MY RIVERS, MY LIFE

Perhaps I am at a stage of life in which one tends to spend a bit more time contemplating one's mortality. And that might be especially true for me, as I consider the state of my health over the last year and a half.

 Taking liberties with the book and movie of the same name, "A River Runs Through It," I am inclined to claim it as a most appropriate theme on where I've been and maybe even where I'm going. For I cannot in any way give credence to my life without acknowledging that rivers have and still continue to run through it with great force.

Some would consider that my life has been a meaningful and interesting one. I've managed to travel to various ends of the earth, have encountered some interesting people along the way and, in the process, have managed to keep my head above water, both figuratively and literally.  For some reason, there are those who indulge my vanity by still enjoying  my lectures, and that cheers my soul.

As far as my heritage is concerned, I have two very diverse elements in the mix, one side coming from  low-landers and the other from hill people; or, if you prefer, "swamp angels" and "hillbillies."  Of the two, my inclination has always been for the hills, and especially for clear, fast-flowing, spring-fed rivers that, unimpeded by dams, course their way through the Ozarks, join with sluggish streams which wend their way through the Arkansas delta and eventually reach the Mississippi.

From the age of eight, I never wanted to be far from the Ozarks; and, early on, I was fascinated by the seasonal stages of my rivers and how, in my young mind, they came to mirror the stages of life.  Every season brings with it different facets of a river's personality, just as infancy, childhood, maturity, and decline mark us in distinctive ways as we move toward our ultimate destiny.

After the heavy rains of spring, the rivers are not as they were, and for the avid canoeist, this means learning all over again the the most expeditious ways to navigate shoals, rapids and snags.  If life is a constant learning process, so, too, it is with rivers.

From the moment I first saw old river hands expertly maneuver their canoes and jon-boats down streams that ran deep in my family's historical memory, I was determined to somehow join them; and, through my emulation of their skill, to forge a union with them and  the rivers that would bind us into what, for me, was a sacred fraternity.

Each season on my rivers had its attractions.  Winter saw giant-sized icicles hanging on the cliffs.  Fall was aglow with a brilliant display of colors.  The heat of summer made the cold waters even more refreshing. Spring was a reawakening, with dogwood and redbud heralding the continuation of the primeval forces that had created and sustained my rivers. And there were always the memories of animal life that would indelibly be fixed in my mind.

Now it is enough to paddle to a gravel-bar, unfold a camp chair, sit and contemplate the union of rocks, trees and water that graces the beautiful mistresses of my youth, the Current and the Eleven Point. In many ways, I have failed my mistress Clio (the muse of history), for whom time and distractions have had a way of not allowing me to do for her what I should have. But, despite my own sense of failure in that dimension of life, Clio could never have competed with the depth of emotion that has perpetually resided in my being for the soul-mates of my youth, the wild and untrammeled rivers of the Ozarks

At night, while looking at the heavens from a vantage point beside my rivers, I can hear them sing. Yes, rivers do sing, and their voices are at one and the same harmonically interdependent and rhythmically discordant.  The waters glide over the rocks, strike the gravel-bars and scamper on their way.  Sometimes, I feel compelled to answer their notes with a hymn I recall from early in my life:

Oh, mighty God, when I behold the wonder

Of nature's beauty, wrought by words of thine,

And how thou leadest all from realms up yonder,

Sustaining earthly life with love benign,

And when at last the mists of time have vanished,

And I in truth my faith confirmed shall see,

Upon the shores where earthly ills are banished,

I'll enter, Lord, to dwell in peace with thee.

And, so, I am reminded of what counts in my life:  My God, my family, my country -  and my rivers!

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