A Country without Memory

By John Lesage

A work of history for people who can't stand history? Well, in the spirit of Howard Zinn, it's certainly for those objecting to how American history is commonly portrayed. This work interweaves bite-sized historical essays into a personal narrative of the road.

As a project, A Country without Memory began on a winter road trip in 2007. John Lesage spent a month driving from Seattle to the East Coast of the United States, seeking sites of historical significance. He selected places such as those related to John Brown, Jefferson and Thoreau, noting that history is most often distorted in the realm of racial relations. He uncovers some little known history, and brings a poetic sensibility to historical insight

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Lesage
• Release date: Oct 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301596898

John Lesage

John Lesage was born in Corvallis, Oregon, USA, and has lived in Seattle and Tokyo. His work life has varied from cabbie to landscaper, and from university instructor to technical editor. He has traveled two dozen countries on four continents. For A Country without Memory, he draws insight from extensive reading into history, listing almost 50 books in the Bibliography.

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A Country without Memory

Road Trip into American History

John Lesage

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 John Lesage

Find other work by John Lesage at http://johnlesage.net

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Cover designed by Razi Bhatti.

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Table of Contents

#Chapter_1_Setting_Out

#Chapter_2_Texas

#Chapter_3_Mississippi_Delta

#Chapter_4_Virginia

#Chapter_5_The_Northeast

#Chapter_6_Antietam-Harpers_Ferry

#Chapter_7_South_Again

#Chapter_8_Midwest

#Chapter_9_Kansas

#Chapter_10_Homeward

#Postscript_2011

#Bibliography

Subject headings:

History -- United States

History -- United States -- African-American

History -- United States -- Andrew Jackson

History -- United States -- Banks and Banking

History -- United States -- Civil War

History -- United States -- Colonial Beginnings

History -- United States -- Federal Reserve System

History -- United States -- Henry David Thoreau

History -- United States -- John Brown

History -- United States -- Lincoln

History -- United States -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

History -- United States -- Money

History -- United States -- Native-American

History -- United States -- Revolutionary War

History -- United States -- Texas

History -- United States -- Thomas Jefferson

History -- United States -- World War II

History -- Mexico

History -- Mexico -- Miguel Hidalgo

History -- Mexico -- Agustín de Iturbide

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all those contributing suggestions to improve this work. These have included fellow participants in several writers' circles over a number of years. They are too numerous to list comprehensively, but I will mention a few who have provided perceptive advice as the project approached completion: Soph Jones, Peter Darling, Letitia Harmon, Holly Homan, Lee Anne Bowie, Ian Messerle, Spyder Isaacson, Mark Hennon, Alfred Birnbaum, Gary Kline, John Glover, and Melanie Cohen.

I would also like to acknowledge the special debt I owe my life partner for encouragement, ideas, and most of all, her tolerance of all quirks associated with the creative process.

Thank you.

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Chapter 1: Setting Out

History is . . . bunk. . . . [T]he only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

-- Henry Ford

If my hindsight were as good as my foresight, I wouldn't be in this mess.

-- Dave Beck

A tribal cop pulls in behind me. Uh oh. I'm glad that I hadn't commenced my intended business. I walk back to the rig while the officer steps out to greet me.

Have I been trespassing or something?

Or something.

He launches a lecture that differentiates treading on sacred ground from merely trespassing, and I think, How about pissing on sacred ground?

I had stopped to avert a hydrological crisis behind a convenient rock. A paucity of restrooms isn't generally a concern in the desert Southwest, but my selected route crosses the Hopi Nation. I passed a general store on Third Mesa, and then quickly realized I had no place else to stop for quite a while. A couple of curves down the hill, I pulled over where I could look back toward Oraibi Mesa.

I read Stewart Bakavi on his name tag. Officer Bakavi tells me to get back in the car and takes my license. He has me blocked in, and he's already recorded my plate number. I gaze forlornly toward the outline of a pueblo surmounting the mesa to the west. The mud-brick cluster seems to have grown naturally atop the mesa.

Nearby Old Oraibi dates from before the 12th century. It's far older than any town of European origin in what is now the United States -- older than Jamestown, older than St. Augustine. People have lived in these Hopi pueblos since the abbey church of St. Denis was built as the first Gothic structure in Europe, since the Kamakura Era of Japan, since St. Francis preached to the birds of Assisi, since Saladin faced the Third Crusade.

How did I get here?

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I flash back three days: I'm on the road, crossing the mountains east of Seattle. Unlike Abraham, I'm not sure that I have a call to go forth, but here I am, driving through Snoqualmie Pass. I go through a friendly cluster of snowy Cascade peaks, through the familiar toward the less familiar.

Not only can I name all these peaks, I've climbed most of them -- Guye Peak, Kaleetan, The Tooth . . . . I take this same climbing compulsion into reading history. I've spent most of my life on the continent's western edge, but most of the country's defining moments occurred dawnward of the Pacific Crest. I read history voraciously, but an understanding based on concepts and images derived from the printed page is unavoidably two-dimensional. I venture forth to set stories on a landscape, and bring them to life.

