Numa Numa! a.k.a St. Louis

Pardon the unnecessary strangeness, but today is a strange day.  Over the last couple of days, Friday being one of my off days, we’ve been studying this beautifully cultured city.  From the Civil War and it’s almost nonhistory in St. Louis, to the World Fair and the contributions made just for that event.  Of course, we started with how Missouri was stumbled upon by the French, specifically two people named Joliette and Marquette.  Years go by, and the French decide to sell Missouri, along with many other places that are now states, to the U.S.  And as with most booming new places, immagrants start flooding the waters to get to St. Louis for a chance at being a steam boat engineer.  These things do not compare though, to the dazzling, breath taking, monumental event of 1904; the World Fair.  The event lasted an entire month, which is saying a lot when the whole fair covered 1,000 acres of land.  But the getting ready, to me, seems a lot bigger.  The fact that they built almost an entire mini city for the fair continues to amaze me.  The huge hall for machinery, the giant ferris that was a somewhat beacon being so tall, and the fact that people from all over, witth their trinkets and ideaology in tow, came to this one spot for a whole month to share their whatever with everyone.  Lastly, we studied probably the most memorable and common thing, the Arch.  Also known as the “Gateway to the West” and built in 1963, the construction of this half a McDonald’s M was an amazing feat in itself.  With limited technology and tools, they started at both ends and when they reached the top, were only a quarter of an inch off of meeting perfectly.  This exploration has also opened my eyes to the rich music and food there.  I’m excited to see the French influence alive in the streets, the neon signs flashing jazz performers names, the towering history that sings in the streets.  But history cannot come anywhere close to being in the middle of such an alive, welcoming city.

Trip Talk

Folks, if you’re out there, take this next post as nothing but a funny little blurb.  My requirements for this trip go beyond any normal train of thought.  But this is what I would say if my school planned on taking a different group on the exact same trip and my friend wanted to go. 

Sin you have to go!  I’ll go with you and we’ll have a blast!!  No pot or booze, but I tell ya it’s really not that bad.  I mean I don’t know these kids, but that was one of the best parts, getting to know people you realy don’t know.  I mena, it’s inevitable when you’re together 24/7 on a bus, in the cities, and any other time.  But it’s nice in a weird way.  Having gone through it all and being back now, it was well worth it.  I learned alot about people close to me, new people, new places, and history.  I gained new friends, new family, and a better sense of who I really am.  Plus if you get pissed, alone time is always permitted with permission.  There’s no way to not have fun when you’re in front of the St. Louis Arch, or about to board a free ferry.  I mean, yeah, you may reach your limit, but I promise that’s not all you have.  I broke my limit three times before I broke down and actually cried.  It was Hell, but it was also sunshine even on the cloudiest days, all wrapped into one.  Sometimes laughter was all we had and that’s all we needed.  Plus the being there beats the wishing I were there by beyond far.

WE’RE BACK!!…My Take On It

Wow, what a trip.  The whole trip was a trip.  People laughing, teachers yelling, girls crying, boys dissing, and everyone doing something they have never dreamed of doing before.  It sounds like the same old same old with any school group, but this was on a deeper level.  I mean, everything goes to a deeper level when you’re stuck with the same 42 people 24/7 for two weeks, especially when they’re not your friends.  You may not be alone, but you don’t have the same expierence as the chick two seats in front of you on the bus.  I remember one specific moment of crowded alone time, slumping through Our School at Blaire Grocery, a self-sustaining school with a full garden working as a grocery story, in New Orleans.  I was sitting on one of their benches, bitching about the cold, and in between the “fuck this'” and the “goddamn its'”, I realised I was in the middle of something P.S. 1 could only dream of being.  Year round, this place didn’t take kids inot the real world, they brought the real world to the kids in a way they could understand.  Our School teaches herbology and science in their garden, math from all the things they need and the selling of their groceries, to an underlying learning of how to take care of something like your home.  This garden, this pile of compost, this filtering system, all put into place by people who said ‘This is what the area needs, so this is what we need to do’.  This lonely garden in the 9th ward, the place damaged the most, is not only a grocery store or supplier to restraunts, but it is a school and safe place for kids affected by Katrina who have had no schooling of any kind in up to five years.  Five years of not doing anything day in and day out because their school was either closed or told them they couldn’t attend.  I thought No Child Left Behind included not telling them they couldn’t even before they tried…This haven is real life in the real world downsized for struggling drop-outs to handle at their own pace, as it should be.  As the founder said to us “You can’t always measure what you learned by doing a standardized test.”  Realization of how much you can really do with only a dream and will power hit me like a ton of bricks, with way less bone crushing.  A true eye opener as I saw the dirt beneath my feet as more than just dirt.  It became apparent that this was an entire self-sustaining support system sread out for the world to learn from and yet so few take advantage of.  The seemingly simple and small patch, with few teachers and even fewer students, but the impact on its’ community and us tripsters lingers still.

Last Blog in Denver

Today’s the day when dreaming ends…This is the last day of classes for us trip goers here at PS1.  We have five days until all forty something of us leave this going-green city home of ours and embark on what some feel is indescribably epic.  I’ve been so pumped and on it that today I feel sadly uninterested.  But I know that on Sunday I’m going to be crying and sad to leave my dad.  But such is life and it goes on.  Farewell my fellow bloggers, next post I will be in another state of being as well as in another part of my country.

