Yesterday was so
overwhelming with experience and culture shock that I couldn’t even muster the
energy to sit down and write. Not to mention I was away from my laptop from
almost the second I got home from school until 12:00 that night. The reason
posts are coming out about every other day, instead of every day, is each post
is about 12 pages in size 11 font in Microsoft word. I have to proof-read them
all at least twice, I have to add pictures, and I have to experience all the
things that I blog about before I can blog about them which is equally as time
consuming.
I met a
character yesterday, whom I will profile today, that rendered me completely
unable to do anything but process that Quinter, Kansas, and the people in it,
actually exist.
But before I
delve into the rich fertile writing soil Kansas and it’s many distinguished
Kansan’s have to offer, let me say this:
I really need to work on my transitioning
skills.
My entire life I
have been driven to school. So there wasn’t really a time crunch. I could wake
up, and leave when I was ready. Now I take the school bus. I don’t know if it’s
because I come from a really “‘lax” culture, or what, but things happen very
suddenly here. For instance… You could be sitting in Caitlyn’s kitchen,
watching the dogs roll around like seizure patients, when all of a sudden you
hear “Bus is here!” You blink, both Collin and Caitlyn are already sitting on
the bus. Meanwhile, you are panicking inside. You are speeding through your
mental checklist like a NASCAR racer, and miraculously you manage to pack up
your entire bag and be out the door in 30 seconds, when (if you’re like me at
least) you stop and realize…
You aren’t wearing
any shoes.
If this is the
case, if your morning plays out anything like mine did, you will sprint back
into the garage which will be pitch black and be frantically feeling around on
the ground in the dark for your shoes. You will try to put them on in the dark
on the garage, and eventually realize you aren’t stuffing your feet into your
black knee high lace up boots, but the rain boots of an 11 year old boy. Once
you correct this blunder and find your
shoes, you remember that they have laces
and zippers. This will compel you to grab your shoes and run barefoot
through the snow onto the bus because you don’t know anything about “bus
culture” and are too scared it will leave without you.
That was my
morning.
Or at least the
start of my morning.
Once on the bus,
I sat down in the first available seat. I look over and realize I just nearly
squashed a little blonde 4 year old to death. She seems unfazed. “Hi.” She
says, smiling to expose her alarming lack of teeth (I forgot kids lose teeth.
Luckily my recoiling in disgust was showing only in my brain, not on my face.)
She looked at me up and down obviously confused. “Hey! Lady” She asked me.
“Yah?” I said, trying to be friendly and none threatening. “Did you know you’re
not wearing any shoes?” I laughed hysterically, this confused her more. “Let me
show you! This is what you’re supposed to do with them.” She pointed to my
boots in reference to “them” then pointed to her light up sneakers. “See. The
laces are to hold them on your feet.” She explained, with a very serious look
on her face. She then went on to inform me my phone case is too scary to take
out in public, and then go off on a tirade about, I kid you not, the declining
quality of juice these days. I love this small blonde person.
I’m a bit hesitant
to post a picture of her, as she’s young and I don’t know her family at all, so
I’ll paint a picture with words.
She was wearing
a little hair bow in her straight little blonde hair. She had a purple knit-cap
that she kept putting on and taking off, she had really high up socks, and as
aforementioned, light up sneakers.
She doesn’t have
any front teeth, or many back teeth either, which gives her an adorable
baby-doll lisp. I don’t know her name because when I asked it she responded,
“That’s not important.”
Also, all the
little girls I’ve seen wear these adorable super long skirts with corduroy or
polka dot patterns. These skirts are really
long. It’s like they’re wearing entire linen set around their waste. I at first
thought this was a fad or a style choice. I chose to only wear dresses from 2nd
through 6th grade, so it wouldn’t have surprised me. Wrong again.
