Among the Plain People

Amish buggy waits outside a restaurant in Howe, Indiana.

I'm always more interested in meeting people than seeing things. Now that we are among the Amish in Indiana I'm just in my glory. We came into the tiny town of Howe, a farming community east of Elkhart, Indiana, and we stopped at a campground out in what was once a farm field. We drove "downtown" after we were settled and there they were: two black buggies tied to a hitching post outside a Pizza Hut.
We went to the CVS pharmacy to fill a prescription and there were six buggies tied there.
The next day, Saturday, was market day and we wandered around the central part of Howe and bought the bacon and cheese bread ($1.50) made by a delightful Amish woman whose prim green dress was fastened with plain pins. Her white cap had simple ribbons to tie it down. Next to her were three men, with their beards - but no mustache. Their young boys were bored with the market and sat in chairs with their straw hats over their faces. The men were selling cabbage and cucumbers - organic, of course. We did not shoot pictures of these people because they do not believe their image should be captured.
We wandered along country roads, passing the buggies which clip-clop along in their own lane, and came to the town of Shipshewana, considered a cultural center for the Amish and their less biblically strict brothers, the Mennonites. We stopped into Yodel's meat market and it was humming with the plain people, as they are called. All the meats are wrapped in white paper and are labeled. Jo didn't like that she couldn't see the meat. So she wouldn't buy. But I bought a two-pound dollop of churned butter.
We wandered through town and visited a saddlery since this is such a horse culture. Many of the Amish still plough their fields with big Belgian horses. The saddlery was loaded with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bits, bridles and other things equestrian. There was a great variety of saddles and blankets and boots and hats.
The Amish just don't believe in using the internal combustion engine, or electricity, or any of the millions of other modern conveniences we take for granted.
Their dolls, by the way, have no facial features. I actually see a bit of a similarity between the Amish and Muslims we have met in Malaysia and Pakistan. You'll have a hard time finding a doll in a Muslim household because they do not believe in creating likenesses of people. They did make an exception for Barbie dolls, strangely, because they simply do not believe Barbie is representative of anything human. I like that.

Back at the campground, we met up with an RV-er who retired early after a career as a repo man. For those of you outside the U.S., a repo man is a person who is hired to repossess cars, trucks and other vehicles when their owners default on their payments.
Tim told us he used to earn a six-figure income as a repo man, generally getting about $650 per vehicle on average. I asked about the dangers involved and he said he had only been approached once by a man with a gun. He said he made a point of grabbing the vehicles in the dead of night. He said he had a tow truck with an extending wheel which would pop under the towed vehicle and he'd hoist and haul in a matter of seconds. If a vehicle was in a garage, he said he'd patiently wait until the owner drove it to work. Then he'd make his move.
One story he told was of the owner of a Jaguar, a woman. She drove it to the gas station, filled it and went into the station to pay for the gas. He decided to drive it away so he left his vehicle, tried to open the door - but it was locked. The woman had left the sunroof open, though, so he jumped into the car through the roof opening. She came out of the gas station, screaming at him to stop. He showed her the paperwork and offered to drive her home or to the office. She accepted.
And so life goes.

