Category Archives: Life along the River

Walls Go Up and Walls Come Down

21 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Church, Faith, Life along the River, Nature, Volunteering, Yard

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trump's wall   “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.”
Robert Frost penned those lines in his meditation on neighboring titled “Mending Wall.” The poem seems to contradict itself with its other famous line, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Burlington is busily building a new wall out of steel and concrete, a floodwall protecting us from our source as a community and a periodic threat to our central downtown as well, the Mississippi River. We may wonder how long this new wall will serve its purpose. Will it be high enough, strong enough, good enough? The designers promise that it will not hide us from the beauty of the river, and we are waiting to see.
Many of the old walls have fallen in the last thirty years. They were mostly walls of limestone, placed carefully without mortar in many cases, and gravity has gradually taken its toll. The limestone, so prevalent and so full of Burlington’s famous crinoid fossils, has been an abundant resource for wall construction. Walls served the purpose of confining the chickens, horses, and hogs, or they simply helped to clean up lots that were covered with limestone.
In June, 1992, Zion’s High School youth tackled the project of removing one such wall. The old limestone wall fronting Zion’s parking lot had shown a determination to change its position. Zion’s section was moving to the west, an inch or two a year, while next door Victoria Apartments’ section was moving to the east. Two major cracks exposed the conflict. The young people speeded up the process, adding their brawn. We fantasized the possibility of circling the wall seven times and blowing a trumpet, especially when considering the four 300-pound stones that topped the eight-foot high wall. In the end a more direct and tiring approach pulled those heavy stones down with ropes from a safe distance. It was tug of war with us on one side, the wall on the other, putting up a good fight.
After that Mathew Johnson sat atop the middle section attacking with a heavy hammer and chisel. Most of the stones needed just a nudge, for a hundred years reduced the original mortar to powder. He soon found another force at work as a million angry ants made his seat untenable. They were not happy with any of us who were destroying their dry and happy home. We further meditated on upsetting the biosystem that the wall represented, pausing often to shake the tiny defenders off our clothing, but we continued our assault. One by one we carted the stones away, loading a pickup truck several times, leaving only the foundation for another day, and leaving the northern section on our neighbor’s property to go its own way.
We admit that we did not like that wall. It had stopped serving whatever purpose it originally had. Over decades people had made many efforts to keep it intact and oppose its own desire to obey the laws of gravity. A layer of concrete smoothed over the outside of the rock, so it did not have the charm of the rear wall of the parking lot with its vines and decrepitude.
After we thought about that day of practicing our faith, we named and recognized other walls that remain in our lives. Walls without purpose are leftover from earlier ages, without honor or beauty, with defenders aplenty, but they too will succumb to the laws of nature and spirit. We have seen some of those walls fall as easily as Jericho’s, but we cannot expect to walk around all of those walls and find the same result. Some require more concerted and strenuous efforts. Sledgehammer anyone?

Corporate Efficiency

13 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by in Learning from mistakes, Life along the River, People, rafting, Travel

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New River WVA   Several years ago on a lovely summer evening several of us sat on the wooded banks of the New River in West Virginia, relaxing and enjoying the quiet after the first of our planned two days of rafting. During that day we had floated a relatively smooth portion of the river. We had visited some of the ruins of the old riverside mining towns that played a part in the struggle between management and miners in the formative days of the unions that finally succeeded in improving the conditions that workers and their families faced. The rafting outfitters had prepared for us a delicious steak dinner on their portable grills, they had erected tents for us, furnished a blazing campfire, and one of them was warming up on the guitar for some singing. We looked forward to the next day when the rough and tumble part of the river would show us why the New River is a popular rafting destination. We needed our rest to prepare for it.
Across the river ran the railroad tracks that had served the New River Valley since early coal mining days, and, sure enough, along came a train with cars full of coal headed north, filling the world with roar and rumble. We supposed correctly that the trains we had not noticed during the day of rafting would make some unpleasant appearances during the night, interrupting the restful sleep we craved.
About thirty minutes later another train rounded the bend, with its coal cars also loaded, headed south. It was not enough that the peace of that lovely ancient valley would be interrupted regularly by noisy trains, whose places of origin had to be separated by many miles in either direction. They were both carrying the same commodity in opposite directions!
Hold on. Wait a minute. What’s going on here, we asked. What sense does it make that coal mined far north would pass coal mined in the far south to get to places in the far north and the far south? Who organized that? They need some help. Keep the coal mined in the north in the north. Keep the coal mined in the south in the south. Forget hauling all this heavy stuff through this long meandering valley, where we want to rest and sleep and enjoy the beauty of nature.
There may be, possibly is, a reasonable and legitimate explanation somewhere, but it sticks in my mind as an example of human efficiency, planning, and cooperation. Carrying the same commodity, passing in the night, going in opposite directions, carrying resources to places they already exist, people expend their energies. A variation of the Greek myth of Sisyphus seemed to be replaying before our eyes. Does God have a sense of humor, or what?