They’re so devoutly Christian that they are forbidden to wear pants because
they’re women. I didn’t think that ever happened anymore (save that one crazy
cat lady from Ohio who was on wife swap who wouldn’t let her daughters wear
pants.) That’s really great for me to be aware of, I knew in the back of my
mind that super conservative Christians were out there, but I had no idea that
entailed anything else besides saying grace, attending church, and all that
stuff. I basically thought it meant a lot of extra praying. Apparently a large
portion of the world reads the Bible before they go to sleep every night. I had
no idea this was a thing.
I have found
myself saying, “Is that really a thing?” A lot over these past few days. It all
started off around the time of the corndog, and then kept going from there.
Most recently I learned Bobbi…
Oh wait! Another
few redactions!!
Bobbi spells her
name with just an “I” no “E”. Bobbi, not Bobbie. Also the deer Collin shot
wasn’t a caribou it was a red stag. Also, I was wrong about K-State tuition.
It’s $1600 per semester, not for the
whole year. Hahaha, oops.
Bobbi's amazing locker all prettified
Her matching K-State outfit of Friday
Anyways…
Pretty bird she drew
Bobbi sticks her
gum behind her ear when she isn’t chewing it. Yes, that is a thing. I like
Bobbi too much to share my thoughts on that.
Bobbi is trying
to sign up for a network trip to Putney, so let’s get excited!!!!!!!!!!
Another thing
that I just don’t understand with the transitioning is the bell system. As I’ve
mentioned before I’ve never been in a school with a bell. Every school I’ve
attended has run on island time, you know, “We’ll get there when we get there”
type thing. For instance, in middle school, sometimes I would hand in a paper
and wouldn’t get it back for a month, maybe two. Or I would take a 6th
grade math test, and sometime in the middle of 7th grade I would
find out the score I got on that test.
At Putney I get
things handed back right away and usually with thorough comments and
descriptions, but class isn’t at an exact time, like at Quinter, the classes go
from super exact times, like 11:47 to 12:59. The bell rings at 11:47 to start
and 12:59 to end and when the bell rings to start everything starts and when it
rings to end everything ends, really suddenly. At Putney class starts “around 12:30.” You get to class sometime
between 12:20 and 12:45. All the technical kinks get worked out, (copying extra
papers, last minute printing, running back to your dorm for a book, etc.) and
things get going when they get going. This is what I am used to.
Here, the bell
rings and everyone is out of the classroom before the ringing stops (the ring
is an average of 10 seconds.) This was at first very flustering for me. Because
you have all of your stuff out on your desk until the end of class, even though
there is a 10 minute bell to alert you that class is almost over. But everyone
packs up and is gone in a split second. Because after the bell rings, you only
have a certain time to get to your next class before you are late. If I’m a few
minutes late, I usually can say something like, “Sorry I was coming all the way
from Reynolds” or “New Wing’s printer wasn’t working.” Here, if you’re late
you’re marked late and I don’t know specifically what happens (they aren’t keep
track of that for me as I am a network student.) But when that bell goes off,
especially over the first few days, I sprint to my next class like I have a
bomb vest strapped to my chest. I am in full drive. In short, I’m still getting
used to the bell.
I saw Collin
ride his 4-Wheeler today before I got lost in my host family’s house. Before I
tell you about that, let me start by saying Collin has a really sick 4-wheeler
that he drives really great, and an epic helmet with silver skulls on fire.
Anyways… I lived
a freaky scene from a horror movie in real life.
When they said
their business was at their house, I didn’t really think much about it. I
assumed they ran the business from
their house, like had a home office. No. No not at all.
Collin asked if
I wanted to see his 4-Wheeler. I told him I definitely did. While I was putting
my shoes on, he took off. So I started walking in the direction it looked like
he’d gone in to try to catch up with him.
Understand, the
level of naivety this took me, to forge out into a dark corner of their house
having no idea where I was going. It’s like when you see someone in a horror
movie, and they hear something in their basement, and they go down alone
without turning on a light or telling anyone else where they’re going, to
investigate. That’s how absolutely brainless this decision was of me.