Learning about Lincoln

Jo meets with President Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

And so we came to New Salem, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln was formed. We drove north through the flat farmlands of Illinois into the capital city of Springfield. We moved on north a bit and came to the New Salem National Historic site. This is where Lincoln spent a few years as a young man.
Luckily, we were able to secure a site for our motor home at the campground at the site. After we got settled in almost unbearable heat (96 degrees with a heat index of 106 because of the humidity), we ventured out to the village.
It is peopled by re-enactors from the 1830s. I particularly enjoyed a young woman who said she was working off a $2 debt at the local doctor's office. She told me she had suffered from severe headaches. The doctor, who tends to like bleeding his patients, she said, chose instead to make up a potion of herbs and provided her with four glass vials of the potions. Each vial was 50 cents apiece which in 1834 was equivalent of a day's pay. So she was taking care of the doc's office while he was off at a birthing of a horse in the village. He also pulls teeth, the young girl said. She very kindly offered to bleed me with leeches if I was not willing to await the arrival of the doctor. I said I'd prefer to wait.
We chatted with her for a while, then Jo asked her about her job as a presenter. She agreed to step out of character and told us she was a student. She and four other students work at New Salem for a small stipend and they get three credits. She returned to character as we left and made light of Abe Lincoln whom I asked about. "Oh, he's probably gone to Springfield. He's such a politician," she said with a laugh. I suggested that a fine young woman like her might think about a man with Lincoln's character as a suitor. "Oh, I think I'll look farther," she said with a chuckle. She had little faith that Abe would amount to much.
At the Rutledge Tavern, I suggested to the elderly woman who sat in the shade quilting that she would do a land office business were she to sell cold beers. She stayed in character and said beer was not available on the frontier in the 1830s. She said the men would drink rye whiskey or peach brandy. A sign on the wall indicated the cost of room and board for the night was 37 and a half cents. I said that seemed like a decent price and she said that price was set by law and was as high as the tavern could charge. She said it was pretty expensive because people could expect to earn about 50 cents a day so they would tend to negotiate down on that 37 and a half cents.
I made a major faux pax by asking her if the colorful corn hanging on the wall of the tavern would have been used for feeding the birds. “Oh, sir. No. No. No. The birds must take of themselves. This is the choice corn that has been set aside for the next planting season. This is the new seed corn.” When I thought about it, it did seem silly to think of feeding the birds when you are on the edge of the prairie and survival is paramount for the humans.
We spent time chatting with Mr. Berry, who owned a store with Lincoln. He regaled us with yarns about Abe and how, when he joined the local militia, he was voted captain of the regiment, perhaps the first time he had a leadership role. He told us of their struggle to repay the debt of buying the store. Abe eventually sold his share to Berry but then Berry died of the consumption about a year later. Abe took responsibility for Berry's debts, as was the tradition of the time.

Tuesday: We drove 18 miles to Springfield, the capital. Destination: the new Lincoln Museum. This is a first-rate place. Not only are there numerous displays of Lincoln memorabilia, but there are many stage shows. “Ghosts in the Library” was an astonishing high-tech mixture of holograms and a live actor. It was so captivating and mind boggling that we made a second visit to see if we could figure out where humans left off and where the technology took up the story. But it was seamless and left us astonished.
We also attended a two-man play set in Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., that struggled with the impact of the assassination of Lincoln in 1865. And the actors came on stage at the end to answer questions about the events.

One of the presentations in another theater took us through the life and events of the president. It was filled with outstanding effects, including vibrating seats that fairly lifted you up during the battles of the Civil War. Great production values that would capture people of every age.

Trail of Tears

The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war
I'm going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee
I'm going to Graceland
Poorboys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland

Lyrics to Graceland, Paul Simon

We're on that ribbon of highway, coming north from Louisiana. After a layover in Jackson, Mississippi, at a spectacular campground on the edge of a lake, we were refreshed and ready to roll.

Our neighboring camper, in an eight-foot-square blue tent, had installed an air conditioner in the wall of his tent. That's roughing it in America, folks.

Before we left the camp we were visited by a red-tailed squirrel who knew no fear. He perched on our windshield wipers and nosily looked inside our rig. Then we heard him rummaging around in the engine compartment. Chai was quite perturbed. Pictures are to be found if you click on those.

The road out of the Louisiana lowlands, through the delta and the bayous, was like a washboard, pretty rough. Even though it is an interstate highway, it was desperately in need of repair because the concrete slabs seemed to have subsided just a hair. As a result, there was a constant thunking as we moved along over each of the discrepancies.

When we came to the northern edge of Mississippi, 585 miles after we filled up our gas tank in western Florida, we stopped and were shocked to find that we had not screwed the fuel filler cap back on after our last fill-up. So first thing after getting into our campground (Elvis Presley RV Park, in Memphis just down the road from Elvis' Graceland), we went off in search of a replacement filler cap. We found it at an auto store a few blocks up the road.

We lingered at sunset along the Mississippi, with the great steel pyramid of Memphis to our right, then it was on to Beale Street for a little blues before winding our way back to the campground where we found our electricity had shut off. After checking the box, I decided to move to another site which had juice. That kept us cool during the steaming night.

We threw ourselves into the maelstrom of Wednesday morning rush-hour traffic that is Interstate 55, heading for St. Louis. I chuckled when we came through numerous work sites along the highway where there are signs that warn if you hit a workman with your vehicle, there is an automatic fine of $11,000. This is much more expensive that my friend Oswald Shivute warned me would be my fate were I to hit a woman in the north of Namibia (three cattle) or even a man (six cattle).

