Transcripts For CSPAN2 Lectures 20240704

Told makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. Scroll through and spend a few minutes on cspans points of interests. Okay. Welcome to class today. How is everybody doing . So this is history outside, a field school and finding america, so all semester weve been going to different places around campus and trying to think about what we see, how the landscape impacts where we are think about where we are. So those Big Questions for the semester are, where emily . Whats the next one that where mi . We got where am i . What happened here . And how do i fit into that now quick so we will do that today to think about where mi, what happened here, and how do i fit into it. So to set this up in the longterm, im going to pull a quote from a book called ecclesiastes from the old testament, and ill read it so that dont mess it up, although there are a lot of different versions of it. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not yet full. To the place from which the rivers came, there they return again. The one thing i want us to think about as we look at this creek, that we are standing over, is what happens to water . What happens when it falls from the sky and it lands up the hill near the horseshoe and enough of the drops get together that they rolled downhill and of all past year . I want us to think about this creek. Do we know what the name of this creek is . Rocky branch creek. Rocky branch and its called rocky branch creek, select rocky creek creek or rocky branch branch. I dont know why it has almost everything in it but the title todays lecture is same as it ever was. Rocky branch creek as an american story so were going to reference the talking heads song once in a lifetime and will be talking about how time is plastic and human beings asin pt of time disappear and water disappears. But at the core of it is that these drops of water roll gdownhill and they have been going downhill for centuries peer and more than likely unless theres an earthquake or total catastrophe they will continuehi to roll downhill from this point forward. The one idea that i want everybody to take away from todays class is, this is history outside, field school, finding america. How can we find america here . So one idea is to fate find a low spot and look up. Find the low spot and looked up and look around. Be lookinging to around, looking up and identifying things that are surrounding us. But first lets start off with is this a creek . If you look down this way, you can look back that way. Is this a creek . Does this look like a creek to you . Sean, is this a t creek . I would suggest. Why is it a creek . It fits all the simple definitions of a creek i guess. Except the fact that it is not manmade. Fits the definition of a creek. What would be the number one thing a creek probably needs . Water. So its got that. We all agree thats water down there peer its not a delusion so we got water flowing. How deep is this water . Probably a couple inches. Its flowing side to side. Its moving through. So weve been thinking about looking and listening and smelling and feeling. Tell me what are the materials that you seeyo just right here peer think about how this landscape is an attempt to manage naturalth processes, the attempt to manage water flowingt downhill. What are some thingsth that you see . Concrete. So we got concrete. What are some other things very quickly . So metal. So we can bang on that. Thats metal. What are some other things thatt you see . If you look off the edge of what did you see trapped . Trash. Right. Lots of trash. It is an urban creek so all the plastics in woods and things that flow downhill make it float into beer and many of them have gotten trapped on the pylon beneath this bridge for other things that you see around . Not necessarily human made. What are some things that we see . So we see some trees, some trees curving around the edge. Other things . Grasp. White collar . Green. Weve got the green and what does green mean . Healthy. Healthy, life, photosynthesis, changing all the air we breathe to make it possible for us to breathe. So thinkt about what it is we e seeing and ultimately what i want yoult to contemplate is how what we see here is a map. Its a map of human consciousness and it is ultimately a map of dreams. Though everything reconceived made of concrete, brick or asphalt or steel or the cars, if you look across at a south r Anne Patterson we see these quantum of booker t. Washington auditorium, the black p e center. These are all things that were designed, people had an admission h for them, most all f them there was a committee that met to decide what every going to do and had you raise money to do it. So we may be seeing these buildings, we may be seeing a concrete but behind all of that is an american story and it is a human story, and at the core of it is compromise and conflict. So one thing about waterways is they often form boundaries and often create problems. As we talk today what we are going to impart talk about this at this water is a nuisance why are there steel bars keeping people away . Why hasnt has this beeno shoot water as quickly as possible past this point . What looks dangerous about this water . It like a shallow period that wouldav have anything that can buffer a fall. Okay. So dofo not dive headfirst, for sure. You probably dont want to jump off this bridge peer its not a fun creek,re at least you couldt tube down it probably. What is potentially dangerous question why spend as much money as she spent here to speed this water up . Flooding. The flooding. So what happens to this creek when theres a huge thunderstorm and it dumps a kind of rain on top of those hills and on top of those hills and over there and all that water gets channeled here . This is a couple of inches here. There is a gauge just around the corner down the hill just a little bit. Its normally about a foot, fooa and a half. Last year on Independence Day on july 4th it had its record height of 12. 