Author: bigdiff

National Heritage Areas of Alabama

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Alabama has two national heritage areas, the Black Belt and Muscle Shoals, neither related to a gym.

Alabama Black Belt NHA includes many Civil Rights sites, reflecting the progress forged by the large African American community that descended from the people brought here and bred against their will to work the rich black soil extending in a belt from the Mississippi River across Alabama. Several of these sites are run by the national park service, including Tuskegee Institute, Selma to Montgomery NHT, and Freedom Riders NM. Two other sites I recommend highly are the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma and the Legacy Sites in Montgomery. The first is an authentic old place filled with memorabilia, well illustrated stories and contains many important exhibits from the Civil Rights struggle, carefully preserved near where the marchers began their march for voting rights. The second is a much newer series of bold exhibits, perhaps most importantly featuring an artistic memorial dedicated to the victims of lynching.

Muscle Shoals NHA is dedicated to the rhythm & blues soundtrack of many of our lives. In 1959 a local music promoter who failed to make it in Nashville took a big risk and opened the small Florence Alabama Music Enterprises studio across the river from Florence in a less developed area called Muscle Shoals. Rick Hall hired some local talent to who lived closely enough to come in as needed to be the studio band for visiting artists. They were joined by Duane Allman, who just showed up and lived in the parking lot until he got a job there. They recorded a few songs there you may know, including Mustang Sally by Wilson Pickett. Etta James went to FAME to try to revitalize her career and recorded her album, Tell Mama, in which she sang I’d Rather Go Blind just a couple miles away from Helen Keller’s birthplace and childhood home, which is another great place to tour. A trumpet player got a little fresh with a young singer, and her husband was pissed. Rick went to their hotel after, but he got in a new fight with her husband. Rick lost the singer and her label (Atlantic) as a result. Still, Aretha Franklin recorded I Never Loved a Man and Do Right Woman, before she walked out never to return. FAME did pretty well nevertheless, especially with a Mormon family called the Osmonds.

In 1969, Hall’s best house band bought a casket shop nearby and opened their own place, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Run by these experienced artists, they also wrote songs and ended up producing more hits than almost any other studio in the world, with most of the work done on the first take. They wrote a song called Old Fashioned Rock and Roll and eventually got Bob Seger to record the vocals over their track, although they accidentally duped the intro. A band called The Rolling Stones illegally recorded Sticky Fingers there, before going to a riotous concert with Hells Angels where they sang Brown Sugar. Another time Lynyrd Skynyrd was stuck with a song until a roadie suddenly announced he could play the piano and gave them the opening to Freebird (demo version). They went on to make the house band famous as the ‘Swampers’ in their song Sweet Home Alabama. Newer singers like Lana Del Rey sometimes just walk in and ask to record there too. The list of songs is too long to mention, so take the tours, maybe watch the Muscle Shoals documentary, enjoy the music and listen to the stories.

I should mention that American Music has its roots along the Natchez Trace and nearby rivers: New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis and Muscle Shoals. The songs of the enslaved, French & Spanish trader influences, back country pickers, gospel music and travelers singing for their supper all came together to form the Blues, Jazz and all the rest. WC Handy was born and grew up in Florence below, before being inspired to write down classic blues songs like St Louis Blues and Beale Street Blues. He preserved his log cabin, and there’s a small but excellent museum there now. This is a fascinating and emotionally moving area of the country to visit, and, if I can mention one more, the Jesse Owens Museum is worth a stop too. In my opinion, Muscle Shoals is the best national heritage area.

Tennessee in Photos

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Celebrating completing the Volunteer State!

Andrew Johnson NHS, Chickamauga & Chattanooga NMP (partly in Georgia), Fort Donelson NB (partly in Kentucky), Great Smoky Mountains NP & WHS (partly in North Carolina), Obed WSR, Shiloh NMP (partly in Mississippi), and Stones River NB are above. Big South Fork NRRA, Cumberland Gap NHP, Natchez Trace Parkway & National Scenic Trail, Overmountain Victory NHT, and Trail of Tears NHT are also partly in the state. Tennessee is an NHA dedicated to the Civil War, which includes the affiliate site, Parkers Cross Roads.

