THE BIBLE SALESMAN by Clyde Edgerton

The fellow who calls himself Preston Clearwater is a charming liar and a thief. In North Carolina in 1950, Clearwater's racket is stealing cars and he could use some help. When he picks up a 20 year old hitchhiking Bible salesman named Henry Dampier, Clearwater spins a tale of working undercover for the FBI to break up a multi-state car theft ring and recruits Henry as his assistant. Henry buys the lie, thinking perhaps God's plan for him involves a dual life as a Bible salesman and a G-man.

THE BIBLE SALESMAN by Clyde Edgerton starts with these two characters and that delightful premise to spin a tale that is not just a page turning adventure, it is one of the best depictions I've read of the dual nature of faith and doubt. Clearwater has faith only in his own cunning and the belief that the world consists only of winners and losers. Henry, who was raised in Baptist certainty but has begin to read the Bibles that he sells, has a bit of faith and many questions and doubts. That book of Genesis doesn't exactly tell a consistent story...

After establishing the action in 1950, Edgerton turns his tale back to the 1930s and 1940s, painting a vivid portrait for the reader of Henry's life before his inadvertent life of crime. Edgerton wisely paces the book, pivoting back and forth a couple of times, calling out these sections Exodus and Genesis before wrapping things up with a very satisfying Revelation.

Edgerton's book is more than just the story of Clearwater and Henry, it is filled with other folks and little tales told along the way. It is by turns funny and horrifying. And there is a love story as well, Henry falls hard for a woman named Marleen.

Here's a little bit from page 130:

Henry walked to the bank of the river, sat on the wall. It was not the river it had been yesterday. It was a new river in a new world. His new thoughts and feelings spilled, stumbled, tumbled over each other. He wanted to take Marleen to McGarren Island, to the mountains, show her things. He remembered the old man, the fiddle player, at Indian Springs, up in the mountains, sitting by the spring every day for an hour, playing songs, talking to people who came for water. He'd said the two big invisible life ingredients were hope and fear, and that people took doses of hope from the springs in their jars and jugs and sheepskins. That was when Henry had first arrived up there to sell Bibles, and the fiddler told him about the history of the springs -- the little boy who found it and realized the next day that his sore throat was cured by the water, about all the other people cured. He remembered that the fiddle player said he didn't believe in the water but he believed in the hope that it made. He said that fear was hope's brother, that both could do bad and good things to people, just like water and liquor. He'd said water could rot wood and revive plants, and that liquor could rot marriages and revive storytelling. He wore a hat with sweat stains, and his fiddle had a .22 bullet hole in it. Sleeping on a cot in the tool shed behind the Indian Springs Hotel was when Henry got cold and realized he'd come to the mountains too early in the spring, and on leaving, met Clearwater. If he hadn't met Clearwater, he realized, he wouldn't have met Marleen.

THE BIBLE SALESMAN does what good fiction does, it tells a made up story, a lie, that somehow in the end says something true that the reader remembers. I think anyone, Christian, Atheist, Jew, Hindu or whatever, anyone who has questions about life, faith, coincidence or higher meaning, will find value in this novel. And if not, at least it's a good story, well-told.

The Bear Creek Trail

This past Wednesday I rode my bike out to Wisconsin Point via the Osaugie Trail and the Bear Creek Trail. The Bear Creek Trail is also known by the name given this route by the Ojibwe people, Makwa Ziibiins Miikana, and even though I've convinced my spell checker to accept that, my fingers and brain are going to stick to calling it the Bear Creek Trail for the remainder of this report.

While I am always awed by the beauty of the land, water, plants, and animals every time I venture out into these woods, something else that strikes me as quite wonderful is how people have been inspired to not mess this place up. Wisconsin Point is largely unspoiled and undeveloped public land with a single paved road running its length and a few parking lots where people can get out of their cars and enjoy the land and the views. There is a picturesque lighthouse at the end of the point and beaches that are good places to find surf-polished agates.

The Bear Creek Trail, which lets non-motorized folks reach the point, is a 2.2 mile meandering path through the woods. It took a decade of planning and several years of work to make this tiny old native trail into a meter wide accessible but environmentally considerate trail. Over forty bridges and boardwalks span the creeks and marshes and the trail is now enjoyed by hikers, dog walkers, and bicyclists. This is not trail built for speed, but for contemplation. At various points a bench and a beautiful view encourage one to stop, sit, and wonder.

