Sunday, September 12, 2004
WE HAVE MOVED
We are now blogging as The Middlewesterner at:
http://middlewesterner.typepad.com .
Please come visit us there. It's a new address; it's a new format; it has additional features (especially "Categories!"); but it's the same old Tom and the same strands of material.
If you have The Middlewesterner included in your blog-roll, please re-link to the new URL at your convenience.
If you don't have The Middlewesterner included on your blog-roll, what are you waiting for?
See you there.
>
We are now blogging as The Middlewesterner at:
http://middlewesterner.typepad.com .
Please come visit us there. It's a new address; it's a new format; it has additional features (especially "Categories!"); but it's the same old Tom and the same strands of material.
If you have The Middlewesterner included in your blog-roll, please re-link to the new URL at your convenience.
If you don't have The Middlewesterner included on your blog-roll, what are you waiting for?
See you there.
>
Saturday, September 11, 2004
SATURDAY'S POEM
--------------------------
ESPERANZA FOR PALE FACE
by Charles P. Ries
In San Miguel de Allende
I drink tequila, look at the women,
sit in the churches and sip cafe el negro.
Angels whisper to me in Spanish,
but I don’t understand them.
The women here are godlike.
Glorious and bronze skinned.
They love their brown men, but don’t look my way -
Ghost boy is too white.
Pale face is too dumb to para hablar espanol, except
"Quiero una margarita por favor."
The Indians say San Miguel slew the serpent here.
In steel breast plates, girded loins and a silver sword.
Looking feminine, yet firm.
When Christ rode into town
the Indians didn’t throw their gods away.
Pagans make ambivalent Christians.
Jesus chased the devil out of town one day.
Seven gods saved them from Jesus the next.
Time to chase the devil from my mind,
"Quiero una margarita por favor?"
rocks, salt, and a cross to hang on please.
Charles P. Ries lives and writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has completed a novel based on memory titled, The Fathers We Find: The Making of a Humble, Pleasant Boy. His second book of poetry titled Monje Malo Speaks English was published in January 2003 by Foursep Publications. Information about his third book, A Perfect Place, can be found at: http://www.thundersandwich.net/ries/ries.htm . Ries is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. His work was nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize by Anthology. Also in 2003 his poetry won top honors in the 30th Annual Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest and the 2nd Annual Milwaukee.Com Poetry Contest. His poems, poetry reviews and short stories have appeared in over seventy print and electronic publications, including: Clark Street Review, Free Verse, Staplegun Press, Latino Stuff Review, Wordriot, Circle Magazine, Pearl, Philadelphia Poets, Pidjin, Thunder Sandwich, Wisconsin Review, Halfdrunk Muse, Remark, Pitchfork, Zygote in my Coffee, Pudding Magazine, TMPoetry, and Ink Pot. He can be reached at: charlesr@execpc.com and at www.bookthatpoet.com .
---------------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About twenty-seven of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Karl Elder, "In a Town Called Unincorporated" - August 28, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o John Rezmerski, "What I Am Trying to Tell You: Prairie in My Mouth" and "Some Good Things Left After the War With the Sioux" - August 21, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Shoshauna Shy, "Compensation for a Sun-burned Hiker" and "The Best Way to Read Lorine Niedecker's Poems" - September 4, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
--------------------------
ESPERANZA FOR PALE FACE
by Charles P. Ries
In San Miguel de Allende
I drink tequila, look at the women,
sit in the churches and sip cafe el negro.
Angels whisper to me in Spanish,
but I don’t understand them.
The women here are godlike.
Glorious and bronze skinned.
They love their brown men, but don’t look my way -
Ghost boy is too white.
Pale face is too dumb to para hablar espanol, except
"Quiero una margarita por favor."
The Indians say San Miguel slew the serpent here.
In steel breast plates, girded loins and a silver sword.
Looking feminine, yet firm.
When Christ rode into town
the Indians didn’t throw their gods away.
Pagans make ambivalent Christians.
Jesus chased the devil out of town one day.
Seven gods saved them from Jesus the next.
Time to chase the devil from my mind,
"Quiero una margarita por favor?"
rocks, salt, and a cross to hang on please.
Charles P. Ries lives and writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has completed a novel based on memory titled, The Fathers We Find: The Making of a Humble, Pleasant Boy. His second book of poetry titled Monje Malo Speaks English was published in January 2003 by Foursep Publications. Information about his third book, A Perfect Place, can be found at: http://www.thundersandwich.net/ries/ries.htm . Ries is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. His work was nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize by Anthology. Also in 2003 his poetry won top honors in the 30th Annual Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest and the 2nd Annual Milwaukee.Com Poetry Contest. His poems, poetry reviews and short stories have appeared in over seventy print and electronic publications, including: Clark Street Review, Free Verse, Staplegun Press, Latino Stuff Review, Wordriot, Circle Magazine, Pearl, Philadelphia Poets, Pidjin, Thunder Sandwich, Wisconsin Review, Halfdrunk Muse, Remark, Pitchfork, Zygote in my Coffee, Pudding Magazine, TMPoetry, and Ink Pot. He can be reached at: charlesr@execpc.com and at www.bookthatpoet.com .
---------------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About twenty-seven of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Karl Elder, "In a Town Called Unincorporated" - August 28, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o John Rezmerski, "What I Am Trying to Tell You: Prairie in My Mouth" and "Some Good Things Left After the War With the Sioux" - August 21, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Shoshauna Shy, "Compensation for a Sun-burned Hiker" and "The Best Way to Read Lorine Niedecker's Poems" - September 4, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
Friday, September 10, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
COMING HOME FROM SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
A STOP IN RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA
JUNE 18, 2004
I'm in Red Cloud, Nebraska, looking for breakfast. The place says "This Is It" - it's got food and drink, and there about six vehicles parked in front. I enter by the wrong door and find a prayer meeting going on at a large table in a dining area. I walk up into another part of the building and surprise a woman at her work. There's a bar off in the far room.
"Can I get breakfast here?" I ask.
The woman laughs, a surprised kind of chuckle. "I suppose you could," she says. "There's no menu. I could fix you eggs and bacon or ham?"
"Ham and eggs would be great."
"And something to drink?"
"Coffee."
"Toast?"
"Sure."
She goes into the kitchen and I hear the sizzle of ham competing with the murmur of talk from the other room where I've already heard a fellow praying, leading prayer.
The woman brings me coffee. When she comes through a little later with coffee for the other fellows, she explains: "I'm not usually open this early. These fellows came in this morning for a special breakfast, or I wouldn't be here this early."
She brings me breakfast. There's a little paper cup with some jelly for the toast. The jelly is tasty.
Later she brings me a bowl of fruit salad. She glances towards the other room, her eyes pointing at those fellows as if she made fruit salad for them and they didn't eat it all.
She unlocks the back door of the bar and explains that in another ten minutes or so about eight old men will show up to drink coffee and shoot pool.
"They've got nothing to do," she says.
"And they do it here?" I ask.
"Yeah, they do it here."
Breakfast costs $4.75, cheap at any price - there's not another place in town that serves breakfast, at least that's what the woman has told me. I pay at the bar. As I leave, I find the front door is still locked, so I go out the way I came in. One of the fellows at the prayer table is talking. He's telling the others about efforts to start a Christian fishing club.
I go up the street and across, to wait for the Willa Cather Center to open, to make some notes while I'm waiting.
*
The Cather Center offers a tour of buildings in Red Cloud. I took the tour and it was lovely. I saw the opera house, the old bank building that now houses the Cather Museum, the house that Cather lived in when the family moved into town, the depot, the house that Anna/Antonia lived in after her father killed himself, a couple churches. The guide was knowledgeable. There were three of us on the tour. I was with a woman and her college-age niece who loves Cather's books; I saw that the niece had at least three Cather titles on the dash of their car. The community of Red Cloud works hard at preserving our memory of Cather, and those buildings, and objects associated with her and her writing.
Those of us who write - we should all be so cherished, and so well memorialized. Willa Cather may have died as a physical being, but something of her spirit lives on here in Red Cloud, and in her books, and in our appreciation of her. Would that I'd be one-tenth so well remembered.
Before the tour began, I got to watch a video about Cather in the Center's gallery. It was informative and fairly well put-together by Nebraska Public Television, I believe. Not schmaltzy, as you fear such efforts might get. At the end of the video, a quote from Cather that resonates with me:
"There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never occurred before, like the five notes of the lark."
There are only two or three human stories, and I'm trying to learn them all, to learn the stories and tell them before they are lost, before they're gone like bird-song blown away by the wind.
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 10, 1998
Where is the still point in the turning universe. Where is the moment of quiet. I find it, these days, in my morning - as the sun comes up, the moment of peace is there for me; sometimes, too, I find it in the shower before work, a single, lucid instant which is mine. The quiet nature of the village is part of what makes it possible - no traffic, no sirens, no smell of death so immediate on the dirty wind. I cannot believe I would be the only one in the country looking for the still point? We are few, though, I'm sure, searchers for the quiet moment and the lessons it can teach. Does a farmer find it as he starts the cold diesel for the day's work? How many even want a moment of silence in their lives? How many run from silence as from a noxious odor?
There is bright sun in my eyes as I head east in Fairwater on Washington Street, head towards my day's work. Today the squirrels must cross the road in front of me. It's in their contract. They do. It is hazy again in the western sky, slightly. What shall the wind bring in off the Great American Desert?
The hawk! The hawk is in its tree. God is in his heaven, all is right with the world. The sun shines bright against the bird's pale breast! Hurrah!
Machines are picking snap beans from the field that had been planted after the pea harvest. A second crop from this ground. The air is green. The soybeans planted just south of Five Corners so late in the season are now on the verge of changing color. The season has been at least as long as it needs to be.
Two crows above the road at the edge of Ripon. Hey, crows! I say. Good morning!
>
COMING HOME FROM SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
A STOP IN RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA
JUNE 18, 2004
I'm in Red Cloud, Nebraska, looking for breakfast. The place says "This Is It" - it's got food and drink, and there about six vehicles parked in front. I enter by the wrong door and find a prayer meeting going on at a large table in a dining area. I walk up into another part of the building and surprise a woman at her work. There's a bar off in the far room.
"Can I get breakfast here?" I ask.
The woman laughs, a surprised kind of chuckle. "I suppose you could," she says. "There's no menu. I could fix you eggs and bacon or ham?"
"Ham and eggs would be great."
"And something to drink?"
"Coffee."
"Toast?"
"Sure."
She goes into the kitchen and I hear the sizzle of ham competing with the murmur of talk from the other room where I've already heard a fellow praying, leading prayer.
The woman brings me coffee. When she comes through a little later with coffee for the other fellows, she explains: "I'm not usually open this early. These fellows came in this morning for a special breakfast, or I wouldn't be here this early."
She brings me breakfast. There's a little paper cup with some jelly for the toast. The jelly is tasty.
Later she brings me a bowl of fruit salad. She glances towards the other room, her eyes pointing at those fellows as if she made fruit salad for them and they didn't eat it all.
She unlocks the back door of the bar and explains that in another ten minutes or so about eight old men will show up to drink coffee and shoot pool.
"They've got nothing to do," she says.
"And they do it here?" I ask.
"Yeah, they do it here."
Breakfast costs $4.75, cheap at any price - there's not another place in town that serves breakfast, at least that's what the woman has told me. I pay at the bar. As I leave, I find the front door is still locked, so I go out the way I came in. One of the fellows at the prayer table is talking. He's telling the others about efforts to start a Christian fishing club.
I go up the street and across, to wait for the Willa Cather Center to open, to make some notes while I'm waiting.
*
The Cather Center offers a tour of buildings in Red Cloud. I took the tour and it was lovely. I saw the opera house, the old bank building that now houses the Cather Museum, the house that Cather lived in when the family moved into town, the depot, the house that Anna/Antonia lived in after her father killed himself, a couple churches. The guide was knowledgeable. There were three of us on the tour. I was with a woman and her college-age niece who loves Cather's books; I saw that the niece had at least three Cather titles on the dash of their car. The community of Red Cloud works hard at preserving our memory of Cather, and those buildings, and objects associated with her and her writing.
Those of us who write - we should all be so cherished, and so well memorialized. Willa Cather may have died as a physical being, but something of her spirit lives on here in Red Cloud, and in her books, and in our appreciation of her. Would that I'd be one-tenth so well remembered.
Before the tour began, I got to watch a video about Cather in the Center's gallery. It was informative and fairly well put-together by Nebraska Public Television, I believe. Not schmaltzy, as you fear such efforts might get. At the end of the video, a quote from Cather that resonates with me:
"There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never occurred before, like the five notes of the lark."
There are only two or three human stories, and I'm trying to learn them all, to learn the stories and tell them before they are lost, before they're gone like bird-song blown away by the wind.
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 10, 1998
Where is the still point in the turning universe. Where is the moment of quiet. I find it, these days, in my morning - as the sun comes up, the moment of peace is there for me; sometimes, too, I find it in the shower before work, a single, lucid instant which is mine. The quiet nature of the village is part of what makes it possible - no traffic, no sirens, no smell of death so immediate on the dirty wind. I cannot believe I would be the only one in the country looking for the still point? We are few, though, I'm sure, searchers for the quiet moment and the lessons it can teach. Does a farmer find it as he starts the cold diesel for the day's work? How many even want a moment of silence in their lives? How many run from silence as from a noxious odor?
There is bright sun in my eyes as I head east in Fairwater on Washington Street, head towards my day's work. Today the squirrels must cross the road in front of me. It's in their contract. They do. It is hazy again in the western sky, slightly. What shall the wind bring in off the Great American Desert?
The hawk! The hawk is in its tree. God is in his heaven, all is right with the world. The sun shines bright against the bird's pale breast! Hurrah!
Machines are picking snap beans from the field that had been planted after the pea harvest. A second crop from this ground. The air is green. The soybeans planted just south of Five Corners so late in the season are now on the verge of changing color. The season has been at least as long as it needs to be.
Two crows above the road at the edge of Ripon. Hey, crows! I say. Good morning!
>
Thursday, September 09, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 19, 2004
AT THE CENTER, WATCHING THE DAY BREAK
I am sitting at the center of the continental United States.
I have just driven to this place near Lebanon, Kansas, from Smith Center. The sun was coming up on this clouded day; it broke through for a moment, like an egg freeing itself from the ovary, exactly like that. It broke through briefly, it shined, it has disappeared into the greyness, into the silence.
All the while I was driving over, I was thinking about place, about this place, about what makes us love a place, about what makes us angry when someone disparages our place.
A writer can blow through town, as John G. Mitchell did coming through Lebanon, Kansas, and writing about it in an article on the Great Plains for as prestigious a magazine as The National Geographic (May, 2004); such a writer can say some pretty narrow things from the local community's point of view: Lebanon "used to claim bragging rights" as the geographical center of the lower forty-eight states - "you won't hear folks boast about that anymore..." - Lebanon is just "one of many small rural communities that are fading away..." - "there's not much here in the way of commerce..." - storefronts "boarded up..." - bank and trust office is open, "possibly shuffling foreclosures..." - "brick skeleton of an abandoned building..." - sidewalks that "are empty...."
I've been guilty of the same crime Mitchell is; I've driven through towns, and made judgments in the blink of an eye. And I've been angry the way the residents of Smith County are angry, when someone stops for a few minutes or a few hours or a few days and leaves thinking his or she "knows" us. Hell, I've lived in the middle west all my life, and that's not long enough to know us very well.
It's a confrontation right at the heart of what I'm doing, for me to presume that I can step into twelve middle western communities and begin to understand these places, the people of them. Yet I am driven to it: if I don't do it, who will?
Murray D. Lull, president of the Smith County State Bank and Trust Company of Smith Center and Lebanon, Kansas, wrote the editor of National Geographic in response to the offending article, to correct "an unfortunate and disappointing portrayal your magazine made of us, our bank and our community...."
"You stated in your lead paragraph," Lull wrote, "that we are no longer proud of being the geographic center of the United States, that our bank is shuffling foreclosures, and that we've just dried up and blown away."
Such a portrayal, Lull said, "does a great disservice to our customers, our friends and neighbors, and ultimately to those of your readers who might actually believe what you print."
"We're still proud and comfortable that we're in the middle of America," he said. "But we're also tired of the media coming to us, taking pictures and getting quotes, and then in their publications and presentations making light of who we are and where we live."
"If you can't say something nice about us," Lull said, "just leave us alone."
"The people of the Lebanon community are great, hardworking, ethical people," he said.
"Foreclosures? Hasn't happened in twenty years!" he said. "And it may not in the NEXT twenty years."
"Your writer doesn't have a clue what we think, how we live, or how we love this part of the country we live in," he said.
"I'd do the traditional cancel-my-subscription thing," Lull said, "but Sears doesn't send us catalogs anymore and we need your magazine for the outhouse."
I think you can't begin to write knowingly of Lebanon until you've had lunch at La Dow's store, until you've shared bread with the people who live and love here, who tough it out in the face of some harsh conditions. I think you can't write knowingly about Smith County, Kansas, until you've sat five morning mornings at the Second Cup Cafe in Smith Center, sharing coffee and swapping stories with those old boys in the As the Bladder Fills Club. Hell, five mornings is not enough. Such experiences barely make us knowledgeable, barely make one qualified to begin speaking about the people here. I've known Smith County upclose for two weeks - once in March of 2003, again this past week - and the sum total of what I've learned is that I know nothing yet. I've talked to people, I've toured businesses, I've swapped stories, I've learned a few random facts. All across the middle west, I've done more than one hundred fifty interviews. Yet I cannot say that I've even begun to enter the heart and soul of these, my own people, and this, my own place. What is here is too immense for easy grasping, too hidden in the cavalcade of time to be seen all at once. It is presumptuous as hell for me to come in thinking I can "get it" in a week, in two weeks, in seven weeks spent in a place. The best I can hope is that I start to get it.
You cannot begin to imagine these lives unless you live this life. We are mere tourists passing through, even those of us who come here with a genuine desire to understand. When I write about Smith Country, Kansas, or any other community, I am doing more to illuminate my ignorance than to explain the lives of the people here. That's true for me; that's true for any National Geographic writer trying to speak of the Great Plains to distant strangers.
And I'm not sure that knowing how ignorant I am gives me any advantage when it comes to seeing and understanding this place. Oh, because I return again and again, because I will sit again and again with the As the Bladder Fills Club, perhaps I'll gain a little insight, perhaps I'll understand a little more than the fellow who just drives through. Yet I'll still be far from the heart of things.
If you want to know a place, to really know the place, you have to live there and die there and give your elements back to the soil there and let the stink of your decomposition lift to the sky there.
We are just tourists, that National Geographic writer and I - and we should be a little more courteous. Because we can write, because we can write about this place, that gives us no proprietary rights. In fact, all we are doing is borrowing, and what we are borrowing we ought to treat well.
Amen.
The sun is lost in the grey overcast of water-color clouds, a study in shades of black paint and water, a smeared canvas of sky, a certain dimness.
Everything I've said about my ignorance here at Lebanon, Kansas, in Smith Center, in Smith County, applies to every other place I see. To my eleven other focus communities, to every community along the highways and by-ways, to Kinoosao, Saskatchewan, at the end of the road on Reindeer Lake. I cannot pretend to know any of these places the way one can living his life there, his whole life given to it.
The best I can do is to come to know myself, and to learn to see these places refracted through who I am. I can come without expectation. I can let the place change me, and being changed, see what I can of the place in that change.
It is 7:00 a.m. I am twenty miles south of Red Cloud, Nebraska. I'm going to stop there, to see how Willa Cather's place might change me.
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 9, 1998
Part of what makes this place what it is is what I bring to it - German background, Iowa farm boy, one who chooses not to farm. Should I want to farm, I see the place entirely different. My expectations allow me to see one kind of world around me. I am a transplant, too, so I don't see a hundred years of history everywhere I look in Fairwater. I don't have relatives at every turn - some good, some bad. If my grandfather had been born here, and my father, the land would look different to me. I cannot - as some Native Americans do - think of the seventh generation yet to come. I don't have that kind of "long" view of the land. Every day of our lives we are grinding and grinding the lens through which we view the world. My Fairwater certainly must be different from George Sanders' Fairwater - for just one example. He's an old man, a long-time citizen, with relation here, and friends that go back to the Depression and before. Those are things you cannot scrape off.
Sunlight, its heat, is turning condensed moisture on the roof of the neighbor's garage into a miniature bank of fog, rising and rolling away. This lasts for a few minutes only and disappears. It is a blue sky morning, moist and pungent and alive. The sunlight deepens the color of everything.
A semi full of vegetables turns out from the canning factory onto Highway E in front of me. I meet at the edge of town a semi coming back to Badger Mining for a load of sand. Another semi has lined up behind me. I am heading north.
The smell in the country is as pungent as old growth forest. Far to the east, clouds line up along Lake Michigan again. To the west, I'm imagining perhaps a slight, smoky haze coming this way. There is a slight haze, the question is whether it is smoke from the fires out west.
How wonderful a thing a road is - a firm, clear surface that frees us to travel; but it is, too, a pathway that limits where we think we can go.
An Iowa farm boy comes east to Wisconsin. There was a time when returning east was a mark of failure - you weren't able to succeed in the Dakotas or Montana, so you returned to something more green and certain in Iowa or Illinois or Wisconsin.
The road takes us both ways.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 19, 2004
AT THE CENTER, WATCHING THE DAY BREAK
I am sitting at the center of the continental United States.
I have just driven to this place near Lebanon, Kansas, from Smith Center. The sun was coming up on this clouded day; it broke through for a moment, like an egg freeing itself from the ovary, exactly like that. It broke through briefly, it shined, it has disappeared into the greyness, into the silence.
All the while I was driving over, I was thinking about place, about this place, about what makes us love a place, about what makes us angry when someone disparages our place.
A writer can blow through town, as John G. Mitchell did coming through Lebanon, Kansas, and writing about it in an article on the Great Plains for as prestigious a magazine as The National Geographic (May, 2004); such a writer can say some pretty narrow things from the local community's point of view: Lebanon "used to claim bragging rights" as the geographical center of the lower forty-eight states - "you won't hear folks boast about that anymore..." - Lebanon is just "one of many small rural communities that are fading away..." - "there's not much here in the way of commerce..." - storefronts "boarded up..." - bank and trust office is open, "possibly shuffling foreclosures..." - "brick skeleton of an abandoned building..." - sidewalks that "are empty...."
I've been guilty of the same crime Mitchell is; I've driven through towns, and made judgments in the blink of an eye. And I've been angry the way the residents of Smith County are angry, when someone stops for a few minutes or a few hours or a few days and leaves thinking his or she "knows" us. Hell, I've lived in the middle west all my life, and that's not long enough to know us very well.
It's a confrontation right at the heart of what I'm doing, for me to presume that I can step into twelve middle western communities and begin to understand these places, the people of them. Yet I am driven to it: if I don't do it, who will?
Murray D. Lull, president of the Smith County State Bank and Trust Company of Smith Center and Lebanon, Kansas, wrote the editor of National Geographic in response to the offending article, to correct "an unfortunate and disappointing portrayal your magazine made of us, our bank and our community...."
"You stated in your lead paragraph," Lull wrote, "that we are no longer proud of being the geographic center of the United States, that our bank is shuffling foreclosures, and that we've just dried up and blown away."
Such a portrayal, Lull said, "does a great disservice to our customers, our friends and neighbors, and ultimately to those of your readers who might actually believe what you print."
"We're still proud and comfortable that we're in the middle of America," he said. "But we're also tired of the media coming to us, taking pictures and getting quotes, and then in their publications and presentations making light of who we are and where we live."
"If you can't say something nice about us," Lull said, "just leave us alone."
"The people of the Lebanon community are great, hardworking, ethical people," he said.
"Foreclosures? Hasn't happened in twenty years!" he said. "And it may not in the NEXT twenty years."
"Your writer doesn't have a clue what we think, how we live, or how we love this part of the country we live in," he said.
"I'd do the traditional cancel-my-subscription thing," Lull said, "but Sears doesn't send us catalogs anymore and we need your magazine for the outhouse."
I think you can't begin to write knowingly of Lebanon until you've had lunch at La Dow's store, until you've shared bread with the people who live and love here, who tough it out in the face of some harsh conditions. I think you can't write knowingly about Smith County, Kansas, until you've sat five morning mornings at the Second Cup Cafe in Smith Center, sharing coffee and swapping stories with those old boys in the As the Bladder Fills Club. Hell, five mornings is not enough. Such experiences barely make us knowledgeable, barely make one qualified to begin speaking about the people here. I've known Smith County upclose for two weeks - once in March of 2003, again this past week - and the sum total of what I've learned is that I know nothing yet. I've talked to people, I've toured businesses, I've swapped stories, I've learned a few random facts. All across the middle west, I've done more than one hundred fifty interviews. Yet I cannot say that I've even begun to enter the heart and soul of these, my own people, and this, my own place. What is here is too immense for easy grasping, too hidden in the cavalcade of time to be seen all at once. It is presumptuous as hell for me to come in thinking I can "get it" in a week, in two weeks, in seven weeks spent in a place. The best I can hope is that I start to get it.
You cannot begin to imagine these lives unless you live this life. We are mere tourists passing through, even those of us who come here with a genuine desire to understand. When I write about Smith Country, Kansas, or any other community, I am doing more to illuminate my ignorance than to explain the lives of the people here. That's true for me; that's true for any National Geographic writer trying to speak of the Great Plains to distant strangers.
And I'm not sure that knowing how ignorant I am gives me any advantage when it comes to seeing and understanding this place. Oh, because I return again and again, because I will sit again and again with the As the Bladder Fills Club, perhaps I'll gain a little insight, perhaps I'll understand a little more than the fellow who just drives through. Yet I'll still be far from the heart of things.
If you want to know a place, to really know the place, you have to live there and die there and give your elements back to the soil there and let the stink of your decomposition lift to the sky there.
We are just tourists, that National Geographic writer and I - and we should be a little more courteous. Because we can write, because we can write about this place, that gives us no proprietary rights. In fact, all we are doing is borrowing, and what we are borrowing we ought to treat well.
Amen.
The sun is lost in the grey overcast of water-color clouds, a study in shades of black paint and water, a smeared canvas of sky, a certain dimness.
Everything I've said about my ignorance here at Lebanon, Kansas, in Smith Center, in Smith County, applies to every other place I see. To my eleven other focus communities, to every community along the highways and by-ways, to Kinoosao, Saskatchewan, at the end of the road on Reindeer Lake. I cannot pretend to know any of these places the way one can living his life there, his whole life given to it.
The best I can do is to come to know myself, and to learn to see these places refracted through who I am. I can come without expectation. I can let the place change me, and being changed, see what I can of the place in that change.
It is 7:00 a.m. I am twenty miles south of Red Cloud, Nebraska. I'm going to stop there, to see how Willa Cather's place might change me.
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 9, 1998
Part of what makes this place what it is is what I bring to it - German background, Iowa farm boy, one who chooses not to farm. Should I want to farm, I see the place entirely different. My expectations allow me to see one kind of world around me. I am a transplant, too, so I don't see a hundred years of history everywhere I look in Fairwater. I don't have relatives at every turn - some good, some bad. If my grandfather had been born here, and my father, the land would look different to me. I cannot - as some Native Americans do - think of the seventh generation yet to come. I don't have that kind of "long" view of the land. Every day of our lives we are grinding and grinding the lens through which we view the world. My Fairwater certainly must be different from George Sanders' Fairwater - for just one example. He's an old man, a long-time citizen, with relation here, and friends that go back to the Depression and before. Those are things you cannot scrape off.
Sunlight, its heat, is turning condensed moisture on the roof of the neighbor's garage into a miniature bank of fog, rising and rolling away. This lasts for a few minutes only and disappears. It is a blue sky morning, moist and pungent and alive. The sunlight deepens the color of everything.
A semi full of vegetables turns out from the canning factory onto Highway E in front of me. I meet at the edge of town a semi coming back to Badger Mining for a load of sand. Another semi has lined up behind me. I am heading north.
The smell in the country is as pungent as old growth forest. Far to the east, clouds line up along Lake Michigan again. To the west, I'm imagining perhaps a slight, smoky haze coming this way. There is a slight haze, the question is whether it is smoke from the fires out west.
How wonderful a thing a road is - a firm, clear surface that frees us to travel; but it is, too, a pathway that limits where we think we can go.
An Iowa farm boy comes east to Wisconsin. There was a time when returning east was a mark of failure - you weren't able to succeed in the Dakotas or Montana, so you returned to something more green and certain in Iowa or Illinois or Wisconsin.
The road takes us both ways.
>
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
SORRY FOR THE LATE POST TODAY
I was ready to post today at 5:10 a.m. but it was no go - constantly stuck at "Opening Page." It was repeatedly stuck and no go until 11:15 a.m. when I headed to Lakeland College to teach the first of my classes in Writing Creative Nonfiction. I sent Blogger's help desk a help note; when I got home just a few minutes ago, I found this e-mail response from them, so we'll give it a try now:
We apologize for the problems you have been experiencing with Blogger. We had a simultaneous failure across multiple machines responsible for the publishing of Blog*Spot blogs, but this issue has now been fixed. To prevent this type of outage in the future, we are performing a full systemaudit to ensure that proper redundancies are in place.
The first class Creative Nonfiction went well, by the way. As I figured, I'm already behind in what I want to cover.... Hey, Fred, do you have that problem?
----------------------
GOVERNOR DOYLE APPOINTS DENISE SWEET
POET LAUREATE OF WISCONSIN
Yesterday, Wisconsin's Governor Jim Doyle announced his appointment of Denise Sweet as Wisconsin's new Poet Laureate. Here is the text of the Governor's news release announcing the appointment. Congratulations, Denise!
Governor Jim Doyle announced today the appointment of Denise Sweet as the new Poet Laureate of Wisconsin.
"Denise is well-educated, published, and admired by Wisconsin’s community of poets and educators," Governor Doyle said. "She will be an important ambassador of poetry to people in all areas of our state. I am pleased to appoint someone with such great dedication to reaching out to both large and small communities and encouraging participation in the arts."
As Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate, Sweet will choose and lead one large-scale project that contributes to the growth of Wisconsin poetry. She will also plan and attend at least four statewide literary events each year and perform in at least four government, state, and civil events as requested by the Governor’s office, school systems, and literary organizations. Sweet will begin her four-year term immediately.
"For the next four years, it will be my job to share my love for poetry with the citizens of Wisconsin. Does it get any better than that?" Sweet said. "This appointment is so rich with opportunity to expose the general public to great literature - I can imagine poetry in public transit, at visitor information centers, on biking trail brochures, on community calendars. I'm eager to begin."
Denise Sweet is an Associate Professor of Humanistic Studies and advisor for the American Indian Studies minor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She has published five poetry books, a long list of individual poems, fictional writing, and essays in various periodicals. She was one of five U.S. writers sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to attend the First World Congress of Indigenous Literatures of the Americas in Guatemala City. Sweet’s poem "Constellations" is part of a permanent installation (etched in granite corridor walls) at the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee.
Sweet’s Proposed Statewide Project is entitled, "Here @ Home: A Community Calendar Series," a traveling workshop of poetry and writing that would move from urban to rural settings encouraging people to write and then display their works in their community.
Wisconsin’s first Poet Laureate, Ellen Kort of Appleton, was appointed in December 2000.
---------------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 18, 2004
The fellows are all gathered at the usual table as I come into the Second Cup Cafe for coffee with them. Bruce and Bobbi Miles come in shortly behind me, and Ivan is trying to tell the same shipwreck joke he told yesterday. He thinks he can get away with it because Bobbi hasn't heard it yet. She groans when she does. That doesn't slow Ivan down much at all. He tells about one couple who ran out of Vaseline. Says they used 3-in-1 oil and had triplets.
"Don't write that down," Ivan says. So I don't.
"I didn't learn English very well in high school," Ivan says when we're talking about the former Smith Center pastor who is going to China to teach English. "I didn't learn English very well," he says. "I thought when a girl said No she meant No."
"When you write up your visit to Smith Center," Ivan says to me, "you send a copy down here. Address it to the As the Bladder Fills Club in care of the Second Cup Cafe."
"You're seeing poverty in its worst form," Ivan says. "Here I am, 80 years old, and I have to work. I don't want to work, but I have to."
Dick Stroup whispers in my ear that once when Ivan was complaining about being poor, the fellow sitting across the table from me, Casey Edell, the piano tuner, had said to him: "Ivan, at least you don't have too much longer to worry about it."
One of the fellows who knows I'm a writer asks if I'm the one who has been "feeding Bush all that misinformation."
"Ivan, it sounds like there's another Democrat in town," I say.
"No," says Ivan, "there are two Democrats - I'm one and my wife's the other."
The other fellow explained his remark: "There's some of us Republicans thinking of converting."
Somebody says the word "work."
Somebody else says "if you use that word one more time, Ivan's gonna break out in a rash."
Some young fellow clear down at the far end of the table says Ivan is "the Rodney Dangerfield of Smith County."
Somebody mentions the Bible. "What I know about the Bible," Ivan says, "is the husband is supposed to make coffee."
"It clearly says He-brews."
Stan Hooper is talking to me, but he's looking at Bobbi Miles, Smith Center's Director of Economic Development: "Jesse James had a hide-out north of Lebanon," Stan says. "That's where Smith Center got its start in Economic Development."
Ivan complains about all the pop-ups coming up on his computer. Someone asks if he's had any pornography pop up lately. "No," Ivans says, "and I don't think I'd recognize it if it did."
The guys say good-bye to me. I'll be leaving in the morning, and won't see them again. Ivan shakes my hand, and so does Jack Benn, so do some of the others. Jack says "Well, I hope I'm still here when you come back."
Dick Stroup shakes my hand and says good-bye. "I paid for your coffee," he adds.
"Thanks, Dick. You didn't have to do that."
But that's the kind of guys they are, all of them. Good guys. They look pretty formidable, the bunch of them sitting around the table, but they're good guys. If you're ever in Smith Center weekdays between 8-9 a.m., sit with them at the Second Cup. You'll hear some blarney, but you'll also get a picture of Smith Center that seems pretty true to my sense of it.
Thanks, guys!
-------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 8, 1998
One of the reasons we have become disconnected from the place around us is that we have moved our work indoors. On the farm, there is a ritual - the spring work, that of summer, the fall harvest, a winter of repair. Cooped in our factories and offices, every day is the same. It looks the same to us, and smells the same and tastes the same. The factory worker longs for deer hunting season, so he can go out and become part of a land ritual once again; longs to fish, the stink of fish on his hands, to feel connection to land and water and sky and the turn of the days and the seasons. Inside the beige, bland walls of an office, every day is the same day. Walking the corn ground, every day is not the same - there is a march forward, cyclical though it might be. The days are going somewhere, for a reason. Especially in autumn I feel the tug of the land - those nights after school harvesting corn, plowing til 10:00 p.m. or midnight. The crisp chill in the air, the roar of the tractor, smell of diesel, smell of darkness. Well, at this stage, for me, there is no going back. I'm not sure I want to work that hard. But - How to find appropriate rituals to replace those I knew on the farm? That, Tom, is the question you should ask yourself and should spend some time in answering.
Definitely it is no longer summer - the long lay of light this morning, the coolness of the early part of the day, the color of the soybeans. We will even see leaves start to turn - they will have to, with nights as cool as those we've had. My mother has said the signs in Iowa point to an early, severe winter. I have not seen anything here yet, to suggest that.
A blue sky. Trees pretty much solid green, still. Soybeans that have turned. Another field of sweet corn taken. A great hunk of moon rock in the western sky. Far to the east, clouds are lining up along Lake Michigan. In western Montana there have been a lot of fires and the sky there is very hazy; there is not evidence of that in our western sky. Yet.
It is a holiday weekend just completed - Labor Day. The adults driving to work, the young nubbins walking to school - all have on their serious faces. We are so German that, going back, we think we must look the part - glum and serious and sincere. Such a great morning to enjoy - damn them if they cannot. Damn me if I don't.
>
I was ready to post today at 5:10 a.m. but it was no go - constantly stuck at "Opening Page." It was repeatedly stuck and no go until 11:15 a.m. when I headed to Lakeland College to teach the first of my classes in Writing Creative Nonfiction. I sent Blogger's help desk a help note; when I got home just a few minutes ago, I found this e-mail response from them, so we'll give it a try now:
We apologize for the problems you have been experiencing with Blogger. We had a simultaneous failure across multiple machines responsible for the publishing of Blog*Spot blogs, but this issue has now been fixed. To prevent this type of outage in the future, we are performing a full systemaudit to ensure that proper redundancies are in place.
The first class Creative Nonfiction went well, by the way. As I figured, I'm already behind in what I want to cover.... Hey, Fred, do you have that problem?
----------------------
GOVERNOR DOYLE APPOINTS DENISE SWEET
POET LAUREATE OF WISCONSIN
Yesterday, Wisconsin's Governor Jim Doyle announced his appointment of Denise Sweet as Wisconsin's new Poet Laureate. Here is the text of the Governor's news release announcing the appointment. Congratulations, Denise!
Governor Jim Doyle announced today the appointment of Denise Sweet as the new Poet Laureate of Wisconsin.
"Denise is well-educated, published, and admired by Wisconsin’s community of poets and educators," Governor Doyle said. "She will be an important ambassador of poetry to people in all areas of our state. I am pleased to appoint someone with such great dedication to reaching out to both large and small communities and encouraging participation in the arts."
As Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate, Sweet will choose and lead one large-scale project that contributes to the growth of Wisconsin poetry. She will also plan and attend at least four statewide literary events each year and perform in at least four government, state, and civil events as requested by the Governor’s office, school systems, and literary organizations. Sweet will begin her four-year term immediately.
"For the next four years, it will be my job to share my love for poetry with the citizens of Wisconsin. Does it get any better than that?" Sweet said. "This appointment is so rich with opportunity to expose the general public to great literature - I can imagine poetry in public transit, at visitor information centers, on biking trail brochures, on community calendars. I'm eager to begin."
Denise Sweet is an Associate Professor of Humanistic Studies and advisor for the American Indian Studies minor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She has published five poetry books, a long list of individual poems, fictional writing, and essays in various periodicals. She was one of five U.S. writers sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to attend the First World Congress of Indigenous Literatures of the Americas in Guatemala City. Sweet’s poem "Constellations" is part of a permanent installation (etched in granite corridor walls) at the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee.
Sweet’s Proposed Statewide Project is entitled, "Here @ Home: A Community Calendar Series," a traveling workshop of poetry and writing that would move from urban to rural settings encouraging people to write and then display their works in their community.
Wisconsin’s first Poet Laureate, Ellen Kort of Appleton, was appointed in December 2000.
---------------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 18, 2004
The fellows are all gathered at the usual table as I come into the Second Cup Cafe for coffee with them. Bruce and Bobbi Miles come in shortly behind me, and Ivan is trying to tell the same shipwreck joke he told yesterday. He thinks he can get away with it because Bobbi hasn't heard it yet. She groans when she does. That doesn't slow Ivan down much at all. He tells about one couple who ran out of Vaseline. Says they used 3-in-1 oil and had triplets.
"Don't write that down," Ivan says. So I don't.
"I didn't learn English very well in high school," Ivan says when we're talking about the former Smith Center pastor who is going to China to teach English. "I didn't learn English very well," he says. "I thought when a girl said No she meant No."
"When you write up your visit to Smith Center," Ivan says to me, "you send a copy down here. Address it to the As the Bladder Fills Club in care of the Second Cup Cafe."
"You're seeing poverty in its worst form," Ivan says. "Here I am, 80 years old, and I have to work. I don't want to work, but I have to."
Dick Stroup whispers in my ear that once when Ivan was complaining about being poor, the fellow sitting across the table from me, Casey Edell, the piano tuner, had said to him: "Ivan, at least you don't have too much longer to worry about it."
One of the fellows who knows I'm a writer asks if I'm the one who has been "feeding Bush all that misinformation."
"Ivan, it sounds like there's another Democrat in town," I say.
"No," says Ivan, "there are two Democrats - I'm one and my wife's the other."
The other fellow explained his remark: "There's some of us Republicans thinking of converting."
Somebody says the word "work."
Somebody else says "if you use that word one more time, Ivan's gonna break out in a rash."
Some young fellow clear down at the far end of the table says Ivan is "the Rodney Dangerfield of Smith County."
Somebody mentions the Bible. "What I know about the Bible," Ivan says, "is the husband is supposed to make coffee."
"It clearly says He-brews."
Stan Hooper is talking to me, but he's looking at Bobbi Miles, Smith Center's Director of Economic Development: "Jesse James had a hide-out north of Lebanon," Stan says. "That's where Smith Center got its start in Economic Development."
Ivan complains about all the pop-ups coming up on his computer. Someone asks if he's had any pornography pop up lately. "No," Ivans says, "and I don't think I'd recognize it if it did."
The guys say good-bye to me. I'll be leaving in the morning, and won't see them again. Ivan shakes my hand, and so does Jack Benn, so do some of the others. Jack says "Well, I hope I'm still here when you come back."
Dick Stroup shakes my hand and says good-bye. "I paid for your coffee," he adds.
"Thanks, Dick. You didn't have to do that."
But that's the kind of guys they are, all of them. Good guys. They look pretty formidable, the bunch of them sitting around the table, but they're good guys. If you're ever in Smith Center weekdays between 8-9 a.m., sit with them at the Second Cup. You'll hear some blarney, but you'll also get a picture of Smith Center that seems pretty true to my sense of it.
Thanks, guys!
-------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 8, 1998
One of the reasons we have become disconnected from the place around us is that we have moved our work indoors. On the farm, there is a ritual - the spring work, that of summer, the fall harvest, a winter of repair. Cooped in our factories and offices, every day is the same. It looks the same to us, and smells the same and tastes the same. The factory worker longs for deer hunting season, so he can go out and become part of a land ritual once again; longs to fish, the stink of fish on his hands, to feel connection to land and water and sky and the turn of the days and the seasons. Inside the beige, bland walls of an office, every day is the same day. Walking the corn ground, every day is not the same - there is a march forward, cyclical though it might be. The days are going somewhere, for a reason. Especially in autumn I feel the tug of the land - those nights after school harvesting corn, plowing til 10:00 p.m. or midnight. The crisp chill in the air, the roar of the tractor, smell of diesel, smell of darkness. Well, at this stage, for me, there is no going back. I'm not sure I want to work that hard. But - How to find appropriate rituals to replace those I knew on the farm? That, Tom, is the question you should ask yourself and should spend some time in answering.
Definitely it is no longer summer - the long lay of light this morning, the coolness of the early part of the day, the color of the soybeans. We will even see leaves start to turn - they will have to, with nights as cool as those we've had. My mother has said the signs in Iowa point to an early, severe winter. I have not seen anything here yet, to suggest that.
A blue sky. Trees pretty much solid green, still. Soybeans that have turned. Another field of sweet corn taken. A great hunk of moon rock in the western sky. Far to the east, clouds are lining up along Lake Michigan. In western Montana there have been a lot of fires and the sky there is very hazy; there is not evidence of that in our western sky. Yet.
It is a holiday weekend just completed - Labor Day. The adults driving to work, the young nubbins walking to school - all have on their serious faces. We are so German that, going back, we think we must look the part - glum and serious and sincere. Such a great morning to enjoy - damn them if they cannot. Damn me if I don't.
>
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 17, 2004 - continued
I have been riding with Smith Center Police Chief Randy Nelson as he patrolled the highways and byways of the community on a long-shadowed summer evening. Chief Nelson doesn't usually allow riders in the squad cars, but made an exception for me. We have been talking about what it's like to police a small town in north central Kansas.
"I don't know the kids turning 16 now as much as I used to," Chief Nelson said, "and with the Privacy Act you don't get a list of birthdays from the school."
The city shop is near the ball diamond, the fairgrounds, the Armory. The National Guard unit had just gotten back from camp at Fort Riley.
If the sheriff's department needs back up out in the county, "we're going," the chief said. "Sometimes we get there before the county officer if the situation warrants it."
There's a long evening's light in Smith Center in June. "If I weren't working," he said, "this time of night I'd be out golfing. I really enjoy the game, but it's frustrating."
I don't remember if I told him about my "zen golfing." I count the good strokes. If I get three or four in nine holes, that's a good round. When I tell this to real golfers, they just kinda look at me. I don't remember if I said anything to the chief about it.
Both the two other officers in the Smith Center Police Department are from the community, both of them went to school in town. You need about four hundred and sixty hours of training to get into law enforcement, ten to twelve weeks starting out, then forty hours per year of continuous education. "We usually end up having to drive some ways to get training," the chief said. "The sheriff's department just got hooked up to the satellite system, so now we can get some of our hours that way."
We drove past the office of one of Smith Center's veterinarians. "There are two veterinarians in town," Chief Nelson indicated. "They are busy men around here."
The chief made a special exemption to let me ride in the squad car. His usual policy is not to let people do that.
"We don't have that many break-ins," the chief said. "It kinda runs in spurts."
The number of out-of-town people coming into Smith Center to make trouble is minimal, he said. "We don't have that much trouble, really."
"Week days are really quiet," he said. "After 10 p.m. there aren't many cars on the street."
Over and back and up this street and down that and still people are as quick to wave at the chief as he is to wave at them.
"Public relations is ninety percent of this job," he said. "They know that we're not out hunting for them. Most of them recognize they've screwed up. I think we've been pretty fair to people over the years."
I asked him about the Excel Jamboree, and the Noise Parade on the last night of that. He said only a few people have complained about the noise. "A lot of people had a good time," he added. Of the Excel owners who come for the Jamboree, he said "we never have a problem with those people. They enjoy it when you sit down and talk with them."
I asked about the portion of Smith Center's streets that are brick, rather than concrete or asphalt. West Point, Nebraska, and Emmetsburg, Iowa, are other communities I visit which retain some brick streets. "They are part of Smith Center's identity," Chief Nelson said, "but they're about ten times as slick as regular streets."
When we drove past the community's swimming pool, the chief said: "Ah, I think that would be chilly."
Smith Center is fortunate to have an EMS [Emergency Medical Squad] that "helps tremendously - they are really a good crew," Chief Nelson said. "They're getting a new building out on the highway."
"A lot of good things are happening here for a little town," he said.
And still we were driving up and down and back and forth over and back. I doubt there was a street in town we hadn't patrolled. At this point we'd probably logged thirty miles riding together.
"Everything is in its place?" I suggested.
"So far, so good," the chief said.
Does he end up testifying in court very often?
"Not often," he said. "People usually pay the fine. Seems like what we go to court for is dogs running loose."
"If the arrest you make is good," he said, "if you write a good report, you won't go to court."
The department "goes on weather watch when we've got storms coming in," he said.
Chief Nelson is no longer driving truck, and we talked about that. He used to take loads to Los Angeles or Seattle every week. "I don't have the patience to drive to LA now," he admitted.
Then we were out checking over the golf course, three miles south of town. "The city took over the course about five years ago," the chief said. A "super guy" runs the operation. "The rain has really greened up the fairways."
There have been no gas station robberies since Chief Nelson has been in town. "Some were broken into, in the evening," he said. "They went after beer."
Tough situations?
"Taking guns off people - that gets the adrenaline going," he said. "Taking a knife away from a guy. Dealing with accidents - a real good friend of mine and his dad were killed in an accident; I had to notify the family. It was the toughest thing I've had to do. All those situations hurt, but not like this did."
We'd put on another ten miles already. We were passing in front of Hardware Hank downtown. All manner of merchandise gets left out in front of the store overnight. "That never gets stolen," the chief said.
All of a sudden, we had excitement. A 521, a missing dog in town, a Dalmatian named Pookie. Now we had to keep our eyes open for Pookie.
And the chief got philosophical. "Everybody knows you, pretty much," he said. "I don't know everyone, but everyone pretty much knows me. I haven't figured out if that's good or bad. I had kids in school here, one of them was a super athlete, so I suppose that helps."
I'd been riding with the chief for two hours or more. We'd been up and down and back and forth and over and back. An endless stream of drivers waved hello. We'd circled and re-circled. I'd seen every street in Smith Center, every house, every empty lot. Most of them more than once. I'd started to feel as if I'd been spinning in a washing machine, with only a missing Dalmatian to challenge us. We were driving towards Ingleboro Mansion again, where I was staying.
"Well?" said the chief. He knew what I was thinking.
"Yeah," I said. "Drop me off." I'd go get a late supper.
Boring is good, I told myself as I walked into house. Boring means you have a successful police department and a safe community. But I don't think I could be a cop, with the endless hours of boredom interspersed with random moments of sheer terror.
When I came out of the restaurant after I'd finished supper, there was Chief Nelson cruising Main Street yet again. I waved at him. He waved at me.
--------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Dennis Reinert is kinda like Rodney Dangerfield," Ivan said. "He don't get no respect. One morning last week, Dennis was sittin' at the front table at Paul's. Everyone who came in said to Dennis, 'How much rain did you get?' Dennis said, 'Forty hundreth.' Everybody who asked him said, 'I didn't get near that much. Are you sure you emptied your gauge?' Dennis just sat there and took it. While all this was going on, I just sat there and listened. But, you know, Dennis' reported rainfall amount was about what I had."
"All the years she was in school," Ivan said, "Arloa Barnes was always at the back of the line. They lined up in alphabetical order and since she was a Veh she was always last in line. She made up her mind that wasn't going to happen to her kids, so she married a Barnes. That's not the only reason - I don't think."
"One day last week I got upset with my computer," Ivan wrote. "So I used the names Depperschmidt, Schwertfeger, and Windscheffel all in the same sentence. Drove the spell checker nuts."
"My gosh," Ivan said. "did you see those skimpy outfits those beach volleyball players wore. I didn't at first, then someone called my attention to it."
"I can't reveal my source for this," Ivan said, "but Doc Gibson has the right idea. A usually reliable source said that Doc and Audrey would drive up to the high school track. Audrey would hop out and walk briskly around the track several times. Meanwhile, back in the vehicle, Doc would unfold a newspaper briskly, then sit there and read the paper without ever looking up to check on Audrey's progress. I don't know how many laps Audrey can make on one newspaper but if it is the Echo she would be hard-pressed to do a hundred yard dash."
"Mike Hughes tried to get into a ballet troupe but he couldn't wear a tu tu," Ivan said. "He required a three three."
"Last week was moving day for college students," Ivan noted. "Parents and grandparents were wondering where the years have up and went."
"It's getting to where you can't talk about anybody at the Barnes Aerobic group anymore," Ivan said. "With the Weltmers, the Meyerzzes, and the Ratliffs, every time you say something you are talking about somebody's relative."
"Remember," Ivan said, "Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors and Stay Ahead of the Posse."
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 17, 2004 - continued
I have been riding with Smith Center Police Chief Randy Nelson as he patrolled the highways and byways of the community on a long-shadowed summer evening. Chief Nelson doesn't usually allow riders in the squad cars, but made an exception for me. We have been talking about what it's like to police a small town in north central Kansas.
"I don't know the kids turning 16 now as much as I used to," Chief Nelson said, "and with the Privacy Act you don't get a list of birthdays from the school."
The city shop is near the ball diamond, the fairgrounds, the Armory. The National Guard unit had just gotten back from camp at Fort Riley.
If the sheriff's department needs back up out in the county, "we're going," the chief said. "Sometimes we get there before the county officer if the situation warrants it."
There's a long evening's light in Smith Center in June. "If I weren't working," he said, "this time of night I'd be out golfing. I really enjoy the game, but it's frustrating."
I don't remember if I told him about my "zen golfing." I count the good strokes. If I get three or four in nine holes, that's a good round. When I tell this to real golfers, they just kinda look at me. I don't remember if I said anything to the chief about it.
Both the two other officers in the Smith Center Police Department are from the community, both of them went to school in town. You need about four hundred and sixty hours of training to get into law enforcement, ten to twelve weeks starting out, then forty hours per year of continuous education. "We usually end up having to drive some ways to get training," the chief said. "The sheriff's department just got hooked up to the satellite system, so now we can get some of our hours that way."
We drove past the office of one of Smith Center's veterinarians. "There are two veterinarians in town," Chief Nelson indicated. "They are busy men around here."
The chief made a special exemption to let me ride in the squad car. His usual policy is not to let people do that.
"We don't have that many break-ins," the chief said. "It kinda runs in spurts."
The number of out-of-town people coming into Smith Center to make trouble is minimal, he said. "We don't have that much trouble, really."
"Week days are really quiet," he said. "After 10 p.m. there aren't many cars on the street."
Over and back and up this street and down that and still people are as quick to wave at the chief as he is to wave at them.
"Public relations is ninety percent of this job," he said. "They know that we're not out hunting for them. Most of them recognize they've screwed up. I think we've been pretty fair to people over the years."
I asked him about the Excel Jamboree, and the Noise Parade on the last night of that. He said only a few people have complained about the noise. "A lot of people had a good time," he added. Of the Excel owners who come for the Jamboree, he said "we never have a problem with those people. They enjoy it when you sit down and talk with them."
I asked about the portion of Smith Center's streets that are brick, rather than concrete or asphalt. West Point, Nebraska, and Emmetsburg, Iowa, are other communities I visit which retain some brick streets. "They are part of Smith Center's identity," Chief Nelson said, "but they're about ten times as slick as regular streets."
When we drove past the community's swimming pool, the chief said: "Ah, I think that would be chilly."
Smith Center is fortunate to have an EMS [Emergency Medical Squad] that "helps tremendously - they are really a good crew," Chief Nelson said. "They're getting a new building out on the highway."
"A lot of good things are happening here for a little town," he said.
And still we were driving up and down and back and forth over and back. I doubt there was a street in town we hadn't patrolled. At this point we'd probably logged thirty miles riding together.
"Everything is in its place?" I suggested.
"So far, so good," the chief said.
Does he end up testifying in court very often?
"Not often," he said. "People usually pay the fine. Seems like what we go to court for is dogs running loose."
"If the arrest you make is good," he said, "if you write a good report, you won't go to court."
The department "goes on weather watch when we've got storms coming in," he said.
Chief Nelson is no longer driving truck, and we talked about that. He used to take loads to Los Angeles or Seattle every week. "I don't have the patience to drive to LA now," he admitted.
Then we were out checking over the golf course, three miles south of town. "The city took over the course about five years ago," the chief said. A "super guy" runs the operation. "The rain has really greened up the fairways."
There have been no gas station robberies since Chief Nelson has been in town. "Some were broken into, in the evening," he said. "They went after beer."
Tough situations?
"Taking guns off people - that gets the adrenaline going," he said. "Taking a knife away from a guy. Dealing with accidents - a real good friend of mine and his dad were killed in an accident; I had to notify the family. It was the toughest thing I've had to do. All those situations hurt, but not like this did."
We'd put on another ten miles already. We were passing in front of Hardware Hank downtown. All manner of merchandise gets left out in front of the store overnight. "That never gets stolen," the chief said.
All of a sudden, we had excitement. A 521, a missing dog in town, a Dalmatian named Pookie. Now we had to keep our eyes open for Pookie.
And the chief got philosophical. "Everybody knows you, pretty much," he said. "I don't know everyone, but everyone pretty much knows me. I haven't figured out if that's good or bad. I had kids in school here, one of them was a super athlete, so I suppose that helps."
I'd been riding with the chief for two hours or more. We'd been up and down and back and forth and over and back. An endless stream of drivers waved hello. We'd circled and re-circled. I'd seen every street in Smith Center, every house, every empty lot. Most of them more than once. I'd started to feel as if I'd been spinning in a washing machine, with only a missing Dalmatian to challenge us. We were driving towards Ingleboro Mansion again, where I was staying.
"Well?" said the chief. He knew what I was thinking.
"Yeah," I said. "Drop me off." I'd go get a late supper.
Boring is good, I told myself as I walked into house. Boring means you have a successful police department and a safe community. But I don't think I could be a cop, with the endless hours of boredom interspersed with random moments of sheer terror.
When I came out of the restaurant after I'd finished supper, there was Chief Nelson cruising Main Street yet again. I waved at him. He waved at me.
--------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Dennis Reinert is kinda like Rodney Dangerfield," Ivan said. "He don't get no respect. One morning last week, Dennis was sittin' at the front table at Paul's. Everyone who came in said to Dennis, 'How much rain did you get?' Dennis said, 'Forty hundreth.' Everybody who asked him said, 'I didn't get near that much. Are you sure you emptied your gauge?' Dennis just sat there and took it. While all this was going on, I just sat there and listened. But, you know, Dennis' reported rainfall amount was about what I had."
"All the years she was in school," Ivan said, "Arloa Barnes was always at the back of the line. They lined up in alphabetical order and since she was a Veh she was always last in line. She made up her mind that wasn't going to happen to her kids, so she married a Barnes. That's not the only reason - I don't think."
"One day last week I got upset with my computer," Ivan wrote. "So I used the names Depperschmidt, Schwertfeger, and Windscheffel all in the same sentence. Drove the spell checker nuts."
"My gosh," Ivan said. "did you see those skimpy outfits those beach volleyball players wore. I didn't at first, then someone called my attention to it."
"I can't reveal my source for this," Ivan said, "but Doc Gibson has the right idea. A usually reliable source said that Doc and Audrey would drive up to the high school track. Audrey would hop out and walk briskly around the track several times. Meanwhile, back in the vehicle, Doc would unfold a newspaper briskly, then sit there and read the paper without ever looking up to check on Audrey's progress. I don't know how many laps Audrey can make on one newspaper but if it is the Echo she would be hard-pressed to do a hundred yard dash."
"Mike Hughes tried to get into a ballet troupe but he couldn't wear a tu tu," Ivan said. "He required a three three."
"Last week was moving day for college students," Ivan noted. "Parents and grandparents were wondering where the years have up and went."
"It's getting to where you can't talk about anybody at the Barnes Aerobic group anymore," Ivan said. "With the Weltmers, the Meyerzzes, and the Ratliffs, every time you say something you are talking about somebody's relative."
"Remember," Ivan said, "Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors and Stay Ahead of the Posse."
>
Sunday, September 05, 2004
GOING TO MINNESOTA FOR
NEPHEW'S WEDDING RECEPTION
HE'S THE POET IN THE FAMILY
---
BACK TO BLOGGING ON TUESDAY, SEPT. 7
Steve Gehrke is my sister Nancy's older son. Steve is the award-winning poet in the family. His first book, The Resurrection Machine (BkMk Press, 2000), was selected by Miller Williams for the John Ciardi Prize. His second book, The Pyramids of Malpighi (Anhinga Press) which came out early this year, won the 2002 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Steve earned an MFA at the University of Texas-Austin, where he studied on a Michener Fellowship. I am always amazed and pleased when I see that his poems are appearing in such magazines as Indiana Review, Mississippi Review, and Georgia Review. He is kindly astonished that I am listed as one of the "founding contributing editors" going back to the very first Pushcart Prize anthology and that early on I had a poem in that tome.
Steve married earlier this summer, at his home in Columbia, Missouri, where he is completing a doctorate at the University of Missouri in writing and literature. Nadine Meyer, his new bride, is also an accomplished poet and she's also studying at the University of Missouri. Mary and I met Nadine a few years ago when we visited Steve in Columbia; we really enjoyed her company, especially on a good hardy hike the four of us took on a fine autumn day and at supper that evening in an interesting restaurant downtown. We were unable to attend the wedding on June 5th, as you may remember I was delivering a couple of presentations at the Wisconsin Writers Conference that weekend in Baraboo. Steve's parents, my sister Nancy and her husband Gerry, are hosting a reception today (Sunday) for family unable to attend the ceremony and for Steve's friends from his hometown, North Mankato, Minnesota.
So that's where we'll be today, and tomorrow we'll be driving home, hoping to stop in La Crosse on our way back at Buzzard Billy's Flying Carp Cafe for some wonderful Cajun cooking. If it is open on Labor Day....
Back to blogging at Tuesday, September 7th!
-------------------------
TO ALL WHO LEFT COMMENTS--
THANKS!
About 10:45 a.m. yesterday, Mary and I took The Boopster to the veterinarian and had her put to sleep. It was time. She'd not been eating or drinking since we brought her home from the previous visit, she was obviously uncomfortable, trying to cough out that tumor from her throat. About 3:00 a.m. Friday night, she came up into bed with me and put her head on my chest and purred for twenty minutes, something she hadn't done for several nights. Then she had to try getting comfortable someplace else. But there was no comfortable place left.
She went gentle, like a sigh. Now all the elements of her will become the stuff of stars again. We're sad and we'll miss her. Sometimes, in my sadness, I have to say the "Lay Me Down" prayer from the end of my "Married to Prairie" series in Middle Ground. I say it again now, offering Boops back to the place she came from. Good-bye, you sweet thing.
from
MARRIED TO PRAIRIE (Middle Ground)
"LAY ME DOWN"
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Let my eyes be closed, and
not be opened. The lone horse, pulling where two should,
must wish for death, for death. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. I am grown world-weary,
tugged and tossed and turned about. Dried grass, its flesh made
wasted, cannot but snap. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Give me open fields which
don't need working, where I can run as free as
a horse come out of harness. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Let my days break quietly,
with bird-song, the timid caress of fresh, new sun.
What dew enjoys, let me. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Take this body, this breath.
Let the weight be lifted. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
-------------------------
YOU LOSE SOME, YOU WIN SOME
Not two days after I learned that the Wisconsin Poet Laureate appointment was going to someone else, I got an e-mail inviting me to participate in "Marshall Festival 2005: A Celebration of Rural Writers and Writing and More," to be held at Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota, in October, 2005.
On Tuesday, October 25, 2005, poet David Steingass and I will present "The News from Wisconsin." For my part of it, I'll say a few words about Wisconsin's premier poet, Lorine Niedecker, who has been dead now nearly thirty-five years and still is not well enough recognized; I will read some from my own poetry and prose; and I'll provide the thumbnail version of my Vagabond project.
On Wednesday, October 26, 2005, I'll sit on a panel discussing "Rural Literature" in a free-for-all conversation with such writers as Doug Unger, Bill Kloefkorn, Joe Bruchac, William Kittredge, David Lee, Dave Etter, Sonia Gernes, Phil Hey, Kathleen Norris, and David Steingass. They might have to break this group into two discussion sessions, if I'm to get a word in edgewise.
I am honored to be invited to take part in a celebration of rural writing, and to be included in the company of such a distinguished group. Makes it seem like I am on the right track. And I get paid for participating. Though - don't tell - you'd almost work for nothing if you got to sit in conversation with Bill Kloefkorn, Dave Etter, and Kathleen Norris, wouldn't you?
-------------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 17, 2004 continued
I think it was with urging from Ivan Burgess and some of the other fellows in town that Randy Nelson, chief of Smith Center Police Department, set aside for a few hours his policy of "No Riders in Squad Cars" and let me accompany him as he made his rounds of the city on a long-shadowed evening in June. This is the first part of a report about that experience.
Randy Nelson is chief of Smith Center's three-man police department. Smith County has a three-man sheriff's department, and the two units cooperate to help each other out. In the police department, the fellows rotate days and shifts; they'll work six days and get three days off, alternative the 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. shift with the 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift.
This week, the chief is working the 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift. And he's going to let me ride in the police cruiser for part of it.
What is the usual day of patrol like? It's a lot of driving and looking. "Boring," the chief says, "is successful."
"We're small-town America," he says, to explain why the town is generally so quiet. Although there was the fellow involved in a domestic dispute who came out of the house with a gun - "He was just seconds from getting killed."
Mostly, on patrol, you're watching for anything out of the ordinary, a door open at the school or a business. And "we get a few drunk drivers."
When Chief Nelson came to work in Smith Center in 1992, "we had lots of DUI's [Driving Under the Influence] then. There aren't near as many now. We've made people more aware. Now when they drink they get a ride or walk home. They can call us."
"We do bar checks," he said. "We're watching for under-age drinking, which is a problem at times."
"We have some methamphetamine problems, sure," he said when I asked. "We haven't yet busted a meth lab in town. One got hot and blew up in Kensington. It wasn't hard to find that one."
"Outside of homicides," he said, "we have everything a big city has, just on a smaller scale."
We'd been driving up and down the streets of Smith Center, back and forth, over and back. "This is pretty typical," he said. "You just drive around. On weekends we have two fellows out patrolling. We spend a little more time on Main Street."
Chief Nelson said he's got a good relationship with the fellow in town who owns both the bars. The fellow wants the police to come in, checking. "And people know we treat them fair."
We were out at the west edge of Smith Center again, driving through the little park there. There are semis and combines parked there, one of those migrant combining crews getting some down time, not a problem.
The John Deere dealer, Smith County Implement, is just farther west of the park. The chief told me there was a young guy from Australia working there as a mechanic, part of an exchange program.
Then I learn that Chief Nelson was raised in Lebanon, up near the cairn for the center of the lower forty-eight states; he went to school there. He spent a few years in Nebraska in law enforcement, then a few more years as officer in Phillipsburg. He has been in law enforcement, he said, since 1981.
Before that, he drove truck to the west coast, and he worked at Excel for a few years. He gave up the truck-driving because he "got tired of being away."
So a local fellow is chief of police. Sometimes that helps, "but sometimes it really makes it harder because you know everybody," he says. It's hard being a cop and having your kids grow up here, too, hard being The Cop and The Dad.
The airport, which is half a mile outside of town, is city property the department has to patrol. So is the golf course, three miles south of Smith Center.
There are two companies that do aerial spraying located at the airport. "All the hangars here are full," Chief Nelson said. "We could actually use more of them. This runway needs some repairs."
Smith Center expects to build a new airport in the next couple years. Excel flies people in and out of the current facility, the chief said; so does Brook Corporation, an insurance broker in town.
From the airport, we could look out over farmland. We'd seen a bit of rain during the week, and Chief Nelson thought "the rain will help the pastures. The pastures were really getting bad."
Smith Center, he said, "is a real good little town, a good place to raise kids. It has a good school system."
We were still driving up and down the streets of town, over and back and back and forth in a tightening then widening circle, regular but irregular. The driver of nearly every car waves when meeting the chief in the street; folks getting out of or into their cars downtown wave.
Is it true there hasn't been a homicide in Smith County since the 1800s? I asked.
"That's correct," Chief Nelson said. "I hope we can keep that record intact, too."
The numbers on Kansas license plates identify the owner's county of residence, so just by looking at a car you know if it's a local vehicle or from out of town. Kansas doesn't require front license plates, as Wisconsin does, and that doesn't present any problems, according to the chief.
"For the most part, the work is just boring," he said, repeating an earlier theme. "That makes for long shifts, but it's just part of the job."
He pointed out the home of Craig Marshall, a school principal I'd interviewed; pointed out the home of Troy Lorenzen of Smith County Implement, whom I'd interviewed too.
The jail is across the street from Craig Marshall's school. I had seen prisoners inside the fence area at the jail when I'd gone to the school to interview Marshall. "One person was released just today after being in for a year on a county conviction," the chief told me.
Soon we were out at the county yard, near the sale barn. The sale barn cafe is still open, however. You can tell how tough these people are by the way they hold on for so long, the way they hold out, hang in.
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 4, 1998
What is our true investment in our place, what is our true reason for being here, for remaining here? In the past, I've talked about how I got here, I've talked about why I've stayed. Perhaps we need to ask why and why again until we get deep into ourselves - it's not the money only, being able to make a living here; if we had to we could find money elsewhere. It's not for the sake of our daughters; our daughters are gone. It's not the house - it's a dear old house, to be sure, but we could live in a box and be happy if we wanted to. (Well, perhaps it is the house - I'd have a real hard time giving it up.) Who am I, still here now. Why do I stay. To answer that for myself may go some ways towards defining place overall, a man's relationship to it.
Sun, this morning, and moist air too. Autumn's rising. I head out of town via West Street, to get gasoline for the pick-up. I stop at the railroad tracks as required. A man is walking his dog on the tracks, coming back towards town. As I head towards Village Mart, I descend into a light layer of ground fog.
There is a light ground fog across the whole countryside. There are swatches where it is heavier, too. A morning beautifully made.
The corn is turning fast now, faster than the beans. You can smell the color of the corn.
In so beautiful a morning, I think of the Lake Superior shoreline at Grand Marais on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is the day the Lord has made. I am so glad to be alive. I want to wrestle everything out of every minute that remains.
>
NEPHEW'S WEDDING RECEPTION
HE'S THE POET IN THE FAMILY
---
BACK TO BLOGGING ON TUESDAY, SEPT. 7
Steve Gehrke is my sister Nancy's older son. Steve is the award-winning poet in the family. His first book, The Resurrection Machine (BkMk Press, 2000), was selected by Miller Williams for the John Ciardi Prize. His second book, The Pyramids of Malpighi (Anhinga Press) which came out early this year, won the 2002 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Steve earned an MFA at the University of Texas-Austin, where he studied on a Michener Fellowship. I am always amazed and pleased when I see that his poems are appearing in such magazines as Indiana Review, Mississippi Review, and Georgia Review. He is kindly astonished that I am listed as one of the "founding contributing editors" going back to the very first Pushcart Prize anthology and that early on I had a poem in that tome.
Steve married earlier this summer, at his home in Columbia, Missouri, where he is completing a doctorate at the University of Missouri in writing and literature. Nadine Meyer, his new bride, is also an accomplished poet and she's also studying at the University of Missouri. Mary and I met Nadine a few years ago when we visited Steve in Columbia; we really enjoyed her company, especially on a good hardy hike the four of us took on a fine autumn day and at supper that evening in an interesting restaurant downtown. We were unable to attend the wedding on June 5th, as you may remember I was delivering a couple of presentations at the Wisconsin Writers Conference that weekend in Baraboo. Steve's parents, my sister Nancy and her husband Gerry, are hosting a reception today (Sunday) for family unable to attend the ceremony and for Steve's friends from his hometown, North Mankato, Minnesota.
So that's where we'll be today, and tomorrow we'll be driving home, hoping to stop in La Crosse on our way back at Buzzard Billy's Flying Carp Cafe for some wonderful Cajun cooking. If it is open on Labor Day....
Back to blogging at Tuesday, September 7th!
-------------------------
TO ALL WHO LEFT COMMENTS--
THANKS!
About 10:45 a.m. yesterday, Mary and I took The Boopster to the veterinarian and had her put to sleep. It was time. She'd not been eating or drinking since we brought her home from the previous visit, she was obviously uncomfortable, trying to cough out that tumor from her throat. About 3:00 a.m. Friday night, she came up into bed with me and put her head on my chest and purred for twenty minutes, something she hadn't done for several nights. Then she had to try getting comfortable someplace else. But there was no comfortable place left.
She went gentle, like a sigh. Now all the elements of her will become the stuff of stars again. We're sad and we'll miss her. Sometimes, in my sadness, I have to say the "Lay Me Down" prayer from the end of my "Married to Prairie" series in Middle Ground. I say it again now, offering Boops back to the place she came from. Good-bye, you sweet thing.
from
MARRIED TO PRAIRIE (Middle Ground)
"LAY ME DOWN"
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Let my eyes be closed, and
not be opened. The lone horse, pulling where two should,
must wish for death, for death. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. I am grown world-weary,
tugged and tossed and turned about. Dried grass, its flesh made
wasted, cannot but snap. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Give me open fields which
don't need working, where I can run as free as
a horse come out of harness. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Let my days break quietly,
with bird-song, the timid caress of fresh, new sun.
What dew enjoys, let me. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
Lord, lay me down to sleep. Take this body, this breath.
Let the weight be lifted. Lord, lay me down to sleep.
-------------------------
YOU LOSE SOME, YOU WIN SOME
Not two days after I learned that the Wisconsin Poet Laureate appointment was going to someone else, I got an e-mail inviting me to participate in "Marshall Festival 2005: A Celebration of Rural Writers and Writing and More," to be held at Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota, in October, 2005.
On Tuesday, October 25, 2005, poet David Steingass and I will present "The News from Wisconsin." For my part of it, I'll say a few words about Wisconsin's premier poet, Lorine Niedecker, who has been dead now nearly thirty-five years and still is not well enough recognized; I will read some from my own poetry and prose; and I'll provide the thumbnail version of my Vagabond project.
On Wednesday, October 26, 2005, I'll sit on a panel discussing "Rural Literature" in a free-for-all conversation with such writers as Doug Unger, Bill Kloefkorn, Joe Bruchac, William Kittredge, David Lee, Dave Etter, Sonia Gernes, Phil Hey, Kathleen Norris, and David Steingass. They might have to break this group into two discussion sessions, if I'm to get a word in edgewise.
I am honored to be invited to take part in a celebration of rural writing, and to be included in the company of such a distinguished group. Makes it seem like I am on the right track. And I get paid for participating. Though - don't tell - you'd almost work for nothing if you got to sit in conversation with Bill Kloefkorn, Dave Etter, and Kathleen Norris, wouldn't you?
-------------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 17, 2004 continued
I think it was with urging from Ivan Burgess and some of the other fellows in town that Randy Nelson, chief of Smith Center Police Department, set aside for a few hours his policy of "No Riders in Squad Cars" and let me accompany him as he made his rounds of the city on a long-shadowed evening in June. This is the first part of a report about that experience.
Randy Nelson is chief of Smith Center's three-man police department. Smith County has a three-man sheriff's department, and the two units cooperate to help each other out. In the police department, the fellows rotate days and shifts; they'll work six days and get three days off, alternative the 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. shift with the 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift.
This week, the chief is working the 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift. And he's going to let me ride in the police cruiser for part of it.
What is the usual day of patrol like? It's a lot of driving and looking. "Boring," the chief says, "is successful."
"We're small-town America," he says, to explain why the town is generally so quiet. Although there was the fellow involved in a domestic dispute who came out of the house with a gun - "He was just seconds from getting killed."
Mostly, on patrol, you're watching for anything out of the ordinary, a door open at the school or a business. And "we get a few drunk drivers."
When Chief Nelson came to work in Smith Center in 1992, "we had lots of DUI's [Driving Under the Influence] then. There aren't near as many now. We've made people more aware. Now when they drink they get a ride or walk home. They can call us."
"We do bar checks," he said. "We're watching for under-age drinking, which is a problem at times."
"We have some methamphetamine problems, sure," he said when I asked. "We haven't yet busted a meth lab in town. One got hot and blew up in Kensington. It wasn't hard to find that one."
"Outside of homicides," he said, "we have everything a big city has, just on a smaller scale."
We'd been driving up and down the streets of Smith Center, back and forth, over and back. "This is pretty typical," he said. "You just drive around. On weekends we have two fellows out patrolling. We spend a little more time on Main Street."
Chief Nelson said he's got a good relationship with the fellow in town who owns both the bars. The fellow wants the police to come in, checking. "And people know we treat them fair."
We were out at the west edge of Smith Center again, driving through the little park there. There are semis and combines parked there, one of those migrant combining crews getting some down time, not a problem.
The John Deere dealer, Smith County Implement, is just farther west of the park. The chief told me there was a young guy from Australia working there as a mechanic, part of an exchange program.
Then I learn that Chief Nelson was raised in Lebanon, up near the cairn for the center of the lower forty-eight states; he went to school there. He spent a few years in Nebraska in law enforcement, then a few more years as officer in Phillipsburg. He has been in law enforcement, he said, since 1981.
Before that, he drove truck to the west coast, and he worked at Excel for a few years. He gave up the truck-driving because he "got tired of being away."
So a local fellow is chief of police. Sometimes that helps, "but sometimes it really makes it harder because you know everybody," he says. It's hard being a cop and having your kids grow up here, too, hard being The Cop and The Dad.
The airport, which is half a mile outside of town, is city property the department has to patrol. So is the golf course, three miles south of Smith Center.
There are two companies that do aerial spraying located at the airport. "All the hangars here are full," Chief Nelson said. "We could actually use more of them. This runway needs some repairs."
Smith Center expects to build a new airport in the next couple years. Excel flies people in and out of the current facility, the chief said; so does Brook Corporation, an insurance broker in town.
From the airport, we could look out over farmland. We'd seen a bit of rain during the week, and Chief Nelson thought "the rain will help the pastures. The pastures were really getting bad."
Smith Center, he said, "is a real good little town, a good place to raise kids. It has a good school system."
We were still driving up and down the streets of town, over and back and back and forth in a tightening then widening circle, regular but irregular. The driver of nearly every car waves when meeting the chief in the street; folks getting out of or into their cars downtown wave.
Is it true there hasn't been a homicide in Smith County since the 1800s? I asked.
"That's correct," Chief Nelson said. "I hope we can keep that record intact, too."
The numbers on Kansas license plates identify the owner's county of residence, so just by looking at a car you know if it's a local vehicle or from out of town. Kansas doesn't require front license plates, as Wisconsin does, and that doesn't present any problems, according to the chief.
"For the most part, the work is just boring," he said, repeating an earlier theme. "That makes for long shifts, but it's just part of the job."
He pointed out the home of Craig Marshall, a school principal I'd interviewed; pointed out the home of Troy Lorenzen of Smith County Implement, whom I'd interviewed too.
