhat strange. It's my day devoted to seeing what's up with my aunt and cousin. I don't know if I'll find them or not. And if I do find them, I don't know what kind of shape they'll be in. Also, because I wasn't able to attend my uncle's funeral when he died in 1997 (or thereabouts), I wanted to visit his gravesite. Unfortunately, however, that's in Sturgis, and I'm not going near that place with all the hordes of bikers there. Not that I have anything against bikers, mind you, but I imagine that place will be an absolute nightmare the next few days. Anyway, I'll leave Mitchell early in the morning and get to the Rapid City area around noon. If I don't find my relatives by late afternoon--or if I find them and they're in such a condition that I can't stay with them--I'll be hitting the road south for Chadron, Nebraska, and another night in a Motel 6.

Into the West - First Report

When I was drawing up the itinerary for this trip into the West, I decided that after my first night in Indianapolis, Indiana, I wanted to travel a little further than Des Moines, Iowa, on day two, but not so far as Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So, I looked on the map of Iowa, tracing my finger along I-80, which cuts straight across the midsection of the state. About four inches west of Des Moines, my finger pointed to the small town of Walnut, Iowa. I grew up in Walnut, North Carolina, so my choice was made. I got on the Internet and found out that Walnut, Iowa, is famous for antiques and that it had at least one motel to serve all those hunters of the antique and collectible in west central Iowa. It is thus that I write this morning from the Walnut Super 8.

On Monday morning, I kissed my wife good-bye and drove my son to school. After a brief stop by my office, I hit the road. Normally I like to travel the blue highways, the two-lanes and such that show me a world different from that available to travelers of the interstates, but I have a need for speed on this trip. So, I took I-26 to I-81 to I-75 to I-74. I rolled along with a good bit of energy that morning, not stopping for lunch until around 1:00—Steak 'n' Shake in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:30 that afternoon, I crossed the Ohio River. I never do so without thinking of slaves like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs—although he was in Maryland and she in North Carolina—and fictional Sethe, from Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. I was almost across the river before I knew it, in a matter of seconds, really, riding high above the wide water on a bridge of steel and concrete and passing from one state into another (Kentucky into Indiana on I-275, I think). I try to picture a slave, worn, weather-beaten and terrified, coming alone through the Kentucky woods to stand on the southern bank of the Ohio. Hopefulness and hopelessness must have blended strongly as he or she looked across the river and saw not just another state and not just the passage from South to North but freedom. The picture is dark and emotional, but I never try to avoid it.

My drive from Indianapolis to Walnut was fairly uneventful, except for four moments worth mentioning. First, when I stopped for gas in Bloomington, Illinois, I realized that a fill-up was costing me about as much as my lodging for the night. At the Motel 6 I paid $41.39 and at Super 8 $48.03; at the pump I paid $40.05.

Second, I crossed the Mississippi River, which, for me, is a different experience from that of crossing the Ohio. The Mississippi represents the passage from the East, in which I've always lived, into West, to which I have a romantic attachment. I don't think of the West as the place of cowboys and Indians or as the scene of the grand and difficult and dark struggle to tame a continent, although I'm sure these things play into my feelings. I'm drawn to its wide open spaces and its rugged mountains, both so different from the Appalachian mountains where I grew up.

Third, when I was on the job market, looking for a teaching position, I got some brief but exciting interest—any interest was exciting at the time—from Grinnell College, a fine liberal arts school in Grinnell, Iowa. Sometime around 6:30 in the evening, I came upon the I-80 exit for Grinnell. I was looking for a Subway and one was listed for the exit. Passing the Subway in a gas station by I-80, I drove into town and found the campus, which was bigger than I had imagined. It was a beautiful place—quiet streets, well landscaped yards and walkways, interesting buildings. Sitting and eating supper at another Subway just down the street from campus, I couldn't help wonder what living there would be like. Nice to think about, I guess, but I couldn't imagine it being better than what I have in Tennessee.

Fourth and final, I got lost in Des Moines. Not lost, really, but off track. I was listening to an unabridged recording of David McCullough's 1776 and thinking this and that when I suddenly noticed a sign telling me that I was on I-35 and that I was so many miles from Kansas City. I was supposed to be on I-80 and so many miles from Council Bluffs. When the next exit finally came, I took out my map and found that I could take a couple of my beloved blue highways and get back on track. At the exit, I took Highway 92 west about 14 miles and then US Highway 169 north about 13 miles. Then I was back on I-80 and heading for Walnut, having lost only 30 minutes or so in the ordeal.

Yesterday's drive from Indianapolis to Walnut was over 500 miles and took me from around 10:00 in the morning until 9:30 in the evening, all stopping included. A time change from Eastern to Central was involved in there somewhere as well. Today's drive will be much easier. Because I couldn't find a place any closer to Rapid City, South Dakota, than Mitchell, I'm looking about around 260 miles and some four hours of driving.

As Peewee Herman and others have said, "That ol' highway's a-callin'!"

Blogging in Madison County

I'm in Marshall, North Carolina, this morning, which is about four or five miles from the house I grew up in. My mom has cable TV but no Internet or cell service, so I'm writing from the public library here. (My aunt let me borrow her card.)

Outside, seen through the wall of windows across the room in front of me, western North Carolina is almost indistinguishable from east Tennessee--same hills and mountains (although they are packed a little tighter here), same green dulled by summer haze, same heat (not seen but felt). I guess what makes this place somewhat different for me is that I grew up here. I went to high school just a couple of hills from where I'm sitting right now. Having moved to Johnson City in 2001, when I was 42 years old, I don't have much of a past with the place--although the little bit of past I have there is wonderful. Here in Marshall--and in my sort-of-native place in Walnut--I know a lot more ghosts. Ghosts of family and friends, ghosts of wonders and crimes, ghosts of things that happened or didn't happen. I find this both comforting and unsettling at the same time.

