The Edge

"If you take a map of the United States and fold it in the middle, eastern edge against western, and crease it sharply, right in the crease will be Fargo. On double-page maps sometimes Fargo gets lost in the binding. This may not be a very scientific method for finding the east-west middle of the country, but it will do." ---Steinbeck

The driving mileage chart in my atlas confirms Fargo as a good choice for a central point, a jump from east to west. I used an older center of the country, one that doesn't live up to geographic scrutiny, but perhaps historic. It is also what I really considered the beginning of our adventure, not the middle, the point after which all would be new. It is the Mississippi River. Janis's folks moved to a house on the river, and our nephew lives there today. I have seen the River as its struggles to life in Minnesota, and I have seen it widening to the sea in Louisiana. But here in Moline it is in its working vigor.

Here at dawn on the River's edge a massive fog bank obscures the water and Iowa on the the side. In this invisible state, the river seems even wider than it it really is. I feel like this place sits on the edge of past, which I guess also means the edge of the future. This neighborhood, 20 miles upstream from the Quad Cities of Moline, Rock Island, Bettendorf and Davenport is made up of quaint river cottages, small family farms ,grazing deer and now dozens of huge McMansions. I suspect whenever the family home here is sold, it will be torn down as the land is no doubt worth more than the structure. As Luci and I walk down the street a man and his cat tend to his small gang of large cattle. I am not sure, but I think Luci believes them to be the biggest dogs she has ever seen. She once was visibly scared by them; running to the other side of the road, tail tucked firmly between her legs. Now she anticipates them, and hunts rabbits on the other side of the road, giving her plausible deniability that she saw them at all. If you go another 1/2 mile, the road is closed as it approaches the nuclear power plant, the one that warmed the waters and brought back the bald eagles according locals who must be from the "global warming is real, and it is good" school of thought.

I like Moline, perhaps more than Janis does. Of course I don't know Moline like Janis does. Moline itself formed about the same time as Ann Arbor, and shares a similar early architecture. Then Ann Arbor became a college town and John Deere made Moline a factory town, and that has driven them differently for the last century and a half. As John Deere makes farm equipment, it makes Moline a city uniquely built on the success of the farm. I suppose the machines Deere builds are what made large farms grow and family farms disappear. But if you are going to live in a company town, this seems like a good one, although not immune to the troubles of American heavy industry in the last 40 years.

From here I drove down through Macomb and Carthage and Quincy. Truly corn country. I wish one of the stands selling corn had a pot of boiling water and a stick of butter. I thought I must be near an airport when I realized the planes were dusting the crops. some real flying being done here. They turn in a high climbing bank, and then dive barely above the trees to 30 feet off the deck and spread their chemical cocktail across the corn. I could have watched for hours. The term crop dusting always brings a rude smile to my face as it is a term flight attendants use for a particular activity that occurs when the pressure change affects human body at altitude.

I crossed the Mississippi for good at Quincy, and headed into the rolling hills of Eastern Missouri. We'll pick it up there next time.