Newfoundland Grouches

Newfoundland Grouches

August 2, 2002

Is it true that folks from Newfoundland are really more friendly that other Canadians, or do they only appear more friendly because we expect them to be more friendly and are consequently more outgoing ourselves?  Friendliness can be somewhat contageous so if we are friendly, maybe others are responding to our friendly signals.  Smiles beget smiles, hand-waves trigger a wave-back and a “Hi” gets a “Hello” in response. We notice that some days the folks in one community seem more congenial than those of a neighboring community.  But there is no way to tell if these perceived differences are real or only a function of our small sample size – or our own behavior.  If we find one old grouch in a community, how much does he/she influence our impression of the local population?  Because we may chat with only one or two individuals in a community, our sample is obviously biased and un-objective.

However, even though our impressions are biased, evidence still accumulates suggesting that Newfies rank very high on the friendly to unfriendly continuum.  Kids here are often outgoing and friendly even to elderly strangers.  In the USA, children are told not to trust strangers because of the dangers of child molestation.  Even teenage boys and girls are friendly.  For example, we stopped at a roadside pulloff to view a blue bay and the little village below.  A boy from across the highway and up in a woody area hailed me.  “Where are your from” he asked.  

“Texas” I replied.

Emboldened by my reply, he and his friend emerged from the woods and crossed the road to visit with me.  One was carrying a axe over his shoulder.  The sight of the axe made me a little nervous at first, but somehow the young man did not appear threatening.  He explained that he and his friend are on summer vacation and were looking for the proper woody sight where they planned to build a log cabin.  We chatted briefly before they waved goodby and wandered down the highway.

Somehow, this simple act struck me a fairly unusual.  I think that most teenage boys in the USA would not be caught dead being friendly to a strange adult along a highway. 

 

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Mississippi River Coot Chase

Mississippi River Coot Chase

 

December 15, 1997

The water in the flats was only inches deep and we were flying over it at about 40 mph.  Coots (black ducks with a white beak) are very abundant in the open waters of the Delta Wildlife Refuge.  They are so tame and numerous that there is no way to go around them.  When driving through their flocks some of them were not fast enough to escape the air boat.  Although we tried to avoid them, there were so many that they were impeding our progress.  Being a diving duck, their legs are located so far back on their body that they cannot jump up out of the water and fly away like the puddle ducks.  To become airborne they essentially run across the water while flapping their wings until they reach a speed sufficient to become airborne.  Their little legs move faster and faster as their feet make dimples on the water surface.  Desperately trying to escape the air boat which was bearing down on them, they first tried to take off and fly away.  But some could not outrun or outfly the boat.  So what is a poor coot to do when it finds that it cannot escape the boat by air?  It dives into the water at the last split second before the boat hits it.  Other than triggering a very high adrenaline flow, the coots are none the worse for the experience.  I saw no smeared coots behind the boat after we passed.  Coots have probably developed this escape strategy over evolutionary time to escape eagles, falcons, and hawks with a craving for fresh coot.

It was a totally new experience for Pat and me.  Even with ear plugs stuck deeply into our ear canals, the noise of the 454 Chevy engine driving the propeller on the back of the boat was deafening.  My ears are still ringing from the ride.  There is no way to communicate verbally while we skim across the water and mud flats.  We must resort to hand signals and reading lips.  It was also a cold day - the day following a ten inch snow in mid-Mississippi.  Even wearing an insulated suit, warm cap, gloves and several layers of shirts the wind chill caused our knees to shake and our faces were a little numb.  There are no places to escape the wind in an air boat.  But the sights we were seeing was well worth the discomfort.  The noise of an approaching air boat scares some of the wildlife almost one mile away (coots are tamer).  Thus we could not come very close to the ducks and geese before they took off - but once in the air they formed large, black clouds against the clear, blue sky.  Very large flocks of snow geese - up to about 20,000 - inhabit the refuge.  Scaups, ring-necks, mallards, canvas backs, coot, pintails, widgeon, blue-wing teal, white pelicans, brown pelicans, laughing gulls, herring gulls, assorted terns, great blue herons, great egrets, snowy egrets, red tail hawks, and osprey dominate the bird fauna.  It is an incredible place!  A national treasure!  No wonder it was established as a National Wildlife Refuge early in this century.

But all is not well in paradise!  Nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers running off the corn, soybean and cotton fields along the Mississippi River and its tributaries have polluted the river so badly that a large area of the Gulf of Mexico southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi is virtually dead.  The process of hypoxia (oxygen depletion) is caused by the overproduction of plant organisms whose growth is stimulated by the high nitrogen content of the water.  These plants use up the  the oxygen in the water.  Consequently any organism that requires oxygen cannot survive.  Fish, crabs, shrimp and other organisms find it hard to survive under such conditions.  Shrimp boat and fishing boats owners cannot make a living in the polluted area.  Otherwise, in less polluted areas, this delta is one of the most productive fisheries in the world.  

The Delta National Wildlife Refuge headquarters is located about 80 miles south-east of New Orleans at the town of Venice, LA at the end of the Great River Road.  The actual refuge is another seven miles south, near the mouth of the Mississippi River and can be reached only by boat.  Since we are serving as volunteers here for a couple of weeks we can sometimes tag along with Fisheries and Wildlife (FWS) personnel when they make work trips.  Even further south is the Pass a Loutre State Wildlife Area.  Maintenance, enforcement, researchers and administrators can find a bunk there in a large home and visitor’s center.  It is well-maintained and very remote.  Personnel who commute every few days to this State Wildlife area dock their boats here at WFS headquarters.  Consequently we have met and chatted with many of them so we are beginning to understand how this system works.  