9 feet. So there was a very big, very fast thunderstorm that dropped i ton of rain and it raised his creek bed at least down there over ten feet. And often will do that in less than an hour and it often drops down less than ours with a very quick, very fast. So this is a problem. We are going to walk up and take a more circular look at whats around us. One idea to think about with rocky branch creek is a pattern that it has, and that is ditch, part, ditch it if you think about that ditch, part, ditch. This looks more like a ditch. Its definitely something designed to get water through quickly. On the other side we are going to go sit in the place that looks more like a part, and there are trees and leaves and its rocky its rocky and it looks like a Little Mountain stream. Just up from that is in another part just up from that is a major ditch and a tunnel, if in another part and vintages so this is an urban stream that has that pattern of ditch, part,r, ditch. Or danger, fun, danger. So were in the dangerous part right now. If youve got your bags were going to slowly walk up here and we are going to congregate right around where the water is coming underneath the street there, an well talk about whats going on around us in the landscape. So a couple things that as were walking through, we think about the look listen smell fear what are you all spelling right now . So its flour so it is springtime. Its columbia, South Carolina, springtime so i guess its going to be about 80 degrees today. We are in late february. What are other things maybe that were spelling . Grass. Flowers in the grass. So we are getting some of these flowering plants up here. How are your feet feeling . Whats the grant beneath your feet . Soft. Its not smooth, right . So its going to cushion us. So we can think about our contrasts and whatro were goingo cross here. This is week street, and its not so much in their anymore but on the old maps of columbia there was wheat and rice and indigo pick these streets. These streets were named after the major Agricultural Products of South Carolina. When wero get into that car era they are going to rearrange some of the streets were in there going to create five points out of a slump, and rocky branch is what created theth swap that hae to had to be dealt with in five points. And so this here is to try to deal with flooding, and its ultimately to try to make it easier for cars to operate around here. Lets move forward here so they can look around. What building do we have over here . Is at a building . It is c a p e center. Doesnt have windows . No. Not many. That at the bottom level. So the competition pool for the gamecock swimming and diving team is on the back part of this building rocky branch flows along the edge of it, but we think about this is a building in the brutalism style or the brutalist style of architecture. Do we know who it is named for . Solomon black. So solomon blatt was speaker f the house. He was board of trustees membera at one point and so they named this building after him. The university did a study of this building and the people that they were named for, and in that study one thing that note is that solomon blatt opposed desegregation, opposed black students attending the university of South Carolina, and used his power to block that. Sot its 1963 when the first black students since the reconstruction era are allowed to enroll on campus here, and the f person for whom this building his name is ne architects to try to prevent that, worked to get at least one faculty member fired because they supported desegregation. So we think about the south and we think about where we are in South Carolina. There is a river of race that runs through all of the history that is here. And so thats part of what we can see in this landscape your weight is the red brick building over here . So this is booker t. Washington. This was the africanamerican high school, the university in the aftermath of School Desegregation in the mid1970s bought booker t. Washington high school and eventually tore down most of it except for the auditorium is here and built things behind it. So east east quad is builta booker t. Gh washington high schl was. To the left is what is known as wheeler hill. This was an africanamerican neighborhood and the university procured, the land from it through urban renewal and ultimately would sell some of it and be part of its foundation. But this part of campus where we are was an African American neighborhood and the university would take over that neighborhood. And the africanamerican residents who were deemed to be living in blighted areas and in a slum area that needed to be torn down for the goodness of the community, would have to move elsewhere, except for a few are still some remaining pockets of africanamerican homes just over this hill. Right. So we have the blatt. We have booker washington obviously named after the defining Higher Education