Mississippi Adventure
Sunday, April 22, 2007
I've had a crazy idea in my head for the last couple of weeks. It is one of those ideas that comes from deep inside a person where it is hard to trace the roots; an idea rarely accompanied by a practical plan to execute it.
The idea is this: to float down the Mississippi river from the headwaters here in Minnesota at Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans in a raft or canoe like Huckleberry Finn and Jim. I don't know where the inspiration came from. Perhaps this "father of all rivers" for America that flows through Minneapolis just over a mile from my house has been calling to me for an adventure. Or at least telling me to come up with an adventure of my own. I've ordered every Mississippi River journey book I can find at the library, the two best being River Journey by Clarence Jonk (1933) and Mississippi Solo by Eddy L. Harris (1988). Eddy sums up my feelings in his introduction to his river journal:
Once they have reached a certain age, dreamers are no longer held in high esteem. They are ridiculed instead, called loony and lazy, even by their friends. Especially by their friends!
Dreams are delicate and made of gossamer. They hang lightly on breezes and suspend as if from nothing. The slightest wind can tear them apart. My dream was buffeted by my friends. What the hell for? they asked me. What are you trying to prove? Why don't you just go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?
...Putting a canoe into the headwaters of the Mississippi and aiming it for New Orleans is not something a man is supposed to do. It is not considered normal or sane. Perhaps it is the danger involved, or perhaps it it too much an act of desire and determination, an act of passion and volition, or simply too out of the ordinary.
For whatever reasons, my idea met with disapproval, and instead of childish jubilation I approached conoeing the river with doubt and sorrow - sorrow because the glory with which I first came upon this adventure was dashed by friends. Like Galileo before the Church, I was ready to relinquish my radical approaches and be normal.
But this dream of mine, still suspended on the breeze and delicate as ever, was just as real as those flimsy summer spider webs hanging in the air, and just as clinging. Once the webs attach themselves to you they are hard to get rid of. And so it was with my desire to ride the river.
I doubt I will ever float down the length of the Mississippi, but what other gossomer calling is attatched to my life? I intend to find out.
Posted by Benjamin Washam 11:40 AM
Labels: General Reflections, Minneapolis
Haha- so do things now before there's much social tension involved, and before you become responsible by accident.
But I think the Crest Trail is a better idea.. large bodies of water are kind of scary.
ps want company? :D