Sleeping by the Mississippi Footnotes
Peter's houseboat, Winona, Minnesota
During the slow process of setting up the 8x10 camera, I would sometimes ask people I photographed to write down their dreams. "My dream is running water," wrote Peter, who has lived on a Mississippi River houseboat for over twenty years.
Charles Lindbergh's boyhood bed, Little Falls, Minnesota
In 1905, when Charles Lindbergh was three, his family moved to a home overlooking the Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota. His parents had a turbulent marriage. For many years he and his mother moved among their primary home in Little Falls, her family's house in Detroit, and his father's home in Washington (his father was a US Congressman from Minnesota). Charles had no siblings his age and rarely attended the same school for more than a year. He grew up a shy, socially awkward dreamer. ¶ In Lindbergh's speech at the 1973 dedication of his boyhood home, he remembered seeing an airplane for the first time when he was nine years old:
Flying upriver below higher branches of trees, a biplane was less than two hundred yards away—a frail, complicated structure, with the pilot sitting out in front between struts and wires. I watched it fly quickly out of sight....I imagined myself with wings on which I could swoop down off our roof into the valley, soaring through air from one river bank to the other, over stones of the rapids, above log jams, above the tops of trees and fences.
Sheila, Leech Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota
Sheila, the pastor's daughter at the Ball Club Assembly of God, a Pentecostal Church on reservation land, agreed to let me photograph her only if I accompanied the picture with the following text: If you don't have Jesus in your life, you are truly missing out on a blessing. He will set you free; accept him today.
Kym, Polish Palace, Minneapolis, Minnesota
I interviewed Kym for a couple of hours. I learned that she is a 32-year-old divorced mother of baby twins. She owns a day care center, lives with her boyfriend, dreams of being on television and has a brother in prison. Her favorite memory is being part of the high school dance line. Her favorite photograph is of her twins being baptized. I asked Kym about her favorite travel destination. She told me that she had only traveled once, with her ex-husband. "We went to New Orleans," she said. "It was great, we drank on Bourbon Street and toured the cemeteries. The cemeteries there are so amazing. But it was sad, we took all of these pictures and then left our camera on the bus. I don't have any pictures from that trip."
Lenny, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lenny is a construction worker. During the long Minnesota winters he moonlights as an erotic masseur. Lenny's teenage son had recently died in a car accident. "My dream," he wrote, "is to live to be 100 and still look the way I do now."
Immaculate Conception Church, Kaskaskia, Illinois
1n 1675, Father Jacques Marquette descended the Mississippi River to convert the indigenous Indians. In 1703, the Immaculate Conception Church was founded. Kaskaskia, once a thriving river town, was known as the "Paris of the West." But the flood of 1881 separated Kaskaskia from Illinois, creating an island that can only be accessed through Missouri or by boat. The island is now mostly deserted. ¶ Some believe that Kaskaskia was destroyed by the curse of a young Indian man named Ampakaya. He had fallen in love with Marie Bernard, the daughter of a Frenchman. The lovers ran off together, but her father tracked them down. Her father then bound the young man to a log and sent him to his death in the river. Down the river, he is said to have shouted this curse: "...May the filthy spot on which your altars stand be destroyed, may your crops be failures, your homes be dilipidated. May your dead be disturbed in their graves and your land become a feeding place for fishes!
Fort Jefferson Memorial Cross, Wickliffe, Kentucky
Ballard County convicts Terry, Keith, William and Randy (left to right) were working at a rest stop overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Keith's dream was to someday own and operate his own pilot school.
The Reverend and Margaret's bedroom, Vicksburg, Mississippi
At age 63, after four marriages, Reverend H.D. Dennis (b. 1916) fell in love with Margaret Rogers. Along with a marriage proposal came a promise to convert her humble Highway 61 store, Margaret's Grocery, into a palace to honor God. Back in the living quarters, the Reverend produced a small shrine, not to God, but Margaret.
Sunshine, Memphis, Tennessee
After taking this picture at a motel on Elvis Presley Boulevard, I later returned to Memphis to give Sunshine a copy. She told me that her real name is Monique. She was twenty-one years old. I asked if I could take another picture, this time in less revealing clothing. Monique explained that all her nice clothes were back in Atlanta. She had run away from home at fourteen after the birth of her son, whom she had left with her parents. She has been Sunshine ever since.
Sugar's, Davenport, Iowa
Sugar's is a massage parlor in downtown Davenport. Each room is given a color theme. Ismael, a young Mexican immigrant in the waiting room, told me the Green Room was his favorite. Ismael sometimes visits Sugar's after finishing a 60-hour week at the nearby Oscar Meyer plant. Besides being too tired to date, he told me he was embarrassed by his accent and small penis. "My dream," he wrote, "is to be valued in America the way I would be in Mexico."
Mother and daughter, Davenport, Iowa
"My dream is to be an RN," wrote Aja. Her mother, Julie, said that she had given up dreaming a long time ago.
|
Johnny Cash's boyhood home, Dyess, Arkansas
Johnny Cash was born in rural, south-central Arkansas in February of 1932. His father, Ray, was a farmer, hobo and odd job laborer. In 1936, the Cash family was one of 600 chosen to relocate to northeast Arkansas to reclaim swampland. This project was known as the Dyess Colony Scheme. ¶ When he was four, Johnny joined his family to work, and sing, in the cotton fields. At night, after work, he would try to tune in Memphis radio stations. His family was evacuated from the farm after a flood in 1937. This is memorialized in his 1959 song, Five Feet High and Rising:
My mama always taught me that good things come from adversity if we put our faith in the Lord.