administrator and political figure of the 20th century in the United States as move forward here, we can see these dormitories dominate the landscape that way. Do we know what building is over there, the kind of cream color . Okay, so its the rotc building. So this is the postworld war two period. So this area here is the cold war part of campus. This is the baby boomer part of campus. And so this is where struggles over race. This is where struggles over what america would be in its superpower status. Theyre going to be represented. If you know, the history of the various things in the buildings that are around us. And so the rotc building is there training generations of military officers just right across the way and where were going to end up on the creek bed, the rotc building is going to be directly behind me. I want to point out this Historical Marker, right . So if we go back to the 1860s, go back to the 1850s of a person that lived in this area who would become a Brigadier General in the confederacy, who would be killed at battle of shiloh, at least according to the Historical Marker that is there, of died in 1861. Right. So this area here was a area that was the home of a confederate general and has been commemorated to let, you know, that this is where somebody in history and they were important enough for another group of people to put together some money and put together research to put a Historical Marker in place. All right. So as to think about general gladden was a think about solomon blatt. Some people say blot. I dont know if thats the right way. Say his name, but im from rural is yanna. And so it sounds like black to me. I can say solomon blatt, booker t washington, we have all the places for students live and just across way here is the childrens center. And so if youre thinking about whats the value of history, the value of history is always trying figure out the future, right . So that, you know, history is this compromise between living about the dead in an attempt to try to figure out the best way to create future. Right. And so the Whitney Houstons song, right, the children are future teach them well, let them lead the way. Were trying to teach them well over there. So what were going to do is make our way across which street and as we make our way across the way, you just think about all of the engineer, bring all of the design, all of the dreams, all the plans, all the Committee Meetings that make it possible for us to very easily walk across and were going to walk. Were not even going to get our feet muddy, even for a raining we can getting our feet muddy all the way across and just contemplate all of the human mapping that has gone into place here. The last thing ill say before we leave is if you all turn around and look behind you. So if we think about University Buildings as forests and we think about forests that trees that get cut down to be turned lumber or into paper those dorms are green and they scheduled to come down and if you look, can you see the buildings behind it . What color those buildings over to the red, red brick. And so that landscape, whats going to dominate the valley so youre going to have the gamecock village there thats the gamecock village up here that is supposed to open the upcoming fall, those Green Buildings will be gone so you have red brick on that side and then you will have the older parte of campus on the other se of the rocky Branch Valley tooth outside. The one thing that will be almost certain is the rocky branch is going to be here, and it may behe the same as it ever was. Ro lets take a walk across the street and then we will settle in by the banks of rocky branch. So those are moving along. You can see clues that have been built in about how were supposed to behave in this space. So these arrows tell us if you driving which side of the street youre on. The paint here tells. You dont park here if we look back here. Oh, how they hide the infrastructure. So one of the things we do in this class is look for hidden stories, right . So im pretty sure thats a sewer pipe, right . So things that get flushed go there, but its hidden. You cant see it from the street. Its got a little graffiti on it. But as we move through here, think about planned landscapes. Over to the left is a much have a more heavily planned landscape. But this is a wider landscape of. This is the hostile environment of the water rises here quickly. So these trees have to be able to stay rooted. The studies of this creek show that its not very hospitable place to live. Its got low biological holding capacity. It is. I do not recommend drinking from it. It has very high counts of, bacteria that are in the human intestines. And so when it rains here, broken sewer pipes, other things washed in. So it is a place of bacteria. It is a place where things get washed. If we can take second here to grab a seat, were going to make our way down where theres along the banks here and well talk about rocky branch in a much larger. And as always, when we have a class here on the creek bank, be careful and look for broken glass. And when you sit down, try to make sure youre not sitting on a jagged bottle that has been broken. Okay. Has the smell changed . It has changed. What can you describe that smell . Smell water. You can almost smell the dirty dirty. Oak algae or that category of water funk, which is pretty good category. Its pretty descriptive terms, though. The the wind is blowing this way. So you