The jail is across the street from Craig Marshall's school. I had seen prisoners inside the fence area at the jail when I'd gone to the school to interview Marshall. "One person was released just today after being in for a year on a county conviction," the chief told me.
Soon we were out at the county yard, near the sale barn. The sale barn cafe is still open, however. You can tell how tough these people are by the way they hold on for so long, the way they hold out, hang in.
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 4, 1998
What is our true investment in our place, what is our true reason for being here, for remaining here? In the past, I've talked about how I got here, I've talked about why I've stayed. Perhaps we need to ask why and why again until we get deep into ourselves - it's not the money only, being able to make a living here; if we had to we could find money elsewhere. It's not for the sake of our daughters; our daughters are gone. It's not the house - it's a dear old house, to be sure, but we could live in a box and be happy if we wanted to. (Well, perhaps it is the house - I'd have a real hard time giving it up.) Who am I, still here now. Why do I stay. To answer that for myself may go some ways towards defining place overall, a man's relationship to it.
Sun, this morning, and moist air too. Autumn's rising. I head out of town via West Street, to get gasoline for the pick-up. I stop at the railroad tracks as required. A man is walking his dog on the tracks, coming back towards town. As I head towards Village Mart, I descend into a light layer of ground fog.
There is a light ground fog across the whole countryside. There are swatches where it is heavier, too. A morning beautifully made.
The corn is turning fast now, faster than the beans. You can smell the color of the corn.
In so beautiful a morning, I think of the Lake Superior shoreline at Grand Marais on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is the day the Lord has made. I am so glad to be alive. I want to wrestle everything out of every minute that remains.
>
Saturday, September 04, 2004
SATURDAY'S POEMS
---------------------------------
COMPENSATION FOR
A SUNBURNED HIKER
by Shoshauna Shy
Nobody talks
about the weather in Cheney
because picnics aren't soggy
and the jeans you forgot
on the line will stay dry
If you leave Solitaire
on the wicker chair
at the end of the verandah
no wind will take it
and the rustless Hudsons
like your great-uncle would drive
still prowl Cocolalla Street
What a relief
to not have to waste time
small-talkin' weather
when you get to Cheney
*
THE BEST WAY TO READ
LORINE NIEDECKER'S POEMS
by Shoshauna Shy
First wander through Emerald Grove's antique store
amongst fishing nets and rusty kerosene lamps
for a spitbox in which to plant Queen Anne's lace.
Unpin dishtowels from a clothesline
and notice how the leaves
of the neighboring poplar
shimmy in the wind.
Enter a cabin that has been sitting empty
while its owners take a cross-country train
to New York.
With her book on your lap, cup the chin
of a cat as it sprawls beside you
on a windowsill, the breeze thick
with the scent of cherry blossoms.
Remember how your husband's former fiancée
whose pregnancy was terminated
asked to come visit, couldn't take her eyes
off your little boy.
"Compensation for a Sunburned Hiker" was published previously by Moon Journal Press (Winter 2001) and "The Best Way To Read Lorine Niedecker's Poems" by Wisconsin Academy Review (Fall 2003). Reprinted here by permission of the poet. Shoshauna Shy is a member of the Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet and the founder of Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, a program with the mission of placing poetry in public places where it is not expected. Her poems have been published on-line and in numerous journals and magazines, including Poetry Northwest, Cimarron Review, The Comstock Review, and Rosebud. One of her poems was selected for the Poetry 180 Library of Congress program, "A Poem a Day in American High Schools" launched by Billy Collins. She edited Lake Wingra Morning: Poems of the Dudgeon-Monroe Neighborhood (2003).
-----------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About thirty-two of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Karl Elder, "In a Town Called Unincorporated" - August 28, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o John Rezmerski, "What I Am Trying to Tell You: Prairie in My Mouth" and "Some Good Things Left After the War With the Sioux" - August 21, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
---------------------------------
COMPENSATION FOR
A SUNBURNED HIKER
by Shoshauna Shy
Nobody talks
about the weather in Cheney
because picnics aren't soggy
and the jeans you forgot
on the line will stay dry
If you leave Solitaire
on the wicker chair
at the end of the verandah
no wind will take it
and the rustless Hudsons
like your great-uncle would drive
still prowl Cocolalla Street
What a relief
to not have to waste time
small-talkin' weather
when you get to Cheney
*
THE BEST WAY TO READ
LORINE NIEDECKER'S POEMS
by Shoshauna Shy
First wander through Emerald Grove's antique store
amongst fishing nets and rusty kerosene lamps
for a spitbox in which to plant Queen Anne's lace.
Unpin dishtowels from a clothesline
and notice how the leaves
of the neighboring poplar
shimmy in the wind.
Enter a cabin that has been sitting empty
while its owners take a cross-country train
to New York.
With her book on your lap, cup the chin
of a cat as it sprawls beside you
on a windowsill, the breeze thick
with the scent of cherry blossoms.
Remember how your husband's former fiancée
whose pregnancy was terminated
asked to come visit, couldn't take her eyes
off your little boy.
"Compensation for a Sunburned Hiker" was published previously by Moon Journal Press (Winter 2001) and "The Best Way To Read Lorine Niedecker's Poems" by Wisconsin Academy Review (Fall 2003). Reprinted here by permission of the poet. Shoshauna Shy is a member of the Prairie Fire Poetry Quartet and the founder of Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, a program with the mission of placing poetry in public places where it is not expected. Her poems have been published on-line and in numerous journals and magazines, including Poetry Northwest, Cimarron Review, The Comstock Review, and Rosebud. One of her poems was selected for the Poetry 180 Library of Congress program, "A Poem a Day in American High Schools" launched by Billy Collins. She edited Lake Wingra Morning: Poems of the Dudgeon-Monroe Neighborhood (2003).
-----------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About thirty-two of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Karl Elder, "In a Town Called Unincorporated" - August 28, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o John Rezmerski, "What I Am Trying to Tell You: Prairie in My Mouth" and "Some Good Things Left After the War With the Sioux" - August 21, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
Friday, September 03, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 17, 2004
It's the As The Bladder Fills Club again, another day, another installment. Ivan tells a joke, then says I shouldn't tell you what it takes to satisfy an Amish girl. He doesn't want it to sound like he insults everybody with his jokes.
And I suppose the fellows won't be too happy with me telling about the shipwreck they were talking of. What shipwreck? The boatload of Vaseline that sunk, headed for the Virgin Islands.
One of the fellows misses something that is said. Another of the guys shakes his head: "He don't know the score. He don't even know who's playing."
Linton Lull is talking about rain in Arizona, says "that's the driest rain you ever saw."
Bobbi Miles, my hostess at Ingleboro Mansion where I'm staying, comes in and sits down with us. Ivan says "That's Bobbi with one 'O.'"
He says, "Do you know that story?"
Bobbi says, "This fellow registered at Ingleboro. He said, 'My name is Bob, with one o.' I said, 'Well, my name is Bobbi, with one o.' How did this story get up here? Oh, it was you." She points at Dick Stroup, her neighbor.
Someone down at the other end of the table is telling a story. I don't hear all of it but I pick up the bones. Seems two prostitutes were driving around town advertising their services with a sign on their car. A cop stopped them and said "You can't be doing that. Get rid of that sign or I'll have to arrest you."
One of the prostitutes sees a car with a sign on it that says "Jesus Saves."
"What about that?" she asks the cop.
"That's okay," the cop says. "That's religious."
The next day the two prostitutes are driving around town with a sign on their car that says "Two fallen angels looking for Peter."
They're talking about rainfall again, and about reading rain gauges, and Ivan says "You've got to read the bottom of the meniscus, that's what you have to measure."
One of the other fellows says "that's the part that grows watermelon, and Ivan knows how to grow watermelon. A guy came in here one day. He had grown the largest watermelon in a three-state area and here's Ivan telling him how to grow watermelon. The damned-est part is the guy sits down and listens to him."
Tom asks: "Ivan, do you have to work today?"
Linton Lull answers me before Ivan can: "No - he's already worked this week."
I thought Linton was such a nice man. Here it was, Thursday, the fourth day I've had coffee with these fellows, and it's the first time I hear him take a poke at Ivan. Ivan draws an awful lot of fire, that's plain to see. I think it's probably because he gives back as good as he gets. But Linton has been pretty mild compared to the other fellows.
"Linton a nice guy?" one of the fellows asks with some exaggerated astonishment. "Why, when he was a banker, he re-possessed bees. He took a guy's bees away."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 3, 1998
I left home early this morning, to take my wife into the hospital for tests. Now it is 6:25 a.m. and I sit in her car in a nearly empty parking lot at work, watching the sun come up. It is a "rosy-cheeked dawn." The picture should be in National Geographic - the sun above a dark line of trees in the distance, a layer of ground fog hunkered down low on the marsh across the road, a pale blue, slightly hazy sky. Morning is singing its song. If the day could sing, it would be saying Hallelujah. I go in to work - another day underway.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 17, 2004
It's the As The Bladder Fills Club again, another day, another installment. Ivan tells a joke, then says I shouldn't tell you what it takes to satisfy an Amish girl. He doesn't want it to sound like he insults everybody with his jokes.
And I suppose the fellows won't be too happy with me telling about the shipwreck they were talking of. What shipwreck? The boatload of Vaseline that sunk, headed for the Virgin Islands.
One of the fellows misses something that is said. Another of the guys shakes his head: "He don't know the score. He don't even know who's playing."
Linton Lull is talking about rain in Arizona, says "that's the driest rain you ever saw."
Bobbi Miles, my hostess at Ingleboro Mansion where I'm staying, comes in and sits down with us. Ivan says "That's Bobbi with one 'O.'"
He says, "Do you know that story?"
Bobbi says, "This fellow registered at Ingleboro. He said, 'My name is Bob, with one o.' I said, 'Well, my name is Bobbi, with one o.' How did this story get up here? Oh, it was you." She points at Dick Stroup, her neighbor.
Someone down at the other end of the table is telling a story. I don't hear all of it but I pick up the bones. Seems two prostitutes were driving around town advertising their services with a sign on their car. A cop stopped them and said "You can't be doing that. Get rid of that sign or I'll have to arrest you."
One of the prostitutes sees a car with a sign on it that says "Jesus Saves."
"What about that?" she asks the cop.
"That's okay," the cop says. "That's religious."
The next day the two prostitutes are driving around town with a sign on their car that says "Two fallen angels looking for Peter."
They're talking about rainfall again, and about reading rain gauges, and Ivan says "You've got to read the bottom of the meniscus, that's what you have to measure."
One of the other fellows says "that's the part that grows watermelon, and Ivan knows how to grow watermelon. A guy came in here one day. He had grown the largest watermelon in a three-state area and here's Ivan telling him how to grow watermelon. The damned-est part is the guy sits down and listens to him."
Tom asks: "Ivan, do you have to work today?"
Linton Lull answers me before Ivan can: "No - he's already worked this week."
I thought Linton was such a nice man. Here it was, Thursday, the fourth day I've had coffee with these fellows, and it's the first time I hear him take a poke at Ivan. Ivan draws an awful lot of fire, that's plain to see. I think it's probably because he gives back as good as he gets. But Linton has been pretty mild compared to the other fellows.
"Linton a nice guy?" one of the fellows asks with some exaggerated astonishment. "Why, when he was a banker, he re-possessed bees. He took a guy's bees away."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 3, 1998
I left home early this morning, to take my wife into the hospital for tests. Now it is 6:25 a.m. and I sit in her car in a nearly empty parking lot at work, watching the sun come up. It is a "rosy-cheeked dawn." The picture should be in National Geographic - the sun above a dark line of trees in the distance, a layer of ground fog hunkered down low on the marsh across the road, a pale blue, slightly hazy sky. Morning is singing its song. If the day could sing, it would be saying Hallelujah. I go in to work - another day underway.
>
Thursday, September 02, 2004
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
Yesterday, at the end of a long stretch of being Tom and waiting to hear about which of the three finalists the Governor would appoint as Wisconsin's next Poet Laureate, I penned a tidy little blog entry that I was going to call "The Ship of Poetry in Wisconsin Has Been Without Its Captain For a Full Day Now." At that point we'd heard nothing about the Governor's choice. Yes, my paragraph was a bit cheeky and tongue in cheek - but this has been hanging for a couple of months so what the hey. Here's the text of that proposed entry:
"Yes, indeed, the Ship of Poetry in Wisconsin has been without its Captain for a full day. The term of the retiring Poet Laureate of Wisconsin expired on August 31st. The Governor has not yet (to my knowledge) named the incoming Poet Laureate, so the state has been without its Ombudsman for Poetry a full day. The Untoward Effects of this Lapse have so far been minimal - only a few Rough Iambic Pentameters heard in the Milwaukee area; a Haiku or two in which the Frog Failed to Jump up near Marshfield; some Moon/June Rhyming in the east central part of the state; and some Awfully Tilted Slant Rhymes in the Superior region. We are fortunate that No One has been Seriously Injured thus far. We would urge the Governor to make Expeditious Haste to the nearest microphone and appoint Our Captain, O Captain."
*
At 2:00 yesterday afternoon I had to get our eldest cat, Boops, to the vet. Mary met me there. We had taken Boops in last week, afraid it was time then to have her put to sleep. We took her back in today, uncertain whether her time was up now. She has been failing markedly.
Boops came to us during the Gulf War of Bush the First. Back then I called her Warthog, after the A-10 jet plane so popular with our ground forces; my wife and daughters called her Taboo. She's a "tortoise shell," the way some cats are calico and some are tiger-striped; she's a tortoise shell with a lovely black and bronze pattern. I've known a lot of cats over the years, and would testify that Boops is the sweetest of them. One vet has told us that tortoise shells tend to be sweetly disposed. Boops' other nickname is Purr Bucket.
Last week when the vet weighed this old lady of a cat, we saw that she had lost more than 35% of her body mass. She hadn't been eating. She was severely dehydrated because she hadn't been drinking either. She had a swelling in her throat that made it difficult to swallow apparently, an inflammation or a tumor. The vet was almost certain it is cancerous. We've had Boops on antibiotics for a week and the swelling has been reduced somewhat, but not half enough to say clear-sailing, not enough by a mile. Yet her fever is gone and she has gained back 6/10th of a pound, which means she is eating and drinking again. She hasn't become dehydrated again.
What to do? what to do? I couldn't make a decision. For several years Boops has been my cat, sleeping every night at the side of my head. I got her trained to situate herself just so, then she was comfortable and I was comfortable. Every night she'd come up and turn herself into position, put her head down on my chest and purr. She'd purr all night.
"Yes, let's give her another shot of antibiotic and the anti-inflammatory, and see how she responds," my wife said to the vet. "That's what I'd do if she were my cat," the vet said.
>
Yesterday, at the end of a long stretch of being Tom and waiting to hear about which of the three finalists the Governor would appoint as Wisconsin's next Poet Laureate, I penned a tidy little blog entry that I was going to call "The Ship of Poetry in Wisconsin Has Been Without Its Captain For a Full Day Now." At that point we'd heard nothing about the Governor's choice. Yes, my paragraph was a bit cheeky and tongue in cheek - but this has been hanging for a couple of months so what the hey. Here's the text of that proposed entry:
"Yes, indeed, the Ship of Poetry in Wisconsin has been without its Captain for a full day. The term of the retiring Poet Laureate of Wisconsin expired on August 31st. The Governor has not yet (to my knowledge) named the incoming Poet Laureate, so the state has been without its Ombudsman for Poetry a full day. The Untoward Effects of this Lapse have so far been minimal - only a few Rough Iambic Pentameters heard in the Milwaukee area; a Haiku or two in which the Frog Failed to Jump up near Marshfield; some Moon/June Rhyming in the east central part of the state; and some Awfully Tilted Slant Rhymes in the Superior region. We are fortunate that No One has been Seriously Injured thus far. We would urge the Governor to make Expeditious Haste to the nearest microphone and appoint Our Captain, O Captain."
*
At 2:00 yesterday afternoon I had to get our eldest cat, Boops, to the vet. Mary met me there. We had taken Boops in last week, afraid it was time then to have her put to sleep. We took her back in today, uncertain whether her time was up now. She has been failing markedly.
Boops came to us during the Gulf War of Bush the First. Back then I called her Warthog, after the A-10 jet plane so popular with our ground forces; my wife and daughters called her Taboo. She's a "tortoise shell," the way some cats are calico and some are tiger-striped; she's a tortoise shell with a lovely black and bronze pattern. I've known a lot of cats over the years, and would testify that Boops is the sweetest of them. One vet has told us that tortoise shells tend to be sweetly disposed. Boops' other nickname is Purr Bucket.
Last week when the vet weighed this old lady of a cat, we saw that she had lost more than 35% of her body mass. She hadn't been eating. She was severely dehydrated because she hadn't been drinking either. She had a swelling in her throat that made it difficult to swallow apparently, an inflammation or a tumor. The vet was almost certain it is cancerous. We've had Boops on antibiotics for a week and the swelling has been reduced somewhat, but not half enough to say clear-sailing, not enough by a mile. Yet her fever is gone and she has gained back 6/10th of a pound, which means she is eating and drinking again. She hasn't become dehydrated again.
What to do? what to do? I couldn't make a decision. For several years Boops has been my cat, sleeping every night at the side of my head. I got her trained to situate herself just so, then she was comfortable and I was comfortable. Every night she'd come up and turn herself into position, put her head down on my chest and purr. She'd purr all night.
"Yes, let's give her another shot of antibiotic and the anti-inflammatory, and see how she responds," my wife said to the vet. "That's what I'd do if she were my cat," the vet said.
"I just want her to get better," I said to Mary out at the car. "But I suppose that's not one of the choices." No, clearly it's not. Mary took Boops home one more time. We know the prognosis isn't good - the swelling in Boops' throat is very likely cancer and very likely will soon become too painful to endure. She has three or four weeks at the short end, three or four months at the long end. And I'm thinking it'll be sooner rather than later; we're not going to let her suffer the pain of cancer in the bones.
*
*
Mary took Boops home. I had to go to Ripon Community Printers and help in the bindery. When I retired from the company a couple years ago, I told them that they could call me to come in and help out when they were busy. Well, they have been busy, last week and this week, and I've been working there a couple nights each week.
I was only at work fifteen minutes last night when I had a phone call. Mary was on the other end. There had been a message on our answering machine when she got home, from Cathryn Cofell-Mustchler, chair of the Poet Laureate Commission. I needed to call her back; when we went on break at 5:00 p.m., I did.
"This is the call you've been waiting for," Cathy said. "But I'm sorry to inform you that the governor will be naming someone else as the next Poet Laureate." She said some other things - praising my poetry, hoping I'll consider re-applying for the position in another four years, and so on. You don't really listen, you know what I mean? You've just been kicked in the solar plexus.
I'm not sure that everyone who needs to be informed has been informed, so I'll not offer any details yet, except to say that Wisconsin's next Poet Laureate won't be me.
Am I disappointed? Yeah, somewhat. But more than that, I'm relieved simply to know one way or the other. Now I can make plans. Now I have a clear sign that my efforts over the next four years are to be devoted to my Vagabond project, and that's an immensely pleasing prospect. Further, I am blessed that I won't have to search for another four or eight hours a day to give to Poet Laureate duties; I'm a Virgo, and you know I'd obsess about the perfection of it, you know I would.
Yeah, I guess I do have a little regret. I think I'd have made a terrific Poet Laureate and now we won't know. But mostly, as I say, I'm relieved just to know one way or the other. I have plenty of other work to do and won't have to be juggling priorities.
The sadness you may hear in my voice these days or see in my posts here or in comments I leave on other blogs, that sadness won't be unhappiness at missing the Poet Laureate appointment; no, it will be sorrow at the imminent loss of my long-time feline companion, Boops, The Boopster, the Purr Bucket herself. I'm trying to come to terms with that.
Yeah, yeah, I know - she's just a cat. I know, the Great Wheel turns and keeps turning. Yet I think we're entitled to grieve our small losses as well as the large ones. And it always takes me awhile to say good-bye.
-----------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I have been visiting the site of the log cabin several miles northwest of Smith Center where "Home on the Range" was written by Dr. Brewster Higley. This concludes the visit.
The place of historical importance has a gravel floor. The contents of the cabin are kept locked behind a wall of wire. We can see them, but cannot touch them. Not that our touching them could do them any damage - time and the elements have already done that. There are old chairs, a gun, hand tools, a tomahawk, arrowheads, a book shelf, a small highchair, a small fireplace, a rocking chair, a table with basin on it, a saddle, a seed planter, a Victrola, some chests, some crocks, some lanterns, a tea pot. Up in the rafters, bed springs. In the corner, a pane of glass broken out of the window. Everywhere, the smell of loss.
Moss on the wood shingles of the roof. Over there, a noisy blue jay. And, there, the sound of wind in the trees. The sound of trucks on the highway a mile distant. The black dog is sprawled on the driveway now.
The cabin doesn't sit out on the open range where the buffalo roam but down in the rough ground near Beaver Creek. Among scrappy trees. Wheat fields come right up to the edge of things at this farmstead. There's a small steel bin here, with "Eaton" on it. Tall grasses wave in the breeze. Life goes on. Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed. The universe transforms itself constantly. It goes on expanding out here where the sky is not clouded all day. The soul is our molecules looking for each other.
I come up out of the low ground onto the highway and I'm imagining I see antelope at play - I can't help it, it's the wind moving the tawny wheat.
Not much more than a mile from the Higley cabin there's a big plot where old farm equipment comes to die. There are six or seven threshing machines standing along the edge of the place, all manner of other pieces behind them. Just the field of equipment and the sun and air and moisture and all that metal coming undone.
Oh, give me a home.... Give me a place to put down this sadness.
We are what we are, and most days that's enough.
------------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 2, 1998
A squall of rain rushed through last night, leaving water running in the streets briefly. This morning the chill in the air is definitely autumnal. Summer is over. I'm not saying it frosted - was not even close. Still, the air has changed. It has an edge to it. It says "Watch me, I'm going to paint the world" and soon we shall see the fall colors, I'm sure.
The darkness of 5:00 a.m. weighs on me - making it difficult, these days, to rise and face my writing chores. The cells all the way to my inner core seem to be screaming "Hibernate," yet when the alarm goes off I roll out. Rolling out of bed then I think is a testament to my love of this piece of ground, my Ouisconsin. I rise to work the Tangle with a sober morning soul.
A hazy sky above, this morning, but otherwise it is dry. A cloud of cancer hangs over a house downtown, though; one of the good ol' boys is being brought low by it. He is but a dry husk of his former self. You do not wish such an end for anyone.
The school bus stops at the Sina pig farm, far ahead of me, and picks up children, then turns east on Carter Road. The eternal dance continues.
Where are the old men this morning, where are they telling their stories? Shall I ever know enough?
A car parked in front of the new house north of Five Corners tells me someone is living there now. Near Union Street, it looks like a field of sweet corn is being taken. On Watson Street, a child with a back pack is running north; he doesn't look happy.
The sun glints off the window of a house suddenly and blinds me for a moment. Some might say I have been blind already.
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I have been visiting the site of the log cabin several miles northwest of Smith Center where "Home on the Range" was written by Dr. Brewster Higley. This concludes the visit.
The place of historical importance has a gravel floor. The contents of the cabin are kept locked behind a wall of wire. We can see them, but cannot touch them. Not that our touching them could do them any damage - time and the elements have already done that. There are old chairs, a gun, hand tools, a tomahawk, arrowheads, a book shelf, a small highchair, a small fireplace, a rocking chair, a table with basin on it, a saddle, a seed planter, a Victrola, some chests, some crocks, some lanterns, a tea pot. Up in the rafters, bed springs. In the corner, a pane of glass broken out of the window. Everywhere, the smell of loss.
Moss on the wood shingles of the roof. Over there, a noisy blue jay. And, there, the sound of wind in the trees. The sound of trucks on the highway a mile distant. The black dog is sprawled on the driveway now.
The cabin doesn't sit out on the open range where the buffalo roam but down in the rough ground near Beaver Creek. Among scrappy trees. Wheat fields come right up to the edge of things at this farmstead. There's a small steel bin here, with "Eaton" on it. Tall grasses wave in the breeze. Life goes on. Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed. The universe transforms itself constantly. It goes on expanding out here where the sky is not clouded all day. The soul is our molecules looking for each other.
I come up out of the low ground onto the highway and I'm imagining I see antelope at play - I can't help it, it's the wind moving the tawny wheat.
Not much more than a mile from the Higley cabin there's a big plot where old farm equipment comes to die. There are six or seven threshing machines standing along the edge of the place, all manner of other pieces behind them. Just the field of equipment and the sun and air and moisture and all that metal coming undone.
Oh, give me a home.... Give me a place to put down this sadness.
We are what we are, and most days that's enough.
------------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 2, 1998
A squall of rain rushed through last night, leaving water running in the streets briefly. This morning the chill in the air is definitely autumnal. Summer is over. I'm not saying it frosted - was not even close. Still, the air has changed. It has an edge to it. It says "Watch me, I'm going to paint the world" and soon we shall see the fall colors, I'm sure.
The darkness of 5:00 a.m. weighs on me - making it difficult, these days, to rise and face my writing chores. The cells all the way to my inner core seem to be screaming "Hibernate," yet when the alarm goes off I roll out. Rolling out of bed then I think is a testament to my love of this piece of ground, my Ouisconsin. I rise to work the Tangle with a sober morning soul.
A hazy sky above, this morning, but otherwise it is dry. A cloud of cancer hangs over a house downtown, though; one of the good ol' boys is being brought low by it. He is but a dry husk of his former self. You do not wish such an end for anyone.
The school bus stops at the Sina pig farm, far ahead of me, and picks up children, then turns east on Carter Road. The eternal dance continues.
Where are the old men this morning, where are they telling their stories? Shall I ever know enough?
A car parked in front of the new house north of Five Corners tells me someone is living there now. Near Union Street, it looks like a field of sweet corn is being taken. On Watson Street, a child with a back pack is running north; he doesn't look happy.
The sun glints off the window of a house suddenly and blinds me for a moment. Some might say I have been blind already.
>
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I stopped at the Wellness Center today to thank Starr Jacobs for the opportunity to ride the combine on Monday night. She told me what she'd forgotten to tell me - that I should go see the "Home on the Range" cabin north of Athol. She'd grown up in that area, she said, and her mother still lives out that way. The cabin is nine miles north of Highway 36 on Highway 8, then a mile west.
You think you're going to see an historical site and all of a sudden the road ends and you're driving into somebody's yard. The stone has fallen over, the one that says "Home on the Range Cabin <---." I turn in the driveway, pass the house, park alongside the cabin that's just a few steps down the hill.
"Home on the Range Cabin - 1872" a sign on the rough old building says. Some of the original logs of the cabin are showing. In some places there is more chinking between the logs than actual logs.
A plaque standing at the end of the building states: "On this site circa 1873 Dr. Brewster M. Higley wrote the words to 'Home on the Range' - Adopted as Official State Song of Kansas June 30, 1947 - Marked by Sarah Steward Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1997."
In marble, attached directly to the end of the cabin, another marker: "Panel by Stambachs" it says. "Erected 1954" it says. It says: "In 1873 Dr. Brewster Higley wrote the words, Dan Keley supplied the music, and the Harlan Brothers Orchestra started the new song 'Home on the Range' on its way from the heart of the nation to the nation's heart." Even the music is carved into the marble, in the key of 1-sharp, in 3/4 time, the words beneath the notes. The song title is "My Western Home." The words: "A home - a home - where the deer and the antelope play. Where never is heard a discouraging word, and the sky is not clouded all day."
The sky is clouded today. There is a Kansas wind blowing. A black dog comes down to the cabin from the house, to check me out. I'm not very interesting, so he wanders away. There's a jet plane rumbling overhead, 35,000 feet above where the deer and the antelope play and where we live out our lives.
I step into the cabin. There is a sign tacked to the wall: "Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you." I wonder if this has been posted because someone believes it, or because it's the sign they had? I like to think it's the former; my sense of how the world is suggests it might be the latter. In either case, the call to excellence is appropriate here, now, in this place.
There's a book in which to register my visit, so I add my name and address to a very long list - a binderful of notebook paper half an inch thick. Just since May 1st the cabin has been visited by people from Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, California, Arizona, Washington, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North and South Carolina, and Alaska.
There's a box with pamphlets in it, 15 cents for the "Story of the Origin of Home on the Range." I leave a quarter and take one.
The pamphlet says Dr. Higley was an exceptionally talented surgeon. He had practiced in Michigan and Indiana before he came to Kansas in 1871.
Higley was married five times. The first three of his wives died, the fourth marriage was unhappy and reportedly "caused the doctor to take to drink and come to Kansas." Once that unhappiness had been dissolved, Higley married more happily in Smith Center.
Apparently Higley's words for the song had gotten tucked away in a book and were found when Higley was treating a gunshot wound. The fellow who brought the gunshot victim to Higley was paging through the doctor's books and the piece of foolscap with the words on fell out of one of them. "Why, Doc, this is plum good!" the fellow is quoted as saying.
The rest, as they say, is history. Dan Kelley set the words to a tune, the Harland Brothers Orchestra performed it, the song soon was sung far and wide. "Several other writers copied it," the pamphlet reports, "making slight changes in their versions. The song lost its identity with the county of its origin."
That President Franklin D. Roosevelt said it was his favorite song renewed interested in it, and soon enough it was played near and far. That came a halt, however. "The sudden success of the song, which was being played on every radio station in the land, caused William and Mary Goodwin of Tempe, Ariz., to bring suit for infringement of copyright.... They claimed that Goodwin had written the words of a song entitled 'My Arizona Home' and Mrs. Goodwin the melody and that the copyright had been registered on February 22, 1905."
Samuel Moanfeldt, a New York lawyer, was hired by the Music Publisher Protective Association to ascertain the truth of the matter. His investigation brought him to Smith County, Kansas, where he found printed versions of Higley's words in a Smith Center paper from 1873 and from the Kirwin Chief in 1874. He also found Clarence "Cal" Harlan, earlier of the Harlan Brothers Orchestra and now 86 years old and nearly blind. Could he still sing the song? "Mr. Harlan brought out his guitar and played and sang the song from memory," Mr. Moanfeldt reported.
"The result was that the Goodwins lost their lawsuit," the pamphlet states, "and the old cabin on Beaver Creek became a place of historical importance."
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
It is only partly about place, isn't it? The rest of it is about the beauty of the ordinary. It has taken me this long - now that I am fifty-one years old - to recognize what I am about. I look back and I see an effort to explore and celebrate the ordinary. It is not of great men making great falls that I would write, not the classical tragedy. It is not the obvious great themes I would explore - Truth, Justice. It is the ordinary - its beauty, its truth, its rightness. It doesn't have to be New York, you guys, it can be Wisconsin. It doesn't have to have great pain and suffering, the ordinary variety is plenty interesting enough. So that is my task, eh? In this journal, in my poetry, in my essays and other explorations, the chore is to celebrate the ordinary. To turn over the stone and find what shines bright and glittering on the other side. I am the Iowa farm boy, I am making fence, the wire I've just pulled taut wants to sing, the sun is warm against the back of my neck as I turn to hammer a staple into the post, to hold that fence forever. The posts are set straight and true, the wire is tight, the way it should be, the good job is done. Its beauty exists in that moment, exists as long as that fence stands, exists in my mind so long as I live, exists forever because it has changed the world irrevocably, if only in a small way. That's why I write.
It is a cool, moist morning. I should write hymns of praise, I should sing them from the roof tops. Let the blackbirds gather on the powerline, I don't care. A faint, grey haze, I don't care. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning, you sea gulls in the field.
In a single day, the field corn turned tremendously. That day was yesterday. The change in the beans is considerable too. Just that quick, it is autumn. From one day to the next, the change is clear.
In one sense, of course, nothing has really changed - where it was is what brought it to where it is. In another sense, everything is different - these crops are no longer "growing."
Hosannah! I feel so good I could sit in the solace of my own shade.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I stopped at the Wellness Center today to thank Starr Jacobs for the opportunity to ride the combine on Monday night. She told me what she'd forgotten to tell me - that I should go see the "Home on the Range" cabin north of Athol. She'd grown up in that area, she said, and her mother still lives out that way. The cabin is nine miles north of Highway 36 on Highway 8, then a mile west.
You think you're going to see an historical site and all of a sudden the road ends and you're driving into somebody's yard. The stone has fallen over, the one that says "Home on the Range Cabin <---." I turn in the driveway, pass the house, park alongside the cabin that's just a few steps down the hill.
"Home on the Range Cabin - 1872" a sign on the rough old building says. Some of the original logs of the cabin are showing. In some places there is more chinking between the logs than actual logs.
A plaque standing at the end of the building states: "On this site circa 1873 Dr. Brewster M. Higley wrote the words to 'Home on the Range' - Adopted as Official State Song of Kansas June 30, 1947 - Marked by Sarah Steward Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1997."
In marble, attached directly to the end of the cabin, another marker: "Panel by Stambachs" it says. "Erected 1954" it says. It says: "In 1873 Dr. Brewster Higley wrote the words, Dan Keley supplied the music, and the Harlan Brothers Orchestra started the new song 'Home on the Range' on its way from the heart of the nation to the nation's heart." Even the music is carved into the marble, in the key of 1-sharp, in 3/4 time, the words beneath the notes. The song title is "My Western Home." The words: "A home - a home - where the deer and the antelope play. Where never is heard a discouraging word, and the sky is not clouded all day."
The sky is clouded today. There is a Kansas wind blowing. A black dog comes down to the cabin from the house, to check me out. I'm not very interesting, so he wanders away. There's a jet plane rumbling overhead, 35,000 feet above where the deer and the antelope play and where we live out our lives.
I step into the cabin. There is a sign tacked to the wall: "Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you." I wonder if this has been posted because someone believes it, or because it's the sign they had? I like to think it's the former; my sense of how the world is suggests it might be the latter. In either case, the call to excellence is appropriate here, now, in this place.
There's a book in which to register my visit, so I add my name and address to a very long list - a binderful of notebook paper half an inch thick. Just since May 1st the cabin has been visited by people from Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, California, Arizona, Washington, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North and South Carolina, and Alaska.
There's a box with pamphlets in it, 15 cents for the "Story of the Origin of Home on the Range." I leave a quarter and take one.
The pamphlet says Dr. Higley was an exceptionally talented surgeon. He had practiced in Michigan and Indiana before he came to Kansas in 1871.
Higley was married five times. The first three of his wives died, the fourth marriage was unhappy and reportedly "caused the doctor to take to drink and come to Kansas." Once that unhappiness had been dissolved, Higley married more happily in Smith Center.
Apparently Higley's words for the song had gotten tucked away in a book and were found when Higley was treating a gunshot wound. The fellow who brought the gunshot victim to Higley was paging through the doctor's books and the piece of foolscap with the words on fell out of one of them. "Why, Doc, this is plum good!" the fellow is quoted as saying.
The rest, as they say, is history. Dan Kelley set the words to a tune, the Harland Brothers Orchestra performed it, the song soon was sung far and wide. "Several other writers copied it," the pamphlet reports, "making slight changes in their versions. The song lost its identity with the county of its origin."
That President Franklin D. Roosevelt said it was his favorite song renewed interested in it, and soon enough it was played near and far. That came a halt, however. "The sudden success of the song, which was being played on every radio station in the land, caused William and Mary Goodwin of Tempe, Ariz., to bring suit for infringement of copyright.... They claimed that Goodwin had written the words of a song entitled 'My Arizona Home' and Mrs. Goodwin the melody and that the copyright had been registered on February 22, 1905."
Samuel Moanfeldt, a New York lawyer, was hired by the Music Publisher Protective Association to ascertain the truth of the matter. His investigation brought him to Smith County, Kansas, where he found printed versions of Higley's words in a Smith Center paper from 1873 and from the Kirwin Chief in 1874. He also found Clarence "Cal" Harlan, earlier of the Harlan Brothers Orchestra and now 86 years old and nearly blind. Could he still sing the song? "Mr. Harlan brought out his guitar and played and sang the song from memory," Mr. Moanfeldt reported.
"The result was that the Goodwins lost their lawsuit," the pamphlet states, "and the old cabin on Beaver Creek became a place of historical importance."
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
It is only partly about place, isn't it? The rest of it is about the beauty of the ordinary. It has taken me this long - now that I am fifty-one years old - to recognize what I am about. I look back and I see an effort to explore and celebrate the ordinary. It is not of great men making great falls that I would write, not the classical tragedy. It is not the obvious great themes I would explore - Truth, Justice. It is the ordinary - its beauty, its truth, its rightness. It doesn't have to be New York, you guys, it can be Wisconsin. It doesn't have to have great pain and suffering, the ordinary variety is plenty interesting enough. So that is my task, eh? In this journal, in my poetry, in my essays and other explorations, the chore is to celebrate the ordinary. To turn over the stone and find what shines bright and glittering on the other side. I am the Iowa farm boy, I am making fence, the wire I've just pulled taut wants to sing, the sun is warm against the back of my neck as I turn to hammer a staple into the post, to hold that fence forever. The posts are set straight and true, the wire is tight, the way it should be, the good job is done. Its beauty exists in that moment, exists as long as that fence stands, exists in my mind so long as I live, exists forever because it has changed the world irrevocably, if only in a small way. That's why I write.
It is a cool, moist morning. I should write hymns of praise, I should sing them from the roof tops. Let the blackbirds gather on the powerline, I don't care. A faint, grey haze, I don't care. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning, you sea gulls in the field.
In a single day, the field corn turned tremendously. That day was yesterday. The change in the beans is considerable too. Just that quick, it is autumn. From one day to the next, the change is clear.
In one sense, of course, nothing has really changed - where it was is what brought it to where it is. In another sense, everything is different - these crops are no longer "growing."
Hosannah! I feel so good I could sit in the solace of my own shade.
>
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
THE MIDDLEWESTERNER
TURNS 57 TODAY, GULP!
I turn 57 years of age today. Where have the years gone? They have run away like wild horses; they do not come back when I call them.
As my sister says: "Getting old got you down? Consider the alternative."
I "retired" from a career in the printing industry at age 55 so as to give "my last ten good years" over to writing. Mary has supported me in this; she keeps us in groceries and medical insurance and sees that I get to write.
I have used up two of those ten good years already, and what have I done: I have interviewed 160 people in my twelve Vagabond focus communities; I have written upwards of 250,000 words in the Vagabond Journals. I have been wonderfully received in the communities I've visited, have met some wonderful people. Some of the material I've gathered has already been shaped to essay or profile; and the rest of it stands available, as I have the time. It is a terrific project I'm embarked on.
