The following is from David Allen Evans (evans@brookings.net), written 15 years ago and shared at the ASCAP Meeting in July 1998. It is posted with his permission. He comments:
"In this personal essay I discuss, among other things, the hills and bluffs of Sioux City, and the good feeling I got as a boy and still get, as a man, from being able to stand on a high place and see, as the clich� but true expression goes among prairie dwellers, 'as far as the eye can see.'
"Here are two paragraphs from the essay, called, 'The Place of Your Dream':
"The desire to get up high and the satisfaction we feel when we can take in so much beneath us, must be part of our biological inheritance. Almost all vertebrates, when challenged, inflate to make themselves look gibber and taller. When they lose a fight or argument they deflate and slink around with an averted eye, and appease the winners. When they win they strut, tall and confident.
"We humans are no different, but we turn the biology into words that parallel our actions. We too get our hackles and our hair up. We put lifts in our shoes to appear more formidable, get pumped up for contests, vie for the tallest trophies and the position of top dog. We look up to our parents. We shoulder responsibilities as well as heroes, dead or living. We elevate our gods to the sky, and heavens to aspire up to. We bow and scrape to superiors and overlords, those over us. Or, as high brows, we raise our supercilious eyebrows and snub low brows, inferiors and underlings. We hold summit conferences, build capitols on hills for our chiefs (heads or higher ups), who step up to power or step down out of it. We feel down or downcast or low when things go badly, high or up when they go well."