might be getting things coming off the water from there. So if you smell water funk, blame it on the water. Thats one of the benefits here. You can also probably smell the mud, the dirt thats underneath you. This ground here stays wet for much of the year. I mean, this is where the water rolls down. So thats part of what do we see here as to that concrete chute . Know were just 100 yards or so away. Whats different about this place . Yeah, well, it really has throughout much of the capital, it has its own path. So it looks like it been messed with that much joy. It also seems to be flowing just a little bit like not as fast. So not as fast. Okay. Yeah. So right here, its in a more of a pool stage. So thats designed to get that water out of there fast. Other things that we see here. Yeah, sandbag. There wasnt. Any sand . Okay. Yeah. So weve got a sort of a more natural flow of the water thats depositing sand over there. So theres this, you know, little place. So if you wanted to, you probably go set up a little chair or put something down there and you think, yeah, well trash still plenty of trash. Yeah. Can you identify the product of the trash. I dont want to out there that thats okay. Thats potato chip bag. Yeah. So it was mardi gras not too long ago. And this is a zaps, which was a louisiana potato chip company. And this looks like potato chips in the mardi gras color scheme. So it has gotten stuck on this branch. I was here the weekend a couple of days ago and it was stuck there and it is still stuck there. All right. So it may not be stuck there for very long. It has been for a couple of days. Right. So weve got this creek. How does look if you look that way, does it look like youre the middle of downtown columbia, South Carolina . What does it what does it more look like, emily . Turbulent landscape like it has eyed okay. So looks untamed looks like it has this a great phrase from emily it has it looks like it hasnt been curated by mankind. Right . The waters flowing. There are these bricks. There are. Can anybody does anybody good enough eyesight to see what these trout stream boulders are. Does anybody want to go walk through water . Ive just so lovingly described, just filled with bacteria that can give you serious indigestion and other things and so these are concrete blocks. All right. So these are shards of, concrete that somehow have been placed there and theyre there to slow the water down a little bit. Theyre there to create, you know, more of a natural kind of stream. But from this perspective. Right. And so what happens if were historians and were that were doing in this class, what happens if you just look that way . What kind of stream are we looking at . What kind of feelings you get . So we got that look, listen, smell and feel. What kind of feelings come from there . Well, its something you could see. Okay. So something you see from any hike in any mountain. And its right here. Weve had class here before this semester. Weve talked about being here. But before that time that we met here, how many people had been down here. So nobody. So right in this of close to 20 people, nobody had been down to rocky branch creek. And so one thing about rocky branch is that it is hidden. It is along the edge. It is either covered up, put into a tunnel or is off to the edge of, a space where lots of people go. Right. So there are all of these students in the dorms and yet this is down here the weekend there were people that had hammocks between the trees and it was nice weather and they were enjoying it and the water funk was not a problem for them at that point. Yeah no, joy. Oh, i never even heard of it before. And so you never heard of it before this class. Okay. Yeah. And so it has been here. So heres a quick little primer. So think of rocky branch as an american story part of that is to think human beings in the american era have been in cologne since the 1700s, at least in particular area. Columbia was created be the state capital in a compromise. The upstate and the low country. And so this piece of water that has been flowing through here was flowing at that point when there were Indigenous Peoples living in this area. There was some version of rocky branch creek flowing somewhere near here. Its very likely that it wasnt exactly. We are right now. One of the things that happens over time is that its an piece of water it is a nuisance and people like to move it. And so it is periodically over time literally been moved. So they changed the creek bed. So one question ill throw out is a creek, the water in it or is it the water bed is it the stuff that surrounds it . Is it the container or is it the thing being contained. Yeah, i would think so. Okay. So both yeah. Okay. So just pan so you cant have what would happen if we didnt have the creek here . What happens to water . Where does it go. Okay, okay. Soaks into the ground or it evaporates or it goes wherever. Gravity is going to send it. It just finds its way downhill. Right. And so if we dont have something that is going to contain it and stop at some level, then water just flows, right . So it is a relationship between water and the landscape around. So the water is constantly changing this landscape is a much easier to change this creek bed if youre a water than it is that concrete root. Yeah. So that concrete is designed to handle a lot of abuse, a lot of pressure, a lot of power. Okay. So rocky branch creek, there is a map in the 1890s that show it on the