Quick Notes from a Road Trip West: Corn and Pastures

Driving from the the eastern third of Iowa to the western third of South Dakota is a long journey from green fields of corn and soybeans to rolling grazing lands. It is to move from seeing farmers wearing feed caps to seeing ranchers in cowboy hats.

Somewhere in the middle of it all is Mitchell, SD, home of the world's only (or so they claim, and who's to doubt?) Corn Palace. It's a medium-sized auditorium/basketball court/exhibition hall right smack in the center of a town of about 14,000 souls.  You've perhaps seen pictures of this "Moorish style" building topped with turrets.  What makes it unique is that each year two of its four sides are covered with pictures and decorations created out of the products of the surrounding farm land...corn, grasses, sorghum, rye, oat heads, sour dock, etc. Each year has a theme; 2013 is-was-"we celebrate"...Christmas, Easter, Memorial and Veterans' Day, to name a few that made the cut. (It was somewhat disappointing to learn that only two of the building's four sides are covered with corn, etc; but that explains why all pictures of the Corn Palace are from the same angle.)

I say the 2013 theme "was" because large sections of the walls are now bare plywood, which the birds pecking  away at the art work may have caused to happen, but also because the Mitchellites seem to start the process in the fall with the harvest. I think you have to get to Mitchell before July 13 to view the Corn Palace at its best.

It's tempting to laugh at this unique example of American folk art, and I probably won't hurry to see it again anytime soon.  But it does represent the pride a relatively small town can take in something unique to it that also happens to draw thousands of tourists each summer. I can't imagine that creating it anew each year is easy and without controversy, but the people persist when they know they have something no one else has.  A tip of the old feed cap to the good people of Mitchell SD!

Bedding down tonight in Murdo SD, pop 670-some. Stomach full of buffalo burger from the Buffalo Bar and Restaurant, consumed in the company of real, hopefully working cowboys, genuinely at home on the range.  America, here we are!

Digging Into My Roots

"When I visit my mother in Iowa she always has a project or two or more for me to do, which is fine because I am glad she can live in her own house at the age of 94 and have jobs for me to do. This time she needed some work done in her yard, and so I spent yesterday and today turning over and raking smooth a small patch of Iowa soil.

"What a joy! After 20+ years of struggling with Ohio's clay, I actually enjoyed working the soil of my childhood and youth, with which I grew up and which I largely took for granted. The midwest's dirt is perhaps the single greatest gift of nature and of nature's god to our nation. It is a rich and fertile ground out upon which we built the bulk of our nation's abundance. The coastal folks may think of us as merely "fly-over country," but this land's bounty keeps their bellies full."

Young Men and Fire

In his 74th year author Norman Maclean (River Runs Through It and Other Stories) devoted himself to researching the 1949 Mann Gulch, Montana, forest fire which claimed the lives of 13 young Smokejumpers. When Maclean died in 1990 at the age of 87 the book remained unfinished. It was later completed by colleagues and published in 1992 as Young Men and Fire.

I read the book a number of years ago, and thought of it as soon I learned of the deaths of 19 firefighters in Arizona. Much about the two events sounds eerily similar, though I neither recall nor know the details of either of them now. As I have looked through Young Men and Fire I have remembered that it went into more detail than I could absorb at the time, interspersed with Maclean’s reflections on old age as he had attained it and on what it must be like to die young.

I offer the following passage from near the end of Young Men and Fire in memory of the young whose lives were consumed by fire in Arizona:

“To project ourselves into (the firefighters’) final thoughts will require feelings about a special kind of death–the sudden death in fire of the young, elite, unfulfilled, and seemingly unconquerable. As the elite of young men, they felt more surely than most who are young that they were immortal. So if we are to feel with them, we must feel that we are set apart from the rest of the universe and safe from fires, all of which are expected to be put out by ten o’clock the morning after Smokejumpers are dropped on them. As to what they felt about sudden death, we can start by feeling what the unfulfilled always feel about it, and, since the unfulfilled are many, the Book of Common Prayer cries out for all of them and us when it begs that we all be delivered from sudden death.

“‘Good Lord, deliver us.

‘From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder; and from sudden death,

‘Good Lord, deliver us.’

“One thing is certain about their final thoughts–there was not much size to them. Time and place did not permit even superior young men dying suddenly ‘to see their whole lives pass in review,’ although books portray people preparing to die as seeing a sort of documentary movie of their lives. Everything, however, gets smaller on the way to becoming eternal. It is also probable that the final thoughts of elite young men dying suddenly were not seeing or scenic thoughts but were cries or a single cry of passion, often of self-compassion, justifiable if those who cry are justly proud. The two living survivors of the Mann Gulch fire have told me that, as they went up the last hillside, they remember thinking only, ‘My God, how could you do this to me? I cannot be allowed to die so young and so close to the top.’ They said they could remember hearing their voices saying this out loud.”

-----

We leave tomorrow for another road trip, this one west. If I notice or experience unusual, funny, touching, or just plain weird things I will share them with you. Not a travelogue, thank you. Check in from time to time to join us on our journey.

Quick Notes from a Road Trip East: Tuesday, June 25

Get this: the house Maria showed us first thing Tuesday morning may be the right one for Jonathan, Liz, Robin and Keira. Better than the other houses we were prepared to visit in Oneonta. Life is in its living, so just go for it.