Maintaining the Bridges

06 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by in Caring, Faith, Farm, Growing up, Learning from mistakes, Life along the River

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old iron bridge 1   The Middlefork of the Vermilion River bisected the 320 acres that my father farmed during most of my childhood. It was originally a natural river, lined with old growth forest, meandering through highland marshes a few miles downstream from its source, until it was dredged to drain those wetlands and provide rich tillable soil. Many trees were chopped away to clear that land. The outlines of indigenous people’s lodges and hogans still showed near some of the springs that lined the river.
The river would have been a barrier to travel from one high riverbank to the other, but a fifty feet long bridge with steel girders and a wooden deck had been built soon after the dredging. The bridge made crossing the river possible with our farm equipment.
The river flooded regularly in the spring, filling the old floodplain and carrying off many of the boards from the bridge deck each time. We carefully replaced the deck and kept the bridge painted and in good repair. We drove the truck, tractors, implements, and heavy wagon-loads of hay, straw, and grain across that bridge. It had just one lane, but that was all that was needed. The cattle used it. We often walked to it to observe the Great Blue Herons and the small river mammals from a distance. As a small child I watched my brother and our next-door neighbor swing from its girders like monkeys, until I was old enough to test my own courage and strength.
We learned to drive tractors and trucks early in those days, and one of the most important lessons was learning how to drive across the bridge. Emphatically we learned to drive across it slowly and carefully. Not to catch a protruding iron harrow tooth or disk on the iron railing. Not to shake or damage the bridge.
Leaving that farm when I was sixteen was leaving my childhood behind. The man who took over the lease was known as a go-getter, a fast mover and shaker. True to his reputation, a couple of months after he took over the property, rushing across the bridge with his tractor and plow, the bridge collapsed with him and his tractor on it. He narrowly escaped serious injury. From then on he had to take the long route around the county road to get from one side of the farm to the other.
We have to be respectful of our bridges. They have the capacity to carry us where we need to go, to provide a route that is direct and useful. They require care and maintenance and some consideration of their appropriate use. They make possible a short-cut through the shared experiences of many generations.

The Descent Into Hell

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in canoeing, Events, Learning from mistakes, Life along the River

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Shannondale Community Center

When we can’t turn around and go back, when we have no choice but to go forward into a place where we do not want to be, when we find ourselves in that place and do not want to be there….

One stretch of the Current River has always been problematic for me and for those with me, either because of the weather that day in storm or miserable heat or some other unexpected development. Below Round Spring to Jerktail Landing is that stretch. Few signs of civilization are evident, and that in itself isn’t a problem as long as the trip is going well. The most redeeming feature of the ten miles is the Courthouse Cave with its beautiful large flow stone near the entrance, but that is only a short paddle below Round Spring. Long relatively straight vistas of the river follow with series of shoals that prove that you are in fact descending steeply into an area where the mountains seem to grow taller by the minute and deeper into wilderness. Beyond Jerktail is an equally long stretch to Two Rivers Landing.

My partner on one trip was Tom, a big, good-natured youth with a gentle heart. We had started out the day at the tail of ten canoes, but by the time we reached this stretch we were in the lead of many tired canoers, trying to set a pace that would get us to Jerktail Landing before dark. He had worn flip-flops, against my advice, and had lost one of them when we were collecting the gear from one of the overturned canoes of people in another group along the way, so his tender feet were suffering every time we had to find our way through the shoals and his weight meant that we had to step out of the canoe frequently onto the rocky river bottom.

We had set our take-out for Jerktail Landing, although this was the first time for the new Shannondale Director Jeff Fulk to go to Jerktail. The ten mile bus ride (towing the canoe trailer behind) down the narrow , winding, rutted gravel ridge road down to Jerktail Landing was no fun for him and his two young sons with him. After paddling all day we were all-in when we arrived at the large peninsula rockbar that was Jerktail, and the canoe behind us was just within sight. Our ten canoes were probably stretched out along the river about half a mile. Jerktail itself is more barren and desert-like and larger than any other rockbar on the river, and we had to paddle several hundred yards around the rockbar to reach the Landing. Right away when we reached the Landing, Tom and I were relieved to see the Shannondale bus, but we noticed that no one was standing around it. In fact the Landing appeared to be deserted until we saw some people at a distance standing and pointing toward the river shore.