other side of blossom street before this street over here, which is pickens that we know of. So it likely another path when they created five points and they started having commercial things in that points area it flooded too much it was too uncontrollable too unpredictable. So they built culverts. They built ditches. And eventually theyre just going to completely cover up rocky bridge. And so now there is a tunnel that carries branch from the Martin Luther king jr park underneath all of five points. It comes out at the edge of a park up here and. Then thats what were getting here. Is this flow. So its between and six miles of stream. It is something. Not too far away from here. Its almost impossible to find, but its going to very quickly there are very steep hills on each side of it. Those in water through very quickly. So one of the reasons you have such a sharp bank here is how fast the water gets. There are some people that are sitting up to the top. Can you see anything peculiar about the trees on this bank . So we think about the curation, a space by human beings and we think about a space maybe being curated by water. Is there anything you can tell about the way these trees are bent . Sloping. So theyre bent this way, right . So theres one thats almost a 90 degree angle. This tree right here is bent the tree behind, its bent down here. At the bottom level, theres a tree bent up parallel to the water. If we look over here, this bamboo they make, can you tell us anything about the bamboo that maybe is a clue about how inhospitable, where im standing can be. So whats the whats the bamboo doing here . So its that way. So its possible that somebody came through and did this bending and had a long term to just sort of make the stuff been way, but more than likely, its the force of that water when. Those big storms come through and rush through here that if trained the vegetation to be pointed that way and, you can tell how high the water gets through here. You can see some of the debris line along the way. If you look across the way, you can look up and see its a little bit better down the way leaves stuck about. Im standing on the other side and so this gentle stream when it becomes an extreme stream gets very high, it gets very fast, it gets very dangerous. And at the end of todays discussion, ive got a couple of newspaper articles about people that have died in rocky branch over the past century or so. So rocky branch, we think about it as an american story and a columbia, Carolina Story starts. It was the early part of the 20th century known as valley park. This was a white only park, and it remained a white only park until the civil rights era. In the two decades after world war two. In the 1980s, it was renamed Martin Luther king jr park. Theres now the stone of hope monument to Martin King Jr in king park. It has baseball fields they have just tried to slow the water down there and done a massive water slow down project. And so if you go there there are walkways going through a heavily curated natural area so its designed to look like a natural area but part of it is to try to slow things down. So thats there. Then you get to five points, which is an early 20th century development. Diokno at five points is is this an important part of your life in college . Oh, i know they have changed some of the rules about drinking and its really hard to get around illegal id and be able to drink under age anymore. And so five points has changed a little bit. So right, that landscape has changed because laws have changed. But nevertheless bars, restaurants, youth, clothing, stores, vinyl records, it is it is not aot highly polished nw place. It is a place with Old Buildings in it. It goes underneath five points. It comes out by the railroad track, shoots to Maxcy Gregg Park. Maxcy gregg park to start in the early 20th century becausewh without a whole lot that could be done with that wet area so they turned it into a part. It flows under pickens which is one of those busy streets, and it ends up here. From miracles by the blast here it goes by what used to be the train station. That goes downhill and rolls through as a ditch, goes under assembly street and it goes into the textile mill area. So those textile mills start in the late 19th century. The biggest textile mill in the world at the time was olympia mills. I think some of you enter might actually live in olympia mills. Its the a really large, dutiful apartment complex mostly for students. So textile mill operated for several decades and were the anchor to South Carolinas economy. And this piece of water rolled through it. This piece of water was a place that people that the people that work in the textile mills were certainly familiar with. And then what happens after that . Does anybody see rocky branch that lives in a textile mill area . It pretty well hidden peer it does go through one part thats down there. How many people know aboutut the quarry . So if you look on google maps, look at satellite maps, what is right by the river if we keep going that way . Its a big, huge hole in the earth there is i think theres a 5k race now will you can run down to the bottom of the quarry and run back up. Me that quarry is not something that was there a halfcentury ago. And rocky branch had to be moved. So as the quarry developed as a dogy more dirt and rocks out of that place they moved rocky branch. They couldnt move it farther than where it is now because itl butts up against the