Serendipity is hooked up behind the Refuge headquarters about 30 yards from the edge of Grand Pass - a wide waterway into which some of the Mississippi River water flows to the Gulf.  A half mile up the pass we can see ships traveling up and down the river.  Grand Pass is one of the busiest waterways that we have seen anywhere along the Mississippi River.  Diesel supply boats that supply the oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico dock here, load supplies, and ferry crews.  A couple of heliports from which helicopters supply the oil rigs, add to the noise.  Often we can see several supply boats passing by our front door simultaneously.  Every once in a while we hear the roaring of large diesel engines coming to fill their diesel tanks at the “filling station” behind our motorhome.  The noise does not disturb us very much except in the middle of the night.  

Interestingly, the wildlife seems to have adapted to the diesel fumes and the cacophony.  Several brown pelicans frequent the pilings, waiting for the trash fish discarded from the shrimp catch.  Stepping out of the door one night, I almost stepped on a large nutrea which casually loped across the yard and dove into the waters of the pass.  Every evening, yellow-crowned night herons quarrel over the favorite hunting site on the top of a piling which overlooks the murky waters of the pass.  Each morning boats stir up bait fish or something that attract the laughing gulls, herring gulls and least terns into a feeding frenzy.

On the other side of the motorhome is a small port occupied mostly by shrimp boats.  On this same port is a dock with several slips used by the Fish and Wildlife Service.  Thus on one side of this peninsula, on which we temporarily reside, is an almost steady flow of diesel supply boats and on the other there is a lesser flow of shrimp and FWS boats.  Outside the west windows of Serendipity is a view of a large yacht owned by the Fish and Wildlife Service.  It was confiscated from some drug smugglers who operated in the Gulf.  When I mentioned that maybe we could borrow it for a quick trip to the Bahamas, my suggestions was met with only a grin.  Oh well!  We would probably have gotten a terrible sun burn on the Bahamian beaches anyway. 

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Mississippi River End Of Road

Mississippi River End of Road

 

December 3, 1997

According to the State Map of Louisiana, “Plaquemines Parish is the beginning and end of the Great River Road.”  The same map shows the last Great River Road sign at the town of Tidewater, about 75 miles southeast of New Orleans.

We have made headquarters at the Saint Bernard State Park near Poydras, LA.  For $12 a night we are rewarded with 30 amp electricity, water, a paved and level site, and a view of willows overhanging the algae-covered water of a bayou.  The ranger in charge required convincing to allow me to use the park phone to send and receive email.  “We have never had such a request,” she claimed.  One morning, shortly after daybreak, a great egret stood very still in the shallows of the bayou waiting for a small fish or frog to expose itself to the egret’s long, yellow, pointed beak.  

Guess we are enjoying fairly typical weather for southern Louisiana.  One day the sun shines and the max temperature is about 78 F - not bad for early-December.  The next day it is raining hard.  When the reception on our satellite TV is disrupted, we know heavy weather is on the way.  The staccato beat of large rain drops on the roof of Serendipity drowns out the sounds of the ships heading to and from New Orleans or Baton Rouge.  Severe weather was forecast for all of Louisiana as a cold front pushed across Arkansas into Louisiana.  The next morning temperatures north of Lake Pontchartrain were below freezing, but only a slight frost found its way to areas south of New Orleans.  Not enough to be of concern to the citrus growers in the area.

The Louisiana Camping Guide claims that Saint Bernard Park is the only Louisiana state park located adjacent to the Mississippi River.  However, as has been true of most riverside parks south of St. Louis, there can be no view of the river from the campgrounds.  Large levees which border both sides of the river interfere with the view.  Campgrounds are seldom located between the river and the levee where a view of the river would be possible.  Frequent flooding of this area makes it a risky proposition to build and maintain an RV park there.  One exception is a campground in West Memphis which flooded this spring, but was open again for business when we were there in November.  There is often an excellent view of the river from the tops of the levees - usually crowned with a gravel road.  However, driving on them is not usually discouraged and no one seems too concerned with anyone hiking or biking on them.  Further north we often saw signs warning drivers not to drive on the sides of the levees because it might cause erosion.

Sometimes the levee is replaced with a strong cement wall to keep the flooding Mississippi from visiting a town.  Large “doorways” in these walls allow autos to pass from the town to the river bank.  Large metal doors are lifted by large cranes and slid into grooves in the wall of these doorways when news arrives that a flood is imminent.  These walls also serve as a canvas for aspiring river valley artists.  The river wall at Cape Girardeau, MO is notable for the greater-than-life sized depictions of important native sons such as Harry Truman, Mark Twain, Scott Joplin, Dale Carnegie, Tennessee Williams, T. S. Eliot, George Washington Carver, Burt Bacharach, Rush Limbaugh and others.  (Made me wonder why the kids of Cape Girardeau have not been inspired to add their own artistic touch to this excellent, public art by painting swastikas or something over the art with a can of red spray paint.  Where did their educational system go wrong?)

The river can be viewed from bridges over the river, but it is not advised because there is usually no place to stop and the traffic can be intense.  Taking your eyes off the often narrow lanes of speeding traffic to view the river could be hazardous to your health.  However, our experience is that the driver can sneak quick peaks at the river, leaving the passenger to watch the traffic.  A better place for a view is from the decks of the river boat casinos that line the river in almost every city.  The downside is that to reach the river side of the casino you are usually exposed to choking clouds of cigarette smoke and the smell of stale booze spilled into the carpet.  However, most towns and cities along the river provide a park or overlook where the river can be viewed.  

