Everyone is a Writer, Family Writing Part 6
Duke Cramer
A Raindrop Travelogue
A West Coast storm that followed the boundary with Canada raced eastward, carrying clouds of Pacific wetness. While passing over North Dakota, the cloud level began to drop. Continuing eastward and meeting a cold front, the leading clouds began releasing their moisture in large drops of rain. Now, while being over Minnesota, a particular drop of rain named Phyllis fell in Lake Itasca. Phyllis wondered where she was. After consulting her map, she learned that she was in Lake Itasca, which is the northern beginning of the Mississippi River. Her map also informed her that the word Mississippi means “gathering of waters.”
From her college course in cartography, Phyllis knew that the Mississippi River consists of three segments: the Headwaters (where she landed), the upper Mississippi River, and the lower Mississippi River. The upper Mississippi River extends south until it meets the mouth of the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois, and then carries the designation lower Mississippi River, which flows south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Phyllis had never explored the Mississippi River. This gave her a chance to travel on the river all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Leaving Lake Itasca, she flowed southward on the upper Mississippi River, rounding the bend between Minneapolis and St. Paul, which soon became the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Passing through several river control locks and flowing by Dubuque, Iowa, Phyllis was now traveling the river border between Missouri and Illinois. She passed in a semi-circle around St. Louis and continued on to Cairo, Illinois where her transporting Mississippi River met and joined the Ohio River. With this joining her river carrier was now called the lower Mississippi River. As she traveled along, Phyllis recognized Missouri on her right and Kentucky on her left. In a short time she found Tennessee to her left and Arkansas on the right. In leaving contact with Tennessee, Phyllis met the border of the state of Mississippi on her left and shortly thereafter on the right side was the border of the state of Louisiana.
In approaching Vicksburg, Mississippi, Phyllis noticed a distinct change in the atmosphere and a growing turbulence in the river water. Farther on she met sheets of rain and extraordinary, turbulent winds of violent intensity. Her movement southward became a struggle against river water that tried to force her backward. With concentrated effort to proceed against these natural forces, she reached the end of her contact with the border of the state of Mississippi and was now totally within the state of Louisiana. Being bred in extreme storms, she became quite competitive in working her way southward against force that she was not familiar with—but she would prevail. She expected to see delta land, flocks of birds of all breeds, and man-made ships of all descriptions. But nothing but roaring wind and downpours of blinding rain came into view along with a surging wall of water that she had to get through. Phyllis had met Katrina and survived by working her way through the Head-of-Passes and into the Gulf of Mexico.
Wellington Cramer
September 30, 2005
“What a clever, clever story and so perfectly suited for the linking of imagination, geography, and history for an integrated lesson for elementary school children. Not too long, not too short, just right …” a personal description by my editor, Rosie Pearson, that inspired my realization.
My realization is, “When you see a better effort than yours, one that brings you thankfulness for its appreciation, it may be the right choice for you.”