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Although I understand the idea of deconstruction, I am not predisposed to begin writing in that style. I like most of what I read and am not inclined to write about the pieces I don’t like. I usually want to forget them and move on to something else.
I like Mississippi Solo by Eddie L. Harris and have nearly finished the book. Time is valuable, so finishing a book is testament enough. I often abandoned books that just didn’t hold my attention.
When Harris decided to canoe the Mississippi from Lake Itasca New Orleans, he had little canoeing experience. He doesn’t describe that experience in detail, but none of it seems to have involved overnight trips.
He put off leaving until it was almost too late in the year to go but determined to make the trip, he borrowed a canoe and got a tent and other gear. A friend drove him and the canoe to Minnesota and camped out with him the first few nights. She ferried the gear and met him at campsites.
Finally, on his own, he stopped at a town for supplies where he pulled the canoe up on land and returned to find it gone. Though he believed the canoe was stolen, a local person convinced him to let her help him look for the missing canoe after asking a key question, “Did you tie it off?”
With the canoe recovered, he resumed the improbable journey, a journey his friends had discouraged him from making. Aside from the problems of navigating a small boat on a huge river and his lack of experience with canoes, they feared that Harris, a Black man, might face racially motivated violence.
This book joins the ranks of A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, an unprepared hiker of the Appalachian Trail, and Wild by Cheryl Strayed, an equally unprepared hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail. Strayed faced the specific dangers of a woman hiking alone in a wilderness area.
Nevertheless, this story is unique to Eddy L. Harris, A man who canoed the longest river in North America, contended with barges and mosquitoes, nearly gave up when he reached his home in St Louis and finally completed his Hero’s Journey, a journey is worthy of analysis by Joseph Campbell.
Mississippi Solo was published in 1988. I recently discovered it through an anthology and a used book dealer.
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