We have not seen many barges on the river below New Orleans.  The grain barges have transferred their loads temporarily into grain elevators at various locations between Baton Rouge and New Orleans where the river is deep enough (about 35 feet deep) for ocean going ships.  This lower part of the Mississippi is where the great transport ships of the world can be seen sailing up and down the river.  From our campground we can sometimes hear their deep, melodious honking at other river traffic and the drone of their large diesel engines is an almost constant background sound as were the tow boats above Baton Rouge.

 

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Mississippi River and Jogging

Mississippi River and Jogging

 

November 30, 1997

My old boss - Perry Adkisson - was a prolific writer.  When I was his student, he confided that he did his best writing while playing golf.  Don’t know how well he played golf cause he never invited me to play with him.  Guess I always suspected his playing skills.  How could he play well if his mind was devoted to writing scientific papers and research proposals?  Anyway, instead of the golf course, it is while jogging that I often have the ideas for these stories that are forced on you through email.  Yes, in a sense my stories are forced on you, but I rationalize that if you do not like them, with one click of the erase key they will disappear.  The few ideas that flow through my inefficient brain these days, seem to happen most frequently when I jog.  Maybe it’s the endorphins.  Often heard that the human body releases endorphins during exercise so that torture becomes fun.   But maybe it is like the stories we have read about the prisoner in some dungeon who - to maintain his sanity - memorizes the multiplication tables through a thousand, or something.  In my case, maybe it is some sort of self defense to get my mind off of the little aches and pains of pounding the roads.

The jog this morning was conducive to a random jumble of impressions that I will try to tease apart.  The temperature was about 48 F, the sky clear; sun was rising in the southeast, and no wind - a perfect morning for a jog.  We are located at the historic town of St. Francisville, LA.  My Rand McNally Road Atlas has placed a small red square beside the town with the attached label “antebellum homes.”  If you are into antebellum homes, then you will be interested to know that from half to two-thirds of American millionaires in the 1850's lived in this rich valley between Natchez and New Orleans.  Natchez alone boasted over 500 millionaires, more that any other city in the U.S. except New York City.  Apparently, these millionaires wished for others to know that they were millionaires.  One way of advertising their wealth was to build an mansion than we now label an antebellum home.  Almost all of this wealth was based on cotton - its culture, harvesting, ginning, and transportation.  The extravagant homes, gardens, and life styles of these rich folks came to an abrupt halt with the Civil War.  

The most poignant story to which we were exposed was that of Dr. Nutt and his wife, Julia who owned about 7 plantations near Natchez.  He was a northern sympathizer and had promises from norther officials not to destroy his plantation buildings.  Of the many large plantation homes around lake St. Joseph, his Winter Quarters home (now a state Commemorative Area) was the only home that survived burning at the hands of Northern troops.  But then his lands were confiscated by the new government and he lost almost everything.  He was a millionaire when about 20 years old.  When he was 48, he was building a large octagonal mansion in Natchez - Longwood - that is now one of its top tourist attractions.  Only the bottom floor was finished when he died that year from what many insisted was a broken heart.  Tour guides dressed in antebellum styles tell the story very well.  Considering the poverty of the region following the war, it is amazing that so many of these homes remain.

The American Civil War plays a very important role in the history of this area.  The National Park at Vicksburg tells a very important story of the war.  However, we were unaware of the important role played at Port Hudson.  We visited the State Commemorative Area near St. Francisville and absorbed some of the details of the 48-day siege of Port Hudson in 1863.  About 30,000 Union troops launched assaults against 6,800 Confederates in this last Confederate stronghold along the Mississippi.  Two major attacks by land and one by ships on the Mississippi were repelled by the Confederates.  So Union officers decided on another tactic- except for minor skirmishes they simply waited until Confederate troop ran out of food.  

The primary source of food for the Confederates was Texas Longhorns.  These cattle were butchered and entrails thrown over the ramparts.  A Union patrol on a nighttime attempt to penetrate Confederate lines fell into this pile of this rotting stuff.  When they passed through the Confederate lines they were captured and were almost grateful that they could now wash off the mess and stench.  Stench became one of the tactics used on both sides.  After one battle, dead Union soldiers lay in large numbers between the lines.  Their bodies turned black, covered with maggots and were rotting.  The Confederate General sent word to the Union General suggesting a temporary truce so that the Union bodies could be removed and buried.  The Union General declined claiming that the bodies would “stink out” the Confederates.

The Confederates soon ate all the Longhorns, then they ate their horses, mules, dogs, cats and rats.  When the food supply was gone they resorted to “experimental consumption of human flesh.”  Confederate ammunition was almost gone when they learned that Vicksburg had fallen so they surrendered.  (Don’t know what role the stench played in the decision.)  It turned out to be the longest siege in American military history and effectively split the Confederate forces.  Confederate supplies from the West could no longer reach the eastern forces.

Now visitors can walk on miles of well-marked trails through the old battle ground.  The old earthen  redoubts can be seen and signs explain the various battles and thoughts of the soldiers.  A visitor’s center provides an excellent museum and movie that provide an overview of the history of this National Historic Landmark.  “How could such an important and interesting subject have been so boring in history class” I wondered?  The Louisiana Office of State Parks has really done an excellent job with this park.

Also near St. Francisville, is the Audubon Commemorative Area.  It is dedicated to John James Audubon who painted 32 of his famous bird paintings while there.  He was hired to tutor Eliza Pirrie, the daughter of the owners of the Oakley Plantation for $60 a month.  In his free time, he shot bird specimens, wired them to appear life-like and then painted them.  His 13-year-old student, Joseph Mason, then painted in the background behind the bird.