I walked through
a dark room filled with boxes and stuff, found a door, pushed on it, and BAM. I
was in a giant storage warehouse with a tractor and an RV and tons of pick up
trucks, and it stretched on FOREVER.
There was a scary giant spiky green thing,
and then a giant metal garage door. I looked behind me to go back, but there
were 4 doors and I had no clue which one I had gone through, and
all the rooms were dark, so I couldn’t look in and see if I recognized
anything.
I figured, “Why
don’t I just go into one at a time until I find my way out?
I’ll tell you
why. Because, again, the rooms were totally completely dark. So I would have no
idea if I was in the right room because dark looks the same everywhere in
Kansas. Not only was I uneasy about going into a dark room in a strange house
with all these extra extensions no one had formally mentioned before, but also
I realized—what if I went through a door in the crazy dark room thinking it
would get me back to the house, and it was another
crazy dark room? Then I would be lost in a never ending string of crazy dark
rooms.
Also…Terra or
Tom or Caitlyn or Collin if you’re reading this I apologize. But since I was so
flustered, I didn’t really remember they had this huge chemical business. So my
first thought about why they must have all these big vehicles and extra giant
space was, (and remember at the time I was so panicked that this seemed completely
logical to me)
The only
explanation could be…
They’re serial
killers who live in the middle of nowhere so people won’t suspect anything or
know where to look for the victims, and the big dark rooms were for tying them
up and torturing them like in the movie Saw, before they eventually killed them
and stored them somewhere on the property.
Once I was
reached this conclusion and believed in it with unshakable certainty, my
adrenaline levels shot through the roof. I was going all over their giant warehouse
space looking for a way out. When all of a sudden, the garage door, the HUGE garage door opened. Which
meant I wasn’t alone. My first instinct was to run for the garage door because
it was a way outside where maybe, just maybe, someone would hear my screams. I
was running for the door when I heard a noise that sounded exactly like a chainsaw. (It may be worth mentioning I watched
every Saw movie ever made, all 8 of them, consecutively without sleeping for 24
straight hours in 7th grade.) I thought the end was in sight.
Nope.
It was the sound of Collin tearing past on his dirt bike. But he was gone
before I could ask him where I was or how to get back. I ran out of the garage
door before it could close, and boom!
I was staring down the menacing grill of a MACK TRUCK. These quiet mid-western
people had like 50 cars and a MACK TRUCK in the back of their crazy expansive
house I hadn’t heard anyone talking about before, and I lost it and I don’t
even know how I ended up where I ended up next. But I found myself with a ton
of GIANT tanks filled with what I could only assume in my totally irrational
panicky state, were decomposing bodies.
Then I saw crazy
giant huge gasoline holding containers, the kind that look like soup cans. They
were painted a devilish bright red. This incited yet another panic because
there’s always freaky colored stuff in horror movies, like randomly placed
giant red soup cans of gasoline in the people you’re living with’s backyard,
and this freaky colored thing is super flammable and could explode and I took
off.
I don’t really
know how I got to where I got to next, but I found myself surrounded by cats.
I
had seen cats roaming around their property before, but I didn’t recognize any
of these cats. So of course, my first thought, “OMFG THEY’RE CAT HOARDERS.
THEY’RE SERIAL KILLER CAT HOARDERS!!!!” So here I am in this frenzied state
with all these cats, there were 6 where I was and Collin drove by and told me
they had EVEN MORE cats than just the ones I had seen. Plus I had already seen
a ton of cats walking around besides these cats. But since I finally found
Collin he finally showed me how to get back in inside, and it turned out crazy
cat alley was only like 2 feet from the front door and I was too crazed to
realize it.
In retrospect, I
realized they have their entire huge chemical company at their house. I also
realized if I hadn’t been so worked up (I was already exhausted and in a state
when I embarked on this part of my day) I would have realized Collin drove by
me like ten times, and I didn’t even realize it. I also realized that they had a
ton of people working at their business and if I had realized that I could have
stopped and asked any one of them how to get back inside. They aren’t cat
hoarders or serial killers. They have lots of warehouses for all their business
stuff, and they only have like 6 or 7 cats and the cats live outside. I just
didn’t recognize the cats because I hadn’t seen them up close. So yah. That was
my first experience looking at the rest of their house.
