REPRISE: On the Road Again!

I love the month of May and the month of October. Those are transition months in seasons and in how we think about things. Because we're coming to the end of May, I would call this week the fix and the get ready week. Families, individuals are thinking about what they're going to do with at least part of their summer. And for part of their summer, there'll probably be some kind of road trip, even if it's a day trip. It's going to be tripping, if you will, going off doing things, finding new relationships, friends, spaces and places. That's how it'll be. And what we're going to do this week in what Texans called fix and the get ready and fix and the get ready for summer. We're going to do a reprise of one of my favorite podcasts from June 1st, I believe, of 2019. And I get to introduce you to one of my favorite people, maybe more than one, but at the end, one of my favorite people. Because this is a season for graduations as well. And we'll be talking about that. So here it is. I think it's episode 27 called the road trip of 2019. Well, there you are again. Welcome back to known stories to make sense of it all. I'm Dick Fos and it's summertime. And when I think summer, I think road trip. So that's what these next few minutes are going to be about. Road trip is something that is complete with detours, unplanned stops, refueling meals on the go, new friends, all of that. What's cool about the idea of road trip is that I think it's a perfect metaphor for life. When we take road trips, my thought is that road trips get exciting. When you're with other folks, you can take them by yourself, sort of the lonely and motorcycle thing. But usually, you know, when you have small families or even large families, the road trip is an adventure. When we take road trips in large groups, we call those migrations. And the history of the world is full of those. We're not talking about herds of kudu or wildebeest on the plains of Africa, following water or food. I'm talking about human migrations. Human migrations occur when people are fleeing wars or looking for freedom or better economic opportunity most of the time. And there have been some huge ones. I mean, just look at the economic ones. Between 1861 and 1970, it's estimated that 13 million people left Italy, for example, for better lives. Since the 1700s, between 9 and 10 million people have migrated from Ireland. More recently, 160 million Chinese have moved from the rural areas to the cities for those economic opportunities. Sometimes it's politics, right? In 1947, I was a five-year-old boy in South India. And I can remember standing on a street corner with a little British flag in one hand and an Indian flag in the other, because I was in a boarding school up in the hills of South India, watching the empire march out of India. The British after several hundred years were giving India its independence, but the tensions within the country, especially between the religious folks, was huge, between Hindus and Muslims. So they decided to partition India in 1947 and create another two countries out of one. So they have India and then on the east and the west corners, north, west, northeast corners of India, they took off sections and they called it east and west Pakistan. That is now Pakistan in the west and Bangladesh in the east. But when they did that, 20 million people had to move. Here in our own country, the largest human migration here occurred between 1843 and 1867. Big road trip. The route in broadest terms was called the Overland Trail. It was people in the east moving west because land was offered. The gold rush was in play in 1849. Lots of different things. And the Overland Trail was more specifically called the Oregon California Trail. Because as people moved west, they came to a place, I think it was in Idaho where the California Trail split off and folks went that way down to Sacramento and Southersford. And the rest went toward Oregon, the Willamette Valley, and up into the Portland area. About 21 hundred miles from the Missouri River to the west coast, four to six months to make the trek by wagon or on horseback or on foot. That time frame, 1843 to 1867 was huge. Now other folks had gone earlier than 1843, but not in the numbers or in the organizational framework that they had starting in 1843. Summer of 1843 was big. Several hundred travelers began the first major effort to head all the way west. Trail began in St. Joe, Missouri, moved through northeast corner of Kansas onto Fort Carney, Nebraska. What they found was that that hustlers, if you will, in Missouri had oversold these folks. They had said you need all of this food and all of these belongings. By the time they had traveled several hundred miles and they were in Carney, Fort Carney, Nebraska, they were leaving stuff. One account says that outside Fort Carney, at one point there were 20,000 pounds of bacon just left on the prairie. And other folks said the further west you moved, it was just like one huge dumping place for everything from iron baking ovens to bedsteads to clothing, all kinds of things. The Oregon Trail was not a single trail. It was a broad series of tracks, especially in those early times across Nebraska. Broad series of tracks, sometimes for a couple or three or four miles on either side of the Platte River going west. They went through Nebraska onto Fort Laramie and Wyoming, angling up into Pocatello and Boise Idaho and into Eastern Oregon. Then they turned north through Baker City, up to Pendleton, the Columbia River, and on to Portland. The trip itself was no easy