So what’s your take on history? Do you think, like Henry Ford, that it’s bunk? Or that the past is never dead, that it’s not even past, as William Faulkner claimed in Requiem for a Nun? Or that history is told by the winners? Some attribute that one to Winston Churchill, but the notion has been common wisdom for a long long time. Then there’s that other old favorite about how those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, for which many credit George Santayana, but it’s also another concept whose real origin lies deep in a past that’s not even past. Then of course there’s Mark Twain’s subtle but important refinement that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does often rhyme,” and there are those who don’t believe Sam Clemens deserves credit for that one, either. Believe who or what you must, and so be it. And have a nice day.
But what about the notion of making history “come alive?” That one’s a bit more experiential and you know it for yourself when it happens, where thought is unnecessary and maybe even burdensome, as is so often the case. So what works for you? Does it happen with books or movies or podcasts or “quality” television – think Ken Burns – or even shlock television – think The Great (as in Catherine) or Yellowstone or Gunsmoke and so many many more? You surely have your faves, and new product is being produced for your pleasure endlessly nowadays. Face it: history is a darn rich topic, when all is said and done.
The traditional touchstone in these matters has long been the museum experience, of course, full of artifacts and dioramas and nowadays interactive displays of all kinds, where making history “come alive” is the whole point. The Museum of World Treasures is as good an example as any, though the world of museums is so full of iconic institutions that some might see the MWT as not so much charming but more of an embarrassing pipsqueak among giants. Such people are snobs whose opinion is not worthy of consideration here, and chances are they’d never visit Wichita under any circumstances, anyway, and to hell with them.
There are those who make it a point to look for history in their travels, where it can readily be found. Do you stop for historical markers on the roadside? There are so many of these in our New England neighborhood that we only stop and take a look on impulse, and pass many by (“on this spot, Ebeneezer Adams tripped and fell in the retreat from the British at Concord on April 19, 1775” etc.etc.). Much more common is the pilgrimage to iconic historical places, like the Acropolis or Colosseum or the Pyramids for antiquity buffs, or Jerusalem and the “Holy” Land for religious pilgrims, or Salem MA for the goth and supernatural fans, or the “brickyard” in Indianapolis for auto racing devotees, and on and on and on.
Being the outlier more-enthusiastic-than-fanatical birders that we are, we make it a point to also go looking for cultural and historical experiences in all our journeys. The history (other than natural) of our eco-destinations has reliably “come alive” more often than not. There is way too much to be said about that in this report, but one great example was our trip to Honduras, which attracted our attention specifically because it included a trip to the Mayan ruins in Copan. There one finds what are among the most spectacular of any remnants of that long gone civilization. We not only partook of the site itself, but also the larger setting, the local countryside and all that it contained, as well as the tropical heat and all the people who shared at least a bit of the same native gene pool as the ancients. With just the slightest imagination, it all “came alive” in the best way possible, something quite different from the experience of simply viewing pre-Columbian art at Boston’s MFA, or looking at pictures in a book.
Of course Mayan civilization was one thing, exotic and strange and exciting, but what about Kansas? From the outset this trip was “different” and its attention to past days on the prairie was part of that. The more familiar aspects of what is “popular” prairie history have been mentioned in a previous post, but for this writer it all first came alive just outside Lindsborg, where we’d spent the night. Sil called it a “surprise feature,” something not mentioned in the itinerary, and much more than that, it turned out to be quite a moving experience that inspired the imagination regarding “how it used to be.”
There wasn’t a whole lot there, just a square hole in the ground lined with rocks, something which in New England would be seen as the foundation for a long gone house. But here on the prairie, housing materials have always been a scarce commodity, and for the Höglund couple who excavated and lined that hole, known as a “dugout,” with limestone back in 1868, there was no intention to build any farther, at least on that spot. What they did instead was to park their wagon over the hole and live that way for a couple of years while they built their permanent sod dwelling nearby. Two of their children were born during this period, with the hole serving as the basement and the wagon as the dwelling through two Kansas winters. Imagine that! It was the Kansas prairie and not the Honduran jungle but the experience of “what it must have been like” in many ways was similar, and there would be many more over the next week. Nothing beats being there for having this kind of moment, and one can only hope you’ve had your share of yours.