Apparently, Eliza feigned sickness for about 5 days so wages for those days were deducted from John’s salary.  John complained and was fired after only four months at Oakley Plantation.

To me, the charm of Oakley Plantation was that it was a working plantation so that the old barns, slave cabins, tools etc. still remain.  There was even a small cotton field behind the slaves cabins containing cotton bolls in which boll weevil feeding cells could be found.  The tall, airy house was built about 1808 can also be toured.  Copies of Audubon’s paintings adorn the walls.  Pat and I  enjoyed a warm, sunny afternoon, leisurely exploring Oakley Plantation 

A country road, aptly named Audubon Road, separates Oakley Plantation from a wooded area across the road.  Signs along the road explain that the property is owned by some West Feliciana Parish hunting club.  (There must be some good reason why hunting clubs are often located adjacent to parks and wildlife preserves.)  While jogged along Audubon Road, I was thinking about the stench of dead soldiers on the battle ground.  The image was so clear in my mind that I even imagined that I could smell the stench.  As I approached a culvert, where some sorry ... had dumped his trash, the smell became stronger and I realized that it was not my imagination.  Certain that I was about to see one of those dead Yankee bodies, I peered over the edge of the road and saw a large dead pig - probably dumped by the same “environmentalist” that had dumped the trash.

 

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Mississippi River and Travel Theme

Mississippi River and Travel Theme

 

 

November 11, 1997

One way to enjoy the RV lifestyle is to develop a travel theme.  Anyone who has traveled very much has experienced theme travel, whether they knew it or not.  For example, many have spent a summer exploring Alaska or Nova Scotia.  During these theme trips, our major goal may be to enjoy life to its fullest while maintaining a general goal or travel theme.  For some this means stopping in every museum, visitor’s center, and park office along the way to learn as much as possible about the people, climate, wildlife, scenery, food, history, vegetation, geology, and anything else that sparks our interests and wonder.  For others, it consists primarily of relaxing with good company around a campfire - escaping the regimentation of civilization and its TVs and newspapers.  There are many other themes that are exploited by RV organizations.  Caravans of RVs follow a schedule of travel to explore Mexico, the Copper Canyon, the parks of Utah, the fall colors of the Northeast, the Oregon Trail, the Rose Bowl, Mardi Gras, or some other theme.  These organized caravans are great for those who can afford them and don’t mind the regimentation of the caravan lifestyle.  The caravan guides provide an abundance of information during these trips and can help minimize the hazards associated with the RV lifestyle. But, for those who prefer the freedom of traveling alone - with a freedom to change directions whenever they wish but who still wish to have as much information as possible - there is another option.  Books are available for some of these trips that can be very useful.  As long as you are willing to accept the fact that the routes and places to visit suggested by the books can also regiment your life, these books can be very informative.  

For me, some of the most enjoyable aspects of the RV lifestyle and travel is the joy of finding something unexpected.  Consequently, we have named our motorhome “Serendipity.”  In our travels, we have found that random meanderings along country roads can produce the desired results, but the probability of finding some really exciting serendipitous experience is enhanced by a little research.  We do not like to make detailed trip plans because they may force us to travel on days when the weather is bad in order to reach a certain destination where our reservation awaits.  Of course, the risk is that when we arrive at an RV park there may be no vacancies.  We find that arriving at an RV park by about three PM, decreases the risk of seeing the “No Vacancy” sign.  Also during the summer vacation period, the probability of admittance into a state or national park is greatly enhanced by arriving on Sunday through Thursday.  Weekend campers fill these parks Friday and Saturday.

The authors of the theme-travel books have minimized the work involved for the traveler.  Some RVers would not dream of beginning a trip without careful plans of the exact route to be taken, and with confirmed reservations at RV parks for every night.  The road to and through Alaska is well covered by “The Milepost.”  But another series of books, that is maybe less well known, is the “Discover! America’s Great River Road” by Pat Middleton.  The first volume covers the “road” from Prescott, WI to Galena, IL, the second from Guttenberg, IA to Alton, IL,  and the third from St. Louis, MO to Memphis, TN.  No book has yet been written for the north or south ends of the Mississippi River.  But an excellent brochure is available that maps the entire Great River Road from its beginning in Minahi, Ontario to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico at Venice, LA.  The authorship of this brochure is uncertain, but my best guess is that it was produced by the Mississippi River Parkway Commission (MRPC) in Minnesota (612-224-9903).  The MRPC is a multi-state organization which “works collectively to preserve, promote, and enhance the scenic, historic, and recreational resources of the Mississippi River, to foster economic growth in the corridor, and to develop the national, scenic and historic parkway known as the Great River Road.” 

While enjoying the fall colors in Northern Minnesota, we observed a circular, green sign along the highway south of International Falls.  Slowing down a bit, we were able to read “Great River Road.”  But, there was no river anywhere in sight. 

 

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Mississippi and Falling Leaves

Mississippi and Falling Leaves

 

 

November 20, 1997

“The falling leaves drift by my window, the autumn leaves of red and gold....”  And the leaves keep falling and falling and falling - for about two months leaves have been falling.  Sometimes we can hear them hit the roof of Serendipity and wonder if it is raining.  Here at the Great River Road State Park north of Greenville, MS, the leaves are sometimes ankle deep under the sycamore, cottonwood, white ash, mulberry, and sugarberry trees.  We are still able to enjoy the childlike joy of walking through the dry leaves and hearing them crunch under our feet.  Copperhead snakes are well camouflaged in these leaves that also cover the park trails.  Wouldn’t want to injure one by stepping on it.  Falling leaves are one of the unexpected pleasures of following the fall colors down the Mississippi River.  Never in our lives have we experienced continued leaf fall for such an extended period of time.  