We stopped for the night on the western shore of the Mississippi at the Trail of Tears State Park in Missouri. This marks the part of the great river that the Cherokee Indians crossed during the enforced march from their tribal homelands in Georgia after gold was discovered and the whites decided that they should have that land.

General Winfield Scott was given the task of moving the Indians. He was generally thoughtful and kind (“Every possible kindness...must be shown by the troops."). But one U.S. Army private, John G. Burnett, reported: “I saw he Cherokees...dragged from their homes and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades....I saw them loaded like cattle...into wagons.... Many of them had been driven from home barefooted.”

Quatie Ross, the Cherokee chief's wife, gave her only blanket to a child. She died of pneumonia. Some drank stagnant water and died from disease. One survivor told how his father got sick and died; then, his mother; then, one by one, his five brothers and sisters. “One each day. Then all are gone.”

The forced march resulted in the deaths of thousands of Cherokees. Two thirds of the ill-equipped Cherokees were trapped between the ice-bound Ohio and Mississippi Rivers during January of 1839. The Indians were resettled in Oklahoma, near Tahliquah. It remains the tribal headquarters of the Cherokee Nation today.

About 1,000 Cherokees in Tennessee and North Carolina escaped the roundup. They gained recognition in 1866, establishing their tribal government in 1868 in Cherokee, North Carolina. Today, they are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Picture at the top of Blog: We came upon these butterflies resting on the banks of the Mississippi at the Trail of Tears State Park. There were dozens of them resting and taking sustenances from the muddy banks of the river.

Reaching New Orleans

The tiny town of Foley, Alabama, takes you back to the early 1950s. The houses are brick, with loads of hydrangeas, roses and other flowers. The main street maintains the beveled glass on entrance doors and there, at the crossroads, is a Rexall's drug store. Inside, we found a genuine soda counter with wire-backed chairs and coffee for 10 cents a cup – if you pour it yourself!

A toy train endlessly circumnavigates the drugstore at the 10-foot high level and you can find all manner of early medical supplies. We particularly likes the “Anti-Monkey Butt Powder” that is advertized as a “sweat absorber and friction fighter”. There are airplaned made from Coke cans hanging from the ceiling.

Earlier in the day, we'd made out way to the edge of Mobile Bay where we watched the sailboats and fisherman casting their nets to catch bait fish at the town pier. It all is quite quaint and bucolic. The town of Fairhope has built waterfront birdhouses for purple martins that migrate from South America and who seem to be will to occupy these bird condos for breeding purposes and for raising their young before heading south in the fall. The martins do a prodigious job of vacuuming mosquitoes from the waterfront area so they are welcome guests.

We came to New Orleans, expecting the worst. It has been just shy of four years since Hurricane Katrina visited her wrath on this city and the entire northern Gulf of Mexico coast. We're watched the rebuilding – or lack – on TV and we were anxious to see it for ourselves.

Reports of the death of the city are premature, we're happy to report. Oh, there still remains devastation on portions of the 9^th ward. And down in St. Bernard Parish, where we are camping, there is massive destruction still visible in shopping centers that have been abandoned. But the city of New Orleans was hopping when we drove in on Saturday. There was a Zydeco music festival, along with a Creole Tomato festival in the French Quarter. The hanging ferns from the lacy wrought iron balconies are there, the tourists in the thousands are there. The rhythm of the city is evident. People actually walk with a sway and a swing of their hips, keeping time to the music of the trombone player or the banjo picker.

We had a great time visiting the cathedral in the heart of the city. We wandered in the back streets before driving through the Ninth Ward to view some of the dead houses. We were heartened to see so much renovation evident, though. As we drove back to our campground, we came upon a cemetery across from the Mississippi River (which is higher than the surrounding land). The cemeteries in this low-lying part of the world are above ground. Coffins are placed inside a concrete sarcophagus and those are even stacked up to three high to take care of families. But this cemetery was suffering from the sarcophagus being washed away and toppled. Many of the concrete boxes were empty. Quite biblical, of course (“And they came to the tomb and found it empty.”).

Our campground on the south side of the Big Muddy is quite spectacular. Very few people are here. But we are surrounded by dozens (maybe hundreds, perhaps even thousands) of rabbits who seem to enjoy coming out in the dusk to munch on the green grass. The cat is oblivious to these same-size creatures. We have a symphony each evening of cicadas...millions of them. Their song is astonishingly loud but they settle down with darkness.