Collin’s
4-Wheeler is actually pretty sweet though. I have an epic video of him driving
it out of the giant garage from after I had gotten my bearings and had the
nerve to return to crazy giant warehouse of corpses and death. Check out the
video, you’ll know why I suspected it to be a chainsaw.
I have a new
favorite food. I tried canned grapefruit for the first time. 64oz Del Monte
Sugar Free Grapefruit Segments to be exact. And I love them. It’s all of the
grapefruit flavor with none of the grapefruit peeling and poking at it with the
maniacal sharp spoon and all the other unpleasantries associated with
grapefruit preparation. It’s the grapefruit pink flesh without any of the white
part. It’s heavenly.
I also learned there is a completely different line of
sodas or “pop” as they say in Kansas J That they don’t sell in the Northeast.
The one I encountered was Squirt. It’s really good. It’s like a mountain-dew
flavor accept it’s white. Lemon lime soda, but extra fruity.
We had it with
pizza from the pizza station, which I really hope we eat at again before I
leave. I need to find a good place to take my host family to dinner, so any
Western Kansans who are reading this, let me know if you have any thoughts.
I’m going to
talk about the rest of yesterday’s events backwards, starting with what
happened when I returned home from school then going on to talk about what
happened when I was at school.
Yesterday was my
host family’s company Christmas party, because this was the only time it worked
for everyone in the company. It was really sweet. Everyone knew everyone,
obviously. It was at a restaurant called Wertz Street Social Emporium.
The
service was eh, the food was eh, and the ceiling looked like it was about to
crash down onto my fragile little skull. The memorable part of the evening,
however, was I did have a steak for the first time.
When they say "meat and potato" they mean that literally apparently.
Steak just isn’t my thing.
It was also way over cooked, and the bacon it was wrapped in was literally raw.
Like, pink. But Terra was incredibly nice and welcoming to me, announcing my
presence to everyone in the room, and having them all introduce themselves to
me. I ate from the salad bar for the night.
Then they took pictures, and
although I had a double chin in all of them, that was really fun.
Collin played
on my phone for a little while, then it died. So I sat with Caitlyn in the
lobby of the restaurant on a really uncomfortable bench that was falling apart.
They had a giant bowl of Dum Dum lollipops, Caitlyn had a couple of the blue
raspberry ones and they turned her tongue blue.
I got a butterscotch one,
forgot about it, and it melted in my pants pocket.
For almost three hours after
dinner was finished everyone sat around drinking and exchanging stories and
Caitlyn and I sat on the bench bitching about guys and talking about how bored
we were. When both our phones were dead and we had been sitting around for a
good hour or so, we saw the waitress going around passing out refills and we
knew we needed to figure out another plan of action. The more tired we got the
closer and closer we found ourselves getting to lying on the floor, which you
could literally see the dirt on, so we knew we had to come up with a plan of
action to end the night, if not for everyone at least for ourselves. Over the next
hour of the night here is what we came up with…
-There was a
glass window looking into the room where everyone was eating and drinking, we
considered “accidentally” breaking the window so we would have to leave in a
hurry to avoid being charged for breaking it.
-We thought
about pulling a fire alarm, but there wasn’t one.
-Hotwiring a
pickup.
-Hitchhiking to
The Dollar General for ice cream and 5 hour energy.
-There was a
snow shovel and a flag poll in the corner. We thought about Caitlyn taking the
shovel, and me taking the flagpole and hitting each other over the head with
them at the same time so we would at least have an excuse for being
unconscious.
Half the
employees of the restaurant actually left before we left, but all in all it was
a really fun night. I tried the steak. It was really over cooked.
