living in a chautauqua

"This area used to be a chautauqua park" the homeowner said as she was giving us a tour, hoping to sell the house to us. My wife and I were excited about this house because it had a lot of charm, we would be first time homeowners, and now we could live in a former Chautauqua park. What was a Chautauqua?

I recalled that I had seen a roadside sign in a little Illinois town 30 miles away proclaiming a grove of trees to be a Chautauqua park. The small green sign was just one of those fact tidbits that speeds past your windshield while driving, a lot like a big bug that is on a trajectory for a head on collision with your car but at the last second becomes a near miss. It comes close enough to register in your mind but narrowly misses getting splattered to allow many miles of further investigation.

"What do you mean a Chautauqua park?" I asked? "Well back in the early 1900's this was a campground. Travelers would need a place to stay for the night so they would pay at a little booth up there at the end of the road and pick a spot. These funny bulges in the big oak trees are the remnants of the nails and hooks that people would pound into the trees to hold up their tent or hammocks. See that bare spot over there where the neighbors are burning leaves? There used to be a well there with a pump to get your water. Over by that two story brick home there was a meeting house. William Jennings Bryan spoke there. Fanny Crosby the famous hymn writer performed there. The real von Trapp family sang there. Political speeches and rallies and revivals were all held here. Under these oak trees, which by the way are over 100 years old, people had picnics and listened to music and speeches and found some culture. Then these homes were built around the 1920's and 30's and now that little park out there and all these trees is the only thing left of the chatauqua."

Living in a Chautauqua. We were sold. The place had a real sense of place and history. It was haunted with the good stuff that accumulates in a place where things have happened. It was a great place to live but I have since learned that "Chautauqua" implies a traveling culture. Our home was more of a retreat, a shady place of rest and replenishment.

Now years later I'm reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. I'm not into Zen and I'm not very good with motorcycle maintenance but Pirsig mentions Chautauquas. He commented that the traveling tent show Chautauquas that educated and entertained years ago were pushed aside by radio, movies and TV. I hadn't thought about it before but that's an interesting perspective. The characters in his book, a father and son, set out with some friends on a Chautauqua of discovery on their motorcycles .

Anyway, it was great to live in a Chautauqua but maybe what is better is to set out on Chautauquas of our own making. I wonder if anyone is setting out on Chautauquas these days, and if so I'd like to hear about them.

the parts girl at the cycle shop

One of the joys of doing any kind of work on your own motorcycle is walking past the motorcycle sales people at the dealership and entering the parts department. No matter how trivial the part, no matter how little motorcycle understanding it takes to install the part, one receives a wonderful air of salt and savy to slide onto a chair at the counter in parts and ask for what you need.

In the cycle shop I go to there are a couple of guys who work the counter, maybe three, but my favorite is the girl. She seems to be in her early twenties, has a comfortable familiarity with computerized motorcycle schematics and has a charming friendliness. She is cute, in the way that you would say your daughter is cute, and probably has the required extra earrings and piercings that so many have today. But these are not her best features.

I hasten to add here that I don't want to date her and she is not in my dreams. I'm happily married and besides, "sometimes you need an old man" but nobody ever wants a dirty old man. Here is what I like. She treats me like a person. She, a young person, doesn't treat me like an old person. She doesn't treat me like just another boring customer, or just another nickel earned for the store, or just another needy motorcyclist who wants his parts yesterday or sooner if possible. She listens to what I say and gives real answers, not the standard things that some sales people parrot back to customers.

I heard years ago that old people love it when young people pay attention to them. I'm not that old but I'm beginning to see the truth of that statement. I wonder, do young people like it when old people pay attention to them. I think so, especially if there doesn't happen to be any other young people around at the moment. But mostly I think we all like it when someone treats us as a person no matter what age we happen to be. Please understand, I think we want to be treated like an individual person, not as a young person, not as an old person, not a stereotypical this or that, not an object or a demographic, but an individual.

I wonder if the parts girl gets any comments like, "Woa, what's a girl doing working in a motorcycle parts department?" What, girls can't use a computer and have a grasp of an inventory?

Dorothy Sayers was a great author back in the thirties and forties and on one occasion she gave a speech entitled "Are Women Human?" There are a lot of good statements in that speech but I'll just give this one, "What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person."

And if I'm going to practice what I'm preaching I need to stop calling my friend "the parts girl." That is probably somewhat condescending. She is just a nice person at the cycle shop who treats me right and helps me gets the parts I need.

After reading online rants, bashing blogs and inflamatory editorials by authors spewing venom over coffee, hub caps or the price of gas I realize that I long for civil discourse. I'm not against a person making their complaint in a creative way using exaggeration to make their point. What I object to is the person who doesn't agree with George Bush, or the president of the PTA, or the coach of the little league their kid plays for and so they criticize by calling someone a baby killer, a bookish snob or a nazi.

I realized today while I was taking my morning walk that some authors take delight in belittling another viewpoint using language like weapons. In so doing they sometimes show that maybe they don't really understand the issue. For example, I recently saw someone using the phrase, "greedy Republicans." Of course that is an argument waiting to happen. Immediately I began to think of democrats who were greedy, and independents that were greedy and republicans who were not greedy and so on. Does the Republican Party have a corner on greed? I think not. I have voted republican or democrat depending on the person running and I would admit that I have been somewhat greedy at times in my life and my political persuasion didn't have much to do with it.

I was talking with one of my sons recently about authors that we like and it occurred to me that one of the most winsome things about Brian McLaren's writing is that he seems to have tried to understand the other guy. A lot of people need a book that helps us get out of our hate speak long enough to understand another person and what that person is like and what they're trying to say or do.

Civil discourse. Can we be civilized in our conversation with others? Can we listen with interest? Can we be persuasive with our words? Can we give someone an intelligent reason for what we believe? Can we accept that person who doesn't agree with us or do they only have worth if we can get them to believe like us?

I think everybody needs an old man. Not just any old man. Not an old man who has become more and more like Archie Bunker in his prejudices. But an old man who listens and considers and asks questions and has some discernment and wisdom. Not an old man who forces his "good advice" on you but someone who can diagnose like a good motorcycle mechanic and offer a suggestion or two as a fellow struggler.