Enjoy...
June
and I are reporting from a warm and sunny perch (daytime temperature in the
60s) while spending a week at a piece of paradise in Arkansas called Petit
Jean State Park. We are at the Mather Lodge, named for Stephen T. Mather,
the first director of the National Park Service, who in the mid 1920s counseled
and collaborated with the local people and Arkansas public officials to preserve
this mountain-top area for inspiration, meditation and physical exercise.
That is the purpose parks are meant to serve, and what government, at all
levels, is meant to provide.
Believe
it or not, but I came to this place fifty years ago, so this is a bit of
a pilgrimage for me. Now I can say that the lodge, the cabins, the campsites,
and the trails all seem still worthy of the setting and the vistas -- unlike
many other state parks and national parks too that have been overdeveloped
and commercialized to a fault. Stephen T. Mather would be pleased with the
good work here.
June
and I left our happy home at Port Washington, Wisconsin, on January 18, not
yet two weeks ago. Friends may recall that last year we spent a portion of
winter in Mexico and the year before in Guatemala. This time we elected to
drive and to visit a portion of our own country, more temperate, perhaps,
but still warmer than winter in Wisconsin.
Moreover,
by driving we have had the opportunity to see what's going on in a large
portion of America, to look at and feel what's right and wrong about it.
We've observed planless growth and urban sprawl virtually everywhere, with
the same freeways, fast food chains, chain motels and shopping malls. Turning
on the six o'clock or ten o'clock news on television, we've seen that it's
the same too, with stories of drug busts, death on the freeways and young
poor people venting their frustration by killing others senselessly with
knives and guns.
But
there is another side to it. We stopped first at Springfield, Illinois, and
at June's insistence spent three nights there. It was barely enough, considering
this is the heart of Lincoln Land, the place to learn anew the story of the
rail-splitter, the martyred president, who taught himself to read and yet
composed the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address that rank among
the most eloquent and literary expressions in history, who struggled with
his own demons while he heroically preserved the Union and freed the slaves.
We spent one full day at the new Lincoln Library and Museum, which I think
all the school children in America, together with their teachers and parents,
ought to visit, and other days at other sites, such as the Lincoln Tomb and
the home where Honest Abe the lawyer lived with his wife and children. Lincoln
in a way exemplifies that which is right about America, in sharp contrast
with our present president, George W. Bush, shallow and shabby by comparison,
who exemplifies what is wrong about it.
In
Little Rock, we visited another new presidential library and museum, this
one focused on the life and times of Bill Clinton, who rose from humble Arkansas
beginnings to prominence, respected by leaders in world affairs such as Nelson
Mandela. I'm sure that Clinton disappointed himself in various ways, and
yet he stood up for social justice, full rights for black Americans. Here
I learned about Clinton the saxophonist and the advocate of music in our
schooling and our lives. This led me to remember my own classes in music
appreciation and how much they meant to me. Music is a language in itself,
a language of peace, and yet in America today courses in music and art and
culture in general are being reduced and eliminated.
One
afternoon we visited another special place, the Little Rock Central High
School National Historic Site, which in 1957 became a crucial battleground
in the struggle for civil rights. Young people today may not know, and older
people may long have forgotten, but fifty years ago the nation watched transfixed
as nine black students attempted to enter the previously all-white school.
While a hostile crowd jeered the "Little Rock Nine," Arkansas National Guard
troops blocked their entrance -- for three weeks until President Eisenhower
dispatched federal troops to escort and protect the black students entering
the school.
I
doubt this episode is cited much in high school history classes today.
Yet
it should be marked and memorialized, as a living reminder of how
history
was made and Little Rock came to symbolize the federal government's
commitment
to eliminate separate systems of education for blacks and whites. Those
separate -- and manifestly unequal -- systems still exist, as Jonathan
Kozol has shown
in "Amazing Grace" and his other books, notwithstanding all the laws
against
them. Yet as a longtime national parks advocate and supporter, I cheer
and
applaud the good and lasting work the National Park Service has done at
Central
High School.
It
was not exactly by accident that we came to the site. We were helped immeasurably
on our trip by an old friend, Don Castleberry, an Arkansas native, who retired
ten years ago following a long career in the national parks. While we were
together in Little Rock he showed me an interview with him as lately published
in the local Arkansas Times. It was mostly about Don's serving on the board
of directors of the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees,
which came into being in response to machinations of the Bush administration
to commercialize and privatize the national parks.
Specifically,
Castleberry said, changes have been made to benefit the "recreation
industry" -- manufacturers, renters and sellers of motorized toys like
snowmobiles,
ATVs, RVs and jet skis -- who have sought access to the parks. That to
my
mind is only part of it. The crowd in control these days sees
government
solely as a means of serving special economic interests. Abraham
Lincoln
and Stephen T. Mather, where are you when we need you most?
Luckily,
June and I have each other, on the road as at home. We lecture, listen, debate
and cheer, especially when one insists the best is yet to come. No, for us
it is here and now. We expect to be back in Port Washington in early in March.
Meanwhile, reach us by email, if you like.
All best,
MICHAEL FROME