It tasted
like chewing on that grass in a box you buy for your cat to help with their
dental hygiene. Same texture, same amount of chewing involved, same meaty
flavor all cats love.
I also tried a
corn fritter. I’ve found myself compelled to vomit more in these past 6 days
than I have in almost the entire rest of my life combined. I’m going to leave
it at that.
Yesterday’s
agricultural experience was visiting the grain elevator. I learned a lot at the
grain elevator. I’ll talk about all the factual grain stuff first, then I’ll
tell you about the person who showed my around the grain elevator, TJ. I got TJ
to talk about growing up in Western Kansas, it was absolutely priceless. But
first… The cold hard whole grain facts.
Grain Plant
Basically, the
grain elevator is a company that ships grains and processes grain and stores
grain. Before I start talking about the epic process it takes to get grain from
the field to the factory that makes it into cereal or flour or feed, let me say
this: I always thought the Cheerio company or the feed company or all those
companies had a giant machine that could cut down all the grain and process it
in a matter of half an hour. Then it was shipped back off that machine and used
in the factories within the week. Wrong again.
It all starts
when trucks and trains bring in grains from all around the country. The grains
are from farms, and there is a whole elaborate process about growing and
harvesting that I don’t feel like getting into right now, mainly because we
didn’t really talk about it at all when I visited.
The main
commodities the grain company works with are corn, milo, wheat, and soybeans. I
was surprised they worked with milo. I had never heard of it before. I was also
really surprised they didn’t do much with barley because barley is one of the
most common grains. While we’re on the subject it just so happens to be my
favorite grain (Hear that Marty! Hear that?! Time to bulk up on barley on the
KDU menu!! :D) I also didn’t know soybeans were a grain. I’m still actually
pretty skeptical. I always thought soybeans were the little green pods they
gave you in Japanese restaurants. I thought they grew like that, all plump and
green and salty. Guess not…
Most of their
milo goes to local alcohol plants or to be turned into ethanol.
Wheat mostly
goes on trains to the East to become flour.
Almost all the
corn goes South to become for livestock.
Lots of their
grains, all the different types, go to be feed for livestock, as this is an agriculture
based economy down here. Lots of the grain going to feed livestock goes
specifically to, in TJ’s words, “Raise beef.” I thought this was interesting
that he thought of the alive cows as just a step in them becoming beef. This
was one of many things he said that gave me an excellent insight into the mind
of a born and raised Western Kansan.
They have a lot
of safety protocols in place for their grain. I didn’t think there was much of
a science to grain, I expected it to, as aforementioned: be harvested by a big machine, sit in a truck,
become flour, cereal, etc. all within a period of two or three weeks. I didn’t
think anything could go wrong with it, or that it could go bad, or that the
weather or temperature affected it at all.
They have crazy moisture
testing, protein analyzing, and there are numerous rules in place for the
treatment and prevention of bugs in the grain. After that’s all said and done
there’s an endless weighing process. There is a law about how heavy a truck can
be for it to drive on the highways. So there are giant scales in the ground at
the grain plant. They fill the truck up with grain and they weight the whole
truck, with the grain inside. Then the truck dumps the grain into a hole in the
ground. Then they weigh just the truck again. That’s how they know how much
grain is in the truck.
See the metal bars with light shining on them? Those prevent dust from settling on the grain when it's dumped.
Once the grain
is in the truck, the grain plant’s job is done. The next step of the process is
to send a report to corporate, and the grain just continues down the line until
it ends up in your cabinets in the various forms of grain we use. Basically,
what TJ said, “Farmers sell the grain to us to make money, we sell it to a
company to make money, they turn it into a product which they sell to make
money, and it just keeps goin’ down the line.”
I mentioned
earlier there are a lot of different protocols for safety and quality
maintenance in place, most of those are centered around keeping the grain bug
free. Grain attracts bugs if you leave it sitting too long, whether in the
middle of Kansas in giant silos, or in a plastic bag in your basement. Temperature
is a big factor in controlling insects, as well as quality.