I think it is important and essential to our survival that we keep conscious of how our actions impact the world. Enough footsteps become a path and our paths through the world do change the world, for better or worse. I don't think progress is a bad thing, I'm thankful for the humans who mapped and built the trails I'm riding on. But I also think we must be aware of the direction in which we are heading and not allow ourselves to be blinded by speed in our haste to get somewhere else. We manage to screw a lot of things up and do some things right. I'm glad there are still places where I can stop, sit on a bench, look at the trees, listen to the birds, and think about the ways I'm making my way in the world. 

The Poplar Wetland Basin

On my bike ride this morning, I stopped by the Poplar Wetland Basin. This little bit of land, about the size of two city blocks, is a neatly engineered bit of water routing. Some of the rain runoff from the city streets is channelled into this area instead of dumping directly into Lake Superior. The marshland serves as a giant filter. As the water slows here, cattails and other plants break down some of the salt and petroleum pollution and a lot of particulates sink to the bottom of the ponds. Before the city was here, much of the land was marsh and the Poplar Wetland Basin is a restoration of some of that original marshland. Understanding how the world worked before we decided to pave the planet can, if we're smart, show us how to lessen our impacts on the place and maybe undo or at least lessen some of the damage we've done.

One little wetland isn't the whole solution, of course, but it is a good example of local stewardship in action. The blackbirds, ducks, and geese seem to happy to call this bit of wetland home.

A Moment of Zen

Sometimes a Zen master will whack a pupil with a stick to bring their awareness into the present moment. We, and when I say "we" of course I mean "me", are often living in our own heads, thinking of the future or the past. We actively imagine something else or somewhere else, ignoring what is right in front us.

I try as much as possible to get out into the world beyond my own brain, to feel the sun, wind, or rain on my skin, to hear the birds and smell the trees and still I get distracted. But the world is full of Zen masters.

I was intent on my camera, walking with my eyes and lens zoomed in on a distant goose, when a SLAP! brought me into the moment just a few feet away. A beaver I'd damn near stepped on jumped into the water, smacking his tail as he dove. He then surfaced and circled back. "What part of 'be here now' don't you understand?" he seemed to be saying. Of course I was already regretting the great shot I'd missed as I took a couple of mediocre shots of my damp teacher. I still have so damn much to learn. It's a good thing the world is filled with so many teachers.

THE AUBURN CONFERENCE by Tom Piazza

Earlier this month I read LIVING IN THE PRESENT WITH JOHN PRINE, a terrific book. Prine, of course, was an interesting fellow, interesting mostly I think because he was a keen observer with a genuine affection for people. He was a guy you'd enjoy hanging out with. In reading Piazza's book, I realized that Piazza and Prine were similar souls and the book gave me a sense that not only should I spend more time with Prine, something I can do thanks to all the recordings John left us, I also wanted to spend more time with Piazza's thoughts.

While Piazza was writing the book about Prine, he was also working on a novel, one that John Prine wanted to read. John probably read it in heaven while sipping a vodka and ginger ale. I got to read it here on earth.

The book is THE AUBURN CONFERENCE and it is a fun speculation, a consideration of what didn't happen but might have if in 1883 a writer's conference took place at a small college in New York state. The big questions are "What is America?" and "What is the role of American literature?" And Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglas, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others all have something to say on the subject. The conference goes delightfully awry as egos and ideas clash and the discussion expands to include discussions of race, women's suffrage, and the roles and responsibilities of the artist.

Piazza does a wonderful job capturing the voices and the spirits of these varied writers, adding a few fictional folks to the mix including a romance novelist and retired General of the Confederacy. And an unnamed but very recognizable reclusive poet in the audience gives the novel its most quiet, hopeful voice, a sense that America and American literature will somehow endure.

Piazza's novel, which I'm sure made no best-seller lists and perhaps never even made back its printing costs, is a reminder that the dollar is a poor measure of value. MOBY DICK was a financial failure in Melville's lifetime. Emily Dickinson certainly wasn't writing for money. And Tom Piazza wrote the book that his friend wanted to read. I count myself very fortunate that I got to read it here on earth.

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