The spirit of Aldo Leopold was evident everywhere at our next stop, which was all about the land ethic in the most direct of ways. What else to call such a place but the Land Institute? Part of their mission statement could come straight out of the Sand County Almanac: “All of nature’s ecosystems are polycultures. Agriculture reversed that, with horrendous results. Perennial grasses that build and protect the soil is our future.” It is the creation of those perennial grasses that sum up the essence of their work, in the heart of the country where annually grown amber waves of grain, along with other corporate-managed annual mono crops, dominate the landscape from the Mississippi to the Rockies and from Oklahoma up into Canada. Talk about bailing against the tide! They’ve been at this since 1976 and seem to be in it for the long run, hoping that at some point resistance will be futile. Who’s to say this won’t happen?
So you may drive an electric or hybrid car or even ride a bike everywhere if you’re a true believer on the lunatic fringe, and maybe you have solar panels on your house and heat pumps galore, but do you keep Kernza products around in your all-electric kitchen, for bread or brownies or whatever? Have you even heard of it? Probably not available in stores, but who knows? It just happens to be the perennial grain that is the raison d’être of the Land Institute, where marketing is yet to become a major element of the business plan and let’s hope that changes sooner than later. But now you know the name and if you wish to sample products from a grain of the future, just go shopping for Kernza and you will find it.
Just take a look at the images of the operation underway, out there on the outskirts of Salina: there is clearly a lot of botanical science going on, though the tour to which we were treated did not go into great detail about any specifics of their methods. They have regular conferences there which bring together like-minded researchers from the world over, part of a network of agricultural minds sharing their efforts. Call them agricultural revolutionaries, just what the planet needs right about now and it’s unfortunate things seem to be proceeding so slowly. Some changes come harder than others, at least on a large scale.
And there was a genuine birding “event” about this time. It should be noted that one of the featured birds for this trip, the red-headed woodpecker, showed up in the parking lot at the Institute. There were several around atop telephone poles, and though unmistakable (look at the picture!), they kept their distance. This birder’s only clear memory of a good look at this bird was in Amherst MA back in the 70s, so “the next good look” was on his wish list for this trip. But alas, it was not meant to be, not on this day nor for the rest of the week. Birding fortune can indeed be fickle, where timing and luck is everything, so of course there were others who got some good looks at times and locations with this birder not present. At any rate, isn’t this one handsome species? Some of the vernacular names for this bird are half-a-shirt, flag bird, jellycoat, and flying checkerboard. Vernacular bird names are the best, and field guides and most birders in general act as if they aren’t worth mentioning, and it’s their loss. Can’t science and poetry co-exist?
Like most trips of this nature, there are times when options are offered, and on this day one could spend the afternoon in Lindsborg, basking in the thick Swedish ambiance of our lodgings and the town, or walking with Ryan down the trail at Horse Thief Canyon, or visiting Mushroom Rock State Park with Ed. There was a thin drizzle up, which made the trail option a bit dicey and Ryan got no takers, so about half the group headed for the Rock. I pity the others who willingly never made it to this place, and one look at the pics should tell you why.
(It should be noted that there are evidently a number of “horse thief canyons” in this world, not just in Kansas but Utah, Oklahoma, Alberta, and what looks like several in California. One of these is Horse Thief Canyon Ranch, where it appears one can purchase a luxury home, probably with stables in which to store the largesse of one’s thievery. Such a strange world!
MRSP happens to be the smallest state park in the Sunflower State, so it’s easy to cover the whole place in an hour, on foot. And just what the hell are we looking at, here?
For the most part it’s variations on sandstone, my friends, just like you saw, or dream about seeing, in Zion or Bryce Canyon on that National Park trip of a lifetime. But when it comes to Mushroom Rock SP, just remember you’re not in Utah anymore, but one of the more Oz-like landscapes of boring ol’ Kansas, which shows us there’s more to this prairie landscape than spacious skies and amber waves etc.
Once again, we’re back to that Permian Sea story, with MRSP’s formations showing the results of sandstone and sedimentary rock left over when the water subsided. The special factor was the natural cement derived from the limestone present and the bizarre/beautiful/dreamlike ways it all stuck together. The story in Utah went somewhat differently but if you need to know about that you know what to do; what I’d suggest for starters is to get yourself to Utah and play with the interactive displays at the park headquarters, which likely contains many.
There was no park headquarters at Mushroom Rock State Park, which is a pity, but frankly one positive result is that there are no hordes of people to deal with, in fact on this day there was nobody else, at all. A careful study of the graffiti scratched into the sandstone suggests that somebody has shown up from time to time for a long long time, and one wonders what the native people made of it all. This is information a park headquarters might have provided, but for now the answer must remain “out there.” One can only wonder what a tribal people with reverence for all of nature made of this place and its unique aspects. Or perhaps they built it, with the help of extraterrestrial intelligence and technology, just like the Pyramids. What do geologists know (or are willing to admit)?
In a way the mushroom rocks have indeed merited reverence from the modern dominant culture, insofar as the place has been given recognition as one of the “8 Wonders of Kansas Geography,” according to some of the brochures and websites. Whatever excitement this might generate is no doubt a good thing, and it is clearly some kind of an honor, but as it turns out, there are many many lists of various “8 Wonders” available, of which geography is but one category. The curious can ferret out the 8 Wonders of Kansas art, commerce, culture, customs, history, and people, as well, and there’s more!
These lists are generated by numerous submissions to something called the Kansas Sampler Foundation, and there are “original” 8 Wonders lists as well as supplementary lists added to those. KSF’s mission is to educate Kansans as well as tourists, no doubt, about all the cool things one might not know about the state, certainly a good thing. One can assume the largest ball of twine is in there somewhere. Come to think of it, is not life full of endless wonders if one is paying attention with the proper spirit?
Take these other peculiar rock formations, for instance, located just up the hill from our house in a park run by the City of Boston, known as Franklin. Are they not, indeed, kind of wondrous, in their geological way? What you’re looking at, here, are what is known as “glacial erratics.” These were formed when that awesome mass of ice of long long ago pushed along a bunch of local rock known as Roxbury conglomerate, a kind of puddingstone, up into the park and then left them behind when it receded. A lot of water has gone over the dam since those days, and who would’ve thought that the great Frederick Law Olmsted would decide to include these knobby remnants in one of his greatest landscape creations? Of course relocating them in 1899 would’ve been a big deal, and the man did not have an unlimited budget, or so one can assume.
To this writer’s knowledge, there is no park literature that mentions them, nor are there any roadside markers directing people to come take a look. You can bet that if Sam Adams or Ben Franklin or one of those guys had found them of interest in some way, it would be a different story, but it is possible they’ve no practical use. They’re just wonders, and isn’t that enough? To its credit, the city seems to have made an effort over the years to remove the spray painted graffiti that besmirches them from time to time, which cannot be said for the Kansas State Park system at Mushroom Rock, but maybe this is comparing apples and oranges.
So what about Oz? As the ultimate anti-Kansas land or country or whatever it was, somewhere over that rainbow, things there must be as wondrous as it gets, wouldn’t you say? Hey! Hollywood couldn’t have made this more wondrously clear than to film Dorothy’s humble home-on-the-prairie in black and white, then to morph into stunning color once she was blown out of there and landed on that witch. It is possible audiences loved the clever transition while not giving a thought to any symbolic meaning, but one wonders how it played in Wichita and Topeka.
You can come up with your own 8 Wonders of Oz, and if that’s difficult, you’ve an excuse to play your DVD or stream it again for the umpteenth time. Are we not all big fans? The songs were certainly wondrous, as was much of the acting (even the dog), and of course how about those clever sets? Hal Arlen composed the music while Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics along with some major elements of the script, and some say he was the real genius behind the movie. Too bad Hollywood blacklisted him a dozen years late – he’d been a long time member of the Socialist Party, as was Helen Keller in her day – but politics are inescapable, in Tinseltown as well as Oz and that’s just the way things are. Anyway, if we add the flying monkeys to the list, have we reached eight yet?
Of course, when comparing the wonders of a movie to those found in the world offscreen, we are once again back to apples and oranges. What’s true is that a film or book is a single event whose wonders can only be repeated over and over, while the world offscreen can offer new wonders each and every day to those paying attention. And while somebody’s idea of an 8 Best or 10 Best or whatever might be helpful advice sometimes, one is advised to not draw any limits on how many wonders are out there. Don’t short yourself, ever, and never stop looking for the next one wherever you happen to be, and above all never forget that a place like Kansas holds a lot more promise than make-believe settings such as Oz or even Wonderland itself. Is that last one ironic, or what?
