Southern Exposure

On January 21, Martin Luther King Day, we drove down a small state highway to a public park.  The rolling fields, open spaces, derelict barns and countryside on both sides of our vehicle got me thinking about what I have learned about the South. Open spaces do that. They draw out Big Thoughts. What follows are a few.

My Grampa (Boppa) sparked my youthful curiosity with eight-track tapes of old-time country music stars like Kenny Rogers, Charley Pride, Johnny Horton and yes, Johnny Cash. Of course, in rural Ontario where he lived, there were also rolling fields, open spaces, derelict barns and countryside on both sides of the highway. But riding around in his Ford pickup, I began to associate country music with the South. And the funny accents I heard on TV —thank you, Beverly Hillbillies re-reruns— also helped. In my adolescence I watched Ken Burns' documentaries about the Civil War and later on about jazz and the blues.

The South, as a concept, rather than a place that normal people lived, seemed somehow foreign, slow paced, and different. But not the 'different' image reserved for England or Australia. I spoke 'American', but the upstate New York variety thanks to Rochester TV stations. The annual exodus of Canadians southward to warmth during the bitter cold of winter held a separate charm. South of the Mason-Dixon line remained distant, a place of capital H History, real BBQ and palmetto trees.

During my first long motorcycle adventure across the continent, on the way west my buddy Brad Lozinski and I rode through the Shenandoah Valley, down through to Tennessee. 

I even stopped at the intersection of US 61 and US 49 in Clarksdale, Miss., where blues tourists pay their respects at the spot where it's said Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical genius.

I drove down a couple of times in the 90s, tasting spring break In Florida one year, and indulged in a caffeine-fueled frenetic weekend drive to see the Durham (NC) Bulls in their home stadium, and back. I also read Pat Conroy novels and studied the history of the civil rights movement. I watched Hollywood's take on things southern: Bull Durham, Mississippi Burning, Forrest Gump, Deliverance, Glory, and Fried Green Tomatoes, among others. But I always suspected that I would never understand the South just by visiting, reading, listening to the African-American blues greats, or watching movies.

My life journey eventually churned up a chance to live and work here. So the Rising Family™ has been enjoying and absorbing southern culture for about 20 months now. I can't claim to fully understand it yet, but I sure as heck am appreciating the Southern lifestyle.

Yikes, this prelude has become rather long. So I’ll just plunk in a few photos as foreplay for the next post.

This storefront in Tennessee, reminded me of Northern Exposure, the quirky favorite TV series of mine from the 1990s.

General Lee replicas throughout the South. 

The Rising Daughters at a pumpkin patch last autumn. 
This farm is not too far from the birthplace of Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Chew on that one until the next post.

Spacey

"Maintain an even strain."

I often repeat this mantra to myself to prevent my temper from flaring when the Rising Family™ feuds inside our car. I first read those words during my teens in "The Right Stuff," penned by the incomparable Tom Wolfe. 

I mulled the deeper meaning of it all – how to stay calm and collected when irritated – as we drove down to Huntsville, Alabama. Appropriately, we were heading to visit the US Space & Rocket Center, a museum dedicated to the US space program. 

You see, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were having another round in their ongoing sibling slugfest. On board an SUV going 70-plus mph the only choice for a parent is to ignore the screeching and crying, or crash and burn. The trip to Huntsville takes only 90 minutes from the Nashville area by car. But when your kids are fighting without heed to terse parental orders and promised retribution, the vehicle’s interior can feel like an existential black hole. It's like the vacuum of space, sucking the fiber of one’s being into an endless void of nothingness. Is that depiction stark enough to evoke the helplessness felt when animosity envelopes an enclosed metal space hurtling at high speed? Thus, “maintain an even strain” comes in handy as a psychological safe zone during family outings.

Anyway….we departed on a sunny Sunday morning and headed south to 'Bama. Being an unrepentant space geek, I was eager to begin this visit. When you’re a teenager, Alabama seems a long way from Ontario. As an adult, I was yearning to experience all the museum had to offer. The Space & Rocket Center did not disappoint. The place was chock-full of old spacecraft and mega military hardware that made loud booms. 

The many artifacts were set in chronological order together with historical displays that set the geopolitical context. We saw early German V2 rockets; NASA projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules; SkyLab modules; and the Space Shuttle program. All these hurtling machines were showcased from the prism of the Cold War and the Space Race.

Courtesy of NASA

Famous Americans such as Alan Shepard, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and John Young were lionized all over the exhibit halls. I was proud to see Chris Hadfield there. I totally geeked out and had to be dragged from one section to the next. I wanted to read everything. To me, these relics of beat-up space metal were tangible history. I felt awe and the forward-looking simplicity of those times and my mind drifted. Then the baleful stares of my wife and daughters caught my attention, telegraphing a vehement hurry-up  message. Did they enjoy all these monuments to superpower rivalry and space exploration? Sure they did. Just not as much as I did.

Visiting the Space and Rocket Center was a nice coda to my boyish glee when I first read about these cool spacecraft that had made history. It was an awesome family outing. You should read Wolfe’s classic book about astronauts, keeping your s**t together while under stress, and American identity. It entertains. And I believe its lasting message does help prevent dads from pulling the cord to the ejector seat.