The Mississippi Blues

I hate to see that evening sun go down.I hate to see that evening sun go down  ‘Cause, my baby, he’s gone left this town

The first stanza to “The St. Louis Blues”, written by W.C. Handy and sung by the beautiful Miss Bessie Smith as well, was one of the most famous early blues songs.  An old toothless black man sitting on the porch with a guitar in his lap and children gathered at his feet.  If you passed him by, you’d probably miss one of the great unwritten, completely original blues songs.  Some say the blues is the only all “American” thing invented, not stolen from some ancient culture.  Coming from the deep south and of course African-Americans, the blues started way before the white folks caught wind of it.  Here’s a bit of history for you:  The blues came from call and response from slavery work songs, from spirituals from Africa, and African music.  Some of these early songs sometimes held messages of escape routes, protests, and sung in coded language by the slaves so the boss man couldn’t understand the trash they might be talking about him.

W.C. Handy is said to be “the father of blues”, because he was the first to document the blues on to paper and then go on to compose his own songs.  The blues was an oral tradition when it started, due to the lack of education throughout the slave community that kept slaves illiterate.  Even during the time after the Civil War and slavery, white people still had no respect or common sense about them to see past their own vanity.  Even today you can see this white vanity.  Most people don’t think of where the blues started, but focus on where it is going.  With blues, it started with the true struggles of man like sex, money, and poverty. It aslo started in this little poe dunk town called Clarksdale.  This is where that handsome man W.C. Handy comes up again.  The story starts with him waiting for a late night train at a station in Clarksdale.  He soon fell asleep and was awoken by what he referred to as a “strange” sound, only to quickly fall in love with it.  This sound was of course a small town black man playing an early blues song on his acoustic guitar.   But no man could play the way Robert Johnson did. 

Robert Johnson was not unlike any other black man in Clarksdale: uneducated, either a former slave himself or coming from slaves, and had little chance of making it big.  All until he made a deal with the Devil that is.   Rumor has it this story starts at The Crossroads, were Johnson happens upon a man, “a black man” he says, and the man asks to tune his guitar.  This black man turns out to be the Devil himself and takes Johnsons’ soul in return.  After this chance meeting in the middle of nowhere, Robert Johnson can’t not play anything like an angel.  The blues is truly all American and the only thing that really is.  It comes from our south, from the ancestors of every black person in America, from the U.S, which is consiquently us.  The blues comes from everyone one of us because we’ve all had the blues.  For this snip of the trip, we will be staying an afternoon in Clarksdale.  The history to see, to learn, to feel deep in yur bones.  God I can’t wait!!!!

Oh Johnny!

We have recently learned about Memphis, one of the great BBQ king cities.  Also being known for giving Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash their big breaks, Memphis is just one of those cities you can’t forget learning about or going to.  I have yet to set my eyes on this beautiful bluff city, but I feel like I’ve seen it all.  The history of this Egyptian named city is almost like any other states history, except Memphis came out on top.  Tennessee was a confederate state and Memphis followed as a confederate city until it was captured in the Battle of Memphis in 1862.  Before the Civil War, Memphis was known to be a transpotation hub because of its’ location on top of a bluff.  It was also an important city in the slavery market and cotton industry.  After war left it’s streets, Memphis was soon plagued by Yellow Fever.  In the 1870’s, and having just gone through a nation wide war, the city lost another 75% of its’ population. Memphis has gone through Hell but never had to fear high water and that gave it a chance to become known for it’s famous dry rub, slow and low, fall off the bone rack of ribs.  The great people who “came” from Memphis, like Memphis Minnie who was not born in Memphis but had lived there since she was 13 and got recognized there first.  Others “from” Memphis include those like Koko Taylor, B.B. King, and Robert Johnson who were recorded at Stax Records, because they were black, white folks like Johnny got to record at Sun Records.  Today, there are about 600,000 people living in Memphis, of which 61% are black.  With the giant pyramid symbolizing where this wonderland city got its’ start, Memphis seems almost eternal to me.  Having never been disturbed by the all mighty Mississippi so far, I see Memphis standing on her bluff of lush grass forever.  And I couldn’t imagine it going any other way.  The things I’ve only heard makes my body ache to be in the middle of all splendor of a good down south, home made place.

Today is the day

Today is the day that I start blogging.  One of the few conformist things on the internet I never thought I’d do.  But here I am, typing, and soon to be posting my very first blog.  My teacher has asked the class to do this, otherwise I’d be listening to music.  She wants us to write daily or weekly blogs about how we feel leading up to this trip we’re taking.  Oh yeah, that’s really why I’m writing this blog.  We’re taking a cross country school trip and our final destination is New Orleans so that we can help clean up some of the damage done down there.  Two days into the planning of this exciting endeavor, I know I would more than love to go down south and clean off some helpless sea gulls.  I have thought about this trip since it was a rumor around school, but I’m still a little nervous about having the stones to just get on the bus and go.  It’s not the trip itself really, traveling has kpet my interest unlike any other passion. It’s the fact that I’d be stuck on a bus, in a hotel, and in the vicinity of 39 other kids that annoy the gray hair outta me!  That and I’m afraid I might tuck tail and run at the last minute like I did with the last school trip I wanted to go on.  I mean, it’s not like my grandma can die twice, so hopefully that won’t hold me back.  Hopefully I won’t hold me back either.  Stay tuned for more insight of the trip planning and feelings surrounding it, a teenagers fears and wondering thoughts, and posts from on the road!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!