thing. That's the understatement of the century. This was not understate 80 as we know it now. It was brutal, it was stormy, it was dangerous, epidemics because of water that was stagnant in all kinds of things, epidemics of cholera and smallpox wiped out significant numbers. Out of the almost 400,000 people that went just to Oregon in those years, it's estimated that perhaps 40,000 would die on the trail. They were buried where they died. Oftentimes in shallow graves, sometimes, and this sounds gross for me to say, but sometimes they would bury the people in the wagon rut so that as wagons went over, it would drive their bodies down into the turf so that animals could not get at them. I look at that and I say, that's an incredible trip. It's an incredible not so much an adventure, but just a drive to get someplace where there could be new life and new opportunities. Ruth and I thought about this a bit. Most recently, when we took our own driving road trip out to California, up to Oregon, back a few weeks ago, our purpose was to go to the graduation of our grandson, Jack Ottman, near San Francisco. On the way back, we covered a bit of that Oregon trail beginning in the town of Vale, Oregon, right at the western border of Idaho, because that's where it turns north up toward Pendleton. On the way to Vale, coming across from the Willamette Valley, we passed through a couple of high desert towns, settled in the late 1800s and I just wanted to just make some observations there. So we came to the town of Bendoregan. It's a bright blue morning in Bendoregan. Bendoregan sits in the high desert, actually, just to the east of the Willamette Valley. It's the atmosphere is not unlike that of the front range in Fort Collins and other places along that part of the Eastern Rockies. Bend is a delightful city, and though I stand in the parking lot, a mid trees and beautiful lupin on this bright June morning, where I stand used to be the site of a sawmill. Back at the turn of the last century, Bendoregan was home to two sawmills that made it kind of a boom town at that time. It got its name, actually, Bendoregan by series of eliminations, if you will. Somebody wanted to call it by the name of a person who settled here, another person or other folks wanted to call it pilot butte. It's a bluff outside of town that sort of gave a weight point or a direction finder to travelers. It was called actually farewell bend for many years because some settlers stopped here and others crossed the day shoots river on their way further west in Oregon to the Willamette Valley or up to the end of the Oregon Trail in Oregon City near Portland. When they submitted the name farewell bend to the United States Post Office, apparently this one account says that the Post Office said that's too long a name we'll just call you Bend. So here we are. I stand on the site of sawmills where you no longer hear the sound of sawblade dripping through fur and pine. What you hear is the sound of children's squeals as they play in the nearby river and the sound of traffic because this is a tourist destination. Wherever you go around the world or across this land wherever you stop it has a history, has a present and in most cases has a future and you get hints of that. You get hints of past, present and future on a road trip. I think that's why I like them. Back in the car we kept heading east and a couple hours later, 130 miles of so east of Bend is another community, not at all like Bend. It's called Burns. It's just past noon, high desert, the Oregon Burns to be exact, a town out in an arid area that's well known for its timber and other kinds of ranching activities, home historically to the northern Paiutean tribe. His name Burns again by a postmaster here. His name was MacGowan and he named it Burns because of his home in Scotland. He came from Scotland and Robert Burns, Robbie Burns as they would say, was a favorite poet of his. Hence we have Scotland in the middle of Oregon. Just another road trip stop. Oh, and by the way if you're stopping for lunch, glory days. A wonderful little place that serves pizza but mainly we came for the salad. Stopped at a gas station and Oregon is one of the very few places where they still insist on pumping gasoline for you. The young bearded gas attendant when I asked him what's a good place to eat. He said just down past the high school north side of the road, glory days. They have a wonderful salad bar, three tables long. It's always crisp and good food, always fresh. So next time you want to know a place, ask a gas attendant. Hope it will be a bearded healthy young man for Morgan that steers you to a salad bar. So that's what a road trip is. It reflects on history and making some of your own. You say does this? What you're saying here have any roots in scripture, anything like that because they're always big on scripture. Actually it does. When you read the scriptures, when you read the Bible, it's almost like a 1600 year long road trip. I mean, it's not all that. But look at the Old Testament. The baseline or the most significant single event apart from creation and the giving of the law and so forth is this human migration called the Exodus. Hundreds of thousands of people being led out of slavery in Egypt. They're 40 years out. You talk about high desert. It's in low desert and just an unbelievable number. Some scholars think perhaps as many as two million people. I don't know how you do that. But they, the huge migration of people into that place that they called the Promised Land. When you get to the New Testament, Jesus takes a