The Canadas
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Summer 1999 News Cumberland Gap and
Lexington, Kentucky Updated August 11, 2002 |
Mark Takes a Solo TripAs we frequently do, we traveled this summer to Indiana to
visit our families. We took in Hopewell
Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio, along the way and visited
the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo while we were in Indiana. The festivities in Indiana this
summer included a party for Lisa’s parents, who were celebrating their 50th
wedding anniversary. Lisa and
Essie stayed behind for the party, but I had to return to North Carolina to
begin the fall semester at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The conflict provided an opportunity
to take my first solo trip. Like
a kid in a candy store, I seized this opportunity, stretching the 700-mile
trip over three days and soaking up all the history and nature I could along
the way. My stops included the
Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Howard Taft homes, as well as a riverwalk,
in Cincinnati; the Cumberland Gap and Henry Clay’s home in Kentucky; and the
Great Smoky Mountains, where I went for the best jog in my life. A few weeks later, Lisa and Essie
took a train from Indiana to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where I
picked them up and brought back to North Carolina. |
Chillicothe, Ohio
July 14, 1999: We have long enjoyed visiting interesting places, either making a special trip to see one or stopping at one place on the way to another. Since we began traveling with Esprit, however, we have had a new reason to get out of the car and take in the world. While she generally is a good traveler, Essie tends to become restless after she has sat in her car seat for more than three or four hours. Thus, in preparation for our annual summer trip to see our families in Indiana this year, we got a map of the entire southeastern United States and marked a couple of dozen parks, historic sites, and other attractions along our route so that we would know where to stop when she became irritable.
One place we stopped was Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio. One of the many places in the Midwest where one can see mounds built by Native Americans, this park contains Mound City, a collection of 23 mounds surrounded by a long earthwork wall. These mounds and others were constructed by a mysterious collection of Native American peoples who lived about 2,000 years ago in an area stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains. Archeologists do not know what these people called themselves, but they refer to them as members of the Hopewell culture because an important excavation of their mounds was done on a farm owned by Captain Mordecai Hopewell in 1891. The Hopewellians apparently built their mounds for ritualistic purposes, sometimes burying craft items and even their cremated dead there. During our tour of the park, Essie discovered another use for the mounds. The first thing she did was to scale one that was about 10 feet high and then come down it, first walking and then running.
John Anderson Concert
July: Nearly a decade ago, I went to see my favorite band, the Rolling Stones, in concert in the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana. Even before Stones tickets became really outrageous, Lisa and I paid $40 or $50 for admission and sat so far away that we couldn't be sure that we were really watching Mick Jagger; for all we knew, it could have been Erma Bombeck backed up by the Golden Girls. We probably fought traffic to get there, stood up the entire concert, left partially deaf, and fought traffic to get home. Yet if you were one of the people who asked me about it later, I probably told you it was great. In a way, it was. On the other hand, it's no accident that I have seen few concerts since that one, nearly a decade ago.
While
we were in Fort Wayne, Indiana, visiting family, however, Lisa noticed that one
of our favorite musicians, country artist John Anderson, was going to give a
free concert in nearby Warsaw, Indiana. On the day of the concert, the
temperature reached 100 early in the day, and Lisa was afraid it would be too
hot for her. I went by myself, though, and enjoyed one of the best concert
experiences I have had. It was by no means the best concert I have seen--it
lasted only an hour, and Anderson did not play a single song from Paradise,
an album Lisa and I love--but it was a great concert experience. Having had
little time to build my expectations, I simply climbed into the car, drove
through virtually no traffic, parked without trouble, set up a lawn chair in an
open spot in the park, and ate a sandwich I had brought with me. Within a few
minutes, Anderson stepped on stage and began to play. Without encountering any
security guards, I walked right up in front of the stage and took several
pictures, and then returned to my seat. There were no fireworks, no giant
screen, no battleship-sized stage, no technicolor costumes--just Anderson in a
black outfit and a black hat, a backup band dressed for a backyard barbecue,
and some great songs: "I Got It Made," "Straight Tequila
Night," "Seminole Wind." Unlike the crowd Anderson describes in
one of his songs--"truckers, bikers, drifters, and locals from the sticks"--the
audience appeared to include a lot of families who simply wanted to relax in
the park and listen to music. It didn't even bother me that many of them
probably had never heard of John Anderson or were surprised to hear that the
politician who ran against Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980 was
moonlighting as a country music singer. As I sat there taking it all in, it
occured to me that this was what a concert should be--and, now that I think
back on it, what all performances should be. I, for one, would enjoy concerts,
baseball games, and other forms of entertainment more if I were going not to an
event that was larger than life and was surrounded by hoopla larger than it,
but to a simple occasion where some people used their talent to entertain some
other people.
Animal Lover
July: Essie has discovered animals.