History is far more interesting than what we're fed in school. In the United States, history is most often distorted in the realm of racial relations. For this reason, I plan to visit places associated with John Brown, Henry Thoreau, and Thomas Jefferson -- Harpers Ferry, Kansas, Concord, Monticello. But I'll see where the road leads. In venturing upstream through history, perhaps I'll find some insightful, hidden tributary. Perhaps I'll find something useful for us bobbing in downstream currents.

Over the pass, I drive by a stump-filled lake. This is Keechelus, the source of the Yakima River. The water level is drawn down in February to catch winter floods. After snaking through the pass, the freeway now develops a southeasterly bearing. I plan to deviate south from I-90, keeping this general course for almost 1,700 miles to El Paso. My route bends to avoid the worst of winter, but still make it east.

I force myself eastward, contrary to the motive force of the country itself. This is also contrary to Thoreau's preferential direction for his customary walks, as described in the essay Walking. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. And I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving . . . . Well, I was born in Oregon, so I might be forgiven a westerly starting point. As for going free, Rousseau observed that Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Ignorance is a major source of chains, and people are often un-free to the extent that they're unaware of their un-freedom.

Again from Walking: . . . we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. I'm trying to make some spirited enterprise out of what seems a retrograde motion. Americans go out west, but back east. We go eastward to realize history . . . . Yes, I've made a conscious decision to do so, but I'm going a long way from home to learn about home.

Beyond Easton, the woods change from those of the high mountains to ponderosa. I enter the penumbral portion of the Cascade rain shadow. The woods register my progression to the east, where I'll seek answers to a few questions, and perhaps find more to ask. Why does the red-blue divide follow the Mason-Dixon Line so closely? Do we fully understand the legacy of slavery? It's grossly unfair to condemn the Southern form of racism without acknowledging that it has a pernicious, Northern form. But how do they differ qualitatively? It being February, I plan to spend much of my time in the South. Perhaps I'll find out.

Over Indian John Hill and Elk Heights, the country opens up further as I enter the Kittitas Valley. The woods of ponderosa change to sagebrush and grass. The sky opens along with the opening country. I seek to open my awareness of the present by finding hidden history. I find too many unanswered questions in the way history is commonly taught.

As one example, John Brown engaged in terrorist and paramilitary activities in Kansas and Virginia years before the Civil War. In one view, he single-handedly started that war. If people remember anything of John Brown, they mention his raid on Harpers Ferry. But what are the details of Brown's activities in Kansas? He's alternately portrayed as crazy or as a martyr. In Kansas, he directed the murder of five pro-slavery partisans. He had them killed by sword. Thoreau is considered the apostle of pacifism. He was a model for Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Yet Thoreau approved of John Brown. What's behind all this? How does it affect us now?

South of Ellensburg, I drive over Manastash Ridge into real desert. I'm now in the full shadow of the Cascade Range. The area resembles test pilot Chuck Yeager's description of the Mojave as the ass-end of the moon. I like it, but wonder about the umbral depths of American history as I glance into Yakima canyon.

In another example, Jefferson is the intellectual giant providing a good share of our founding principles, including democracy, equality, freedom of speech and of religion. Yet he owned over 70 slaves when he wrote that all men are created equal. He freed a handful of them, but he doubled his slave holdings before he died. In settling his estate, most distressingly, 130 people went to the auction block as individual slaves, scattering families. Were those he freed his own children by his slave Sally Hemings? What does this mean? What can I find at Monticello?

At Monticello, I'd view the big house from Mulberry Row, where the slave quarters once stood. In Lawrence, Kansas, I would lunch in The Free State Brewing Company. Directly in front of this building in 1856, John Brown stood on a box and spoke to townsfolk assembled to defend Lawrence as over 2,700 Missourians approached to burn it. In Concord, I'd step across the Old North Bridge to see where the order was made to fire on the King's men -- an order which made a group of colonials no longer colonial. I go forth to enliven history.

Jefferson, Brown and Thoreau: I have these three in mind because they excite passions to this day. They contribute to the on-going discussion that makes us American. John Brown still makes people fighting mad. They beckon like unclimbed peaks, and John Brown is particularly prominent. Kansas defines Brown. I must go there.

Answering questions to clarify where we've been is one thing, but what about where we're going? Money is the root. It's more than a medium of exchange. Money dictates everything we do. It serves as a prime motivator, for better or worse -- often worse. Money provides identity. It stores value, sometimes negative value, damaging for countries as well as individuals.

Is there a Harpers Ferry of finance? The post-war economic world was created at Bretton Woods. The Federal Reserve system was designed in a secret conference on Georgia's Jekyll Island. Bretton Woods and Jekyll Island made no martyrs. Or did they? My roadside investigation must incorporate these places.

I venture east, reaching out, but digging deeper where some places might surrender hidden significance. Awareness is the whole point of the trip.

I become aware of winter as I trend southeast past Yakima. The sky had brightened briefly over the desert but reverts to gray as I drive the length of the Yakima Valley. Drizzle begins as I approach Richland. Where I-84 turns south over the Horse Heaven Hills, the drizzle starts to freeze on the windshield. I pass an accident. Having a new car lends some comfort on such an ambitious trip, but the outside temperature indicator on the dash also lends some drama. Thirty-one degrees drops to 29 as police lights glare in the glass. I squirt the windshield with every three or four wiper swipes to clear ice. I intend to angle south as I swipe east, but this intention might not be immediately useful. It could be a long trip.

