My new book, Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America should be out in a matter of weeks.
It's been my preoccupation for nearly four years now. Among other things, I made three long road trips around the US gathering material for it. Check the labels "'merican road", "'merican road #2" and "'merican road #3" on the list to the left for my blogging efforts from those journeys.
I'm pleased with the way it looks as it heads for the printing press finally. It will even have an insert with some of my photographs.
Hey, I like the book, I hope you do! More about it in this space in the days to come.
Showing posts with label 'merican road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'merican road. Show all posts
October 14, 2009
April 25, 2007
Like Peter Pan
The last leg of a nerve-wracking journey, story left hanging over a month ago...
So yes, we come in for a landing at Orlando. It's a gorgeous sunny Florida evening as we do, and I can see the Orlando airport from miles away, for at least 15 minutes before we actually get on our landing approach. As we descend, I check my watch: 25 minutes to my next flight, the one to Salt Lake City. I should make it though I expect to have to run.
We descend. Lower and lower we get, coming in over large marshy ponds and occasional boats and a few homes; then the wall around the airport and the runway, another Delta flight waiting to take off. Lower and lower, our shadow racing along to where, like Peter Pan, it will soon be attached to us again; lower and lower and I even remember thinking, we can't be more than 5 feet off the ground right now ... suddenly, we hear the engines roar, feel the plane buck, the shadow begins receding, and just like that, we soar into the bright sunny Florida sky once more. Up up and away, banking quickly to start on a huge circle round the airport.
It's another 20 minutes before we are once again over the marshy ponds and boats and coming in to land, our shadow once again racing along ... I check my watch and there are 5 minutes to my next flight. This time we do land, then taxi interminably, then park and I'm up and trying to get out of the plane as fast as I can. The Salt Lake flight is only a few gates away, so I'm still optimistic about getting there. I run and run and run ...
... at the gate, the flight has still not left. But the attendant will not let me, out-of-breath me, on. "The gate's closed!" she says firmly. No amount of pleading works. She can probably see that I am about ready to tear my hair, and any nearby hair, out by the roots. (Once I catch my breath, that is). But she will not let me on.
"Look," she says after the Salt Lake flight has long soared into the Florida skies, "I can send you to Atlanta and overnight you there, you catch the first flight tomorrow morning to San Jose. I'll also put you on standby for the San Francisco flight tonight out of Atlanta." So it is that I get on the Atlanta flight an hour later.
In two days, I've gone from Washington to BWI Airport to Washington to Richmond to Orlando to Atlanta -- up and down the east coast, all while trying to get to northern California. To think I once made fun of exactly this possibility.
In Atlanta, I hang around making misery-filled faces at the woman manning the gate for tonight's San Francisco flight. (No, I really don't want to overnight in Atlanta). The faces must work, because I am the last passenger she allows on board. Six hours later, close to 1am California time, I touch down.
My bags don't. Wasn't there a previous time on this US trip that I was left sans undies and a change?
So yes, we come in for a landing at Orlando. It's a gorgeous sunny Florida evening as we do, and I can see the Orlando airport from miles away, for at least 15 minutes before we actually get on our landing approach. As we descend, I check my watch: 25 minutes to my next flight, the one to Salt Lake City. I should make it though I expect to have to run.
We descend. Lower and lower we get, coming in over large marshy ponds and occasional boats and a few homes; then the wall around the airport and the runway, another Delta flight waiting to take off. Lower and lower, our shadow racing along to where, like Peter Pan, it will soon be attached to us again; lower and lower and I even remember thinking, we can't be more than 5 feet off the ground right now ... suddenly, we hear the engines roar, feel the plane buck, the shadow begins receding, and just like that, we soar into the bright sunny Florida sky once more. Up up and away, banking quickly to start on a huge circle round the airport.
It's another 20 minutes before we are once again over the marshy ponds and boats and coming in to land, our shadow once again racing along ... I check my watch and there are 5 minutes to my next flight. This time we do land, then taxi interminably, then park and I'm up and trying to get out of the plane as fast as I can. The Salt Lake flight is only a few gates away, so I'm still optimistic about getting there. I run and run and run ...
... at the gate, the flight has still not left. But the attendant will not let me, out-of-breath me, on. "The gate's closed!" she says firmly. No amount of pleading works. She can probably see that I am about ready to tear my hair, and any nearby hair, out by the roots. (Once I catch my breath, that is). But she will not let me on.
"Look," she says after the Salt Lake flight has long soared into the Florida skies, "I can send you to Atlanta and overnight you there, you catch the first flight tomorrow morning to San Jose. I'll also put you on standby for the San Francisco flight tonight out of Atlanta." So it is that I get on the Atlanta flight an hour later.
In two days, I've gone from Washington to BWI Airport to Washington to Richmond to Orlando to Atlanta -- up and down the east coast, all while trying to get to northern California. To think I once made fun of exactly this possibility.
In Atlanta, I hang around making misery-filled faces at the woman manning the gate for tonight's San Francisco flight. (No, I really don't want to overnight in Atlanta). The faces must work, because I am the last passenger she allows on board. Six hours later, close to 1am California time, I touch down.
My bags don't. Wasn't there a previous time on this US trip that I was left sans undies and a change?
March 27, 2007
Snails
Met two Googleguys last week.
One's an old friend, now employed at Google, who invited me to lunch with him at Google. So I showed up outside Building 44, gratified first of all to find that when he showed up, his jacket was even more yellow-with-blue-lining than mine. We walked in and I typed my name -- at Google, why not my gmail id? -- into a box on a screen, whereupon a neatly printed badge gushed from a pint-sized printer. This got slapped on my yellow jacket, and we proceeded.
First stop, a unisex toilet. The inside of the door has a notice about a bug that's pending, or fixed, or desirable, or something. Reading material for toilet time, of course. Outside are a number of the semi-famous yellow (but not as yellow as my jacket) Google scooters. We walk across to the main Google building(s), passing on the way an inordinate number of cheery folks wearing Google-labeled clothing.
First stop there, a screen with a rotating globe with multicoloured rays shooting out into space from much of our planet's land masses. One colour per language, the length of each ray representing the number of Google search queries from that spot on the planet. I am thrilled to learn that, a few days earlier, my search in Rodanthe, North Carolina, probably contributed one entire pixel to one ray on this display. Simultaneously, a wall nearby shows a continuously scrolling list of queries submitted to Google. I am thrilled to learn that, a few days earlier, this wall might have momentarily displayed my query from Rodanthe: "adult movie theatres near rodanthe".
Nearby is the glass wall of a cubicle from inside which a man waves cheerily to us. Stuck on the wall is this: "Please do not tap on the glass. It disturbs the fish." Lying outside another cubicle is a handsome Labrador. The dog's leash is, naturally, labelled "Google Google Google ...".
"Pets", says my Googleguy friend, pithily.
At the gym, there's a long row of treadmills, Google employees jogging on each. One has a screen with what looks an ad for an insurance agent. I don't know that I'd want to be jogging while reading insurance ads, but this particular Google employee is staring intently at it while she lopes in place. A walkway between buildings soars past two body-sized wave pools, in one of which a man is swimming furiously. Given the waves, he is not moving an inch. Which is a good thing, of course, because if he did move an inch he would bump his head on the side of the pool. Pacing up and down next to the pool is a man in peaked cap and orange shirt.
"Lifeguard 24/7," says my Googleguy friend, still pithily.
Lunch could be at any of a number of food places, all free. We choose the largest cafe, where the selection ranges from pizza to Polynesian to pasta to Indian, that last with the longest line.
About now, I realize what's nagging at my fading memory cells: MCC. The company I worked for too many years ago in Austin. Gym, pets, cute signs on the walls, informal ambience, choc-chip cookies at team meetings, free drinks, subsidised (not free) food ... MCC treated us well; Google takes that treatment to a new level.
About now, too, I meet the second Googleguy. Young man in shorts and T-shirt comes up to me as I'm stocking up on asparagus, says: "Are you the DD who blogs?"
Demurely, I say I am.
"Oh, I read your blog all the time!" he says. "I read you this morning! I know all about your trouble travelling from Richmond!"
You don't know the half of it, I think, because I haven't finished writing up that story. But out loud, I just smile and mumble a few thanks.
"Welcome to Google!" he says.
Thank you, you who know who you are! Good to visit and good to run into you.
Beside me, the first Googleguy, my old friend, stands with his mouth open. "I don't believe it," he says. "Someone here knows you by name?" I want to say, don't worry, the rest don't know me by name or anything else either. But I just smile again. We find a place to sit, and I work my way through the asparagus.
Charming place, Google. Watch for my next query on that wall.
And a pat on the old back to the first person who can tell me why this post is titled "Snails". Hint: I mean no aspersions or implications in the least.
And since I know you're dying to know: no, I didn't find any adult movie theatres near Rodanthe.
One's an old friend, now employed at Google, who invited me to lunch with him at Google. So I showed up outside Building 44, gratified first of all to find that when he showed up, his jacket was even more yellow-with-blue-lining than mine. We walked in and I typed my name -- at Google, why not my gmail id? -- into a box on a screen, whereupon a neatly printed badge gushed from a pint-sized printer. This got slapped on my yellow jacket, and we proceeded.
First stop, a unisex toilet. The inside of the door has a notice about a bug that's pending, or fixed, or desirable, or something. Reading material for toilet time, of course. Outside are a number of the semi-famous yellow (but not as yellow as my jacket) Google scooters. We walk across to the main Google building(s), passing on the way an inordinate number of cheery folks wearing Google-labeled clothing.
First stop there, a screen with a rotating globe with multicoloured rays shooting out into space from much of our planet's land masses. One colour per language, the length of each ray representing the number of Google search queries from that spot on the planet. I am thrilled to learn that, a few days earlier, my search in Rodanthe, North Carolina, probably contributed one entire pixel to one ray on this display. Simultaneously, a wall nearby shows a continuously scrolling list of queries submitted to Google. I am thrilled to learn that, a few days earlier, this wall might have momentarily displayed my query from Rodanthe: "adult movie theatres near rodanthe".
Nearby is the glass wall of a cubicle from inside which a man waves cheerily to us. Stuck on the wall is this: "Please do not tap on the glass. It disturbs the fish." Lying outside another cubicle is a handsome Labrador. The dog's leash is, naturally, labelled "Google Google Google ...".
"Pets", says my Googleguy friend, pithily.
At the gym, there's a long row of treadmills, Google employees jogging on each. One has a screen with what looks an ad for an insurance agent. I don't know that I'd want to be jogging while reading insurance ads, but this particular Google employee is staring intently at it while she lopes in place. A walkway between buildings soars past two body-sized wave pools, in one of which a man is swimming furiously. Given the waves, he is not moving an inch. Which is a good thing, of course, because if he did move an inch he would bump his head on the side of the pool. Pacing up and down next to the pool is a man in peaked cap and orange shirt.
"Lifeguard 24/7," says my Googleguy friend, still pithily.
Lunch could be at any of a number of food places, all free. We choose the largest cafe, where the selection ranges from pizza to Polynesian to pasta to Indian, that last with the longest line.
About now, I realize what's nagging at my fading memory cells: MCC. The company I worked for too many years ago in Austin. Gym, pets, cute signs on the walls, informal ambience, choc-chip cookies at team meetings, free drinks, subsidised (not free) food ... MCC treated us well; Google takes that treatment to a new level.
About now, too, I meet the second Googleguy. Young man in shorts and T-shirt comes up to me as I'm stocking up on asparagus, says: "Are you the DD who blogs?"
Demurely, I say I am.
"Oh, I read your blog all the time!" he says. "I read you this morning! I know all about your trouble travelling from Richmond!"
You don't know the half of it, I think, because I haven't finished writing up that story. But out loud, I just smile and mumble a few thanks.
"Welcome to Google!" he says.
Thank you, you who know who you are! Good to visit and good to run into you.
Beside me, the first Googleguy, my old friend, stands with his mouth open. "I don't believe it," he says. "Someone here knows you by name?" I want to say, don't worry, the rest don't know me by name or anything else either. But I just smile again. We find a place to sit, and I work my way through the asparagus.
Charming place, Google. Watch for my next query on that wall.
And a pat on the old back to the first person who can tell me why this post is titled "Snails". Hint: I mean no aspersions or implications in the least.
And since I know you're dying to know: no, I didn't find any adult movie theatres near Rodanthe.
March 25, 2007
Monet, and the phone
"Monet," says my friend Ollie Taylor. "You know Monet's paintings? Well, I see things sort of like that." Not that I can name even a single Monet, but I knew immediately what he meant: sort of blurry, soft-focus. Ollie has macular degeneration. His eyesight has deteriorated so much that he can see only large block-printed letters, and those only close-up. The rest? Like a Monet.