The overnight temperature that dropped to the mid-twenties in an RV park in West Memphis, AR apparently sped up the development of the abscission zone in the leaf stems.  A flock of robins, active in the early morning sunshine, triggered heavy showers of these leaves.  

During windy days, leaves blow almost horizontally from the trees, but this morning the air is still and the leaves are falling slowly, one by one.  Infrequent breezes trigger small showers of leaves of many assorted sizes and shapes.  The path of the breeze can be followed across this large park as indicated by the leaf fall moving from one tree to another.  Like the movement of the shadow of a small cloud across the terrain, the leaf fall moves across the park.  Sometimes leaves swirl down like falling helicopters.  The larger leaves of the sycamore sometimes drop slowly - buoyed by the air like a parachute.  But mostly they simply fall, with only minor side movements, straight to the ground with minimum display and ceremony.  From the Canadian border down through Missouri and Tennessee, the various maples carpeted the ground with bright patches of red, yellow, and peach colors on the lawns of RV parks.  Then somewhere about Kentucky, the sweet gum leaves added their own bright red colors to the litter.  But here in Mississippi the colors are more subdued and range from slightly orange to tan and brown.  

My fascination with falling leaves is more than the romantic notions associated with leaf fall as symbolic of human senescence.  For me, leaf fall is also symbolic of life.  Imagine all the hungry earthworms that now are provided with the organic matter for their dinner tables.  Fungi and assorted other critters will help break down this cornucopia of fibrous stuff so that minerals are released, making them available to the tree.  What an interesting cycle these minerals experience.  Earthworms eat the decaying leaves and minerals are released in the frass where they are available to the roots of the trees.  In the spring, when the sap in the trees starts to flow, the minerals are transported through the roots, up the trunk, out the limbs, and into the leaves.  Then the cycle can start all over.  Not unlike the cycle of humans who travel south from Minnesota in the fall to overwinter in Florida and travel back to Minnesota in the spring.

 

Is there a down-side to falling leaves?  Well, sort of!  To defend themselves against the hoards of insects that would eat the leaves, the trees have evolved mechanisms of defense.  Tannins, which are toxic to insects, build up in the leaves as they age.  When these leaves fall into the stagnant or slowly moving water, the tannins are leached out of the leaves and color the water.  Streams flowing out of forests often contain dark, tannin-rich water.  These same tannins also do a job on the roof of Serendipity.  This morning when I climbed up on the roof, it was littered with lots of sugarberry leaves that were stuck to the morning dew.  Upon lifting the leaves, a dark tannin stain remained on the white roof wherever a leaf had been.  Oh well!  It is really a small price to pay for the joy of watching the autumn leaves drift by my window.

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Mississippi Casinos

Mississippi Casinos

 

November 20, 1997

One of the unexpected features of the Great River Road is the widespread availability of casinos on and along the Mississippi River.  In Minnesota, the casinos that we visited were ostensibly owned by native Indian tribes.  Apparently, in Minnesota, it is legal for Indian tribes to build and run these casinos on tribal lands.  Is it possible that some folks who have marginal qualifications as Indians are now claiming ancestry among the “First Nation” people so that they can share in this easy money?  

Along the river road south of Minnesota, most casinos must float on the river to be legal.  Almost every major town and lots of smaller towns sport their own casino.   

Having spent a couple of months this fall following this river from one of its sources, down a tributary, and towards the Gulf of Mexico, I wonder if it would not be fair to compare the flow of water with the flow of money into the Mississippi River.  Rain falling in Colorado, Montana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Alabama and many other states flows into streams that grow into rivers and ultimately enter the Mississippi River.  Money seems to follow a similar pattern.  It flows from the pockets of plain folks living in the states along the river toward the river, much like the water.  Often the customers drive long distances to gamble in these casinos.  Thus, the highways function in the flow of money as tributaries of the river function in the flow of water.  But there is a major difference.  The water continues to flow, ultimately reaching the Gulf of Mexico.  Who knows where the money that flows into the casinos ends up - not, we can assume, into the Gulf.  It was once speculated that the Mafia owns many of the casinos in the United States.  Is this still true or are casinos just another legitimate business where ownership is shared by virtuous stockholders around the world?

Whatever the case, casinos are sprouting up at a very rapid rate along the Mississippi River.  But gambling along the river beside the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee are small-time operations as compared to the true Mecca of gambling, located in one of the poorest areas of northwest Mississippi.  Or at least what was once one of their poorest areas.  Now the cotton and soybean fields on the river delta south of Memphis are sprouting a new crop - casinos.  Casino builders are flocking to this region at such a rapid rate that they may soon challenge Las Vegas for the title of gambling capital of the USA.  In the Robinsonville/Tunica area can be found ten casinos, with more under construction.  They include the Hollywood, Harrahs, Harrahs Tunica, Sam’s Town, Bally’s, Circus Circus, Fitzgerald’s, Grand, Horseshoe and Sheraton casinos.  These are LARGE casinos!  Three of these casinos sports hotels of over 500 rooms each.  The combined floor space of the ten casinos is over half a million sq. ft. and the lucky customer can choose from 35 restaurants.  The unlucky ones can go home to a can of beans if they still have a home.  The Hollywood Casino also provides an RV park, complete with overnight telephone hookups.  We stayed there two nights to catch up on phone calls and email.