Travel across the country in the dead of winter? I must be obsessed. I've thrown some skis in the rig, just so this makes a little more sense. As one objective, I've chosen a cluster of ski resorts in New Hampshire. The same company that owns the resort at Snoqualmie, where I have a season pass, owns these resorts in the Northeast. So I'll drive some 10,000 miles to take advantage of a 10% discount. Why not? Actually, I select this destination to cajole myself to go the distance, stitching together disparate, historically significant locations on the way.

I take my obsession on the road. I'm making a road trip an extreme sport -- and history too, for that matter. But I feel like a coiled spring after a grueling career phase. I'm anxious to learn and communicate something of substance after an extended intellectual captivity. As for communicating, I'll borrow Thoreau's mindset. Once again from Thoreau's Walking: I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one . . . .

I finally notice that I don't have the defrost on the windshield. I deflect the heat from my feet to the glass, and icing becomes less of a problem -- on the windshield anyway. As I cross the Columbia into Oregon, the temperature rises above freezing. I'm still concerned about crossing the Blue Mountains, but conditions are changing. After a dinner stop in Pendleton, I cross the mountains in a continuing drizzle, and make it all the way to Farewell Bend near the Idaho border. It's dark all the way, but with the distances I have to cover on this trip, I'd better get used to occasional dark drives.

Darkness is a convenient metaphor on a winter road trip, and often applicable in American history. Exploitation masks itself through history, changing in form, if not always in substance, always keeping a few steps ahead of reform. We've traveled far from the days of slavery, but that's small consolation if one is figuratively a slave, if not literally so. If the system kills you, it matters little what you call it. Slavery becomes sharecropping becomes segregation. With African-American neighborhoods targeted, the war on drugs fits in this procession. Plantations become company towns become cube farms? If one is shackled by ownership or debt, it's still restraint. Sometimes exploitation only changes in what it calls itself. The British empire became an American one, imperial in all but name. The burden of soldiering shifts from those manning ship-borne cannon to those arranging international loans in an office cubicle. The consequential sweat, hunger, disease and death remain -- seemingly immutable.

Right now, I have John Brown in mind. On leaving his cell to walk toward the gallows, he handed his jailer a note:

I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood. . . .

Whether he started the Civil War, or simply predicted it, John Brown is a challenge. He is a worthy subject precisely because he remains controversial. This book investigates controversy but is by no means negative. It is infused with the notion that we cannot solve problems without first acknowledging them. Thoreau wrote on the title page of Walden, I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as Chanticleer in the morning . . . if only to wake my neighbors up. However, I realize that bragging lustily or crowing like Thoreau's noisy rooster isn't always enough to wake people up. I propose driving Thoreau's eyes around the country to see what draws his attention.

Yes, Americans go out West, but back East. This linguistic quirk is of profound significance, and a source of hope. As God said to Abraham, Lekh lekha. Go forth! Besides progressing materially, I'd like to think that we can do so in a spiritual or idealistic sense. Let's find out.

It is cold and clear on this early Sunday morning on the Snake River. The misty rain that saw me safely over the Blue Mountains last night has dissipated. Now I wear gloves while I fire up the single-burner camp stove for coffee and oatmeal. I'd forgotten how close the campsites of Farewell Bend are to a highway. I get an involuntary glance from every passing driver, each observably wondering about someone camping out in the cold. But for a Seattle resident, any day that doesn't rain is a good day. A little cold or weak sunlight is comparatively pleasant.

As I've done this a few times before, I've developed some techniques for efficiently camping out on the road. The trick is to be modular. When I used a tent, I grabbed the sleeping bag, and placed it atop the single box containing everything else for arranging the nightly nest. I could then walk to the tent site with everything in a single armload -- tent, pad, bag, water bottle -- as well as flashlight and flip flops for those nocturnal trips to the bathroom, when a pressing need for alacrity overrides a consideration of cold toes.

My newly acquired poor-man's RV precludes a tent. I no longer test SUV-negative, but my rig is reputed the greenest of the SUVs, only slightly less fuel-efficient than my previous car. Besides no longer having a car that had been on the road for a dozen years and a quarter million miles, I could now fold down the back seats and stretch out in a windowed tent that doesn't flap in the wind. That's nice. I've reduced the number of modules to a single box, containing all I need for any meal -- water, food, stove, matches, utensils, paper towels. This morning, the rig's most immediate effect is to reduce the time during which I become a curiosity.

I clean up, and set out for a daylight drive to southern Utah, where I ski the next day above the desert at 11,000 feet.

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Though I depend on Eisenhower's freeway system to cross the country without unnecessarily damaging nerves, getting from southern Utah toward a southerly route involves a desert diagonal on two-lane highways. Fortunately, these are some of the emptiest roads in the country. Driving the asphalt ribbons linking I-15 and I-40 feels like