They take the
quality of their grain so seriously that they don’t even use some of their
facilities anymore incase their age would affect the quality. The plant was
built between the 1930’s and 50’s so some buildings can’t be used for grain anymore
and are used as garages instead.
They take the
facilities very seriously, not just for grain quality but for customer service.
He talked about how they mow so often, when I asked why he said “If you have
traffic driving by your house all the time you’re not gonna let the weeds pile
up in your yard are you? No, you’re gonna keep everything looking nice. That’s
all we’re trying to do here.”
The ideal
conditions for storing mass amounts of grain are basically saying, “keep your
grain dry” in ten different ways. Not only does this help cut down on insects,
but also if your grain is kept in an area that’s moist mold will form.
They have 45 huge
storage tubs at the grain plant. They’re like 100 feet tall. They’re known as
the “Western Kansas Skyscrapers.” They hold 25,000 bushels of grain each. One
bushel of wheat is about 60lbs, corn and milo are 56lbs each for a bushel. I
don’t know why the amount that constitutes a bushel differs from grain to
grain. I’m assuming it’s because they’re different sizes, like corn is bigger
than wheat so it takes less of it to make a bushel, but whatever.
Just so we’re
clear, that means one of their 45 tubes ONE of them can hold 1500000lbs of wheat at any given time. That’s 750 metric tons.
Which means if they were using all the Western Kansas skyscrapers at once to
hold wheat, they would have in their one little middle of nowhere grain plant 6750000lbs or 3375 metric tons of
grain. The reason I am including the metric ton measurement is, although most
grain plants go by the bushel, if the US Government sells grain they will
announce it in metric tons. You’ll never hear on the news “America agrees to
sell 56,000 bushels of wheat to Saudi
Arabia.” Plus also if Shutong, Fanpu, Jing Jie, or any of my other friends from
other countries are reading this then a pound might not mean anything to them.
Now
let’s talk about the command central of the grain plant. The board.
This
board is a graph of the 45 tubes and what’s in them, and if they’re empty,
whether or not they need to be cleaned out. It’s important to keep the board up
to date because if they aren’t clear on what is in which tube, and how much of
it, grain could get mixed. If they accidentally add too much into one tube, or
they think it’s full so they don’t utilize the storage space, it get’s
everything all muddled up. Or, worst case scenario, they accidentally mix the
grains. If they mix the grains, like accidentally adding corn to soybeans, that
means they might not be able to sell it. There’s a slim chance they could sell
it to feed yards in this case. Feed yards are where they send the grains that
for whatever reason can’t be sold to food companies. For instance, if they let
the grains heat up too much, like corn kernels for instance it could damage it.
This is called “heat damaged kernels” they can sell these too a feed yard, but
the farmers would still need to mix the kernels with something of higher quality
or even the hogs wouldn’t eat it.
How
do they get the grains into 100 foot tall tubes you may ask? I asked as well.
That is what the grain wheel is for. They put the grain into the little
compartments in the wall. Then they set the wheel to where they want the grain
elevated too, and then they push a button and up it goes. They used to have an
elevator for people, but the insurance company won’t let them take people up in
it anymore, unfortunately for me.
Next
we went to the agricultural store. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. The
way TJ described it, it’s basically a store for the farming community. I didn’t
even really know those existed until I saw the name of the store.
“Frontier
Ag.” Ag, stuck out to me. Because we
have a store near us that she shop at for our alpacas called Agway. I always thought that was because
it was owned by like Thomas Agway or something, but I guess not. The
agricultural store was very cool. They had an entire wall that was just nails.
It was like a scene out of King of The Hill. I looked all over it for three
penny fluted stainless steel nail (Hank Hill’s favorite nail) but to no avail.
They also have an entire section for veterinary supplies, like animal medicines
and stuff. The sheep farm people told me they didn’t use veterinarians whenever
possible, I guess this is how. They were selling grain there, I’m assuming from
the grain plant.
