Illinois

Dusty day dawning, three hours late
Open the curtains and let the rest wait
My mind goes running three thousand miles east
I may miss the harvest but I won't miss the feast

And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
Illinois, Illinois, Illinois, Illinois

South California, your sun is too cold
It looks like your hills have been raped of their gold
I should have come out when I was first told
This lamb has got to return to the fold

And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
Illinois, Illinois, Illinois, I'm your boy

Flat on the Prairies, soil and stone
Stretching forever, taking me home
'Cause I've got a woman who waits for me there
And I need a breath of that sweet country air

And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
And it looks like you're gonna have to see me again
Illinois, oh, Illinois,
Illinois,oh, Illinois
Illinois, Illinois,
 Illinois, I'm your boy

                                     --Dan Fogelberg (Not profound lyrics, but... repetition)


Illinois.  The only state in the United States with a mystic, melodic  name. You couldn't make a song repeating and ending in "Minnesota" or even "Indiana".  Most state songs sound silly-- 

 "What did Delaware, boys what did Delaware?/ She wore her New Jersey, boys..."

I think perhaps it's the only one with obvious French roots (the French pronunciation of the local Native American tribe).    When I am home deprived, it is still for Illinois.  Not the people, much.  The woods.  To me, Illinois is not the prairie (we had patches of it) or the people.  It is the woods.  It is where many of the significant markers of my early life occurred, where I got my freedoms,  where I feel my blood most. Running like a creek over rounded stones. Woods that hang on by their teeth to the unforgiving cliffs of lime.  The smell.  The smell of that dying, decaying earth.

Not everything there is  voluptuous  sensation.  A Mississippi River sunset (one of the few places you can actually see it, to home) is a bland wash of pink crayon on the distant horizon compared to 4 layers of tropical blaze here in Florida.   In fact, the sky is rarely spectacular or even noticable. Except at night,when it is awe-inspiring. But, I spent much of my young life only seeing small corners of sky, due to all the hills, valleys, cliffs, trees that blocked my view.  Plus, for a good part of the year the sky is grey and the sun goes down two hours earlier--not its best feature.  But that closeness in a way is comforting, like a quilt: in Florida it always seems like I'm so exposed, someone could easily take a shot at me.    Hiding is easier in Illinois.  There are no great skylines to trace in my hometown.  Tornadoes are not as sensational as hurricanes,  and don't last long enough for days off or parties.  We must stay in the basement.

September and October, i mesi bellisimi, but February is a damned ugly time in Illnois.

However, I miss the Illinois acid trip colors of fall: aubergine crab-apples, scarlet, crimson,  and tangerine sugar maples, chartreuse sycamores,  colored as if  by a 1970's Park Avenue decorator.  I miss the goose-pimply fall air, sweater weather.  I miss outdoor metal, cold to the touch.   I miss the scratchy sound of  leaves dying flamboyantly on the streets.  The hazy-warm, mellow, Indian summer,  corn-yellow sun in September.  The moon surrounded coldly by stars so thick, I can't find the simplest constellations in them. I miss icicles. I miss snow-crusted mittens and scarves, and my old lambs'-wool lined gray jacket, and the metallic smell they all emit after too long an outdoor trek. Wet, thin-ribbed corduroy and its burnt-amber scent.  I miss bark I  can peel off of trees when I am bored.  Wool musk rising off my wet sweater as I try to get it dry near the fireplace after a walk in snow.  Cardinals flitting redly through snow laden trees, and onto frozen birdbaths.  I miss a landscape I can't see past or through.  Mostly, I miss my woods.
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I have been in more picturesque woods, of course.  The lake districts in Michigan, Wisconsin, where Chicagoans have their little summer places--so American, with floating docks,summer- blue skies 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAQ8DSsPJD0 (sorry, so Chicago to me)
  and cool breezes,wildflowers, cabin porches and American flags on the 4th of July.  The girls in their summer dresses.  Yes, this is a very quaint, beautiful and relaxing place to be.  Colorado with its red rocks and aspens  has a beautiful sky, although those aspens don't translate to "woods" to me--not hidden enough. Skyline Drive in the Shenandoahs (that's a nice name , too),  California's redwoods are awe inspiring--the Olympic National Forest--well, I wouldn't turn down an invitation to spend some time there.  I am sure I will love the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the woods of Vermont, Maine, the northeast,  "whose woods these are I think I know",  when I finally get to see them: the pictures are nice.  Also I adore the woods in England, France, and I'm sure I would love the Black Forest and Russia's hinterlands.

But to cure the empty state of my blood, I need my woods.  They would probably not seem so beautiful to a stranger.  They are stark, scraggily, and full of rot. Random puddles, misshapen rocks, and cloudy ditches.  If there's a God,  he must spend a lot of time in Lake Michigan's woods: mine he abandoned to the devil.  You can smell history there, native tribes, things burning.  Mostly I can be very alone there.  There are no rules: it is not "National" or "State" forest, it's just...no man's land.  Build a fire,  gather wood, burn it down.  My woods.  Sure, someone else owns it, but it doesn't feel that way to me.