Then we saw what they were pointing at—the largest diamondback rattlesnake I have ever seen , basking in the sun at the edge of the river in the middle of the landing area. It looked to me like it was big enough to be a python but it was unmistakably a diamondback rattlesnake, something I never expected to see nor hope ever to see again in the Ozarks. We did not approach the Landing but found a calm spot near the opposite bank to wait for the other canoes, wondering what we would do if the rattlesnake did not move.

We waited for a while until the snake decided to move, and it gradually made its way along the shore until well clear of the landing area before Tom and I and all of the rest of the canoes ventured to make our way toward the landing, and before Jeff and his sons left the security of the bus. It had only been a few minutes but, as time goes, it had seemed like hours.

Some years later Jeff told me that he had never made arrangements with another group for taking out canoes at Jerktail Landing. Nor did I ask for it.

 

 

Courage Comes in Varied Guise

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in canoeing, Caring, Death, Learning from mistakes, Life along the River, Suffering

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Shannondale Community Center

After Rod became a participant in Zion Church, he also showed strong support for Zion’s youth fellowship and frequently lended his adult help to the youth causes and events. This included sharing his vacation time in the renewed service and recreation trips to Shannondale. Knowing that Rod was new to canoeing and not comfortable in water, we tried to persuade him of the safety and enjoyment potential of the activity, assuming his careful attention to a few basic canoeing instructions. These included wearing his flotation device, learning how to read the waterway in front of the canoe, practicing some basic paddle strokes, and, of course, leaning toward an obstacle downstream when the paddlers inevitably lose control of the canoe and the current pushes them against it. His nervousness was obvious as the time approached for canoeing. Others novices were likely just as nervous, but unwilling to show it. We paired new canoeists with more experienced ones, and hoped that they would have time to learn “the ropes” before they ran into any challenge that the Current River might offer.

I chose Cedar Grove as the place to put into the river. From Cedar Grove the flow was moderate and there would be few places where portaging would be necessary due to shallow water. The river was relatively narrow there. My impression was that snags, rootwads, boulders, and other obstacles were rare in that part of the river, so Rod and other nervous beginners should have time to gain some skills before they faced more challenges downstream. We did everything but promise that they would have no problems. Even if they overturned their canoes, the river would be shallow enough in most places for them to stand up in the river and set the canoe right again, and we would be there to help. Rod accepted our encouragement and suppressed his fears.

The day for canoeing came, and the morning was cool and a little foggy, but the sun promised to burn the fog away quickly and open us to a clearer late morning and afternoon. We got an early start, and the Shannondale bus left us on the Cedar Grove beach. There was no turning back. We distributed the gear, lined up on the shore in the order that we would depart, reviewed a few basics, praised God for the beauty surrounding us and the opportunities ahead of us, and sent off one canoe at a time. Rod’s canoe was not first but among the early ones. I was probably in the last canoe, to be in a position to help the stragglers and less successful ones. The river turned to the right immediately after the put-in, so no one left on the shore could see what the canoes ahead of us were facing after the turn. Trees and brush obscured the way forward.

Right after the turn there was a snag difficult to avoid, even by an experienced canoeist, and, as it happened, the snag collected debris over a hole that was deeper than any of us was tall. Rod’s initiation into canoeing came during the first hundred yards as his canoe overturned into a pile of debris. Most of the canoes managed to avoid the obstacle, but Rod’s and another canoe overturned and they needed our help to collect themselves and their gear and get started again. Rod did not accuse us of malicious intent, but he well could have. It was evidence of his good nature that he did not complain (at least aloud), he did not give up (with nowhere to go but downstream), and he did keep going (although I could sense his relief with every break we took).

Rod continued to accompany us on trips, and he even succeeded in canoeing the next year and the year after that. Along the way in years to come, he decided to devote himself to other useful business while the rest of us canoed. He had taken his life in his hands enough times without finding a way to “enjoy” it.

To Hide from Storms at Shannondale

05 Friday Feb 2016

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cropped-rock-creek-wilderness-oregon.jpg

We were camping at Shannondale, and I made arrangements for our group to take an evening tour of Round Spring Cave, courtesy of the National Park Service staff. The only problem was that the number of tour participants was limited, and we had one more person with us than the available slots for the tour. Art Klein had stayed at camp, and another youth or two, who were not fond of caves, had stayed with him. Dean Moberg volunteered to stay above ground and let the rest of us go on this spelunking adventure. He had gone before, and, although there is always more to see in such a dynamic and complex cave, he was willing for the rest of us to enjoy it this time. There would be another trip and another opportunity to tour the cave.

