Have you seen my new love, she has all of new love's faces
you must have seen the glowing song in my eyes...
--Tony Colton, Albert Lee, and Ray Smith (1973)
Otto loves to show Gettysburg. I haven't investigated the American Civil War much, as I don't care for military history, so its significance for me was Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address." Driving to Gettysburg using non-freeway routes, crossing the Mason-Dixon Line, and seeing farms, a covered bridge, and men fishing gave me a feeling for the country.
Gettysburg is a country town of 4,000; I had expected something much larger. The Battle of Gettysburg (1863) was a turning point of the Civil War. There were various ways you could experience the battle and its context. I wandered around the National Cemetery and looked at a cyclorama for perspective. Walking around where Lincoln spoke was very moving. The feelings and values held by the American people seemed in the air, notwithstanding the distractions of guided tours and costumed actors.
After an enjoyable lunch at a homely '50s cafe, we drove around the area, topographically not unlike areas close to Melbourne, which made me think about the universality of the earth. Such a beautiful area for such a bloody conflict! I was struck by memorials from all states, North and South, and the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. Nearby Eisenhower Farm indicated that this was a sacred site for the psyche of the American people, hiding a multiplicity of meanings.
I made forays into Virginia, traveling westward through beautiful scenery to Luray Caverns, invitingly cool in the hot day. I was impressed by spectacular formations and bemused by a Wurlitzer organ that used the natural formation around as pipes. Nature was infinitely preferable to the machine, which curiously reminded me of Neil Diamond.
Visiting Virginia wineries
and a cruise down the Skyline Drive confirmed the pleasures of the country--occasional deer, the smell of the trees, and spectacular views in the heat haze. The wineries provided a different taste to Australia's, but they were good tastes and I bought some to take home and sample at leisure. At Linden Winery, a pleasant woman (who seemed to prefer ESFJ) organised us through their pleasant, sometimes unique range.
The MBTI is too often seen as simply a tool rather than as a way to look at personality from a rich philosophical and scientific background. People attend qualifying workshops for different reasons, and a bit of philosophy when you think you're there to learn about how to perfunctorily use a psychological instrument can be genuinely startling, however necessary.
Driving to Maine was full of interest, freeways notwithstanding. We smoothly entered Chambersburg, where Otto attended a 50th wedding anniversary. Walked through the town centre after 5 p.m. in the steamy heat, I found the pleasant but tired main street closed, the nearby unaesthetic shopping plaza the only overt sign of life--until I discovered a cool bar with polished wood and mirrors, good beer, basic food, and memorable rock tunes playing in the background.
This trip is the equivalent of driving from Melbourne to Sydney, except that you pass through eight states and some impressive and intriguing cities, like Worcester, MA, home of Clark University, where Jung and Freud visited in 1909. I liked the look of Hartford, CT, and was impressed by wide rivers, the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and the state-controlled liquor trade in New Hampshire.
Bethel, ME, is home to the National Training Laboratories (NTL): T-groups, management laboratories, and similar processes. Otto and Janet regularly present here and this was Otto's 35th consecutive summer here.
I'm not a great fan of these processes, particularly as the ideas underpinning them don't mix well with my studies in personality and science. Jung's ideas make more scientific sense, which may surprise some. Life, and science, is funny like that: Things aren't always as they seem. NTL processes have their place as long as presuppositions are understood.; I've benefited from similar experiences at home. Type qualifies these processes once you realize that they're about extraverted felling and therefore different for the various types. But I was honoured to be in Bethel, and the NTL atmosphere was genial and friendly, sometimes earnest. I spoke on Australian culture while there, which attracted some interest.
Bethel is a quiet New England town, and the townspeople want to keep a small town flavour. There are tourist shops and restaurants but no fast-food restaurants. The New England architecture is similar to some Queensland homes, climate and culture notwithstanding. Good food and good conversation were the order of the week.
Visiting the Ford Theatre where Lincoln was shot and the house almost directly opposite, where he died, was an enthralling if accidental experience. Later, I met with David Haynes, an Australian staying with Margaret Hartzler, and we chatted broadly on type-related issues. This was also a time for fare-wells--goodbye for some, arranging future contact for others. Perhaps symbolically, my last day was spent shaving my six-year-old beard, which I'd contemplated for some time.
The refrains of Tom Petty's It's Good to Be King claimed me over the airline airwaves to San Francisco, idiosyncratic but with aspects of both Sydney and Melbourne, only this time it's a wake for the well-known local musician Jerry Garcia. Poignantly, a parked car displays a quote from one of Garcia's songs:
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs;
To rock my soul.
My own farewell is now close at hand. The airport beckons, and ultimately the Australian landscape appears. I am curiously ambivalent: I have changed yet am the same.
I entered my last Lake Barcroft morning with a song blaring in my head (I'd never experienced that before)--a favourite tune, with more than one meaning for this working class boy from the Antipodes, as I continue my travels in typeland, and elsewhere:
