Rolling Down the River

By Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor

Ever since I was a kid in New Orleans, I've felt the lure of the Mississippi. I played on its levees, fell asleep to the mournful signals of the boats passing Algiers Point, spent summers working on derrick barges and tugboats, and even proposed to my wife on its banks. So I've often mused about taking a boat down this historic main artery of America.

This spring I got that opportunity. Along with a rotating crew of two dozen TIME writers and reporters, I took a two-week trip down the river on the Grampa Woo III, a delightful chartered boat with a very flexible captain, Dana Kollars, who was able to dock or anchor to suit our reporting needs. We made 40 or so stops along the way, some planned and others serendipitous, listening to the issues people were discussing and searching for stories that showed how our nation is coping at the start of a new century. Then we dispatched reporters up and down the river to produce the pieces in this issue.

Our team was led by Nation editor Priscilla Painton, who edited the package, and our aptly named Special Projects editor Barrett Seaman, a former Navy man, who coordinated logistics and kept us in line. Other key crew members included photographer Diana Walker; Nancy Gibbs, who wrote the overview Essay; and our Midwest bureau chief Ron Stodghill and Southern bureau chief Timothy Roche, who coordinated the task of scouting out stories.

This is the second such journey we've made. Three years ago, we took a bus across the center of the country along old Route 50, which resulted in a similar special issue. One reason for these trips is that those of us in the national media spend a lot of time listening to issues being debated at distant summits and congressional hearings but not enough time listening to discussions that occur at local PTA and school board meetings, at Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, at coffee shops where store owners congregate on slow Tuesday mornings.

On our Route 50 trip, we saw how the digital economy was creating a new generation of pioneers, who were setting up enterprises wherever they wanted. But we also noticed, in places where old family-run shops and cafes on Main Street had given way to big-box stores and chain restaurants in megamalls, a yearning for a lost sense of community.

The foremost thing we discovered along the Mississippi was an even stronger yearning for a restored sense of community--perhaps because people who live by a river, just like trees planted by one, tend to be more rooted. Cairo, Ill., was a typical stop. The two-block heart of Main Street there looks like an abandoned movie set. The old brick buildings are crumbling. Only a beauty shop and a soup kitchen show any life. Once a stop on the Underground Railway for slaves (Mark Twain's Jim was hoping to head north from there), it was ripped by racial protests in the 1960s and '70s and has never fully recovered. But Main Street was recently repaved with bricks and fake trolley tracks at a cost of $1.5 million (all from federal and state grants), and the biracial city council hopes to turn Cairo into a tourist destination by renting out stores for $1 a year to businesses that will attract weekend visitors. At a barbecue featuring grilled bologna as well as tasty smoked ribs, civic leaders talked to us about their divergent views on crime, school vouchers, unemployment, race, gambling casinos and their city's history.

Cairo was one of many examples of what Steve Lopez writes about in this issue: the attempt to restore Main Streets into quaint shopping and entertainment areas in reaction to the spread of big malls. It's a very localized version of what is sometimes called the Rousing of America--the creation by developers such as James Rouse of entertaining renovated shopping areas like Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston or Harborplace in Baltimore, Md. Now you can find the Rousing impulse in small towns such as Cairo or tiny hamlets such as Kimmswick, Mo., which are exposing every brick and cobblestone in an attempt to cash in on the current prosperity.

Similarly, we saw a related phenomenon that could be called the Williamsburging of America. As Nancy Gibbs writes, small towns are rummaging back into their history to reassert their unique identity and attract tourists. Hannibal, Mo., has become a re-created Mark Twain birthplace. In Nauvoo, Ill., Mormons whose families lived there more than a century ago are returning to reconstruct their old temple. And the hotel owner in Kimmswick told us of the town's plan to re-enact the Civil War battle even though, he conceded, it was "just a skirmish."

What these Williamsburg wannabes have in common is that they are motivated equally by a desire to have their kids reconnect to their history and a desire to attract tourists. The result can be a bit surreal and even disconcerting. The quaint shopping areas sell mainly souvenirs. The history is generally sanitized. But it's important not to be cynical. In a pioneering, road-loving America, one can sense a sincere yearning to re-establish roots and restore community identity.

Our trip also allowed us to hear, from a very local perspective, some of the great issues we face as a nation. We listened to blacks and whites talk about community policing in racially divided Cape Girardeau, Mo.; parents debate a charter school in Osceola, Ark.; Ron Stodghill's father talk about the possibility of building a boarding school in the poor St. Louis, Mo., district where he is a superintendent; and the warden of the prison in Angola, La., describe his mixed feelings about the death penalty and life without parole.

In this issue we tried to capture the spirit of a nation of pioneers and pilgrims who are, nonetheless, rooted by their sense of community. We also hoped to report how ordinary Americans find pragmatic solutions to problems that politicians too often address on an ideological basis.

Finally, let me note that the trip was a lot of fun. We went to minor league baseball games, community picnics, jazz festivals, swamp tours and innovative schools. We fished and played cards and tested the limits of wireless technology from our boat. I hope that in addition to the serious topics we write about, we have been able to convey some of this spirit of fun, along with our deepened appreciation for what makes this country so special.

Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor