Musings On Some Rivers

When I was almost eleven my grandparents and I fled our war-torn, Soviet occupied country, Hungary, into neighboring Austria. In Austria, we landed in a refugee camp in Spittal on the Drau, in the Carinthia region of that scenic country.

Life at D.P. Camp Spittal was pretty dismal, except for one thing. The camp, on the outskirts of the town, was surrounded by a beautiful natural world of snow capped mountains, wildflower meadows, Alpine pastures, waterfalls, rushing wild water brooks and the beautiful Drau River.

I spent most of my spare time by that river, sitting on its bank with my feet dangling into the water, my eyes gazing on the mountains in the distance, and somehow understanding even at that young age that I was a part of something much larger than myself. So those mountains, that clear rushing river, the birds that soared above my head-that entire, enchanted natural world just outside our army barrack camp-saved me from despair and gave my heart hope during the 4 years that I lived in that camp.

When we came to America, in the early fifties, we settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where my grandparents went to work and I went to school. There was a river in Cleveland, too, called the Cuyahoga, with its rust colored water and its Industrial views. That waste abused river, was not the sort of river one muses about fondly, and most people hardly glanced at it as they crossed over it in their vehicles. Of course, this was in the fifties and sixties when the Cuyahoga River was not much more than a waste dump, known for catching on fire and burning. These days, due to a massive clean up effort, the Cuyahoga River actually supports life again.

Now I live in an area blessed with natural beauty, and here there are no less than three rivers for people to enjoy, the Eleven Point River, the Black River and the Current River. The latter is my favorite. The Current River is swift flowing and it is fed by Big Spring, one of America's largest single-outlet springs. Big Spring, in Van Buren, Missouri, rising from the base of limestone bluffs, pours 276 million gallons of water per day into the river.

As the Current River winds its way through our region, it sings its sometimes tumultous, sometimes placid song. The clear, green waters of the river are home to 112 species of fish, and on its bank, and in the sky above it, wildlife thrives. Should you be fishing on the Current in the fall of the year, you are likely to see an Osprey dive in just ahead, and come up with a fish in his talons. Of course, the Great Blue Heron is a patron of the river year round, and Bald Eagles soar the skies here in the winter.

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