There is some fuzzy law in Mississippi requiring these casinos to be on the water.  But this law is a farce and obviously not enforced by the State Gambling Commission.  Apparently, this law is satisfied by placing the casinos on land between the flood-preventing levee and a river.  During  floods, these areas may be inundated which apparently satisfies the law.  But astute casino owners who wish to avoid complications of the future interpretation of this law use another gimmick.  For example, the Hollywood Casino dug a pit, filled it with water and then built over it.  In a couple of locations on the floor level, open areas in the floor provide visual evidence there is really water under the casino.  The Grand is actually built over the water of a horseshoe lake.  The others seem to make little pretense at being located over water.  After all, who is going to complain?  These casinos are generating revenue for the state and counties, so the politicians and most voters are happy.  They are providing jobs for the locals and business for contractors, electricians, and carpenters.  Field hands that were driving tractors and running irrigation systems in cotton fields are now night guards, receptionists, and maids.  

My curiosity got the best of me, so I asked Jan Cobb, who works behind the desk at the Helena AR visitors center about all this gambling activity.  She lives in West Memphis, AR and commutes to her job in Helena.  Her husband races dogs at a very large dog track in West Memphis.  She explained that the Christian Coalition came into the neighboring state of Arkansas last year to help defeat a proposition to allow casino gambling.  “Gambling is immoral,” claimed the Christians.  But proponents countered that good old Arkansas money was flowing across the river into the hands of those rascal Mississippians.  Why not keep our money at home in Arkansas?  Not satisfied with preventing casino gambling, the Coalition decided to go after dog racing in West Memphis and horse racing in Hot Springs.  Jan Cobb spent a few restless nights worrying, but was greatly relieved by the results of the election.  If dog racing had been outlawed, she would have been forced to move from West Memphis and would have had to give up her job at the visitors center if she wished to follow her husband and his dogs.  Maybe because betting on horses and dogs was an established tradition, the voters chose to see them in a different moral light and voted to keep this form of gambling.  So, lots of money from Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama flows into Mississippi where it creates jobs and builds additional casinos.

A sign along highway 61 near Robinsonville, brags that “Our slots return 98%.”  This promotional is designed to convince us that fortunes await at their slot machines.  But, I don’t get it!  Does this claim mean that if I invest $1.00 in the slots I can expect to get back only $0.98 in return?  Wow!  What a deal!  On the surface, it may appear that I am paying only a 2% charge for the joys of gambling.  But it seems to me that this is not like a bank charging 2% interest per year, it is a 2% charge every time a coin is dropped into a slot.  A pretty high price for me to pay in order to hear an occasional clatter of a payoff into the metal dish under the machine.  Inside the Hollywood Casino entrance is a large display of photographs of the winners holding extra large checks made out for $10,000, $20,000 and even $50,000.  Wonder why they don’t show photos of losers selling their homes to pay their gambling debts. Why is it that the local radio and television news reports announce only winners and not losers?

Yes, the evidence is very persuasive; these casinos are imbued with altruistic motives - their goal is to bring wealth to their customers.  To make it easier for customers to get rich, they are now provided with ATM-like cards that fit into a card slot on the gambling machines.  Older folks -  worried that they may lose their cards - attach them to a cord around their necks.  At the Hollywood Casino, one of these cards provided me with a 10% discount on the cost of my RV site.  My debt limit was set at $40.  What nice folks!  How considerate they are to make gambling so much easier.  Now it is no longer necessary to carry those heavy, plastic buckets full of quarters.  Simply plug in your card and instant wealth may be yours. 

Actually, this whole business of organized gambling is very disturbing.  Most of us have no ethical quarrel with a couple of guys betting on the outcome of a football game.  But the state sponsorship of gambling, either directly with the lottery or indirectly through taxation of casinos, raises questions about the message this sends to the gullible.  If, by building a few large, gaudy casinos and making extravagant claims about how easy it is to get rich, casino owners can so easily dupe us into investing in something that usually produces negative returns, what does this say about our ability to make other important decisions?  How about the reasoning process that we use to choose our political leaders?  Are we influenced by gaudy appearances and glitzy claims?  I don’t know, but find it a little frightening that we might be.  It seems that our educational system has exhibited only limited success in teaching our young citizens about the methods useful in separating fiction from truth.  How else is it possible for so many of us to believe that we can really beat the odds at casinos or that the alignment of the stars can be used to predict the success of our next romantic encounter?  Why is it possible for scam artists to find us such easy marks?  Or if we satisfy the rituals of serious wishing, our wishes will somehow come true.

Oh well, there are now 29 casinos in the state of Mississippi, so maybe we will find some more convincing evidence of the benevolence of the gambling industry before we leave the state.

 

Table of Contents:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/4404749581224177008?hl=en

 

Louisiana and Judge Perez

Louisiana and Judge Perez

December 13, 1997

He was a father-figure of Plaquemines Parish, LA.  The school children “loved” him so much that they dropped their pennies into penny jars at school for him.  The pennies were melted and made into a statue in the likeness of Judge Perez, which today is thought to stand in the overgrown Park in Belle Chasse, LA.  About all that can be seen of the old Park and the old Perez home is an overgrown wrought iron and brick fence north of the British Petroleum storage facility along Highway 23.  Behind some overgrown shrubs, a wooden sign reads: “Leander Perez Memorial Park.” Yes, Judge Perez was loved by the citizens of the parish, but he was also a most hated and feared leader.  Folks around these parts did not have neutral feelings about the man - they either loved or hated him.  But most folks likely lived in some fear of the judge.  When they spoke critically of him, they did so in whispers.  He was a virtual dictator of the parish with almost unlimited power over the people and finances.  He operated the Parish almost as a separate nation - refusing any state and federal funds to the parish.  Maybe he understood that he would lose some control of the parish if he accepted outside funding. 