National Heritage Areas of Mississippi

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Mississippi has three national heritage areas: Delta, Gulf Coast and Hills. Culturally, Mississippi is one of the best states in the country.

The Delta area is fascinating, and I recommend the Delta Blues Museum when you’re in the area listening to live blues music, like Terry ‘Harmonica’ Bean pictured in Clarksdale. Vicksburg and Emmett Till are both in the area too.

I drove the Gulf Coast area while visiting the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and it is beautiful. (I skipped Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis “Presidential” Library, since he was never president of our country.) You will see signs marking the Mississippi Blueways, which are mostly paddling river routes near the coast and unrelated to the popular Mississippi Blues Trail.

This year, I visited William Faulkner’s home in Oxford, which is part of the Hills area, along with Elvis’ home in Tupelo, Tennessee Williams’ home and Eudora Welty’s too. Brices Cross Roads, Natchez NHP and Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home are in this area too. I enjoyed visiting Faulkner’s home, ‘Rowan Oak’, and walking in the pretty woods nearby, but Faulkner would much rather be remembered for his screenplays, stories and books, including The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absolom, Absolom!.

Best of the Midwest

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Best Park: Isle Royale. Wildlife, wilderness, multi-day hiking, boating, camping, forests, mountains, waters. Isle Royale, above, is the best Midwest park in many categories, despite being the least visited national park in the lower 48.

Best State: Missouri. Under-appreciated Missouri has Ozark Scenic Riverways, a karst-cavern, spring-fed paddling, sparkling gem, and Ste. Geneviève, a cultural midwestern marvel, not to mention Gateway Arch and more.

The Midwest specializes in history, exemplified by these best-in-class parks.

Best Bicycling: Cuyahoga Valley.

Best Heritage Area: Freedom’s Frontier.

Best Museum(s): Dayton Aviation.

Best Native American Site: Pipestone.

Best Place to Lose Yourself in Nature: Voyageurs. (Get a boat-in campsite.)

Best Ranger: Nicodemus. She’s part of the living heritage.

Best Scenery: Pictured Rocks.

Best Trail: Learn About all the Pioneer Trails at Scotts Bluff.

Best World Heritage Site: Taliesin.

Most Tragic Folk Song: Keweenaw.

Read more about all parks in the Midwest region.

Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area

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Tennessee is the only state that is also a national heritage area, focused on the Civil War, with four national park units, three other battlefield parks, three Civil War oriented museums, and Andrew Johnson NHS. The nationally established parks cover the history best, but state parks—especially Fort Pillow—are also historically important.

  • 1862 Fort Donelson NB Grant gained access to the Cumberland River in the northwest.
  • 1862 Shiloh NMP Grant won a costly battle, despite a Confederate surprise attack.
  • 1862 Parker’s Cross Roads a failed attempt to block a Confederate retreat.
  • 1862-3 Stones River NB, with slaughter pen & hell’s half acre, a bloody victory.
  • 1863 Chattanooga NMP another Union victory, securing railroads in the southeast.
  • 1864 Fort Pillow a massacre of surrendering black soldiers by Nathan Bedford Forrest.
  • 1864 Battle of Franklin a disaster for the Confederates, especially a dozen or so generals.

Fort Pillow is on a bluff then overlooking a sharp bend in the Mississippi River north of Memphis. It is well sited for firing down at passing ships, but there are several higher hills around the fort, making it defensively weak against a land attack. Nathan Bedford Forrest brought superior troops in number and experience, and attained the element of surprise. The Union leader was shot dead early on by sharpshooters, and his replacement refused to surrender. The battle was soon over, as the Confederates surrounded the fort, moved in and overran the ditch defenses.

