The Great River*


Rosanne Cash: "A feather's not a bird. The rain is not the sea. A stone is not a mountain. But a river runs through me."         
                                                                 from "A Feather's Not a Bird" - - Cash/Leventhal


There's something deceptive about a river. They're quiet, fierce, good and yet sometimes devastating neighbors. Rivers have helped build states and have also destroyed communities.

One American river in particular has been immortalized in songs, movies, books, and has perhaps inspired a few creative expletives: the Mississippi River. 

The impressive view of the Mississippi River (and Wisconsin) from the historic Effigy Mounds in northeastern Iowa is worth the hike. On that day, after reaching the peak, I stood contemplating the river as it stretched, languid, towards New Orleans.

MS River view from Iowa's Effigy Mounds

Peering through the heavy leaf growth, the river looked charming and gave no indication of its true calling: serving as a 2300+ mile lifeline for the United States. According to the National Park Service, 60% of the grain exported from the US travels downstream to the Port of New Orleans. Other shipped material includes rubber, paper, wood and coal. More than 50 American cities rely on the Mississippi River for daily water use, reported the Environmental Protection Agency. It's not just humans using the river. Migratory birds use the river's corridor for spring and fall migration, while 260 species of fish call the waterway home, according to the NPS. Adding, that at least 145 species of reptiles and amphibians are found in the upper river and its floodplains. Some of these reptiles, amphibians and fish can be seen at the National Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa. (If you've never seen gar up close, you're in for a nightmarish treat.) 


Quick trivia question: how many states bump up against the MS River?  

The answer is 10. Can you name all 10?

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.

It's easy to dismiss this part of the country - flyover states they're often called. But to shrug off their importance is to forget their cultural contributions to the United States. These heartland states have arguably changed or created American food, music and literature.        
           
Remember the Louisiana Purchase of 1803? The purchase of these flyover states doubled the size of the United States at just four cents per acre, according to the Library of Congress. With that in mind, the LOC called the sale "the greatest real estate deal in history." 

Not long ago, Rosanne Cash, a singer and songwriter who also happens to be Johnny Cash's daughter, took a road trip with her husband around the southern tip of the Mississippi River and its neighboring states. She soaked up the stories and the people along with the humidity while crossing the river, back and forth. What emerged from this road trip was a Grammy award winning album, "The River and the Thread" which features the song "A Feather's Not a Bird." Last month, Cash went home with three Grammy awards: Best American Roots performance, Best American Roots song, and Best Americana album. 

For a treat, listen to Cash's songs. 

And, read a book by a writer with ties to a flyover state that shares the Mississippi River.

Minnesota:
Garrison Keillor - Lake Wobegon Days
Sinclair Lewis - Main Street
Neil Gaiman - Coraline (Wisconsin also claims Gaiman)
Louise Erdrich - The Round House

Wisconsin:
A. Manette Ansay - Vinegar Hill
Edna Ferber - Show Boat
Jacqueline Mitchard - What We Saw at Night
Peter Straub - KoKo
Susanna Daniel - Stiltsville

Missouri:
Mark Twain - Life on the Mississippi; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 
Paulette Jiles - Enemy Women
Evan S. O'Connell - Mrs. Bridge; Custer
Curtis Sittenfeld - Sisterland

Kentucky:
Bobbie Ann Mason - In Country
Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
Sue Grafton - A is for Alibi

Illinois:
Richard Wright - Native Son
Carl Sandburg - American Song Bag
Nelson Algren - The Man With the Golden Arm
Stud Terkel - Working
Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms

Iowa:
Donald Harstad - November Days
Timothy Bascom - Chameleon Days
Jeremy Jackson - In Summer
Stephen Lovely - Irreplaceable
Paul Engle - A Lucky American Childhood
Jane Smiley - Some Luck
Mary Kay Shanley - Our State Fair

Louisiana:
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
Lillian Hellman - The Little Foxes
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
Anne Rice - Interview with a Vampire
Ernest Gaines - A Lesson Before Dying
Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire
Julie Smith - New Orleans Mourning

Tennessee:
Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
James Agee - A Death in the Family
Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men
Rosanne Cash - Composed

Arkansas:
Bette Greene - Summer of My German Soldier
Lois Lenski - Strawberry Girl
Kevin Brockmeier - The Brief History of the Dead
Laurell K. Hamilton - A Kiss of Shadows
Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 

Mississippi:
William Faulkner - A Light in August
Stephen Ambrose - The Wild Blue
Donna Tartt - Goldfinch
Mildred Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Greg Iles - Natchez Burning
Mark Childress - One Mississippi
John Grisham - A Time to Kill
David Halberstam - The Best and the Brightest
Charlaine Harris - Cemetery Girl series




One more river trivia question: which two states are on both sides of the MS River?

Louisiana and Minnesota

*From the Ojibwe name, "misi-zibi, meaning great river. Source: Dictionary of American History.






Mark Twain: "The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise." 














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