Final Reading of The Same River Twice

In this final section of Chris Offutt's memoir, Chris comes to terms of where his wanderings across America have led him, and he also faces the reality of having a child.

First off, I'll throw in a few words I looked up to help me understand the reading. Scow is defined as any of various vessels having a flat-bottomed rectangular hull with sloping ends, built in various sizes with or without means of propulsion, as barges, punts, rowboats, or sailboats. Transient was another word, and it means not lasting, or transitory. Finally, lulling means to soothe or quiet.

Offutt at the beginning of this section meanders down to Florida, where he gets a job at a park in the everglades. The park, as described by Offutt, was less than stellar to be sure. He describes as being bitten by mosquitoes an average of "one hundred and fifty bites per day. [He] soon developed something of an immunity" (page 158).

Offutt describes the work at the everglades to be fairly dehumanizing. He says that "we were de-evolved humans who'd chosen proximity to the foundations of our existence...the glades were America's version of the French Foreign Legion, and the meager pay kept us all locked in harness" (page 160). The simple and harsh nature of living at The Flamingo brings Offutt a lot closer to man's primitive state of life. The food is bad, the work is rough, but Offutt pulls off a living none the less.

Soon a hurricane comes to hit Florida. As the hurricane approaches, Offutt spends some time pondering what his journeys have meant to him. Offutt writes that "years ago, I'd left Kentucky and set into motion a pattern of repetitive exile that had ended by droppping me into a rapidly sinking swamp.I had entered the world to become a man and wound up truly caring about very little. Most of my life had been a sequence of halfhearted attempts at self destruction...Now I faced a worthy death" (page 169). This quote stood out to me as being pretty important. Throughout all of Offut's travels, he realized that he ultimately had grown to care less and less about most things in life. Offutt, through a path of various odd jobs, had ended up in the foul existence of the swamp, and thought he had reached the bottom. He figures since he's dropped this low, he might as well experience a worthy death by a mighty hurricane.

Also, speaking of the mighty hurricane, I thought Offutt did a great job describing how he saw the hurricane through his eyes. He writes that "the wind slowed as Jacob's tentacle followed its spiral path" (page 171). I just liked how the word tentacle was incorporated in describing the hurricane.

Chris, now unsure of what to do next in life, quits his job. After a few months he meets his future wife, Rita. He considers following suit to his old pattern of life and leaving, but she convinces him otherwise. After moving into a house by the river, Offutt writes, "I had my goddess. I had my temple. The prairie spread in every direction" (page 177). Offutt finally finds something to keep him in one place-a companion. Life is hard to go through alone, with nobody there to be able to share all your feelings with. This may be one underlyinig reason why Offutt was so frustrated with his traveling life; he had nobody to share his experiences with. That's why he wrote everything in his journal, he felt a need to express himself somehow.