This is a man I've always admired. He has a sharp and brilliant mind, he reads widely, he has played drums for years in an amateur swing/jazz band that practices in the basement. The last time I saw him, some years ago in India, I took him to see a cricket match and he still remembers that ballet-like grace of that day. (Mentioned here).
I'm saddened to hear about his fading eyesight. And in his place, someone else might be defeated by it. But Ollie has lost none of his verve and spirit. For starters, he seems almost tickled by the Monet comparison. Then he takes me downstairs and plays for me; I notice that the wall is plastered with photographs of past band performances. He sits me down and plies me with questions about me, my career, India, Pakistan; he offers me the most thoughtful analysis of American politics I've heard in weeks of hearing plenty analysis. Barbara and he take me out for a chuckle-filled evening roaming shoreside Annapolis and eating at a fine restaurant downtown. He tells me that at 77, he is about to start a new job working in a nursery, doing the physical labour of moving trees and plants about. To get in shape, he rows and walks the treadmill diligently every day. "I just love working outdoors with my hands," he answers my curiosity. "Always have."
Yet the thing that most mocks my sadness actually has nothing to do with him. It's a cordless phone that hangs around his neck. Every day, he dials a number, punches in a few digits, and then goes about his walking or gardening or whatever else. Via the speaker on the instrument, his selection of favourite newspapers and magazines, recorded early every day, is read to him. He can choose from hundreds of publications around the country, all available via just a few button-punches on the phone that he wears.
This is called a telephone reader service. It is entirely free, down to the free telephone call. I've heard of books on tape, but this takes my breath away.
It leaves me wondering along a curious tangent. The USA is regarded as rich and "developed". Is that because it has wealth? Or because of how it chooses to spend that wealth? Do those choices themselves contribute to "development"?
To clarify -- maybe you've heard something like this said: it's not because America was wealthy that it built the interstate highway system, but the contrary. Building the highways made America wealthy.
Of course it isn't quite as simple as that. But there's something to think about there.
In the same way, is it because this is a rich country that it can offer this service that my friend Ollie uses? Or is it that choosing to provide such services made it rich?
This is a man I've always admired. He has a sharp and brilliant mind, he reads widely, he has played drums for years in an amateur swing/jazz band that practices in the basement. The last time I saw him, some years ago in India, I took him to see a cricket match and he still remembers that ballet-like grace of that day. (Mentioned here).
I'm saddened to hear about his fading eyesight. And in his place, someone else might be defeated by it. But Ollie has lost none of his verve and spirit. For starters, he seems almost tickled by the Monet comparison. Then he takes me downstairs and plays for me; I notice that the wall is plastered with photographs of past band performances. He sits me down and plies me with questions about me, my career, India, Pakistan; he offers me the most thoughtful analysis of American politics I've heard in weeks of hearing plenty analysis. Barbara and he take me out for a chuckle-filled evening roaming shoreside Annapolis and eating at a fine restaurant downtown. He tells me that at 77, he is about to start a new job working in a nursery, doing the physical labour of moving trees and plants about. To get in shape, he rows and walks the treadmill diligently every day. "I just love working outdoors with my hands," he answers my curiosity. "Always have."
Yet the thing that most mocks my sadness actually has nothing to do with him. It's a cordless phone that hangs around his neck. Every day, he dials a number, punches in a few digits, and then goes about his walking or gardening or whatever else. Via the speaker on the instrument, his selection of favourite newspapers and magazines, recorded early every day, is read to him. He can choose from hundreds of publications around the country, all available via just a few button-punches on the phone that he wears.
This is called a telephone reader service. It is entirely free, down to the free telephone call. I've heard of books on tape, but this takes my breath away.
It leaves me wondering along a curious tangent. The USA is regarded as rich and "developed". Is that because it has wealth? Or because of how it chooses to spend that wealth? Do those choices themselves contribute to "development"?
To clarify -- maybe you've heard something like this said: it's not because America was wealthy that it built the interstate highway system, but the contrary. Building the highways made America wealthy.
Of course it isn't quite as simple as that. But there's something to think about there.
In the same way, is it because this is a rich country that it can offer this service that my friend Ollie uses? Or is it that choosing to provide such services made it rich?
March 23, 2007
Zipper on skinny jeans
Question: What ties these names together? Hornet, Emulous, Helen H Benedict, Lilivaira, Tinto, Francisco Bellagamba, Nuestra Signora de Solidad?
Answer (part 1): They are all names of ships.
Yes, so?
Answer (part 2): They all appear on a map in the passenger cabin of the vessel "Carteret", a ferry that runs between Cedar Island and Ocracoke in North Carolina.
Ah, but so? Why are they on that map?
Answer (part 3): The map is of North Carolina's Outer Banks islands.
Hmm, but so? Just why are these ships' names on that map?
Answer (part 4): These are ships that have been wrecked on that coast. Hornet in 1849, Emulous in 1825, Helen H Benedict in 1914, Nuestra Signora de Solidad in 1750, like that.
All these names and many more are listed on that map. There are so many that the names form an inch long offshore shelf of sorts: a solid bank of black lettering on the seaward side of the islands, must be a hundred or more names. Not exactly the reassuring sight you want to see while on a ferry loaded with cars doing a 2.5 hour trip across the water. But there it is. The Outer Banks are known for these wrecks. The Graveyard of the Atlantic, they say here.
A man in the passenger cabin turns away from the map and says to the few of us around, "I do a lot of sailing and I wouldn't want to be out there in this. Especially not against the wind." His wife says, "Yeah, a lot of white caps out there!"
I wonder, idly, how often conversations like that one were heard in the ships listed on the map.
***
At the bird feeder near the gift shop of the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge, there are several small birds flitting about. There's also, at the bottom of the pole, a large brown hairy rat-like creature called a ... what? It looks like a huge rat. The birds are constantly dropping seeds on him; he eats them though he's apparently wincing all the time. I ask the man behind the shop counter to identify the animal. He peers at it through the glass window, then announces it is likely a "nutria". "Can't see the tail, or I would have been sure."
Another visitor comes in and is struck by the rat-like creature too. She calls the man over and asks, "Is that Punxsutawney Phil? Ha ha!"
Of course it isn't. After all, he isn't searching for his shadow, he's munching. Besides, we are some distance from Pennsylvania.
***
About now, the Carolina radio station I'm listening to plays an hour of bluegrass music, that delightful guitar-strumming stuff from Kentucky. One of the songs, I think by a Tim O'Brien, has a line about where the Southern crosses the Dog.
One of those things. You know how you hear something for the first time ever, and then suddenly you hear of it again and again and again and again and again ...? Well, here we are. A month ago, I had no idea about the Southern crossing the Dog, no idea about what that peculiar phrase is supposed to mean. And now this is the third time it's popped up.
First time was when I was contemplating a trip to Moorhead, Mississippi -- to a juke joint there to listen to some blues. Some literature I ran into about the little town mentioned that it is also where the Southern crosses the Dawg.
In short, this is where two rail lines cross each other at a precise right angle. One runs east-west and is called, of course, the Southern Line. The other runs north-south and is the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Line, apparently known affectionately to all as the "Yellow Dawg". The Dawg is, as far as I can tell, now in disuse. Nevertheless, the crossing remains something of a tourist attraction. I shall forever regret that I did not make it to Moorhead in the end.
Days later in Alabama, someone treats me to the movie, "Black Snake Moan". To my surprise, "Southern Cross the Dog" flashes across the widescreen. Turns out that a company by that name is one of the film's three producers.
Days later in North Carolina, I'm listening to bluegrass and somebody sings about the Southern crossing the Dog.
I need to get to Moorhead, dammit.
***
Sunsilk brand shampoo, which I had always thought was an exclusively Indian brand, is available in the USofA. The bottles come with several artfully written catchphrases on them. These are those catchphrases:
My hair's poofier than a bridesmaid's dress.
My frizz is bigger than my credit card limit.
The kinks in my hair are more stubborn than the zipper on my skinny jeans.
My hair's split like a Hollywood marriage.
Borrow volume from my butt.
Designed to attract the discerning buyer, wouldn't you say? I bought the whole shelf.
Answer (part 1): They are all names of ships.
Yes, so?
Answer (part 2): They all appear on a map in the passenger cabin of the vessel "Carteret", a ferry that runs between Cedar Island and Ocracoke in North Carolina.
Ah, but so? Why are they on that map?
Answer (part 3): The map is of North Carolina's Outer Banks islands.
Hmm, but so? Just why are these ships' names on that map?
Answer (part 4): These are ships that have been wrecked on that coast. Hornet in 1849, Emulous in 1825, Helen H Benedict in 1914, Nuestra Signora de Solidad in 1750, like that.
All these names and many more are listed on that map. There are so many that the names form an inch long offshore shelf of sorts: a solid bank of black lettering on the seaward side of the islands, must be a hundred or more names. Not exactly the reassuring sight you want to see while on a ferry loaded with cars doing a 2.5 hour trip across the water. But there it is. The Outer Banks are known for these wrecks. The Graveyard of the Atlantic, they say here.
A man in the passenger cabin turns away from the map and says to the few of us around, "I do a lot of sailing and I wouldn't want to be out there in this. Especially not against the wind." His wife says, "Yeah, a lot of white caps out there!"
I wonder, idly, how often conversations like that one were heard in the ships listed on the map.
At the bird feeder near the gift shop of the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge, there are several small birds flitting about. There's also, at the bottom of the pole, a large brown hairy rat-like creature called a ... what? It looks like a huge rat. The birds are constantly dropping seeds on him; he eats them though he's apparently wincing all the time. I ask the man behind the shop counter to identify the animal. He peers at it through the glass window, then announces it is likely a "nutria". "Can't see the tail, or I would have been sure."
Another visitor comes in and is struck by the rat-like creature too. She calls the man over and asks, "Is that Punxsutawney Phil? Ha ha!"
Of course it isn't. After all, he isn't searching for his shadow, he's munching. Besides, we are some distance from Pennsylvania.
About now, the Carolina radio station I'm listening to plays an hour of bluegrass music, that delightful guitar-strumming stuff from Kentucky. One of the songs, I think by a Tim O'Brien, has a line about where the Southern crosses the Dog.
One of those things. You know how you hear something for the first time ever, and then suddenly you hear of it again and again and again and again and again ...? Well, here we are. A month ago, I had no idea about the Southern crossing the Dog, no idea about what that peculiar phrase is supposed to mean. And now this is the third time it's popped up.
First time was when I was contemplating a trip to Moorhead, Mississippi -- to a juke joint there to listen to some blues. Some literature I ran into about the little town mentioned that it is also where the Southern crosses the Dawg.
In short, this is where two rail lines cross each other at a precise right angle. One runs east-west and is called, of course, the Southern Line. The other runs north-south and is the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Line, apparently known affectionately to all as the "Yellow Dawg". The Dawg is, as far as I can tell, now in disuse. Nevertheless, the crossing remains something of a tourist attraction. I shall forever regret that I did not make it to Moorhead in the end.
Days later in Alabama, someone treats me to the movie, "Black Snake Moan". To my surprise, "Southern Cross the Dog" flashes across the widescreen. Turns out that a company by that name is one of the film's three producers.
Days later in North Carolina, I'm listening to bluegrass and somebody sings about the Southern crossing the Dog.
I need to get to Moorhead, dammit.
Sunsilk brand shampoo, which I had always thought was an exclusively Indian brand, is available in the USofA. The bottles come with several artfully written catchphrases on them. These are those catchphrases:
Designed to attract the discerning buyer, wouldn't you say? I bought the whole shelf.
March 22, 2007
Butterflies
At the Los Altos Mountain View Aquatic Club, a kid in the pool yells at the coach, traipsing alongside the water, "Everybody else bumped into the wall but me!" Another kid says, "Oh, my ear!" It's not clear to me whether that's a comment on his ear or the first kid. The coach is one of those California stereotypes -- long haired, long-legged blonde. She jumps, swivels around mid-air and punches behind her. "You have to do the drop punch flip when you get to the wall, guys!" she calls. "Like this." And she does that peculiar little jig again.
Then she says, "OK, let's do the butterfly this time?" She demonstrates by crouching and jumping like a butterfly, though I'm damned if I've ever seen a butterfly do that. Six kids look up at her, then down into the water and head off across the pool, bouncing up and down with varying degrees of success in moving forward. One is jumping more or less in place. But hey, his coach is doing the same, poolside.
Somewhere in the distance, someone's playing a tabla-like drum, clearly, rhythmically, steadily.
The next pool has many expert butterflies. They move smoothly through the water, their bodies curling and uncurling rather like ... caterpillars, am I right? Why isn't this stroke called the caterpillar stroke? One of those imponderables, I suppose. In any case, their coach -- another blonde, not quite as long-legged, but with a voice pitched high enough to rival Lata Mangeshkar -- also leaps about, also demonstrating the butterfly.
