River Dream

Last night I woke up thinking about the Mississippi River, a river that has, since I was a boy, played a significant role in my history and imagination .

Living in Ohio, we crossed it many times on our journeys into the West, and, later, married, Joyce and I spent our honeymoon in New Orleans (took a river cruise) and saw its headwaters in Minnesota. We crossed it several times a year, back and forth, when we drove out to visit my parents who were living in Iowa--and, later, in Oregon.

I can't be sure, but I guess that my fascination began with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a book my wonderful fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Stella Rockwell, read to us, in pieces, on those days when we came back from recess in an orderly fashion. We did. We loved that story. (Though, as I've mentioned here before, when I read that book myself some years later, I realized that Mrs. Rockwell, dear soul, had expurgated and bowdlerized as she'd read--as she probably should have: We were, you know, nine years old.)

I studied the book in Hiram College with Dr. Ravitz; I studied in in grad school at Kent State; I later taught the book in Freshman English at KSU (I spent a year there--1981-82--as an adjunct); even later, I taught it the final ten years of my career, which I spent teaching high-school juniors at Western Reserve Academy. It never lost its appeal for me.

In June 2004, Joyce and I were off on a journey up and down the Mississippi River, looking at and photographing sites relevant to the novel. (When I got home, I pasted them into my PowerPoint presentation on Huck.)

At one point the river takes a huge bend--sometimes called Kentucky Bend--near the borders of Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee. The town of New Madrid, MO, perches right at the top of the bend.

Joyce and I drove right up into that loop, and I was simultaneously dazzled and afraid. The river was on both sides of us! I didn't dare reveal my ... worries ... to Joyce, who was greatly enjoying what we were seeing (we drove up on levees and got a close look at the river, swollen with spring rains). I kept thinking: What if this levee breaks? I pictured that house in Huck Finn, the one swept down the river in a flood, the one that we learn very near the end of the book contains the body of ... ain't tellin'.

I can't tell you the relief I felt when we drove out of there.

I've put some pictures at the end of this post--and I just took a look at my journal for that day. This is all it says:

a couple of stops ... in KY to look at the Miss R (including a little drive along a levee to get a closer look)

That's useful. Was I protecting for posterity my macho image by not mentioning my fears? (Or was I just lazy?) Or was I thinking that the pictures would speak for me?

Anyway, last night I woke up trembling, remembering that June day nearly sixteen years ago.