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.