I don’t know what to make of Cultural Geography: A Survey of Perceptions Held by Cultural Geography Specialty Group Members. A ranking like that is going to be subjective. The Cultural Geography Specialty Group has taken measures to make the ranking in a variety of ways, it is still subjective. I did get some interesting titles from the article! How could I resist a title like Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock ‘n’ Roll?
So many books, so little time. There is a lot of writing about geography out there, so it isn’t just about maps, but about what and why something is there. Pierce Lewis says, “…literate description and clear thinking … we find it in… guides prepared by and for professional geographers. More often we find it in writings by folklorists, cultural historians, and landscape architects, by scholars and laymen of any calling. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Literature isn’t all academia. Some of my favorite stories aren’t about geography, but place. Lewis Grizzard, long-time columnist for The Atlanta Journal, had a tremendous ability to describe small town life. Tony Hillerman writes stories set in the Four Corners region of the Southwest, featuring Native American tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Sharon McCrumb’s setting is Appalachia . She takes a folk tale or ballad and fills in the untold parts. At the same time she tells a parallel story set in contemporary times and weaves the two stories together. In The Ballad of Frankie Silver she tells the story of Frankie Silver, a young woman convicted of killing her husband and burning the body and the story of Lafayette
Lewis’ Small Town in Pennsylvania Camas Valley , OR Entering Camas Valley ” and “Leaving Camas Valley Burma Road , you’ll see a collection of buildings. There was if, I remember right, a house, a barn, a woodshed, a chicken coop and a detached garage (used mostly for butchering jacklighted deer). The only time it was used for a car was if the jacklighted deer was still in the trunk of the car. That’s one of many places I lived as a kid. There was a beaver pond nearby. It was impossible to sneak up on them but if you sat quiet and still, after a while they’d reappear until you moved or made a sound. Then a slap of tail and they’d vanish. Most summer days weren’t spent at home. There was nothing there we needed. There were apple trees, huckleberries, thimbleberries and hazelnut bushes out in the fields. We’d usually take a sandwich on our excursion but it was more of a courtesy than a necessity. There patches of wild strawberries. They were about the size of my little fingernail and tasted like strawberry flavored sugar. Strawberries from the grocery store are a disappointment. They’re huge, but just don’t have the taste. The visual has replaced the flavor. That isn’t just a memory of the “good old days.” Down the road a piece, (a piece being an actual distance for us), was a cherry tree. That tree was strictly off limits. Which means that we would often be found straddling the branches of that cherry tree gorging on the fruit and spiting the seeds at each other. Cherries still taste just as good today. It was a great time and place to be a kid. Then you grow up and there’s nothing there. Logging has been banned and the mills are closed. The nearest college is about a hundred miles away. The little girls you threw mudballs at still hold a grudge. The small town is obsolete. It once had a function but the automobile and the suburbs ended that. It was hoped by some that the Internet and telecommuting would be the salvation of the small town, but it’s cheaper to outsource to India Camas Valley
The common thread I see in the articles is about communicating your observations. Several of the articles are about geographic writing. Cultural Geography: A Survey of Perceptions Held by Cultural Geography Specialty Group Members is less about ranking and more about being able to communicate.