When I first came to Florida, I felt hemmed in.   I went almost immediately looking for my woods, or whatever substitute would do.  It was bad enough that this place was so flat, so visible and public, with endless streets that seem to cross each other yet go nowhere special.  I was very disappointed to find there was nothing even remotely similar that I could walk to when I was feeling the call.  Plus, the air was always wet.
I still haven't found it.  Yet I look. The beach doesn't work the same magic on me.  I prefer my winter clothes, my corduroys and jeans,  my navy  pea coat, my hats and sweaters, my layers. 

My woods were created by earthquakes.  There are rocks that look like they were upturned and split from subterranean forces centuries ago, exposed tree roots.  My woods feel much older than America. They smell of smoke. Dead black trees. They have layers of decomposing leaves, the skeletal remains of tree life.  They have rotting logs and stumps to sit on, whittle, listen to music, the wind, the stars, barge and train whistles, cushioned by the greenest moss this side of Ireland.  A large puddle crusted over with a thin coat of ice, enslaving  a  tobacco  brown , lobed oak leaf; it makes a chunky sound when you put your foot through it to free and destroy the leaf. Branches carrying two inches of crystalized snow, only on the top-side, berries frozen in clusters.  For some reason my memories of fall and winter are stronger than those of summer.  Because that's what I don't get.

Maybe I'm strange, but I prefer camping in the cold. I thoroughly enjoy the sensation of being cold, then being warmed (one side more than the other) by a real, blazing fire. Nothing like it, and I don't care how cold it gets in Florida, it is not the same. I like sleeping in a tent when it's about 40 degrees, completely bundled up, only my nose exposed outside my sleeping bag so I can breathe properly. It helps to have other body heat. I did this many times in college, camping in Illinois in October, November..some of my favorite memories. In fact, I spent an entire year in college in an unheated room, in Quincy, only a short two hours from Chicago with its brutal winters. I think I had about five blankets and quilts piled up on that twin bed, and my head was about two feet from the drafty aluminum door that led to the outside.  Drinking hot coffee or tea (or alcohol) in the morning when I can actually feel the warmth going down my throat.  Quite sexy.  Camping , we used to make "cowboy" coffee--the grounds right in the pan on the campfire, then carefully pour off the boiled liquid.  Atmosphere is everything.

When we were kids we did the most asinine things in my woods.  Climbed ridiculously tall trees for sport and challenge.  There were these hilly ridges that ran alongside sunken, swamplike areas.  This was where we sometimes dragged our sleighs when it snowed, when we were tired of sharing the big hill at Haskell Park with the entire town.   Ice storms were even better for sleds.  If you didn't have one, a big piece of cardboard would work too, and actually helped to pack down fresh snow and make it more dangerous and slick.  The icy ridges fell off steeply on both sides and were lined with fairly menacing tree trunks a kid could smack into at a pretty good clip.  I recall the most dangerously angled ridge actually had a tree at the bottom, so it was necessary to either strategically slow yourself down before you got there (the sissy way) or, learn to cut off into the valley, dodging those trees, for a slightly longer, more perilous ride.

The other private sled run we had was wider, but in some ways also dangerous.  It was the steep downhill gravel road that led into Camp Warren Levis, the abandoned Boy Scout camp just outside the wooded borders of our neighborhood.  It was a five, ten minute walk from my parent's old house.  Besides being closer, we preferred it because it took less snow storm to make it sleddable, and it was much longer, so you could build up some speed.  It made your heart pound, and made you resent your demon possessed  friends who were leaning on your back, pushing you off the top of the hill under their control , not yours.  How many times did someone yell, "Wait!" until he/she was mentally prepared for the plunge.  And how many times was that desparate "Wait!" ignored?  Oh, and it was wide enough for two, even three sleds to race--even worse.

Besides the perilous effect the gravel created, the road was dangerous for sledding due to several more factors. 1) Like our wood ridges, the sides near the bottom fell off steeply to wood valleys.  2) At the bottom of the hill, the road forked--if we carried on straight we'd run into a heavy length of iron chain stretched across the road,  and its metal "Keep Out" sign that cordoned off the swimming pool (which was abandoned, green, and full of leaves).  This was not a good option , as the metal sign was just the right height to bang a  sledding kid on the head.  I remember one winter we tried to find two big forked sticks of equal length to prop up the chain, but the ground was too frozen and compacted for this to work. 3) The best, least resistant alternative was to shoot the curve in the fork, not easy, and much more doable if you were sitting rather than lying down head first, so you could put the full force of your right leg on the curved steering arm to make the hairpin left turn.  Timing had to be impeccable to avoid the valleys, the gravel-thick edges,  the chain, and trees.  Once you made the curve,  though, you would slow down, because the hill there went up, not down.  At the top of that hill was the ranger's house, who we always imagined would shoot us if he saw us.  We did occasionally hear gunshots in these woods, far off.