They also have a whole auto body shop attached to it, as well
as a mini storage warehouse. They use the warehouse to keep the tractor and the
extra dog food and all the stuff like that, anything that needs to be kept out
of the weather, but also isn’t being sold or used right now.
The
auto place was actually really cool. They have a machine that strips the rims
out of your tires, and a lift for cars.
I had never seen a tire like this before. My first thought was to do what I always saw people do with rimless tires in movies: Climb into it and have someone push me down a hill :D
Then
I got to see the back office, where Larry and Janelle work. They were both very
friendly. Larry works on “the grain side of things.” He works with the farmers
buying and selling. He also does a lot of the pricing. Other people figure
where it came from, where they want it to go, and how they’re going to get it
there, or “origination.” Janelle is a Renaissance woman. She handles the time
cards, she tracks every gallon of fuel, and in TJ’s words “Fixes everybody’s
mistakes and handles everybody’s problems.”
Janelle on left Larry on right.
We talked about sports, I made the
mistake of saying I’m a Patriots fan. Apparently they’re in the same conference
as Janelle’s favorite team. They asked me what my family did, I told them my
mother is an artist and my father works at colleges. When they asked which, I
said, “A few, RISD and Harvard mostly.” The response I got was “Oh, Harvard.
Ain’t that a smart people school? That’s all we know about it down here is it’s
a smart people school.” This made me laugh.
Lastly
I met Ryan who works at the front of the store at the register. He looked like
a cowboy too, with a hat and everything. TJ said he “Is in charge of your wants
and needs regarding feeds.” Ryan does his own ordering and pricing and
basically runs the feed part of the store.
Ryan
Before
I move on from the factual part: Fun fact…
Terra,
the mother of my host family, used to drive a grain truck and stopped at the
grain plant many times.
But
now that we’ve covered the facts of the grain plant, let’s talk about my spectacular
tour guide, TJ.
TJ
has lived in Gove County, Kansas his entire life. He grew up in Park, Kansas. One
of the thins TJ made me think was that we should send grumpy old people to
Western Kansas. You know the kind I’m talking about, the one’s always talking
about “Back in my day” and “We need to get back to the good old days.” They
never stopped living those days here in Quinter.
TJ
Reading
the following italicized paragraphs, please do so envisioning a Southern drawl.
Let me set the scene a little first. We were driving down a country road in his
white ford pickup (everyone’s pickups look the exact same here. They look like
white Ford pickups because they are all white Ford pickups.) He was in the driver’s
seat in a tan jumpsuit with a wool hat on, and orange work gloves. He had a
face that was tired, but content. He had a can of chewing tobacco, which I
found extremely amusing, as I didn’t realize people actually chewed tobacco. He
was the physical embodiment of “Joe Shmo” When politicians get up and say “But
how will the budget cuts my opponent is suggesting affect the Joe Shmo’s of
America?!” They’re talking specifically about TJ. There was nothing but flat
Kansas wheat field and clear blue skies for miles on either side of us. We were
on our way to Quinter High School.
Remember
southern drawl…
I
started out by asking him if he liked any movies.
“Oh yah, I like John Wayne
movies, got a bunch of ‘em. I’m a John Wayne fan, heck I’m I guess you could
say I’m a BIG John Wayne fan. I like that sitcom M*A*S*H (Old time sitcom about the
war.) And you know what? I like James
Bond. I got an entire collection of James Bond movies too. I really like that
Shawn Connery… Don’t know why… Always have."
Next I asked why he worked at the grain plant.
"Because there's no other feeling in the world like waking up doing a job you love."
Then
I just dove right in and I asked TJ if he ever considered leaving Kansas. What he said next will be tattooed in my memory forever.