In the meantime, I've also been selected as one of the three finalists for the Wisconsin Poet Laureate appointment; I've been tapped to teach Writing Creative Nonfiction this fall at Lakeland College; I have given many readings, presentations of my Vagabond materials, and writing workshops. I am getting to live my dream of being a writer, a dream that had to be deferred during those years of raising and supporting a family.
Before I retired, I took naps at every opportunity; it was a joke with the family. Since I retired, I've napped maybe twice: there's so much I want to do. There's so much I want to do that in retirement I still rise every day between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. to get started on it. Sometimes I'll still be at it at 10:00 p.m. You might say I'm a man obsessed with what he's doing.
And what am I doing? I am trying to hold on to some of what we're losing; to hold it up examination and admiration; to record it for future generations, so they might know us; to make a mark that lasts, so they might know that we were here.
Some days I feel like Don Quixote, and some days like the wisest man on the planet. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, and I think mine does, as I pass this Mile Marker #57.
-----------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I have been visiting LTM Manufacturing, four miles south of Smith Center; LTM makes components for the RV (Recreational Vehicle) market. I have been speaking with Todd Haven who manages Operations at the company. LTM was founded and developed by Mike Nebel, formerly president of Excel/Peterson Industries, but it has since been sold to Lippert Industries.
The company started in a small barn Mike Nebel owns just south of the plant. "We expanded the barn a couple of times," Todd says, "until October, 1999, when we moved into the new building."
We stand looking into the barn now. "It got pretty cold in there," Todd says. "We had only this one hanging heater for the whole place. And the place was pretty crowded for a while."
Then we enter the current manufacturing facility. It smells like a factory. That smell must be a mixture of the odors that come off new welds and fresh paint, with a little oil mixed in.
"Steel comes in one end, over there," Todd explains. "Tubing is cut to size on the band saw. Flat sheets get sheared. We buy our angle iron already angled. After it is cut down, sheet stock goes to the turret punch to get holes put in as needed, goes to a brake press to be bent. A woman is running the turret press, which is computerized and programmed to put as many as thirty-two holes in a sheet of steel, at the proper place, of the proper size.
"We program the computer," Todd says. "The operator does her own programming. Once you figure it out, it's pretty simple. You have to be able to read drawings, as all the people in the machining area do, so they can program their machines.
Pieces are welded together down the center of the building.
Todd shows me a storage tray mechanism that has been completed. It rolls out both ends, with a stop each way to keep it from going too far. The tray can handle four hundred pounds evenly distributed "and a couple hundred pounds on the end, extended."
One customer, who shot in competition, had his entire tray filled with his shot-gun shells.
Pieces get welded, Todd shows me, then spray-painted. "Some products go out for powder-coat paint," he says. "It is thicker and more durable for outdoor weather, a more expensive paint, to keep a piece from rusting."
He shows me how the slide-out LP trays works. It brings the tanks out where you can pick them up easily.
The battery tray will hold two batteries. Loaded, it slides in and out easily.
Here is a bed-slide mechanism: the bedroom will slide in and out, either electrically or hydraulically, as the customer prefers.
Todd tells me about "toy haulers - the latest and greatest thing on the west coast. You transport your motorcycles in back, you have living quarters in front. We build a bed that raises up the ceiling. It is lowered when you are ready to sleep."
We step into the assembly area, "where whatever needs to get put together gets put together." Todd shows me a "Flex Guard," which is used to keep wires and tubes from slide-out rooms from getting cut when the room is moved. "That's one of the patents that Lippert wanted."
I'm amazed by the stabilizer jack that Mike Nebel has designed. A single motor runs both legs, and the legs create the illusion that they are working independently. They work together, with one rod threaded left-handed and the other threaded right handed. Pressure on one leg pushes down the other leg until both are on the ground and have equal pressure on them. Hence, on uneven ground, you don't have to use blocks to level your trailer. The legs find their own center and level things themselves.
Steel makes a big loop through the plant, circling clockwise, and eventually the finished piece arrives back at the shipping dock to go out where it came in. Todd and I had made the same loop through the plant, and now it was time for me to go out where I came in, too.
A little ingenuity, some steel, some paint. It's a wonder - what they're punching out, out there on the prairie.
------------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Heard some local farmers say that the hot weather has made the milo heads pop out," Ivan wrote near the beginning of August. "I guess milo is one crop that needs hot weather."
"Gene Conaway wuz a-tellin' about how good the air conditioner was in his tractor," Ivan said. "I think he was V-Bladin' or whatever he was doing. He said he didn't even have to turn his AC on full blast to keep cool even on those hottest days. Meanwhile, less than eight blocks from where he was a-braggin about the tractor air conditioning, his wife Arleta was a-wrassling a front-end tiller in their front yard. The only protection from the heat that Arletta had was a large straw hat."
"Dennis Lambert said he had been in Red Cloud recently and one feller asked him if he knew the Old Indian," Ivan wrote. (Portions of Echo Echo appear in the Red Cloud paper with Ivan's "Old Indian" by-line.) "Dennis reluctantly admitted that he did. The guy told Dennis that I ought to put up a booth on Street Car Days so people would get to see what I looked like. Well, once years and years ago I won a Harry Bellafonte look-alike contest. Now I kinda resemble Oklahoma State basketball coach Eddie Sutton. And, fortunately, I am better looking than my picture on my driver's license."
"Justin Bingham, Idaho native who grew up somewhere between the Lolo trail and Jackpor, Nevada, will be a Smith Center citizen for a year," Ivan wrote. "Justin, his wife, and four children have rented a house on Second Street just across from Paul and Ginger Pletcher. Justin, a graduate student at Kansas University, is writing his doctoral dissertation on Plains Culture. Bet you didn't know we had culture in this part of the country."
You know we have an eleven digit telephone number," Ivan said. "When me and Momma was first married, our telephone number was 623."
"Mike Hughes was a-tellin' me about one of his old girlfriends," Ivan said. "Mike said she was so fat that when they went down to the creek she didn't go skinny dippin'. She went chunky dunkin'."
"Stan Smith has a used police car sitting on his lot," Ivan reported. "I wish he would put the thing out of sight. Every time I go by there I look at the police car and automatically step on my brakes. It's just a reflex action, because I'm not speeding."
"I still would like to get Roger Barta, Leo Tuxhorn, and Jack Benn in a moseyin' contest on Old Settlers Day," Ivan said. "I'd put those three mosey-ers up against any trio of mosey-ers in any county seat town in the state of Kansas."
"Reporter asked a 100-year-old man what he thought it was that let him live so long," Ivan said. "The man said, 'You gotta jog every day and if you keep it up long enough you live to be a hundred.'"
"I'm around old people most of the time," Ivan said. "And I hear them talking about the proposed grade school building project. They always say, in various forms, what do we need a new school house for when we are losing students all the time. Then all the rest of the old folks say 'That's right.' Then they lean back in righteous indignation. What they have said is true. We are losing students. But does that mean that the ones who are left should have inferior facilities?"
"Did you know that the C is silent in rap music," Ivan asked.
"Had a first last Wednesday afternoon," Ivan said. "The Smith Center Country Club went to grass greens in 1975. Last Wednesday afternoon was the first time I won any money since we went to grass greens. Won two bucks."
"Linton Lull bought the coffee for the As the Bladder Fills Club last Thursday," Ivan said. "Birthday - 81st. Everybody there who knew the words to the song sang Happy Birthday to Linton."
"LaDonna Weltmer was using her considerable maintenance skills when she replaced several light bulbs in the Sale Barn Cafe last Thursday morning," Ivan wrote. "Eileen Peterson served in an onlooker capacity. She did offer several suggestions but she soon learned that LaDonna wasn't paying any attention to her. So she quit talking and just watched."
"Oh, while thinking about it - there probably won't be an Echo on Sept. 6th," Ivan said. "That's Labor Day and the union members who work in the news room are taking off."
"You know, in my lifetime I have eaten a lot of garden stuff," Ivan wrote. "Most of it I have grown tired of before the growing season was over. But I don't ever remember getting tired of vine-ripened tomatoes."
"Casey Edell had work to do when he got through drinking coffee and picking up knowledge at the As the Bladder Fills Club," Ivan said. "Casey had piannas to tune and middle C to find."
Ivan told that "Last Friday morning Arven Lyon said it was grocery shoppin' time. Arven said if he didn't eat, he wouldn't have anything to do. That's just about it for us old folks. Pulling up to the table is about the only exercise we get."
"When I was in grade school," Ivan said, "all we had to buy to get ready for the school year was a Big Chief tablet, a number two lead pencil, and a soft rubber gum eraser. Now the kids have a whole backpack full of school supplies and already medical science has proven that the backpacks are going to cause back problems when the kids get older."
"Jack Knight is having his fourth lifetime muffler installed on his Buckskin pick-up," Ivan said. "You know you are getting right up there in years when you are putting on your fourth lifetime muffler."
------------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 31, 1998
The observer turns 51 today.
Birthdays are reminders that one must enjoy - suck in and suck dry - every moment left. Here I am, left to enjoy this place - the village of Fairwater, the State of Wisconsin, the United States of America, Our Planet Earth, this solar system, our Milky Way. These days shall not come 'round again. I must watch, listen, soak up.
There are plenty who simply walk by the beauty of the ordinary. The observer must not dismiss the world but embrace it, so the expression of the world is part of the world. If I walk away from the assignment, I walk away from everything. Everything depends on what happens to our hawk, what happens to the lithe-limbed, raw-boned youngsters getting on the school bus, what happens to the weeds in the fenceline, to the fenceline, what happens to this piece of earth, the water moving on it, the sky above it. The sun fingering the rough bark of tree. Seed pods aching to split and spill. Leaves wishing to rehearse for the final beauty. Dried stalks that will poke up through snow, a thin shadow, barely a study in black and white.
Only if you invest greatly in the moment, in the place, in the conjunction of forces which has spun this planet to this point with me crawling upon it - only if you invest greatly will you be rewarded greatly. It has taken another birthday to remind me of this. This is birthday gift enough at 51!
Ah, bright sun. Ah, sins not yet committed. Lawns stippled with shadow, trees caught in the deepest green of summer, a drier sky that lets us see for miles and miles, the sour smell of corn.
I wonder how much lives change when harvesting changes the countryside - does the hawk find an easier supper, do the mouse and the pheasant struggle for cover? It looks like some beans are thinking about turning color; others - planted after peas were harvested - are just flowering now. All the beets have now been taken. There are a couple of fields of corn with color now around the ears, which says this is field corn.
You walk upon your piece of ground enough, it takes your soul; or perhaps the truth is, it gives you the soul you were born without.
>
TURNS 57 TODAY, GULP!
I turn 57 years of age today. Where have the years gone? They have run away like wild horses; they do not come back when I call them.
As my sister says: "Getting old got you down? Consider the alternative."
I "retired" from a career in the printing industry at age 55 so as to give "my last ten good years" over to writing. Mary has supported me in this; she keeps us in groceries and medical insurance and sees that I get to write.
I have used up two of those ten good years already, and what have I done: I have interviewed 160 people in my twelve Vagabond focus communities; I have written upwards of 250,000 words in the Vagabond Journals. I have been wonderfully received in the communities I've visited, have met some wonderful people. Some of the material I've gathered has already been shaped to essay or profile; and the rest of it stands available, as I have the time. It is a terrific project I'm embarked on.
In the meantime, I've also been selected as one of the three finalists for the Wisconsin Poet Laureate appointment; I've been tapped to teach Writing Creative Nonfiction this fall at Lakeland College; I have given many readings, presentations of my Vagabond materials, and writing workshops. I am getting to live my dream of being a writer, a dream that had to be deferred during those years of raising and supporting a family.
Before I retired, I took naps at every opportunity; it was a joke with the family. Since I retired, I've napped maybe twice: there's so much I want to do. There's so much I want to do that in retirement I still rise every day between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. to get started on it. Sometimes I'll still be at it at 10:00 p.m. You might say I'm a man obsessed with what he's doing.
And what am I doing? I am trying to hold on to some of what we're losing; to hold it up examination and admiration; to record it for future generations, so they might know us; to make a mark that lasts, so they might know that we were here.
Some days I feel like Don Quixote, and some days like the wisest man on the planet. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, and I think mine does, as I pass this Mile Marker #57.
-----------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I have been visiting LTM Manufacturing, four miles south of Smith Center; LTM makes components for the RV (Recreational Vehicle) market. I have been speaking with Todd Haven who manages Operations at the company. LTM was founded and developed by Mike Nebel, formerly president of Excel/Peterson Industries, but it has since been sold to Lippert Industries.
The company started in a small barn Mike Nebel owns just south of the plant. "We expanded the barn a couple of times," Todd says, "until October, 1999, when we moved into the new building."
We stand looking into the barn now. "It got pretty cold in there," Todd says. "We had only this one hanging heater for the whole place. And the place was pretty crowded for a while."
Then we enter the current manufacturing facility. It smells like a factory. That smell must be a mixture of the odors that come off new welds and fresh paint, with a little oil mixed in.
"Steel comes in one end, over there," Todd explains. "Tubing is cut to size on the band saw. Flat sheets get sheared. We buy our angle iron already angled. After it is cut down, sheet stock goes to the turret punch to get holes put in as needed, goes to a brake press to be bent. A woman is running the turret press, which is computerized and programmed to put as many as thirty-two holes in a sheet of steel, at the proper place, of the proper size.
"We program the computer," Todd says. "The operator does her own programming. Once you figure it out, it's pretty simple. You have to be able to read drawings, as all the people in the machining area do, so they can program their machines.
Pieces are welded together down the center of the building.
Todd shows me a storage tray mechanism that has been completed. It rolls out both ends, with a stop each way to keep it from going too far. The tray can handle four hundred pounds evenly distributed "and a couple hundred pounds on the end, extended."
One customer, who shot in competition, had his entire tray filled with his shot-gun shells.
Pieces get welded, Todd shows me, then spray-painted. "Some products go out for powder-coat paint," he says. "It is thicker and more durable for outdoor weather, a more expensive paint, to keep a piece from rusting."
He shows me how the slide-out LP trays works. It brings the tanks out where you can pick them up easily.
The battery tray will hold two batteries. Loaded, it slides in and out easily.
Here is a bed-slide mechanism: the bedroom will slide in and out, either electrically or hydraulically, as the customer prefers.
Todd tells me about "toy haulers - the latest and greatest thing on the west coast. You transport your motorcycles in back, you have living quarters in front. We build a bed that raises up the ceiling. It is lowered when you are ready to sleep."
We step into the assembly area, "where whatever needs to get put together gets put together." Todd shows me a "Flex Guard," which is used to keep wires and tubes from slide-out rooms from getting cut when the room is moved. "That's one of the patents that Lippert wanted."
I'm amazed by the stabilizer jack that Mike Nebel has designed. A single motor runs both legs, and the legs create the illusion that they are working independently. They work together, with one rod threaded left-handed and the other threaded right handed. Pressure on one leg pushes down the other leg until both are on the ground and have equal pressure on them. Hence, on uneven ground, you don't have to use blocks to level your trailer. The legs find their own center and level things themselves.
Steel makes a big loop through the plant, circling clockwise, and eventually the finished piece arrives back at the shipping dock to go out where it came in. Todd and I had made the same loop through the plant, and now it was time for me to go out where I came in, too.
A little ingenuity, some steel, some paint. It's a wonder - what they're punching out, out there on the prairie.
------------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Heard some local farmers say that the hot weather has made the milo heads pop out," Ivan wrote near the beginning of August. "I guess milo is one crop that needs hot weather."
"Gene Conaway wuz a-tellin' about how good the air conditioner was in his tractor," Ivan said. "I think he was V-Bladin' or whatever he was doing. He said he didn't even have to turn his AC on full blast to keep cool even on those hottest days. Meanwhile, less than eight blocks from where he was a-braggin about the tractor air conditioning, his wife Arleta was a-wrassling a front-end tiller in their front yard. The only protection from the heat that Arletta had was a large straw hat."
"Dennis Lambert said he had been in Red Cloud recently and one feller asked him if he knew the Old Indian," Ivan wrote. (Portions of Echo Echo appear in the Red Cloud paper with Ivan's "Old Indian" by-line.) "Dennis reluctantly admitted that he did. The guy told Dennis that I ought to put up a booth on Street Car Days so people would get to see what I looked like. Well, once years and years ago I won a Harry Bellafonte look-alike contest. Now I kinda resemble Oklahoma State basketball coach Eddie Sutton. And, fortunately, I am better looking than my picture on my driver's license."
"Justin Bingham, Idaho native who grew up somewhere between the Lolo trail and Jackpor, Nevada, will be a Smith Center citizen for a year," Ivan wrote. "Justin, his wife, and four children have rented a house on Second Street just across from Paul and Ginger Pletcher. Justin, a graduate student at Kansas University, is writing his doctoral dissertation on Plains Culture. Bet you didn't know we had culture in this part of the country."
You know we have an eleven digit telephone number," Ivan said. "When me and Momma was first married, our telephone number was 623."
"Mike Hughes was a-tellin' me about one of his old girlfriends," Ivan said. "Mike said she was so fat that when they went down to the creek she didn't go skinny dippin'. She went chunky dunkin'."
"Stan Smith has a used police car sitting on his lot," Ivan reported. "I wish he would put the thing out of sight. Every time I go by there I look at the police car and automatically step on my brakes. It's just a reflex action, because I'm not speeding."
"I still would like to get Roger Barta, Leo Tuxhorn, and Jack Benn in a moseyin' contest on Old Settlers Day," Ivan said. "I'd put those three mosey-ers up against any trio of mosey-ers in any county seat town in the state of Kansas."
"Reporter asked a 100-year-old man what he thought it was that let him live so long," Ivan said. "The man said, 'You gotta jog every day and if you keep it up long enough you live to be a hundred.'"
"I'm around old people most of the time," Ivan said. "And I hear them talking about the proposed grade school building project. They always say, in various forms, what do we need a new school house for when we are losing students all the time. Then all the rest of the old folks say 'That's right.' Then they lean back in righteous indignation. What they have said is true. We are losing students. But does that mean that the ones who are left should have inferior facilities?"
"Did you know that the C is silent in rap music," Ivan asked.
"Had a first last Wednesday afternoon," Ivan said. "The Smith Center Country Club went to grass greens in 1975. Last Wednesday afternoon was the first time I won any money since we went to grass greens. Won two bucks."
"Linton Lull bought the coffee for the As the Bladder Fills Club last Thursday," Ivan said. "Birthday - 81st. Everybody there who knew the words to the song sang Happy Birthday to Linton."
"LaDonna Weltmer was using her considerable maintenance skills when she replaced several light bulbs in the Sale Barn Cafe last Thursday morning," Ivan wrote. "Eileen Peterson served in an onlooker capacity. She did offer several suggestions but she soon learned that LaDonna wasn't paying any attention to her. So she quit talking and just watched."
"Oh, while thinking about it - there probably won't be an Echo on Sept. 6th," Ivan said. "That's Labor Day and the union members who work in the news room are taking off."
"You know, in my lifetime I have eaten a lot of garden stuff," Ivan wrote. "Most of it I have grown tired of before the growing season was over. But I don't ever remember getting tired of vine-ripened tomatoes."
"Casey Edell had work to do when he got through drinking coffee and picking up knowledge at the As the Bladder Fills Club," Ivan said. "Casey had piannas to tune and middle C to find."
Ivan told that "Last Friday morning Arven Lyon said it was grocery shoppin' time. Arven said if he didn't eat, he wouldn't have anything to do. That's just about it for us old folks. Pulling up to the table is about the only exercise we get."
"When I was in grade school," Ivan said, "all we had to buy to get ready for the school year was a Big Chief tablet, a number two lead pencil, and a soft rubber gum eraser. Now the kids have a whole backpack full of school supplies and already medical science has proven that the backpacks are going to cause back problems when the kids get older."
"Jack Knight is having his fourth lifetime muffler installed on his Buckskin pick-up," Ivan said. "You know you are getting right up there in years when you are putting on your fourth lifetime muffler."
------------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 31, 1998
The observer turns 51 today.
Birthdays are reminders that one must enjoy - suck in and suck dry - every moment left. Here I am, left to enjoy this place - the village of Fairwater, the State of Wisconsin, the United States of America, Our Planet Earth, this solar system, our Milky Way. These days shall not come 'round again. I must watch, listen, soak up.
There are plenty who simply walk by the beauty of the ordinary. The observer must not dismiss the world but embrace it, so the expression of the world is part of the world. If I walk away from the assignment, I walk away from everything. Everything depends on what happens to our hawk, what happens to the lithe-limbed, raw-boned youngsters getting on the school bus, what happens to the weeds in the fenceline, to the fenceline, what happens to this piece of earth, the water moving on it, the sky above it. The sun fingering the rough bark of tree. Seed pods aching to split and spill. Leaves wishing to rehearse for the final beauty. Dried stalks that will poke up through snow, a thin shadow, barely a study in black and white.
Only if you invest greatly in the moment, in the place, in the conjunction of forces which has spun this planet to this point with me crawling upon it - only if you invest greatly will you be rewarded greatly. It has taken another birthday to remind me of this. This is birthday gift enough at 51!
Ah, bright sun. Ah, sins not yet committed. Lawns stippled with shadow, trees caught in the deepest green of summer, a drier sky that lets us see for miles and miles, the sour smell of corn.
I wonder how much lives change when harvesting changes the countryside - does the hawk find an easier supper, do the mouse and the pheasant struggle for cover? It looks like some beans are thinking about turning color; others - planted after peas were harvested - are just flowering now. All the beets have now been taken. There are a couple of fields of corn with color now around the ears, which says this is field corn.
You walk upon your piece of ground enough, it takes your soul; or perhaps the truth is, it gives you the soul you were born without.
>
Monday, August 30, 2004
VISITED LAKELAND COLLEGE LAST THURSDAY
On Thursday of last week I spent a fair part of the day visiting with Karl Elder, Fessler Professor of Creative Writing and Poet in Residence at Lakeland College, getting a tour of the campus, meeting the school's president and the vice-president of academic affairs, seeing the room I'll be teaching in this fall, Room 26 in Old Main. Karl is the fellow who put my name out as the one to teach Writing Creative Nonfiction this fall for Lakeland's writing department. Karl and I had corresponded twenty-five or thirty years ago when I was publishing Margins: A Review of Little Magazines & Small Press Books, and sporadically since then - most recently when I accepted a poem of his this summer for this past Saturday's "Saturday's Poem" feature. Karl took me out to lunch as part of my visit, too - thanks, Karl! We had twenty five or thirty years of news to catch up on, so neither of us was in any particular hurry to move along.
At every turn on campus I felt warmly welcomed, whether I was at the Library finding out how to put materials on reserve for my students or was in one office getting the roster of fourteen students I'll be teaching or in another office getting the Faculty/Staff Parking Permit I'll need. Without fail the people I met said "glad to have you aboard." They said it warmly, they meant it, and I felt welcomed.
I have to tell you, too, it takes an Iowa farm boy's breath away to see his name on the ol' course list: Montag, T. WRT 304 Writing Creative Nonfiction. M-W-F 1:25 p.m. 3 cr.
As you might imagine, for the past several weeks I have been hard at work preparing my lessons for the course. At the moment I'm ready with seventeen of them, out of forty. I have divided the semester into four main areas of study: (1) Writing about self/Memoir; (2) Writing about others/Profile; (3) Writing about place; and (4) Writing about process, event, or day-in-the-life. In addition, I will be discussing a range of topics, tools, and techniques that support the writing of good creative nonfiction: keeping a writer's journal; "learning to see;" story shapes/frame; central metaphor or image or theme or arc; endings; beginnings; people/places/scenes; interviewing; dialogue; overheard conversation; characterization; place as setting; telling in scenes; imagery; time; transitions; description; point of view; voice; language; mood; memory; imaginative research; humor; and revision. I wake up every morning wondering what I have left out. If you see anything that's missing from my list, let me know. We'll shoe-horn it in somehow. As I say, I've got seventeen lessons prepared, but already I feel like I have six weeks more material than I have time available.
I'll be teaching a course in how "to write" creative nonfiction, yes; but more than that I hope to teach the students how "to read" creative nonfiction, so they can see exactly how it has been constructed, which tools and techniques have been employed, how the seams have been soldered. If I can succeed in teaching them to read in this way, I think I will have taught them how to teach themselves. And that's always what the best teachers teach, isn't it - don't they teach you how to teach yourself?
As I told Karl on Thursday, the students will have to work hard in the course - very hard, I expect.
Yet I envy them, the fourteen students who will be circling around me at that first class on Wednesday, September 8. They will have an enthusiastic and supportive teacher, one who wishes that, when he was in college many long years ago, someone would have shown him exactly what I'll be showing them. That wouldn't have made me a "writer," necessarily; but the guidance sure would have made learning to write a lot easier in the long run.
-----------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I have been visiting LTM Manufacturing, four miles south of Smith Center; LTM makes components for the RV (Recreational Vehicle) market. I have been speaking with Todd Haven who manages Operations at the company. LTM was founded and developed by Mike Nebel, formerly president of Excel/Peterson Industries, but it has since been sold to Lippert Industries.
Even with the Lippert affiliation, Todd indicates, each plant is still responsible for its own sales. "Corporate takes care of mass advertising, but we're in charge of our own area. When they bought us, we already had a large customer-base in Indiana, which we kept."
Todd projects that "we're going to be more of an assembly place." The parent company "talks numbers," and things don't feel as "personal" as they used to. "We started out catering to the small guys," Todd says, "and Lippert is interested in the big orders. We still try to take care of the small customer. If you cater just to the big ones, you allow someone else to get started taking care of the small customers."
LTM's founder, Mike Nebel, is the company's salesman. Nebel is also in charge of research and development and new products. Part of what Lippert bought when they bought LTM was some of Nebel's patents.
"The people out in the shop have been here four or five years," Todd says of the workforce. "They know what has to be done. They don't have to be governed a lot. When we write up the order, we write up the invoice for pricing, the packing slip for shipping the finished product, and the workorder showing what needs to be done. Employees know what parts need to be made, what needs to be assembled. They shear it, punch it, bend it, paint it, assemble it, send it to shipping."
A typical workload in the plant?
"This week twelve orders are due on Friday," Todd says. "Thursday and Friday are our busiest days. Monday has three orders. We'll usually have ten to twenty orders shipping each day Tuesday through Thursday."
We have one woman who does our billing and backorders," Todd says. "She works three days a week. And we have one woman who does payroll, material purchase orders, and secretarial work. Everybody else is manufacturing."
Todd's main responsibility is plant operations but he also helps with plant management and handles purchasing, pricing, bill of materials, and "I take care of problems. It all kind of runs together. I even take calls for parts orders and warranty problems in the field."
Todd spent most of his childhood at Cedar, Kansas, about ten miles southwest of Smith Center. "I moved away from there when I went to college," he says, "and worked for UPS sorting packages after midnight while I was in school, and later worked as a driver for them. Mike convinced me to come to Smith Center when he was president of Peterson Industries [Excel]. When he sold his interested in Peterson, we moved out here and gave it our own shot."
"We're about as big as we're going to get," Todd thinks. The 24,000 square foot facility is bounded on all sides - by the golf course, the highway, the creek, so there is "no room to grow."
"We had forty-eight employees at one point, when we built everything from scratch," Todd says, compared to the thirty-eight employees currently. "Lippert wants to see more outsourcing. We reduced our workforce by attrition, not by pushing anybody out. Mike likes to see jobs created."
Todd describes the company's founder as "a very giving person. He gave production bonuses. We still have them, but not like they used to be. And when he sold the company, for Christmas he gave all the employees a bonus from himself personally, not from Lippert, as a thank-you for helping him build the company."
To be continued....
---------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 28, 1998
Rainy last evening. A cool, gray morning - late light and sluggish birds.
Sometimes, when I'm passing through some town while traveling, I almost think they create the particular experience for me - the slap of water against the boats tied up at the pier, the discussion by two locals in the ice cream shop about Mrs. Mahler's trip to the hospital, the unbearable politeness of the youngsters in the grocery store. Then I realize that this is no "experience" for them, this is their life.
At that, I wonder what people see as they come through this village. What sense of us do they take away with them? Did they have a tourist experience of us?
Sometimes I think I'm having a tourist's experience of life. I stand back a lot, and watch from a distance, don't I? I look at everything I do and everything done to me as a potential sentence, line, paragraph. It is the physicist's quandary - how do you watch without changing what you watch, record it without shaping it to something else? How do you watch it without being changed by it and changing it accordingly?
A kind of musk in the morning air that would make pioneers say this area is not healthy and we should be moving on - heavy, moist, vegetable, end-of-summer decay. That kind of air, this morning.
Some villager somewhere is out working in front of his garage, tinkering with something as he usually is. You should not wish to tell another's secret, but you believe he is outside to get away from a nagging wife. He is an old man and has no intention of divorcing the woman. His accommodation is to get away whenever possible. He tinkers and does odd jobs.
As I head north on Highway E, there is moisture spattering the windshield - that's how thick the air is. The farmsteads in the distance disappear into a gray roll of sky. It's not fog exactly, it is air so thick it obscures the vision.
There are fields of corn - they must be field corn - starting to turn. Another field of sweet corn has been taken; rough litter is all that's left.
North of Five Corners, sitting on a telephone wire, a pair of mourning doves look wet and unhappy, quiet as the hidden sun.
>
On Thursday of last week I spent a fair part of the day visiting with Karl Elder, Fessler Professor of Creative Writing and Poet in Residence at Lakeland College, getting a tour of the campus, meeting the school's president and the vice-president of academic affairs, seeing the room I'll be teaching in this fall, Room 26 in Old Main. Karl is the fellow who put my name out as the one to teach Writing Creative Nonfiction this fall for Lakeland's writing department. Karl and I had corresponded twenty-five or thirty years ago when I was publishing Margins: A Review of Little Magazines & Small Press Books, and sporadically since then - most recently when I accepted a poem of his this summer for this past Saturday's "Saturday's Poem" feature. Karl took me out to lunch as part of my visit, too - thanks, Karl! We had twenty five or thirty years of news to catch up on, so neither of us was in any particular hurry to move along.
At every turn on campus I felt warmly welcomed, whether I was at the Library finding out how to put materials on reserve for my students or was in one office getting the roster of fourteen students I'll be teaching or in another office getting the Faculty/Staff Parking Permit I'll need. Without fail the people I met said "glad to have you aboard." They said it warmly, they meant it, and I felt welcomed.
I have to tell you, too, it takes an Iowa farm boy's breath away to see his name on the ol' course list: Montag, T. WRT 304 Writing Creative Nonfiction. M-W-F 1:25 p.m. 3 cr.
As you might imagine, for the past several weeks I have been hard at work preparing my lessons for the course. At the moment I'm ready with seventeen of them, out of forty. I have divided the semester into four main areas of study: (1) Writing about self/Memoir; (2) Writing about others/Profile; (3) Writing about place; and (4) Writing about process, event, or day-in-the-life. In addition, I will be discussing a range of topics, tools, and techniques that support the writing of good creative nonfiction: keeping a writer's journal; "learning to see;" story shapes/frame; central metaphor or image or theme or arc; endings; beginnings; people/places/scenes; interviewing; dialogue; overheard conversation; characterization; place as setting; telling in scenes; imagery; time; transitions; description; point of view; voice; language; mood; memory; imaginative research; humor; and revision. I wake up every morning wondering what I have left out. If you see anything that's missing from my list, let me know. We'll shoe-horn it in somehow. As I say, I've got seventeen lessons prepared, but already I feel like I have six weeks more material than I have time available.
I'll be teaching a course in how "to write" creative nonfiction, yes; but more than that I hope to teach the students how "to read" creative nonfiction, so they can see exactly how it has been constructed, which tools and techniques have been employed, how the seams have been soldered. If I can succeed in teaching them to read in this way, I think I will have taught them how to teach themselves. And that's always what the best teachers teach, isn't it - don't they teach you how to teach yourself?
As I told Karl on Thursday, the students will have to work hard in the course - very hard, I expect.
Yet I envy them, the fourteen students who will be circling around me at that first class on Wednesday, September 8. They will have an enthusiastic and supportive teacher, one who wishes that, when he was in college many long years ago, someone would have shown him exactly what I'll be showing them. That wouldn't have made me a "writer," necessarily; but the guidance sure would have made learning to write a lot easier in the long run.
-----------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004 - continued
I have been visiting LTM Manufacturing, four miles south of Smith Center; LTM makes components for the RV (Recreational Vehicle) market. I have been speaking with Todd Haven who manages Operations at the company. LTM was founded and developed by Mike Nebel, formerly president of Excel/Peterson Industries, but it has since been sold to Lippert Industries.
Even with the Lippert affiliation, Todd indicates, each plant is still responsible for its own sales. "Corporate takes care of mass advertising, but we're in charge of our own area. When they bought us, we already had a large customer-base in Indiana, which we kept."
Todd projects that "we're going to be more of an assembly place." The parent company "talks numbers," and things don't feel as "personal" as they used to. "We started out catering to the small guys," Todd says, "and Lippert is interested in the big orders. We still try to take care of the small customer. If you cater just to the big ones, you allow someone else to get started taking care of the small customers."
LTM's founder, Mike Nebel, is the company's salesman. Nebel is also in charge of research and development and new products. Part of what Lippert bought when they bought LTM was some of Nebel's patents.
"The people out in the shop have been here four or five years," Todd says of the workforce. "They know what has to be done. They don't have to be governed a lot. When we write up the order, we write up the invoice for pricing, the packing slip for shipping the finished product, and the workorder showing what needs to be done. Employees know what parts need to be made, what needs to be assembled. They shear it, punch it, bend it, paint it, assemble it, send it to shipping."
A typical workload in the plant?
"This week twelve orders are due on Friday," Todd says. "Thursday and Friday are our busiest days. Monday has three orders. We'll usually have ten to twenty orders shipping each day Tuesday through Thursday."
We have one woman who does our billing and backorders," Todd says. "She works three days a week. And we have one woman who does payroll, material purchase orders, and secretarial work. Everybody else is manufacturing."
Todd's main responsibility is plant operations but he also helps with plant management and handles purchasing, pricing, bill of materials, and "I take care of problems. It all kind of runs together. I even take calls for parts orders and warranty problems in the field."
Todd spent most of his childhood at Cedar, Kansas, about ten miles southwest of Smith Center. "I moved away from there when I went to college," he says, "and worked for UPS sorting packages after midnight while I was in school, and later worked as a driver for them. Mike convinced me to come to Smith Center when he was president of Peterson Industries [Excel]. When he sold his interested in Peterson, we moved out here and gave it our own shot."
"We're about as big as we're going to get," Todd thinks. The 24,000 square foot facility is bounded on all sides - by the golf course, the highway, the creek, so there is "no room to grow."
"We had forty-eight employees at one point, when we built everything from scratch," Todd says, compared to the thirty-eight employees currently. "Lippert wants to see more outsourcing. We reduced our workforce by attrition, not by pushing anybody out. Mike likes to see jobs created."
Todd describes the company's founder as "a very giving person. He gave production bonuses. We still have them, but not like they used to be. And when he sold the company, for Christmas he gave all the employees a bonus from himself personally, not from Lippert, as a thank-you for helping him build the company."
To be continued....
---------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 28, 1998
Rainy last evening. A cool, gray morning - late light and sluggish birds.
Sometimes, when I'm passing through some town while traveling, I almost think they create the particular experience for me - the slap of water against the boats tied up at the pier, the discussion by two locals in the ice cream shop about Mrs. Mahler's trip to the hospital, the unbearable politeness of the youngsters in the grocery store. Then I realize that this is no "experience" for them, this is their life.
At that, I wonder what people see as they come through this village. What sense of us do they take away with them? Did they have a tourist experience of us?
Sometimes I think I'm having a tourist's experience of life. I stand back a lot, and watch from a distance, don't I? I look at everything I do and everything done to me as a potential sentence, line, paragraph. It is the physicist's quandary - how do you watch without changing what you watch, record it without shaping it to something else? How do you watch it without being changed by it and changing it accordingly?
A kind of musk in the morning air that would make pioneers say this area is not healthy and we should be moving on - heavy, moist, vegetable, end-of-summer decay. That kind of air, this morning.
Some villager somewhere is out working in front of his garage, tinkering with something as he usually is. You should not wish to tell another's secret, but you believe he is outside to get away from a nagging wife. He is an old man and has no intention of divorcing the woman. His accommodation is to get away whenever possible. He tinkers and does odd jobs.
As I head north on Highway E, there is moisture spattering the windshield - that's how thick the air is. The farmsteads in the distance disappear into a gray roll of sky. It's not fog exactly, it is air so thick it obscures the vision.
There are fields of corn - they must be field corn - starting to turn. Another field of sweet corn has been taken; rough litter is all that's left.
North of Five Corners, sitting on a telephone wire, a pair of mourning doves look wet and unhappy, quiet as the hidden sun.
>
Saturday, August 28, 2004
SATURDAY'S POEM
--------------------------
IN A TOWN CALLED UNINCORPORATED
by Karl Elder
This guy must
think he's got guts,
the rush and gust
of a pickup truck
honking at a wedding party
poised to cross on the steps of the church.
My wife and I pull over at the edge of town
to cut his dust
as much as to switch off.
The wind says wow
in cedar and birch
like a quiet caterwaul.
What lay ahead or, for that matter, lies
are behind me now.
Now, arrival is everything,
all.
Karl Elder lives in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, where he is Poet in Residence at the nearby Lakeland College. Elder is a Pushcart Prize recipient included in The Best American Poetry series. His fifth book, The Geocryptogrammatist’s Pocket Compendium of the United States, is available from Amazon.com. Several of his poems are archived at Poetry Daily [www.poems.com] and Beloit Poetry Journal [www.bpj.org].
-----------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About seventeen of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Colleen Redman, "Tincture Making" - May 15, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o John Rezmerski, "What I Am Trying to Tell You: Prairie in My Mouth" and "Some Good Things Left After the War With the Sioux" - August 21, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
--------------------------
IN A TOWN CALLED UNINCORPORATED
by Karl Elder
This guy must
think he's got guts,
the rush and gust
of a pickup truck
honking at a wedding party
poised to cross on the steps of the church.
My wife and I pull over at the edge of town
to cut his dust
as much as to switch off.
The wind says wow
in cedar and birch
like a quiet caterwaul.
What lay ahead or, for that matter, lies
are behind me now.
Now, arrival is everything,
all.
Karl Elder lives in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, where he is Poet in Residence at the nearby Lakeland College. Elder is a Pushcart Prize recipient included in The Best American Poetry series. His fifth book, The Geocryptogrammatist’s Pocket Compendium of the United States, is available from Amazon.com. Several of his poems are archived at Poetry Daily [www.poems.com] and Beloit Poetry Journal [www.bpj.org].
