After a late night of Honky Tonking, we woke up with road map eyes, but buoyed as we were by the spirit of dreamers, we pushed on, rode Fric and Frac hard, up and around the Great River Road beside the muddy Mississippi. We traveled through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and finally Missouri where we are now in Hannibal, the birthplace of Mark Twain (Total miles today: 412). How fitting. Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrowmlndness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." Twain may be right, but there's room for debate. He reminds me of myself when I start soapboxing in that I'm perfectly capable of being absolutely right and completely wrong at the same time. As we traveled this part of America, we once again came upon rural settings where family members have been working the land for generations. Add to that, a proximity to the Mississippi, which means these rural folk have also worked, with, around, and despite the great muddy. It breeds a certain mindset. Our forefathers called it self-reliance, which for then and now is considered by many to be a good thing. As a cyclist, I've traveled an even slower pace across this country, and there's something unassuming about an old, fat bald guy riding a bicycle packed heavy with gear. People are not intimidated, nor are they afraid. Instead, they are open and inquisitive. And they're prone to conversation. One phenomenon that recurs with these people, who I'm sure have seldom been far from home. They literally do not know their own surroundings. "How far is such and such, I say?" They reply some vague, "Well, it's almost fifteen minutes to the Grange, and then at the fork you hang a left." Are these the people so sorely in need of travel as Twain claims? Maybe. But they have a whole world right in front of them in the lives they lead. Their lives consume them. it requires of them complete commitment, complete trust. There is little room for questioning, little solace either. They are familiar with their surroundings, and they feel safe in what they know. I suppose that's Twain's point. These folk have not been able to gain a breadth of perspective because they've not been past the mail box, except for a rare trip to the "big city" a time or two in their lives. And why should they? Everything they need is here for them. In as much as that's true, it's easy to see why they develop a narrow state of mind. It's good in that it allows them the peace of certainty, but it's bad in that it leaves them with an undeveloped sense of the greater world. So then, what's the excuse for "big city" folk who have the advantage of travel, the advantage of experience, those "worldly" folks who have developed opinions etched like commandments in the granite of their own perspectives. Aren't we all burdened in some way by our world view? Don't we all succumb to our own bias, either learned or experienced? I've discovered in my life that if a person's mind is made up, it can't be changed with facts. Maybe that is the narrow gauge Twain was talking about. I don't know. What I do know is the golden rule holds as much sway now as it ever has, and I'm not talking about the golden rule that says, "He with the most gold makes the rule." I'm talking about the do unto others as....idea. I try to walk in other people's shoes. I try to see their point of view. I try not to be blinded by my own view. I try not to grasp to my own immutable truth. I feel that the closet I view the world from is cluttered with so many things true, untrue, supposed, proven, unproven, and down right strange, that it's ludicrous for me to suppose that I've any special grasp on the truth. I'm not as sure of myself as Mark Twain. I leave some room for 'another possibility'. So, I treat people as well as I'm able, and I find they often treat me as the same. This makes life good, especially today.
I hope to someday come back to visit the dreamers on Broadway in Nashville
If you are ever in Nashville, make sure your wheels turn you to 3rd and Lindsley to hear the Time Jumpers.
Speaking of time jumping. The days of Hannibal, Missouri seemed to have passed, but I'll wager there are several fine humans living among the seventeen thousand who call this place home.
No comments:
Post a Comment