Sunday, March 2, 2014 – Poverty Point State Park & National Historic Site

Today we plan to tour Poverty Point, the largest prehistoric mound area in the Americas, obviously an outdoor venue.  The day dawns sunny, temperatures heading to the high 70s.  Yeah! 

Inspired by good weather, we arise, opening the window.  We recoil as the grease-laden stench of fast food from our lovely neighboring Wendy’s once more bombards us.  Enough already!  Let’s get out of here.

Leaving Vicksburg, at long last Pearl points her nose to the west and begins to head home, albeit a few states away. Does Pearl’s pace quicken as she senses her proverbial barn? “Beaver!” snarls Pearl, “I don’t live in a barn. You know as well as I do that I have a nice modern garage analogous to your house. Don’t insult me!”

“My, are we touchy today,” I respond.

Bloodroot jumps in, “Stop this! Beaver, you don’t want Pearl to abandon us right here in Mississippi and Pearl you know better, Westward Ho!”

We stop fighting as Pearl begins the long journey home.

And, although she won’t admit it, her pace quickens.  I hush before I’m tossed out of the van.

As we travel west, we listen to the end of Huey Long’s audiobook biography.  In 1934, Long commanded vast popular support through his “Share our Wealth” plan.  Bemoaning capitalism’s failure, where 15% of the population owned 95% of the wealth (sound familiar?), Long proposed using taxation to limit all fortunes to $5 million dollars ($60 million today), distributing the excess to the poor.  Despite his reputation today, much of Long’s platform called for progressive reforms.  He supported education, vocational training, pensions for the elderly, shorter work weeks, month-long vacations, personal debt restructuring, veterans’ benefits and socialized healthcare.   Long’s popularity scared Roosevelt; many feel Long actually pushed Roosevelt further left.

Yet under Long’s smiling populist demeanor lay an obsessive, all-consuming quest for complete and absolute power. Using a senatorial filibuster, Long singlehandedly delayed the passage of the Social Security Act, legislation he hated because it wasn’t his bill.  Under his pitiless rule, Louisiana became his own personal fiefdom.  Using the Louisiana State Police as his private army, he intimidated opponents.  But he didn’t stop there; he destroyed their businesses and livelihoods.  Pretty scary.  We wonder, Would Long have become our Hitler had he not been assassinated?  Did only blind luck flying forth from an assassin’s pistol save this country?

An hour later, still sulking a bit, Pearl delivers us to Poverty Point National Monument.  A most excellent Ranger greets us and leads our tour.  An archaeologist, he carefully explains the science behind each theory and assumption about the peoples who once lived here.  We embark on a forty-five minute tram ride covering most of Poverty Point’s four hundred acres.

Poverty Point, named for a farm once located here, forms the largest mound group in the Americas.  Thirty-five hundred years ago, Mississippian Indians moved tons of dirt to create a concentric ring of six mounds, shaped like C’s, all facing east toward a large flat ceremonial space. Five paths cross each mound, the aisles allowing access to the center.  The five-foot high mounds have an outside diameter of three-fourths of a mile and inside diameter of three-eighths of a mile.  The Mississippians brought in more dirt to fill and level the ceremonial space.

People built dwellings on the mounds; archaeologists found middens (garbage dumps) behind the home sites.  Current science posits the people to be gatherer-hunters because no agricultural remains have been found in the middens.  However, little remains of the mounds and middens after thirty-five hundred years of erosion and one-hundred fifty years of cotton farming.  It stretches my credulity to believe that gathering-hunting could support this large site.

The Mississippians also created three high mounds across from their homes, the most spectacular being the 100-foot-high bird mound.  Too big to be plowed, the sculpted earth remained unnoticed until the invention of aerial photography.  The aerial photos revealed a bird with full outstretched wings poised to launch into flight.  Using archaeological research, scientists discovered the bird mound consumed 238,000 cubic meters of fill, constructed in about a month.

Altogether, archaeologists estimate the Mississippians moved 50 million cubic meters of soil. Presuming each cubic meter of dirt weighed 100 pounds, and people carried 50-pound loads in baskets on their backs, the construction would have required 100 million baskets of dirt, translating into an estimated five million labor hours.  Slack-jawed, I sit astounded, imagining a stupendous multigenerational effort.

Poverty Point was part of a huge trading network. The mounds and people sat up on a bluff, giving them the riches of the Mississippi Delta while avoiding the Mississippi’s flooding and her floodplain.