trip, the big one, you know, from heaven to earth. But his first road trip on planet earth is in his mother Mary's womb. Not much later after he's born, maybe a couple years old, he takes another one as a refugee to Egypt. The Gospels are full of road trips and the book of Acts is just one huge road trip. Within that book, there's this fellow called the Apostle Paul. Saul, sort of, back in the day, or today we would call him a terrorist. He killed people for religious reasons. And he was transformed on a road trip. He was going up over the goal on heights from Israel over to Damascus, Syria. And he has an encounter with God that changes him. He's knocked down essentially by light. And it transforms his life. And it's interesting because when he has to stand before kings and judges in his later years, even though he's a lawyer, essentially, he could marshal rational arguments. He doesn't talk about that. What he talks about in his defense is the vision that he had on his road trip to Damascus. He just says it this way, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. So let me just go for a moment. I'm a grandpa. Let me go back to my grandson, our grandson, Jack. The reason we went west was for his graduation from a high school in the south side of San Francisco. It was a transition point on his own life journey, obviously. It was a refueling stop called high school. And it was like the wagon trains on the Oregon trail. It was not done alone. The thing about the Oregon trail was that when you traveled with numbers of people, there were so many places you had to stop because it was steep. You had to unload the wagons, the kids and the teenagers carried flower barrels and all kinds of goods up to the top of the hill. Let the wagons down over the bluff by chains and ropes. And they did that again and again and again. Road trips are best done clearly together. And Jack was asked to give one of the commencement talks. There's five minute commencement talk to his class. And he sort of chose that theme. I asked him if he would retalk it, if you will. Do it again for me, sitting in a car the day after. And as he gives his thoughts, he mentions a boy named Dietrich. Toward the end of his talk, who happens to be a very large freshman. So here I am with Jack. So it's Saturday June 1st. And I'm sitting in my car with our grandson, Jack Ottman, 18 years old, graduated high school last night near San Francisco. So Jack, you're now a high school graduate. And I've asked you to do two things. So first of all, say hi to the folks listening. Hi to the folks listening. So last night, you gave one of the commencement talks to your high school class. And it's not a huge high school, but it's kind of a prep school on the south side of San Francisco. I just like, I just like you to read it or summarize it for us. Go ahead, Jack. Talk to me. Hi. Directors, faculty, friends, family, and the class of 2019. 2019. That seemingly arbitrary number that we only ever used to see attached to the end of our emails is now finally relevant. A number that seemed a lifetime away in 2015 with our whole high school career still lying ahead of us still doesn't seem real today. We've never been an exceptionally loud class, but freshman year we were at our quietest. We were surrounded by the class of 2016 who were so physically intimidating that they had to have been on steroids or HGH or almond milk or something, and the class of 2018 before they calmed down. You were never in Alma Heights freshman if you didn't have several uncomfortable encounters with Stephen Lee before he even introduced himself. We were shy, awkward, fresh types, and we didn't talk to anyone outside of our English class or gender. We didn't really know each other. Soft more year, we learned to open up. We finally learned everyone's names, and we were able to just relax since classes weren't too hard. From freshman year to the end of this year, we lost over a third of our class, and with fewer people than ever wandering around campus, we went from strangers to acquaintances. A group of students that were cautiously optimistic about our academic futures excited to be upperclassmen. That excitement wore off very quickly. Junior year was basically the 10th layer of hell. So many all-nighters, so much work to do, so little time, so little energy, so many new expectations and acronyms, it was terrifying. The motto for that year was grit, which means perseverance in spite of hardships. But by the second semester, our class had developed its own motto. Due tomorrow, due tomorrow. Every single one of us was working the hardest we had ever worked, and it was exhausting. But something new was happening in between those moments of exhaustion. Those hour-long conversations condensed into a glance, a shrug, and a nod. Those outbreaks of hysterical laughter during 3am Skype calls. The endless group projects with the one member who seemed like they were only there for moral support. In those brief, quiet moments of rest, we didn't do anything alone. We studied failed, exceeded expectations, laughed, cried, and grew together. Things were really hard, but most of the time, we sort of knew what we were doing. We were juniors, but above all else, we were friends. We always had each other. And this year, we're the seniors. We're the ones that all the freshmen accept detrick look up to. But this year has been the most confusing of them all. All of our hard work over the past four years, finally accumulating in a thumbs up or a thumbs down from the mysterious creature that is the college admissions decision. Many