If the wind is at your back and you never turn around
You may never know the wind is there
You may never hear the sound—from the song Ignorance and Privilege by John Gorka
Hey Woody Guthrie, where are you? The big dogs are back at the door—from the song Woody Guthrie by Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon)
For more than a week, the Illinois River’s depth had been gradually falling toward its usual late summer low-water levels. But in the last few days, it had risen somewhat, and so I took out the canoe across Quiver Lake to the river for what might have been my last chance for a while, before the lake would become unnavigable as a mosaic of shallow water and mud flats. The weather was clear and warm, and with light early morning breezes, the trip out was easy. Later in the day, winds would blow stronger.
Where Quiver Lake connects with the river, I waited for a towboat-barge to pass, took a photograph with my smartphone, and posted it on Facebook. The towboat’s wake could be dangerous; usually, though, the waves are not a cause for panic in a canoeist, only something to pay attention to. High in the sky over the river, a large flock of American white pelicans soared in a tight, slowly winding and rising column, reminding me of the DNA molecule’s double helix; sometimes bald eagles and hawks join the pelicans. But before I could get a better look, the canoe started bouncing in the towboat’s waves, and I realized it was time to get serious about crossing the river.
An Illinois River scene near the entrance to Quiver Lake, Mason County, Illinois.
On the river’s opposite muddy bank, I beached the canoe and then pulled it onto higher ground, well out of range of any huge swells that would be created by a v-bottomed yacht, should one pass by. Nearby was a large silver maple tree that leaned at about the same angle as my living room chair; so, here in the shade I placed two PFDs (personal floatation devices) from the canoe as a back rest. And with my day campsite completed, I settled in for reading, journaling, observing life along the river, and, after a while, lunch.
Birds were noticeably less vocal than they had been only a few weeks earlier, but just as I made a mental note of that fact, a Bell’s vireo sounded off from a thicket of willows and swamp privet only a few feet away; then I immediately saw the bird in clear view, even without binoculars. And I thought that only a fellow birdwatcher would appreciate how unusual this easy sighting was, the Bell’s vireo being notoriously difficult to locate in its preferred thick, shrubby habitats, even while its song tauntingly rings out, almost like mocking the observer.
I have no idea what other birders might reflect upon at such times. But my thoughts usually include recognition of how fortunate I have been to be able to do such things purely for my own pleasure and how life’s circumstances have led me to such a moment.
If certain decisions had not been made years before I was born, my situation today could easily have been quite different—if, in fact, I would have existed at all. What if my maternal grandparents had chosen not to leave Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s for America? During the military occupation of that country during World War II, Nazis guards threw my grandfather’s brother, Jarda Zelizko, to his death from a speeding train. Would my grandfather have had a similar fate if he had stayed? Or maybe a version of me would have lived in Czechoslovakia or Poland under communist domination and oppression for decades until the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. I don’t imagine canoeing and birding would have been encouraged during those times.
In 1945, the man who would become my father was in the U.S. Navy on his way to the invasion of Imperial Japan, when the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima effectively ended the war, saving him from whatever fate might have awaited. A few years later, in Chicago, he met the woman who would become my mother, and a few years after that, I came into this world—1957, the same year, in fact, that the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite, which further intensified the Cold War and set off the Space Race, rapidly increasing the pace of new developments in rocket and computer technology as well as their military applications.
I remember in the 1980s, the scientist Carl Sagan musing about why we have not detected or been contacted by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Maybe, he thought, we’re alone in the Universe. On the other hand, he suggested it could be that many such civilizations get started, but none make it very far beyond the point of discovering how to harness the power in the atom: they all soon blow themselves up in massive nuclear wars. So far, we’ve survived only seventy-seven years with nuclear weapons; there have already been several close calls; and the world seems never to have a shortage of new tyrants just waiting to seize power, who would like nothing better than to acquire those same weapons of mass destruction. In many ways, the world is more dangerous than ever before. And the big dogs, never really vanquished, are, indeed, back at our door.
At this point, it may seem that the stream of consciousness beginning with a Bell’s vireo on a mid-summer canoe trip has meandered a long way off from that observation, but I think the distance is not at all far. I am not ignorant of history, of why I am here and others are not; and I see no reason to feel guilty because of possessing that knowledge, that awareness of being privileged and where it came from. Being aware of it is highly important; and thinking about it for a time is sufficient acknowledgement in my view, and that is why I do it. And yet, others may feel the need to do something more, like raise awareness or give back somehow (usually with money), and that is fine.
For my part, by the time I was ready to leave my comfortable shade tree for the river, the wind had picked up considerably, just as the forecast had predicted. And it blew from the northwest, just as predicted, while I would be paddling to the southeast and then eastward back to my small cabin on the bluffs overlooking Quiver Lake. A stiff wind would be at my back most of the way, making it an easy float trip, while still remaining alert to any sudden wind shifts or unpredictable gusts.
Comments