What better place to muse about America than sitting on a visitor’s bench high on a bluff overlooking the Great Mississippi River Valley. What we call a perfect Arizona-blue-sky day ushered us across the deep-black soil of Minnesota’s prosperous farmland, from Rochester to the muddied deep-blue waters of the Great Mississippi River at Alma, Wisconsin.
Putting on my historical lenses, I imagined those who have called this land “home”: the Native Americans, whose culture closely tied them to the land, they called this place home; the desperate-but-arrogant white settlers who ruthlessly drove them away so they could call this land home; skipping ahead generations, today’s residents of corporations, government, and the rich and poor locals who now call this land home.
Looking into my crystal ball, I wonder who in the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, 100 years will call this beautiful land and river their home. Anne Lamott titled one of her books “All New People”. In this place, who will these new people be? How will they use the land and the river? With climate change, will the river still have sufficient water to be a major transportation system for America’s commerce? Or could it have too much water, flooding the land? Will the land be strictly used for growing essential human food no longer produced by America’s drying up farmland in our American Southwest or supplied by dwindling imports from countries with bulging populations to feed and American tariffs to navigate?
My musing continues . . .
Now that the majority of American voters have chosen a path away from democracy, who will lead this land?
Poet Langston Hughes, a black man who lived from 1901 to 1967, sends us a message in his poem “Let America Be America Again” :
“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was home to me)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed –
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.”
I pull “love” from the poem. Don’t all religions tell us — command us — to love our neighbors and doesn’t love mean care for all our neighbors?
My musings continue as we stop for lunch at a popular tourist restaurant/shop in Nelson, Wisconsin, the Nelson Cheese Factory. It’s busy as usual with mostly older, white, obese Americans, some proudly owning the vintage cars in the parking lot. Are these the Americans who chose the path we’re now on taking us away from democracy; away from the rights and freedoms of non-whites and women, only granted in recent generations; away from the long-standing dreams of foreigners wanting to participate in, and contribute to, the American dream?
The beautiful American land will continue through geological time. But what will happen to the people? How will they be governed? What will define their dreams, their lives?
And the river, the Great Mississippi River, what will become of it? I remember a song I learned in my Idaho childhood. A line from the song “Ol’ Man River” about the suffering of the slaves on the Mississippi River, assures us that “. . . ol’ man river, he just keeps rollin’ along”.
Yes, we humans will come and go, but what is permanent in America is its land and mighty rivers.
Gives you a new perspective, doesn’t it?
Copyright © 2025 Jane Iddings
Photo credit: Jane Iddings
Jane, The Mississippi River has been a part of my life since I was very small. Our family spent many a weekend driving along its banks or boating to a sandbar on a weekend day and spending the day swimming and picnicking.
Your musings about people, past, present and future, enjoying this iconic American rolling river way is thought provoking. I realize I have taken this American treasure for granted.
Also, we used to have a smaller version of the Nelson Cheese Shop right here in Rochester, where Hollandberry Pannekoeken is now. I miss those fabulous sandwiches!
Jane–Yes, who will populate the beautiful America along the Mississippi a hundred years from now? Or any of America, for that matter? That river keeps “rolling along,” but we along those banks keep changing. And the current “change” we are in right now is downright frightening. I am glad you and Ken got to enjoy the beauty of that river valley on your road trip. It is one of the most spectacular in the U. S., I believe. I had not read the Langston Hughes poem before. It speaks to us today. He says America was never home to him. It certainly is not the American home that we once cherished and love. Let’s hope we can learn to love it again. Thanks, Jane, for your thought-provoking essay.
Ann Sigford’s comments are being temporarily rejected by the server for some unknown reason so I’m posting for her what she wrote me in an email:
“Thanks, Jane, for your thoughtful essay, especially the incorporation of Langston Hughes’ poem with the plaintive and prescient line “Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.” I appreciated the comfort of the ‘ol man river just rollin’ along with the question of who will come after us hanging silently above it. You always give us bones to chew on!”
Love this perspective of the land being the constant and the people being the variable.
The variable is becoming more varied with its most recent disrespect for the sanctity of the land. That plus the other large variable, the climate, could make this river valley look much different in a negative way.
Love the pictures. Robin and I call those “COLORADO BLUE” skies.
My neighbor and friend Maryette Braithwaite had suggested we visit Buena Vista Park in Alma to see the Mississippi River Valley. She emailed me her response to my blog post: “I read your blog last night. I’m glad you saw the view of the Mississippi from Alma”. As to my musings, she said “Very serious and thought provoking”.
So much to think about. Thanks for sharing these important issues.