Really, I was the most fortunate child to have grown up on this particular piece of land.  The scout camp is home,  moreso than the various houses my parents have lived in.  My other "home" is the flat rock that hangs over the Missisippi, jutting probably 200 feet above the river and the River Road that runs alongside it.  A scary, vertiginous place, on the property of a monastery (we had to sneak in),  but one where several milestones in my life were met.  (Most during high school). 

The thought has occurred to me to visit, without informing my family, so I can spend all my time alone in the places I really call home.  I could fly into Lambert Field, rent a car, drive up the River Road and get a room at Pere Marquette, the campgrounds, one of the cabins they have, where I spent my honeymoon night before driving to New Orleans.  No one would have to be the wiser.   After I graduated from college , one of my fantasies was to buy some old American Gothic farmhouse outside one of those river towns with a population of about 500.  It would be cheap..most of those farms have now been taken over by Con-Agra, and there's no need for a family house.

 I would fix up the barn so I could be like Levon Helm, hosting a Midnight Ramble, calling all the local musicians to show up to jam.  My barn would have some weird old tinny Victorian upright piano like my grandma had in her whitewashed basement, and it would have electricity only to support some amps and electric guitars.  Random bored midwesterners of the discerning kind would follow the noise until they found my place, and join in.  There are more intellectual, covert musicians in the midwest farm country than you might know.  I knew some people with excellent taste there, probably more than in Florida, anyway.  I would make them big pitchers of Sangria spiked with brandy, and bake them cherry-peach pie, the recipe I borrowed from the village of Elsah bakery.  It would be  beautiful and bohemian on moonlit nights.  Maybe even Randy and Robert would show up.

Or Priscilla.  Priscilla was this girl from the woods my mother once hired to babysit us and help her clean.  She was maybe 10 years older than me, when I was 11-12.  She wore cut-off jeans (like me) and a tank top with no bra, which was okay, because her breasts were small.  I immediately bonded with Priscilla, who, by the way, was so not prissy, (I'm guessing her mother named her for Elvis's wife) and she invited me to her trailer parked next to a creek in the woods, not even for pay, just for fun, because she liked me and I liked her.  We swam in our cut-offs in that cold, cool creek , with her husband and dog.  She had a warm, gravelly, infectious laugh.   I wanted to live like her, not like my family.

But , back to the scout camp.  The local boy scouts abandoned it when our neighborhood was built nearby--claiming it was too tempting and too close to civilization to give the boys the proper deep woods experience it once did.  So ...we had the run of it.  What an amazing playground.  Besides the crazy hill and swimming pool, it contained quite a big lake; uphill and overlooking the lake was the Lodge, a huge log cabin structure with a wide,wide wrap-around porch on two sides(complete with working tables, benches, and adirondack chairs)--absolutely perfect for bringing a transistor radio,  guitar or harmonica to sing alone to the lake and its creatures. It also had an old fashioned soda machine, that sometimes even worked.  This was one of my favorite places in the whole world, in spite of the spiderwebs.  I watched many a sundown alone from that porch.  A destination for all future relationships, to show them "the real me".

The lake was fun in all seasons, too.  I can only remember two or three winters cold enough where the lake froze solid enough to ice-skate on, hence I never got very good at it.  It was not on this lake that I broke my front tooth playing hockey, but another smaller pond on the other side of our neighborhood.    Believe it or not, the scouts left their canoes and boats behind.  So we went fishing, some sorta little fish we called Sunfish.  I think they're some sort of perch.  I don't ever remember eating one.  I once remember when I was really young trying to catch one with a safety pin and a strip of bologna--didn't work. Then I tried it in the sewer.  Caught a kitten instead.  I was an odd child.  My dalmatian, one Sunday when we arrived back from church,  was sitting proudly wagging her big thick tail,  with a putrid giant fish she dragged home from the lake--later she had tapeworms--possibly from that fish?

On the other side of the lake was an outdoor ampitheatre, Greek-style, made essentially of rock and concrete stairs--good for all sorts of stupid showboating, rock chucking.  There was both a rifle and archery range,  five or six cleared fields for campsites, and random totem poles with rather mysterious Indian words on them:  never sure what they were about.  Also, Piasa Creek ran through the camp, and we traced its path on many a hiking expedition, like Lewis and Clark, in all seasons, but it was especially beautiful in fall and after a snowfall.  Often where we went had been untouched recently by human feet.  I do remember there was some sort of man-made dam up creek a bit.  By now, however, the scouts have recognized their error, and the camp is no longer free as it once was in the 1970's.

Later I found out the historical significance of the camp and its surrounding lands: pre-Civil War they were given secretly to freed slaves to farm, who'd escaped via the underground railroad.  Funny how the reputation of secrets is that they are bad.  Not always.  But even before I knew this, it felt to me  like there was something grave that had happened there when I walked that land.  It's what kept drawing me back, the ancient feel of its air.

Now I have to make do with very small paradises, like the former Beaux Arts. quite lame, actually if it weren't for the vibrations.