Nov. 22, 2002 - 20:06 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Treasures

I gradually learned just how big our country is by my travels over the years. Big by many different paradigms.

Most of my stateside travels have been in the west. I have driven through a lot of the midwest and some of the eastern part of the country though. Lived in Florida for ten years and enjoyed every minute of it.

But driving through the west I gained the concept of the Wide Open Spaces. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. I was able to see how the forces of nature had changed our land. Driving in the Colorado mountains for one thing let me see at the side of the road the twirls and folds frozen in the rock from the days it was molten. Today when we went to Morrison to visit Heather's sister in Morrison we drove through a road cut in the Hogback noting that the strata was at about a 45 degree angle. Various layers of different rock. Some seams of very low grade coal, sandstone of various compositions and colors. Turning north to go to Morrison from 285 one can see some formations of that soft, red sandstone that has been sculpted by the elements into weird shapes, eerie things come to mind when sighting that weird landscape. Coming into Morrison we see Red Rocks Park where the uplift is in its full glory. Two huge formations (with an ampitheater between) which came from a deeper part of the earth than what we saw, sandstone a little harder. We have seen much of those red rocks as that uplift runs just east of the foothills for a long way. Garden Of The Gods in Colorado Springs is part of that same thing.

A good part of our west is desert, some quite obvious where little grows, others a bit cryptic where scrub and weeds grow but little else. Even closer to the mountains often about the only real growth seen is evergreen trees and scrubby underbrush.

Traveling in the northwest it amazed me to see the manifestations of volcanic action. In eastern Oregon the mountains of lava rock where after millenia very little growth has found a foothold. They tower above the road. When Heather and I went to Crater Lake, that huge body of water we were told that when that mountain blew its top much of the rock went into the western states -- just guessing from what I have seen, the rocks probably blew as far east as eastern Utah.

The land here still being sculpted by its rivers, the Colorado and The Green are the mighty earth movers. The Mesas and Canyonlands carved by them and their tributaries. From what I have read that is the reason the land is so dry. The rivers far below the livable land.

West of the Cascades is another world. Lush, plenty of water and well treated by winter weather. Grass is green year around, gigantic fern grows out of the forest floor. All that bounty is because of the constant rain through fall and winter. Not frog stranglers but good, steady, ground soaking, precipitation. The west coast of our country is part of the Pacific Ring Of Fire. Volcanoes up and down the coast, some like Mt. St. Helens become active now and then and make a hell of a mess. Some are rather dormant but under suspicion of flipping their top anytime.

California is a state that has some of most everything. The Los Angeles Basin with the towering mountains east, but easily reached by car. Mountains so green on the west but on looking back when leaving by plane one can see that the east side looks as if a blowtorch did a job on the face of them.

Here and there man has made a spot or two for himself. Idaho potatoes grow in fields where the volcanic debris has been scraped to the edges. Some parts of Utah are quite fertile and carefully tended. A great deal of the west is not much but sand, sage and stickers.

The farmlands of the Midwest are so flat and cover so much territory. I tended to pass through it as if sleeping, only noting the road and approaching traffic. Then when I hung my hat in Illinois for awhile I saw the unbelievably giant cornstalks, wandered around and saw swine, huge animals, cattle far beyond what the arid west can support. Food was rich and good there including the cheeses and milk from north of the area. The Ozarks in 1950 were about like one would expect, some of the stuff I saw reminded me of the Beverly Hillbillies, but with modern touches here and there.

Different sights and smells in the deep South to this man. Vicksburg, Mississippi an old fashioned sort of place iced with green kudzu on its outer limits. Forests of trees being raised for their lumber and pulp through the part of the South I traveled. The language was spoken slowly, in some places with an accent and others just as at home, just slowly used.

When I got into Florida I was intimidated by the tall trees from roadside further back and the swampy places, the ditches at road side with water too. That weird, ghostly Spanish Moss hanging from the branches of trees made the scene look truly unreal to me. Then finding where I landed was a bit inland from the Gulf Coast, not too far a drive to Clearwater. There I learned how rough on tires the shell roads were. Learned things like, don't ever put your hand in a place you can't see, be wary of places rattlesnakes could be. And how to appreciate oranges, tangerines, tangelos, mangoes of all kinds and tastes. Hush puppies and boiled peanuts. I found out down there that I didn't dislike seafood as I thought. I didn't like seafood in Denver because it was stale and nasty. So, gorging on oysters from the bar near the power plant, shrimp caught in the outflow from washing traveling screens at the power plant, and catching fish most everywhere I found what lovely food seafood is.

It was there I saw my first Banyan Tree, a Kapok Tree and all the tropical and semi-tropical ornamentals which had been brought in from afar. It was so easy to start an ornamental for the most part, given a switch from a Hibiscus, sticking it in the ground at home, voila a Hibiscus of my own. Sprigging donated St. Augustine grass into the ground made a lawn in a short time. Many of the garden type ornamental plants were easy to start too. Only thing I couldn't have any luck with was tomatoes.

That was just a small part of moving around in my country. The innate friendliness and hospitality of folk, country wide is truly unbelievable. The gentleness shown toward the young is yet another thing not too often seen up north. It took a while before folks accepted one. Too many bossy, loudmouthed Yankees had been and gone. But once accepted you became more or less one of the family. Generosity to people who had lost a house to fire or had one tragedy or another was instantly automatic, no questions asked.

Friendliness and things like that in my native state was to a certain extent there, but a bit reserved, not as open as in the south.

I remember riding with my Grandpa in New Mexico, he knew everybody and they knew him so an automatic wave from one car to another was instinctive I guess. Occasionally he would wave and I would ask him, "Who were they Grandpa ?" His remark, "Darned if I know but they looked like they needed a wave." He was a prospector turned hard rock miner and became the assayer at the Moly Mine in Red River, New Mexico.

In so many parts of the country, nobody would whiz by someone with car trouble but always stop and ask if they wanted any help, and give it if needed.

There are so many grand sights and wonders of the world to see, but it is the people in it that are absolute Treasures . . . . . . . . . . .

Blog