Way down here

CLEVELAND, Miss. — As I drove south on U.S. 61, two miles east of and parallel to the Mississippi River, looked to my left at a shed in the middle of a hundred acres of plowed dirt, I recalled Vincent Van Gogh's quote, "It is beautiful here. But if you have a clear eye without any obstacles in it, there is beauty everywhere." I remembered once supporting his thought at the Honey Hut in Levy, turned to my right, west toward the sun low enough to engage haze as a filter, and beauty appeared. Six-foot tall blades of emerald, or perhaps grass or rice plants, shown for a mile or so to a row of trees. The sun had dropped to the tree tops, and a crop duster flew south just above it. The scene reminded me of my favorites — Tiger Stadium, New York's skyline, the view from Russellville Country Club's first tee, Arkansas 9 in the spring and fall, fireworks reflected from the Gateway Arch, Oaklawn Park's barns and kitchen, the last mile to my father's farm, and the Rockies in a hailstorm at night.

This part of the earth has its most productive soil and some of America's poorest people. There is a 12-foot fence between my Days Inn lodging and a neighborhood unimaginable in Little Rock. I tried to drive a running route from here and did not find a usable one. I drove twelve blocks and passed shotgun shacks interrupted five times by relative mansions, none of which would improve even the worst areas of Levy. Self consciousness burdened me. I must have looked like a cop, except to a cat who ran in front of my car and looked remarkably like Natalie. Maybe the owl dropped her in Cleveland.

I don't belong here. To run through this neighborhood at night would be to invade privacy. I know I'm sometimes hard to understand, but that's as clearly as I can explain my decision to drive to the Delta State campus and run 5.2 miles from there on an out-and-back course. It took me 53:18. I ran out for 25 minutes, and back for 28:18.