of us have spent this year trying to make up for whatever we missed out on in the previous years. Some of us focused on improving grades, others on growing closer to the people. They never really got to know as well, so they would have liked, and every single one of us really gave a lot more attention to sleep. And all of us have wondered whether or not it was worth it. Whether our four-year struggle was worth where we ended up. And I can't answer that question for everyone here. This year, there's no collective experience, no singular feeling that's defined us. But when I look back on high school, after most of the memories have started to fade, I'm not going to remember the grades or the lack of sleep. I'm going to remember you guys. The stupid inside jokes, the huge fights they blew over in a week, the Marvel movies, the play, each and every retreat, the games of jackbox, the rants, losing people, finding friends, the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, all of it. Those quiet moments in the cabin, fresh manure at retreat. And of those, I wouldn't change a thing. They brought us to here, to today, in 2019, from strangers to family. And as long as I remember anything about these days, as long as any of you are still around, it was worth it. I love you guys. While we were still together in the car since I had jack as a captive audience of one, I asked him to share a gift that he had gotten for graduation. Here it is. So in the first of June, we had a party for our grandson, Jack. And people brought gifts and his parents, among other things, gave him a book. It wasn't war and peace. It was not some huge tome by a presidential scholar. It was, in fact, a sort of Dr. Sous-like book called Wherever You Go, written by Pat Zitlow Miller. And it has to do with road trips. So Jack, why don't you read it for us? All right. When it's time for a journey to learn and to grow, roads guide your footsteps wherever you go. Roads give you chances to seek and explore. Want an adventure? Just open your door. Roads go over a hill under a bridge, deep in a valley, high on a ridge. If you've yearned for the ocean or wished for a stream, roads bring you closer to reaching your dream. Roads zoom. Beneath city buildings that tower on high, twinkling like stars and the dark velvet sky. Racing past signs, reflecting their light, zigging and zagging, turn left then turn right. Roads bend. Detours head where you wouldn't expect, showing you various ways to connect. Bringing you closer than curving away. You always have choices to go or to stay. Roads reach. Across flowing rivers, past harvards and bays, with breathtaking bridges designed to amaze. Attaching two places that once were a part, choose to cross over. Follow your heart. Roads merge. Small distant roads sometimes travel alone, marking the miles out there on their own. Then a new road wants to join in the fun. Heads the same way and the two become one. Roads grow. Well-traveled roads sometimes need extra space to guide life's adventures to a new place. Which past should you choose? That's easy to see. The one that will take you where you wish to be. Roads wait. For click-clacking trains and boats with tall sails, slow-going wagons that are carrying hay bales. Stoplights and crosswalks, a deer with a friend. Roads sometimes pause or just come to an end. Roads climb. Seat mountain peaks, dusted lightly with snow, rising above the deep canyon below, clinging to cliffs chasing a cloud, reaching the top, tired but proud. Roads remember, every life landmark, the big and the small, the moments you tripped, the times you stood tall. Where you were going and where you began, what you expected, what you didn't plan. Roads return. During your journey, you'll ramble in Rome, but sooner or later you'll think of your home. After you've seen all you needed to see, a road takes you back where you're longing to be. Back to that hill, under the bridge, deep in your valley, high on your ridge. Roads take you all over the planet, but then you always can follow them back home again. So Jack, Grandma and I remember when you were born 18 years and two months ago, here in what they call the peninsula to go, and just want you to know, on this June 1st, 2019, that we're proud of you. That's for sure. You're off to an honors program at the University in Southern California, but mostly, we're grateful. So there. I'm grateful for you guys too. Thank you, Grandpa. I love you. I love you too. Bye. Was that a fun conversation or what? I love Jack Ottman. In that Jack Ottman, this fall will be a senior at Southern California University. He's spending this summer working, doing a variety of things, but studying for what they call L-sats, because he wants to be a lawyer. I believe he has a lawyer's, an attorney's, a solicitor's, a counsellor's mind, whatever environment you're in, whatever culture you, a barrister's mind if you're in England. But he has the capacity to, to both assimilate information and to distill it, and he uses language, well, I could go on and on. I could do a whole other program, just talking about one grandchild, let alone a dozen. So thanks so much, friends, for being with us. We will catch you next week. And the next two weeks are going to be special for me personally. It's going to be two programs dealing with the idea of freedom, and that freedom isn't free, and it brackets Memorial Day this year, 2022, in the 78th anniversary of the D-Day landing on June 6th, 1944, in the north of France. So don't miss those. Well, that's it. I'm out. Thanks so much for listening. We will catch you