The first coach is now windmilling her arms violently. "Bacckstroke, guys! Backstroke!" Then she does the old jump-swivel-punch again, landing so close to the edge that surely she's got to fall in? But no, she's dainty and sure-footed.
The second coach strolls over to me, and in that high-pitched voice tells me that parents are not allowed poolside. I'm tempted to say I'm not a parent, but wait ... I'm unaccountably struck by the realization that here and now, I am simultaneously a parent and not a parent. Ha. Hmm.
The Lata-clone strolls back to the other side of the pools, and she immediately begins contorting herself again. Knees slightly bent, she thrusts first her chest out, then her behind, again and again like clockwork.
"Don't do this, guys!" she screams. "Not what I'm doing, OK?" The voice, it's higher and more piercing than ever.
Then she says, "OK, let's do the butterfly this time?" She demonstrates by crouching and jumping like a butterfly, though I'm damned if I've ever seen a butterfly do that. Six kids look up at her, then down into the water and head off across the pool, bouncing up and down with varying degrees of success in moving forward. One is jumping more or less in place. But hey, his coach is doing the same, poolside.
Somewhere in the distance, someone's playing a tabla-like drum, clearly, rhythmically, steadily.
The next pool has many expert butterflies. They move smoothly through the water, their bodies curling and uncurling rather like ... caterpillars, am I right? Why isn't this stroke called the caterpillar stroke? One of those imponderables, I suppose. In any case, their coach -- another blonde, not quite as long-legged, but with a voice pitched high enough to rival Lata Mangeshkar -- also leaps about, also demonstrating the butterfly.
The first coach is now windmilling her arms violently. "Bacckstroke, guys! Backstroke!" Then she does the old jump-swivel-punch again, landing so close to the edge that surely she's got to fall in? But no, she's dainty and sure-footed.
The second coach strolls over to me, and in that high-pitched voice tells me that parents are not allowed poolside. I'm tempted to say I'm not a parent, but wait ... I'm unaccountably struck by the realization that here and now, I am simultaneously a parent and not a parent. Ha. Hmm.
The Lata-clone strolls back to the other side of the pools, and she immediately begins contorting herself again. Knees slightly bent, she thrusts first her chest out, then her behind, again and again like clockwork.
"Don't do this, guys!" she screams. "Not what I'm doing, OK?" The voice, it's higher and more piercing than ever.
March 19, 2007
Old friends
The journey from a day ago, thoroughly disrupted by moderate pellets of ice, continues. Late at night back in DC, I start hunting for ways to get to Richmond on Saturday morning, in time to catch my 2-something pm flight, and find that everybody and his brother are apparently trying to do something similar. The trains are all sold out. One way rental inquiries at rental office after rental office produce this answer: there are no cars available for hire at this office at this time. Starting to worry, I get onto the Greyhound site and buy myself a ticket on a 930 am bus to Richmond, paying an extra $4 for the privilege of being able to "will-call" it, meaning pick it up at a booth in the station.
730 next morning, I get my bags onto my aching shoulders one more time, walk out into brilliant sunshine but freezing temperature, snow on all the cars but not underfoot, and begin the journey again. As scheduled now, I'm supposed to arrive at the other end a full 18 hours from now: DC to Richmond to Orlando to Salt Lake City to San Jose.
The thought makes me stumble slightly.
Walk a mile in my shoes, to the Metro station. To Union station, then another 500 yard walk to the bus station. Enormous crowds there. I get my will-call ticket and realize that a lot of these people are waiting for buses to New York and points north, and there are announcements about these buses going on above me saying they don't have drivers available no drivers have been able to report yet due to the weather there will be delays thank you for being patient thank you this thank you that thank you.
But the line for the Richmond bus, in fact headed by a young Indian couple headed for Duke Univ in North Carolina, is mercifully short. (I imply no correlation between those two facts). I put down the bags and catch my breath. A question or two to the young man in front of me has me breathless again. They are waiting for the previous bus, the 650am departure to Richmond, and it is now 845am, and who knows when the 930 bus will then leave. The man smiles, hits me friendly in the stomach and says: "You're not gettin' to Richmond before night-time, bro! Be cool, awright?"
At which point I call a friend in town and ask the big favour: drive me to Richmond airport, won't you? We go back too many years to count, so he readily agrees and the prospect of spending a few hours with him is attractive indeed. It will take him an hour to arrive, so I get into the long line at the ticket window to get a refund on my ticket. Two people immediately in front also trying to head for points south get chatting, and decide to drive together to Savannah. Nice to see these impromptu arrangements being made here and elsewhere around me; soon these two are chatting like old friends. Which they likely will be by the end of the day.
I lose my will-call fee and another $4, but at this point I'm not complaining. Get the bags back on my shoulders and walk back out to Union Station where my friend picks me up. And the rest of the morning is positively the best part of this journey. Old friends, how do you beat that? We stop at a BBQ place for a fiery hot brunch, and he drops me at the airport in plenty of time for my flight to Orlando.
It's a small plane, Brazil-made Embraer which I have to enter with neck folded to one side. It's a half-hour connection in Orlando, so I ask the attendant if we'll make it. Oh yes, she says in a musical foreign accent I cannot place. Plenty of time.
Then we come in to land at Orlando.
730 next morning, I get my bags onto my aching shoulders one more time, walk out into brilliant sunshine but freezing temperature, snow on all the cars but not underfoot, and begin the journey again. As scheduled now, I'm supposed to arrive at the other end a full 18 hours from now: DC to Richmond to Orlando to Salt Lake City to San Jose.
The thought makes me stumble slightly.
Walk a mile in my shoes, to the Metro station. To Union station, then another 500 yard walk to the bus station. Enormous crowds there. I get my will-call ticket and realize that a lot of these people are waiting for buses to New York and points north, and there are announcements about these buses going on above me saying they don't have drivers available no drivers have been able to report yet due to the weather there will be delays thank you for being patient thank you this thank you that thank you.
But the line for the Richmond bus, in fact headed by a young Indian couple headed for Duke Univ in North Carolina, is mercifully short. (I imply no correlation between those two facts). I put down the bags and catch my breath. A question or two to the young man in front of me has me breathless again. They are waiting for the previous bus, the 650am departure to Richmond, and it is now 845am, and who knows when the 930 bus will then leave. The man smiles, hits me friendly in the stomach and says: "You're not gettin' to Richmond before night-time, bro! Be cool, awright?"
At which point I call a friend in town and ask the big favour: drive me to Richmond airport, won't you? We go back too many years to count, so he readily agrees and the prospect of spending a few hours with him is attractive indeed. It will take him an hour to arrive, so I get into the long line at the ticket window to get a refund on my ticket. Two people immediately in front also trying to head for points south get chatting, and decide to drive together to Savannah. Nice to see these impromptu arrangements being made here and elsewhere around me; soon these two are chatting like old friends. Which they likely will be by the end of the day.
I lose my will-call fee and another $4, but at this point I'm not complaining. Get the bags back on my shoulders and walk back out to Union Station where my friend picks me up. And the rest of the morning is positively the best part of this journey. Old friends, how do you beat that? We stop at a BBQ place for a fiery hot brunch, and he drops me at the airport in plenty of time for my flight to Orlando.
It's a small plane, Brazil-made Embraer which I have to enter with neck folded to one side. It's a half-hour connection in Orlando, so I ask the attendant if we'll make it. Oh yes, she says in a musical foreign accent I cannot place. Plenty of time.
Then we come in to land at Orlando.
To Audacity
They called it "Moving wonders", I called it "To Audacity" ... whichever, here's my Monday column in MidDay. Your comments welcome.
***
The audacity of the imagination, of the spirit. I thought about it -- I had plenty of time to think about it -- while taking the "causeway" into New Orleans, a bridge long, straight and true as a razor's edge for 30 miles across Lake Pontchartrain. Pontchartrain is the near-circular body of water that lies just north of the city. Famously, Hurricane Katrina violently churned its waters, which flooded into the canals that run south through the city. Those floodwaters breached levees and inundated block after block of the city. That unprecedented deluge is what caused the real damage in this city.
Pontchartrain is so much part of the city, of its sense of itself, that this almost seemed like a betrayal.
But as catastrophic as Katrina was, this is not about her. Back on the Pontchartrain causeway -- from somewhere about five miles onto it, until about five miles from the other side, I can see no land in any direction, not even in my rear view mirror. What I see instead is the road stretching before me, cars rushing towards me, cars going my way as if on a joint quest for something to hold on to in this place of water. A vast sheet of water, calm today, but that very calmness hints at the destruction Katrina unleashed.
It's mundane, I'm sure, to remark on the awe you feel in the middle of a long bridge. Yet that's the point. That mundane-ness is possible because of the audacity of the original thought: let's fling a road thirty miles across this water; this water that, from its middle, offers no hint of a break from water.
Something about that nerve takes my breath away.
The same feeling, tinged with a chill, surrounds the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel, in Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay is a watery wedge driven between the states of Maryland and Virginia on the west, and their "eastern shore" on the east. The eastern shore is a jagged-edged peninsula named Delmarva, for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. (Delaware is carved from its northeastern part).
To travel from Virginia Beach, on the southern reaches of the bay, to the southern tip of Delmarva is perhaps 25 miles for a crow. But if you're merely human, it used to be a journey of several hundred miles, all the way around the bay. Which naturally set some people thinking, why not a bridge across the mouth of the bay, to cross it as a crow would?
And while imagining that, remember that the bay is a busy shipping channel, so any bridge must not close that off. Yet it probably is not practical to make the bridge high enough for large ships to pass underneath, and perhaps a drawbridge in the middle would just be too slow, both for ships and cars. So what's the answer?
Simple: a bridge that turns into a tunnel. Twice in that 25-mile stretch, the road actually disappears underwater. Seen from the air, long fingers snake out from either shore. Lonesome in between, like a shadow of the fingers, is a span by itself.
I've driven across this marvel twice; both times I've felt a small ripple of fright as we burrow at 55 mph into the tunnels. The sea above me. What a thought.
And then there's a narrow offshore island in North Carolina called Hatteras. On Cape Hatteras where the island makes a right angle north, there is a lighthouse. Built to warn ships nearing this so-called "Graveyard of the Atlantic" -- hundreds of vessels have sunk off these islands -- the lighthouse originally stood 1600 feet from the shore. Over a century, the sea eroded that to a mere 100 feet, most of it sand. Grave danger to a beloved landmark, but what could be done?
Simple again: in 1999, a team of engineers moved the lighthouse. Not brick by disassembled brick, but whole. The entire 200 feet high spire of stone and mortar, all 4400 tons of it. Over three weeks that year, on some days as much as a few hundred feet, they shifted the thing fully half a mile, to where it once again stands 1600 feet from the shore. Proud, tall, undamaged, secure again. Besides, because the spot where it stands today is three feet higher than the old spot, its warning beacon can be seen even farther out at sea.
The audacity of such a move, the will to make it real: I've been on the trail.
Yet with these examples, I mean no unthinking paean to American ingenuity and initiative, not at all. For these wonders only remind me of so many others -- the Chunnel, the Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, penicillin, flight, a telescope in space, even the fantastic shipbreaking yard at Alang in Gujarat. Yes, even Alang, where on a long beach, busy teams of wiry men tear apart great hulking beasts of metal almost entirely by hand.
Sometimes, I like to think about those things. Or see them if I can.
We live in cynical times. We are polarised on many lines, suspicious of politicians' motives, guarded about our childrens' safety in an uncertain world, worried about water quality and terrorism and unpredictable violence. It's a boom economy, but people slaughter other people. There's a new confidence and a flowering of aspirations suppressed too long, but bombs go off on trains. Whether Bollywood or new millionaires, India has captured the world's imagination; but a woman at Atlanta airport leaned over to ask, why do I see so much poverty in India?
With all that, cynicism comes easily, obscuring the vibrancy of the human spirit. And so I sometimes like to go in search of the ways we've built great things, managed to identify and address so many hard problems. I like to marvel at the audacity that makes so much conceivable, possible, real. I like to be reminded of the potential in us.
I mean, moving a lighthouse. Think of it.
The audacity of the imagination, of the spirit. I thought about it -- I had plenty of time to think about it -- while taking the "causeway" into New Orleans, a bridge long, straight and true as a razor's edge for 30 miles across Lake Pontchartrain. Pontchartrain is the near-circular body of water that lies just north of the city. Famously, Hurricane Katrina violently churned its waters, which flooded into the canals that run south through the city. Those floodwaters breached levees and inundated block after block of the city. That unprecedented deluge is what caused the real damage in this city.
Pontchartrain is so much part of the city, of its sense of itself, that this almost seemed like a betrayal.