As the time for the tour approached we gathered near the cave entrance, and Ranger Ruth entertained us with some colorful stories from the area lore about sinkholes, caves, and Ozark culture, and we were glad to be in the cave overhang area when the rain began. Still, Dean dutifully stayed outside when the rest of us followed our guide into the cave. Some of our group were a bit jealous of Dean’s choice during our squeeze through the narrow channel of the first hundred yards, as uncountable numbers of bats flew past our ears on their way outside for the evening’s mosquito harvest.

Dean, meanwhile, returned to the parking lot and our cars and observed the onset of a powerful windstorm, maybe even a tornado, wondering whether the wind would do more than scatter tree limbs and branches and rock the car that was his only available shelter.

An hour or so later our group emerged to a different environment, with evidence of the storm all around us. Dean greeted us and assured us that everything was all right, although he had wondered for a while whether he would be blown away. We returned to our campsite and found the tents in various degrees of collapse and disarray, which Art and his crew had tried unsuccessfully to remedy. We decided to take advantage of Shannondale’s more dependable shelter for another night, grateful that most of us had been able to spend the time of the storm oblivious to the world outside and enjoying the amazing and utterly quiet world below.

We were grateful, too, to those who had braved the elements on our behalf. We could always count on Dean and Art.

One More ‘Stupidest Things I Have Ever Done’

04 Thursday Feb 2016

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Rock Creek Wilderness, Oregon

Returning to Shannondale along the Current River in Missouri was one of my fond dreams when I came to Zion Church in Burlington. Dean Moberg said that he also was eager to return, with his pleasant memories of getting to court his wife-to-be at that camp. Therefore, we planned a trip with Dean and Jeri, Art Klein, and several fine high school young people. We camped at Peaceful Point at Shannondale the first couple of days, did a service project—cleaning up and painting some camp facilities, and proceeded to canoe the river, putting in at Cedar Grove, canoeing to Pulltite in the morning, and reaching Round Spring in the late afternoon, a  twenty-mile trip  on the first day.

That year I had suggested  that we  do what I had done with other groups earlier, which was to carry food and gear with us in canoes, stay overnight on the river at one of the campgrounds or gravel bars, and canoe the next day another twenty miles to Two Rivers. The Current River’s… well…fast current, of course, had enabled this ambitious agenda with groups that were largely novices, as well as heavy rains on the days prior to previous trips. On this year of return, the river was quick, but not so quick, and the rains that came, came on the second day of our planned canoeing.

The second day opened gray and overcast, but seemingly warm enough, so “we” decided to go ahead with our planned trip, all the way to Two Rivers. (I don’t know if my enthusiasm was operative in the “we” or whether it was really a consensus.) We hadn’t been on the river more than ten minutes when the rain began, and, at first, it was gentle and warm. Not very long afterwards, it ceased to feel warm . Most of our group did not bring raingear. We stopped at a rock overhang and brought out the box of large garbage bags (along with duct tape, the other requirement for any trip we planned). At least everyone had an improvised raincoat for the rest of the trip. In addition to the dampness, the temperature began to fall.

Finding another rock overhang with just enough space for all of our group, and everyone beginning to be both tired and cold, we stopped for lunch.  We needed a break from paddling, the energy from the food and drink we had packed for the trip, and also warmth from somewhere. My matches were wet, but, fortunately we had smokers with us. Art used his lighter and the few items that were still dry to get a smoky fire going, providing just enough warmth to thaw us out a little, when we took turns standing near it.

We had no choice but to continue downriver. There was no place to pull out of this section of the river until we had paddled ten more miles to Two Rivers, where there was a store and a phone to reach our Shannondale driver, who would pick us up and save us from ourselves.

Our only hope to avoid hypothermia was to paddle like the devil and avoid the usual tipping of the canoes. Since these seemed too much to hope for, our only hope really was to pray like the…saints, even if we weren’t.

Never was I happier to have three determined adult helpers and a mostly good-natured and forgiving group of high school young adults. Together, urging each other on, we made it. When we finally reached Two Rivers and our Shannondale helper picked us up, I hurried to rent the Goat Barn for our overnight accommodations, instead of setting up our wet tents. We made liberal use of the hot showers and established the custom of closing our canoe trip with a visit to Salem’s Pizza Hut.