“Well yah, I’ve considered
it. But then I get to thinking… I don’t know. To me it’s a real good place to
grow up. You learn a lot about life, a lot about survival. Back when I was a
kid we done a lot of butchering, we processed our own food, cause that was the
only way to eat. We weren’t near as crude as those folks in your Western movies
who hang a deer or hang a beef[1] and then go cut off a chunk whenever they want one. We
processed it, packaged it, and froze it ourselves. I grew up milkin’ cows. If I
had to get a cup of milk and feed the cats I could. I grew up raisin’ pigs,
farrowing sows, it’s a good life.
‘Nother thing ‘bout out
here is you know your neighbors. I got aunts out in Wichita, know the names of
the people on either side of them. Don’t know nothin’ else about ‘em though.
Down here everybody helps everybody, cause everybody knows everybody.
Also, I love the wide open
spaces here. Where I live down in Collier, I could walk up to any window in any
room of my house, bathroom, kitchen, anywhere, and I might see a deer eatin’
grass or comin’ on up to the stock tank for some water. Pheasants in my tree
row walking through the yard all the time, got cotton tails hoppin’ all over
the place.
One of the reasons we got
all this wildlife is ‘cause we don’t have no traffic. Sometimes you can even
still play in the streets! ‘Nother good thing about having no traffic is my Mom
would take us out before we were even in high school and teach us the
principles of driving, out on them back country roads.
I tell you what[2]
we get to see some beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the summer time. It just
don’t get much better than getting’ to be outside with the stars, and no moon,
or with a full harvest moon. I see a more than some other people cause we work
‘til late, especially around harvest time. We could be workin’ from 7 or 8 in
the morning until 11 or 12 o’clock at night.
But I ain’t complainin’ I’m
happy to do it. Because the farmers, ‘specially around harvest time, want to
get the grain out of the ground before the rain comes along because the rain diminishes
the quality of their product. Heck, if they get a hail storm that could wipe
out an entire field. So we do the work, we put in those extra hours, why? To
help our friends and neighbors, because that field of grains, that’s a pay day
for them. The seeds they put in the ground, the fertilizer they lay down, the
time, the work, the sweat, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that don’t go to
waste.
There was one thing that
was always instilled in me back when I was growin’ up. We always had chores to
do. Even if you had football practice, basketball practice, in high school,
don’t matter. You had to feed the chickens and feed the cows and what have you.
Had to get it done. The animals were always fed before we went in for supper,
everything that needed to get done was done before we quit for the day. These
are people’s livelihoods we’re talking about, and I’ll work as long and as hard
as I have to, to make sure they’re taken care of.
I mean it’s not like I hate
the city. I’ve been to some cities. Remember once I was in Washington D.C. the
Capitol of our nation. I’ve taken some trips with my local game league. I got
to go through the white house, see Senate, Congress, the Smithsonian, and those
are great places to visit. But even after going out to D.C. for a week I just
know I could never keep up with the hustle and bustle.
Down here, I don’t know if
you’ve noticed, but everybody waves. If you pass someone driving or on the
street you put your hand up and wave to them, whether you know ‘em or not. In
the city the only time someone waves at you on the road is when you pass them
and they… you, you know, tell you “You’re number one.”
Honestly, in D.C. the only
place I would go back to see again is Arlington Cemetery. I was there, some odd
20 years ago, but I still remember it. I truly enjoyed my tour of it, ‘cause
there’s a lot of American history there. It’s moving, it’s important.
I honestly don’t think I’ll
ever move out of Kansas, I’ve got kids in school here, and I… I love Kansas. I
love my life here, and it’s the kind of life I want my kids to have.
This is my home. So by God,
this is where I’m gonna stay.”
Stunned into
silence. Completely.
There’s not
really much I can say. I think what TJ had to say speaks for itself.
I’ve never been
more proud to be an American.
Thanks for
reading, and I really mean that. As someone who aspires to have a career in
writing, nothing means more than knowing so many people whom I love and respect
are reading what I publish and enjoying it, even though in Kansas everything
kind of writes itself!
I’ll leave you
with this
“The cost
of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we
shall never choose, that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
-John
F. Kennedy
No comments:
Post a Comment