-----------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About seventeen of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Colleen Redman, "Tincture Making" - May 15, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o John Rezmerski, "What I Am Trying to Tell You: Prairie in My Mouth" and "Some Good Things Left After the War With the Sioux" - August 21, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
Friday, August 27, 2004
GONE TO SIOUX CITY, IA,
TO VISIT POET PHIL HEY
GONE TO SIOUX FALLS, SD,
FOR SD BOOK FESTIVAL
Phil Hey is one of the featured readers on Saturday at the South Dakota Book Festival in Sioux Falls. We'll take copies of the book of his I've just published, How It Seems To Me: New & Selected Poems; Phil will read; I'll make sure people have a chance to purchase one of his books. We'll attend some readings and discussions by other middlewestern writers I admire: Phil Dacey, David Allan Evans, Jeanne Emmons, William Kloefkorn, David Picaske, Linda Hasselstrom, and others.
I'll put up "Saturday's Poem" tomorrow, August 28, if I can gain access to a computer; or on Sunday, August 29, when I return.
I'll be back to blogging as usual on Monday, August 30th.
---------------
WISCONSIN POET LAUREATE:
NOW YOU KNOW WHAT I KNOW
Last night all three of the finalists for Poet Laureate of Wisconsin - John Lehman, Denise Sweet, and myself - got an e-mail from Cathryn Cofell-Mustschler, chair of the Poet Laureate Commission, saying: "I know by now you are ready to throw a book at us for the LONG delay. Please forgive and trust that we are very near to the end of the process. Governor Doyle does have the recommendation and has promised us a decision within the next couple of weeks, so please be patient just a bit longer!"
The purpose of the e-mail, in addition to urging patience, was to inform us that "In the interim, we are beginning to plan for a reception to honor all three of you, and Ellen Kort [retiring Poet Laureate of Wisconsin], to be held at the Governor's residence some time in October...."
Though waiting for the Governor's announcement is just about killing me, I'll be patient a bit longer. The Great Wheel turns; I'm booked for the full ride. Whatcha gonna do?
---------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004
It's Wednesday morning. I'm at the Second Cup Cafe at 8:00 a.m. again, sitting where the As the Bladder Fills Club gets filled. Ivan Burgess is saying: "I've got to work today. She hasn't called me in weeks and she called me this morning and wants me to come in. Well, when you're poor, you go in when she calls. There's not much I can do about it except complain to my wife."
One of the other fellows says: "We're thinking you're gonna complain to us til 9:00 a.m."
Ivan: "I can't do that. I've got to take Momma to her hair appointment at ten minutes to nine."
Other fellow: "Good. Then you can't be complaining to us."
Later Ivan calls out to a red-headed high school girl who is over at the pastry counter with another girl. He says "Rachel. Rachel."
He says louder: "Hey, Burgess!"
The girl comes over to stand next to Ivan. Her name is Burgess but she is not relation to Ivan - which is obvious because she's good-looking. She is also a basketball player.
"Every day I want you to practice fifty shots with your right hand, and fifty shots with your left hand," Ivan says.
"And another thing," he says. "Out on the basketball court, you're too nice. I want you to be mean out there. You can be a nice girl, but on the basketball court, be mean. I mean it. Now remember: fifty shots every day with each hand. And be mean."
The girl smiles and puts up with it. You can tell she's been well brought up. And perhaps it's not the first time she's had to take advice from Ivan. He's not shy about saying what he thinks. But she listens politely, then when he's done she goes back to the business of getting herself a sweetroll.
After she's left Ivan says: "That girl could score thirty points a game but she passes the ball too much. You should be a team player, but sometimes being a team player means taking the shot. She's just too nice out there."
*
LTM Manufacturing stands south of Smith Center about four miles, abutting the community's golf course. Like Excel's plant, this one appears unassuming on the outside, with all manner of work going on within.
Mike Nebel founded LTM in 1996; he had formerly been president of Excel but he and that company had parted ways.
Todd Haven has been with LTM since its founding. In fact, in the early days, the company was Mike Nebel and Todd Haven. Those are the roots from which the manufacturer has grown. Todd manages operations at LTM and assists with plant management.
LTM builds a variety of slide mechanisms for rooms that slide out of RVs, as well as slide-out battery trays, storage trays, and LP trays for the RV industry. In addition the company has been making stabilizer jacks. The company sells to firms in Indiana, to Northwood Manufacturing in Oregon which makes the Monaco Coach ("the million dollar motorhome"), and to another manufacturer in Kansas which makes the HitchHiker.
Nebel's company was bought from him by Lippert Components, Todd tells me. The association with Lippert brings "marketing clout. We are Plant #41. They have a huge piece of the pie in the RV market."
"Their main business was building frames for mobile homes, and then for RV manufacturers," Todd says of the parent company. "Now, with us, they are trying to break into the accessory side of the RV market."
One item that LTM makes for Doubletree RV is a storage tray that slides out either side of the RV to 66% of its length. The company also makes a mechanism for a bed that folds up to reveal storage space at the foot end; and folds up, too, at the other end so you can sit up and watch TV in bed. The whole bedroom slides in and out on the LTM slide mechanism.
King of the Road has a web site that shows LTM's patio deck which slides under the fifth wheel trailer when not in use, and slides out when you need a place to sit that's up and out of the mud and dirt.
LTM makes a "jumbo" slide for a fourteen-foot room on a trailer. It makes smaller systems. And now it fashions mechanisms for slide-outs of pick-up-sized campers.
There are thirty eight employees at the plant. Most employees come from Smith County, Todd says, "and some of them are farmers. Farmers have a good work ethic. Right now we have a good group. Whenever we've had problems, it seems those people came from out of the area or out of state."
"A farmer knows how to figure it out," Todd says. "Most of them already know how to weld, they know electric motors and hydraulics. It's easy to teach them. They already have an idea what's going on."
To be continued....
---------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 27, 1998
The chiffon sky of the early morning has evaporated - it's clear air, now, and blue sky, the long lay of sunlight. A peacefulness in the village I don't think you'd find in the city, a morning's quiet meditation before the work day breaks loose here. I enjoy the peacefulness of it. I'm sure there are others who would be bored to tears with so much as a week of these days. Part of what you get from a place is what you make of it. If you want to think you need more you will believe this is not enough. I was born to such a pace. I wonder if someone else, out of a more hectic background, could grow to love this leisurely amble of a day?
Moisture on the windshield. Perhaps the chiffon is not yet entirely gone from the sky - there is a light gauze of haze yet in the distance. The morning is bright in spite of it.
In downtown Fairwater, Laper's Garage is open and ready for business; the flags are flying at the Post Office; the lights are on at Stellmachers' lumberyard. All is right with the world.
Driving home from work last night I saw a hawk - it was perched south a mile from the usual place, on the other side of the road. Was it our hawk?
Half the field of beets is still in the ground. The leaves on the plants are turning more and more rusty.
Remember - if it's not what you want, you can't be sure anybody will want it.
>
TO VISIT POET PHIL HEY
GONE TO SIOUX FALLS, SD,
FOR SD BOOK FESTIVAL
Phil Hey is one of the featured readers on Saturday at the South Dakota Book Festival in Sioux Falls. We'll take copies of the book of his I've just published, How It Seems To Me: New & Selected Poems; Phil will read; I'll make sure people have a chance to purchase one of his books. We'll attend some readings and discussions by other middlewestern writers I admire: Phil Dacey, David Allan Evans, Jeanne Emmons, William Kloefkorn, David Picaske, Linda Hasselstrom, and others.
I'll put up "Saturday's Poem" tomorrow, August 28, if I can gain access to a computer; or on Sunday, August 29, when I return.
I'll be back to blogging as usual on Monday, August 30th.
---------------
WISCONSIN POET LAUREATE:
NOW YOU KNOW WHAT I KNOW
Last night all three of the finalists for Poet Laureate of Wisconsin - John Lehman, Denise Sweet, and myself - got an e-mail from Cathryn Cofell-Mustschler, chair of the Poet Laureate Commission, saying: "I know by now you are ready to throw a book at us for the LONG delay. Please forgive and trust that we are very near to the end of the process. Governor Doyle does have the recommendation and has promised us a decision within the next couple of weeks, so please be patient just a bit longer!"
The purpose of the e-mail, in addition to urging patience, was to inform us that "In the interim, we are beginning to plan for a reception to honor all three of you, and Ellen Kort [retiring Poet Laureate of Wisconsin], to be held at the Governor's residence some time in October...."
Though waiting for the Governor's announcement is just about killing me, I'll be patient a bit longer. The Great Wheel turns; I'm booked for the full ride. Whatcha gonna do?
---------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
June 16, 2004
It's Wednesday morning. I'm at the Second Cup Cafe at 8:00 a.m. again, sitting where the As the Bladder Fills Club gets filled. Ivan Burgess is saying: "I've got to work today. She hasn't called me in weeks and she called me this morning and wants me to come in. Well, when you're poor, you go in when she calls. There's not much I can do about it except complain to my wife."
One of the other fellows says: "We're thinking you're gonna complain to us til 9:00 a.m."
Ivan: "I can't do that. I've got to take Momma to her hair appointment at ten minutes to nine."
Other fellow: "Good. Then you can't be complaining to us."
Later Ivan calls out to a red-headed high school girl who is over at the pastry counter with another girl. He says "Rachel. Rachel."
He says louder: "Hey, Burgess!"
The girl comes over to stand next to Ivan. Her name is Burgess but she is not relation to Ivan - which is obvious because she's good-looking. She is also a basketball player.
"Every day I want you to practice fifty shots with your right hand, and fifty shots with your left hand," Ivan says.
"And another thing," he says. "Out on the basketball court, you're too nice. I want you to be mean out there. You can be a nice girl, but on the basketball court, be mean. I mean it. Now remember: fifty shots every day with each hand. And be mean."
The girl smiles and puts up with it. You can tell she's been well brought up. And perhaps it's not the first time she's had to take advice from Ivan. He's not shy about saying what he thinks. But she listens politely, then when he's done she goes back to the business of getting herself a sweetroll.
After she's left Ivan says: "That girl could score thirty points a game but she passes the ball too much. You should be a team player, but sometimes being a team player means taking the shot. She's just too nice out there."
*
LTM Manufacturing stands south of Smith Center about four miles, abutting the community's golf course. Like Excel's plant, this one appears unassuming on the outside, with all manner of work going on within.
Mike Nebel founded LTM in 1996; he had formerly been president of Excel but he and that company had parted ways.
Todd Haven has been with LTM since its founding. In fact, in the early days, the company was Mike Nebel and Todd Haven. Those are the roots from which the manufacturer has grown. Todd manages operations at LTM and assists with plant management.
LTM builds a variety of slide mechanisms for rooms that slide out of RVs, as well as slide-out battery trays, storage trays, and LP trays for the RV industry. In addition the company has been making stabilizer jacks. The company sells to firms in Indiana, to Northwood Manufacturing in Oregon which makes the Monaco Coach ("the million dollar motorhome"), and to another manufacturer in Kansas which makes the HitchHiker.
Nebel's company was bought from him by Lippert Components, Todd tells me. The association with Lippert brings "marketing clout. We are Plant #41. They have a huge piece of the pie in the RV market."
"Their main business was building frames for mobile homes, and then for RV manufacturers," Todd says of the parent company. "Now, with us, they are trying to break into the accessory side of the RV market."
One item that LTM makes for Doubletree RV is a storage tray that slides out either side of the RV to 66% of its length. The company also makes a mechanism for a bed that folds up to reveal storage space at the foot end; and folds up, too, at the other end so you can sit up and watch TV in bed. The whole bedroom slides in and out on the LTM slide mechanism.
King of the Road has a web site that shows LTM's patio deck which slides under the fifth wheel trailer when not in use, and slides out when you need a place to sit that's up and out of the mud and dirt.
LTM makes a "jumbo" slide for a fourteen-foot room on a trailer. It makes smaller systems. And now it fashions mechanisms for slide-outs of pick-up-sized campers.
There are thirty eight employees at the plant. Most employees come from Smith County, Todd says, "and some of them are farmers. Farmers have a good work ethic. Right now we have a good group. Whenever we've had problems, it seems those people came from out of the area or out of state."
"A farmer knows how to figure it out," Todd says. "Most of them already know how to weld, they know electric motors and hydraulics. It's easy to teach them. They already have an idea what's going on."
To be continued....
---------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 27, 1998
The chiffon sky of the early morning has evaporated - it's clear air, now, and blue sky, the long lay of sunlight. A peacefulness in the village I don't think you'd find in the city, a morning's quiet meditation before the work day breaks loose here. I enjoy the peacefulness of it. I'm sure there are others who would be bored to tears with so much as a week of these days. Part of what you get from a place is what you make of it. If you want to think you need more you will believe this is not enough. I was born to such a pace. I wonder if someone else, out of a more hectic background, could grow to love this leisurely amble of a day?
Moisture on the windshield. Perhaps the chiffon is not yet entirely gone from the sky - there is a light gauze of haze yet in the distance. The morning is bright in spite of it.
In downtown Fairwater, Laper's Garage is open and ready for business; the flags are flying at the Post Office; the lights are on at Stellmachers' lumberyard. All is right with the world.
Driving home from work last night I saw a hawk - it was perched south a mile from the usual place, on the other side of the road. Was it our hawk?
Half the field of beets is still in the ground. The leaves on the plants are turning more and more rusty.
Remember - if it's not what you want, you can't be sure anybody will want it.
>
Thursday, August 26, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been interviewing Troy Lorenzen from Smith County Implement, the John Deere dealer in Smith Center, Kansas. We've been talking about small rural communities - the challanges, the opportunities.
"There are probably people in the community who have never been out of Kansas," Troy suggests, "who are out of touch with the larger world, who have never thought outside the box."
"Everyone," he says, "should go to a Broadway show, should dig a ditch, should put shingles on a house - see some other part of life."
"I wouldn't ask an employee to do anything I wouldn't do," he says.
Everyone needs to have culture in their lives - and he means both Broadway shows and ditch-digging.
"We should see things our parents haven't seen," Troy says. "Our children should see things we haven't. I went to New York City two years ago. I didn't want to go. We went for a wedding. We were there for seven days. I was intrigued. If I had it to do again, I'd spent a year in New York City right after college. You can sit in a New York City subway and see the guy in the $1000 Armani suit, and people dressed in everything else. What they had in common was pride in what they were doing."
"You need pride in a community," he says. "Our daughter went to New York with us. It's amazing what her eyes saw. From her level she saw different things than I saw. She brought something back to Smith Center that few people in her class will have the opportunity to see."
"The community needs to be diverse," Troy says. "It needs something to offer to everyone. But you get wound up going a hundred miles an hour and you don't get to do everything you should."
How would you describe the people of this area?
They have "a high level of integrity," Troy said. "How many places can you make a $100,000 deal with the shake of a hand. There is trust here, integrity."
"People are loyal," he says, "and at the same time clannish - this is my group. We all have some of that. The difference belongs to those who can overcome it, who get new people into the inner circle."
"Phillipsburg has more industry that Smith Center," Troy says, "but they face the same issues. It just hasn't hit there as hard yet."
"My customer base here looks mainly at cropping," he says. "In Phillipsburg, they are more concerned about livestock. The difference between crops versus livestock - I can draw the line at a specific county road, the Agra to Kirwin road. You have to put a different hat on to work with the people on the other side of that road - they have different needs. Over there we have to specialize in livestock - herd management - instead of crop management."
The Agra to Kirwin road is right on the 99th Meridian, by the way, for those of you aware that I define the western edge of the middle west at the 100th Meridian.
"My wife's father was an attorney," Troy says. "Her mother taught in a community college. My wife knew nothing of agriculture. She was anxious to learn about this business. She's married to the biggest farmer in the area, and to the smallest farmer; to the most efficient farmer, and the least efficient. I deal with them all. She needs an understanding of what I do, and what I have to do."
"My business is providing solutions," Troy says. "Overhaul is one of the choices. It's not just about selling equipment. You have to be part equipment salesman, part mind-reader, part therapist."
What brings him joy in his work?
"What brings the smile to my face," he says, "is when I got out and get a guy started and he's happy with what he got, and satisfied with it."
"As an equipment dealer," Troy says, "my direction has to change to meet the customer's needs. My sense of it be different next week, it will be different next year - what are the needs?"
"It's not the sale," he says, "so much as solving the problem."
"There are wonderful opportunities here that my children will be able to enjoy," Troy says. "There are also opportunities they will miss out on growing up here. But the positives overwhelm the negatives. You can go see some of those other things, but then you can come back to what we've got here."
"The fast-pace commuting through a city, you can't get that here," he says. "But you can take your kids there and teach them to be aware of their surroundings, teach them that not everyone will be your friend. But then you can bring them back here where it's safe."
"We need to give our children the opportunity to see that there is more to life than just this spot on the map," he says. "The lack of those experiences can make them adults who are narrow-minded and have difficulty functioning in society."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 26, 1998
What is shelter? Shelter is protection from the elements, something between me and where I am. It can be as thin as a piece of sail cloth put up for a tent; it can be as thick as the walls of a sod house. We speak of the sheltering mountains, sometimes, when they interrupt a storm headed east; we speak of the sheltering trees. But mostly shelter is house or cabin or tent - a wall between us and the other of the land around us.
Mary's mother was born into the shelter of a sod house on the cold plains of Montana, north of Malta, within walking distance of the Canadian border. I was born into a drafty farm house in the corn country of Iowa - protected each winter by a row of straw bales set two layers high. Some others were born into high and mighty mansions which have about as much relation to shelter as a Corvette convertible has to basic transportation.
We are glad for the shelter, of course. The women folk among the settlers moving to the Waupaca area in 1850 were certainly glad to have the big covered wagon to ride in by day and to curl up in for sleep at night.
House - just plain house - by itself has become more than "shelter." It is status symbol, emblem of success, a marker that separates me from thee, mine from thine, my worth from your worthlessness.
The very environment around our shelters, actually, protects us. The earth, even at its extremes, is the hospitable planet; consider staking a tent on Mars or Mercury.
Dew, this morning. Long shadows. A cool blue sky. Go away far enough and you're gone and come back.
Garbage cans have been set out for weekly pick-up. Think about Fairwater the way an anthropologist thinks about the world.
Finally - a field of sweet corn has been harvested from the west side of Highway E, just south of where the hawk should be, adjacent to the field where the canning factory keeps its harvesting equipment this year.
You can see a little haze in the light to the east - it is the kind of day you surely would put in your pocket, to exchange for next January 12th, let's say, when the sky is not anywhere near so pleasant. Now - hold yourself to that prediction!
At Five Corners, I look to the northwest. A thin smear of cloud, like a trail of smoke. It might indeed be smoke, I just couldn't prove it.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been interviewing Troy Lorenzen from Smith County Implement, the John Deere dealer in Smith Center, Kansas. We've been talking about small rural communities - the challanges, the opportunities.
"There are probably people in the community who have never been out of Kansas," Troy suggests, "who are out of touch with the larger world, who have never thought outside the box."
"Everyone," he says, "should go to a Broadway show, should dig a ditch, should put shingles on a house - see some other part of life."
"I wouldn't ask an employee to do anything I wouldn't do," he says.
Everyone needs to have culture in their lives - and he means both Broadway shows and ditch-digging.
"We should see things our parents haven't seen," Troy says. "Our children should see things we haven't. I went to New York City two years ago. I didn't want to go. We went for a wedding. We were there for seven days. I was intrigued. If I had it to do again, I'd spent a year in New York City right after college. You can sit in a New York City subway and see the guy in the $1000 Armani suit, and people dressed in everything else. What they had in common was pride in what they were doing."
"You need pride in a community," he says. "Our daughter went to New York with us. It's amazing what her eyes saw. From her level she saw different things than I saw. She brought something back to Smith Center that few people in her class will have the opportunity to see."
"The community needs to be diverse," Troy says. "It needs something to offer to everyone. But you get wound up going a hundred miles an hour and you don't get to do everything you should."
How would you describe the people of this area?
They have "a high level of integrity," Troy said. "How many places can you make a $100,000 deal with the shake of a hand. There is trust here, integrity."
"People are loyal," he says, "and at the same time clannish - this is my group. We all have some of that. The difference belongs to those who can overcome it, who get new people into the inner circle."
"Phillipsburg has more industry that Smith Center," Troy says, "but they face the same issues. It just hasn't hit there as hard yet."
"My customer base here looks mainly at cropping," he says. "In Phillipsburg, they are more concerned about livestock. The difference between crops versus livestock - I can draw the line at a specific county road, the Agra to Kirwin road. You have to put a different hat on to work with the people on the other side of that road - they have different needs. Over there we have to specialize in livestock - herd management - instead of crop management."
The Agra to Kirwin road is right on the 99th Meridian, by the way, for those of you aware that I define the western edge of the middle west at the 100th Meridian.
"My wife's father was an attorney," Troy says. "Her mother taught in a community college. My wife knew nothing of agriculture. She was anxious to learn about this business. She's married to the biggest farmer in the area, and to the smallest farmer; to the most efficient farmer, and the least efficient. I deal with them all. She needs an understanding of what I do, and what I have to do."
"My business is providing solutions," Troy says. "Overhaul is one of the choices. It's not just about selling equipment. You have to be part equipment salesman, part mind-reader, part therapist."
What brings him joy in his work?
"What brings the smile to my face," he says, "is when I got out and get a guy started and he's happy with what he got, and satisfied with it."
"As an equipment dealer," Troy says, "my direction has to change to meet the customer's needs. My sense of it be different next week, it will be different next year - what are the needs?"
"It's not the sale," he says, "so much as solving the problem."
"There are wonderful opportunities here that my children will be able to enjoy," Troy says. "There are also opportunities they will miss out on growing up here. But the positives overwhelm the negatives. You can go see some of those other things, but then you can come back to what we've got here."
"The fast-pace commuting through a city, you can't get that here," he says. "But you can take your kids there and teach them to be aware of their surroundings, teach them that not everyone will be your friend. But then you can bring them back here where it's safe."
"We need to give our children the opportunity to see that there is more to life than just this spot on the map," he says. "The lack of those experiences can make them adults who are narrow-minded and have difficulty functioning in society."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 26, 1998
What is shelter? Shelter is protection from the elements, something between me and where I am. It can be as thin as a piece of sail cloth put up for a tent; it can be as thick as the walls of a sod house. We speak of the sheltering mountains, sometimes, when they interrupt a storm headed east; we speak of the sheltering trees. But mostly shelter is house or cabin or tent - a wall between us and the other of the land around us.
Mary's mother was born into the shelter of a sod house on the cold plains of Montana, north of Malta, within walking distance of the Canadian border. I was born into a drafty farm house in the corn country of Iowa - protected each winter by a row of straw bales set two layers high. Some others were born into high and mighty mansions which have about as much relation to shelter as a Corvette convertible has to basic transportation.
We are glad for the shelter, of course. The women folk among the settlers moving to the Waupaca area in 1850 were certainly glad to have the big covered wagon to ride in by day and to curl up in for sleep at night.
House - just plain house - by itself has become more than "shelter." It is status symbol, emblem of success, a marker that separates me from thee, mine from thine, my worth from your worthlessness.
The very environment around our shelters, actually, protects us. The earth, even at its extremes, is the hospitable planet; consider staking a tent on Mars or Mercury.
Dew, this morning. Long shadows. A cool blue sky. Go away far enough and you're gone and come back.
Garbage cans have been set out for weekly pick-up. Think about Fairwater the way an anthropologist thinks about the world.
Finally - a field of sweet corn has been harvested from the west side of Highway E, just south of where the hawk should be, adjacent to the field where the canning factory keeps its harvesting equipment this year.
You can see a little haze in the light to the east - it is the kind of day you surely would put in your pocket, to exchange for next January 12th, let's say, when the sky is not anywhere near so pleasant. Now - hold yourself to that prediction!
At Five Corners, I look to the northwest. A thin smear of cloud, like a trail of smoke. It might indeed be smoke, I just couldn't prove it.
>
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
If rural America has an optimistic face with a realistic outlook, it belongs to Troy Lorenzen. Troy is the manager and a part-owner of Smith County Implement, the John Deere dealer at the west edge of Smith Center along Highway 36.
"I'm here by accident," Troy admits. "My wife grew up in a town of about 25,000 people. I grew up in a town of about 2,000 a few miles from there. We met each other in college. I got a degree in industrial technology with specialties in metallurgy and power mechanization. We moved here thinking this would be a short-term deal. I'd get some experience and - bam - move on to some place else."
"Now we joke," Troy says. "I ask my wife if she wants to move to a big town. She says No!"
Troy's wife, Susan, teaches school in Smith Center.
"I think it does take a village to raise a child," Troy says.
"I have this bond with customers here," he says. "I look at them as friends. I'm here to help them."
"My dad grew up on a farm," Troy says, "but he worked for a construction company. My mom worked for a bank."
"I could have worked at the construction company my dad worked for," he says, "but I wanted to put my own mark on the world. At fourteen, I started working at John Deere in my home-town. Now I'm part owner of two dealerships - this and Phillips County Implement in Phillipsburg."
"We have two children who like it here," he says.
"For most folks," Troy says, "Smith Center is their circle of the world. I live in Smith Center but I'm part of multiple communities. I bring a lot of neighboring communities here."
"I like to accomplish things myself," he says. "I don't look to others. I want to be self-sufficient."
"We belong to the Smith Center Chamber of Commerce," he says, "but we belong to the Chamber of Commerce in other communities too. Because I'm so busy, most of my contribution to the Chamber is financial."
"I try to do things for the schools, too," he says. "I'll take out ads in their publications, to put my business in front of them. I'll take an ad in the Kensington yearbook as well. We try to participate there, too."
"Yeah," Troy admits, "my relationship to this place is probably different than that of those who are born here, because I chose it."
"Where I grew up in southwest Kansas, I saw a larger community sucking the life out of my hometown. I came here with my eyes open. I can stand outside the box. There's an adage that things are greener on the other side of the box. I've been other places and know that's not always the case."
"I see opportunities," he says. "Cattle prices are at record highs. Grain prices are favorable. We've been going through a drought that would rival the 1930s yet we don't have the dust storms of the 1930s. Farmers are much smarter, much better stewards of the land."
"Last year," Troy says, "our sales were off drastically, down over a million dollars. That has made me a better business person. It makes me pay attention to details. It's easy to herd cattle when they're going the direction you're going. I challenge people to move forward when things aren't going well. I want to move forward."
Troy attributes the loss in sales to the drought. "Last year," he says, "everything after the good wheat crop went to hell in a hand-basket."
"Things have rebounded now," he says. "There are opportunities in agriculture. The main variable is rainfall. We don't have the water to irrigate."
The challenges that Smith Center faces?
"The answer is the same as it was fifty years ago," Troy says. "We want more people in the community. The question is: how do we get them here?"
"My customers are getting bigger," Troy says. "They want it faster, better, and more efficiently. And they are buying more now than thirty years ago, in terms of real dollars."
"More, more, more," he says. "Once you are in it, if you are not going forward you are going backward."
Where does his growth come from?
"From Mom & Pop operations going out of business," he admits. "There are fewer, bigger John Deere dealerships now. One dealership may have several locations."
If more people is what you need, how do you get them to come here?
"That's the million dollar question," Troy says. "First, you need to retain what you have. Next, the quality of life here is not well enough depicted to people. We should sell quality of life. Third, we should capitalize on our workforce. Our work ethic is good. These people have a drive to get the job done. There must be work in the big corporations that could be done here, and done cheaper because the cost of living is less. The cost of real estate would be cheaper. The bottom line of corporations would be helped."
"Communities need to take a little risk," he says. "It's tough to control your destiny without taking risk. Build an office building. Invite business in rent-free for three years, with a note for them to buy after that. Instead, we ask 'Who's gonna put a business in Smith Center, Kansas.'"
"Self-reliance," he says. "We can't depend on someone to come in on a white horse and rescue us. It's not gonna happen."
"There'll be continual attrition in the number of farmers," Troy believes, "yet they'll be farming the same total acres. Those customers will be even more demanding than they are today."
Troy thinks the community is "segmented, with different outlooks and attitudes about life."
One segment is "progressive, willing to take their future in their own hands."
Next, "we have some pessimists. The earth is going to open up and swallow us up. We'll never make it."
And, finally, "there's a segment of people sitting on their porches waiting for the buy in the white horse to rescue them."
"In twenty-five years," Troy says, "only the first group will be left."
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 25, 1998
We do not have any more power over the selection of our neighbors than did the settlers in the 1850s on the Big Nemaha River at Tucumseh in Nebraska territory. You staked your claim, and whoever staked a claim nearby - and kept it - was your neighbor. Which would bring you joy, or not.
Many of the pioneers there were single men. As a result, the women on the prairie had to search each other out if they could were to enjoy female company. A woman might be of stout heart and quick wit out on the plains and thereby have an easier time of it; or she might fear the wolves, the open sky, fierce storms.
Most often, I suppose, the choice to pioneer in new territories was not made by the women, but by the men, so the men had a vested interest in success and might be blind to their own desperation. The women - with no such investment - could see foolishness. Perhaps, in the face of testosterone foolishness, women did need to see other women, did need feminine companionship in some deep and essential way. Still, they had little control over who settled nearby, and little control, too, over whom they settled next to.
There are a lot of sad women, perhaps, buried in pioneer graves.
Dew on the grass, this morning. Moisture on the windshield. An unhappy squirrel in the tree along our driveway. Blue sky. Love.
Downtown Fairwater - a migrant worker sits at a picnic table having morning coffee. The table is one of a couple set under the trees along the railroad tracks. He works at the canning factory and lives in the dormitory just east of Fairwater on Highway 44. Often I see the men walking into town to the Village Mart for coffee or treats, then walking back to their temporary home. They are old men and young men, doing the jobs the canning factory cannot find local employees to do.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
If rural America has an optimistic face with a realistic outlook, it belongs to Troy Lorenzen. Troy is the manager and a part-owner of Smith County Implement, the John Deere dealer at the west edge of Smith Center along Highway 36.
"I'm here by accident," Troy admits. "My wife grew up in a town of about 25,000 people. I grew up in a town of about 2,000 a few miles from there. We met each other in college. I got a degree in industrial technology with specialties in metallurgy and power mechanization. We moved here thinking this would be a short-term deal. I'd get some experience and - bam - move on to some place else."
"Now we joke," Troy says. "I ask my wife if she wants to move to a big town. She says No!"
Troy's wife, Susan, teaches school in Smith Center.
"I think it does take a village to raise a child," Troy says.
"I have this bond with customers here," he says. "I look at them as friends. I'm here to help them."
"My dad grew up on a farm," Troy says, "but he worked for a construction company. My mom worked for a bank."
"I could have worked at the construction company my dad worked for," he says, "but I wanted to put my own mark on the world. At fourteen, I started working at John Deere in my home-town. Now I'm part owner of two dealerships - this and Phillips County Implement in Phillipsburg."
"We have two children who like it here," he says.
"For most folks," Troy says, "Smith Center is their circle of the world. I live in Smith Center but I'm part of multiple communities. I bring a lot of neighboring communities here."
"I like to accomplish things myself," he says. "I don't look to others. I want to be self-sufficient."
"We belong to the Smith Center Chamber of Commerce," he says, "but we belong to the Chamber of Commerce in other communities too. Because I'm so busy, most of my contribution to the Chamber is financial."
"I try to do things for the schools, too," he says. "I'll take out ads in their publications, to put my business in front of them. I'll take an ad in the Kensington yearbook as well. We try to participate there, too."
"Yeah," Troy admits, "my relationship to this place is probably different than that of those who are born here, because I chose it."
"Where I grew up in southwest Kansas, I saw a larger community sucking the life out of my hometown. I came here with my eyes open. I can stand outside the box. There's an adage that things are greener on the other side of the box. I've been other places and know that's not always the case."
"I see opportunities," he says. "Cattle prices are at record highs. Grain prices are favorable. We've been going through a drought that would rival the 1930s yet we don't have the dust storms of the 1930s. Farmers are much smarter, much better stewards of the land."
"Last year," Troy says, "our sales were off drastically, down over a million dollars. That has made me a better business person. It makes me pay attention to details. It's easy to herd cattle when they're going the direction you're going. I challenge people to move forward when things aren't going well. I want to move forward."
Troy attributes the loss in sales to the drought. "Last year," he says, "everything after the good wheat crop went to hell in a hand-basket."
"Things have rebounded now," he says. "There are opportunities in agriculture. The main variable is rainfall. We don't have the water to irrigate."
The challenges that Smith Center faces?
"The answer is the same as it was fifty years ago," Troy says. "We want more people in the community. The question is: how do we get them here?"
"My customers are getting bigger," Troy says. "They want it faster, better, and more efficiently. And they are buying more now than thirty years ago, in terms of real dollars."
"More, more, more," he says. "Once you are in it, if you are not going forward you are going backward."
Where does his growth come from?
"From Mom & Pop operations going out of business," he admits. "There are fewer, bigger John Deere dealerships now. One dealership may have several locations."
If more people is what you need, how do you get them to come here?
"That's the million dollar question," Troy says. "First, you need to retain what you have. Next, the quality of life here is not well enough depicted to people. We should sell quality of life. Third, we should capitalize on our workforce. Our work ethic is good. These people have a drive to get the job done. There must be work in the big corporations that could be done here, and done cheaper because the cost of living is less. The cost of real estate would be cheaper. The bottom line of corporations would be helped."
"Communities need to take a little risk," he says. "It's tough to control your destiny without taking risk. Build an office building. Invite business in rent-free for three years, with a note for them to buy after that. Instead, we ask 'Who's gonna put a business in Smith Center, Kansas.'"
"Self-reliance," he says. "We can't depend on someone to come in on a white horse and rescue us. It's not gonna happen."
"There'll be continual attrition in the number of farmers," Troy believes, "yet they'll be farming the same total acres. Those customers will be even more demanding than they are today."
Troy thinks the community is "segmented, with different outlooks and attitudes about life."
One segment is "progressive, willing to take their future in their own hands."
Next, "we have some pessimists. The earth is going to open up and swallow us up. We'll never make it."
And, finally, "there's a segment of people sitting on their porches waiting for the buy in the white horse to rescue them."
"In twenty-five years," Troy says, "only the first group will be left."
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 25, 1998
We do not have any more power over the selection of our neighbors than did the settlers in the 1850s on the Big Nemaha River at Tucumseh in Nebraska territory. You staked your claim, and whoever staked a claim nearby - and kept it - was your neighbor. Which would bring you joy, or not.
Many of the pioneers there were single men. As a result, the women on the prairie had to search each other out if they could were to enjoy female company. A woman might be of stout heart and quick wit out on the plains and thereby have an easier time of it; or she might fear the wolves, the open sky, fierce storms.
Most often, I suppose, the choice to pioneer in new territories was not made by the women, but by the men, so the men had a vested interest in success and might be blind to their own desperation. The women - with no such investment - could see foolishness. Perhaps, in the face of testosterone foolishness, women did need to see other women, did need feminine companionship in some deep and essential way. Still, they had little control over who settled nearby, and little control, too, over whom they settled next to.
There are a lot of sad women, perhaps, buried in pioneer graves.
Dew on the grass, this morning. Moisture on the windshield. An unhappy squirrel in the tree along our driveway. Blue sky. Love.
Downtown Fairwater - a migrant worker sits at a picnic table having morning coffee. The table is one of a couple set under the trees along the railroad tracks. He works at the canning factory and lives in the dormitory just east of Fairwater on Highway 44. Often I see the men walking into town to the Village Mart for coffee or treats, then walking back to their temporary home. They are old men and young men, doing the jobs the canning factory cannot find local employees to do.
>
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have toured the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide has been Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We walked through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together; now I'm in the office of Bryan Tillett, president of Excel. This concludes my visit to the plant.
"Vaughn Peterson was about 42 years old in 1983 when the plant burned to the ground," Bryan tells me. "He collected enough insurance money that he could have retired. But he felt a commitment to the community. It hit me then - this commitment to community. None of us would be sitting here if Vaughn had taken the money and retired."
"In the fire," Bryan says, "every drawing was lost. The morning after the fire everyone showed up for work. If you were a cabinet maker, you sat down and drew out the dimensions of the cabinets you built. Other people were pulling air tools and hand tools and cat-walks out of the rubble. We had a 50-foot by 80-foot building that had been spared. We started building frames in it. We had five other places in town where we built other parts. One month after the fire had destroyed us entirely, the first unit rolled out the door.
"This is not something that could be replicated today," he thinks. "Things are more complex."
"I was a line-worker back then," Bryan says. "That fire created such a sense of unity. Everybody pulled together and made it happen."
How did a line-worker become president of the company?
Soon after he finished school, Bryan had started his own construction company, building houses and small commercial buildings. But "we had fourteen carpenters in town," Bryan says. Just before he closed down his business, he built a plant addition at Excel. "About Christmas-time I asked Vaughn for a job. He had just laid off eighty people. That was January, 1980. I started out welding frames. Then I went to the trailer line. I became supervisor of the trailer line in 1985. When a purchasing position opened up, I accepted that. We weren't computerized yet - we had the computer, but not the software. I researched the software and set up our manufacturing inventory control."
"There were two owners back then," Bryan says, "and I felt like we needed a third. I started a three-year process of becoming an owner and in 1989 became a partner and owner."
"In 1992 we were left without a sales manager," he continues, "and I took over Sales. In 1996, Mike Nebel left the company. He had been president. I took over that role."
"Vaughn is still the major shareholder of the company and is chairman of the board," Bryan says. "Vaughn's wife, Duana Peterson, is secretary of the board. Curtis Peterson, a distant relative of Vaughn's, is vice-president. Kelly Lyon is production manager and treasurer. The four people who own the company now are Vaughn, Curtis, Kelly, and myself."
"We are proud of the fact," Bryan says, "that out of one hundred fifty manufacturers in the US, and for six years in a row, our dealer-based product has been the #1 in terms of quality, durability, and highway safety. That's according to the RV Consumer Group, a nonprofit watch-dog organization."
That sense of quality and excellence, where does it come from?
"It comes from years of experience and the ideas of a lot of different people," Bryan says. "The basic core philosophy started with Vaughn, and a lot of people have added to it over the years. Vaughn learned a lesson from John Deere. John Deere always had a good quality machine, and when times got tough, John Deere survived."
"The lesson is," Bryan says, "if you build a good quality product and stand behind it, the customers will buy it."