Of
course, she had been dimly aware of them for some time. Like lightning flashing
over Ben Franklin's head, these mysterious creatures had suggested but never
revealed themselves to her. Instead, they came as brief or distant
visitations--a bird skipping through the grass and then vanishing, a dog
barking behind a fence. In the past few weeks, however, they have drawn closer
to her--and she to them. At Grandma and Grandpa's house in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
she has shared a house with a cat, and near two ponds she has approached ducks
and geese. Her new awareness--friendship, she might say, if she could--shows in
her reactions to these animals. Instead of staring or shying away, she points
to them, laughs, looks up at Mom or Dad, perhaps steps forward for a closer
look.
It was a perfect time, then, to take her on her first trip to the zoo. While in Fort Wayne visiting Lisa's family, we took her to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo and dazzled her with monkeys, giraffes, otters, pigs, birds of every sort, even a warthog. Sometimes beaming, sometimes scowling, on some occasions even waving, she added beast after beast to her mental inventory, though she sometimes struggled with cataloging them. When told that she was looking at a prairie dog, for example, she barked--"Arf!"--a greeting she repeated in the goat yard. In this latter portion of the zoo, her favorite, Essie got to be more personal with the animals, gingerly stretching out a hand to pet several goats and even trying to give one a kiss.
Cincinnati, Ohio
August 5, 1999: I like routine. I suppose I like it because it provides stability and security, but there's another benefit: routine makes surprises possible--and, in some cases, exciting. My trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, had its share of surprises.
For the first time in years, I traveled alone. Lisa and Essie stayed in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where they will attend a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for Lisa's parents on August 20. Because my semester begins August 18, I left early and decided to stop at a few interesting places on my way home to Laurinburg, North Carolina. I planned to stop first in Cincinnati, where I could see a Reds game, eat at Pete Rose's restaurant, and perhaps visit the Harriet Beecher Stowe house.
The
surprises began when I entered Ohio and saw the time on a bank sign. I had left
Fort Wayne in time to make the game or perhaps be a little late, but I had
forgotten that Ohio is an hour ahead of Indiana. Scratch the Reds game. I was
only partially disappointed, though, because I knew I now would have more time
to do other things. I started with the Harriet Beecher Stowe house,
which quickly became surprise number two. Because the sign in the front window
erroneously read "CLOSED," I went to the back door, where I was
scolded by the attendant for coming in the wrong door. She told me that I
couldn't go upstairs and then ignored me for the rest of my visit, which was
brief. More a repository for information about African-American
history--including a handout on the Tuskegee Airmen--than a Stowe museum, the
house was a disappointment, but I did snap a picture of it and noted that
Harriet lived there with her family before she married Calvin Stowe. I look
forward to sharing the picture with my students when I teach Uncle Tom's
Cabin in my American novel class this fall. The next surprise was a
pleasant one. I stopped at the William Howard Taft National Historic Site
so that I could collect another stamp for my National Parks Passport. I got the
stamp, but I also got a delightful, fascinating personal tour from an
outstanding park ranger. As someone who loves American history, but is only
mildly interested in the presidents, I harbored no special fascination with
Taft--for me, a second- or third-tier president akin to Polk or Harding. Seeing
the house where "Willie" grew up, listening to the ranger describe
his life, and seeing the exhibits upstairs, however, brought the subject to
life. I learned about Taft's political family--his father was an ambassador,
and the Tafts, like the modern Kennedys, even had a compound in the
Northeast--his upbringing, his political life, and his term in the United
States Supreme Court. While we were in the house's tiny but beautiful library,
the ranger explained that Willie's parents--unlike their Victorian
contemporaries--treated their children as they would adults, involving them in
grown-up discussions. Perhaps the most interesting detail I learned was that
Taft was more an academic than a politician. He was reluctant to become heavily
involved in politics and actually saw his appointment to the Supreme Court as
the pinnacle of his professional life. After leaving the Taft home, I headed to
downtown Cincinnati, but was a little disappointed by the self-guided
walking tour I took. Aside from several buildings in the "Commercial
style"--Is this how I should start referring to the architecture of the
mall down the street from my parents' house?--Cincinnati's downtown does not
seem to have much to offer the history buff. It is, however, pleasant and
interesting in the present. In my efforts to find a AAA office, I wandered into
the gigantic office building of Proctor and Gamble, one of the country's
largest companies. I also walked a mile or so in the Skywalk--a clever and
convenient means for avoiding traffic and poor weather. Even my trip to AAA was
noteworthy. The office is large, immaculate, even attractive--an antique Ford
from the early part of the century sits on display in the lobby--and the people
were extraordinarily helpful. Here was the site of yet another surprisete Rose
doesn't have a restaurant in Cincinnati. The closest I came to soaking up some
of his legend was hearing him plug a financial services business on an AM radio
station.
The final surprise in Cincinnati was the most pleasant of all. In planning my trip, I had hoped to spend some time by the Ohio River, but I could not find a bike trail that ran alongside it. After my walking tour downtown, however, I drove over a bridge to Covington, Kentucky, and discovered a wonderful riverwalk. On a cool, clear, and altogether glorious summer evening, I went for an exhilarating 4-mile-jog along the Kentucky side of the river, over an 1860s suspension bridge that James Roebbling designed before he designed the Brooklyn Bridge, along Cincinnati's riverwalk, and back over the bridge to Kentucky. Along the way, I enjoyed views of the gardens in Cincinnati's Sawyer Point park, several statues of figures such as the Roman soldier-farmer Cincinnatus, and a huge riverboat called the Mississippi Queen, which was steaming down the Ohio as I ran over the Roebbling Bridge.
