Rusty Saber: Art, poetry no substitute for the real thing

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Some things can be said for being retired. For one, there are senior moments. Young squirts may not know what I'm talking about. You're having a senior moment when you go into another room to get something; upon arrival you forget what it was. Later, when you remember what the item was, you can't remember why you wanted it. |ret||ret||tab|

When that happens to me, I don't worry about it; I just grin and say to myself, "No big deal, I'm having a senior moment." |ret||ret||tab|

When not having senior moments, some of us retired folks have been known to engage in another of our traits: Visit vacation spots by tour bus. You see, we retirees no longer have to bundle children up in the car and take off on sightseeing vacations with the children asking every five minutes, "Are we there yet?" My wife and I have found that we prefer to allow someone else to drive while we look. We are content to let others select the best places to see, where to eat and where to spend the night. Tour guides, who know the countryside like the backs of their hands, know where there are restrooms that can accommodate a busload of people. (After a few of these tours, I could write a book called "Great Restrooms I Have Experienced" subtitled "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly").|ret||ret||tab|

The latest of these bus excursions was a magnificent tour of American parks and canyons in the west. Beginning in Las Vegas, making a giant arc, ending in Denver, the bus toured Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. I thought of it as the "bus bound for somewhere glorious" because something glorious was always somewhere up ahead.|ret||ret||tab|

Beginning with the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and many, many others, the beauty was indescribable. Ironically, this wasn't my first trip through these areas. Years ago, I criss-crossed these areas by car. But I was much younger and en route to someplace else. There was no time to do more than take a quick look and say something like "That's nice," put pedal to metal, speeding on to whatever those long-forgotten final destinations may have been.|ret||ret||tab|

Alas, time is the variable that separates a simple glance at an object of beauty from truly drinking in its loveliness. If you have visited these national treasures you know that you can't just pause and glimpse; you must drink it in.|ret||ret||tab|

Trying to put into words my responses while looking down into Grand Canyon or watching Old Faithful erupt every 72 minutes, I have become painfully aware that my brain was unable to process what my eye took in. I can't put it into words, but neither can the poet. Reading poetic verses inspired by these sights, one finds not descriptions, but emotional responses to these sights that find their way on to paper through poets' pens; they express their emotions with verses while others use less poetic expressions such as "Wow!"|ret||ret||tab|

The camera can stop time for an instant, capturing whatever the lens takes in at the moment. |ret||ret||tab|

But astounding beauty lies beyond the limits of the lens. A mere moment after the photo is snapped, the view changes as the sunlight alters the colors and the shadows.|ret||ret||tab|

The artist may capture the scene, but like the poet, what goes from brush to canvas is emotional response. It may be art, but it isn't a substitute for the real thing. The only way to fully appreciate such scenes of natural beauty is to take the time to experience them on a personal basis. These, and others like them throughout America, inspire us today as they must have inspired the first people to gaze upon them. What must have gone through the heads of the first Native Americans who came upon them? Did the white explorers who first saw them stand in awe as we do today? Of course they did. |ret||ret||tab|

This is a big, sprawling country stretching from lovely seacoast to seacoast, from magnificent border to border, and that doesn't even include the stunning radiance of Alaska and Hawaii. Is this a great country, or what? Now that I have time to do more than take a cursory glance at America, I confess to having a love affair with my country; that's my ongoing senior moment.|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)|ret||ret||tab|

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