Except that the slaughter continued, long after the battle was won.

The state park visitor center at Fort Pillow has a disappointing exhibit that repeatedly describes the 1864 congressionally designated “massacre” as only a “controversy”, displays grandiose portraits of General Forrest, and provides numerous excuses for the one-sided outcome (see below list of dead). Over the years, many apologists—the same who describe the Civil War as a heroic cause for states rights—have tried to defend the actions of the Confederates at Fort Pillow, but there’s nothing honorable about a 20 to 1 slaughter.

The facts—excluded in the museum exhibit—tell the true story. Most of the Union white soldiers were taken prisoner, while almost all of the black soldiers were killed. One of Forrest’s own sergeants described many black soldiers trying to surrender and wrote, “General Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs”. Black soldiers were denied prisoner of war status throughout the war, and the Union stopped prisoner transfers due to this official Confederate policy, clearly stated after Fort Pillow. Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after the war. The site should be a national battlefield, and the history of Forrest’s massacre of black soldiers told accurately.

Imagine

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No rules. Draws from everything, takes form out of nothing. Beyond the linear comprehension of rationality. An unexpected new path, free from past dogma. Reverberates in the human heart, soothes the savage beast, and lifts our souls to the stars. From the simplest dots on canvas to the grandest rock operas, the rarest and most wonderful way to think is imaginatively.

Imaginative thinking is how we come up with new ideas.  It is creative, unpredictable and ignores rules and limits.  We seek inspiration to leap somewhere new, to create something meaningful where there was nothing before.  We take an uncommon approach, use our unique perspective and think differently. The goals of imaginative thinking vary, from exploring a mysterious secret, to creating a beautiful work of art and to finding a simpler, novel, more elegant approach to solve a mundane old problem.  Inventors, artists and extraordinary children live and dream in this realm of possibilities when asking ‘what if?’  

Ideas can be miraculous things. Tiny seeds planted in childhood subconscious can grow into lifelong quests to change the world. A slightly different perspective, frustration, rebellion or eye for beauty may motivate an imaginative person to break all customary practices and start something new. Centuries may pass while ideas languish misunderstood or unappreciated, for it takes imagination to value ideas well and fully.

Imagination can be a complete escape from the human condition, creating an alternate universe where instinct, morality, and rationality are all entirely re-imagined.  Imagination is the spark of ideas used in all the other ways of thinking, but the other ways of thinking might never conceive of the idea on their own in a million years.  

Imaginative thinking has different motives and objectives from other ways of thinking. It creates art for art’s sake, Poe’s poetic principle. It may plumb the darkest corners of our animal instincts, but only in the interest of extracting a pure essence to enlighten humanity. The rational accountant may disapprove of paying for an elaborate lobby fresco, but if beautiful and beloved, the work of art may eventually be worth more than the office building that houses it. The moralist may initially take affront to a controversial contemporary art installation outside his cathedral, until the artist shows that the art also serves a higher purpose.

Imaginative thinkers are exploited by the rational, even as they are dismissed as unreliable, unrealistic dreamers who do not understand the real world.  Moral thinkers often disdain them as conceited, childish troublemakers, as much as they love their songs and sculptures. Instinctual thinkers fear they are being mocked or ridiculed, while yearning to possess the magic they sense.

Imaginative thinkers imagine their perspective perfect and believe that the world would be better off if more people thought imaginatively.  

Anything you want to do, do it
Want to change the world?
There’s nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you’ll be free
If you truly wish to be

— ‘Pure Imagination’
in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Parker’s Cross Roads Battlefield

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This is an affiliate site in Tennessee focused on Nathan Bedford Forrest, who fought most of his Civil War battles in the Volunteer State. At the end of 1862, Forrest was in the midst of his guerrilla warfare destroying railroads, bridges, raiding supplies, recruiting rebels, taking prisoners and attacking the Union. Union troops moved near a key railroad and roadway crossing in the middle of western Tennessee to cut off Forrest’s escape south across the Tennessee River. Forrest attacked, was repelled, and tried to flank the Union troops. But more troops arrived behind him, so he ordered his men to ‘charge both ways’ and withdrew in the confusion. Forrest lost more men in the battle, but he escaped as the Union failed to cut him off.