--------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Lyle Morgan breathed the farmer's lament last Monday morning at Paul's Cafe," Ivan wrote. "Morgan said, almost to himself, 'I wonder what I'll break today.'"
"Arloa Barnes, with the statuesque form of a Greek goddess, showed she did have some flaws and human frailties," Ivan reported. "Last Wednesday Barnes showed up at aerobics with two different shoes on. When it was pointed out to her, she did say that she thought she noticed the left shoe fit a little more snugly than the right. But it wasn't a total loss. She had a pair at home just like the one she was wearing."
"Well," Ivan said, "I've got er figgered out. I can see the hand writing on the wall. I ain't gonna accomplish anything earth-shattring or significant in my life-time. So now my goal is to live long enough to cast a vote for Hillary for president. Not a very lofty goal, I'll admit, but it's mine, all mine. The reason I want to vote for Hillary is not because of who she is, but who she represents. The women of the United States. If ever a group got the short end of the stick it is the women of this country. When the west was settled it was the women that done the drudge work. Kept the family together and done without. If you want to know about women, just read Gone With the Wind. See who kept the plantations running. Or if you really want to know about women, read The Grapes of Wrath. The women of the U.S. have done all the dirty work. Now they are beginning to be rewarded. But they really deserve to have one of their kind be president. I hope I get to put a woman in the White House."
"This soft city living will get you every time," Ivan said. "Former country girl Joanne Runyon was going to have fried chicken. None of this chicken from the supermarket - real country fried chicken. So, even though her husband Francis volunteered to chop the chicken's head off, Joanne said No, she had pulled the head off many chickens in her day as a farm wife. She pulled all right. Pulled the muscles in her back. Laid up for a week and is still walking kinda gingerly."
"Lindsey Barnes made her parents happy one day last week," Ivan reported. "She came and got her dog and took Felix back to Lawrence."
Ivan said: "Stan Hooper observed that the Thornburg Road needed to be a really good road. Stan said a lot of people from Nebraska buy stuff here in Smith Center. I don't know where he got his information but he talked like he knew what he was talking about. Back in the '30s, the Thornburg Road was one of the bootleggers' roads. You would see cars from Russell and other places in the oil patch come through Smith Center heading for Brownie's in Riverton. As far as I know no one ever got arrested. The local law enforcement would occasionally put a local bootlegger in jail for a few days. There was one bootlegger in Smith Center that never got arrested. He was Jess Cook. Jess furnished booze for the Methodist drinkers. And the Methodist didn't want their bootlegger molested. So he wasn't. I remember Star Barron telling about buying some booze from Cook. Star complained about the price. Cook told him all he wanted was legitimate profit. So the local boys started calling him Old Legit."
"The boss said to the new employee, Are you a good worker and where did you work," Ivan wrote. "The guy said he had been a lumberjack in western Kansas. The boss said, there ain't no trees in western Kansas. The guy said, 'Not any more.'"
"Jack Benn showed up at the As the Bladder Fills Clug last Tuesday morning. Jack and Arlene spent most of July fishing in Canada. When I and Linton Lull asked for a fishing report, Jack said, in kind of a snarly voice, 'you have to ask Arlene.' Wav Scott said that one day Jack caught a 33-incher, which was good enough for fourth place for that day. Where Wav got his information I don't know. But Wav seems to be full of it. Information, that is."
"I can remember Doc Eustace, a doctor from Lebanon," Ivan said. "I don't think he thought much of fried food. I heard him tell Jess Bell that more wives had killed their husbands with a frying pan than they did with guns."
"I listened to the Democratic Convention last week," Ivan said. "It sounded to me like the Democrats promised to fix everything but the Thornburg Road."
"Wednesday's Quote of the Week," according to Ivan: "Francis Runyon said last Wednesday - 'This rain is really messing up our drought.'"
"I attempted to play golf last Thursday afternoon," Ivan said. "I hit the ball 56 times in nine holes and had one decent drive to show for my afternoon's labor. I'm always hearing critics say - 'I thought you played golf for exercise. Then why do you ride in a cart?' To those people I want to say - if you crawl off and on a golf cart 56 times in nine holes, you are getting exercise."
"Was it Mike Hughes who said he was in the seventh grade for two terms - Eisenhower & Nixon's. I don't know if it was Mike or not, but it sounds like something he might say."
"Preacher told a lady that her husband had walked out of church last Sunday," Ivan said. "The lady said she wasn't surprised because he did walk in his sleep."
"Find the dog star in the night sky," Ivan said. "Check Smith Center's football schedule. Watch Smith Center play. Notice how befuddled the other team is. Stay ahead of the posse."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 24, 1998
The weekend brought hot, sticky weather. I am expecting it will be a hot one again today under blue sky. Fans pulled cool night air into the house but that will not last the course of the day, I'm sure. Most people have air conditioning. We do not - partly because of what it might cost to cool such a big old house as this, and partly because I'm not sure it's right to separate oneself so completely from one's environment. We were in Milwaukee on the weekend, visiting our daughter, and her air conditioning confused me. It was pleasant enough in her apartment, oh sure, but it was another thing entirely when we stepped outside.
Perhaps, too, there's a little German suffering I have to do.
A heavy dew. Blades of grass bend under the weight of it. Wetted grass, weighted grass. A whole month slipping away from me, a whole summer. Kids are going back to school. Back in the saddle. Back to being saddled.
I am surprised at how little haze hangs in the distance this morning. A very heavy dew indeed.
Swallows and black birds seem to be flocking. There is a long line of black birds on the electric wire along Highway E this morning. You see them in the evening as well.
All the lovely flowers at Five Corners. Ah, world! It's a scruffy earth pock-marked with beauty.
In Ripon, a fast little squirrel with a big nut in its mouth crosses the street in front of me.
Well, school has started - you see school buses like lady bugs. It's a lady bug picnic. I'm not ready yet for the end of summer.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have toured the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide has been Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We walked through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together; now I'm in the office of Bryan Tillett, president of Excel. This concludes my visit to the plant.
"Vaughn Peterson was about 42 years old in 1983 when the plant burned to the ground," Bryan tells me. "He collected enough insurance money that he could have retired. But he felt a commitment to the community. It hit me then - this commitment to community. None of us would be sitting here if Vaughn had taken the money and retired."
"In the fire," Bryan says, "every drawing was lost. The morning after the fire everyone showed up for work. If you were a cabinet maker, you sat down and drew out the dimensions of the cabinets you built. Other people were pulling air tools and hand tools and cat-walks out of the rubble. We had a 50-foot by 80-foot building that had been spared. We started building frames in it. We had five other places in town where we built other parts. One month after the fire had destroyed us entirely, the first unit rolled out the door.
"This is not something that could be replicated today," he thinks. "Things are more complex."
"I was a line-worker back then," Bryan says. "That fire created such a sense of unity. Everybody pulled together and made it happen."
How did a line-worker become president of the company?
Soon after he finished school, Bryan had started his own construction company, building houses and small commercial buildings. But "we had fourteen carpenters in town," Bryan says. Just before he closed down his business, he built a plant addition at Excel. "About Christmas-time I asked Vaughn for a job. He had just laid off eighty people. That was January, 1980. I started out welding frames. Then I went to the trailer line. I became supervisor of the trailer line in 1985. When a purchasing position opened up, I accepted that. We weren't computerized yet - we had the computer, but not the software. I researched the software and set up our manufacturing inventory control."
"There were two owners back then," Bryan says, "and I felt like we needed a third. I started a three-year process of becoming an owner and in 1989 became a partner and owner."
"In 1992 we were left without a sales manager," he continues, "and I took over Sales. In 1996, Mike Nebel left the company. He had been president. I took over that role."
"Vaughn is still the major shareholder of the company and is chairman of the board," Bryan says. "Vaughn's wife, Duana Peterson, is secretary of the board. Curtis Peterson, a distant relative of Vaughn's, is vice-president. Kelly Lyon is production manager and treasurer. The four people who own the company now are Vaughn, Curtis, Kelly, and myself."
"We are proud of the fact," Bryan says, "that out of one hundred fifty manufacturers in the US, and for six years in a row, our dealer-based product has been the #1 in terms of quality, durability, and highway safety. That's according to the RV Consumer Group, a nonprofit watch-dog organization."
That sense of quality and excellence, where does it come from?
"It comes from years of experience and the ideas of a lot of different people," Bryan says. "The basic core philosophy started with Vaughn, and a lot of people have added to it over the years. Vaughn learned a lesson from John Deere. John Deere always had a good quality machine, and when times got tough, John Deere survived."
"The lesson is," Bryan says, "if you build a good quality product and stand behind it, the customers will buy it."
--------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Lyle Morgan breathed the farmer's lament last Monday morning at Paul's Cafe," Ivan wrote. "Morgan said, almost to himself, 'I wonder what I'll break today.'"
"Arloa Barnes, with the statuesque form of a Greek goddess, showed she did have some flaws and human frailties," Ivan reported. "Last Wednesday Barnes showed up at aerobics with two different shoes on. When it was pointed out to her, she did say that she thought she noticed the left shoe fit a little more snugly than the right. But it wasn't a total loss. She had a pair at home just like the one she was wearing."
"Well," Ivan said, "I've got er figgered out. I can see the hand writing on the wall. I ain't gonna accomplish anything earth-shattring or significant in my life-time. So now my goal is to live long enough to cast a vote for Hillary for president. Not a very lofty goal, I'll admit, but it's mine, all mine. The reason I want to vote for Hillary is not because of who she is, but who she represents. The women of the United States. If ever a group got the short end of the stick it is the women of this country. When the west was settled it was the women that done the drudge work. Kept the family together and done without. If you want to know about women, just read Gone With the Wind. See who kept the plantations running. Or if you really want to know about women, read The Grapes of Wrath. The women of the U.S. have done all the dirty work. Now they are beginning to be rewarded. But they really deserve to have one of their kind be president. I hope I get to put a woman in the White House."
"This soft city living will get you every time," Ivan said. "Former country girl Joanne Runyon was going to have fried chicken. None of this chicken from the supermarket - real country fried chicken. So, even though her husband Francis volunteered to chop the chicken's head off, Joanne said No, she had pulled the head off many chickens in her day as a farm wife. She pulled all right. Pulled the muscles in her back. Laid up for a week and is still walking kinda gingerly."
"Lindsey Barnes made her parents happy one day last week," Ivan reported. "She came and got her dog and took Felix back to Lawrence."
Ivan said: "Stan Hooper observed that the Thornburg Road needed to be a really good road. Stan said a lot of people from Nebraska buy stuff here in Smith Center. I don't know where he got his information but he talked like he knew what he was talking about. Back in the '30s, the Thornburg Road was one of the bootleggers' roads. You would see cars from Russell and other places in the oil patch come through Smith Center heading for Brownie's in Riverton. As far as I know no one ever got arrested. The local law enforcement would occasionally put a local bootlegger in jail for a few days. There was one bootlegger in Smith Center that never got arrested. He was Jess Cook. Jess furnished booze for the Methodist drinkers. And the Methodist didn't want their bootlegger molested. So he wasn't. I remember Star Barron telling about buying some booze from Cook. Star complained about the price. Cook told him all he wanted was legitimate profit. So the local boys started calling him Old Legit."
"The boss said to the new employee, Are you a good worker and where did you work," Ivan wrote. "The guy said he had been a lumberjack in western Kansas. The boss said, there ain't no trees in western Kansas. The guy said, 'Not any more.'"
"Jack Benn showed up at the As the Bladder Fills Clug last Tuesday morning. Jack and Arlene spent most of July fishing in Canada. When I and Linton Lull asked for a fishing report, Jack said, in kind of a snarly voice, 'you have to ask Arlene.' Wav Scott said that one day Jack caught a 33-incher, which was good enough for fourth place for that day. Where Wav got his information I don't know. But Wav seems to be full of it. Information, that is."
"I can remember Doc Eustace, a doctor from Lebanon," Ivan said. "I don't think he thought much of fried food. I heard him tell Jess Bell that more wives had killed their husbands with a frying pan than they did with guns."
"I listened to the Democratic Convention last week," Ivan said. "It sounded to me like the Democrats promised to fix everything but the Thornburg Road."
"Wednesday's Quote of the Week," according to Ivan: "Francis Runyon said last Wednesday - 'This rain is really messing up our drought.'"
"I attempted to play golf last Thursday afternoon," Ivan said. "I hit the ball 56 times in nine holes and had one decent drive to show for my afternoon's labor. I'm always hearing critics say - 'I thought you played golf for exercise. Then why do you ride in a cart?' To those people I want to say - if you crawl off and on a golf cart 56 times in nine holes, you are getting exercise."
"Was it Mike Hughes who said he was in the seventh grade for two terms - Eisenhower & Nixon's. I don't know if it was Mike or not, but it sounds like something he might say."
"Preacher told a lady that her husband had walked out of church last Sunday," Ivan said. "The lady said she wasn't surprised because he did walk in his sleep."
"Find the dog star in the night sky," Ivan said. "Check Smith Center's football schedule. Watch Smith Center play. Notice how befuddled the other team is. Stay ahead of the posse."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 24, 1998
The weekend brought hot, sticky weather. I am expecting it will be a hot one again today under blue sky. Fans pulled cool night air into the house but that will not last the course of the day, I'm sure. Most people have air conditioning. We do not - partly because of what it might cost to cool such a big old house as this, and partly because I'm not sure it's right to separate oneself so completely from one's environment. We were in Milwaukee on the weekend, visiting our daughter, and her air conditioning confused me. It was pleasant enough in her apartment, oh sure, but it was another thing entirely when we stepped outside.
Perhaps, too, there's a little German suffering I have to do.
A heavy dew. Blades of grass bend under the weight of it. Wetted grass, weighted grass. A whole month slipping away from me, a whole summer. Kids are going back to school. Back in the saddle. Back to being saddled.
I am surprised at how little haze hangs in the distance this morning. A very heavy dew indeed.
Swallows and black birds seem to be flocking. There is a long line of black birds on the electric wire along Highway E this morning. You see them in the evening as well.
All the lovely flowers at Five Corners. Ah, world! It's a scruffy earth pock-marked with beauty.
In Ripon, a fast little squirrel with a big nut in its mouth crosses the street in front of me.
Well, school has started - you see school buses like lady bugs. It's a lady bug picnic. I'm not ready yet for the end of summer.
>
Monday, August 23, 2004
TWO POEMS MAKE IT INTO
THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT
AT COMMUNITY CAR
You may remember that I had poems laminated and attached to Budget Bicycle's Red Bikes as part of the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program in Madison, Wisconsin. Another part of the project is publication of a hand-sized book of poems to be placed in the glove compartments of vehicles at Community Car. Well - success here, too! Both of my poems have made it into the glove compartment. Here's the substance of a letter I received from Shoshauna Shy of Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf:
"Your poems 'Simply Morning' and 'Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain' submitted to the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program have made the cut, and will be part of the collection of hand-sized books placed in the glove compartments of Community Car. Community Car is a car-sharing club with over 150 members in the Madison, Wisconsin area. Every time a member reserves and receives a car, they open the glove compartment to fill out a travel log, and that is when they will be given the opportunity to read the book of poems. The poems will be about walking, biking, running and an appreciation for nature by 12-15 poets from all across the country."
---------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have toured the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide has been Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We walked through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together; now I'm in the office of Bryan Tillett, president of Excel..
Then Dave introduces me to Bryan Tillett, president of the company. We talk in Bryan's office. I ask Bryan about Excel's impact on the local economy. Bryan wants to compared Excel's annual sales to the Smith County wheat crop, so Dave calls the local extension agent to get current figures on wheat production in the county: 150,000 acres of wheat have been certified; a yield of thirty bushels per acre sounds about right for the droughty conditions Smith County has experienced; and the wheat will be worth about $3.50 a bushel. So this year's wheat crop in Smith County will be worth about $15.75 million. Excel has annual sales of $17-18 million.
"Our annual payroll is more than $3.5 million," Bryan says. "We have a hundred sixty-five employees. More than half of them are women. When fit and finish really count, you want women doing the detail work." A lot of the employees are farm wives.
How much do people in the area know about Excel's operation?
"We have an open house for the public every year," Bryan says. "A lot of people from town have been through the plant."
Is the company's location ever an issue?
"Almost all the goods we order come in by the truckload," Bryan said. "A lot of materials come from Indiana, which is the RV capital of the world. We have our own semi to pick up freight as well."
"We are probably about as vertically integrated as we can be," Bryan thinks. "I can't imagine having more than two hundred employees. As we max out the employment pool, we'll have to outsource more."
Fortunately, he notes, technology allows you to do more with less.
"We're a progressive company," Bryan says. "We feed all information to the plant from the office via a fiber optic network. There's a fiber optic line from here to the plant and everything is networked together.
"We've interfaced our AS/400 system with the PC network so orders are integrated. CAD (Computer-Assisted Design) sends orders over to update the bill of materials. Every board that is taken for use is cut according to optimized-use instructions. Parts are nested for optimum yield at the router."
Why is Excel located in Smith Center, Kansas?
"Because our founder was born and raised here," Bryan says. "Being away from the hub forces us to build a high-quality product. We can't compete on price because of the freight factor and we don't have the labor pool to mass-produce. So we compete on quality."
How do you develop a good crew of employees to produce quality work?
"We are selective in who we hire," Bryan says, "and we train them. We don't hire just anyone. The rural work ethic is so good. We have a lot less turnover than other companies. We train people and keep them. And we have core people like Rachel Favinger to help the beginners."
"We want building the size of the company to be a slow process," Bryan says. "The demand on the available labor pool and the demand for our product grows slowly as we increase the size of our dealer base."
How good a community is Smith Center as a location for the business?
"See how progressive the hospital is," Bryan says. "You can get almost any service you want at the hospital. There are fifteen or sixteen consulting physicians who come to Smith Center."
"And the school system," he adds. "It employs a lot of people. We have a tremendous school system."
"How many places in the U.S. can you go to sleep with the keys in your ignition?" he asks.
"It's sad that we export our youth," he says, "but there are not a lot of white collar jobs here."
"We are an aged community," he adds. "A lot of money has been made in the county. Sons and daughters move away and when the parents die and they will the money to their children, it leaves the county. We lose that money."
Would Excel ever move from Smith Center?
"Not as long as I'm one of the partners in the company," Dave says, "and I think the rest feel that way too. This is my home. Once a month we'll get a letter from somebody wanting to buy our company. We just throw them in the trash."
To be continued....
---------------------
THE BLESSINGS
from the "Married To Prairie" series, Middle Ground
(in the voice of a pioneer woman on the tall grass prairie
who has lost her husband)
The merciful day ends and I would count
my blessings: two strong daughters and a handsome
son, a pair of untiring horses and one
cow heavy with milk morning and evening,
a barn loft full of hay and a cellar
stocked for winter, the good apples hidden for
the Christmas stockings, a thick bolt of bright cloth
for a new dress, winter clothes already sewn
for the children, the warm sun all day today
taking the edge off the autumn wind, enough
wood from our grove cut against winter and piled
in the shed, a good well with good water, and
these busy hands of mine, these busy strong hands
and a good strong back. These are my blessings, these
and a sturdy house, the fireplace giving back its
warmth, this comfortable chair. What more could I want?
Oh, husband, there is an emptiness tonight!
>
THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT
AT COMMUNITY CAR
You may remember that I had poems laminated and attached to Budget Bicycle's Red Bikes as part of the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program in Madison, Wisconsin. Another part of the project is publication of a hand-sized book of poems to be placed in the glove compartments of vehicles at Community Car. Well - success here, too! Both of my poems have made it into the glove compartment. Here's the substance of a letter I received from Shoshauna Shy of Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf:
"Your poems 'Simply Morning' and 'Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain' submitted to the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program have made the cut, and will be part of the collection of hand-sized books placed in the glove compartments of Community Car. Community Car is a car-sharing club with over 150 members in the Madison, Wisconsin area. Every time a member reserves and receives a car, they open the glove compartment to fill out a travel log, and that is when they will be given the opportunity to read the book of poems. The poems will be about walking, biking, running and an appreciation for nature by 12-15 poets from all across the country."
---------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have toured the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide has been Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We walked through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together; now I'm in the office of Bryan Tillett, president of Excel..
Then Dave introduces me to Bryan Tillett, president of the company. We talk in Bryan's office. I ask Bryan about Excel's impact on the local economy. Bryan wants to compared Excel's annual sales to the Smith County wheat crop, so Dave calls the local extension agent to get current figures on wheat production in the county: 150,000 acres of wheat have been certified; a yield of thirty bushels per acre sounds about right for the droughty conditions Smith County has experienced; and the wheat will be worth about $3.50 a bushel. So this year's wheat crop in Smith County will be worth about $15.75 million. Excel has annual sales of $17-18 million.
"Our annual payroll is more than $3.5 million," Bryan says. "We have a hundred sixty-five employees. More than half of them are women. When fit and finish really count, you want women doing the detail work." A lot of the employees are farm wives.
How much do people in the area know about Excel's operation?
"We have an open house for the public every year," Bryan says. "A lot of people from town have been through the plant."
Is the company's location ever an issue?
"Almost all the goods we order come in by the truckload," Bryan said. "A lot of materials come from Indiana, which is the RV capital of the world. We have our own semi to pick up freight as well."
"We are probably about as vertically integrated as we can be," Bryan thinks. "I can't imagine having more than two hundred employees. As we max out the employment pool, we'll have to outsource more."
Fortunately, he notes, technology allows you to do more with less.
"We're a progressive company," Bryan says. "We feed all information to the plant from the office via a fiber optic network. There's a fiber optic line from here to the plant and everything is networked together.
"We've interfaced our AS/400 system with the PC network so orders are integrated. CAD (Computer-Assisted Design) sends orders over to update the bill of materials. Every board that is taken for use is cut according to optimized-use instructions. Parts are nested for optimum yield at the router."
Why is Excel located in Smith Center, Kansas?
"Because our founder was born and raised here," Bryan says. "Being away from the hub forces us to build a high-quality product. We can't compete on price because of the freight factor and we don't have the labor pool to mass-produce. So we compete on quality."
How do you develop a good crew of employees to produce quality work?
"We are selective in who we hire," Bryan says, "and we train them. We don't hire just anyone. The rural work ethic is so good. We have a lot less turnover than other companies. We train people and keep them. And we have core people like Rachel Favinger to help the beginners."
"We want building the size of the company to be a slow process," Bryan says. "The demand on the available labor pool and the demand for our product grows slowly as we increase the size of our dealer base."
How good a community is Smith Center as a location for the business?
"See how progressive the hospital is," Bryan says. "You can get almost any service you want at the hospital. There are fifteen or sixteen consulting physicians who come to Smith Center."
"And the school system," he adds. "It employs a lot of people. We have a tremendous school system."
"How many places in the U.S. can you go to sleep with the keys in your ignition?" he asks.
"It's sad that we export our youth," he says, "but there are not a lot of white collar jobs here."
"We are an aged community," he adds. "A lot of money has been made in the county. Sons and daughters move away and when the parents die and they will the money to their children, it leaves the county. We lose that money."
Would Excel ever move from Smith Center?
"Not as long as I'm one of the partners in the company," Dave says, "and I think the rest feel that way too. This is my home. Once a month we'll get a letter from somebody wanting to buy our company. We just throw them in the trash."
To be continued....
---------------------
THE BLESSINGS
from the "Married To Prairie" series, Middle Ground
(in the voice of a pioneer woman on the tall grass prairie
who has lost her husband)
The merciful day ends and I would count
my blessings: two strong daughters and a handsome
son, a pair of untiring horses and one
cow heavy with milk morning and evening,
a barn loft full of hay and a cellar
stocked for winter, the good apples hidden for
the Christmas stockings, a thick bolt of bright cloth
for a new dress, winter clothes already sewn
for the children, the warm sun all day today
taking the edge off the autumn wind, enough
wood from our grove cut against winter and piled
in the shed, a good well with good water, and
these busy hands of mine, these busy strong hands
and a good strong back. These are my blessings, these
and a sturdy house, the fireplace giving back its
warmth, this comfortable chair. What more could I want?
Oh, husband, there is an emptiness tonight!
>
Sunday, August 22, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
We have stepped off into another area to look at couches when Rachel comes over to ask if Dave told me about "the fire."
There was a day in 1983 when the plant burned to the ground. Everything was lost.
Rachel said she asked Vaughn "What are we going to do?"
"Well, you're going to come to work tomorrow," Vaughn replied.
The company re-built and has expanded every few years since.
A lot of the specialized equipment needed in the plant was designed and built in the plant. One such piece is the device that compresses cushions so that buttons can be put on them. The machine will compress a set of three cushions for the back of a sofa; a needle is poked through the center of the compressed area; the needle has a hook at the end of it; the hook pulls a piece of thick thread back through the cushion. The button is attached to the cushion with that piece of thread.
Joetta Wright, who has been with Excel for nine years and who had experience with other companies as well, is showing me how the buttons get attached. She says "Somebody told me this machine was designed by Vaughn. You can't order it from a catalog." She tells me about another machine they use to suck the air out of foam so it can be inserted into fabric.
Then Joetta is showing how the buttons are made. Scrap fabric is layered several times and a machine cuts circles of the material. A circle is placed in a machine with a metal top, the fabric gets folded around the top, and a plastic bottom is added to hold everything in place. When Joetta attaches the buttons to the cushions, she selects those that best match the fabric at that point. If it's a dark spot in the cushion, she'll choose a button with like, dark fabric.
"The denser the foam, the longer a cushion will last," Joetta says.
Dave adds that "Vaughn doesn't like to build things that have problems in a few years."
He also says that Excel will soon start padding the chairs in-house for the Limited Edition models, instead of having them brought in.
Then we step into a Limited Edition model that's near the end of the production line. Some women are adding the finishing touches and doing a final clean-up. I feel like an intruder in someone else's dream. The trailer has a fireplace, a TV, five surround-sound speakers, a computer desk. Oh my.
We leave the women to their work tidying up and enter the service department. Steve Ellenberger runs Excel's service. Dave introduces me to him. Steve tells me about taking care of customer needs - "I have a lot of customers who are 'two-way' customers," he says. "They stop in going south; they stop in going back north." Steve tries to make them happy "because a happy customer is your best advertising. Customer service is what builds customer loyalty."
And then with our typical middle western modesty, he shares the credit: "I'm just building on what my predecessors created."
Steve's family had originally staked a claim in the Kirwin area back in homestead days, Steve says. His father worked for the government and Steve lived all over the country. After his parents divorced, Steve came back to Kirwin to visit his mother, he met his wife, "and I never left. I'm a true flatlander now."
Steve schedules service for about seven customers a week during the summer months. "We also have some drive-ins we try to get to," he adds. "Some we just can't get to, and they go to their dealers for service when they get home."
"We have customers who bought Excel trailers specifically because other customers told them about our service," Steve says. "They couldn't get that kind of service from their other manufacturer."
Where did this push for quality, service, and excellence originate? Steve and Dave think it started with Vaughn. "He wants things done right, so there aren't problems."
I say good-bye to Steve. Dave and I stop in the counter lounge for a moment and Dave shows me the end of the video of the 2003 gathering of Excel customers. At the end of the get-together, the whole bunch of visitors line up their vehicles and head down Main Street Smith Center honking and banging pots and pans and everything imaginable. This is block after block of mostly retired folks making an awful lot of noise. It's the Noise Parade - old folks getting to act like kids again.
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 21, 1998
I saw a sky last night that makes me want to live forever. A sunset with clouds and color and a patch of sky like eyes that are window to the soul.
It was not just the light, the sky. The air was so heavy the wind had to crawl on its belly. The incipient evening dew - God's sign how much he loves the world. The thick vegetable aromas - the smell of swamp for miles along Highway E last night, the smell of matter transforming itself, of matter transformed.
The light, but more the stories the light shines on, illuminates. Sometimes I want so much to know the stories of all of us. I could taste that, last night.
This morning, a cool, grey mist around us, softening the edges of things. The quiet murmur of a day getting started. Our old friend the sun on the other, the eastern horizon. Grace is a gift; and this morning is grace.
Sometimes we argue overmuch when what we should do is shut up. Take it, don't rate it. Shut up and live.
A squirrel on the lawn. Moisture on the windshield. The neighbor's pick-up in the backyard with a trailer. He has been hauling in dirt for a flower bed. Each day is an adventure.
In some places in the country this morning the fog is serious business. Elsewhere, the day, she picks up her skirt and runs; she is wearing smooth, blue panties, the color of sky. The sight of it, or the heavy air, makes it hard to breathe.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
We have stepped off into another area to look at couches when Rachel comes over to ask if Dave told me about "the fire."
There was a day in 1983 when the plant burned to the ground. Everything was lost.
Rachel said she asked Vaughn "What are we going to do?"
"Well, you're going to come to work tomorrow," Vaughn replied.
The company re-built and has expanded every few years since.
A lot of the specialized equipment needed in the plant was designed and built in the plant. One such piece is the device that compresses cushions so that buttons can be put on them. The machine will compress a set of three cushions for the back of a sofa; a needle is poked through the center of the compressed area; the needle has a hook at the end of it; the hook pulls a piece of thick thread back through the cushion. The button is attached to the cushion with that piece of thread.
Joetta Wright, who has been with Excel for nine years and who had experience with other companies as well, is showing me how the buttons get attached. She says "Somebody told me this machine was designed by Vaughn. You can't order it from a catalog." She tells me about another machine they use to suck the air out of foam so it can be inserted into fabric.
Then Joetta is showing how the buttons are made. Scrap fabric is layered several times and a machine cuts circles of the material. A circle is placed in a machine with a metal top, the fabric gets folded around the top, and a plastic bottom is added to hold everything in place. When Joetta attaches the buttons to the cushions, she selects those that best match the fabric at that point. If it's a dark spot in the cushion, she'll choose a button with like, dark fabric.
"The denser the foam, the longer a cushion will last," Joetta says.
Dave adds that "Vaughn doesn't like to build things that have problems in a few years."
He also says that Excel will soon start padding the chairs in-house for the Limited Edition models, instead of having them brought in.
Then we step into a Limited Edition model that's near the end of the production line. Some women are adding the finishing touches and doing a final clean-up. I feel like an intruder in someone else's dream. The trailer has a fireplace, a TV, five surround-sound speakers, a computer desk. Oh my.
We leave the women to their work tidying up and enter the service department. Steve Ellenberger runs Excel's service. Dave introduces me to him. Steve tells me about taking care of customer needs - "I have a lot of customers who are 'two-way' customers," he says. "They stop in going south; they stop in going back north." Steve tries to make them happy "because a happy customer is your best advertising. Customer service is what builds customer loyalty."
And then with our typical middle western modesty, he shares the credit: "I'm just building on what my predecessors created."
Steve's family had originally staked a claim in the Kirwin area back in homestead days, Steve says. His father worked for the government and Steve lived all over the country. After his parents divorced, Steve came back to Kirwin to visit his mother, he met his wife, "and I never left. I'm a true flatlander now."
Steve schedules service for about seven customers a week during the summer months. "We also have some drive-ins we try to get to," he adds. "Some we just can't get to, and they go to their dealers for service when they get home."
"We have customers who bought Excel trailers specifically because other customers told them about our service," Steve says. "They couldn't get that kind of service from their other manufacturer."
Where did this push for quality, service, and excellence originate? Steve and Dave think it started with Vaughn. "He wants things done right, so there aren't problems."
I say good-bye to Steve. Dave and I stop in the counter lounge for a moment and Dave shows me the end of the video of the 2003 gathering of Excel customers. At the end of the get-together, the whole bunch of visitors line up their vehicles and head down Main Street Smith Center honking and banging pots and pans and everything imaginable. This is block after block of mostly retired folks making an awful lot of noise. It's the Noise Parade - old folks getting to act like kids again.
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 21, 1998
I saw a sky last night that makes me want to live forever. A sunset with clouds and color and a patch of sky like eyes that are window to the soul.
It was not just the light, the sky. The air was so heavy the wind had to crawl on its belly. The incipient evening dew - God's sign how much he loves the world. The thick vegetable aromas - the smell of swamp for miles along Highway E last night, the smell of matter transforming itself, of matter transformed.
The light, but more the stories the light shines on, illuminates. Sometimes I want so much to know the stories of all of us. I could taste that, last night.
This morning, a cool, grey mist around us, softening the edges of things. The quiet murmur of a day getting started. Our old friend the sun on the other, the eastern horizon. Grace is a gift; and this morning is grace.
Sometimes we argue overmuch when what we should do is shut up. Take it, don't rate it. Shut up and live.
A squirrel on the lawn. Moisture on the windshield. The neighbor's pick-up in the backyard with a trailer. He has been hauling in dirt for a flower bed. Each day is an adventure.
In some places in the country this morning the fog is serious business. Elsewhere, the day, she picks up her skirt and runs; she is wearing smooth, blue panties, the color of sky. The sight of it, or the heavy air, makes it hard to breathe.
>
Saturday, August 21, 2004
SATURDAY'S POEMS
--------------------------------
WHAT I AM TRYING TO TELL YOU:
PRAIRIE IN MY MOUTH
by John Rezmerski
Predicting tomorrow’s weather is chancy business,
let alone a five-day forecast.
No matter what the TV says, taking an umbrella to work
is thinking on your feet.
Catching by eye the lifting of red-winged blackbirds
in the evening,
I continue my daily exercise along a busy road,
foot by foot.
I have a friend who remembers when he was a child
in a bathtub
keeping his legs still, under water and bubbles,
fearful of seeing his bare feet.
He kept fixing the shingles on his roof, which
leaked half the time regardless.
He sought professional help after the ladder slipped
and he fell twenty feet.
The floor sloped. He got out his saw and went to work,
tired of tilted coffee in his cup.
Making a permanent decision, he temporarily trimmed
two of the table’s feet.
The land where he lived was flat, and that’s how
he wanted everything else.
He wanted someplace he could say it’s where he stood
on his own two feet.
The prairie in my mouth, stem by stem, corn crop
and bean harvest, fat pig,
is the place I call my own, a place where I like
to think there’s solid footing.
*
SOME GOOD THINGS LEFT AFTER
THE WAR WITH THE SIOUX
by John Rezmerski
My eyes welcome high grass,
green going yellow
shooting up
from old old earth
fed with hard-earned blood
and bled sweat.
This soil now marked by tractor tires
fed Amos Huggins in 1862
and feeds me now,
feeds you,
and the blood it has swallowed
never spoils the corn.
It is the magic of that blood,
red cells and white cells,
and clear yellow fluid
falling on the warm black earth,
that keeps legs pumping
up the valley and over the bluffs
to mourn the innocent,
to cherish the giving,
to pray with fast breath
to the breath of the land,
nitrogen rising
from remains of quiet and boastful alike,
seeping into the roots of rosebushes,
the strength of wheat,
the warmth of beans,
the sweetness of corn and pork,
the plumpness of lovers,
into children of grass and grain
and the spirit of the blood,
hundred-proof blood,
drunk-making blood,
man-making blood,
blood contaminated only by blood,
into the children of the eye,
of the spleen,
of the brain and the voice,
into the welcomers of grass,
welcomers of dawn
on the blue and brown earth,
welcomers of silence
and forgivers of fire and the plow and old murders.
"Some Good Things Left After the War with the Sioux" is reprinted from Heartland II: Poets of the Midwest, ed. Lucien Stryk, Northern Illinois University Press, 1975; reprinted by permission of the poet. Writer and storyteller John Calvin Rezmerski lives in Eagle Lake, Minnesota. Red Dragonfly Press recently published his "The Sheriff Next Day Answers the Reporter" as a chapbook. His most recent full-length collection, What Do I Know? New and Selected Poems, is available from Holy Cow! Press, P.O. Box 3170, Mount Royal Station, Duluth, MN 55803.
---------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About seventeen of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Colleen Redman, "Tincture Making" - May 15, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Mark Vinz, "The Old Hometown" and "Midcontinent" - April 17, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
--------------------------------
WHAT I AM TRYING TO TELL YOU:
PRAIRIE IN MY MOUTH
by John Rezmerski
Predicting tomorrow’s weather is chancy business,
let alone a five-day forecast.
No matter what the TV says, taking an umbrella to work
is thinking on your feet.
Catching by eye the lifting of red-winged blackbirds
in the evening,
I continue my daily exercise along a busy road,
foot by foot.
I have a friend who remembers when he was a child
in a bathtub
keeping his legs still, under water and bubbles,
fearful of seeing his bare feet.
He kept fixing the shingles on his roof, which
leaked half the time regardless.
He sought professional help after the ladder slipped
and he fell twenty feet.
The floor sloped. He got out his saw and went to work,
tired of tilted coffee in his cup.
Making a permanent decision, he temporarily trimmed
two of the table’s feet.
The land where he lived was flat, and that’s how
he wanted everything else.
He wanted someplace he could say it’s where he stood
on his own two feet.
The prairie in my mouth, stem by stem, corn crop
and bean harvest, fat pig,
is the place I call my own, a place where I like
to think there’s solid footing.
*
SOME GOOD THINGS LEFT AFTER
THE WAR WITH THE SIOUX
by John Rezmerski
My eyes welcome high grass,
green going yellow
shooting up
from old old earth
fed with hard-earned blood
and bled sweat.
This soil now marked by tractor tires
fed Amos Huggins in 1862
and feeds me now,
feeds you,
and the blood it has swallowed
never spoils the corn.
It is the magic of that blood,
red cells and white cells,
and clear yellow fluid
falling on the warm black earth,
that keeps legs pumping
up the valley and over the bluffs
to mourn the innocent,
to cherish the giving,
to pray with fast breath
to the breath of the land,
nitrogen rising
from remains of quiet and boastful alike,
seeping into the roots of rosebushes,
the strength of wheat,
the warmth of beans,
the sweetness of corn and pork,
the plumpness of lovers,
into children of grass and grain
and the spirit of the blood,
hundred-proof blood,
drunk-making blood,
man-making blood,
blood contaminated only by blood,
into the children of the eye,
of the spleen,
of the brain and the voice,
into the welcomers of grass,
welcomers of dawn
on the blue and brown earth,
welcomers of silence
and forgivers of fire and the plow and old murders.
"Some Good Things Left After the War with the Sioux" is reprinted from Heartland II: Poets of the Midwest, ed. Lucien Stryk, Northern Illinois University Press, 1975; reprinted by permission of the poet. Writer and storyteller John Calvin Rezmerski lives in Eagle Lake, Minnesota. Red Dragonfly Press recently published his "The Sheriff Next Day Answers the Reporter" as a chapbook. His most recent full-length collection, What Do I Know? New and Selected Poems, is available from Holy Cow! Press, P.O. Box 3170, Mount Royal Station, Duluth, MN 55803.
