Studying curiosities
Since I fully retired, I’ve been taking more time to learn about curiosities embedded in everyday life.
On a recent trip I noticed a semi among the string of trucks with the words, DIESEL EXHAUST FLUID, blazoned across its shiny tank. From Google I discovered that the Fluid is a purified urea solution in deionized water. It’s injected into diesel exhaust systems, in a process called selective catalytic reduction, to remove nitrogen oxides – harmful air pollutants.
Later, after a long day of sight-seeing and driving, we pulled off the interstate at the Ft. Payne, Alabama exit. With its usual assortment of chain motels and restaurants, the place resembled everywhere USA. But what about the “Fort” Payne, I wondered?
Driving through town on our way to Lookout Mountain and the Little River Canyon National Park the next day, it resembled a host of other places that lost their manufacturing base and population. But among the empty store fronts I noticed a Trail of Tears Museum. Open occasionally.
I learned that The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing project following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Forty-six thousand Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homelands in North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida and sent to Indian Territory – present day Oklahoma. Around a quarter died of disease, exposure and starvation on the trek.
Fort Payne, named for Captain John Payne, was one of thirty-one stockades, concentration camps, constructed in the Deep South to store Indians awaiting the big walk. Only a chimney remains today.
One way to look at the Trail of Tears is as a clearing away of one group of people with different colored skins and culture to make way for the development of a new, white culture based on enslaved dark-skinned Africans. It’s probable that some of the today’s suspicion and tension between the races follows from those times.
I was reminded of an experience I had visiting with Shawn, an Army Ranger, in Chicago’s Union Station. Our train was indefinitely delayed due to winter weather conditions. Military personnel, the elderly and families with small children were allowed to wait in a separate, more spacious but drafty and poorly heated area.
Shawn was an enigmatic, imposing figure with a facial tic. He was of medium height and obviously a body builder with bulging chest, shoulder and arm muscles. Except for his hands and face, every inch of his body is covered with tattoos. He periodically paced back and forth and alternated between wearing a sweatshirt and only a tee shirt. We barely kept warm with winter jackets.
I felt like I had to meet him, thank him for his work and see if we could strike up a conversation. We visited several times over six hours. He was friendly, soft spoken, and always called me “Sir.”
I learned he was 32 years old, a full blooded Indian and on his way to visit family on Walpole Island, a Canadian First Nation (Indian) reservation in the St. Clair River. He left Walpole as a teen to live with his mother in Michigan, dropped out of school, and joined the army. He’s been injured and wounded four times in Afghanistan and has shrapnel in his leg.
His tattoos are his autobiography. Each has a particular significance. The largest, a Masonic Lodge emblem, stands for his core values: Belief in God, brotherly love and charity/helping others in need. He said that some people glance, then shy away from him. He described being with a group where a server wasn’t able to make eye contact with him.
He trains younger soldiers now and is disgusted at their lack of respect. He’s leaving the Army when his tour is up and wants to work in law enforcement.
With what I learn about curiosities, I hope to understand my life better. But I don’t expect it to make sense of it.
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