We awoke, packed, had breakfast and headed out. Our first stop was Helena, AR. The first thing we visited in Helena was Freedom Park which is a dog park / memorial (like all dog parks, right?). The memorial discussed how freed slaves were recruited into the Union army at Fort Curtis and how they served honorably under fire when the Confederate forces later attacked.
We next visited a reproduction of Fort Curtis (the original had been dismantled). The fort was made of mounded earth with some timbers thrown across it. There were no reenactors or tour guides at the fort but there were a few interpretive signs. The fort had been built by Union forces to guard strategic roadways. There was a battle at the fort during the siege on Vicksburg. Confederate troops tried to take the fort so they could resupply Vicksburg. However, the Confederates failed to take the fort. Although they were greater in number, the fort was well protected.
Next we decided to visit the Delta Cultural Center since it was also in Helena. The first part of the museum told the stories of the area from prehistoric times through early settlement, the steamboat and railway eras, through lumbering, and into farming. The area never really had slavery because the land was not cleared and drained until after the civil war, so it had sharecroppers and tenant farmers instead (until mechanization made them obsolete).
The other part of the museum was dedicated to the evolution of the blues. It had exhibits on field hollers, gospel singing, early blues, modern blues and African-American art. They also host a blues radio program, King Biscuit Time. King Biscuit himself (actually, don't believe he goes by that name, it is "Sunshine" Sonny Payne, host since 1951 [yeah, 1951, that's 63 years, son]) was there (to record program number 17,033!!! the scale of the whole thing makes me a little dizzy) to greet us and chatted us up a bit (although he is pretty hard of hearing). He asked where we were from and when we said Minnesota (um, maybe 5, or half a dozen times) he recalled being in Duluth, MN (or Delft, or something like that, he couldn't remember :) ) and being as cold as he had ever been, and there were Indians cooking fish over a fire right outside his door, and it was the best fish he ever had (no doubt, hearing the story, I wanted the fish). He personally invited us to listen to his show, give us his card and told us of the people that traveled from all over the world to see the program be recorded. He said to take a look at the guest book (oh, darn, they just replaced it, only a page and a half of entries) and indeed, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, well, in a page in a half, they come from all over part of Europe, anyway. Pretty impressive for maybe 30 entries in a guest log. I gave the program a listen later and may have to put it in the mix at home (available on the Internet) (oh, and just researching the matter, I found American Routes is not actually off the air, as I had thought, only off of MPR, so I'll have to add that to the mix as well). Anyway, nice old guy, hard to have a conversation with (they must really amp up his headphones).
After the Delta Cultural Center, we booked it for the Rohwer Japanese American Relocation Center historic site (http://rohwer.astate.edu/). On the way, we stopped for lunch. I don't know if I've mentioned this yet but the Great River Road (Hwy 61, or whatever it happens to be at the moment) runs through A LOT of rural, agricultural America. I've not seen so much farmland EVER (perhaps an exaggeration because we've certainly passed through a lot on the Interstate on the way to other road trips, but this is sort of up-close-and-personal agricultural land). Anyway, moral of the story, rural America. And, I am learning, not really my (that is to say Midwest) rural America. Which leads to my story (which is not much of a story, really, more of an inner drama). We hadn't had lunch by the time we left Helena and decided to stop on the road. About a half hour down the way, we hit Elaine, AR. There was a hand-painted sign promoting Tanner's Restaurant. Small town, so the restaurant was easy to find. We walked in the door to the restaurant (looking bewildered, as it is hard not to do as a group of five people) and the restaurant came to a halt. Seriously, there were probably 20 people in there (looked like in about two big groups), they thoroughly assessed us a foreigners and left (I assume they were leaving anyway) but it was within the span of a couple minutes, it was us and the restaurant staff. We ordered, ate (best fried catfish so far on the trip), etc before anyone really asked any questions. "Ya'all here visiting?" "no, just passing through on the way to New Orleans." . . . "Why did you stop HERE?" "Well, there was a big ol' sign on the road advertising a restaurant and it was time for lunch." I think it was mostly our sense of being outsiders that made it feel awkward, really. We are asked the same sorts of questions just about everywhere we go (we don't even need to open our mouths anymore before people know we are from out of town, this started probably somewhat South of St. Louis). Anyway, in the end, I think they were friendly folks, even if we had somewhat of an awkward exchange.
Rohwer was a good distance on from Elaine (another couple hours). We found the Japanese Internment Camp is sort of in two parts. One part in the actual historic location of the camp (there is not much left to it anymore, a smoke stack from one of the buildings, a graveyeard, a memorial, some interpretive signs that have been added recently that have George Takei, (a former resident of the camp) telling the story of the camp from a Japanese American point of view. Standing at the graveyard and looking off in the distance towards the smoke stack, you get a sense for how huge the camp was and how many people they must have kept here. We took it in for a bit and then hurried off to the next part before it closed.
The other part is a museum that was resurrected from an earlier exhibit at the Delta Cultural Center. It tells the story of Japanese Americans at the Camp through some artifacts and storyboards. The best part of the museum was the hour-long video they show, "Time of Fear" (although it took all our time at the museum to watch it since we arrived at 4 PM and they closed at 5 [we stole away occasionally to look at the rest of the museum, but there wasn't a lot of note to look at]). The video tells the history of the camp from the perspective of the Japanese Americans AND from the perspective of the Arkansanians (Arkansawians? Looked it up: Arkansans). It was an interesting film mostly because it included the two perspectives. The Japanese seemed resigned to their fate (but seriously, Arkansas?) but the Arkansans were very suspicious and hateful (of course they were, World War II had just started, and the U.S. Government just said all of these people were under suspicion of being spies). It was an interesting story (how Arkansas's governor resisted having the camp until the federal government promised jobs and signed off on a number of terms put forth by the governor) and how the people (at least those in the video) overcame their mistrust of the Japanese. (There were some other funny ancedotes in the film as well, one Japanese man recalls being let out of camp on an errand and taking a bus in the Jim Crow South. He sat in the 'Colored' section of the bus but was told by the bus driver he couldn't sit there because it was only for blacks. How did they decide?).
That was about it for the night. We stopped in Lake Village, AR (on the largest oxbow lake in North America) for the night. Oxbow lakes are pretty cool, by the way. As you drive along them, they can be hard to distinguish from the river.
No comments:
Post a Comment