But as catastrophic as Katrina was, this is not about her. Back on the Pontchartrain causeway -- from somewhere about five miles onto it, until about five miles from the other side, I can see no land in any direction, not even in my rear view mirror. What I see instead is the road stretching before me, cars rushing towards me, cars going my way as if on a joint quest for something to hold on to in this place of water. A vast sheet of water, calm today, but that very calmness hints at the destruction Katrina unleashed.
It's mundane, I'm sure, to remark on the awe you feel in the middle of a long bridge. Yet that's the point. That mundane-ness is possible because of the audacity of the original thought: let's fling a road thirty miles across this water; this water that, from its middle, offers no hint of a break from water.
Something about that nerve takes my breath away.
The same feeling, tinged with a chill, surrounds the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel, in Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay is a watery wedge driven between the states of Maryland and Virginia on the west, and their "eastern shore" on the east. The eastern shore is a jagged-edged peninsula named Delmarva, for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. (Delaware is carved from its northeastern part).
To travel from Virginia Beach, on the southern reaches of the bay, to the southern tip of Delmarva is perhaps 25 miles for a crow. But if you're merely human, it used to be a journey of several hundred miles, all the way around the bay. Which naturally set some people thinking, why not a bridge across the mouth of the bay, to cross it as a crow would?
And while imagining that, remember that the bay is a busy shipping channel, so any bridge must not close that off. Yet it probably is not practical to make the bridge high enough for large ships to pass underneath, and perhaps a drawbridge in the middle would just be too slow, both for ships and cars. So what's the answer?
Simple: a bridge that turns into a tunnel. Twice in that 25-mile stretch, the road actually disappears underwater. Seen from the air, long fingers snake out from either shore. Lonesome in between, like a shadow of the fingers, is a span by itself.
I've driven across this marvel twice; both times I've felt a small ripple of fright as we burrow at 55 mph into the tunnels. The sea above me. What a thought.
And then there's a narrow offshore island in North Carolina called Hatteras. On Cape Hatteras where the island makes a right angle north, there is a lighthouse. Built to warn ships nearing this so-called "Graveyard of the Atlantic" -- hundreds of vessels have sunk off these islands -- the lighthouse originally stood 1600 feet from the shore. Over a century, the sea eroded that to a mere 100 feet, most of it sand. Grave danger to a beloved landmark, but what could be done?
Simple again: in 1999, a team of engineers moved the lighthouse. Not brick by disassembled brick, but whole. The entire 200 feet high spire of stone and mortar, all 4400 tons of it. Over three weeks that year, on some days as much as a few hundred feet, they shifted the thing fully half a mile, to where it once again stands 1600 feet from the shore. Proud, tall, undamaged, secure again. Besides, because the spot where it stands today is three feet higher than the old spot, its warning beacon can be seen even farther out at sea.
The audacity of such a move, the will to make it real: I've been on the trail.
Yet with these examples, I mean no unthinking paean to American ingenuity and initiative, not at all. For these wonders only remind me of so many others -- the Chunnel, the Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, penicillin, flight, a telescope in space, even the fantastic shipbreaking yard at Alang in Gujarat. Yes, even Alang, where on a long beach, busy teams of wiry men tear apart great hulking beasts of metal almost entirely by hand.
Sometimes, I like to think about those things. Or see them if I can.
We live in cynical times. We are polarised on many lines, suspicious of politicians' motives, guarded about our childrens' safety in an uncertain world, worried about water quality and terrorism and unpredictable violence. It's a boom economy, but people slaughter other people. There's a new confidence and a flowering of aspirations suppressed too long, but bombs go off on trains. Whether Bollywood or new millionaires, India has captured the world's imagination; but a woman at Atlanta airport leaned over to ask, why do I see so much poverty in India?
With all that, cynicism comes easily, obscuring the vibrancy of the human spirit. And so I sometimes like to go in search of the ways we've built great things, managed to identify and address so many hard problems. I like to marvel at the audacity that makes so much conceivable, possible, real. I like to be reminded of the potential in us.
I mean, moving a lighthouse. Think of it.
March 17, 2007
Moderate pellets
So I have a 420pm flight on Fri March 16 out of Baltimore-Washington International airport (BWI), going to Atlanta and flying on west from there. Snowstorm's dumping on the northeast, I'm worried, so I check and check again: all morning, both my flights are reported to be leaving OK. Reassured, I leave my friend's home in Washington at 1pm. I have to fuel up my rental car, drive up to BWI, then go catch my flight: just under 3.5 hours strikes me as enough time.
It's raining steadily all through the drive; visibility is low and traffic is slower than normal. But it moves along. Without much of a problem, I reach the rental return place by 245pm, hand over the car and take the shuttle to the terminal. Check in, go through security (laptop out, shoes off). Wander slowly to my gate. Just before 4pm, we begin boarding. I'm in my seat and the doors are closed by 415.
Announcement: weather is bad but we can take off, but regulations require us to "de-ice" the plane. So we'll push back from the gate, de-ice and be on our way in five or ten minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, announcement: OK, we're starting the de-icing, you can look out the window and see them doing it.
Thirty minutes later, announcement: bad news. There's rain and moderate ice pellets coming down outside, and we are not legal to leave in this weather. It doesn't look like it will get better for several hours. We're going to take you all off the plane. But please stay in the gate area in case things change and we get a go-ahead to leave.
Groaning and despondent, we all get off the plane. Cellphones are suddenly active in every hand. Man asks attendant as we leave the aircraft, who will pay for a hotel? Attendant replies, you.
Thirty minutes later out in the gate area, announcement: Those making connections, please form a line in front of the counter, we'll help you with those. I walk over, but the line is already 40 people long. It promises to be a long wait.
Fifteen minutes later, announcement: Bad news. The flight to Atlanta stands cancelled. Your baggage will be returned to you downstairs. If you want to make changes to your flight plans, please see a ticket agent or call our toll-free number.
I head for baggage claim, trying to call the toll-free number as I go. There's a voice-recognition system in place, and when you put together poor reception, high levels of ambient noise, my walking along and my obscure Indian accent, the system cannot understand a single word I say. I'm sorry for all the trouble, it finally says in a confident female voice, I will connect you to our next available representative. Five minutes later, I lose the connection. I curse.
Long lines at the counters. Huge crowd at baggage claim. I find a payphone and decide to try the toll-free number from there. This time the voice-recognition system understands my monosyllables and puts me on hold waiting for the next available agent. Suddenly I see one of my bags sliding by on the nearest carousel. I drop the handset, run to pick up the bag, come back to the handset. Suddenly I see the other of my bags sliding by on the same carousel. I drop the handset, run to pick up the bag, come back to the handset. No worry, I'm still listening to music, interspersed with various messages.
In fact, I learn that my airline is expanding to Shannon Ireland and Bucharest Romania, that they appreciate my call and somebody will be with me as soon as possible, the I should not forget that I can earn two miles for every dollar spent if I use some particular credit card to buy my ticket, that the airline knows that air travel can sometimes be hectic and that's why they offer several options to speed me through the airport. I learn all this because I hear all this at least 15 times each, interspersed with music, that they want to know if I'm travelling to the Caribbean soon.
I mean, I am on that phone for the next two and a half (2.5) hours. On hold.
Enough time for me to set my bags on the floor so I can lie down on them, to take off my shoes and socks, to finish an entire magazine and many pages of the book I'm reading. Enough time to call various people who need to know my flight status.
When a human voice finally makes its appearance, she is extremely helpful and solicitous. She tells me that she cannot get me on any flight to where I want to go until Monday afternoon. And that that applies to the other two Washington-area airports (Dulles, Reagan) too. Are there any other airports I would like her to try?
She finally puts me on a flight from Richmond to Orlando on Saturday afternoon, connecting to another flight from Orlando to Salt Lake City, connecting to yet another flight. 11 hours, airport to airport. Leaves me with the headache of finding my way to Richmond, but I'll deal with that later.
830pm, I walk out of the terminal to the bus-stop where I can catch a bus to the Greenbelt Washington Metro station. There's one other person waiting, friendly Maria McFadden, back from a Spanish interpretation job in York, PA. Next bus is not till 858pm, so we have half an hour to wait. We are soon joined by Alessandra Buonanno, physics professor. We get chatting. Others trail in. But the bus doesn't. At 920pm, we finally run to catch a shuttle to BWI's Amtrak railway station.
At 950pm, we are there. Next train that for which we can buy tickets is scheduled at 1023, but is 15 minutes late. Soon, that 15 minutes delay is updated to an hour's delay. But luckily (for once) we don't have the time to groan, because an earlier delayed train's arrival is announced, and we decide to take our chances getting on even though it is supposedly fully reserved.
And that train arrives, and we get on, and half an hour later we are at Union Station, and we take the Metro. The company of these two friendly women has made the last few hours bearable. And at the end, I have a 15 minute walk in the sharp cold and across fresh snow, carrying my by-now-unbearably-heavy bags, back to my friend's home.
At 1145pm, nearly 11 hours after I left, I walk back in. Fruitless, exasperating day.
And I'm not comforted by the knowledge that in 6 or 7 hours, I have to get going again, find my way to Richmond and onto a plane there in the hope that it will not be grounded by moderate pellets of ice.
It's raining steadily all through the drive; visibility is low and traffic is slower than normal. But it moves along. Without much of a problem, I reach the rental return place by 245pm, hand over the car and take the shuttle to the terminal. Check in, go through security (laptop out, shoes off). Wander slowly to my gate. Just before 4pm, we begin boarding. I'm in my seat and the doors are closed by 415.
Announcement: weather is bad but we can take off, but regulations require us to "de-ice" the plane. So we'll push back from the gate, de-ice and be on our way in five or ten minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, announcement: OK, we're starting the de-icing, you can look out the window and see them doing it.
Thirty minutes later, announcement: bad news. There's rain and moderate ice pellets coming down outside, and we are not legal to leave in this weather. It doesn't look like it will get better for several hours. We're going to take you all off the plane. But please stay in the gate area in case things change and we get a go-ahead to leave.
Groaning and despondent, we all get off the plane. Cellphones are suddenly active in every hand. Man asks attendant as we leave the aircraft, who will pay for a hotel? Attendant replies, you.
Thirty minutes later out in the gate area, announcement: Those making connections, please form a line in front of the counter, we'll help you with those. I walk over, but the line is already 40 people long. It promises to be a long wait.
Fifteen minutes later, announcement: Bad news. The flight to Atlanta stands cancelled. Your baggage will be returned to you downstairs. If you want to make changes to your flight plans, please see a ticket agent or call our toll-free number.
I head for baggage claim, trying to call the toll-free number as I go. There's a voice-recognition system in place, and when you put together poor reception, high levels of ambient noise, my walking along and my obscure Indian accent, the system cannot understand a single word I say. I'm sorry for all the trouble, it finally says in a confident female voice, I will connect you to our next available representative. Five minutes later, I lose the connection. I curse.
Long lines at the counters. Huge crowd at baggage claim. I find a payphone and decide to try the toll-free number from there. This time the voice-recognition system understands my monosyllables and puts me on hold waiting for the next available agent. Suddenly I see one of my bags sliding by on the nearest carousel. I drop the handset, run to pick up the bag, come back to the handset. Suddenly I see the other of my bags sliding by on the same carousel. I drop the handset, run to pick up the bag, come back to the handset. No worry, I'm still listening to music, interspersed with various messages.
In fact, I learn that my airline is expanding to Shannon Ireland and Bucharest Romania, that they appreciate my call and somebody will be with me as soon as possible, the I should not forget that I can earn two miles for every dollar spent if I use some particular credit card to buy my ticket, that the airline knows that air travel can sometimes be hectic and that's why they offer several options to speed me through the airport. I learn all this because I hear all this at least 15 times each, interspersed with music, that they want to know if I'm travelling to the Caribbean soon.
I mean, I am on that phone for the next two and a half (2.5) hours. On hold.
Enough time for me to set my bags on the floor so I can lie down on them, to take off my shoes and socks, to finish an entire magazine and many pages of the book I'm reading. Enough time to call various people who need to know my flight status.
When a human voice finally makes its appearance, she is extremely helpful and solicitous. She tells me that she cannot get me on any flight to where I want to go until Monday afternoon. And that that applies to the other two Washington-area airports (Dulles, Reagan) too. Are there any other airports I would like her to try?
She finally puts me on a flight from Richmond to Orlando on Saturday afternoon, connecting to another flight from Orlando to Salt Lake City, connecting to yet another flight. 11 hours, airport to airport. Leaves me with the headache of finding my way to Richmond, but I'll deal with that later.
830pm, I walk out of the terminal to the bus-stop where I can catch a bus to the Greenbelt Washington Metro station. There's one other person waiting, friendly Maria McFadden, back from a Spanish interpretation job in York, PA. Next bus is not till 858pm, so we have half an hour to wait. We are soon joined by Alessandra Buonanno, physics professor. We get chatting. Others trail in. But the bus doesn't. At 920pm, we finally run to catch a shuttle to BWI's Amtrak railway station.