This story was told by our friend, Michael Guidry, the refuge officer at the Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Venice, LA.  Mike’s dad once decided to send Mike’s three sisters to an integrated Catholic School.  To put it mildly, the judge was not a great friend of the blacks.  When he found out about Mike’s dad’s decision, the judge apparently enlisted the help of this son who was the District Attorney.  The District Attorney suggested that Mike’s sisters might not be best served by going to school with black kids.  But Mike’s dad stubbornly refused the “advice” and apparently incurred the ill will of the judge and his “gang.”  The Catholic School was mysteriously firebombed and destroyed.  Another of Mike’s relatives who supposedly was not a Perez supporter during a particular election was fired from his job and that job was given to another relative who was a Perez man.

In 1965 hurricane Betsy struck Plaquemines Parish.  Mike’s family had evacuated the area to ride out the storm up in Belle Chasse - about 65 miles north of Venice.  The storm was so bad that it sank a dredge in the Mississippi River channel, killing 12 and closing the channel to ships.  Mike joined with volunteers to help find victims and to begin the clean-up process.  They rode in army trucks over logs and trash that covered the highway after the water subsided.  “It was the roughest ride of my life,” he claimed.  

Afterward, to show his appreciation for the efforts of volunteers, Judge Perez invited the volunteers to his home in Belle Chasse for coffee and donuts.  “Y’all done good,” the judge said to the white volunteers inside his home.  The blacks got their coffee and donuts in the yard - they were not allowed in the house.  Mike remembers the Judge as a fellow with a medium build, heavy eyebrows and a big cigar that appeared to be permanently planted in his mouth.  Mike also remembers how embarrassed he was for the black volunteers.  “My dad did not raise me to be a racist,” he said. 

When civil rights advocates threatened a march on Plaquemines Parish, Judge Perez informed them that he would find them housing in the parish prison located in old Fort Phillips across the Mississippi from Fort Jackson if they appeared in “his” Parish.  Apparently, they believed the Judge and decided to march elsewhere. 

Near the entrance to the offices of the Delta Wildlife Preserve, is a harbor containing shrimp boats.  Back in the 1960's it served as boat slip for the “Manta” - a yacht owned by the parish.  Of course, the “Manta” often served as the judge’s personal yacht for entertaining and hunting in the marshes and swamps of the area.  It was also probably used for the judge to check his oil wells that were pumping oil from the judge’s marshes.  Yes, the judge owned thousands of acres of the marsh, so he also owned the oil under it.  How did a judge come to own so much land?  Some say that he stole it!  Eighty-year-old Joseph (Joe) Hamann now lives in a simple, white, wood frame house beside the harbor where the judge once kept his yacht.  “Judge Perez stole this land from me” claimed Mr. Hamann.  The National Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) obtained a perpetual lease on the land from the judge.  “I am trying to reclaim my land through the process of squatters rights and adverse possession.” The FWS has issued several orders for Mr. Hamann to move his home from the “Government land” but he refuses.  Not wanting any adverse publicity, the FWS has not evicted Mr. Hamann and a stalemate exists.  Consequently, Joe Hamann continues to live illegally on land that was apparently stolen from him.  Maybe there is justice after all!

The ghost of Judge Leander Perez still haunts Plaquemines Parish. The “Fruit and Land Company” owns much of the land in the Parish.  This company was established by Judge Perez and must now be owned by his descendants.  Thus from the grave, Judge Perez still makes his presence known to Plaquemines Parish.  According to Pon Dixson - Refuge Manager for the Delta National Wildlife Refuge - “The Judge was so crooked that he could put straight nails in his pocket and they would come out cork screws.  If you die and see pearly gates, streets of gold, flowers, and Leander Perez - you’re not where you think you are.”

 

Table of Contents:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/4404749581224177008?hl=en

 

Fronntenac Park Minnesota

Fronntenac Park Minnesota

 

 

October 15, 1997

Stepping out into the darkness, the wind whistled through the stand of birch trees behind the motorhome and swirled around the motorhome.  The weather was growing colder.  Something cold and wet landed on my bare, bald head.  “Guess it is a wet birch leaf,” I thought.  Brushing it off with my bare hand, I decided that it was too cold to be a leaf.  Turning on the flashlight, very large, white, wet snowflakes were observed blowing horizontally through the air.  Yesterday it had been almost 80 F, now it was about 35 F and we were experiencing the first snow this fall.  The reason for being outside in the cold is the subject of this discourse.  One of the “laws” of the RV lifestyle is a variation of Murphy’s law: “When something goes wrong with a motorhome that requires outside work, it will take place during the worst imaginable weather conditions.”

After checking into the Frontenac State Park overlooking Pepin Lake in Minnesota, we found our site for the night and plugged the land-line electric cable into the 30 amp outlet.  Hoping to take the chill out of the air, I turned on both electrical heaters.  Soon our house on wheels was warm so I lowered the thermostat and the heaters stopped.  After watching TV for a while, the circuit breaker clicked and we were without electricity.  Outside, I flipped the breaker switch back on and everything was back to normal.  About 30 minutes before sundown we went for a hike down the bluff toward the Mississippi River on a park trail.  After unintentionally causing a couple of young eagles to take flight, we returned.  The sun had set and it was growing dark.  The electricity was off when we entered the motorhome.  Flipping on the breaker switch, we again had electricity.  Then, about every 10 minutes or so, the breaker would switch off for no apparent reason.  Were we overloading the system by pulling too great a load?  No!  I could run both heaters simultaneously and it would not cause the breaker to switch off.  The breaker switched off only when there was a very low load on the system.

