This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Two years ago, January, I stood along the Straits of Magellan with a group of Rock Island college students traveling in South America.
For two days, I could not bring myself to walk down to the water's edge. I knew the real straits would not come up to my fourth grade Weekly Reader imagination, where Magellan and his fleet of ships passed through perilous narrow cliffs on tempest-tossed seas to reach the west.
And it was so. Here at the tip of South America, the summer sun still showed low above the horizon at nine in the evening, and in that glimmering light, the straits lay calm. Three miles across the water, layers of hills bordered the opposite shore like blue shades of torn construction paper.
I thought of my own Rock Island water, the Mighty Mississippi, the Father of Waters, the river of Huck Finn and Jim. Like the fabled Amazon and Nile, the Mississippi must be a letdown for those who come from their own Weekly Readers. Crossing the Interstate 80 bridge for the first time, visitors must certainly look down and think, "That's it?"
Imagination seems to cheat. It's a bump to learn the moon is neither a goddess nor green cheese; we imagine rose-covered cottages and often find divorce. We should have stayed in fourth grade forever, or we should have skipped it entirely.
Not really. If imagination sent you seeking out the Mississippi or the Straits of Magellan, real water will add flesh to those dreams. A real partner who snores is better than dreams or pillows that don't. Usually.
So, come on down from that bridge. Build a house by the Mississippi, drift its current in a boat, catch a few catfish, smell the musky river water, watch the ice break in spring. Better yet, watch the flood water rise slowly, trickle up your yard, into your basement, push against the foundation with a power you cannot imagine. As your house floats away, you will look deep down and say, "I do believe."
Your Weekly Reader will have become a pleasant fairytale, good for getting things going, but not for real wading.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