At 950pm, we are there. Next train that for which we can buy tickets is scheduled at 1023, but is 15 minutes late. Soon, that 15 minutes delay is updated to an hour's delay. But luckily (for once) we don't have the time to groan, because an earlier delayed train's arrival is announced, and we decide to take our chances getting on even though it is supposedly fully reserved.
And that train arrives, and we get on, and half an hour later we are at Union Station, and we take the Metro. The company of these two friendly women has made the last few hours bearable. And at the end, I have a 15 minute walk in the sharp cold and across fresh snow, carrying my by-now-unbearably-heavy bags, back to my friend's home.
At 1145pm, nearly 11 hours after I left, I walk back in. Fruitless, exasperating day.
And I'm not comforted by the knowledge that in 6 or 7 hours, I have to get going again, find my way to Richmond and onto a plane there in the hope that it will not be grounded by moderate pellets of ice.
March 15, 2007
The generations
In Selma, Alabama, a few days ago, Barack Obama spoke at the famous Brown AME Church to commemorate the 1965 March on Montgomery; more generally, to commemorate the whole civil rights movement. One theme in his talk was the distinction he drew between what he called the Moses and Joshua generations. Moses, referring broadly to the people who fought the good fight in the '60s -- Rosa Parks, MLK, Schwerner, all of them. It's on the shoulders of those giants that Obama and others of his generation -- today's Joshua generation -- stands as they aspire to great things. Obama freely admitted and acknowledged this great debt.
But it's not just the debt. Obama had a point to his mention of Moses and Joshua. In the Bible, Joshua was Moses's long-time apprentice, having gone up the mountain with him when he received the Ten Commandments. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt (the "Exodus" from Egypt), to return to Israel; but he himself never reached. He appointed Joshua his successor as the leader of his people, and then died. So it was Joshua who led them back into Israel, thus finishing the job that Moses set out to do.
You'll excuse the necessarily sketchy account. But here was Obama's point: that the whole struggle for civil rights didn't end with the Moses generation of the 1960s. There's work left to do: registering people to vote, to begin with, just as in the 1960s if not on the same scale. (And indeed, during the commemoration in Selma, there was at least one desk I noticed draped with signs saying "Register to Vote"). There's work to be done, too, in education, in health care, and more. And as it was left to Joshua to bring his people back to Israel, it is left to Obama's Joshua generation to complete the work that the generation before them started.
It's a simple message, but on many levels a powerful one. There's the idea of continuing a struggle. There's the imagery of passing the torch to a new generation. There's a call to action. There's the idea of finding a passion and working at it. And you'll have other ways to read it, I'm sure.
In general, I'm no fan of Biblical references. I prefer the practical, the here and now, and leave God to the preachers thank you very much. But in this town, on this day, Obama knew he could not deliver a speech full of policy statements. (Though as a political junkie, I look forward to what he has to say about substantive issues of policy over the next 18 months). What was called for was the invocation of, a reminder of, the spirit of the 1960s. And that, Obama succeeded in delivering.
At first blush -- and that's all this was, I would certainly not base a decision to vote on this one speech -- at first blush, this is an impressive candidate for President of the US.
Yet as I drove away from Selma that night, I was not thinking of Obama and the 1960s so much. I was thinking, as I often have on this trip, about India. Who calls to the Joshua generation in India? Who speaks of the work that's left to us to finish by the giants of the past -- Gandhi and Patel, Nehru and Azad, Tilak and Ambedkar?
Who, do you think?
Or maybe we need to start with a more basic question: is there work left to finish at all? What, do you think?
But it's not just the debt. Obama had a point to his mention of Moses and Joshua. In the Bible, Joshua was Moses's long-time apprentice, having gone up the mountain with him when he received the Ten Commandments. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt (the "Exodus" from Egypt), to return to Israel; but he himself never reached. He appointed Joshua his successor as the leader of his people, and then died. So it was Joshua who led them back into Israel, thus finishing the job that Moses set out to do.
You'll excuse the necessarily sketchy account. But here was Obama's point: that the whole struggle for civil rights didn't end with the Moses generation of the 1960s. There's work left to do: registering people to vote, to begin with, just as in the 1960s if not on the same scale. (And indeed, during the commemoration in Selma, there was at least one desk I noticed draped with signs saying "Register to Vote"). There's work to be done, too, in education, in health care, and more. And as it was left to Joshua to bring his people back to Israel, it is left to Obama's Joshua generation to complete the work that the generation before them started.
It's a simple message, but on many levels a powerful one. There's the idea of continuing a struggle. There's the imagery of passing the torch to a new generation. There's a call to action. There's the idea of finding a passion and working at it. And you'll have other ways to read it, I'm sure.
In general, I'm no fan of Biblical references. I prefer the practical, the here and now, and leave God to the preachers thank you very much. But in this town, on this day, Obama knew he could not deliver a speech full of policy statements. (Though as a political junkie, I look forward to what he has to say about substantive issues of policy over the next 18 months). What was called for was the invocation of, a reminder of, the spirit of the 1960s. And that, Obama succeeded in delivering.
At first blush -- and that's all this was, I would certainly not base a decision to vote on this one speech -- at first blush, this is an impressive candidate for President of the US.
Yet as I drove away from Selma that night, I was not thinking of Obama and the 1960s so much. I was thinking, as I often have on this trip, about India. Who calls to the Joshua generation in India? Who speaks of the work that's left to us to finish by the giants of the past -- Gandhi and Patel, Nehru and Azad, Tilak and Ambedkar?
Who, do you think?
Or maybe we need to start with a more basic question: is there work left to finish at all? What, do you think?
March 12, 2007
Nettled
A Chinese restaurant, pickup only, that I got dinner from recently has on its wall a "Certificate of Completion" awarded to, I presume, one of its staff. It's for completing a "Smart Staff Food Safety Seminar".
Now that sounds like an appetizing, forgive the pun, seminar. I'd give up my hot and sour soup to attend.
Elsewhere on the same wall is a slickly produced calendar, mostly in Chinese, but with this title: "Sweet and Great Melons and Fruits Beverage Article." It has a photograph of a cut honeydew melon that looks luscious indeed, but the inside of it also looks like ... well, let me just say that it reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe. Here's a sample of her work.
As I'm standing there waiting for my order of General Tso's Chicken and soup, a young woman wearing skin-tight bright pink pants and a matching pink headband walks in. She looks around -- at the menu, at the melon, at the guy behind the counter -- then suddenly grabs her breasts with both hands and runs out.
***
At the bathhouse of a campground, I'm having a shower when I hear a guy in the next stall curse, then call to a friend who's waiting outside. "Hey Larry? Do me a favour? Get me my shampoo? Got the soap, forgot the shampoo!"
And that reminds me of an enduring source of puzzlement: why shampoo?
I mean, shampoo is basically soap, am I right? In a liquid form? If you plaster the rest of your body with what's called soap, why not your hair too? And in fact you now get "handwash" and "shower gel" which seem to be soap in liquid form too -- meaning, and looking like, shampoo. So why would this guy, having left his shampoo behind, not use his soap on his head and be done with it?
Related question: what's the explanation for all the varied stuff that manufacturers claim to put in their shampoos? One that was foisted on me at a motel said on the label that it contained "carrot and grapefruit extract." Now I like those two, but why should they be in my hair? What would you think if I accosted you on the street and said: "Hey! I've been rubbing carrot and grapefruit in my hair!"
My bet is, your reaction would be a little different than if I said: "Hey! I just used this shampoo -- see? it has carrot and grapefruit extracts!"
Though, as always, those two remarks seem to be saying the same thing. Educate me, someone.
But of course, the cake was taken by a shampoo I got at a friendly B&B in North Carolina. This I purloined from the room intact, without even breaking the seal. I intend to present it to some museum, or maybe create a museum for it myself. For among other extracts, this shampoo had, get ready, nettle.
Yeah, and last time I checked, that nettle stuff is supposed to sting you. Why would it be in a shampoo, and why would anyone buy such a shampoo?
The ways of marketing. Endless puzzling fascination.
***
It's March Madness in the USA, and if you don't know what that is, you obviously haven't heard of college basketball in the USA. Yep, this is the month of the NCAA tournament, 64 teams go in and one emerges national champion.
And there's huge interest around selecting those 64 teams: driving yesterday ("Selection Sunday"), I heard radio talk show after radio talk show devoted to discussions about who would get in. People calling in from all over the country just to say something like:
Damn, it's a strange, delightful country.
And no, I have no idea what RPI is. (It is not the venerable Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, NY). New one since I used to follow March Madness more regularly.
***
Oh yes. That Chinese food I got? I wait right till the end to eagerly open my fortune cookie.
It says, in full and bold: "To Return".
I don't know. Is this a cryptic comment on what I am going to do sometime fairly soon, "return"? Or is a cryptic order to return the food to the restaurant? What?
Over breakfast the next day, I listen to a beautiful rendition of the "Gayatri Mantra". Hmm. Maybe there's a cosmic alignment in the works. Maybe extra-terrestrials are sending me messages about returning to India.
Now that sounds like an appetizing, forgive the pun, seminar. I'd give up my hot and sour soup to attend.
Elsewhere on the same wall is a slickly produced calendar, mostly in Chinese, but with this title: "Sweet and Great Melons and Fruits Beverage Article." It has a photograph of a cut honeydew melon that looks luscious indeed, but the inside of it also looks like ... well, let me just say that it reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe. Here's a sample of her work.
As I'm standing there waiting for my order of General Tso's Chicken and soup, a young woman wearing skin-tight bright pink pants and a matching pink headband walks in. She looks around -- at the menu, at the melon, at the guy behind the counter -- then suddenly grabs her breasts with both hands and runs out.
At the bathhouse of a campground, I'm having a shower when I hear a guy in the next stall curse, then call to a friend who's waiting outside. "Hey Larry? Do me a favour? Get me my shampoo? Got the soap, forgot the shampoo!"
And that reminds me of an enduring source of puzzlement: why shampoo?
I mean, shampoo is basically soap, am I right? In a liquid form? If you plaster the rest of your body with what's called soap, why not your hair too? And in fact you now get "handwash" and "shower gel" which seem to be soap in liquid form too -- meaning, and looking like, shampoo. So why would this guy, having left his shampoo behind, not use his soap on his head and be done with it?
Related question: what's the explanation for all the varied stuff that manufacturers claim to put in their shampoos? One that was foisted on me at a motel said on the label that it contained "carrot and grapefruit extract." Now I like those two, but why should they be in my hair? What would you think if I accosted you on the street and said: "Hey! I've been rubbing carrot and grapefruit in my hair!"
My bet is, your reaction would be a little different than if I said: "Hey! I just used this shampoo -- see? it has carrot and grapefruit extracts!"
Though, as always, those two remarks seem to be saying the same thing. Educate me, someone.
But of course, the cake was taken by a shampoo I got at a friendly B&B in North Carolina. This I purloined from the room intact, without even breaking the seal. I intend to present it to some museum, or maybe create a museum for it myself. For among other extracts, this shampoo had, get ready, nettle.
Yeah, and last time I checked, that nettle stuff is supposed to sting you. Why would it be in a shampoo, and why would anyone buy such a shampoo?
The ways of marketing. Endless puzzling fascination.
It's March Madness in the USA, and if you don't know what that is, you obviously haven't heard of college basketball in the USA. Yep, this is the month of the NCAA tournament, 64 teams go in and one emerges national champion.
And there's huge interest around selecting those 64 teams: driving yesterday ("Selection Sunday"), I heard radio talk show after radio talk show devoted to discussions about who would get in. People calling in from all over the country just to say something like:
- "Hey Sean, how you doing man? I'm doing great! Hey, I just wanted to ask, what d'you think of the chances of Old Dominion?"
- "I don't think there's a team in American right now that's playing better ball than Georgetown. Don't tell me 'bout how they played in December, January. Look at them now. I think they'll get a high four seed, maybe a three. And you know what? John Thompson's son coaching Patrick Ewing's son at Georgetown! How special is that?"
Damn, it's a strange, delightful country.
And no, I have no idea what RPI is. (It is not the venerable Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, NY). New one since I used to follow March Madness more regularly.
Oh yes. That Chinese food I got? I wait right till the end to eagerly open my fortune cookie.
It says, in full and bold: "To Return".
I don't know. Is this a cryptic comment on what I am going to do sometime fairly soon, "return"? Or is a cryptic order to return the food to the restaurant? What?
Over breakfast the next day, I listen to a beautiful rendition of the "Gayatri Mantra". Hmm. Maybe there's a cosmic alignment in the works. Maybe extra-terrestrials are sending me messages about returning to India.