---------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About seventeen of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Bright Waterfall of Angels" - August 14, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Colleen Redman, "Tincture Making" - May 15, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Mark Vinz, "The Old Hometown" and "Midcontinent" - April 17, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
Friday, August 20, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
From the time that welding starts on the frame until a completed unit rolls out the door, it takes about two weeks to build an Excel trailer, according to Dave. He said the company usually has orders in hand for trailers about two or three months out.
We need some lead-time to get everything together for a unit," Dave notes. "Everything has to come together at the point you need it. It's like a concert."
Foremen continually turn in reports of what materials have been used so those can be re-ordered, Dave says. "Unfinished trailers cost us money. Getting materials in here when we need them is very important."
The company has a computerized production order; the same information goes to all departments so they are building the same trailer. You don't want a thirty-six foot chassis coming together with thirty-two foot side walls, for instance.
"We try to group runs of trailers of the same size," Dave says. "Sometimes, though, we just can't get away from the occasional 'one-sies.' We do have special orders and customizing that we have to accommodate."
Over here every day the same people put each trailer's wiring into a harness. Over there, the same people install the harnesses in the trailers.
"Some manufacturers have people pull wires," Dave says. "We get uniformity of installation with these harnesses."
We walk through the area where refrigerators and TVs for the trailers are received and stored. We stop at the shelving where the scrap fiberglass is kept waiting to be used as storage doors. One-inch foam insulation is attached to the fiberglass.
We meet another Excel sales rep out in the plant. Dave introduces Randy Vaughn who is originally from Lake Placid, New York, and how lives in Kirwin, Kansas. Randy is a convert to Kansas - he says "I'm a transplant and I'm here to stay."
Then we're watching caps and roofs being applied to the trailers. These pieces are actually manufactured by Arlwin Manufacturing, a company owned by one of Vaughn Peterson's cousins and situated just a few hundred feet east of the Excel plant.
All the windows and trim parts for a specific trailer get put on one cart and the cart is labeled for which trailer it belongs to. "They know they're not done," Dave says of those installing the trim, "until they've installed everything on the cart."
An overhead rail system allows one person to handle a cap, to pick it up and move it to the trailer for installation. "That system is handy," Dave says. "It's safe, and it's efficient for the workers - a plus for everybody."
"The furniture is built over here," Dave says as we enter a quieter area of the plant. "We make our own sofas, mattresses, windows, treatments, curtains, bedspreads, valances."
I'm introduced to Rachel Favinger, who is working at one of the tables. Rachel started with the company in 1969. She ended up the head of sewing; she retired; she came out of retirement to work part-time. Dave suggested that maybe she worked for the enjoyment of it, not the money. Rachel admits "I did forget to pick up my check here a few weeks ago."
"I started the sewing department with Mrs. Peterson," Rachel recalls. "I was a supervisor here for thirty years."
"They brought the sewing machines in and set 'em down and said 'here you go,'" Rachel remembers. "I made them go."
"They brought in a computerized machine in 1990 and set it down," she said. Nothing about it made any sense to Rachel. There were no instructions. "I sat down and cried. I went to Vaughn and cried. Vaughn said 'Get away from it,' so I went home. But when I came in the next day it was still here."
"I got on the phone to the manufacturer," Rachel says. "I got instructions in how to make it operate. Turns out they didn't send all the parts. We got the parts and got it going."
"I was terrible," Rachel said. "I used to go into furniture stores and turn furniture over to see how it was made."
Change orders drove her crazy. She'd have to tell sales reps "you just changed everything we just got done building."
"This work," Rachel says, "is a lot more complicated than people think." Now that she is a sewer part-time, the pressure is off her.
"But she has a lot of experience," Dave says. "She's an expert on the crew that newer people can turn to."
Typically Excel will have five patterns that customers can choose from for their matching sofas, bed spreads, curtains, etc.
A lot of manufacturers, Dave says, offer "queen-size beds, but the one question some customers have is whether it is a 'real' queen. You'll see 'short queens' from a lot of manufacturers - 60-inch by 75-inch. We build only the full queen - sixty-inch by 80-inch. We buy the springs for the mattresses but do the rest of the work ourselves."
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 20, 1998
About 5:00 a.m. a rain storm rolled through, rolled quickly through, dropped a heavy shower in but a moment. It is all blue skies now, sunshine, bright August day. If it warms up, it might be steamy.
What a view of the country you'd get if you could surf a storm front in from the west coast or the far north, all the way inland to Wisconsin. You'd swirl and blast in the mountains and, if you ever broke free, you'd sweep like a broom across the Dakotas, drag your toes in cool Minnesota water, brush against Wisconsin pines. Of course, there are times when the weather doesn't change much; then you might be like a sail boat becalmed in the middle of the lake.
I see that a woman in Fairwater has her underpanties pinned to the clothesline, one, two, three. They seem pretty skimpy out there, and too colorful to be middle western underpanties. Aren't ours usually white, cotton, baggy?
The sun rises so noticeably later these days and hangs lower in the sky as I head to work. That alone tells me the season is winding down, to say nothing of the cool nights, the evening dampness. The field corn isn't turning yet but that can't be far off. Soon, too, there'll be color in the trees and a different song in our heart - the great green uprising has slowed. Soon, it will once again be like counting days til the end of a jail term.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
From the time that welding starts on the frame until a completed unit rolls out the door, it takes about two weeks to build an Excel trailer, according to Dave. He said the company usually has orders in hand for trailers about two or three months out.
We need some lead-time to get everything together for a unit," Dave notes. "Everything has to come together at the point you need it. It's like a concert."
Foremen continually turn in reports of what materials have been used so those can be re-ordered, Dave says. "Unfinished trailers cost us money. Getting materials in here when we need them is very important."
The company has a computerized production order; the same information goes to all departments so they are building the same trailer. You don't want a thirty-six foot chassis coming together with thirty-two foot side walls, for instance.
"We try to group runs of trailers of the same size," Dave says. "Sometimes, though, we just can't get away from the occasional 'one-sies.' We do have special orders and customizing that we have to accommodate."
Over here every day the same people put each trailer's wiring into a harness. Over there, the same people install the harnesses in the trailers.
"Some manufacturers have people pull wires," Dave says. "We get uniformity of installation with these harnesses."
We walk through the area where refrigerators and TVs for the trailers are received and stored. We stop at the shelving where the scrap fiberglass is kept waiting to be used as storage doors. One-inch foam insulation is attached to the fiberglass.
We meet another Excel sales rep out in the plant. Dave introduces Randy Vaughn who is originally from Lake Placid, New York, and how lives in Kirwin, Kansas. Randy is a convert to Kansas - he says "I'm a transplant and I'm here to stay."
Then we're watching caps and roofs being applied to the trailers. These pieces are actually manufactured by Arlwin Manufacturing, a company owned by one of Vaughn Peterson's cousins and situated just a few hundred feet east of the Excel plant.
All the windows and trim parts for a specific trailer get put on one cart and the cart is labeled for which trailer it belongs to. "They know they're not done," Dave says of those installing the trim, "until they've installed everything on the cart."
An overhead rail system allows one person to handle a cap, to pick it up and move it to the trailer for installation. "That system is handy," Dave says. "It's safe, and it's efficient for the workers - a plus for everybody."
"The furniture is built over here," Dave says as we enter a quieter area of the plant. "We make our own sofas, mattresses, windows, treatments, curtains, bedspreads, valances."
I'm introduced to Rachel Favinger, who is working at one of the tables. Rachel started with the company in 1969. She ended up the head of sewing; she retired; she came out of retirement to work part-time. Dave suggested that maybe she worked for the enjoyment of it, not the money. Rachel admits "I did forget to pick up my check here a few weeks ago."
"I started the sewing department with Mrs. Peterson," Rachel recalls. "I was a supervisor here for thirty years."
"They brought the sewing machines in and set 'em down and said 'here you go,'" Rachel remembers. "I made them go."
"They brought in a computerized machine in 1990 and set it down," she said. Nothing about it made any sense to Rachel. There were no instructions. "I sat down and cried. I went to Vaughn and cried. Vaughn said 'Get away from it,' so I went home. But when I came in the next day it was still here."
"I got on the phone to the manufacturer," Rachel says. "I got instructions in how to make it operate. Turns out they didn't send all the parts. We got the parts and got it going."
"I was terrible," Rachel said. "I used to go into furniture stores and turn furniture over to see how it was made."
Change orders drove her crazy. She'd have to tell sales reps "you just changed everything we just got done building."
"This work," Rachel says, "is a lot more complicated than people think." Now that she is a sewer part-time, the pressure is off her.
"But she has a lot of experience," Dave says. "She's an expert on the crew that newer people can turn to."
Typically Excel will have five patterns that customers can choose from for their matching sofas, bed spreads, curtains, etc.
A lot of manufacturers, Dave says, offer "queen-size beds, but the one question some customers have is whether it is a 'real' queen. You'll see 'short queens' from a lot of manufacturers - 60-inch by 75-inch. We build only the full queen - sixty-inch by 80-inch. We buy the springs for the mattresses but do the rest of the work ourselves."
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 20, 1998
About 5:00 a.m. a rain storm rolled through, rolled quickly through, dropped a heavy shower in but a moment. It is all blue skies now, sunshine, bright August day. If it warms up, it might be steamy.
What a view of the country you'd get if you could surf a storm front in from the west coast or the far north, all the way inland to Wisconsin. You'd swirl and blast in the mountains and, if you ever broke free, you'd sweep like a broom across the Dakotas, drag your toes in cool Minnesota water, brush against Wisconsin pines. Of course, there are times when the weather doesn't change much; then you might be like a sail boat becalmed in the middle of the lake.
I see that a woman in Fairwater has her underpanties pinned to the clothesline, one, two, three. They seem pretty skimpy out there, and too colorful to be middle western underpanties. Aren't ours usually white, cotton, baggy?
The sun rises so noticeably later these days and hangs lower in the sky as I head to work. That alone tells me the season is winding down, to say nothing of the cool nights, the evening dampness. The field corn isn't turning yet but that can't be far off. Soon, too, there'll be color in the trees and a different song in our heart - the great green uprising has slowed. Soon, it will once again be like counting days til the end of a jail term.
>
Thursday, August 19, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
There is room on the frame for a generator if the customer wants to make the unit entirely self-sufficient. The customer can install his own generator if he wishes, or can order one installed by Excel.
There is a white tank set onto the trailer - that's for drinking water. The black tank is for sewer. The grey tank is for wash water. The water tanks are set over two layers of insulation. Heating ducts also channel warm air from the furnace into the water tank area, to keep things from freezing. "This is a standard feature for us," Dave says. "It is not standard in the industry." If the unit has thermo-pane windows, Excel guarantees the water tanks won't free up down to zero degrees outside temperature. Lower-line models without thermo-pane windows are intended for customers who are not going to live in them year around, including the cold weather.
The frame of the trailer is 2"x10" box steel. The box steel, Dave says, "is more resistant to twisting and buckling than I-beam or C-channel steel because there are two vertical pieces of steel instead of one. It makes a stronger frame."
"Our frame is a Z-frame," he says. "What he means is that the back piece of frame comes to within several feet of the front of the trailer, and the front piece starts under the back piece and extends out in front of it. This provides greater ground clearance in back, where you need it, and it brings the front down to reduce wind resistance. It also lowers the center of gravity for the trailer and results in less side to side momentum.
"The trailer is like a race car," Dave suggests, "in that you want it as low as you can reasonably get it." If the back end is too low, it will drag and hit the ground. Yet you want as little wind resistance as possible and the Z-frame is a good compromise.
"We've been using the Z-frame since 1991," he said.
The spare tire for the trailer gets tucked up in the frame at the back.
"We put a boat-receiver hitch on the frame as an option," Dave says. "We can do that because we have the box steel frame. Being able to hitch a boat to the trailer - that separates the strong frame trailers from the weak frames. We'll put the boat hitch option on any of our trailers."
The "Limited Edition" Excel is the classiest line the company makes. The "Classic" is one step down - the difference is in the cost of the trim - real oak versus oak-styled paper over a wood core. Both the Limited Edition and the Classic are intended to be set up in RV parks. The "RT" Excel is for "RV trekking." It is made less expensively, but it is just as strong as the higher-priced models. The RT goes places you wouldn't take the Limited Edition or the Classic, "although you never know where they're going to put them."
None of Excel's competitors put a boat hitch on their trailers in the RT's class, which shows how strongly the RT is made.
Competitors to Excel's Limited Edition and Classic models would be companies such as Teton and HitchHiker. At the RT level, Dave says, "there are a thousand different companies. We want to be known as the strongest-built in the price range. Some companies' trailers in the lower price range are cheapened in a lot of areas. We still want our trailer to have a lot of strength."
"We weld our own frames," Dave says, "and paint them in an electrostatic paint booth. We buy the axles, rims, and tires, and put them onto the frames ourselves. We use heavy duty tires on big rims. Most brands buy the chassis frame. We build them ourselves."
Wilson Performance Flooring is standard in the Limited Edition Excel, linoleum for the Classic and RT models. An extra thick padding is used under the carpet in the trailers, to give the feel of home carpet.
The water-lines in the trailer run through the heat ducts. "Other brands build a sub-floor for the water-lines," Dave says. "I've never heard of our water-lines freezing up. This is what separates the cold weather trailers from the non-cold weather trailers."
It's what separates the real thing from the wannabes, I would say.
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 19, 1998
Why does a place need its poet? The poet names things. Who names things is the poet, whatever those around should call him, or her. The poet allows us to see this place, and to pick up pieces of it to carry with us. If we could not do that, all places would be the same to us; we would be like the animals.
Another cool morning. I am told it's supposed to get hot and August-like this week, but we haven't seen it yet. What I am getting as actual I much prefer to any forecast - even if it's a 100 degrees, even if it's rain. Stop talking about it. Show me the money. Move it or milk it, as we used to say in Iowa, pretending that the other fellow ought to get his cow out of our way.
It must have spit just a little rain last night - there is evidence of it on the windshield and the hood of the pick-up - but not much. A greyness rolls away, riffles on the dark pond, a breeze in the trees and bushes. There should be a taste of lilacs in the air on a morning like this, but of course it is much too late in the season.
A truck full of sweet corn heads into the village. The swallows flying at Weinkauf's are perhaps discussing the possibility of rain. A neighbor - fired from his job where I work - passes me heading north to another job wherever. His wife has left him. For another woman, he tells the people in the bars. A helicopter is spraying sweet corn right along Highway E; it pivots right above the road, right in front of me, drops down behind the power lines and sprays some more.
Some mornings I think every word should be a poem. Some mornings I know better. Today I sit on the edge of the razor contemplating the smoothness of its cut.
They are painting their ladies again, the owners of those old Victorian houses on Watson Street in Ripon.
Sometimes what you get is what you make of it.
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
There is room on the frame for a generator if the customer wants to make the unit entirely self-sufficient. The customer can install his own generator if he wishes, or can order one installed by Excel.
There is a white tank set onto the trailer - that's for drinking water. The black tank is for sewer. The grey tank is for wash water. The water tanks are set over two layers of insulation. Heating ducts also channel warm air from the furnace into the water tank area, to keep things from freezing. "This is a standard feature for us," Dave says. "It is not standard in the industry." If the unit has thermo-pane windows, Excel guarantees the water tanks won't free up down to zero degrees outside temperature. Lower-line models without thermo-pane windows are intended for customers who are not going to live in them year around, including the cold weather.
The frame of the trailer is 2"x10" box steel. The box steel, Dave says, "is more resistant to twisting and buckling than I-beam or C-channel steel because there are two vertical pieces of steel instead of one. It makes a stronger frame."
"Our frame is a Z-frame," he says. "What he means is that the back piece of frame comes to within several feet of the front of the trailer, and the front piece starts under the back piece and extends out in front of it. This provides greater ground clearance in back, where you need it, and it brings the front down to reduce wind resistance. It also lowers the center of gravity for the trailer and results in less side to side momentum.
"The trailer is like a race car," Dave suggests, "in that you want it as low as you can reasonably get it." If the back end is too low, it will drag and hit the ground. Yet you want as little wind resistance as possible and the Z-frame is a good compromise.
"We've been using the Z-frame since 1991," he said.
The spare tire for the trailer gets tucked up in the frame at the back.
"We put a boat-receiver hitch on the frame as an option," Dave says. "We can do that because we have the box steel frame. Being able to hitch a boat to the trailer - that separates the strong frame trailers from the weak frames. We'll put the boat hitch option on any of our trailers."
The "Limited Edition" Excel is the classiest line the company makes. The "Classic" is one step down - the difference is in the cost of the trim - real oak versus oak-styled paper over a wood core. Both the Limited Edition and the Classic are intended to be set up in RV parks. The "RT" Excel is for "RV trekking." It is made less expensively, but it is just as strong as the higher-priced models. The RT goes places you wouldn't take the Limited Edition or the Classic, "although you never know where they're going to put them."
None of Excel's competitors put a boat hitch on their trailers in the RT's class, which shows how strongly the RT is made.
Competitors to Excel's Limited Edition and Classic models would be companies such as Teton and HitchHiker. At the RT level, Dave says, "there are a thousand different companies. We want to be known as the strongest-built in the price range. Some companies' trailers in the lower price range are cheapened in a lot of areas. We still want our trailer to have a lot of strength."
"We weld our own frames," Dave says, "and paint them in an electrostatic paint booth. We buy the axles, rims, and tires, and put them onto the frames ourselves. We use heavy duty tires on big rims. Most brands buy the chassis frame. We build them ourselves."
Wilson Performance Flooring is standard in the Limited Edition Excel, linoleum for the Classic and RT models. An extra thick padding is used under the carpet in the trailers, to give the feel of home carpet.
The water-lines in the trailer run through the heat ducts. "Other brands build a sub-floor for the water-lines," Dave says. "I've never heard of our water-lines freezing up. This is what separates the cold weather trailers from the non-cold weather trailers."
It's what separates the real thing from the wannabes, I would say.
To be continued....
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 19, 1998
Why does a place need its poet? The poet names things. Who names things is the poet, whatever those around should call him, or her. The poet allows us to see this place, and to pick up pieces of it to carry with us. If we could not do that, all places would be the same to us; we would be like the animals.
Another cool morning. I am told it's supposed to get hot and August-like this week, but we haven't seen it yet. What I am getting as actual I much prefer to any forecast - even if it's a 100 degrees, even if it's rain. Stop talking about it. Show me the money. Move it or milk it, as we used to say in Iowa, pretending that the other fellow ought to get his cow out of our way.
It must have spit just a little rain last night - there is evidence of it on the windshield and the hood of the pick-up - but not much. A greyness rolls away, riffles on the dark pond, a breeze in the trees and bushes. There should be a taste of lilacs in the air on a morning like this, but of course it is much too late in the season.
A truck full of sweet corn heads into the village. The swallows flying at Weinkauf's are perhaps discussing the possibility of rain. A neighbor - fired from his job where I work - passes me heading north to another job wherever. His wife has left him. For another woman, he tells the people in the bars. A helicopter is spraying sweet corn right along Highway E; it pivots right above the road, right in front of me, drops down behind the power lines and sprays some more.
Some mornings I think every word should be a poem. Some mornings I know better. Today I sit on the edge of the razor contemplating the smoothness of its cut.
They are painting their ladies again, the owners of those old Victorian houses on Watson Street in Ripon.
Sometimes what you get is what you make of it.
>
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
We're watching a fellow put lumber through a computerized saw. "All the pieces are cut exactly the same," Dave says. "This is good work for the computer to do. It lets us put people where judgment is needed, in installation."
The lumber coming off the saw is bundled and tagged and stacked on a skid. The tag tells others what the wood has been cut for and where it is to be used. This pallet holds wood for one left-side wall. That pallet has the wood for a right-side wall. Left and right are different because doors and windows go in different places.
The pieces of wood get laid out in a jig to make the side wall; they get stapled together, then screwed together, then glued together. "They are held together three ways," Dave notes.
"The first side wall in a run is actually the jig for the next ones," Dave says. I see that now.
In the next area, a fellow is insulating the side wall. He's up on a table where the side wall is laid out and is stuffing insulation in every nook and cranny. "A lot of manufacturers use foam board between the studs for insulation," Dave says. "We want insulation stuffed in fully, no voids. We can stuff any design easily this way. Like these trapezoid shapes where the nose of the trailer drops down."
"With metal in the wall, you get condensation," Dave says. "Wood is flexible. Wood moves and returns to its original shape. Aluminum would spring - once it's bent, it's bent."
"Wood doesn't transfer energy," he notes. "If an area gets damaged, the damage is pretty much confined to that one area."
The fellow putting the insulation into place also installs the wiring into the walls. Then he applies a half-inch bead of glue to the exposed wood surfaces and puts a fiberglass sheet into place. Then the entire wall is slid on rollers into a press for an hour and a half of heavy pressure. "When the glue is set up," Dave says, "that bond is the strongest point of the trailer. If you take a sledge hammer to the wall, the wood will break before that bond releases."
"We use positive pressure instead of vacuum pressure," Dave says. "Other manufacturers apply a thin film of adhesive and use vacuum pressure to bond the fiberglass in place. Heat will separate that bond."
"We're the only manufacturer that uses the positive pressure adhesive for the side wall," he says.
The shape of the Excel trailer drops down towards the rear - "to reduce wind drag," Dave says, "and to reduce heat rise in cold weather."
"Our trailer has a more aerodynamic shape than a box doing down the road," he says by way of implicit criticism of other designs.
Once the glue of the side wall has set up in the press, the next fellow in line routes out openings in the fiberglass where windows, doors, and slide-outs will be located. This isn't a computerized operation but is done by hand. The fellow follows the outline of the lumber for each opening. The fiberglass cut out of the side wall is retained and gets cut to become storage doors. Laminated for foam board, the scrap gets transformed into the highest quality storage doors in the industry, Dave says. "We couldn't buy storage doors as thick as we wanted them, so we had to build them ourselves. And there's no way we could ship enough of these doors in here from someplace else."
"It's just more efficient for us to put our scrap to other uses," he says.
"That's one thing Vaughn does here," Dave adds. "He'll come through the plant looking at the efficiency of the operation, asking what can we do better."
Once the openings have been cut out of the side wall and rubber seals put into place, the wall is allowed to stand, to let the glue cure entirely. The "L" shape on the edge of the slide-out room locks into a rubber seal of the wall and keeps both moisture and air from entering the trailer.
We're looking at a slide-out. "This is an entertainment center," Dave says, "TV, computer, telephone all go here."
The slide-outs move in and out of the trailer on steel rollers set high enough to keep the bottom of the slide-out from dragging on the carpet.
The trailer frames are fabricated in a line coming in at a right angle. We are looking at one of the frames now. This one is nearly ready to get put together with the side walls. The next one farther back needs more work yet; farther back, someone is attaching axles to a frame and putting tires on. Farther down the line than I can see, someone is welding frames together.
To be continued....
-----------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 18, 1998
It rained yesterday in the morning; it rained good before it was done. The sky wanted to clear in the afternoon and by evening it was steaming. It was cool during the night, somewhat grey this morning.
I think perhaps the reason we don't pay much attention to the greater world beyond us - there is plenty here close at hand to be concerned of. I've often said government should be no bigger than as far as you can see - township size, perhaps. There is plenty in the village and the town to worry over, we don't need to concern ourselves so much with what our President did or didn't do. We have our schools to take care of, the village water works, the flow of water in our Grand River. Let those with nothing local to do bird dog the distant, low-impact concerns. We'll let the national press fret for us, so we can do our work here.
I remember when the "Camp David Accord" was signed, the news people were interviewing the locals in town right outside Camp David - What was the effect of this historic agreement on their lives? "Don't affect us none, day to day, as far as I can see. The whole conflict don't affect us none." The interviewer expressed his superiority by being appalled with such responses.
Clean water, clean air, good schools, a place to put our garbage. Rain or lack of rain, good markets, a fair price. If you're talking about anything else, you might be wasting your breath.
A sour morning - the smell of canning factory waste water drifting on the day, all the way to my driveway.
"She opens like a cut" is the sentence I get as I drive out of town. What does that mean; and why would I save a sentence like that?
In the distance, the grey sky is streaked in layers, like a bad watercolor - again. How can what looks like bad art be our reality?
>
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
I have been touring the Excel plant (Peterson Industries) which sits at the north edge of Smith Center along Highway 36. My tour guide is Dave Rorabaugh, the company's western sales rep. We've been walking through the plant so I can see how Excel's travel trailers get put together.
We're watching a fellow put lumber through a computerized saw. "All the pieces are cut exactly the same," Dave says. "This is good work for the computer to do. It lets us put people where judgment is needed, in installation."
The lumber coming off the saw is bundled and tagged and stacked on a skid. The tag tells others what the wood has been cut for and where it is to be used. This pallet holds wood for one left-side wall. That pallet has the wood for a right-side wall. Left and right are different because doors and windows go in different places.
The pieces of wood get laid out in a jig to make the side wall; they get stapled together, then screwed together, then glued together. "They are held together three ways," Dave notes.
"The first side wall in a run is actually the jig for the next ones," Dave says. I see that now.
In the next area, a fellow is insulating the side wall. He's up on a table where the side wall is laid out and is stuffing insulation in every nook and cranny. "A lot of manufacturers use foam board between the studs for insulation," Dave says. "We want insulation stuffed in fully, no voids. We can stuff any design easily this way. Like these trapezoid shapes where the nose of the trailer drops down."
"With metal in the wall, you get condensation," Dave says. "Wood is flexible. Wood moves and returns to its original shape. Aluminum would spring - once it's bent, it's bent."
"Wood doesn't transfer energy," he notes. "If an area gets damaged, the damage is pretty much confined to that one area."
The fellow putting the insulation into place also installs the wiring into the walls. Then he applies a half-inch bead of glue to the exposed wood surfaces and puts a fiberglass sheet into place. Then the entire wall is slid on rollers into a press for an hour and a half of heavy pressure. "When the glue is set up," Dave says, "that bond is the strongest point of the trailer. If you take a sledge hammer to the wall, the wood will break before that bond releases."
"We use positive pressure instead of vacuum pressure," Dave says. "Other manufacturers apply a thin film of adhesive and use vacuum pressure to bond the fiberglass in place. Heat will separate that bond."
"We're the only manufacturer that uses the positive pressure adhesive for the side wall," he says.
The shape of the Excel trailer drops down towards the rear - "to reduce wind drag," Dave says, "and to reduce heat rise in cold weather."
"Our trailer has a more aerodynamic shape than a box doing down the road," he says by way of implicit criticism of other designs.
Once the glue of the side wall has set up in the press, the next fellow in line routes out openings in the fiberglass where windows, doors, and slide-outs will be located. This isn't a computerized operation but is done by hand. The fellow follows the outline of the lumber for each opening. The fiberglass cut out of the side wall is retained and gets cut to become storage doors. Laminated for foam board, the scrap gets transformed into the highest quality storage doors in the industry, Dave says. "We couldn't buy storage doors as thick as we wanted them, so we had to build them ourselves. And there's no way we could ship enough of these doors in here from someplace else."
"It's just more efficient for us to put our scrap to other uses," he says.
"That's one thing Vaughn does here," Dave adds. "He'll come through the plant looking at the efficiency of the operation, asking what can we do better."
Once the openings have been cut out of the side wall and rubber seals put into place, the wall is allowed to stand, to let the glue cure entirely. The "L" shape on the edge of the slide-out room locks into a rubber seal of the wall and keeps both moisture and air from entering the trailer.
We're looking at a slide-out. "This is an entertainment center," Dave says, "TV, computer, telephone all go here."
The slide-outs move in and out of the trailer on steel rollers set high enough to keep the bottom of the slide-out from dragging on the carpet.
The trailer frames are fabricated in a line coming in at a right angle. We are looking at one of the frames now. This one is nearly ready to get put together with the side walls. The next one farther back needs more work yet; farther back, someone is attaching axles to a frame and putting tires on. Farther down the line than I can see, someone is welding frames together.
To be continued....
-----------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 18, 1998
It rained yesterday in the morning; it rained good before it was done. The sky wanted to clear in the afternoon and by evening it was steaming. It was cool during the night, somewhat grey this morning.
I think perhaps the reason we don't pay much attention to the greater world beyond us - there is plenty here close at hand to be concerned of. I've often said government should be no bigger than as far as you can see - township size, perhaps. There is plenty in the village and the town to worry over, we don't need to concern ourselves so much with what our President did or didn't do. We have our schools to take care of, the village water works, the flow of water in our Grand River. Let those with nothing local to do bird dog the distant, low-impact concerns. We'll let the national press fret for us, so we can do our work here.
I remember when the "Camp David Accord" was signed, the news people were interviewing the locals in town right outside Camp David - What was the effect of this historic agreement on their lives? "Don't affect us none, day to day, as far as I can see. The whole conflict don't affect us none." The interviewer expressed his superiority by being appalled with such responses.
Clean water, clean air, good schools, a place to put our garbage. Rain or lack of rain, good markets, a fair price. If you're talking about anything else, you might be wasting your breath.
A sour morning - the smell of canning factory waste water drifting on the day, all the way to my driveway.
"She opens like a cut" is the sentence I get as I drive out of town. What does that mean; and why would I save a sentence like that?
In the distance, the grey sky is streaked in layers, like a bad watercolor - again. How can what looks like bad art be our reality?
Another
Zen day.
I have be-
come lost
in sky. How
can I
say any-
thing? What
little wind
there is
is enough.
>
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
THIS IS A TEST,
THIS IS ONLY A TEST:
WHICH IS MORE LIKELY?
1. Which is more likely: (a) The Pope will renounce his religion and enter a Buddhist monastery; OR (b) the bear will stop using the entire forest as his personal latrine?
2. Which is more likely: (a) During the Republican National Convention, George Bush will announce that Osama bin Laden has been captured or killed; OR (b) The Pope will formally declare George Bush to be the Anti-Christ and will order the clergy not to serve Communion to any Catholic who votes for him?
3. Which is more likely: (a) George Bush will wake up the morning he is to be nominated for another term, will ask "Christ, what am I doing?" and will decline to run again, ala Lyndon Johnson: "If nominated I shall not run; if elected I shall not serve..."? OR (b) John Kerry will win the November presidential election but George Bush will declare martial law and use the army to prevent the change of administrations as scheduled in January.
Please fully explain the reasons for your choices. If you can.
----------------------
QUETICO JOURNAL
AUGUST 9, 2004
DAY SIX
Morning
It rained at 3:00 a.m., not heavily. The wolves were calling again, about 4:45 a.m. It is a grey morning, though the sun is trying to break through.
The wind is against us today. We have five or six miles to paddle to our first portage, which will take us out of Quetico Lake. Quetico Lake is about ten miles long, total. We came into the far end of it yesterday afternoon. We paddle the rest of it today, portage into Beaverhouse Lake, and find a campsite within twenty minutes or so of our take-out point. We would have paddled farther yesterday with the wind at our back but we were all wet and tired and ready for some rest.
We have all day to get where we're going but we hope that it won't take all day. We hope that it won't be hard paddling.
Evening
The water, the rock, the sky, the irony. We left camp in a spit of rain, paddled against the wind. It rained the morning through, rained nearly the whole way to our final portage. We were wet and cold and made the decision we'd pack up and head part way towards home today instead of early tomorrow morning. A wet, miserable night, just to say we did it? Smart heroes don't do such things, and we didn't either.
Once we'd made the decision, the sun tried to come out, of course. The air got hot.
As we neared that last portage, from Quetico Lake back into Beaverhouse, two eagles stood silent vigil in a dead tree along our way. The smaller, the male, was top left, our left; the larger female, bottom right. They stayed silent, but their mere presence was Quetico's salute good-bye to the weary travelers.
There's the remnant steel of an old car along the portage route. What remains is mostly the rust of part of the body and a fender. I can imagine the telling of this story: the old fellow talking in quite a thick accent, saying, "Yah, ve g'ot her this f'ar b'ot she voulden go in der deep vater. So dat's ver we lef der." Yah, dat's ver dey lef der.
In Beaverhouse Lake, as we were angling towards our take-out, we saw a Beaver seaplane take off from the Ranger Station. We saw a storm building in the direction of our take-out. We paddled like hell and sweated.
When the hard rain hit, we had the canoes and all our gear up to the cars and had just started loading, tying down. We got wetter in the ten minutes it took us to get everything battened down than I had gotten at any point on the trip. Getting rained on hard, that's God's way of saying good-bye, I guess. It was a cold rain and the air turned cold. But then we were heading for home.
All told, we'd traversed some forty-eight miles, paddling and portaging. It had been a good trip. The most precious of it for me, I think, occurred about ten minutes before we came off the water. By then we'd turned and were headed straight for our take-out. Philip and Susan were leading the way, Mary and I were nearly side by side with Anne and Ellie, and Andrew riding shot-gun. I heard Andrew and looked over. The wind was blowing his words away. What I think I heard him say was: "O, Great God of Canada, thank you." Then he doffed his Cubs cap and tipped it to the spirit in the sky. Nobody told him to do it. It was the perfect prayer, spontaneous and deeply-felt.
Andrew, I'm with you: "O, Great God of Canada," I pray, "thank you."
---------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
Excel (Peterson Industries) was founded by Vaughn Peterson. It makes "fifth-wheel" mobile homes. Nearly everyone in town says I have to tour the place - they point to the company with some pride. I won't get to meet Vaughn Peterson - he's in his 80s and has just recently had heart surgery. Dave Rorabaugh, Excel's western sales representative, will give me a tour of the plant, and I'll get a chance to talk to Bryan Tillett, president of the company.
When I arrive at the plant, I'm struck by how unassuming it appears. It doesn't look like much more than several sheds humped together along Highway 36. That's a typical middle western ploy, I'm finding - unassuming on the outside, chock full of life and excellence within.
While I'm waiting for Dave Rorabaugh to free up, the receptionist sets me up in the customer lounge with a videotape of the 2003 "Excel Family Reunion." Every three years, as many of Excel's customers as can make it come back to Smith Center for an Excel Jamboree. All those campers get parked up around the high school for the week-long shindig. "We put out food for them," the receptionist tells me of the company's hospitality, and the community's. "The whole town gets behind us."
Then the tape is rolling. People are videotaped registering for a space at the Jamboree. "Where are you from?" asks the fellow with the camera. The answers: Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Wyoming, Texas.
"Sounds like it's going to be a good time," one fellow says, "not too hot, not too cold."
"Is this your first time here?" the fellow with the camera asks a couple.
"No, this is the fourth time for us."
"They said you can come early," another fellow tells the camera. "I think anybody who comes on time is late."
Dave Rorabaugh is the western region sales representative for Excel and he also does organic farming on the side, just a mile from the geographic center over near Lebanon. Dave gives me a tour of the plant.
Excel builds "a cold weather trailer," Dave says. When you look at an Excel trailer, it doesn't look like a house, but it's built like a house - of wood. Studs, insulation, the roof with 16-inch centers.
"We build most everything ourselves," Dave says. "We're a long ways from everybody else in the industry. And it provides more employment here to do as much as we can ourselves." Other than the school district and the hospital, Excel is the largest employer in town.
I see the jig for the roof, with its 16-inch centers. Dave shows me swanstone - "like Corydon, a solid surface counter-top."
"The color goes all the way through," Dave says. "If it gets scratched, you can sand the scratch smooth and you've got the same color."
The entire counter gets assembled, it gets labeled for the particular trailer it will go into, then when the trailer comes down the line, the counter is set into it before the sidewalls get put on. "We try to put as much as we can in before we put the walls up," Dave explains.
The face framing for the counter is pre-drilled and screwed together. The higher-priced units gets a solid oak face; the face for the mid-priced units has a lumber core with a paper wrap to simulate oak. "We don't use particle board," Dave says. "It can't be screwed together. We use paper because it won't bubble and peel off. Paper doesn't delaminate."
We pass the fabrication area for fiberglass and water-lines and come to stand at the two computer-operated routers that can cut out "any design, any kind of corner" and put holes anywhere they're needed. "This is a good use of the computer," Dave says. "Using the computer instead of jigs - zip, zip, zip, it's done."
To be continued....
---------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Ludene the Dancing Machine and waitress at Paul's Cafe was making plans to go dancing in Goodland Sunday night," Ivan said. "One of Ludene's favorite group's was playing in Goodland that night. Ludene told me the name of the group. It was either Out Back, Boon Docks, or Back House, one of the rustic names. It didn't sound like they played much Guy Lombardo music."
"Bruce and Bobbi Miles went to Liberal, Kansas, a week ago, to an Economic Development Seminar," Ivan reported. "They were going to get up and leave early in the morning. But they didn't. Instead, they decided to fly down in Bruce's 1946 Luscombe airplane with a souped up motor. That's what they did. They got home safely just before a 40 mile per hour wind hit."
"Stan Hooper entertained a guest that he had met over the internet," Ivan said. "Stan and the gentleman had been interneting back and forth for several years. He and two of his grandkids showed up last Saturday. They are from New York City. Stan showed them around the town and took them out to the harvest field. They were amazed at the things that went on in the country. The two boys are orthodox Jews and they had a hard time finding any kosher food here in Smith Center."
Ivan said: "Bill Greene, the Smith Center high school football coach who developed an offense that went through the opposing team like 'a dose of salts through the hired girl,' sent me his new e-mail address. Said he didn't want to miss the Echo."
"In case some of you who live in the modern era where football players wear nose guards, mouthpieces, and plastic helmets don't know it," Ivan wrote, "Linton Lull was one of Smith Center's best football players on one of Smith Center's better teams. Not only that, Linton was one of the top track people in the state in 1940. If you say anything to him he will deny that he was any good. But he played wingback on the football team, forward on a basketball team that just missed going to State - Hays beat them 36-30 in the semi-finals of the regional - and ran a strong 53 second quarter of a mile over dirt or cinder tracks. He also played trombone and when he was a freshman he sat in a trombone section that could terrorize a freshman trombone player."
"Sheila Stewart has been nurturing and giving tender lovin' care to an apricot tree for five years," Ivan said. "This, the fifth year, finally paid dividends. Not a very big dividend, but a dividend nonetheless. This year Sheila picked her first fruit off her pet tree. The tree yielded two (2) apricots. One of them was rotten. But Sheila said the good one was delicious. What has happened to Sheila's tree every year is that it has been nipped by a late frost. To remedy that, what you want to do is in the winter when it snows pile up snow all around the base of the tree. I mean a lot of snow. Then pile straw on top of the snow. What happens is - in the spring of the year when the ground warms up and the tree roots think it is time to send up some sap, this snow and straw keep the ground around the base of the tree cold and the tree roots, they don't do much thinkin', they just think it is still winter and the tree will stay dormant, thus avoiding a late spring freeze. Echo don't guarantee this will happen, but I've given er a lot of thought and that's the conclusion I've come to."