Not wanting to use our expensive propane by running the furnace, I was determined to use electricity provided by the park and for which we had paid.  It was dark, snowing, and cold when I decided on an alternate strategy.  I ran a 20 amp, extension cord under a door and into the motorhome to power one of the electric heaters, hoping that if some overload of the 30 amp circuit was causing the problem, I would still have some heat in the motorhome.  This system worked to perfection and never caused any circuit breaker problems.  But it could not handle all of the other electrical appliances such as the microwave, TV, VCR, coffee maker, toaster, etc.  The 30 amp system would be necessary to run these other appliances but it would not stay on.  Tiring of leaving my warm nest to repeatedly turn on the breaker, I decided to run another 20 amp extension cord to the neighboring electric outlet box.  Connecting it to a 20 to 30 amp converter, I rigged the 30 amp system so that it would run on 20 amps.  I was working in the dark with a flashlight.  A low hanging tree limb - not revealed in the flashlight beam - knocked my glasses onto the leaf litter.  But my efforts were to no avail - the neighboring circuit breaker also switched off after working for a few minutes.  The one small electrical heater was not keeping us warm. Tiring of the whole mess, I turned on the propane furnace and went to bed.  

During the night, I slept poorly and while awake reviewed the electrical problem, trying to find a solution.  Did the problem arise from the motorhome or the park’s electrical system?  The state park electrical outlet had a ground-fault system as a safety mechanism to prevent hazardous electrical shocks.  Maybe, when our neighbors turned on some electrical appliance, it was somehow triggering our ground fault system.  Once, when the electrical spark of our 12-volt system lighted the propane water heater, the circuit was broken.  Another time, when the electric heater came on, it happened again.  But, usually, there was no electrical event in our motorhome to which the circuit breaker could be linked.

The next day, I looked out the bedroom window and voila! There was the electrical box close enough so that I could reach it through the window.  At least tonight, it would not be necessary to go out into the cold to switch the breaker.  Then I remembered that the breaker switch had never activated when a heavy load was placed on the system.  Plugging the 30 amp landline into the 30 amp outlet, I turned on an electric heater and left it on.  We had no more electrical problems even if we added to the electrical load by running other appliances.  Now, I need a good electrician to explain the most likely reason why this breaker switch misbehaved so irrationally when there was no load on the system.  The reason remains a mystery to me.  We have stayed at two parks since then with no additional problem.  Apparently, the problem resides in a faulty electrical system in the park electrical outlets and not in Serendipity (our motorhome).  However, this problem reminded me of a similar problem we experienced in our old motorhome (Aristotle).  A small short in the microwave caused a ground fault, breaker problem and cost hundreds of dollars to find.    

So what do you think?  Does this admission that RVing has its imperfections change your perception of the lifestyle?

 

Table of Contents:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/4404749581224177008?hl=en

 

Mississippi River and Cahokia Mounds

Mississippi River and Cahokia Mounds

 

November 6, 1997

There are cultural landmarks thought by some to be of international importance in the history of mankind.  Included in this elite group are the City of Rome, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, and the Florida Everglades.  By chance, we happened upon another - the Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site in Collinsville, IL.  Through no careful plan of my own, during my life I have visited all of these sites except for the Cahokia Mounds.  It presented me with the opportunity to make a subjective evaluation and comparison of these sites.  

One of the major differences between sites in the United States and those in other countries is that the foreign sites are man-made structures.  They are based on the skills of craftsmen and the willingness of ancient rulers to devote large amounts of labor, a large fraction of their wealth and the lives of their subjects to the construction of these sites.  By contrast, most of the sites in the United States are National Parks devoted to conservation and preservation of the scenic natural systems.  The exception is the Cahokia Mounds which are man-made structures.  

Another difference is that US sites usually have outstanding visitor’s centers.  This is especially true of the Cahokia Mounds park.  It is a large, modern center where it is recommended that visitors begin their visit with an excellent movie that provides an overview and explanation of the Indian culture that built these mounds.  For me, the fairly dry subject of archeology was turned into a visually and intellectually exciting event.  Pat and I spent about four hours learning about how archeologists sift through dirt to find ancient grains of corn and fragments of pottery from different strata of soil.  From the evidence found, they speculate about why this old city died when it had about 20,000 people at its zenith.  Maybe it had something to do with the apparent fact that human sacrifice was a common feature of the culture.  Three headless men’s bodies were found in one grave and when a chief died, a few young women might be sacrificed and buried with him.  Over-population, disease, not enough protein in their diets, or pollution may have been other causes.  

Maybe I missed something, but I never saw any visitors center at the Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, or Rome.  Yes, there are museums in the areas that serve some of the same functions but they are usually little more than tourist traps.  Of course, information about these foreign sites is available in book form, but for most of us, visitor centers are vastly superior to books for providing a quick overview.  So why is it that American sites have such excellent visitor centers?   Is it simply a matter of wealth?  Maybe the people and governments of China, Egypt, India and Italy cannot afford expensive visitor centers.  It strikes me as somewhat ironic that in our capitalistic country where nothing gets in the way of making money - where we have historically chopped down our forests, ripped up the prairies, and killed anything that is edible - we also have the best parks in the world with impressive visitor centers.  It seems almost schizophrenic that the same culture that destroyed our forests and created the dust bowl could also have the foresight to preserve the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.  Would it be a fair analogy to compare our culture to the man who smashes his wife in the face then picks her up and expresses his heart-felt apologies - only to smash her in the face again later?   Hmmm!

 

Table of Contents:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/4404749581224177008?hl=en