I have just finished reading a Pew Research Report about Brazil and I am convinced even more that I am lucky to go there at a particularly auspicious time. The issues I am most comfortable and competent in addressing, environment, energy and economics, are the ones that by far are the most important in Brazil and Brazilians are generally in a good mood.
According to Pew Research, 62% of Brazilians have a favorable opinion of the U.S and only 7% don’t like us. Not only that, more than 60% think foreign companies are having a good influence in their country and 75% think that people are better off in a market economy. This may seem to be no big deal, but I remember that when I was there last time it was our goal to encourage these kinds of attitudes, but we were not having much luck. It is amazing what a few years of prosperity will do. People’s attitude toward others often is closely related to what they think of themselves. The funny thing now is that Brazilians more often have favorable attitudes toward the market economy than Americans do.
On the foreign policy front, Hugo Chavez is the most unpopular foreign leader among Brazilians and 85% of Brazilians are against Iran getting nuclear weapons. Of those, 65% are willing to consider stronger sanctions and a surprising 54% might favor military action.
So the country I will be going to next year is very different from the country I left in 1988. I look forward to getting to know the country again – or maybe really for the first time. I remember last time I was there it seemed the most individuals were happy, but the country wasn’t. Maybe now everybody will join in.
I wanted to take a trip across the U.S. – again – to remind myself about the America outside what I see in and around Washington. It is easy to forget that there is a lot of America far away from Washington when you live around here.
Driving is different than flying to particular cities because you see the places you cross close up. It is impressive how long it takes to get from place to place. You quickly understand that it is a big country, with pretty good roads. I tried to get off the Interstate when I could. The Interstate is faster, but you see less and you never get the feeling of the open road that you do when you are the only one on a county road. You also cannot usually stop on the Interstate, so if you do see something interesting all you can do is race past it at 70mph.
I enjoyed driving most on the old U.S. Highways. They are usually smooth and fairly straight. They were designed for more traffic than they get now in most of the rural areas, as the Interstates have drained the traffic, so it is often a comfortable and almost traffic free experience. I like the diversion when I slow down through towns. The Interstate bypasses them or hurries you through them on ramps above, artificial valleys below or man-made canyons of noise control walls if you stay at ground level. You miss a lot of history.
I drove through sixteen states, including the State of Missouri. I mention Missouri specifically because Missouri was the only one of the continental states I had not visited before. Missouri is just about right in the center of the U.S., so it is strange that I missed it so many times. I really didn’t see it too much this time either. All I did was stop at a rest stop and put my feet on the ground for a few minutes.But I got a picture.
I noticed the changes in the physical landscape. Once you cross the thickly forested eastern mountains, you get into relatively flat formerly-forested landscapes until you get to about fifty miles out into Kansas. Rainfall drops off below the amount (about 30 inches a year) needed to support natural forests at about the 98th meridian. This divides prairies from forests. Historically, the prairies extended farther east because the Native Americans used to set fires to maintain the grassland. Today, our own civilization has brought trees into the grasslands and grasslands into the trees, but you can still clearly discern the differences as you pass over. The mountains in the West have all sorts of variations of climate. That is the attraction of the West. You can drive 100 miles in the East w/o noticing big changes. In parts of New Mexico I crossed dozens of biomes in that same distance.
I am not sure if it was Texas or New Mexico that were most surprising. I had been to both before, but not really through them. New Mexico, as I mentioned in one of my posts, is truly a land of enchantment, with a great variety of environments in very close proximity because of the mountains. Texas was also very surprising. I wrote several posts about that. Texas is such a big state that I should not have been as surprised by the variety, but I was.
The geography and topography was very different, but I found that Americans were very similar everywhere I went. I am in a good position now. I am old enough that I both am not too shy to approach and talk to strangers and I seem harmless enough that they are willing to talk to me. Actually, I am repeated surprised at how friendly people are and how much they like to tell you about themselves and their home towns. The pride is palpable and everybody thinks his/her place in unique. And they are all right. But what is not unique is the feeling of unique pride in being different. It is a kind of a paradox.
It makes me a little sad that the regional differences are weakening. As each part of the U.S. becomes more diverse the country is becoming less so. You find the same restaurants, stores and outlets wherever you go. And it is not only the well-known chains. You can find the same sorts of independent Chinese, Mexican, or Japanese restaurants in San Antonio or Dodge City as you do in Milwaukee or Nashville. Everyplace is diverse now. All these places were less diverse internally a generation ago, but they were more different from each other. The whole country has been blended. It is great that you can get all the same things almost anywhere, but maybe also not so great. You can tell this by what you CANNOT bring back home that you can’t already get back home.
What is becoming more important is what you might call the back story. We are becoming a lot more concerned with the origins and the “stories” of the things we eat, drink, wear and enjoy. We can get to know these stories when we travel. As our country blends, we all look for the special things and we are reviving or recreating traditions, especially on the high end. This is how we connect in a world that doesn’t tie us to our roots. For example, the Bourbon makers we visited have been working harder to make “craft” products and people are willing to pay more. Farmers are developing or rediscovering heirloom fruits and vegetables. I saw longhorn cattle like those that were essentially eliminated a century ago. Somebody is reviving the herds. I think this is healthy. It is usually not mere antiquarianism. People are respecting traditions but also working and applying their innovation and intelligence to make them better. New traditions are being evolved from the old ones all over our country, so while we are becoming more homogeneous we are also developing new diversity.