We couldn't see much good in the flood waters when they
Were causing us to have to leave home.
But when the water went down, we found that it had washed a load of rich black bottom dirt across our land. The following year we had the best crop we'd ever had.
Joshua, Angola State Prison, Louisiana
A teardrop tattoo has several meanings, but is usually a sign that an inmate has killed someone. Joshua (prisoner #429972) is serving a forty-year sentence for murder.
Frankie, Ferriday, Louisiana
Frankie Jean lives in the Lewis Family Museum in Ferriday, Louisiana. The house displays memorabilia from her brother, Jerry Lee Lewis, and cousins Jimmy Swaggart and Mickey Gilley. To preserve the condition of the beds, Frankie uses a sleeping bag on the floor.
Jim, Wax Museum, Hannibal, Missouri
From Chapter 19 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark—which was a candle in a cabin window; and someimes on the water you could see a spark or two—on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim, he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened.
Harbor Marina, Memphis, Tennessee
On May 29, 1997, singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley was at the Harbor Marina in Memphis. He and a friend were sitting beside the Mississippi, listening to a boom box. Buckley decided to go for a swim. Fully clothed, he waded waist-high into the water. He laid back and started singing. A boat passed causing waves to come into shore. The friend turned and grabbed the radio to keep it from getting wet. When he turned back, Buckley was gone. Five days later a riverboat passenger spotted his body at the foot of Beale Street.
Jessie's Prayer Room, Memphis, Tennessee
Jessie founded her own nondenominational church, The House of Glory Prayer Rooms, in her modest Memphis home. The pictured prayer room also serves as Jessie's bedroom.
Bonnie (with a photograph of an Angel), Port Gibson, Mississippi
During the Civil War, Grant spared Port Gibson, declaring it "too beautiful to burn." Many believe that it wasn't beauty that saved Port Gibson, but the number of churches. With a population of only 1800, Port Gibson is home to eleven grand and historic churches. Faith Tabernacle Pentecostal Church is not counted among the eleven. The church is located in a trailer next door to the home of Brother M.C. Tyler, a former country-western singer. After a Thursday evening Bible Study, M.C. and his wife Bonnie invited me over for coffee. Bonnie read to me a passage from Revelations 21:8:
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Reverend Cecil and Felicia, Saint Louis, Missouri
Reverend Cecil has been preaching on the corner of Delmar and Kings Highway in St. Louis since recovering from a stroke in 1981.
The Farm, Angola State Prison, Louisiana
In 1880, Confederate Major Samuel James purchased an eight thousand acre plantation called Angola (named after the area in Africa where his former slaves came from). he began housing Louisiana inmates in what used to be the old slave quarters. ¶ Angola State Prison has since grown to contain 5100 inmates and 1500 correction officers. Surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River, the prison maintains 18,000 acres of prime farmland. Most inmates work forty hours a week producing corn, soybeans and beef.
Adelyn, Ash Wednesday, New Orleans, Louisiana
The day after Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, I went to St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. The Cathedral is the oldest in the United States. Don Almonaster y Roxas gave it as a gift to the city after the Parish Church was burned in the Great Fire of 1788. Outside of the Cathedral, I found Adelyn. Her full name, she said, is Adelyn de Chartreuse Kocake Shockadelica. I asker her what she would be giving up for Lent. "I'm not even Catholic," she laughed,"these are cigarette ashes."
Holt Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana
Unlike the aboveground tombs for which New Orleans is famous, Holt Cemetery is anything but grand. Located behind a community college parking lot, many of the plots belong to the homeless and anonymous.
Bible Study Book, Vicksburg, Mississippi
In Reverend H.D. Dennis' kitchen, his prayer book is displayed with a Vicksburg tourist sticker, a line drawing of the Emporer Augustus and highlighted Bible passages on John the Baptist (The Prophet in the Wilderness) including Matthew 3:1-4
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying , The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.
Memorial, Holt Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana
Many of the memorials at Holt Cemetery are homemade. Arthur Smith created two of the most ornate arrangements. He purchased the plots in 1979 while he was homeless. One of the plots is reserved for his family members (his father is buried in the graveyard at an unknown location). The other plot is serves as a memorial for all of the deceased in Holt Cemetery. He calls this plot his "chapel." The chapel was connected with Smith's short-lived effort at opening his own nondenominational church.
Venice, Louisiana
Venice is the furthest south you can travel the Mississippi by car. But it may not be accessible much longer. The massive levees built to prevent flooding along the Mississippi have robbed the Louisian coast of precious sediments. Thirty-five square miles a year are vanishing into the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond Venice, the river loses itself in a vast wetland complex of bayous, islands, oil rigs, and canals. As the river meets the Gulf, a region emerges called "the dead zone." Primarily created by polluted runoff from midwestern farmland, the area is described as a desert within an ocean. In an area the size of New Jersey, plants and fish are unable to sustain life. As a consequence, the Cajun, Vietnamese, and Houma Indian villages which depend on these resources are slowly disappearing.
|
return to menu