If you visit the site, you might get the mistaken impression that this was a great victory for Forrest, who is compared with Napoleon in the park film. This is ironic, since ‘Napoleon’ is synonymous with having delusions of grandeur. The grounds are well kept, but there’s not really much to see. The cabin below was moved to the site later, as were examples of cannon and a caisson. There are reenactments held here. There are also many romanticized images of Forrest in the museum. As he later became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, this hagiography of Forrest is both tragic and an embarrassment for the great state of Tennessee, which was divided during the war. Forrest was a brutal leader responsible for perhaps the worst atrocity of the Civil War, which I will summarize next week. History must endeavor to tell the truth.

North Atlantic Trails

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The New England and New York region has 2 historic trails and 3 scenic park unit trails. Here’s a quick summary in case you are interested in exploring them.

Historic trails

Scenic trails

  • Appalachian the trail cuts the southeast corner of New York, the northwest corner of Connecticut, north across the western edge of Massachusetts, up along the Green Mountains of Vermont, where it turns east, passes by Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller, hikes over the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and ends at Mount Katahdin in Maine.
  • New England above crosses Connecticut and Massachusetts north to the edge of New Hampshire.
  • North Country cuts through New York near Fort Stanwix, crosses through the Champlain Valley and ends at the Appalachian Trail in Vermont.

Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail

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This year I revisited the Natchez Trace Parkway, determined to get out of my car and hike more on the “old trace” which is a National Scenic Trail that runs along the same ridge from Natchez Mississippi to Nashville Tennessee. Potkopinu near the southern terminus has 20’ deep sunken sections of trail carved into the soft soil. There are other maintained sections near Jackson and Tupelo Mississippi. And there are many small remnants of the trace next to the parkway. I visited a couple small waterfalls on the trace in Tennessee and stopped at the memorial to and burial spot of Meriwether Lewis.

After completing his expedition with Clark, Jefferson appointed Lewis territorial governor in St Louis. Lewis worked hard to maintain peace with natives in the area, using his own funds and then applying for reimbursement from the US. An unscrupulous rival began a smear campaign against Lewis, using common delays in mail to paint Lewis as a poor administrator. Lewis set out to clear his name in DC personally, taking a trusted Native American friend with him for security. He wrote to his friends about his anguish at being maligned and misjudged.

One night in a cabin on the old Natchez trace in Tennessee, Lewis’ native aide was off looking for some missing horses, when shots were heard and Lewis was found shot in both the head and the stomach. He died later that morning. Witness testimony was inconsistent, but at one point someone in his party claimed to have heard both sounds of a scuffle and a cry for help, although they feared to enter his room during the night.

Bizarrely, the official report was suicide. Not sure how or why someone shoots themselves in both the head and the stomach. Years later, the body was exhumed and examined by a doctor who said it was likely the work of an assassin. Nevertheless, many historians are idiots, so the suicide theory did not die. They argue that Lewis was agitated, talking to himself, depressed and may have taken alcohol or medicine.

Obviously, Lewis had reason to be agitated, depressed and was practicing the speech he would give upon arrival in DC. The old trace was dangerous, the political situation was unstable and Lewis had dangerous rivals. At that moment, Lewis was basically unguarded. And more obviously, why would a suicidal man embark on a long journey and plan for his security, if he was preparing to kill himself? Lewis went on a personal mission to clear his name, and it’s extremely difficult to reconcile that fact with his giving up mid journey. If Lewis is known for anything in our history, it is completing the journey, even when times are tough. Meriwether Lewis was murdered on the Old Natchez Trace.