(Some readers may offer corrections to this memory and life-lesson; they are welcome!)

 

Steering from the Front of a Canoe

11 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by in Church, Gullibility, Learning from mistakes, Life along the River, People, Vehicles

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Monkeys see, hear, speak no evil, Bangra.com

David was a cheerful, gregarious, easy-going young man who came to the congregation as a pastoral intern one summer after his four years of undergraduate work and one year of seminary. Three other ministerial students had interned in the congregations I served, and because of his temperament David was the easiest to tease.

Showing a willingness to tackle any task, it was no surprise that he wanted to go with the youth group on a camping and canoeing adventure, even though he did not have canoeing experience. He was a swimmer, his family had a cabin on a lake some distance away, and he was familiar with rowboats and motorboats.

Everyone partnered with someone who had experience, and most of the young people on that trip had been canoeing on a river before, so little training was necessary for that trip. I chose David as my partner. I had no intention of losing him, but had every expectation of getting him wet on a sultry summer day. Since he was young and strong, and I was old and tried, I explained to him, I would put him in the bow of the canoe to provide both forward motion and guidance. You guide a canoe from the front, I said, testing to see if he caught my misdirection, but catching no indication of it. We must, of course, keep up with the rest of the group to make sure that everyone was proceeding safely down the river, through its rapids and many boulders. Meanwhile I rested in the stern, barely putting my paddle in the water. Soon we were zigzagging our way from one bank to the other, and we were lagging behind. David was beginning to show his frustration and asked what he was doing wrong.

“Not a thing,” I said. “You just need help.” I admitted that I had given him the wrong instruction. You can indeed propel a canoe forward from the bow, but it is difficult to guide from there. The stern provides the guidance. This is one example where leadership comes, not from the one in front, but from the one in back. When I did my part, we soon caught up with the rest, and managed to get as wet as we wanted to be.

That was a theme we pondered on other occasions during that summer, as we worked with would-be and effective leaders, and tried to practice leadership ourselves, not always from in front of other people. David just celebrated thirty years of effective leadership in several congregations. He has somehow maintained his sense of humor and eagerness for his work, which is still exercised from the front sometimes, and sometimes from the rear.

Running the Riverfront

17 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Life along the River, Running

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Great River Bridge sunrise January 2015Burlington’s riverfront walkway brings those of us who use it close to the “Old Man” who dominates the Midwest. One day smooth and easy-going, the next turbulent and threatening, the Mississippi has moods enough for any temperament. The half-mile width of channel, hemmed in by the eastern levee, camouflages the real width of ten miles bank to bank, a hundred feet below the prairie plane. So those of us who associate so closely with this powerful river have a privilege that bears acknowledging.

Likewise the many people who have used this landing space and left it to us in its current shape bear some consideration. The foundations and landfills of many docks and businesses, boathouses and warehouses now lie under the grass and trees of parks and boat ramps and parking lots. A few remaining structures remind us of the energized industry required to open this frontier. But it also took much concerted action to clean up the ugly refuse and stifling crowdedness of that industry and make pleasant space for appreciating the river, not as much a mode of access as it was on the frontier, but still the primary source of the life of this region.

I try to generate some energy by running the path that winds along the riverfront, but mostly use up energy left over from earlier days. How can I or any of us add to the legacy of hundreds of thousands who have come this way in search of a fuller, better life?

We have little sense of who came here first. When Euro immigrants first saw Hawkeye Creek the burial platforms of the resident Sauk and Fox peoples lined the banks. The ravines provided shelter for winter lodges and hogans as well as plentiful springs and cover for game. One special notch in a northside cliff opened into the Council Rock natural amphitheater  held sacred by unknown generations of inhabitants. Tools left hereabout date back over ten thousand years.

There has always been a seamier side to old river towns like this. Too raw and unfinished for the control and manners of more staid and civilized communities, people ran off to Burlington with floosies and rascals. Doss houses, taverns and gambling rooms filled the niches between more respectable enterprises, and the jail was always occupied. Tawdry affairs provide plenty of fodder for “Good Old Days” reminiscences.  “Fun City” had another set of meanings in earlier days, but people did indeed come, and the latter day name recalls the earlier reputation. Today’s social problems echo those of earlier times. They are not quite buried under the lovely landscape.

Many people, headstrong and gracious, creative and opportunistic, made a way before us, cluttering or clearing the way. Some, though who knows how many, will come after. What part of building an enduring community will we play? There is always plenty to think about and pray about while running!