The huge swimming pool at the park was occupied by nine people when we went for a swim this afternoon. It was quite moving, actually, to watch two 8-to-10-year-old white girls swim and interact with colorblind eyes with a pair of black twin boys. It gives hope that this generation is growing up oblivious to the color of people's skin.

Moving from North to "South"

Floridians need not read this. All others might find the horror story of the love bug to be bewildering and maybe even funny.

The love bug is a creature we only have found in Florida. It has the delightful habit of finding a mate and having a conjugal visit while flying through the air in thick clouds. Their life cycle climax (forgive me) seems to occur when they splat into the windshield and grilles of all the trucks, cars and RVs that head north and south on Florida's interstate highways.

As we rolled north on our first day of our trip, the bugs were out in force. We could see rainstorms of them splattering on our windshield. We picked up perhaps 2,000 of them. Helluva way to die: conjugalis in extremis is what I call it.

It's imperative that you scrape their bodies off the front of your vehicle as quickly as possible. They seem to leave a nasty acidic residue which burns into paint and leaves permanent scarring if not scrubbed off within a few hours of death.

We are moving desperately slowly as we roll north. And this suits us just fine. We are in no great rush. We drove for 90 miles on the first day. And that was enough. We stayed in the little town of Bushnell, FL, when the rolling green fields just begin to signal the beginning of Florida's horse country.
Then we moved across to the western side of the state and parked on the banks of the Suwanee River in a state park. We are cocooned in a canopy of oak and magnolia trees. We also have moved into a different kind of Florida. You see, half the state – the southern half, strangely – is much more like the northern states. That's probably because it is made up more of northerners.

There's an invisible line, though, just to the north of Tampa, where one moves into what is more generally considered to be The South. This is more Bible Belt. You come across billboard after billboard that preaches anti-abortion messages while, in that slightly mad way there are endless other billboards that let you know of cafes and restaurants where “We Bare All” and where you can find “X Markets of Adult Toys and Videos.”

A mighty strange juxtaposition.

I've just finished a stunning book, The Known World” by Edward P. Jones. It is set in Virginia in the 1850s from the point of view of slaves and slave owners. The principal characters, however, are black people who own slaves, something I had no idea occurred and still, after reading the book, have a hard, hard time understanding: How could a black man who has bought his own freedom and the freedom of his wife and child cope with the child growing up and then purchasing his own slaves. The brutality and inhumanity of the book, written by a black man, by the way, is tough to stomach. But it paints an unusually rich portrait of life in those not so good old days. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel.

The springs after which the Manatee Springs State Park are named ($8 per night for Florida seniors who camp here!) bubble up from the aquifer. The clear water maintains a steady temperature of 72 degrees F. Manatees make their way here in the cold winter months because they need the warm water for survival. In the heat of summer, though, we could see a school of mullet swimming in endless circles through the knots of cypress standing with wet feet in the spring waters.

William Bartram came upon these water in July 1774 and here is some of what he reported”

“Having borrowed a canoe from some Indians, I visited a very grat and most beautiful fountain which boils up from between the hills about 300 yards from the river.

“The basic of the fountain is about 100 yards in circumference. The fountain is very full of fish and alligators and at a great depth in the water appear as plain as if they were close at hand.”

We crossed into the Central Time Zone after crossing the Apalachicola River, west of the state capital of Tallahassee. We're in the rolling hills now: no more flat plains. Our campsite for a few days was down a potholed road, alongside a lake at Three Rivers State Park. On Saturday, we drove the car west to the next state park where we explored the only caverns in a Florida park.

In a nice piece of Americana, we found upturned white ceramic bowls in the roof of the caves. These has been cemented in place by the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps who uncovered the caverns and made them usable in the late 1930s. The bowls were used to reflect the limited light produced by carbon lights while the young men carved out walkways. The caverns, filled with stalactites and stalagmites, dripping water and deliciously cool, showed little evidence of having been used by the early Indians. The preferred drier accommodations in other caves which have evidence of fairly ornate pottery shards and tools from 10,000 years ago.

On our way back into our campground, we were delayed a few minutes by the car ahead of us. It stopped and a young woman jumped out and disappeared ahead of the car. She reappeared holding a five-foot-long snake by the tail. She gently deposited it in the undergrowth and it slithered off. I had to admire the young woman's gutsy approach to snake maintenance.