railroad track. Budget flows into the Congaree River. So weve got five or six miles upstream that rungh through columbia and make their way to the congaree, and then if we follow the ecclesiastes from 502200 or 2500, however many yes ago that was written, where does this water dell . Eventually. To the ocean. From a political stance where . To the sea. So its going to historically flow through the santee river to the sea. So we got a rhyme scheme for a p to stampede to the sea. What happens in the 1930s to where this water is headed rex think about lake marion, Lake Moultrie. If we look at theif big map of South Carolina there are these giant lakes that form from the santee river that are created in the new deal. Why do they create what were they trying to get . What did this water have in it that the federal government and the mayor of charleston and the governor of South Carolina and all these, why do they want to cut out all these trees, buildings enormous dikes in dams to damn up the santee, to take this water thats coming from rocky branch . What were they wanted froman it . Energy . Energy. So they are building essentially Holding Ponds of electricity and theyre going to build these powergenerating facilities that will take that water come run it through turbine and electrify rural South Carolina. And so if we think about that american story, the water that falls in such heavy quantities here and gets shot down into the Congaree River for the rocky branch creek, makes it into the congaree, joins up with a water leak, joins up eventually with the santee. And its a source of power to turn light bulbs on, to fire up factories, to bring modernization to what was then seen as a backward South Carolina. Now theyre also going to displace a lot of human beings that lived in that area. They are going to have to move out. A mb its mostly timber and is mostly agricultural areas but the new deal fundamentally transformed the landscape your so is this water the same as it ever was . Is this just water running into the sea . Wi or can you with enough money, with enough engineering, with enough dreams built enough dams and dikes to turn it into something that makes the night into day, that extends things all 24 hours during the day . Is it the same as it ever was . So that would eventually flow into the sea. What they will find out is that not enough water was going down the santee river into the sea, and so far Lake Moultrie they build another dam, they built another Diversion Canal that will take some of the water from Lake Moultrie and send it back into the santee river and in the rest of the water continues down the cooper river. If you know the cooper river bridge in charleston, some of the water from here theoretically could be building underneath that bridge or it could be rolling through the santee river out to the atlantic ocean, out to the sea. We arere just in one little spot here, but there are many problems of the story that emerge from it. So were going to get a little closer toward the end and want to throw out a couple of ideas of what has happened here alone rocky branch. Before we do that i want to ask some questions. Why do we have time in the way that we tell it . Why do we have a calendar the way that it is set up . Ha why do we have seconds and minutes . Why dont we do we havo tell time . How the sun is right now. S per okay. Spur okay. So how the sun rises and sets. What of our senses that weve been using today, whats the ono the most important for historically arriving at our current way of telling time . We think of the sun rising and setting. Our site. Right. So light wins out. Vision wins out and how time works and thats much quicker. Throughout this idea of why did human beings not tell time by water . T why did they not tell time by rivers and creeks and streams . The ocean is pretty predictable, right . There are tides, waves that come in. Seems like you can probably devise something. Why does the site win out . Why does that become the way we tell time . Water is everywhere spur okay, water isnt is everu may not live next to a piece of water. How predictable though is water . So if youre going to predict the future based upon rocky branch creek, most of the time what does it do . S its of this, right . This would be a really long day. Its like well, it still added foot so weve been in a really long day, i think it would get up really high ended would drop down like that was a whole year, right . What is the thing about how ouro conception of time, how we structure who we are and how we function in life is based upon these concepts that we had no choice in, but weve accepted it and we now how do you know what time it is . Can you look up at the sign and get out a sundial and figure it out . We need a basic idea about what time it is. Spur okay. So you have to look at a clock. We now have machines that keep our time for us that i think most of them are set for the naval observatory clock. So we got this Nuclear Clock to try to keep exact time. We are as in sync timewise as at any point in human history. But what happens if the electricity goes out . And the clocks stop . Does time stop . Then what do we have to rely on . We would have to look around and kind of figure things out and just like okay, the sun is getting low. So electricity, the segmentation of time are things that weve been trained to accept. So one idea for us to constantly is the role that historians play in understanding time. And so ill