March 11, 2007
Like I walk
What if Orville and Wilbur Wright had not figured out how to fly? What if they had remained bicycle makers? Or what if they had learned to fly, but back home in their home of Dayton, Ohio instead of Carolina's Outer Banks? How would this world of ours be different from these what-ifs?
I'm here to tell you about what I think would be the greatest difference between those imagined worlds and this one: the Outer Banks in North Carolina would not have a pair of sister radio stations -- make that brother radio stations -- that call themselves "Wilbur" and "Orville". That's WZPR 92.1 FM, styled Wilbur, and WYND 97.1, Orville. From Nags Head and Hatteras, this is really just one station broadcasting on two frequencies. And they play, of course and naturally, "just plane good country music". And between nearly every pair of songs, they tell listeners like me that this is "Wilbur and Orville" (matter of fact, just heard it as I wrote those three words).
So much so that I'm thoroughly sick of those names. Hearing them 2,437,874 times in the course of a day will do that. Why didn't I simply change stations, you ask? No reason that I can offer. Call it inertia.
Now there's a Wright brothers legacy I'm sure would make them proud: a country music station calls itself by their names. Boeing 747s and setting foot on the moon and the Gossamer Condor -- none of those quite match up.
More seriously, I spent a few hours at the Wright Brothers' Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. There are markers showing how far each of their first four flights were, that morning of December 17 1903. Flight #1 was 120 feet, taking 12 seconds. Flight #4 went 852 feet in 59 seconds.
So as my own tribute to these pioneers, I walk those lengths between the markers, timing myself roughly. The 120 feet, I cover in 20 seconds. Thus on that short flight, the Wright Flyer flew about 65% faster than I walk. But the 852 feet takes me about 152 seconds. So when it got into the air for a longer time, the Flyer got up to about two-and-a-half times my walking speed.
It's curiously gratifying to know that the speed of this original aircraft through the air was effectively comparable to walking. My guess is that that doesn't hold true any more. Even if you walk fast.
I'm here to tell you about what I think would be the greatest difference between those imagined worlds and this one: the Outer Banks in North Carolina would not have a pair of sister radio stations -- make that brother radio stations -- that call themselves "Wilbur" and "Orville". That's WZPR 92.1 FM, styled Wilbur, and WYND 97.1, Orville. From Nags Head and Hatteras, this is really just one station broadcasting on two frequencies. And they play, of course and naturally, "just plane good country music". And between nearly every pair of songs, they tell listeners like me that this is "Wilbur and Orville" (matter of fact, just heard it as I wrote those three words).
So much so that I'm thoroughly sick of those names. Hearing them 2,437,874 times in the course of a day will do that. Why didn't I simply change stations, you ask? No reason that I can offer. Call it inertia.
Now there's a Wright brothers legacy I'm sure would make them proud: a country music station calls itself by their names. Boeing 747s and setting foot on the moon and the Gossamer Condor -- none of those quite match up.
More seriously, I spent a few hours at the Wright Brothers' Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. There are markers showing how far each of their first four flights were, that morning of December 17 1903. Flight #1 was 120 feet, taking 12 seconds. Flight #4 went 852 feet in 59 seconds.
So as my own tribute to these pioneers, I walk those lengths between the markers, timing myself roughly. The 120 feet, I cover in 20 seconds. Thus on that short flight, the Wright Flyer flew about 65% faster than I walk. But the 852 feet takes me about 152 seconds. So when it got into the air for a longer time, the Flyer got up to about two-and-a-half times my walking speed.
It's curiously gratifying to know that the speed of this original aircraft through the air was effectively comparable to walking. My guess is that that doesn't hold true any more. Even if you walk fast.
March 10, 2007
Random acts
Tiny, even very tiny, acts of kindness and consideration grab you.
In the Ocracoke restaurant called Pony Island, I finish my lunch as they are closing for the afternoon. Young woman who served me, she's mopping a section of the floor. I get up from my table, to see if I can find a toilet. Turns out it is across the section of floor she is at work on. I'm about to step on it when she notices and stops me.
"This is slippery stuff I'm using!" she exclaims. She looks at the Hi-Tec boots I'm wearing and shakes her head. "My shoes, they won't slip. But those ..."; she leaves unsaid, but very clear, what will happen.
Then she reaches out her hand, grabs mine firmly and gently escorts me across, all the way to the door of the toilet.
"Thanks," I say.
Two weeks ago, I was in a tiny Kentucky town where no signal reached the cellphone I'm carrying. I needed to make an urgent call, so I drove around looking for a public phone. None of those to be found, and I also began running low on fuel. Stopped to fill up at a small station-cum-convenience store, went in to pay.
Teenage girl behind the counter. After paying, I ask: "Do you have a pay phone here? I need to make a call and my cell has no signal."
She says: "I'm new here, so I don't know. But let me go ask my manager."
She's back in ten seconds, holding out a cellphone. "Here's mine," she says. "It has a signal. Go ahead, make your call."
I protest. Smile across her face, she insists.
In the Ocracoke restaurant called Pony Island, I finish my lunch as they are closing for the afternoon. Young woman who served me, she's mopping a section of the floor. I get up from my table, to see if I can find a toilet. Turns out it is across the section of floor she is at work on. I'm about to step on it when she notices and stops me.
"This is slippery stuff I'm using!" she exclaims. She looks at the Hi-Tec boots I'm wearing and shakes her head. "My shoes, they won't slip. But those ..."; she leaves unsaid, but very clear, what will happen.
Then she reaches out her hand, grabs mine firmly and gently escorts me across, all the way to the door of the toilet.
"Thanks," I say.
Two weeks ago, I was in a tiny Kentucky town where no signal reached the cellphone I'm carrying. I needed to make an urgent call, so I drove around looking for a public phone. None of those to be found, and I also began running low on fuel. Stopped to fill up at a small station-cum-convenience store, went in to pay.
Teenage girl behind the counter. After paying, I ask: "Do you have a pay phone here? I need to make a call and my cell has no signal."
She says: "I'm new here, so I don't know. But let me go ask my manager."
She's back in ten seconds, holding out a cellphone. "Here's mine," she says. "It has a signal. Go ahead, make your call."
I protest. Smile across her face, she insists.
Regret
After meeting a good friend in Atlanta a few days ago, after a chat she and I had, I've been thinking about this post I made in February. I regret making fun of Lisa Nowak as I did there. I don't like the way so many focused, wide-eyed and scornful, on what this clearly deeply disturbed woman did. I don't like that I joined in.
Got 'em old civil rights blues
In Greenwood, Mississippi, I get a sense of two great currents in 20th Century history. The civil rights struggle. The blues. And what's more, they seem linked in odd ways I might never have guessed at.
Of course, one aspect of that is that both are about the black experience; and in a sense about the disturbing aspects of the black experience. While you'll hear plenty of rocking, foot-stomping, high-spirited blues, in truth the music grew out of the hardships of black life, from the depression born of oppression. The lyrics are often about these hardships. And of course the great civil rights struggles of a generation ago were about securing rights for black folk.
In Greenville, I spent half a day visiting with 90-plus year-old Lou Emma Allen. Lou Emma had offered her home to volunteers of 1964's "Freedom Summer", when young people streamed into the south from across the country to help with black voter registration drives. This was the core of the civil rights movement, this campaign to force the state machinery to recognize blacks as equal by simply giving them the vote.
Also visiting Lou Emma this day is a state senator, David Jordan. He traces his political roots to his activism during Freedom Summer, and he spoke at great length about those days and their legacy.
Then he turned to the blues. "So many white bands now taking to the blues," he said, shaking his head with a chuckle. "But that don't make no sense, 'cause that's music that comes from the miseries of black folk. It's our music." He was amused, if also slightly irritated, by this trend he has noticed. Something not quite authentic about it.
Later, I get talking to Lou Emma's son, A.J. A couple of observations he makes: one, young folks in the community are just not interested in the blues. Hip-hop, yes; rap, yes. Blues, no. And that's reflected in the crowd you'll find at juke joints: it's largely middle-aged or older. Two, young folks in the community are not interested in the civil rights movement either. "That's like ancient history to them," says A.J. "That's why I don' like talking about civil rights," he says to me, his voice dropping to a whisper perhaps because he thinks it will be a betrayal of what his mother fought for. But: "The youth? Man, they not innerested AT ALL."
And finally, there's one unwitting link that I think about during a walk through Greenwood.
Grand Boulevard in Greenwood takes you to the river, then the town vanishes. Indeed, and rather astonishing. Maybe because of a slight slope in the bridge across the river, or maybe something else: as you near the bridge, there's no clue that you're at the edge of town. But cross it and it's like a curtain's come down. Fields as far as you can see, a lone mansion in the distance, not even a car on the road as it winds to the horizon.
It's so abruptly desolate that I actually feel a small frisson of fear, completely unwarranted. But it was somewhere out in this direction, out in these fields, that Emmett Till was killed half a century ago. It was also omewhere out here that Robert Johnson, the father of the blues to those who know, was buried in 1931.
Emmett Till, of course, was the catalyst that set the civil rights movement in motion in these parts. Just 14 years old, he supposedly whistled at a white woman in 1955, for which "crime" he was murdered. The two white men accused, one the woman's husband, were acquitted by an all-white jury and have since died. And just about the time I stand on that bridge and think of Till, an effort to reopen his case founders: a Leflore County grand jury decided not to indict the woman.
And Johnson's death? Some curious parallels. He had been playing in the area for some weeks. By some accounts, he had been secretly carrying on with a married woman. Her husband found out. Bent on revenge, he offered Johnson poisoned whiskey one day in August 1938. Johnson was dead soon after, just 27 years old, just 29 songs old. But so influential; his gravestone says he is "Resting in the Blues."
Ghosts in these fields. Links I think about.
Of course, one aspect of that is that both are about the black experience; and in a sense about the disturbing aspects of the black experience. While you'll hear plenty of rocking, foot-stomping, high-spirited blues, in truth the music grew out of the hardships of black life, from the depression born of oppression. The lyrics are often about these hardships. And of course the great civil rights struggles of a generation ago were about securing rights for black folk.
In Greenville, I spent half a day visiting with 90-plus year-old Lou Emma Allen. Lou Emma had offered her home to volunteers of 1964's "Freedom Summer", when young people streamed into the south from across the country to help with black voter registration drives. This was the core of the civil rights movement, this campaign to force the state machinery to recognize blacks as equal by simply giving them the vote.
Also visiting Lou Emma this day is a state senator, David Jordan. He traces his political roots to his activism during Freedom Summer, and he spoke at great length about those days and their legacy.
Then he turned to the blues. "So many white bands now taking to the blues," he said, shaking his head with a chuckle. "But that don't make no sense, 'cause that's music that comes from the miseries of black folk. It's our music." He was amused, if also slightly irritated, by this trend he has noticed. Something not quite authentic about it.
Later, I get talking to Lou Emma's son, A.J. A couple of observations he makes: one, young folks in the community are just not interested in the blues. Hip-hop, yes; rap, yes. Blues, no. And that's reflected in the crowd you'll find at juke joints: it's largely middle-aged or older. Two, young folks in the community are not interested in the civil rights movement either. "That's like ancient history to them," says A.J. "That's why I don' like talking about civil rights," he says to me, his voice dropping to a whisper perhaps because he thinks it will be a betrayal of what his mother fought for. But: "The youth? Man, they not innerested AT ALL."
And finally, there's one unwitting link that I think about during a walk through Greenwood.
Grand Boulevard in Greenwood takes you to the river, then the town vanishes. Indeed, and rather astonishing. Maybe because of a slight slope in the bridge across the river, or maybe something else: as you near the bridge, there's no clue that you're at the edge of town. But cross it and it's like a curtain's come down. Fields as far as you can see, a lone mansion in the distance, not even a car on the road as it winds to the horizon.
It's so abruptly desolate that I actually feel a small frisson of fear, completely unwarranted. But it was somewhere out in this direction, out in these fields, that Emmett Till was killed half a century ago. It was also omewhere out here that Robert Johnson, the father of the blues to those who know, was buried in 1931.
Emmett Till, of course, was the catalyst that set the civil rights movement in motion in these parts. Just 14 years old, he supposedly whistled at a white woman in 1955, for which "crime" he was murdered. The two white men accused, one the woman's husband, were acquitted by an all-white jury and have since died. And just about the time I stand on that bridge and think of Till, an effort to reopen his case founders: a Leflore County grand jury decided not to indict the woman.
And Johnson's death? Some curious parallels. He had been playing in the area for some weeks. By some accounts, he had been secretly carrying on with a married woman. Her husband found out. Bent on revenge, he offered Johnson poisoned whiskey one day in August 1938. Johnson was dead soon after, just 27 years old, just 29 songs old. But so influential; his gravestone says he is "Resting in the Blues."