Cumberland Gap and Lexington, Kentucky
August 6, 1999: On my way from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Lisa and Essie stayed behind to attend a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for Lisa's parents on August 20, to North Carolina, where I had to begin teaching on August 18, I stopped in Kentucky and spent a couple of days soaking up the pioneer experience. Like Lisa, who likes to read letters and diaries written by pioneer women, I am fascinated by the American move west. I suppose I feel a connection to the pioneers because of their intimate relationship with the landscape and their ambition. At the same time, I am awed and humbled by their physical strength and tolerance of deprivation. As one of the first areas to be settled outside the colonies, Kentucky is one of the best places to relive this frontier experience. Although St. Louis, Missouri, eventually became known as the "Gateway to the West" because of the settlers who passed through there in the mid-1800s, the real gateway in my mind is the Cumberland Gap, a natural break in the Appalachian Mountains. Created because of a river that flowed here when Cumberland Mountain was formed millions of years ago, the gap was known to buffalo and Native Americans before white explorers found it in 1750. After an early expedition involving Thomas Walker and others, Daniel Boone began blazing the Wilderness Trail in 1775. This trail, which eventually became the Wilderness Road, was a route by which about 12,000 settlers traveled into Kentucy in less than a decade. By 1810, as many as 300,000 people passed through this original gateway to the West. I arrived at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Friday evening and spent some time on a rock up on Pinacle Overlook. From the overlook I could see the relatively flat land in the East, the direction from which the settlers came, as well as the gap itself, through which they found relatively easy passage to the West. The experience became more meaningful for me that night and the following morning. I spent the night in a tent in the Wilderness Road campground, where I was surrounded by the same dense forest that surrounded the pioneers, saw the same glorious night sky that they saw--a black dome dotted with a thousand silver stars--slept on the same hard ground to the sounds of the same chirping insects--or their descendants--and awoke the next morning to the same sharp crescent moon. That morning, I hiked up a portion of the Wilderness Trail and marveled at the difficulty--not for a man hiking alone, but for all those families who were carrying their possessions along with them.
While
in Kentucky, I also visited Ashland, the estate occupied from 1806 to
1852 by the great statesman Henry Clay, known for the compromises he helped to
orchestrate between North and South before the Civil War and for his comment
"I'd rather be right than president." Clay's original house at
Ashland was torn down because it was not sound, but Clay's son James built a
house with the same design on the original foundation. This house, which still
stands, has a number of distinctive features, including a beautiful octagonal
library, a bed and mirror made from ash trees growing on the grounds, and a
wall covering called lincrusta, molded from sawdust and glue. Even more
appealing to me are the grounds, which include a large wooded expanse and a
peaceful landscape garden.
Great Smoky Mountains
August
7, 1999: On a trip from Indiana to North Carolina, I stopped in Great Smoky
Mountains National Park and went for a jog on the Appalachian Trail, the famous
2,155-mile route extending from Maine to Georgia. The exhilaration I felt once
I was on the trail, though, had little to do with its name or fame. Instead,
the thrill came directly from nature--both outside and inside me. For starters,
although the temperature in the sun at Newfound Gap Road, where I started, was
in the 80s or 90s, the air on the shady, higher trail was remarkably cool,
perhaps in the 60s. Although trees blocked my view most of the time, I knew
from numerous glimpses of sky and distant slopes that I was running along the
side of a mountain and perhaps sensed unconsciously--as I suppose I always do
when I am in the mountains--that I had risen above the earth, transcended it.
The greatest source of exhilaration, though, came from inside me. This portion
of the trail, which stretches four miles from Newfound Gap Road to an overlook
called Charlie's Bunion, is one of the greatest physical challenges I have faced.
It climbs perhaps 1,000 feet, and, as a ranger warned me, the air is thin at
that altitude. Although my goal was Charlie's Bunion, I guessed at the start
that I might do 2 miles and have to turn back. My body, with a little help from
my mind, responded, though, and I made it to the 1.7 mile mark and then the 2.7
mile mark without considering turning back. I slowed down to walk a few times
when the terrain was especially rocky or when I needed a break, but mainly I
ran, completing the 4 miles in 52 minutes, 55 seconds. I didn't set any
records, I'm sure, but I showed myself what I could do. I felt as strong as I
have ever felt. While that feeling was the greatest reward of the climb, a
secondary one was the breathtaking view from Charlie's Bunion--the most spectacular
I have experienced. From a ledge where there was no guardrail, I gazed out at
fields of giant slopes--six in all, layered like the sets on a stage. I looked
down on a mountain. Immediately in front of me, in remarkably clear relief
against the backdrop of the softer peaks and slopes, were three clusters of
rocks jutting almost vertically out from the ledge where I stood. I sat there
for a while, amazed by the stillness and quiet, and then returned to earth.