throughout this notion thatti historians are people throw out people been trained in the science and art of time. And we decide how much time were looking at. We decide when something starts and when something is. But how much of that is as imposing our vision on time . S so we are setting up e parameters we could take a creek here in this creek has been fully here, these drops of watr have been rolling through here. They will go up into the sky, i come back down again and it will be the cycle over and over again. But how long are human beings around for that . How long do you expect to live . How long you expect to live . Seventy, 80. So the average age of death in the United States is somewhere in the 70s for white women. Its about ed, right . There are different factors thar come into it but some are in the 70s, 80s thats kind of what humanha life in the industrialized parts of the world come to. So we got about lets say 80 years here. If everything goes okay, right . As a historian we decide what kind of time were going to be dealing with. So this is where ill throughout a couple of lines from david byrne and the talking heads which i had you all listen to. What did yall think of the song onceinalifetime and has that phrase same as it ever was. Anybodyy have a quick spur its one of my moms favorite songs ive been familiar with it but it never really thought about the literature. One of your moms favorite songs. Your mom is pretty cool i guess, right . Other things . Bill, you shook your head. Its just a good song. A good song. Go its got a good beat. You can dance d tutor you all tt reference, thats dick clark, there was a tv show on the weekend and so that was always with the kids would say when they were setting a record, its got a good beat, you can dance to it. Anything else about this . This song . The same as it ever was mean . Granted this is a so you get to decide what it means. We are not necessarily concerned about the five songwriters that created it. What is this about . S will, youre an expert on tim. Yeah, im a history major so i guess i am. Its kind of about how things will continuet to happenth regardless of us. I think it talks a lot about water flowing, continue to flow underground. As you touched on it, its going to continue to happen here, happen everywhere regardless of us sitting here spur okay. Happens. Water flowing underground. Let the water hold me down i read a couple of these lyrics here. Starts off you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. Another part of the world. You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. We are in an automobile world and culture. You may find yourself in a Beautiful House with a beautiful wife and ask how did i get here . Thats partly what this class is having you address. Where am i . What happened here . How do i fit in . How did i get here but we just walked a little bit ended up on the creek bank on the edge of campus, university of South Carolina. We can say howay we got here today, but in the bigger broader sense the song is asking some of those questions that the writer or writers of ecclesiastes was asking. A few things here, water flowing underground into the blue again after the money is going. Gone. So what happens after the money what happens thats so important to human beings, whats left, water is left, what meaning does this water have you take the human meeting away from it . Water dissolving, water removing. These lines here, time isnt holding up. Time is an asterisk peer time isnt holding up your time is an asterisk. Theres water atr the bottom of the ocean. Where is that highly go to . And my right, am i wrong . My god, what have i done . So this is of the talking heads. This song came out around the time that i was about fifth grade, sixth grade i spent most of my life thinking that the lyrics of this song said, these days go by eating water chestnuts, okay . So for much of my life when i sing the song in my head i think these days go by eating water chestnuts pier so thats whats in my head but we didnt have the internet when i was in fifth grade or sixth grade. You had to go buy the album to get the lyrics for a. Sometimes they didnt have the llyrics in it. Sometimes you didnt know what the lyrics were but never can look them up and go to david byrnes journal, website and look at it by the way i will say he has a really good book called bicycle diaries, where he takes a folding bicycle onto were invited around the places where he was performing and writes these essays about what its like to be david byrne riding his bicycle around places around the world. So highly recommend that. Its one of our books in our long bibliography of books. So we think about time being an asterisk. We think about time dissolving in water dissolving. These are a few things that it happened along rocky branch creek. 1903, girl charged this is ah headline. Group charged with heinous crime alleged to have thrown her baby new board in. There was a big trial, a big court case that comes out of the spirit in 1908, the university of South Carolina builds the w thompson infirmary which later gets new building that will be known as the Thompson Health center. This is designed to have an isolation wing so that when people have diseases that are communicable, you can separate them. We all went through the pandemic year and understood, so 1908 they are trying to figure out how to have students liveth together without making each other sick. Part of the description of that is that there were beautiful views of the rocky Branch Valley. So you could look from the hill up there down here and see all the trees below. 