Ghosts in these fields. Links I think about.
Hair raising
On the road through Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, painted on the tar I see first the word "TANK", then the word "CROSSING". Tank crossing. I look this way and that fearfully, but I see no long-gunned metal-clad beast bearing down on me.
I am reminded of the long and arrow-straight highway from Greenwood to Indianola in Mississippi. Painted on the tar there I saw this ... well, I can't show it to you, so you'll just have to imagine -- an outline of a small aircraft. Meaning, small aircraft might just use this highway as a runway, to land on. So watch it.
Now I am pretty sure I can watch for a tank OK, thanks much. But how am I supposed to realize, before the fact, that a small plane is about to land on my head? And what do I do if I do see one about to land: brake sharply? Speed up? Swerve to the side and stop? Wave to the pilot?
Anyway, the next time artwork on the road catches my eye is on Ocracoke Island (one of the so-called Outer Banks) in North Carolina this afternoon. On the other side of the road, thus upside down for me, I see first, "YOU!". Then "LOVE". Then "I". Then "JOYCE".
"Joyce I love you!"
I'm told Joyce is in a small plane, reading it as she comes in for an unscheduled landing on the Ocracoke road.
No, I made that up. But as I'm driving along, I begin noticing something else: tire tracks curving across the road. Made by vehicles making U-turns on the road. Just a long series of them, stretching over several miles.
I don't know if it is my frame of mind weeks into this trip, or if it is the austere loveliness of Ocracoke, or if it is the chilly but gorgeous day: but after a while, these curving tracks begin to take on a definite beauty. After a while, it's almost as if they are forlorn locks of hair, strewn across the road.
Joyce's hair, no doubt.
I am reminded of the long and arrow-straight highway from Greenwood to Indianola in Mississippi. Painted on the tar there I saw this ... well, I can't show it to you, so you'll just have to imagine -- an outline of a small aircraft. Meaning, small aircraft might just use this highway as a runway, to land on. So watch it.
Now I am pretty sure I can watch for a tank OK, thanks much. But how am I supposed to realize, before the fact, that a small plane is about to land on my head? And what do I do if I do see one about to land: brake sharply? Speed up? Swerve to the side and stop? Wave to the pilot?
Anyway, the next time artwork on the road catches my eye is on Ocracoke Island (one of the so-called Outer Banks) in North Carolina this afternoon. On the other side of the road, thus upside down for me, I see first, "YOU!". Then "LOVE". Then "I". Then "JOYCE".
"Joyce I love you!"
I'm told Joyce is in a small plane, reading it as she comes in for an unscheduled landing on the Ocracoke road.
No, I made that up. But as I'm driving along, I begin noticing something else: tire tracks curving across the road. Made by vehicles making U-turns on the road. Just a long series of them, stretching over several miles.
I don't know if it is my frame of mind weeks into this trip, or if it is the austere loveliness of Ocracoke, or if it is the chilly but gorgeous day: but after a while, these curving tracks begin to take on a definite beauty. After a while, it's almost as if they are forlorn locks of hair, strewn across the road.
Joyce's hair, no doubt.
March 08, 2007
Smoking gun
As the Greyhound bus pulls out of New York heading for Baltimore, the driver greets us and issues instructions. Among other things, he tells us that there's no smoking on the bus. But for those who would like to smoke, he does suggest a way out.
That's right, a way out. He says, just come tell me that you want to smoke. I'll pull over, we'll let you off, and we'll continue on our way. Next stop, Wilmington Delaware.
As the Fort Sumter Tours boat pulls out of the Charleston dock heading for the fort, the PA system crackles to life and a man's voice greets us. He issues instructions too. There's a whole slew of kids, from Ridgeland Elementary School, aboard. So he urges all aboard to take care of the kids.
In particular, he says, watch where those kids go. They have a tendency to find a way into the barrels of the cannons on the fort. But it is the genius of the National Park Service, the Federal Government and all of us that we've found a good way to get them out. We load up the gun with ten pounds of explosive, point it out to sea and shoot. Welcome to Fort Sumter, ladies and gentlemen!
Near me, one of the kids, Tony Pusha, is peering curiously up at me. He asks, do you have the cake?
Since I don't have the cake, I say no, I don't have the cake.
Tony is not happy about this. He turns to his friends and I hear him muttering, I didn't say cake, I said candy!
And all through the trip out to Sumter, he gives me strange annoyed looks. But he doesn't try climbing into the cannons.
That's right, a way out. He says, just come tell me that you want to smoke. I'll pull over, we'll let you off, and we'll continue on our way. Next stop, Wilmington Delaware.
As the Fort Sumter Tours boat pulls out of the Charleston dock heading for the fort, the PA system crackles to life and a man's voice greets us. He issues instructions too. There's a whole slew of kids, from Ridgeland Elementary School, aboard. So he urges all aboard to take care of the kids.
In particular, he says, watch where those kids go. They have a tendency to find a way into the barrels of the cannons on the fort. But it is the genius of the National Park Service, the Federal Government and all of us that we've found a good way to get them out. We load up the gun with ten pounds of explosive, point it out to sea and shoot. Welcome to Fort Sumter, ladies and gentlemen!
Near me, one of the kids, Tony Pusha, is peering curiously up at me. He asks, do you have the cake?
Since I don't have the cake, I say no, I don't have the cake.
Tony is not happy about this. He turns to his friends and I hear him muttering, I didn't say cake, I said candy!
And all through the trip out to Sumter, he gives me strange annoyed looks. But he doesn't try climbing into the cannons.
Upsize that!
More bits and pieces from an American journey.
Radio stations: at any given moment at any given spot in this country, I'm willing to bet there's at least one station available up there in the ether that calls itself "The Eagle". Driving through central Alabama the other day, the resident Eagle was WQSI out of Union Springs. "We play the Best Country!" (or "The Best Rock", etc) is a cliche every station uses, this one no exception, so much so that it quickly means nothing. But at least while I was listening, this Eagle played some terrific country tunes. Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", the Oak Ridge Boy's "Bobby Sue" ("ba-ba, ba-ba, Bobby Sue") and "Y'All Come Back Saloon" ("late night benediction"), Pat Green's "Feels Just Like It Should" ("let's jump in my El Camino") and plenty of others. Good stuff.
But then I got into the northern reaches of the state, and this Eagle began to fade. Hit the old scan button on the radio and what do you know? Another Eagle, WELR from Roanoke. One more punch delivered to the scan button and I got one more Eagle, WBPT out of Birmingham.
And that's just in one part of one state, Alabama.
Also heard at various points while driving: stations that style themselves "The Fish" and "The Bull" (that last said in a satisfyingly deep voice). (Besides, of course, vast numbers called "Sunny" and "Magic" and "Star").
By now, I've taken to bashing that button in the hope of finding "The Platypus", or "The Lemur", or even "The Big Momma Ptarmigan."
But I keep finding Eagles.
***
Stopped at a Hardee's (home of the "Thickburger", of which more anon) for lunch. After I order, though not the Thickburger, and while I am waiting, I notice stuck in the cash register a laminated card. Titled "Breakfast Frontline Scripting" (wasn't that a Tom Cruise flick?), it has these lines:
Then it comes to me. The lady who took my order, she had rattled through precisely those phrases, verbatim, in precisely that order.
Not that she appeared to be listening to my answers, but never mind. Excellent training, for sure. Only, these lines are from the breakfast frontline scripting, and I'm there for lunch.
No wonder she wasn't listening.
As for the Thickburger, singing its praises is a minor cottage industry with small-town publications across the country, if various quotes in the store and on their packaging are any indication.
There's this from the Missoulan of Missoula, Montana: This is one burger that screams, "Eat Me".
And this from the Daily News in Troy, Ohio: It's a serious burger for serious eaters who want to fill up fast.
And this from the Tennesseean in Nashville: These well-dressed, one-third-pound Angus burgers rival real restaurant burgers but at fast food prices.
And my favourite, from QSR magazine: The Thickburgers are really good and Hardee's has in fact supplanted the casual dining restaurant I used to favour when I needed a burger fix.
No, I have no clue what QSR is.
***
Some church in South Carolina informs me: "God is the perfect judge and he can declare the guilty perfect."
One in Alabama asks me: "Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?"
In Louisiana, a huge hoarding advises me: "We Need To Talk." It's signed, simply, "God."
And then I remember the two stores on opposite sides of the old Atlanta Highway on the outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama. One is "Family Christian Store." The other is "Christian Book and Nutrition Center."
Now I'm willing to talk, really. But would anyone be able to explain what Christian nutrition might be?
***
Speaking of radio ... one definite evolution since I was last in these parts is the equivalent of fine print in commercials you hear. For example, you might listen to a car dealer breathlessly offering you a slew of what he wants you to believe are fabulous deals.
You know, like "A Ford F-150 truck, originally $32767, no-o-o-ow just $24381 and 57 cents! A savings of OVER EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS! Buy Now! Before I bonk you over the head!"
So an ad like that, it will invariably end with a man rattling off various conditions and details -- in a low voice and so fast that you have no hope of catching what he says. It's necessary, because they don't want you to comprehend, for example, that to get those fabulous deals you have to sign over your first born.
Just kidding. Your second born.
No, no, no! Just kidding. Really. But now the evolution. One such ad didn't rest on the laurels of details read quiet and fast. None of that wimpy stuff. The fellows who made it actually sped up the voice rattling off the details. So this time, it sounded like a totally drunk chipmunk squeaking for fifteen seconds, only less comprehensible.
***
In Walnut Hill, Alabama, a store called "Jelly Beans" needs "a working partner". If that interests you, let me know. I'll pass on the number. Give me some jelly beans for my pains, OK?
Need help making up your mind? This may just do it. On a scenic overlook only a few dozen miles from there, these lines are scrawled in huge letters across the pavement: "OMAR AND GAB! LOVE FOREVER".
Or maybe this will help. Also not very far, but in the other direction, is Toby's Grab Bag Art Gallery. I slow down to look. The most obvious bit of "art" at Toby's is a huge yellow sign purloined from the highway. It says: "LANE ENDS MERGE LEFT".
Radio stations: at any given moment at any given spot in this country, I'm willing to bet there's at least one station available up there in the ether that calls itself "The Eagle". Driving through central Alabama the other day, the resident Eagle was WQSI out of Union Springs. "We play the Best Country!" (or "The Best Rock", etc) is a cliche every station uses, this one no exception, so much so that it quickly means nothing. But at least while I was listening, this Eagle played some terrific country tunes. Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", the Oak Ridge Boy's "Bobby Sue" ("ba-ba, ba-ba, Bobby Sue") and "Y'All Come Back Saloon" ("late night benediction"), Pat Green's "Feels Just Like It Should" ("let's jump in my El Camino") and plenty of others. Good stuff.
But then I got into the northern reaches of the state, and this Eagle began to fade. Hit the old scan button on the radio and what do you know? Another Eagle, WELR from Roanoke. One more punch delivered to the scan button and I got one more Eagle, WBPT out of Birmingham.
And that's just in one part of one state, Alabama.
Also heard at various points while driving: stations that style themselves "The Fish" and "The Bull" (that last said in a satisfyingly deep voice). (Besides, of course, vast numbers called "Sunny" and "Magic" and "Star").
By now, I've taken to bashing that button in the hope of finding "The Platypus", or "The Lemur", or even "The Big Momma Ptarmigan."
But I keep finding Eagles.
Stopped at a Hardee's (home of the "Thickburger", of which more anon) for lunch. After I order, though not the Thickburger, and while I am waiting, I notice stuck in the cash register a laminated card. Titled "Breakfast Frontline Scripting" (wasn't that a Tom Cruise flick?), it has these lines:
- Hi, would you like to try our __________?
- Can I make that a combo for you?
- Would you like me to upsize that to medium or large?
- Will you be eating here?
- Your order number is __________.
Then it comes to me. The lady who took my order, she had rattled through precisely those phrases, verbatim, in precisely that order.
Not that she appeared to be listening to my answers, but never mind. Excellent training, for sure. Only, these lines are from the breakfast frontline scripting, and I'm there for lunch.
No wonder she wasn't listening.
As for the Thickburger, singing its praises is a minor cottage industry with small-town publications across the country, if various quotes in the store and on their packaging are any indication.
There's this from the Missoulan of Missoula, Montana: This is one burger that screams, "Eat Me".
And this from the Daily News in Troy, Ohio: It's a serious burger for serious eaters who want to fill up fast.
And this from the Tennesseean in Nashville: These well-dressed, one-third-pound Angus burgers rival real restaurant burgers but at fast food prices.
And my favourite, from QSR magazine: The Thickburgers are really good and Hardee's has in fact supplanted the casual dining restaurant I used to favour when I needed a burger fix.
