美国故事 SENEWS-2006-1104-Feature

I had the somewhat 1 unrealistic idea that I would find interesting stories at every crossroads throughout the American countryside. So the cameraman, soundman and I started out with great hope from New York City. For a few rainy days, we drove through the small towns of New England, the northeast corner of the United States. We drove aimlessly without one idea in our heads. I began to get nervous, wondering if an idea would ever come. Then, the sun came out and the wind started to blow, and bright autumn leaves shook and fell off the trees, yellow and red and gold rained down all around us. In every town children were playing in hills of leaves.

We got the camera out, and did our first story about how pretty it all was. As a news reporter I was used to going fast and working hard. These kinds of stories, however, seem to work best when I went slowly and took it easy. When I finally shook off the sense of speed of a newsman I did not have to worry about finding 2 stories any longer. They found me.

In Westerville, Ohio, I met Professor John Franklin Smith. He taught speech and drama at Augsburg College until he was 70 years old. Then, the school rules said he had to retire. He could not imagine leaving the students behind. So when he was forced to retire, he just kept working at the college. He had continued to work for 15 years as a cleaning man in the gymnasium 4.

“During my years as a professor,” he said, “I would walk through the gym and see the man cleaning the floor. I knew what a mop was and what a bucket was. It was hard work for me at first, but I got used to it. It is necessary to work and I try to do it well.”

I asked him which brought him more satisfaction, being a professor or being a cleaning man. He smiled and said, “It is not fair to ask me a question like that. I think I would have to say that every age in life has its own rewards. I am still looking ahead,” this 85-years-old man said, “I do not want to die, there is too much fun in the world and a lot of good folks, a lot of them, and good books to read, and fish to catch and pretty women to look at and good men to know. Why, life is a joy!”

Charles Kuralt also visited Pilottown in Louisiana, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. All the houses there are built on thick wooden legs so they will not be washed away when the river floods. The community can be reached only by boat or seaplane that is where he met Andy Spiral 5.

Andy Spiral was a hunter and fisherman. He read books written in the Greek language. And for 10 years, he was the only teacher in a one-room school. Why did he stay in such a lonely place? “Well,” he said, “they have trouble getting teachers to live here. Somebody has to teach the children.”

As they continue driving across the United States looking for interesting stories, the "On The Road Team" found a grain mill 6 on a little river in the state of Maryland. The man who operated the mill was Captain Frank 3 Lingual 7. He was 81 years old.

The Linchester Mill ground corn for settlers in 1681. A hundred years later, it ground corn for the army of General George Washington during America's War for Independence from Britain. And it was still grinding 9 corn almost 200 years after that. It must have been the oldest continually 10 operated business in the country. Yet, the mill did not interest me as much as the miller 12. He had been working beside his millstone for 65 years. Was he tired of the job? “Yes,” Frank Lingual said, “yes, there really is no profit in it anymore, but these farmers depend on me, you see. There is no other place around here to grind 8 their corn.”

In Professor John Franklin Smith, teacher Andy Spiral and miller Frank Lingual, I saw Americans of a sort I had not known before. They were linked to the places where they lived. And they worked not so much for themselves as for others. “It is necessary work,” Professor Smith had said, “Somebody has to teach the children.” Mr. Spiral had said. “These farmers depend on me.” Captain Lingual had said. Their purposes and jobs seemed completely honorable 13 to me. They did not feel they were better than anyone else. They were not working just to make a lot of money. I read the papers everyday. The front pages were full of greedy, self-important, hostile 14 people. The backroads were another country.

In April of that year, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior was murdered. In June, Robert Kennedy was murdered as he campaigned for president. Several American cities exploded in riots 15 and flames. I felt so sad for the two dead men and for the country they had done so much to change for the better. I might have thought the country was going in sin 11 if I had not been on the road. I had eyes and ears. I kept meeting people who made me feel sure about the future. In July, I met Pat 16 Baker 17, a young white woman in Reno, Nevada. The night Martin Luther King was killed, Pat Baker sat up late.

“I have to do something about this.” she thought. On her way to work, she had often passed a big empty space in a black community. She wondered why the city had not made a park in the empty space. Now, she went to see the man who represented her community on the City Council 18. He told her there was no money to build a park. He explained how difficult it would be to raise the money. Pat Baker decided 19 she could not wait. She went to talk with people in the black community. She went to garden supply companies and cement 20 companies and builders and the heads of local building unions. Soon, her idea became everybody's idea.

At 7:30 one Friday morning, a crowd began to gather at the empty space in Reno, Nevada. An hour later, good soil was being spread by men in big machines, men who were not used to working for free. They were working for free. I stood there and watched. By noon, cement had been poured for a tennis court. Before the sun went down, a basketball court was done. Many people worked all night. On Saturday morning, a crowd of several hundred people came to work, black and white, old and young. They planted trees and grass and made paths and places to sit. By Sunday afternoon, the park was finished.

I went back there more than 20 years later. In the shade of the trees which were now very tall, people were sitting and playing in the park. I thought back to the weekend that the park was built, a black man had looked around and said, “This is the best thing that has happened since I came to Reno.” He did not mean the park itself, he meant building the park.

In that first year on the road, I fell in love with my native land. I rode the Wabash cannonball train through Indiana; I rode the Delta 21 Queen Paddlewheel steamboat down the Ohio River; I rode the cable 22 cars up and down the hills of San Francisco. I spent time among Pennsylvania Dutch farmers in Cookstown Pennsylvania and Greek Sponge 23 fisherman in Tarpon springs Florida. I met Ancy Binks there, the roadside poet of Gordon Junction 24 Illinois. At his store, he sold gasoline 25 for 39 cents a gallon and his poems for 10 cents a piece.

That first year, I produced 47 stories from 23 states, all of them my own discoveries. The biggest discovery of all was about myself. On the backroads of America I felt at home at last, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life.