Beautiful drive home, but longer than we'd expected, in part because we got turned around in Binghamton when I-86 east seemed not to be there as the map showed it would be. Didn't know until we were a number of miles down SR 17 and saw a sign that it is the future I-86. Apparently lack of funding interrupts designating the portion of the road between Binghamton and Elmira as an Interstate highway. I guess the locals all know that, but am not sure why they don't make it clear to passers-through. Maybe they believe life is in its living, so why should I not live a few moments of it in beautiful Binghamton?

New York State's highways and attendant facilities leave a lot to be desired compared to Ohio's, in my humble opinion. But maybe my opinion will change after more trips to and from Oneonta. I expect we will make a lot of them.

Quick Notes from a Road Trip East: Monday, June 24

On our way to Ikea (our morning's entertainment) we passed a Methodist Church with a sign out front that read something like this: "Protect yourself from sunburn with Sonblock."  We'll, maybe it didn't say exactly that, but it's how I remember it. I pondered the message for several minutes, trying to figure out what it meant Perhaps the reason I never figured it out is that I remember it wrong. That's probably as logical an explanation as any I can come up with, except maybe that, in its original state, it was as incomprehensible as I now recall it.

On to Oneonta, NY. While checking into the Rainbow Motel on Oneonta's east side, I casually mentioned to the owner, Maria, that we were in town to scout out rental houses for our other daughter and husband and family, moving to Oneonta from Spokane WA in August. Maria said they had a house they are looking to rent a couple of doors down. She also told us about an agent she knew who might help us. Good thing we tried a mom and pop motel this time. Very nice place, too. I'd stay there again. Give folks a chance and you can be pleasantly surprised. It's often worth it.

Ate dinner at The Yellow Deli, which turned out to be part of something called "Twelve Tribes," which is a sort of a world-wide Messianic restoration-of-Israel commune. Great sandwiches in a place decorated to look like the great outdoors covered with words. Did my $20 go in part to support some kind of cult? Need to check it out. (Update: did check it out, and yep, some think it’s a cult.) When I recall the place now the witch's gingerbread house in "Hansel and Gretel" comes to mind. Give folks a chance and you might want to run the other way.

How many "religions" give rising generations good reason to be wary of all religion!

Quick Notes from a Road Trip East: Sunday, June 23

Easy Sunday morning in Chestnut Hill. Earth-warming sun shone as we walked to the Night Kitchen Bakery to satisfy my need for coffee. A little later, a short walk in Fairmont Park, then salad lunch of Weaver's Way Co-op's CSA greens at home. 

In the afternoon to Philadelphia's Ice Box for the second of The Crossing's three "Month of Moderns" concerts...this one called "The Gulf...between you and me." Inspired by the BP Gulf of Mexico blowout, the works performed invited us to ponder not only the scope of the disaster itself but also its effect on one couple. Also, other kinds of chasms between human beings and between us and nature.  Major work added original art projected on huge white wall. Far out "post modern" music with one more recognizable style of piece thrown in for relief. The Crossing is a unique and extremely talented vocal ensemble doing works few other groups would dare try. We are so proud and pleased that Rebecca is part of it. 

Went out after concert with some of Rebecca and Aaron’s friends and fellow performers. There's an energy in creative folks that I feed off of when I let myself. Diversity seems the rule though I am sure there are limits to tolerance for ineptness, boringness, and conventionality.  Met artist and apparent Renaissance man Steven Bradshaw who engaged me in conversation about 2001: A Space Odyssey. When we got home Rebecca presented me with a belated Father's Day gift: a print of a graphic by Steven featuring the film's famous monolith. Well-planned creative meeting on Steve's part. 

Quick Notes from a Road Trip: Saturday, June 22

I'll never eat breakfast at a Subway again, especially at one housed in a gas station and whose workers are young people who got up far too early...after all, it was only 8:30 am. But if you must eat there (which we felt compelled to do because our motel was handing out $5.00 Subway vouchers to compensate for the closure of the restaurant they had been sending people to for a free full breakfast)...if you must, when the sullen server reaches into the refrigerator to pull out the 8-inch yellow and white disk--a discolored round of something they call an egg--try to pretend you didn't see it.  Don't watch her slap it on the flatbread. But be sure to answer "yes" when she asks if you want it toasted. Imagine eating that cold.

The One World Shop in Ephrata, PA is by far the largest such store I've ever been in. Decent Beans-and-Something wrap at their cafe. Clerk at main desk mentioned her plans to drive to Montana in a couple of weeks, and I told her we'd be doing that next month. She'd made the trip often because it's her husband's home. They sort of count Davenport IA as their jump-off point since they go to the American Pickers' store/museum just north of there. Most sought-after recommendation? Don't miss the Corn Palace. It's decided; we will stop in Mitchell, SD. But I think we will skip the Pickers' place. 

The Bird-in-Hand Farmers' Market is one more sign that the Amish aren't above making a quick buck off the "English." If you go, stay in the food section; skip the kitsch. 

Arrived at Rebecca and Aaron's around 4:30. Nice al fresco dinner at The Cafette down the street. Given lunch, I had to try the ribs. Delicious!