Rerouting History

According to Gordon Lightfoot, northern waters flow from Lake Superior, southeastward to Lake Huron, then down to Lake Erie, then Lake Ontario, and into the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. In the middle between Superior and Huron is Lake Michigan. The cities of Milwaukee and Chicago were built and developed on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan. Chicago developed along the Chicago River, which drained water from the Illinois countryside, eastward into the Lake. This was a flowing arrangement that had been developing naturally for thousands of years. When the southern half of North America was being developed by the people and the institutions of the United States, the city of Chicago arose as a sort-of midpoint between New York and San Fransisco. During our 19th-century expansion, when “Go west, young man” was the motivation for adventurous and enterprising explorers, Chicago emerged out of the muddy swamps of lower Lake Michigan. Adventurous Americans who traveled from New York, Cleveland, or other eastern origins could go by wagons or rails of boats. The boat travelers would have to get off the boat near Toledo and travel by land to go further west. After a while, they would reach the south end of Lake Michigan. Maybe they were tired of traveling, and they were encountering troublesome swamps. There were friendly Indians in the Chicago area, and they were probably tired of traveling. . . settlers began to accumulate in a favorable location on the southeast shore of Lake Michigan. There was a river that flowed into Lake Michigan, which was named after the natives; it came to be called the Chicago River. The city hub developing there grew exponentially as the railroads were established from the east. The frontier city of Chicago grew to be the major hub of continental development and transport in the middle of our United States. Back in those days, people had not yet figured out the principles and practices of modern sewer and trash collection. As more and more people settled in Chicago, the Chicago River was polluted. The river degenerated from a fresh source to public sewer. So their sewerage was flowing into Lake Michigan, which was their source for drinking water. Between 1887 and 1890, the citizens decided to solve the problem by reversing the flow of the Chicago River. They dug canals and built locks to drain the Chicago River westward into the Mississippi River watershed, insuring that their waste would no longer be cast into Lake Michigan, their source for drinking water. That was one small step in the great American project to build a great nation from east coast to west coast, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, and from the pioneer world to the great American progress project of building a great nation. As time ticked on by, we the people would figure out how to actually cleanse our water by removing the sewage waste. This is what is known as progress and we should never forget it. We humans have come a long since the Genesis, when Creator YWHW was moving over the surface of the waters. When the Creator placed people on the earth, He provided our brains so that we could figure out ways to solve our problems. The people of Chicago served our nation by proving that we could change the course of rivers, change the course of history, and make progressive improvements wherever necessary. Let us go forth, through the noise and waste. . . to preserve and improve our great American nation that has proven to be an example of human ingenuity and good will. A decade later , an Illinois President manifested the destiny of all American citizens by assuring that no man nor woman would be enslaved.

After the crash of 1929, President Roosevelt initiated a new deal, whereby Americans would work together to improve our infrastructure. . . our parks, our waterways, our culture and our way of life for the benefit of ourselves, our children, our neighbors and our heirs.

Let us go forth in the noise and haste, clearing the confusion, cleaning the waste, and clearing a flow path toward wealth and health for all Americans, laying down the tracks of progress, just as the people of Chicago did after they reversed the flow of the waters so that progressive improvements could designed, built and utilized by Americans from coast to coast and around the world. Glass half-Full

Chicago

Great center of the American world, manufacturer, maker of rail lines and skyscrapers, metropolis of business and busyness, city of bustling pedestrians. They say you’ve had dark days, days of gangsters and lawbreakers, and I understand that, as the center city of our great American expansion. . . law and order, mail order, Sears, Montgomery Ward and Marshall Fields. 19th century, 20th century, 21st century. . . in the middle of the country. A traveler would have to rail or to fly eastward to Hudson, or westward to the Pacific, to find a city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and and tough and strong and cunning, flinging media amid the enterprises of piling job upon jobs. . . a tall bold skyscraping skyline, manifesting the burdens of destiny and development, working as a young citizen, touring. . . as this curious American guest.