Another thing my mom doesn't have is air conditioning. Last night Raleigh and I slept in my old bedroom--I on a queen bed that wasn't there when the room was mine, he on a twin mattress on the floor. We had the windows open and two fans blowing on HI, one pointed at him and one at me. I don't know what we'll do when Leesa shows up this afternoon. She and I will have to share the air, I guess.

Today is Mom's 75th birthday. We'll have a little cookout this evening. The big party is tomorrow after church, with all the church members (all 20 of them or thereabouts) and a goodly number of surprise family members that she probably hasn't seen in a while.

Well, I'm going to wrap this up for now. My mission--as it is every Saturday afternoon I'm here--is to wash her car and get the week's groceries. Signing off from the Marshall branch of the Madison County Public Library. . . .

Bits & Pieces

As I'm getting ready for my mom's birthday weekend--she's 75 on Saturday the 5th--and preparing for my trip into the West, I'm rather scatterbrained. So, being unable to sustain anything coherent, I'm just passing on bits and pieces--what I've been doing, info I've come across, etc.--that are rolling around in my scattered brain.

• On Wednesday evening we went out to eat with good friends at Salsarita's, a new restaurant here in Johnson City. Good food, conversation and laughter--what could be better? I'd describe it as being like a Mexican Subway. You choose your tortilla and have the production line fill it with your choice of meats, cheeses, vegetables and so on. I had the pork, which was good. I still prefer Barberitos, and I'll be there for lunch today for my regular Friday fish burrito.
• On Thursday, I mowed the yard. Although we get a shower every now and then, the last few weeks have left a good bit of the yard somewhat brown. While I'm out West, L and R will have the opportunity to mow, something I've deprived them of almost the entire summer.
• I'm still reading Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly and should finish it today. I was supposed to have two 1000-word character sketches written for a publication on American literary characters, but I've been a terrible slacker about it. Maybe I'll get started on them this afternoon. Maybe not.
• From The Writer's Almanac for today: It's the birthday of Louis Armstrong, (books by this author) born in the birthplace of American jazz: New Orleans, Louisiana (1901), in a poor section of town known as "The Battlefield." AND It's the birthday of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, (books by this author) born in Sussex, England (1792). Although he died before the age of thirty, many of his poems are considered masterpieces, including "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," and "Prometheus Unbound."
• While mowing the yard yesterday, I was trying to think of summer songs that I'd written. I could only come up with a couple of titles without consulting my catalog. "Running Toward the Prize" was written somewhere between 1990 and 1993 and is one of the last songs I wrote. (I can hardly believe it's been that long since I defined myself as a songwriter.) Although not specifically about summer, it touches on the season on the way to being a little religiously philosophical. I'm not sure I know what I'm talking about here, so check out the lyrics and the solo acoustic version (mp3) at

http://faculty.etsu.edu/codym/song_running_toward_the_prize.htm

241.8 NWT

The River

Saturday, 22 July 2006 / Sparta, North Carolina

Walking

Remember The Proclaimers? Probably not. They were a Scottish duo from the '80s, a one-hit-wonder, who had a catchy tune called "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)." Their infectious chors went something like this:

I would walk 500 miles,
And I would walk 500 more,
Just to be the man who
walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door.

Great stuff!

I like walking, which is good because it's my chief cardio exercise. Most of the time I walk near my house, at small but beautiful Willow Springs Park. Sometimes I drive over to Erwin and walk on the nice track they've built along interstate and the river between exits 18 and 15. When it's raining, I go to ETSU's Center for Physical Activity ("the CPA"). When I'm at my mom's in North Carolina, I walk through Walnut and around Sandy Bottoms Road to the end and back or on the track on the island in Marshall.

Regardless of where I'm walking, I go for five miles (not 500, much less 1000). Well, I probably walk 3-3.5 miles and run (jog) 1.5-2. And I do it all to music. The scenery is wonderful in most places where I walk, but if I didn't have tunes to walk and run in rhythm with, I don't think I'd stick to it. Running especially isn't easy for one whose body is built more for football or wrestling. So, I've gotta have music to inspire and push me. Here's the set list on my mp3 player:

"With or Without You" by U2--a good walking pace for warming up

"Give Blood" by Pete Townshend--a long piece for a fast walk, featuring the wonderful lyric, "Give love, and keep blood between brothers"

"No Surrender" by Bruce Springsteen--a slower run

"I Don't Wanna" by The Call--a fast walk

"Every Breath You Take" by the Police--a slower walk

"Across the River" by Bruce Hornsby--a longer and faster run

"Downbound Train" by Bruce Springsteen--a slower walk to recover from the faster run

"More Than This" by Roxy Music--a fastish walk to one of the greatest grooves ever

"Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen--a strong running song

"Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2--a strong walking song

"Do It Again" by Steely Dan--a long, medium-speed walk

"We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel--another strong running song to finish that part of the exercise

"Lonesome Day" by Bruce Springsteen--a medium-speed walk to cool down

I've tried walking without music, and it didn't work for me. I tend to walk too slowly. I've also tried just general music--without considering the rhythmic qualities--and liked that better but still didn't push myself like I need to.

So, my morning so far has been waking, getting Raleigh ready and off to school, a five-mile jaunt at Willow Springs and writing this. A good day so far! (10:31 a.m.)


244.8/240.6 NWT