At rest in the "show me" state

Tal and I have had a second happy day on this summer of 2005 adventure. While our destination is Bissett Manitoba, I couldn't imagine day-after-day-day of straight driving, so I won Tal over for a tourist stop. Truth is (ah ha), I made all the lodging reservations weeks ago, designing the trip in front of the computer. Our mileage for today was low -- on purpose. After all, I reasoned this morning, pressing on would throw a wrench in the whole schedule. We DID spend a couple of hours this morning at The Hermitage and, after fidgeting a little bit, Tal relaxed (gave up) and seemed to enjoy the house and grounds.

The Hermitage is the Tennessee home of Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the US, who was originally from SC. While there 's pretty serious (even viscious) dispute over that claim between North and South Carolina, the people at The Hermitage maintain Mr Jackson himself claimed South Carolina. Mr and Mrs Jackson were present at the front of the house when we walked up, completely in costume and character. When I said we were from SC and thanked them for opening their house to us, his response was to thank us -- folks from "home" -- for coming to see them.

While the house was interesting and the grounds (gardens) inspiring, it was the 15 minute film in the interpretive center all visitors see before going to the house which has kept me thinking today. And, like my admitting working in a touristy stop as I mapped this trip, it all goes back to truth-telling.

The film was so unlike the history films burned into my memory during high school. You probably know the ones: Mike Wallace and You Were There, Movie-Tone News reels, and the like. They were clearly produced by the victors or were produced to inspire the folks back home to keep the faith that WWII could and would be won. There's certainly nothing wrong with that.

The reason I remembered them today, I think, is that this presentation was so very different, in stark contrast. Not only did that short film tout the greatness of Andrew Jackson -- the general, the family man, the land and slave owner, the president. It also brought into the light his quirks, his failures, his questionable dealings. In essence it tried to present the whole man with his great strengths and his very real flaws. I can't say it was "fair and balanced" as that phrase has been beaten to death on the news channels. I'll simply way it was as all inclusive as such a brief introduction could be.

I'm now reminded of another moment in my younger days, the time when Brookgreen Gardens' first color book was published. It contains a number of major essays and includes the fact that Archer Milton Huntington had been an illegitimate child. The editor of the book took some heat for including that revelation. The author of the particular essay had wanted to tell the truth and to paint one of the founders of Brookgreen as a whole person, rather than present him in glorious terms, larger than life. Although no one ever asked me what I thought, I admired the book's editor more than I can say and Mr Huntington, the tall handsome man with the wolfhounds in the photos, became a real person to me.

When I was the assistant at Grace Church in Camden SC teaching the junior high class, one of the young men said out of the blue that he wished OJ Simpson would just tell the truth. Sometimes don't you wish the same thing -- not about OJ Simpson, of course, but about the claims and counter-claims on all sorts of fronts? Don't you wish that you knew what was really going on behind the stories on the nightly news?

What is so hard about the truth? Is is fear? Do you think we fear telling the truth, especially when it means revealing something less than virtuious in our character? And, what is the fear? Is it the fallout from the truth-telling that's the worst part? People, family and friends will think less of us, will judge us, will avoid us, will not trust us again?

That sort of fear, the fearing being seen differently, I suspect, reveals much more about us than it does about those other people. I think the judging and avoiding would be OUR reaction to the self-revealing truth from another person. OUR reaction. And, that's likely the "why" behind our fear. We can trust those other people only as far as we can trust ourselves. And, we know we would sit in judgement. Ouch.

All that from Andrew Jackson and two hours at The Hermitage. It was a wonderful stop. And, even playing tourist, we travelled over 300 miles today. Tomorrow will be much longer -- from here, just south of St Louis MO, to Watertown SD (between Souix Falls and Fargo), about 800 miles. But, out there across the prairies the speed limit will be higher ...