1909, headline, that his death in front of car. White men killed near rocky branch saturday night. Much of the newspaper is goingce to identify the race that somebody killed in the headlines. 1909, Maxcy Gregg Park is going to be identified and thats basically what its going to be set up for it exists today. So 110 plus years ago that part, the land for it, becomes part of the part thats over there right now. 1913, car fell from rocky branch bridge gear train station paining the wife in killing her. So the train station is now for california dreaming restaurant thats over there, and so there was a car accident in that area. A little over a hundred years ago where a woman died in the accident. 1914, the local newspaper wrote this about rocky branch i want you to compare 110 or so years ago to what you were seeing here today. Rocky branch, which iss ordinarily a grubby little town stream filled with oil here, smutty and dingy there, on sunny spring days almost spring, sunny spring days actually sparkled through a bank for clique carpeted with new suits and tangled lines of honeysuckle to its dirty, filled with oil, its a smudgy. But at the right angle in the right slant of light you can see the flowers and the greenery thats there. A few months before the stock market crash in 1929. This was the description of rocky branch. It was like a capricious woman, swinging first this way and then that. Washing out a great curve here and left a sandbar there, and is made uncommonly pretty little pebble strewn beaches, little sandbars over. Long legged mockingbirds walkedk the beach like flappers on the strand at myrtle. So even in 1929 they were referring to myrtle beach as what, the dirty the dirty merck. Used use editor thats the ol chamber of commerce description of myrtle beach. 1949 massive floods. 1956 massive floods. Exploding over its banks in every big rain. 1957, mr. Leach fell into rocky branch Near Assembly street after watching a baseball game. Someone held his head out of the water to keep them from drowning. 1961, a massive storm goes through and leadsto rocky branch as a raging torrent. On june 3213, 1961, 2 young black men drowned in rocky branch during that flood. About a decade later in 1974 there was a Major Oil Spill thats going to file the waters of rocky branch. And file. Think about some of things that happen happened here. Another ill mention in 1970 in may at Kent State University four people were killed by the National Guard. That is going to trigger student protest and antiwar protest here at the university of South Carolina which will lead to the National Guard coming in here in the state police. And just up rocky branch on the other side of pickens street in Maxcy Gregg Park, an actress named jane fonda was f in the ld speaker of an antiwar protest, and the local tv cameras filled her. So rocky branch heading off to the edge of the part is the sight of one of the major student protests in columbias history pure and and se oncampus at that point, most of them remember that moment quite clearly. So as we think about, and we will close things out here, whal should we remember about rocky branch . Its an american story. Its a human story. Or is it just water flowing downhill . Is there anything that sticks out you that maybe we should remember . I was going to say its just water and like the stories that come out. Of it have been like human interactions spur okay. So it humans interacting with the landscape, or interacting near the water. The water doesnt care. At least as far as the wonder twins, if you watch any of those old cartoons, they were all about water entering water into different things. Ci water seem to have a consciousness for them, but for the most part water its hard to figure out if it has a consciousness. Th but is that human consciousness. Thats what were here for, thats the stories we tell them how human beings have interacted with us landscape anything else we want to remember about rocky branch . Its kind of cool to thinkth that theres been so much history even though its like pretty much a gross little creek. People thought that for years. So its a gross little creek . We should probably turn that into the subtitle of todays lecture, rocky branch, a gross little creek. People have stayed sas for years. Im not desperate youre a customer can pick your just saying whats in evidence, right. The potato chip bags and there are other things floating in it, but in the right light, with the right breeze flowing, it can be not just a grubby little creek. It can be a beautiful place. And where i want to end were almost to take 15 seconds and not talk and look at the water as it makes its way so as return and look, we have taken a moment of history outside and look at this 15 seconds and will become a seat and move and hopefully leave noo trace and nobody will know we are here. Maybe that will be remembered but they remember. Lets take 15 seconds and then we will be done. [silence] thats the same as it ever was. Thank you. Weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual piece. Every sediment American History tv documents american stories andundays book tv bring the latest in nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan2 comes from these Television Companies and more. 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