Steven Hunley
11-23-2015, 09:32 PM
Josie
Green fields of corn roll by. Tall stands of stately trees provide shelter. A family home has a dog house planted nearby in the shade. Two kids ride four wheelers to pick up the mail from the box on a post, next to five other mailboxes propped at different angles.
A rusted tractor stands alone.
A bright red Camaro, American gas-guzzling muscle car supreme, sits for sale on a clean stand of green so close there’s nothing but shadow beneath and between. Birch trunks as white as chalk remind me of birch-bark canoes in Last of the Mohicans. And that reminds me of Chingachgook. The French refer to Chingachgook as "Le Gros Serpent," the Great Snake, because he understands the twisted ways of men's nature and one who can strike a sudden, deadly blow. And that reminds me of the highway of my mind and the direction I’m going. And that reminds me we’re heading towards Lake Superior.
Barbara turns on the radio, and there isn’t good reception, so she searches for a station and gives the knob a twist so expert it would make Chubby Checker jealous.
And what do we get? I don’t make these up, fellas, I just record them.
It was Josie by Steely Dan.
We rocked, the hills rolled northward, and all was right in Minnesota. Ironwood Michigan, here we come. We motor up through Clayton and Turtle Lake, Cumberland and Spooner. At Ashland were officially on the 2 east. Here I get my first glimpse at Lake Superior. There are plenty of islands, and you can’t see the other side, it’s so enormously gigantic and awesome, and then it’s a cruise through the Bad River Indian’s with a Casino and Selling Fireworks instead of Firewater Reservation.
“They have multi-generational high levels of addiction and suicide,” Barb tells me.
It puts my mind in gear so I rant,
“You rob a people of their homeland and their heritage. Washington somehow makes it legal. The conquerors write the history and set the rules. The losers get multi-generational problems in return. It’s steel meets stone age, then we rip apart the environment, take the best parts for ourselves, and determine the limits of their wasteland. It’s a travesty.”
Up ahead a woman is standing near her car and looking at the pavement. Her fists are clutched in horror as if something horrible is about to happen and drawn up tightly under her chin. Her mouth is wide open, ready to scream. I look to see what she’s gaping at. It’s a turtle about the size of a size 10 Reebok tennis shoe, stranded in the middle of the highway.
I glide by him carefully and zoom past.
Here he was, born to be a medium sized turtle in a very, very, large lake. But he takes his chances crossing a highway to make it to a small pond on the other side. He wants to be a big turtle in a little pond. It looked like the journey was a little traumatic. What grit. What gusto. What risk! I wonder if it will be worth the trip.
But what it clues me into, is even more dramatic. It’s Barbara’s story about how her dad packed a car full of auto parts ‘til the car bent down to the springs, and headed west with her and her mom and two little brothers, Gary and Jeff, when she was 14. A cheer-leader and all that came with it, well known and recognized, surrounded by friends and family, moves to LA, where the kids were fast and smoked and drank and cursed like a west-coast Devil who just missed a beautiful Pacific sunset.
It must have been as bad for her as it was for the poor turtle.
But now the tables were turned westward in her favor. The small town Ironwood girl had grown up. The ingénue, who lived just across the river from Dillinger's Hurley, polished her glamorous veneer in Hollywood. The tame eighth-grader, whose shoulders once smelled of White Shoulders, was wild and wearing Chanel. To the residents of Ironwood she was precious, something to sing about. And after all these years she was coming home.
Time to break out the hats and hooters. No doubt about it. Barb was their Josie.
I didn’t care, it was only a song, and besides, coming home or not....Josie was mine.
©Steven Hunley2015
https://youtu.be/X0AytYGHILw Josie
Green fields of corn roll by. Tall stands of stately trees provide shelter. A family home has a dog house planted nearby in the shade. Two kids ride four wheelers to pick up the mail from the box on a post, next to five other mailboxes propped at different angles.
A rusted tractor stands alone.
A bright red Camaro, American gas-guzzling muscle car supreme, sits for sale on a clean stand of green so close there’s nothing but shadow beneath and between. Birch trunks as white as chalk remind me of birch-bark canoes in Last of the Mohicans. And that reminds me of Chingachgook. The French refer to Chingachgook as "Le Gros Serpent," the Great Snake, because he understands the twisted ways of men's nature and one who can strike a sudden, deadly blow. And that reminds me of the highway of my mind and the direction I’m going. And that reminds me we’re heading towards Lake Superior.
Barbara turns on the radio, and there isn’t good reception, so she searches for a station and gives the knob a twist so expert it would make Chubby Checker jealous.
And what do we get? I don’t make these up, fellas, I just record them.
It was Josie by Steely Dan.
We rocked, the hills rolled northward, and all was right in Minnesota. Ironwood Michigan, here we come. We motor up through Clayton and Turtle Lake, Cumberland and Spooner. At Ashland were officially on the 2 east. Here I get my first glimpse at Lake Superior. There are plenty of islands, and you can’t see the other side, it’s so enormously gigantic and awesome, and then it’s a cruise through the Bad River Indian’s with a Casino and Selling Fireworks instead of Firewater Reservation.
“They have multi-generational high levels of addiction and suicide,” Barb tells me.
It puts my mind in gear so I rant,
“You rob a people of their homeland and their heritage. Washington somehow makes it legal. The conquerors write the history and set the rules. The losers get multi-generational problems in return. It’s steel meets stone age, then we rip apart the environment, take the best parts for ourselves, and determine the limits of their wasteland. It’s a travesty.”
Up ahead a woman is standing near her car and looking at the pavement. Her fists are clutched in horror as if something horrible is about to happen and drawn up tightly under her chin. Her mouth is wide open, ready to scream. I look to see what she’s gaping at. It’s a turtle about the size of a size 10 Reebok tennis shoe, stranded in the middle of the highway.
I glide by him carefully and zoom past.
Here he was, born to be a medium sized turtle in a very, very, large lake. But he takes his chances crossing a highway to make it to a small pond on the other side. He wants to be a big turtle in a little pond. It looked like the journey was a little traumatic. What grit. What gusto. What risk! I wonder if it will be worth the trip.
But what it clues me into, is even more dramatic. It’s Barbara’s story about how her dad packed a car full of auto parts ‘til the car bent down to the springs, and headed west with her and her mom and two little brothers, Gary and Jeff, when she was 14. A cheer-leader and all that came with it, well known and recognized, surrounded by friends and family, moves to LA, where the kids were fast and smoked and drank and cursed like a west-coast Devil who just missed a beautiful Pacific sunset.
It must have been as bad for her as it was for the poor turtle.
But now the tables were turned westward in her favor. The small town Ironwood girl had grown up. The ingénue, who lived just across the river from Dillinger's Hurley, polished her glamorous veneer in Hollywood. The tame eighth-grader, whose shoulders once smelled of White Shoulders, was wild and wearing Chanel. To the residents of Ironwood she was precious, something to sing about. And after all these years she was coming home.
Time to break out the hats and hooters. No doubt about it. Barb was their Josie.
I didn’t care, it was only a song, and besides, coming home or not....Josie was mine.
©Steven Hunley2015
https://youtu.be/X0AytYGHILw Josie