No, I have no clue what QSR is.
Some church in South Carolina informs me: "God is the perfect judge and he can declare the guilty perfect."
One in Alabama asks me: "Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?"
In Louisiana, a huge hoarding advises me: "We Need To Talk." It's signed, simply, "God."
And then I remember the two stores on opposite sides of the old Atlanta Highway on the outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama. One is "Family Christian Store." The other is "Christian Book and Nutrition Center."
Now I'm willing to talk, really. But would anyone be able to explain what Christian nutrition might be?
Speaking of radio ... one definite evolution since I was last in these parts is the equivalent of fine print in commercials you hear. For example, you might listen to a car dealer breathlessly offering you a slew of what he wants you to believe are fabulous deals.
You know, like "A Ford F-150 truck, originally $32767, no-o-o-ow just $24381 and 57 cents! A savings of OVER EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS! Buy Now! Before I bonk you over the head!"
So an ad like that, it will invariably end with a man rattling off various conditions and details -- in a low voice and so fast that you have no hope of catching what he says. It's necessary, because they don't want you to comprehend, for example, that to get those fabulous deals you have to sign over your first born.
Just kidding. Your second born.
No, no, no! Just kidding. Really. But now the evolution. One such ad didn't rest on the laurels of details read quiet and fast. None of that wimpy stuff. The fellows who made it actually sped up the voice rattling off the details. So this time, it sounded like a totally drunk chipmunk squeaking for fifteen seconds, only less comprehensible.
In Walnut Hill, Alabama, a store called "Jelly Beans" needs "a working partner". If that interests you, let me know. I'll pass on the number. Give me some jelly beans for my pains, OK?
Need help making up your mind? This may just do it. On a scenic overlook only a few dozen miles from there, these lines are scrawled in huge letters across the pavement: "OMAR AND GAB! LOVE FOREVER".
Or maybe this will help. Also not very far, but in the other direction, is Toby's Grab Bag Art Gallery. I slow down to look. The most obvious bit of "art" at Toby's is a huge yellow sign purloined from the highway. It says: "LANE ENDS MERGE LEFT".
History channel
Motel I'm in, none of the light fittings worked when I first got the room. An electrician worked to fix them, then said to me, all's well except the TV. Told him I didn't particularly want the TV.
He looked startled. No, he said, I'm going to fix it for you. I can't do without the History Channel, and you've got to watch it too.
And that remark got me thinking again of something unconnected that I've been puzzling over: What is it about being historic?
I mean, I've lost track of the number of small towns that advertise themselves as "historic". Sample: Dayton, Tennessee; Corinth, Mississippi; Denmark, South Carolina; Tallassee, Alabama; Beaufort, South Carolina (pronounced "byoo-fort"); Beaufort, North Carolina (pronounced "bow-fort"); on and on.
They all invariably have "historic downtowns", though truth be told, it would be hard to distinguish downtown from uptown, they are often that small.
What explains the urge to be historic? I mean, in the sense that everything on this planet has a history, we are all historic. I feel positively historic myself. But that is trivial, surely. If every town decides it is old and full of history, what can it all mean any more apart from dressing up some buildings and putting up some banners?
Then again, a few days ago I was pulling out of a parking lot outside Jackson, Tennessee (don't know if that city is historic). In front of me was a car with a special plaque that read "Antique Car". Reading that plaque, I almost choked, almost crashed into a light pole. For this was, I swear, a mid-80s Chevy Citation. (That's 1980s, not 1880s).
One of those nondescript odd-shaped beasts Detroit churned out by the million in those years. Now anointed an "antique". Yes sir. Maybe that's historic by itself.
He looked startled. No, he said, I'm going to fix it for you. I can't do without the History Channel, and you've got to watch it too.
And that remark got me thinking again of something unconnected that I've been puzzling over: What is it about being historic?
I mean, I've lost track of the number of small towns that advertise themselves as "historic". Sample: Dayton, Tennessee; Corinth, Mississippi; Denmark, South Carolina; Tallassee, Alabama; Beaufort, South Carolina (pronounced "byoo-fort"); Beaufort, North Carolina (pronounced "bow-fort"); on and on.
They all invariably have "historic downtowns", though truth be told, it would be hard to distinguish downtown from uptown, they are often that small.
What explains the urge to be historic? I mean, in the sense that everything on this planet has a history, we are all historic. I feel positively historic myself. But that is trivial, surely. If every town decides it is old and full of history, what can it all mean any more apart from dressing up some buildings and putting up some banners?
Then again, a few days ago I was pulling out of a parking lot outside Jackson, Tennessee (don't know if that city is historic). In front of me was a car with a special plaque that read "Antique Car". Reading that plaque, I almost choked, almost crashed into a light pole. For this was, I swear, a mid-80s Chevy Citation. (That's 1980s, not 1880s).
One of those nondescript odd-shaped beasts Detroit churned out by the million in those years. Now anointed an "antique". Yes sir. Maybe that's historic by itself.
March 05, 2007
Not burning bright
My Monday MidDay column is in the paper ... and also appended below. My title was Not burning bright; as printed, it's called Buffalo Soldier. Your thoughts welcome, as always.
***
The thing that attracted me to the national park called Land Between the Lakes, on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, was the chance to see bald eagles. Scratch that: the thing that really attracted me there was a previous time I had visited, almost twenty years ago. I remember an almost surreal beauty then, especially at dusk as the mist and herons hovered above the lakes -- really, wide stretches of river -- that run on either side of this long finger of land.
Nevertheless, this time the eagles were a definite draw. Several of these magnificent birds spend the winter here, and the park rangers organize trips out to see them. The last such trip for this winter was on February 19. I signed up on the phone, and was pointing my whole trip towards making it there to see the eagles.
Turned out I had some car trouble in North Carolina, so I could not reach Land Between the Lakes by February 19. So much for the eagles. But two days later, I was there. It was evening, so I saw again the mist and herons rising from the lake. Slept in my tent through a below-freezing night sparkling with stars, woke up at dawn and warmed myself with a shower, and then I was ready ... not for eagles, but for bison.
Give up one American icon, I always say, and find another.
Kentucky and Tennessee used to be one vast stretch of grassland, or prairie. Until as recently as a couple of hundred years ago, thousands of bison (the animals that are also referred to, if incorrectly, as "buffalo") inhabited the prairie. They would swim across the rivers and graze on the grass here. As the signs in the park tell me, the animals
The white man forced the native people out of these areas, drove them further west. And the buffalo slaughter began. The animals were a fabulous way to get all kinds of goodies:
Yes: a portion of the Land Between the Lakes park is set aside as an "Elk and Bison Prairie". It has been consciously nurtured to be the way prairies used to be in the time of the large bison herds, and it is now home to 32 bison and 63 elk. (There is a smaller herd in a smaller range in the south of the park).
So on this sunny morning, I drive slowly into the prairie. Signs urge me to stay in the car if the animals approach within 200 feet, because while they may appear tame (and slow) -- which they do -- they are really wild, unpredictable and dangerous. I'm not looking to test the veracity of that, so I stay in the car. Round a curve and across a small stream, I am suddenly in the middle of 28 of the 32 bison. Some no more than ten feet from my driver's side window. Almost near enough to reach out and touch.
It is surprisingly soothing, being here. When I turn off my engine and my ears get tuned to the quiet, all I can hear are occasional birds -- no bald eagles -- and the gentle munching of these bovines as they graze. It strikes me that I could listen all day to that sound. It grows on me by the minute.
As often happens at moments like this, my thoughts begin to wander. The closest parallel to the bison that I can think of in India is the tiger: another handsome animal emblematic of a country, steeped in its history, hunted to near extinction for its commercial value.
Our acclaimed Project Tiger programme is credited with having raised tiger numbers nearly three-fold in two decades: to about 3000 in the late 1990s. Yet of late, people have raised serious doubts about that number. At least one park known to have had tigers, Sariska in Rajasthan, has lost all its animals to poaching. Others have two-digit counts of the animal.
What are we doing wrong in India, you wonder. Could it be as simple as this: that most people don't see any stake in, any interest in, the preservation of the tiger? That therefore, maybe the tiger doesn't seem more real than just a symbol?
Here at Land Between the Lakes, the bison is very real indeed. Not only can you see them, you can actually wander among them, get as close as I did. Being ten feet away forces you to comprehend the meaning of the drop in their numbers from the millions to just two; and the subsequent rise to the thousands.
I realize the tiger is a different animal, that it would not be possible to do the same with it as they do with bison. Yet I wonder: with some imagination, surely there must be a way to involve more people with the tiger, so that more of us see this majestic animal as worth preserving?
Surely we will not let this Indian icon dwindle into oblivion?
Ahead of me, one of the bison crosses the road slowly. For the first time, I notice its tiny eyes. I could swear he is watching me. As intently as I am watching him.
The thing that attracted me to the national park called Land Between the Lakes, on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, was the chance to see bald eagles. Scratch that: the thing that really attracted me there was a previous time I had visited, almost twenty years ago. I remember an almost surreal beauty then, especially at dusk as the mist and herons hovered above the lakes -- really, wide stretches of river -- that run on either side of this long finger of land.
Nevertheless, this time the eagles were a definite draw. Several of these magnificent birds spend the winter here, and the park rangers organize trips out to see them. The last such trip for this winter was on February 19. I signed up on the phone, and was pointing my whole trip towards making it there to see the eagles.
Turned out I had some car trouble in North Carolina, so I could not reach Land Between the Lakes by February 19. So much for the eagles. But two days later, I was there. It was evening, so I saw again the mist and herons rising from the lake. Slept in my tent through a below-freezing night sparkling with stars, woke up at dawn and warmed myself with a shower, and then I was ready ... not for eagles, but for bison.
Give up one American icon, I always say, and find another.
Kentucky and Tennessee used to be one vast stretch of grassland, or prairie. Until as recently as a couple of hundred years ago, thousands of bison (the animals that are also referred to, if incorrectly, as "buffalo") inhabited the prairie. They would swim across the rivers and graze on the grass here. As the signs in the park tell me, the animals
- "... etched their tracks into the gentle hills between the rivers. ... [T]hunderous migrations of bison and elk eroded paths that many of our current highways follow today."
The white man forced the native people out of these areas, drove them further west. And the buffalo slaughter began. The animals were a fabulous way to get all kinds of goodies:
- "[They] provided an abundant supply of meat. Hides and bones were used to fashion clothing, robes, blankets and tools. Buffalo were also killed for their market value. Traders made handsome profits selling tongue and tallow, meat and hides."
Yes: a portion of the Land Between the Lakes park is set aside as an "Elk and Bison Prairie". It has been consciously nurtured to be the way prairies used to be in the time of the large bison herds, and it is now home to 32 bison and 63 elk. (There is a smaller herd in a smaller range in the south of the park).
So on this sunny morning, I drive slowly into the prairie. Signs urge me to stay in the car if the animals approach within 200 feet, because while they may appear tame (and slow) -- which they do -- they are really wild, unpredictable and dangerous. I'm not looking to test the veracity of that, so I stay in the car. Round a curve and across a small stream, I am suddenly in the middle of 28 of the 32 bison. Some no more than ten feet from my driver's side window. Almost near enough to reach out and touch.
It is surprisingly soothing, being here. When I turn off my engine and my ears get tuned to the quiet, all I can hear are occasional birds -- no bald eagles -- and the gentle munching of these bovines as they graze. It strikes me that I could listen all day to that sound. It grows on me by the minute.
As often happens at moments like this, my thoughts begin to wander. The closest parallel to the bison that I can think of in India is the tiger: another handsome animal emblematic of a country, steeped in its history, hunted to near extinction for its commercial value.
Our acclaimed Project Tiger programme is credited with having raised tiger numbers nearly three-fold in two decades: to about 3000 in the late 1990s. Yet of late, people have raised serious doubts about that number. At least one park known to have had tigers, Sariska in Rajasthan, has lost all its animals to poaching. Others have two-digit counts of the animal.
What are we doing wrong in India, you wonder. Could it be as simple as this: that most people don't see any stake in, any interest in, the preservation of the tiger? That therefore, maybe the tiger doesn't seem more real than just a symbol?
Here at Land Between the Lakes, the bison is very real indeed. Not only can you see them, you can actually wander among them, get as close as I did. Being ten feet away forces you to comprehend the meaning of the drop in their numbers from the millions to just two; and the subsequent rise to the thousands.
I realize the tiger is a different animal, that it would not be possible to do the same with it as they do with bison. Yet I wonder: with some imagination, surely there must be a way to involve more people with the tiger, so that more of us see this majestic animal as worth preserving?
Surely we will not let this Indian icon dwindle into oblivion?
Ahead of me, one of the bison crosses the road slowly. For the first time, I notice its tiny eyes. I could swear he is watching me. As intently as I am watching him.
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