Down on the south side, where glad, glad Leroy Brown, gladdest man in the whole bustling town, does his thing, laboring to bring strength and prosperity, peace and regularity to a city and a nation balanced upon the center of the continent . . .

sending and receiving the great American destiny from coast to coast, with the most energetic pulse, whether through Louie Armstrong, Muddy Waters or the Chicago Symphony. . . a brassy, bold, wondrously urban declaration of prosperity and progress, from Grant Park to Lake Michigan, through the reversed Chicago River to the Mississippi and the Atlantic and Pacific shores. . . “laughing the stormy, husky brawling laughter of youth. . . proud to be producer, tool maker, butcher, stacker of wheat, with freight-handling railroads,

trains and planes for Americans and world-citizens who come and go, to and fro, while our next generation does grow and grow. Glass half-Full

Liberty Justice for All

But Liberty and Justice for All is not something that just happens. As compatriots with liberation and deliverance, liberty and justice emerge triumphant from the very embattlements of human history. Where their zealous advocates manage to grab some foothold in the landscape of human struggle, freedom is fleeting not far behind. Noble aspirations are all summoned up when the careless slayings of men demand value more sacred, more holy, than the mere clashing of weapons and the expiration of breathing bodies. In our present exploration’s story, the bad news is: there is an inevitable outflow—the shedding of blood—which propels violence to ever higher levels of atrocity. The good news is: where there’s shedding of blood, Soul is not far beneath. In the summer of 1964, all of these elements of human struggle converged in an unprecedented way. Way down south, in the piney woods and sweltering fields of Mississippi, a new activist strain of blood-red camellia was taking root in that freshly-tilled civil rights black delta loam. As God had heard the cry of Abel’s blood arising from Edenic soil, he heard now the beckoning of enshrouded laborers, those dead and these living. Their muted cries called forth liberation; they demanded deliverance. So while black folk of the deep South were struggling to register their right to vote as Americans, a vast brigade of like-minded souls from other regions caught a whiff of their newly-planted liberty, and so the new brigades took it upon themselves to go down to Mississippi and lend a hand. Go down, Moses, was the call. Go down, collective Moses. There were many who heard that call; there was even a man named Moses, Bob Moses from Harlem. He, and others who stood with him against discrimination, planted themselves in Mississippi at the crossroads of injustice and opportunity. Down here in the verdant lap of Dixie where the honeysuckles twine sweetly and the slaves had mourned bitterly, a battalion of wayfaring strangers from far and near came to cultivate the new growth of freedom.

(I noticed this plaque today while visiting the Obama Library in Chicago.) They were filling a void in the whole of the human soul. Robbed of freedom, the Soul of Man wails out a distress call; then in regions afar, the Soul of Man hears, and resonates with action. Deep calls unto deep.

(Audacity of Hope Monument) In Berkeley California, Michael Savola answered the call. He knew about the work of the NAACP. He had heard the battle-cry, had felt those deep twelve-bar blues jangling through his heart and across his brain. When Michael got to Mississippi, the civil rights pioneers took him by the hand and lead him into a little church. For the first time ever he felt the flesh and blood plaintive chant of Negroes; they were singing”: The truth will make us free, The truth will make us free, The truth will make us free some day. Oh deep in my heart I do believe The truth will make us free some day. King of Soul

At Lincoln Memorial

a scene from Glass half-Full They walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. When they reached the top, Bridget was gazing, like most everyone else who ascends here, with rapt interest at the seated statue. But Marcus, holding Bridget’s hand, gently prodded her to keep moving, slowly to the left, through the myriad of ambling visitors.

