Mississippi Bound

Tuesday
I’ve been reading as much as I can about Mississippi. One of the books we bought is a coffee table style book called Must See Mississippi - 50 Favorite Places. The introduction is by a Mississippi author named Greg Iles. He made some interesting comments which have caused me to stop and think. The most striking statement is this, “While most communities in America seem hell-bent on turning themselves into clones of the next city up the interstate, Mississippi remains true to itself.” Sam and I have noticed this as we’ve motorcycled through the western U.S.

It was sad to hear that Flagstaff had succumbed to the siren call of a Wal-mart Superstore to be built outside the downtown area. Everyone can predict the outcome--the demise of the mom and pop, the locally owned stores that can’t compete with the nationwide chains. Empty buildings, loss of identity, just another town rather than a destination. I don’t know where Flagstaff is on that continuum because we were traveling through several years ago. Strip malls with the same big box stores with the same store fronts---that’s the tragedy of expediency and efficiency. Rather like the “Little boxes on a hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky” as the song from the 1960’s lamented, only now it is “big boxes by the highways”. Sometimes a small town is able to force a style on a major chain, like Leavenworth, Washington with its Bavarian theme which has a Bavarian McDonalds and Starbucks and other stores.
(For fun--a link to Pete Seeger singing the Little Boxes song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw

In the western U.S. it’s tough because on any historical timeline our communities are relatively new and usually haven’t formed as dominant a “personality” as old locations. One of Seattle’s greatest features is Mt. Rainier, which I am looking at as I type. Giving up a daily view of Mt. Rainier (assuming the mountain is willing to show herself and not be cloaked in grayness and clouds) is going to be tough. Its magnificence knocks any sense of the mundane or pedestrian right out of the way. Mystical and magical, Mt. Rainier (called Tahoma by the Klicktatat and other native people) is really a source of inspiration. The poet Denise Levertov adopted Seattle and Mt. Rainier as home toward the end of her life. From the poem, “Evening Train” she lauds the mountain thus:
“...the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow
 tinted apricot as she looked west,
 tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun
 forever rising and setting.”

Between Seattle and Mississippi we will have the opportunity to see a great deal of the U.S. on our motorcycle. I suspect the towns we come to traveling on the Interstates will be preceded by strip malls and outlet malls, and succeeded by them, too. Smaller towns along the more scenic byways may perhaps retain an identity. Greg Iles’s commentary on Mississippi was made in 2007. In two or so weeks I will see for myself whether Mississippi continues “true to itself.”