I have a few miscellaneous pictures from the tip that I have included. The top picture is art work in the grassy hills above a Missouri rest stop. They are flat steel cutouts of Indians hunting bison. Next is a water town in Franklin, Wisconsin. A ranch in Kansas is below followed by a replica of the Bonnie & Clyde “death car.” In the middle of the page the Polish-American Center in Franklin and then the Bay View “Redcat” football team in early season practice. The rocks in the next picture is off I-10 near the place where the Apache leader Cochise hid out. Next is a gas station in New Mexico with the railroad in the background. The next two show an old school house in Mead, Kansas and then an oil pump on the Permian basin in New Mexico. Below is a mural in Fort Worth, Texas honoring the Chisholm Trail
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail connects six Bourbon makers in Northern Kentucky. It is a very pretty drive and you get the added benefit of visiting distilleries and tasting their whiskey. We stopped only at Jim Beam and Wild Turkey. I think you might need a couple of days to do the whole thing, not least because you probably could not drive if you visited all the distillers in one day, even with the very small samples you get. Below is the center of the district, Bardstown, Kentucky the “Bourbon capital of the world.”
Bourbon is a true American product. The Congress declared Bourbon to be America’s native spirit and there are specific requirements for making it. For example, it must be at least 51% corn. In early American times, distilling bulky corn and other grains into whiskey was the best and sometimes the only way farmers on the distant frontier could get their products profitably to markets across wilderness with no or bad roads. Bourbon can be made anywhere in the U.S., but around 95% is made in the State of Kentucky, near where this sort of whiskey originated. Northern Kentucky has good water for making whiskey because of its limestone and limestone soils that filter water and make it “sweet.”
All Bourbon must be aged in new white oak barrels. The barrels can be used only once, after which they are sold to Scotch whiskey producers and makers of other alcohol products. They are charred inside. The raw whiskey – called white dog, this is as far as they get when they make moonshine or white lightning – is clear and essentially flavorless. No artificial colors or flavors may be added to the finished whiskey. During the seasons of the aging process (the aging barns are not heated or air conditioned) the whiskey expands and contracts soaking up woody flavors and color from the wood and charcoal of the barrels. When you take a drink of Kentucky Bourbon, you taste the forests, creeks and at least four and maybe ten years’ worth of Kentucky seasons. Below shows Kentucky along I -64.
We bought a couple of bottles of whiskey at Jim Beam. I got a bottle of Jim Beam Black. It is older than the white label and has a noticeably smoother feel. If you want to drink Bourbon, this is the one I recommend. I keep around a bottle of “Old Forester” because I like the name, but the Beam Black is better. We also got a bottle of a new product called “Red Stag”. It is not officially Bourbon because it has some cherry flavor added. At the Wild Turkey distillery, we got a bottle of rye whiskey. This also was technically not Bourbon. It tastes a little more like Scotch. You can see below the distribution of grain in two Jim Beam products, Basil Hayden and Knob Hill. I don’t like the Basil Hayden. It is a little too harsh. Knob Hill is good, but a little too pricey, IMO.
We should all drink responsibly, of course, but I think we should all drink a little. Beers, wines and whiskeys are deeply embedded in so many of our traditions, both in the creation and in the consumption of the products. There is just much more than the schluck going on. I suppose you could have specific health or religious concerns, but besides that, it is a silly person who refuses a drink when offered.
Above is Booker Noe, the grandson of the eponymous Jim Beam. Booker created the modern Jim Beam distillery. His son, Fred is the 7th generation of the Beam family to run the business. If you look in back of Booker and below at the ginkgo tree in the front yard, you notice the black bark. This is caused by a fungus that grows on the surfaces around distilleries because of the evaporation from the whiskeys. The lost alcohol is called the “angel’s share” and in humid climates it feeds the fungus. It makes it look like there has been a fire, but it is evidently harmless to the trees.
The State Department has a good, but generally underused, program that lets us to volunteer to speak to people around the country when we travel. I often give them my schedule when I am traveling and sometimes they can arrange meetings in my free time. I find I get more out of travel when I get to talk to interesting people and this is a good – official – opportunity for that. I learned a few things about Nashville at a meeting arranged by State public affairs.
I think of Nashville as the capital of country music and that is still true. The Grand Old Opry is here and musicians come to Nashville from all over the country. But I learned that Nashville is much more, with a diverse economic base. The biggest industries are education, health care & tourism.
The most famous local university is Vanderbilt, but there are many others. The guy at the mayor’s office told me that around 60% of the students who come to the area to study stay after graduation, enriching Nashville with their “human capital”. He pointed out that young people today often choose where they want to live and AFTER that look for the schools and the jobs that will get them there. Young people today, especially those with the most marketable skills – the kind of people cities are trying to attract – are more mobile than we were. On the other hand, they are a little less likely to move once established. This may be because they choose the place in the first place and like it and/or because relationships hold them in place.
Nashville competes with – and “benchmarks” – cities like Austin and Charlotte, NC. They are around the same size and have similar compositions. Austin also has a strong music scene.
Chrissy and I had lunch at a bar and grill called Piranha’s. They had a truly odd sandwich made of roast beef with the French fries jammed in. It tasted okay and was very filling, but I don’t think I would order it again. You see in the picture above that they have some kind of contest going about eating a 10lb cheese steak. Nobody has won, so far, and I am not surprised. I think the whole thing might just be a bridge too far even for the biggest eaters. I recall that the “Big Texan” in Amarillo has a 72 oz steak challenge. If you can eat it, you get it free. Some people succeed in that and a solid meat meal would be a bit harder – maybe – that something including bread, but I just cannot figure out how eating 10lbs of anything would be possible. Maybe I misunderstood the challenge. Across the street from Piranha’s was the Charlie Daniels Museum, actually just more of a shop, pictured above.
The other pictures are the cheese steak challenge, some interesting buildings and a music festival being set up in front of the courthouse. I understand they have live music most weekends.