They came to an inner sanctum. Carved on the white marble wall in front of them were the words of the slain President’s Gettysburg address. Marcus stopped, taking in the enormity of it, both physically and philosophically. He was looking at the speech intently. Bridget was looking at him. After a few moments: “Isn’t that amazing? “Yes.” She could see that he was thinking hard about something. The great chamber echoed a murmur of humankind. “Supreme irony.” The longing of a nation’s soul reverberated through the memorial… in the soundings of children, the whisperings of passersby. Deep within Marcus’ soul, something sacred was stirring, and she could see it coming forth. “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.” He was reading aloud Lincoln’s words on the white wall. But for the echoes of a million people who had passed through this place, there was silence. After a moment, Bridget responded. “…and yet, there it is carved on the wall, for all to see: ‘the world will little note what we say here….’” “Right, Bridget. Isn’t it amazing?” Suddenly, amid the noise was a loud shouting. Marcus could hear where it was coming from. He moved quickly away, toward the noise, to see what was happening. Bridget felt the sudden coolness of air on her hand, in the absence of Marcus’ gentle grip. As soon as he emerged from behind the marble column, Marcus was puzzled by an incongruous, glistening wet flash of red upon the feet of Lincoln’s statue. What the hell? Instinctively, he ran over to it. He could still hear a constant shouting; it was a ranting. Then his attention settled on the man who was yelling. He had a bucket in his hand, dripping with red paint. The rant went on, and suddenly Marcus was comprehending it: “…you sonofabitch see if you can get that off and then rub it on your white ass, your sorry white ass that destroyed what this country could have been you’re a traitor to your race.” This must be a dream, a very bad dream. Marcus was noticing the speaker’s bald head, goatee, his moving mouth spouting insult. Then Marcus was deciding to do something. It seemed to him that it was someone else speaking when he asked, loudly, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Glass half-Full

Beethoven Number Nine

an excerpt from chapter 18 of King of Soul

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondem laβt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere! While the widening gyre of anarchy was roaring so blatantly through Altamont, another thing altogether was happening in the hub of the heartland, that humongous, meat-packin’ Windy City on western shore of Lake Michigan. In a concert hall on Michigan Avenue, a mere stone’s throw from the site where, last year, Mayor Daley’s legion of policemen had taught the boomer upstarts a thing or two about how his version of order would be enforced in the city of Chicago, a theater-full of listeners sat expectantly. They were awaiting the arrival of Ludwig Von Beethoven. His scribbled notes upon a 5- lined manuscript would soon provide the roadmap to guide them through an extraordinary experience, an o’erleaping of the bounds of time and space. At 8:07, as if by clockwork, Conductor Riccardo Ormando entered the hall from the wings, welcomed enthusiastically in a wave of applause. Now the time of his orchestra’s purple mountains’ majesty of preparation would yield forth the fruited plains of actual, musical delight. Thus would their collective soundings propel this eager audience through an exploration of rock music as it had been performed a century and a half earlier. The great concert hall came to an absolute silence when Ormando turned his back on the audience. He lifted the baton. Softly, Sustenuto Strings sounded the beginning of an event like no other, and yet exactly the same as it had always been.

Something, something very fine was about to happen, something tuned and prepared, painstakingly written, performed through ages, rehearsed again and again and again and, and then again, it began. Flutes, woodwinds joined in harmonious agreement that, yes, something here should happen, but it would not begin too soon, not too hastily. Let it develop. A brief discordant note, reminiscent of their prior tuning, then the sonorous appearance of Pianissimo notes over strong tremolos. With a wave of his hand, Riccardo gave the Horns permission to so sedately make their entrance. Allegro rhythm took hold of their soundings. Ensemble musings melted into congruous agreements. Along the way, Flutes, French horns, Oboes, Clarinets, Bassoons, Trumpets—all contributed to a mounting statement of masterful musical expectation; carefully formed a hundred and fifty-four years ago. The bundle of sound was delivered precisely, within a sonata form of melded anticipations and fortissimo fulfillments, interspersed with overlapping phrases, strings and horns alternating on descents; Violins ascending pyrrhically to the heights of their prepared assents. Passion stretched between a wooden frame, tensioned with pegs from skillful instrument-makers long dead and gone, as was the composer himself. Air, vibrating. Atmospheric molecules activated in energetic creation, rushing now through tubes of brass, squeezing ‘tween reeds of vibrating resistance. This rarified air, dispensed by accomplished lips of love, entrained through hearts of gold, it all blew through, sounding forth, offering delicate harmonies and bold crescendos intended to lift the human heart to heights of reflective joy, joy that is perhaps not fully appreciated until the depths of despair have been debilitated, and the heights of achievement have been laid out like sacrifices upon the altar of endeavor and the crucible of time. Listen to the scene on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkj0TeZeZuo%20">