The tram ride terminates at the visitor center, where we find some of the thousands of artifacts recovered. We see arrowheads, atlatl weights, stone tools, soapstone bowls, beads and small carved owls.  And, I concede, no evidence of agriculture.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse park passport stamps. Bloodroot, highly excited, inquires about the stamp. Ae we’re in the South, the Ranger begins to tease him as to the location of our passports. “Are you sure you brought them?  Could you have left them in Vicksburg?  A thing not minded is easily misplaced.” Bloodroot runs to the car.  Searching desperately, throwing things about, after only a few minutes he uncovers the passports.  Triumphantly, he returns, presenting them to receive the coveted stamps.

Outside, we find picnic tables and the boys set up lunch.  A storm begins to blow in, changing the weather from sunny to scary.  Our new stove works amazingly well in the intense wind. The boys feed us a lunch of soup and hot dogs.

Leaving the park, Bloodroot remarks how much he loves the feeling of an impending storm. I recall feeling that way for years and years, now I just want to be inside watching the wind and the rain.  Aging changes us, eh?  Bloodroot and Pearl drive across northern Louisiana while the temperature drops 30°, arriving in Shreveport around dinnertime.

Locating our hotel, we enter. Tonight, the hotel has remembered to give us our handicapped room; however the hotel is also a Motel 8.  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”  Surveying our tiny room, I realize that we need to step up a level, stop whining, and just cough up the cash for better motels.  To create room for Sven, he and I collaborate, ramming the beds about the tiny room. Bloodroot commandeers Sven and hits the walls a few times, prompting Sven to yell, “Cut it out!”  Unlike the bedroom, the delightfully spacious bathroom seems designed for cripples, replete with grab-bars surrounding the toilet.

After rearranging the room, we begin to think about dinner.  Barkley announces that he will treat us tonight. Researching with Urban Spoon, he finds a Thai place close to our motel, open on Sundays. 

Bounding into Pearl, dodging raindrops, we eagerly anticipate Thai food. Around a mile from the hotel, Pearl quickly zeroes in on the restaurant.  Oh no!   Restaurant closed! Urban Spoon lied!  The Internet has failed us.  “Is there any meaning to life?” the boys moan, wondering whether or not their misplaced faith requires them to commit seppuku (Japanese ritual suicide). 

Pearl rolls her eyes, dispelling the gloom of a potentially apocalyptic situation.  “Let’s go downtown, kids,” she offers.  Hope returns to the boys’ faces as we turn toward Shreveport proper. Recovering from the close call, they choose to live another day. Minutes later, garish lights assault us, desecrating the night sky.  “Casinos! Quick, turn again, Pearl!” Barkley commands.  “We must, at all cost, avoid the all-you-can-eat gambling-den feeding troughs.”

Safely downtown, escaping the casinos and their vile temptations, we seek our supper.  Pearl cruises past the sole open place. “That’s a piano bar, Beaver,” Bear says dismissively. We drive around for another twenty minutes. Except for the casinos, we find central Shreveport dark and deserted. The rain continues, picking up a bit of steam. Giving up, we return to the piano bar, park and walk in, for the moment simply glad to escape the weather.

Shaking off the wet, we peek about us.  No overplayed, horrid, ear-worming old chestnut songs assail our ears.  No piano.  No cigarette smoke attacks our nostrils or lungs.  Quickly shown a table, we order drinks.  Fortified by alcohol, we relax indoors away from nature’s fury.  We quiz our server who confirms our suspicions: “Outside of the casinos, we’re the only place open on a Sunday night.”

“Three cheers for stumbling through life AND through Shreveport, Louisiana,” enthuses Barkley, raising his glass to toast our success.

I order blackened snapper, delighted to find it actually quite tasty. The boys enjoy catfish and a shrimp dish. We luxuriate in the warmth as the cold and rain outside drench the city.  We slowly finish our meals.  The boys delay our encounter with reality by ordering dessert.  At long last, we rise and depart.  Outside, the rain begins to blow sideways.  We scramble quickly back into Pearl.  Sven rolls in first, happy not to have shorted out.  “That was a close one, Beaver!” he admonishes us.  We return to our cheap hotel room, now gratefully accepting the refuge provided from the storm.

The boys turn on the TV. I forgot how much I hate television. Fortunately, I soon fell fast asleep, hoping for better weather tomorrow.