Endings are Better than Beginnings

Journal 2005 10 07     

“OK honey, we are leaving at six AM, that’s six AM, not PM. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and need to get an early start. Can you do it? Can you be ready to go?” I’ve asked this accusing, condescending form of a question to my wife many times over the past two decades. In an illustration of her grace, her answer is ever more gracious than my question. Maybe a similar line of questioning is familiar in your home when packing for a trip. If you are someone who actually gets out of the driveway by six am I tip my hat to you and envy your ability to rally all your troops without any bloodshed.

At our house there are usually acerbic words and short responses exchanged as six o’clock comes and goes and you realize that if you hit the trail by six pm you’ll be fortunate. I think the Corps of Discovery had one of those delayed departures today. Plans were to move west from Canoe Camp down the Clearwater River this day marking the first day of downstream travel since Meriwether Lewis and young George Shannon left the Ohio River and headed up the Missouri late last summer.

The habit and pattern of the expedition was to rise at first light and set out early. Breakfast would be made later in the morning after a couple of hours of progress had been made. This pattern would not shape the record of this day. In my house, I won’t assume you would press everyone to the point of frustration like I do, getting into the car and backing out the driveway to begin the journey can become the point where the pent up frustration of last second packing and loading is released. A short trade of accusations and off we go. Looks to me like William Clark released a bit of frustration in his record of this day. His friend Meriwether Lewis continued to be too sick to do any work. Clark does not feel much better than Lewis but proceeds anyway. “I continu verry unwell but obliged to attend every thing…” This is about as close to a rift as we’ll ever come with the Captains and it is far from that. Clark is sick and so is Lewis. Clark has been running the camp and Lewis has been incapacitated. Ever felt like you were doing all the work and not getting the help you should have? My guess is William Clark felt that way today.

Finally, camp was broken down, the canoes were loaded and the party set out. With the current! Going with the flow, not struggling against it. The men pass many rapids and make almost twenty miles before sunset. Twenty miles in two or three hours! Twenty miles was a good day of travel upstream against the current and required all day. The men must have felt a sense of exhilaration at the prospect of covering fifty or more miles per day. Optimists would conclude that sixty to one hundred miles could be covered in a day. “Ocean in view,” could be announced in less than two weeks if that were the case. At one hundred miles per day the trip takes less than a week. At fifty, a little more than a week. Ever plan a two-week road trip? How well does your itinerary pan out? God bless you if all goes as laid out on the kitchen table and computer maps.

Like me, Heaven forbid like you, William Clark can’t find his tomahawk peace pipe and the Nez Perce chief and his son who were to accompany the expedition. They left anyway. As I said yesterday, “It was time to go.” King Solomon, the pinnacle of wisdom, observes this process of setting out and records for posterity, “Endings are better than beginnings. Sticking to it is better than standing out.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8)