Portrait of a Lady

Listen to the song: Portrait of a Lady It seems the birds are flying south; winter’s here and there’s no doubt the leaves are going to fall; and relatives will call their sons and daughter all, and tell them to be sure and stay warm. Yes, winter is that time of year when snow appears and birds make their way back south. . . prompting all the folks at home to keep their skin and chilly bones wrapped in sweaters so they won’t be cold.

The air just seems to crystalize, somehow bringing bluer skies and crisp autumn sounds. . . like the wind that brings the northern cold . . . the quilt a lady now unfolds. She sees the bare-branched trees outside the window; they seem to frown. She lays the quilt out on the bed with visions running in her head of all the things she has never done; all the words she might have said . . .all the children and the dead. . . The winter wind just blows. She sits down on the window sill; she opens up her mind to fill it with a thought of far away. . . a man she knew. . .she met him on a streetcar. . .it was a day, a day just like today. She wonders why October cold always seems to bring that old memory back again. . . of steaming coffee in a cup, and eyes that never would give up. . .as they watched across the table, her trembling hands. . . Suddenly she hears a stirring sound. . . and in the hall, the pounding of little feet. . . that bring a boy with younger eyes, to kiss, and hug her and make her sigh her silly thoughts right out the window. Yeah, now there’s just a pair of eyes that gaze at her from three feet high, and smile when she’s too sad, a childish face that wants to see all it was ever meant to be. . . till she takes it in her trembling hands. . . don’t cry, baby. Listen to the song: Portrait of a Lady Glass half-Full

American Dream

Where am I? I know I was laying in a field of grass somewhere. . . Leaves of grass. . . leaves falling. . . looking around. . . in the autumn of my life, harkening back to the roots . . . the American dream. . . life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Philadelphia 1776 . . . now, today, in Boston. . . the old north church, “one if by land; two if by sea” Am I on solid ground or am I treading water as the waves of history roll in, crashing upon the sands of time? The contest of nature and man’s controlling of it. . . the contrast of order and chaos. . .the contest of harmony and invention is playing out far beyond the scripted documents of human events. . . all men and women being created equally, endowed by our Creator with life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness. . . the right to work toward fulfilling the American dream, on a lifelong journey to make the best of every opportunity to work hard, have a decent car to drive in the morning, have a house to live in, raise a family of three or four young’uns.. . . it’s all good, y’all. Born in the deep south, watching all the changes: Martin Luther KIng Jr., having come down from the mountaintop . . . https://www.micahrowland.com/carey/Mountaintop.mp3 . And yet. . . ‘‘the contest of harmony and invention is playing out, far beyond the scripted staffs of musical history, and the yellowed pages of history. . . presenting consequences more grave than the mere comfort of American citizens.

Still to be found in the world today is the ongoing contest of order against chaos. Here’s the ever-present duel between right and wrong; there’s the Establishment beating back dissidents, with frequent sightings of the powers that be, as they take advantage of the powerless who want to be. And we shan’t neglect to mention the plight of them who think they should be running the show, being perpetually put down by them who are in charge of it. And we do learn we have words that must be said; yet we have words that should never be spoken; but someone will pronounce those words sooner or later. Yes, we do encounter in this life lines in the sand that daren’t be crossed, and prohibitions that beg to be violated; we find rules that must be broken, and sometimes we encounter the terrible consequences of convention vs. contention.

King of Soul