"The ever vigilant Dick Stroup was out jogging one day last week," Ivan said. "He came to the highway - he looked to his right - he looked to his left - he looked up - but he forgot to look down. He started across the highway and caught his toe on a piece of asphalt that was sticking up. Dick fa' down an go boom. Skinned his knee. But since his wife wasn't home to kiss it and make it all better, he climbed up and ran another five miles. They tell me that jogging is just like riding a horse - if you get thrown, you get right back up and crawl back on it."
"If they ever find bones on the moon," Ivan said, "you can figure the cow didn't make it."
"Let's see," he said, "what's that one about the ship that was loaded with yo-yo's. It got caught in a storm and sank 35 times."
"I'm convinced," Ivan said, "firmly convinced that people would get better quicker if they could wear their regular Fruit of the Looms when they are in the hospital."
"The reason the Echo is short this week is because I went to the hospital last Tuesday morning," Ivan said. "Had a temp. Been trying to get well ever since. Had a bladder infection and it got in my blood. Hope you understand. See you next week."
"They gave me some stuff at the hospital," he said, "a whole gallon of it - salt and X-ray dye. Cleaned me out. In fact, I know I hadn't eaten that much in several months. Think it got rid of some left-over Thanksgiving turkey."
"I see where the Democrats are cozying up to the plumbers union," Ivan said. "They haven't even been elected yet and already they are wanting to put two new johns in the White House."
"You spend four days in a hospital and you realize just how rotten daytime TV is," Ivan said. "I actually heard more intelligent conversation in the first half hour I was in Paul's Cafe than I did in four days of daytime TV."
"What is it that they say about retirement?" Ivan asked. "When you retire, you spend half your time trying to remember someone's name and the other half looking for a restroom. Restroom - what I've lost in velocity I have gained in longevity."
"Moine and Nita Fulmer delivered an Excel trailer to New Hampshire recently," Ivan said. "Since they didn't have one to pull back, they decided to spend a couple of days longer getting back. So they hit some two lane highways in Vermont and Connecticut. Moine said one thing he noticed, it didn't make any diffrence where you stopped along the highway, you were always within walking distance of a house. That's just like here. You are always within walking distance of a house. Sometimes, though, you might have to walk four or five miles or more."
"Oh," Ivan said, "all the numbers on the roads out in the country remind me of the old story - farmer calls the fire department and says his barn is one fire. Fire department says 'how do we get there?' Farmer says 'don't you still have those little red trucks?'"
"I'll be so glad when October gets here," Ivan said. "That is the only month of the year when we have decent weather. I mean, you can count on it - Mother Nature tries to apologize for all the lousy weather she has given us all year and she saves up her best for October."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 17, 1998
A dark morning. It looks as if the street is wet, as if a very slow, very gentle cloud briefly kissed the ground. It will not stop with a single kiss, one thinks. The weekend was fairly mild and this morning is cool. This is - I say - not the August I remember. Where are the dog days? We had them in July, I suppose you're going to say. Bah! We need a hundred degree day here, just to say we've had it. We need people to suffer of heat. This is the middle west.
Ah, the musky smell of rain. The gentle sound it makes, like a woman brushing her hair. A rain slow enough to leach the dust from the air. It is morning.
Tippa tippa tippa goes the rain on the roof of the pick-up - enough that I need the wipers as I leave the drive way.
Out in the country the rain is falling at a serious rate. Even so, a sourness hangs where the canning factory sprays its waste water. A flatbed semi slaps a spray of moisture against my windshield. It is dark in all directions.
It is the kind of day that makes me think of grade school. How I felt being cooped up with the nuns and a roomful of kids who bathe only on Saturday night. The kind of day a good rain would be appreciated, the whole system needing to be cleansed, the clouds at the end running away with nothing more to say. The smell of white paste in the gallon jar. The way you want to get out of the school after a rain like that. The way you want to touch a girl on the inner part of her arm, out in the school yard. The musk of wetness on the playground. The way I felt then, smooth-skinned, aching, longing for more.
And now this, it seems, is what it comes to - a wet day, and work.
>
THIS IS ONLY A TEST:
WHICH IS MORE LIKELY?
1. Which is more likely: (a) The Pope will renounce his religion and enter a Buddhist monastery; OR (b) the bear will stop using the entire forest as his personal latrine?
2. Which is more likely: (a) During the Republican National Convention, George Bush will announce that Osama bin Laden has been captured or killed; OR (b) The Pope will formally declare George Bush to be the Anti-Christ and will order the clergy not to serve Communion to any Catholic who votes for him?
3. Which is more likely: (a) George Bush will wake up the morning he is to be nominated for another term, will ask "Christ, what am I doing?" and will decline to run again, ala Lyndon Johnson: "If nominated I shall not run; if elected I shall not serve..."? OR (b) John Kerry will win the November presidential election but George Bush will declare martial law and use the army to prevent the change of administrations as scheduled in January.
Please fully explain the reasons for your choices. If you can.
----------------------
QUETICO JOURNAL
AUGUST 9, 2004
DAY SIX
Morning
It rained at 3:00 a.m., not heavily. The wolves were calling again, about 4:45 a.m. It is a grey morning, though the sun is trying to break through.
The wind is against us today. We have five or six miles to paddle to our first portage, which will take us out of Quetico Lake. Quetico Lake is about ten miles long, total. We came into the far end of it yesterday afternoon. We paddle the rest of it today, portage into Beaverhouse Lake, and find a campsite within twenty minutes or so of our take-out point. We would have paddled farther yesterday with the wind at our back but we were all wet and tired and ready for some rest.
We have all day to get where we're going but we hope that it won't take all day. We hope that it won't be hard paddling.
Evening
The water, the rock, the sky, the irony. We left camp in a spit of rain, paddled against the wind. It rained the morning through, rained nearly the whole way to our final portage. We were wet and cold and made the decision we'd pack up and head part way towards home today instead of early tomorrow morning. A wet, miserable night, just to say we did it? Smart heroes don't do such things, and we didn't either.
Once we'd made the decision, the sun tried to come out, of course. The air got hot.
As we neared that last portage, from Quetico Lake back into Beaverhouse, two eagles stood silent vigil in a dead tree along our way. The smaller, the male, was top left, our left; the larger female, bottom right. They stayed silent, but their mere presence was Quetico's salute good-bye to the weary travelers.
There's the remnant steel of an old car along the portage route. What remains is mostly the rust of part of the body and a fender. I can imagine the telling of this story: the old fellow talking in quite a thick accent, saying, "Yah, ve g'ot her this f'ar b'ot she voulden go in der deep vater. So dat's ver we lef der." Yah, dat's ver dey lef der.
In Beaverhouse Lake, as we were angling towards our take-out, we saw a Beaver seaplane take off from the Ranger Station. We saw a storm building in the direction of our take-out. We paddled like hell and sweated.
When the hard rain hit, we had the canoes and all our gear up to the cars and had just started loading, tying down. We got wetter in the ten minutes it took us to get everything battened down than I had gotten at any point on the trip. Getting rained on hard, that's God's way of saying good-bye, I guess. It was a cold rain and the air turned cold. But then we were heading for home.
All told, we'd traversed some forty-eight miles, paddling and portaging. It had been a good trip. The most precious of it for me, I think, occurred about ten minutes before we came off the water. By then we'd turned and were headed straight for our take-out. Philip and Susan were leading the way, Mary and I were nearly side by side with Anne and Ellie, and Andrew riding shot-gun. I heard Andrew and looked over. The wind was blowing his words away. What I think I heard him say was: "O, Great God of Canada, thank you." Then he doffed his Cubs cap and tipped it to the spirit in the sky. Nobody told him to do it. It was the perfect prayer, spontaneous and deeply-felt.
Andrew, I'm with you: "O, Great God of Canada," I pray, "thank you."
---------------------
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
Excel (Peterson Industries) was founded by Vaughn Peterson. It makes "fifth-wheel" mobile homes. Nearly everyone in town says I have to tour the place - they point to the company with some pride. I won't get to meet Vaughn Peterson - he's in his 80s and has just recently had heart surgery. Dave Rorabaugh, Excel's western sales representative, will give me a tour of the plant, and I'll get a chance to talk to Bryan Tillett, president of the company.
When I arrive at the plant, I'm struck by how unassuming it appears. It doesn't look like much more than several sheds humped together along Highway 36. That's a typical middle western ploy, I'm finding - unassuming on the outside, chock full of life and excellence within.
While I'm waiting for Dave Rorabaugh to free up, the receptionist sets me up in the customer lounge with a videotape of the 2003 "Excel Family Reunion." Every three years, as many of Excel's customers as can make it come back to Smith Center for an Excel Jamboree. All those campers get parked up around the high school for the week-long shindig. "We put out food for them," the receptionist tells me of the company's hospitality, and the community's. "The whole town gets behind us."
Then the tape is rolling. People are videotaped registering for a space at the Jamboree. "Where are you from?" asks the fellow with the camera. The answers: Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Wyoming, Texas.
"Sounds like it's going to be a good time," one fellow says, "not too hot, not too cold."
"Is this your first time here?" the fellow with the camera asks a couple.
"No, this is the fourth time for us."
"They said you can come early," another fellow tells the camera. "I think anybody who comes on time is late."
Dave Rorabaugh is the western region sales representative for Excel and he also does organic farming on the side, just a mile from the geographic center over near Lebanon. Dave gives me a tour of the plant.
Excel builds "a cold weather trailer," Dave says. When you look at an Excel trailer, it doesn't look like a house, but it's built like a house - of wood. Studs, insulation, the roof with 16-inch centers.
"We build most everything ourselves," Dave says. "We're a long ways from everybody else in the industry. And it provides more employment here to do as much as we can ourselves." Other than the school district and the hospital, Excel is the largest employer in town.
I see the jig for the roof, with its 16-inch centers. Dave shows me swanstone - "like Corydon, a solid surface counter-top."
"The color goes all the way through," Dave says. "If it gets scratched, you can sand the scratch smooth and you've got the same color."
The entire counter gets assembled, it gets labeled for the particular trailer it will go into, then when the trailer comes down the line, the counter is set into it before the sidewalls get put on. "We try to put as much as we can in before we put the walls up," Dave explains.
The face framing for the counter is pre-drilled and screwed together. The higher-priced units gets a solid oak face; the face for the mid-priced units has a lumber core with a paper wrap to simulate oak. "We don't use particle board," Dave says. "It can't be screwed together. We use paper because it won't bubble and peel off. Paper doesn't delaminate."
We pass the fabrication area for fiberglass and water-lines and come to stand at the two computer-operated routers that can cut out "any design, any kind of corner" and put holes anywhere they're needed. "This is a good use of the computer," Dave says. "Using the computer instead of jigs - zip, zip, zip, it's done."
To be continued....
---------------------
THE TUESDAY REPORT
ON IVAN BURGESS'S ECHO ECHO
(501 W. Third #12, Smith Center, KS 66967)
"Ludene the Dancing Machine and waitress at Paul's Cafe was making plans to go dancing in Goodland Sunday night," Ivan said. "One of Ludene's favorite group's was playing in Goodland that night. Ludene told me the name of the group. It was either Out Back, Boon Docks, or Back House, one of the rustic names. It didn't sound like they played much Guy Lombardo music."
"Bruce and Bobbi Miles went to Liberal, Kansas, a week ago, to an Economic Development Seminar," Ivan reported. "They were going to get up and leave early in the morning. But they didn't. Instead, they decided to fly down in Bruce's 1946 Luscombe airplane with a souped up motor. That's what they did. They got home safely just before a 40 mile per hour wind hit."
"Stan Hooper entertained a guest that he had met over the internet," Ivan said. "Stan and the gentleman had been interneting back and forth for several years. He and two of his grandkids showed up last Saturday. They are from New York City. Stan showed them around the town and took them out to the harvest field. They were amazed at the things that went on in the country. The two boys are orthodox Jews and they had a hard time finding any kosher food here in Smith Center."
Ivan said: "Bill Greene, the Smith Center high school football coach who developed an offense that went through the opposing team like 'a dose of salts through the hired girl,' sent me his new e-mail address. Said he didn't want to miss the Echo."
"In case some of you who live in the modern era where football players wear nose guards, mouthpieces, and plastic helmets don't know it," Ivan wrote, "Linton Lull was one of Smith Center's best football players on one of Smith Center's better teams. Not only that, Linton was one of the top track people in the state in 1940. If you say anything to him he will deny that he was any good. But he played wingback on the football team, forward on a basketball team that just missed going to State - Hays beat them 36-30 in the semi-finals of the regional - and ran a strong 53 second quarter of a mile over dirt or cinder tracks. He also played trombone and when he was a freshman he sat in a trombone section that could terrorize a freshman trombone player."
"Sheila Stewart has been nurturing and giving tender lovin' care to an apricot tree for five years," Ivan said. "This, the fifth year, finally paid dividends. Not a very big dividend, but a dividend nonetheless. This year Sheila picked her first fruit off her pet tree. The tree yielded two (2) apricots. One of them was rotten. But Sheila said the good one was delicious. What has happened to Sheila's tree every year is that it has been nipped by a late frost. To remedy that, what you want to do is in the winter when it snows pile up snow all around the base of the tree. I mean a lot of snow. Then pile straw on top of the snow. What happens is - in the spring of the year when the ground warms up and the tree roots think it is time to send up some sap, this snow and straw keep the ground around the base of the tree cold and the tree roots, they don't do much thinkin', they just think it is still winter and the tree will stay dormant, thus avoiding a late spring freeze. Echo don't guarantee this will happen, but I've given er a lot of thought and that's the conclusion I've come to."
"The ever vigilant Dick Stroup was out jogging one day last week," Ivan said. "He came to the highway - he looked to his right - he looked to his left - he looked up - but he forgot to look down. He started across the highway and caught his toe on a piece of asphalt that was sticking up. Dick fa' down an go boom. Skinned his knee. But since his wife wasn't home to kiss it and make it all better, he climbed up and ran another five miles. They tell me that jogging is just like riding a horse - if you get thrown, you get right back up and crawl back on it."
"If they ever find bones on the moon," Ivan said, "you can figure the cow didn't make it."
"Let's see," he said, "what's that one about the ship that was loaded with yo-yo's. It got caught in a storm and sank 35 times."
"I'm convinced," Ivan said, "firmly convinced that people would get better quicker if they could wear their regular Fruit of the Looms when they are in the hospital."
"The reason the Echo is short this week is because I went to the hospital last Tuesday morning," Ivan said. "Had a temp. Been trying to get well ever since. Had a bladder infection and it got in my blood. Hope you understand. See you next week."
"They gave me some stuff at the hospital," he said, "a whole gallon of it - salt and X-ray dye. Cleaned me out. In fact, I know I hadn't eaten that much in several months. Think it got rid of some left-over Thanksgiving turkey."
"I see where the Democrats are cozying up to the plumbers union," Ivan said. "They haven't even been elected yet and already they are wanting to put two new johns in the White House."
"You spend four days in a hospital and you realize just how rotten daytime TV is," Ivan said. "I actually heard more intelligent conversation in the first half hour I was in Paul's Cafe than I did in four days of daytime TV."
"What is it that they say about retirement?" Ivan asked. "When you retire, you spend half your time trying to remember someone's name and the other half looking for a restroom. Restroom - what I've lost in velocity I have gained in longevity."
"Moine and Nita Fulmer delivered an Excel trailer to New Hampshire recently," Ivan said. "Since they didn't have one to pull back, they decided to spend a couple of days longer getting back. So they hit some two lane highways in Vermont and Connecticut. Moine said one thing he noticed, it didn't make any diffrence where you stopped along the highway, you were always within walking distance of a house. That's just like here. You are always within walking distance of a house. Sometimes, though, you might have to walk four or five miles or more."
"Oh," Ivan said, "all the numbers on the roads out in the country remind me of the old story - farmer calls the fire department and says his barn is one fire. Fire department says 'how do we get there?' Farmer says 'don't you still have those little red trucks?'"
"I'll be so glad when October gets here," Ivan said. "That is the only month of the year when we have decent weather. I mean, you can count on it - Mother Nature tries to apologize for all the lousy weather she has given us all year and she saves up her best for October."
--------------------
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 17, 1998
A dark morning. It looks as if the street is wet, as if a very slow, very gentle cloud briefly kissed the ground. It will not stop with a single kiss, one thinks. The weekend was fairly mild and this morning is cool. This is - I say - not the August I remember. Where are the dog days? We had them in July, I suppose you're going to say. Bah! We need a hundred degree day here, just to say we've had it. We need people to suffer of heat. This is the middle west.
Ah, the musky smell of rain. The gentle sound it makes, like a woman brushing her hair. A rain slow enough to leach the dust from the air. It is morning.
Tippa tippa tippa goes the rain on the roof of the pick-up - enough that I need the wipers as I leave the drive way.
Out in the country the rain is falling at a serious rate. Even so, a sourness hangs where the canning factory sprays its waste water. A flatbed semi slaps a spray of moisture against my windshield. It is dark in all directions.
It is the kind of day that makes me think of grade school. How I felt being cooped up with the nuns and a roomful of kids who bathe only on Saturday night. The kind of day a good rain would be appreciated, the whole system needing to be cleansed, the clouds at the end running away with nothing more to say. The smell of white paste in the gallon jar. The way you want to get out of the school after a rain like that. The way you want to touch a girl on the inner part of her arm, out in the school yard. The musk of wetness on the playground. The way I felt then, smooth-skinned, aching, longing for more.
And now this, it seems, is what it comes to - a wet day, and work.
>
Monday, August 16, 2004
QUETICO JOURNAL
AUGUST 8, 2004
DAY FIVE
It rained during the night. This morning we prayed: "O, Great God of Canada, thank you for the moisture, which lessens our worry of fire. Now we ask you for sunshine."
It misted all the day.
We made two portages and had a long paddle.
It all blends together. "Was today the day we had to put the canoe over the beaver dam?" I asked at supper. "No, that was yesterday," they said.
We have had two hard days on the water and I have come nearly to the limit of my endurace. I think I will have to work out harder if I'm going to keep up this extreme relaxation.
Ellie has been paddling with Anne these past days, mother and daughter, with nine-year-old Andrew between them. Ellie is a trooper; she keeps leaning into her work - stroke, stroke, stroke. How many twelve-year-old girls have such knowledge as she gains here? How many have such a relationship with their mothers as Ellie does with that woman steering her canoeing?
At least for the last four or five miles today the wind was at our back. It would have been a much harder paddle against the wind.
We had baked northern for supper, that Philip caught, a big one, stuffed with onions and a small-mouth bass that Andrew caught. Plus macaroni and cheese, in case the fishing had not been successful, and "fiesta corn bread" that was really skillet-fried, in the shape of pancakes, with corn and salsa in it. We had a side of Mary's hummus that she'd dried at home and reconstituted here; it was very good with the mac and cheese, with the fiesta corn bread, with the fish. I suppose the garlic in the hummus gave a little something extra to the camp food. We are out of crackers.
I don't care how hard the ground feels, I am going to sleep tonight.
*
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
At the Second Cup Cafe and Pastries, there are six tables set up for four diners; one table set up for two; two tables set up for eight; and one table set up for sixteen. The As the Bladder Fills Club sits at the table set for sixteen. Between 8:00-9:00 a.m. every day, it's their table. There is a plaque on the wall that says the Kiwanis meets at the Second Cup at 7:00 a.m. every Friday; there's another plaque on the wall, a little more home-made, with the image of a toilet on it, indicating that the As the Bladder Fills Club meets here, too, every day, 8:00-9:00 a.m.
Claude Gripp and Jack Benn are the first two fellows to sit down with their coffee this morning. I join them, and soon Ivan Burgess joins them too.
Jack likes to fish up near Flin Flon, Manitoba, and I've been to Flin Flon a couple of times. We're talking about the town, about Inge Bjornson, who outfits on Neso Lake up there and has written a book about his antics and adventures in the wilderness.
Ivan is talking to someone else who has settled in with us; he's explaining "When I was a kid, we had more fun getting ready to do something than we ever did doing it."
Linton Lull has joined us. "My favorite Burgess story," he says, "is about Ivan in school. They were teaching the kids music. The teacher gave each kid a rhythm instrument to play - drums, cymbals, sticks, and so on. Ivan was so poor they just gave him one stick."
I don't know why Ivan draws so much fire. Maybe it's because he gives it back as good as he gets. And his jab is like a paper cut - so clean you don't notice until you see the blood.
"When I die," Ivan says, "If they don't put green signs out by the highway that say 'Boyhood Home of Ivan Burgess,' then I've been a complete failure."
To be continued....
*
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 14, 1998
Respect, I think, comes to the fellow who earns it. Sure, these folks will give you the benefit of the doubt to start off, but don't misconstrue that to mean they're not watching you. You screw up, you slip in their eyes and must recover one hard piece at a time. You screw up, you re-earn respect only grudgingly. The folk memory is forever. Especially with issues of trust. If you've earned mistrust, it's near impossible to climb out of that box - how will they know for sure you won't slip again.
It's not that these folks can't deal with uncertainty. The farmers amongst them face uncertainty every time they put seed in the ground. Will it rain? Will it hail? Will the selling price be high enough to cover the cost of producing?
The issue may not be that you betrayed them so much as they didn't see it coming. Now if they put you over into the column of uncertainty, along with drought and hail and fire, they can deal with your failure. Of course, you might imagine how much drought and hail and fire are loved by farmers, and how much your betrayal might be loved as well.
Is it the same, every one of these August mornings - moisture on the windshield, haze in the distance, blue sky, still pond? What will I see to comment on in an endlessly repeating cycle? Is this week of August an emblem for the whole idea of watching a piece of ground from year to year - it will all be an endless repetition of cycles before I am done.
Except maybe for the jet rumbling overhead this morning, August 14, 1998, 7:23 a.m. CDT. The sound rolls away into the distance. I would believe it left O'Hare in Chicago and is heading for the Twin Cities, by the way the sound has crossed the sky. The jet's passengers have moved half that distance and I'm not even out of the driveway yet.
A lovely haze of a daze of a day, out in the country. A haze considerably heavier than yesterday's.
It is surprising to me how quickly the corn ground has been worked. One of those fields taken recently is plowed already.
Off in the distant haze, a spray plane drops down to skim just above a field. It is working dangerously close to high power lines. At times it seems to stand on a wing tip. You've got to love to fly to do a job that dangerous and dirty. But look who's calling the kettle black - I go in to my work, which might not be to that fellow's liking at all.
>
AUGUST 8, 2004
DAY FIVE
It rained during the night. This morning we prayed: "O, Great God of Canada, thank you for the moisture, which lessens our worry of fire. Now we ask you for sunshine."
It misted all the day.
We made two portages and had a long paddle.
It all blends together. "Was today the day we had to put the canoe over the beaver dam?" I asked at supper. "No, that was yesterday," they said.
We have had two hard days on the water and I have come nearly to the limit of my endurace. I think I will have to work out harder if I'm going to keep up this extreme relaxation.
Ellie has been paddling with Anne these past days, mother and daughter, with nine-year-old Andrew between them. Ellie is a trooper; she keeps leaning into her work - stroke, stroke, stroke. How many twelve-year-old girls have such knowledge as she gains here? How many have such a relationship with their mothers as Ellie does with that woman steering her canoeing?
At least for the last four or five miles today the wind was at our back. It would have been a much harder paddle against the wind.
We had baked northern for supper, that Philip caught, a big one, stuffed with onions and a small-mouth bass that Andrew caught. Plus macaroni and cheese, in case the fishing had not been successful, and "fiesta corn bread" that was really skillet-fried, in the shape of pancakes, with corn and salsa in it. We had a side of Mary's hummus that she'd dried at home and reconstituted here; it was very good with the mac and cheese, with the fiesta corn bread, with the fish. I suppose the garlic in the hummus gave a little something extra to the camp food. We are out of crackers.
I don't care how hard the ground feels, I am going to sleep tonight.
*
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 15, 2004 - CONTINUED
At the Second Cup Cafe and Pastries, there are six tables set up for four diners; one table set up for two; two tables set up for eight; and one table set up for sixteen. The As the Bladder Fills Club sits at the table set for sixteen. Between 8:00-9:00 a.m. every day, it's their table. There is a plaque on the wall that says the Kiwanis meets at the Second Cup at 7:00 a.m. every Friday; there's another plaque on the wall, a little more home-made, with the image of a toilet on it, indicating that the As the Bladder Fills Club meets here, too, every day, 8:00-9:00 a.m.
Claude Gripp and Jack Benn are the first two fellows to sit down with their coffee this morning. I join them, and soon Ivan Burgess joins them too.
Jack likes to fish up near Flin Flon, Manitoba, and I've been to Flin Flon a couple of times. We're talking about the town, about Inge Bjornson, who outfits on Neso Lake up there and has written a book about his antics and adventures in the wilderness.
Ivan is talking to someone else who has settled in with us; he's explaining "When I was a kid, we had more fun getting ready to do something than we ever did doing it."
Linton Lull has joined us. "My favorite Burgess story," he says, "is about Ivan in school. They were teaching the kids music. The teacher gave each kid a rhythm instrument to play - drums, cymbals, sticks, and so on. Ivan was so poor they just gave him one stick."
I don't know why Ivan draws so much fire. Maybe it's because he gives it back as good as he gets. And his jab is like a paper cut - so clean you don't notice until you see the blood.
"When I die," Ivan says, "If they don't put green signs out by the highway that say 'Boyhood Home of Ivan Burgess,' then I've been a complete failure."
To be continued....
*
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 14, 1998
Respect, I think, comes to the fellow who earns it. Sure, these folks will give you the benefit of the doubt to start off, but don't misconstrue that to mean they're not watching you. You screw up, you slip in their eyes and must recover one hard piece at a time. You screw up, you re-earn respect only grudgingly. The folk memory is forever. Especially with issues of trust. If you've earned mistrust, it's near impossible to climb out of that box - how will they know for sure you won't slip again.
It's not that these folks can't deal with uncertainty. The farmers amongst them face uncertainty every time they put seed in the ground. Will it rain? Will it hail? Will the selling price be high enough to cover the cost of producing?
The issue may not be that you betrayed them so much as they didn't see it coming. Now if they put you over into the column of uncertainty, along with drought and hail and fire, they can deal with your failure. Of course, you might imagine how much drought and hail and fire are loved by farmers, and how much your betrayal might be loved as well.
Is it the same, every one of these August mornings - moisture on the windshield, haze in the distance, blue sky, still pond? What will I see to comment on in an endlessly repeating cycle? Is this week of August an emblem for the whole idea of watching a piece of ground from year to year - it will all be an endless repetition of cycles before I am done.
Except maybe for the jet rumbling overhead this morning, August 14, 1998, 7:23 a.m. CDT. The sound rolls away into the distance. I would believe it left O'Hare in Chicago and is heading for the Twin Cities, by the way the sound has crossed the sky. The jet's passengers have moved half that distance and I'm not even out of the driveway yet.
A lovely haze of a daze of a day, out in the country. A haze considerably heavier than yesterday's.
It is surprising to me how quickly the corn ground has been worked. One of those fields taken recently is plowed already.
Off in the distant haze, a spray plane drops down to skim just above a field. It is working dangerously close to high power lines. At times it seems to stand on a wing tip. You've got to love to fly to do a job that dangerous and dirty. But look who's calling the kettle black - I go in to my work, which might not be to that fellow's liking at all.
>
Sunday, August 15, 2004
AMERICA ZEN:
A GATHERING OF POETS
It's at press and will be available within a month, the anthology that I have several poems accepted for, America Zen: A Gathering of Poets, edited by Ray McNiece & Larry Smith. It is 224 pages perfect bound, 6x9, ISBN: 0-933087-91-8. It's available for $16 from Bottom Dog Press, PO Box 425, Huron, OH 44839.
And I am recommending that you get a copy of it. Bottom Dog should soon have more information about the anthology available at their web site here, if you're interested.
The poets included in this gathering are: Nin Andrews, David Budbill, Thomas Rain Crowe, Kathe Davis, Diane di Prima, Stanford M. Forrester, Tess Gallagher, Margaret Gibson, John Gilgun, Netta Gillespie, Sam Hamill, William Heyen, Jane Hirschfield, Holly Hughes, Mary Sue Koeppel, Mark Kuhar, Mac Lojowsky, Ray McNiece, Tom Montag, Shin Yu Pai, Paul S. Piper, Maj Ragain, David Ray, Seido Ray Ronci, Andrew Schelling, Paul Skyrm, Larry Smith, Tony Trigilio, Chase Twichell, and Anne Waldmann
"Each poet is fully represented by a biographical sketch, a photo, a statement on Zen and poetry, and a selection of five or more poems," the editors say.
Eleven of my "Ben Zen" poems are included, and four from my "Plain Poems" series. This, from "Ben Zen:"
*
QUETICO JOURNAL
AUGUST 7, 2004
DAY FOUR
It was the day for a big move. We needed to make some miles, and so we did. Because the water is low, the expected three or four portages turned out to be seven or eight or nine, hard to say exactly. Creeks you could paddle through the last time Susan's map was updated, well, you can't paddle through them now. Standing atop a beaver dam is like standing on top of the world. Yahoo! you want to yell, and Yahoo! would echo back.
The deepest I got stuck in the muck was up to my knees, both knees, same time. We pushed on, working harder than we expected to. Yet, as I said to the four people waiting for us to clear one particularly messy portage, as I was standing there knee-deep in the muck: I said: This is what we come for, isn't it?
Yeah, it is. If what we got was what we could get at home, why would we come here for it?
This morning the rain waited until we had our coffee and our cups of oatmeal and fruit compote, until we had the dishes washed, the tents rolled up and put away, the gear packed. If it had to rain, we got exactly what you'd want - a shy, beg-your-pardon drizzle. Some little wind blew the clouds away about noon or so and then we had sunshine.
We pushed ourselves pretty hard, made the promised "last portage" three or four times, and finally set up camp towards 5:00 p.m. on a little island with lovely sites for tents, a nice flat rock barely sloping into the water for washing up. I got myself washed up and put on fresh clothes. I would say I was a "new man," but not everything washed off: I am stained with this landscape. It is good to take some of where you've been with you, close as your own skin.
*
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 14, 2004 - CONTINUED
I was invited by Starr Jacobs of Smith Center to have supper in the field with her husband, Brent, and with Brent's cousin, Dan Jacobs, as they harvested their wheat crop. I extended the invitation by asking if I could ride in the combine after supper while Dan continued running it. Dan operates the combine; Brent & Starr's son, Steve, hauls the wheat from the combine to the semi-truck that Brent drives; and Brent hauls the wheat to storage. This continues my account of some time spent riding in the combine on a Monday evening three days into Smith County's 2004 wheat harvest.
How does he know when the bin on the combine is getting full? When the light flashes that indicates "Bin Full," it's too late to swing the auger out and get Steve coming with the wagon. He'd have to stop the combine and wait.
"I let it go up to the top of the window behind me," Dan said. "Then I swing the auger out. Usually when he gets here, the bin is full enough."
There was a pheasant running in the wheat ahead of us. Dan pointed at the moving stalks that gave away its position. Very soon the pheasant exploded out of the wheat, flew up and off to the left.
"If you didn't farm," I asked Dan, "what would you do?"
"I don't know," he said. "I honestly don't know."
"When it gets dark out tonight," Dan said later, "it will be dark. No moon out tonight."
At night in the dark, when the wind is blowing, when you turn away from the dirt the combine throws out, you can see what you're doing. When the wind is not blowing, it doesn't matter which way you turn; either way you are blinded by it.
"There's a fog for you," Dan said as he drove into a cloud of the chaff.
"In the dark," he said, "it's easy to get turned around. You know where you are, but you don't know where the truck is. Sometimes you have to ask the guy in the truck to turn his parking lights on."
Millers are attracted to the lights of the combine. Twenty of them were fluttering in front of the windshield. They were good for occasionally cleaning a little dust here and there off the glass, otherwise they just reflected the headlights back at you. Millers are moths with wings that look dusty or powdered, thought to suggest the dusted clothes of a fellow who works in a grain mill.
"Some of this ground here we're going to want to disk, so we can put a crop in this fall," Dan said. "But I'm not sure you're going to get a disk in the ground - it's rock hard."
We were out along the road at the east edge of the field then. "My dad told me there's one thing they don't produce more of," Dan recalled. "That's land. If you've got it, keep it. There won't be any more. They can produce more money; they can't produce more land."
"Here," Dan pointed out, "there used to be buildings. There was a house here, a bunch of trees there. We tore them all down. The old well is where we made that curve right there. The house set over there. We had a guy with a Cat come in, push the house in, and cover it with dirt. We tore out the trees - more brush, really, than trees. It was rough ground here for a few years but we've smoothed it out."
I got a chill at the back of my neck. Ghosts on the landscape. Right here, right now, in this very place.
"The wind picked back up, didn't it?" I observed.
"Yeah," Dan said. "The way it was acting earlier, I thought it was going to stay down."
Now there was a blizzard of dust in the lights of the combine again. It was difficult to see the wheat right in front of us.
Dan turned the combine tightly and headed it back the other way. "If you really want to turn short," he said, "you can stand on the turning brake and it'll come right around. It's hard on the tires, though. They're not made to turn that sharp, so they slide."
It was after 10:00 p.m. when we unloaded the last bin of wheat into the wagon. Dan couldn't see the truck. He knew where he was, but he didn't know for sure where the truck was. He had to drive only a short distance to a terrace to get his bearings; he adjusted his direction slightly and soon enough we pulled to a stop near the road, near where I'd left my car.
I had to get down out of the cab of the combine and head for town. Steve was unloading the last wagonload of the day into the truck. The other truck was being parked a quarter mile down the road. Dan said he was going to park the combine over there, too. It's the neighbor's ground, it has been disked and is bare dirt. "We won't leave the combine or the other equipment out here on the wheat stubble," Dan said. "Lightning could start a fire in the stubble and burn up our equipment."
Even when you sleep, you have to worry.
I thanked Dan for letting me ride with him. I got into the car and turned it in the other direction. In my headlights I saw Brent walking back up the road to get the other truck. I stop, get out to thank him, too, for the chance ride the combine.
"You know your way back to town?" he asked me.
"You head that way and that way," I said, indicating a direction straight ahead, and a right turn from straight ahead. "I just keep going that way and that way til I reach the main road."
I knew where I was. I knew where I was going.
"Just watch for the lights," Brent said. He meant that the lights of Smith Center will show up off to the northwest.
And they did. I was driving back roads in the dark, I was headed for Smith Center. I knew where I was. I knew where I was going. I know where I've been.
These Kansas farmers are not so different than the Iowa farm folk I grew up among.
To be continued....
*
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 13, 1998
Years ago - twenty years ago now - when I was hauling bundles of the regional newspaper Fox River Patriot store-to-store along a four-hundred-mile route, I first sensed so strongly that the place makes the man. In very marked contrast to the good black prairie where I found people of good cheer, on the marginal sands those I encountered were crabbed and a little more surly, short-tempered, hard-pressed. It wasn't just one or two incidents that gave rise to the observation, but repeated occurrence across two years of hauling papers. A hard land makes a hard people. A hard land deforms a man, perhaps. A rich land blesses him. I would add that the better land resulted in a better store as well - brighter, better stocked, better kept. On the marginal sands, you could see the stores themselves were more marginal.
I could make that same trip again now without papers, couldn't I, stopping the same places, observing the people, getting a gauge on whether anything has changed - either in my way of seeing things, or in the people themselves. It might be an interesting trip.
Moisture on the windshield this morning. A blue sky. High, thin clouds. And some low, wet, cold ones too, scattered. We won't know for a while what kind of day is coming.
The earth has a forgiving memory. She is mending where the tree came down along Washington Street. When the green grass grows in thick, we won't know a tree ever stood there.
Sometimes we don't now how to read the signs from our own past.
A thick ground haze out in the country, almost a Canadian morning, folks! More sweet corn has been taken, all of it so far on the east side of Highway E, none of it on the west side. Duh, Tom, look close to the ground in that field you thought was soy beans; don't you see the purple? That's how you tell it's a field of beets! Even knowing this, even with my glasses on, it's still tough for an Iowa farm boy to recognize a field of beets.
A good poet would make poetry of a day such as this. The lingering, smoky smell where the barn burned. The sweet, wet aroma near the new houses north of Five Corners. The diffusion of light in the curtain of haze to the east. That woman and her dog, walking. I, on the other hand, will simply note that they've been seen. Been scene. Been here. You hear that, people? We were here; we mattered this little while.
>
A GATHERING OF POETS
It's at press and will be available within a month, the anthology that I have several poems accepted for, America Zen: A Gathering of Poets, edited by Ray McNiece & Larry Smith. It is 224 pages perfect bound, 6x9, ISBN: 0-933087-91-8. It's available for $16 from Bottom Dog Press, PO Box 425, Huron, OH 44839.
And I am recommending that you get a copy of it. Bottom Dog should soon have more information about the anthology available at their web site here, if you're interested.
The poets included in this gathering are: Nin Andrews, David Budbill, Thomas Rain Crowe, Kathe Davis, Diane di Prima, Stanford M. Forrester, Tess Gallagher, Margaret Gibson, John Gilgun, Netta Gillespie, Sam Hamill, William Heyen, Jane Hirschfield, Holly Hughes, Mary Sue Koeppel, Mark Kuhar, Mac Lojowsky, Ray McNiece, Tom Montag, Shin Yu Pai, Paul S. Piper, Maj Ragain, David Ray, Seido Ray Ronci, Andrew Schelling, Paul Skyrm, Larry Smith, Tony Trigilio, Chase Twichell, and Anne Waldmann
"Each poet is fully represented by a biographical sketch, a photo, a statement on Zen and poetry, and a selection of five or more poems," the editors say.
Eleven of my "Ben Zen" poems are included, and four from my "Plain Poems" series. This, from "Ben Zen:"
I push the mountain,And this, from the "Plain Poems:"
Ben says, and push
The mountain and
Still the mountain
Pushes back.
JULY 6, 2001 (2)
We don't know the ponderous
thoughts of stones. What do they
dream of as afternoon heats them?
Do they dream of arms and legs
or wings? Do they dream of love?
Do they remember glaciers -
the weight, the shove? Sitting with
stones, oh, lost among stones, aren't
you surprised at what you learn?
*
QUETICO JOURNAL
AUGUST 7, 2004
DAY FOUR
It was the day for a big move. We needed to make some miles, and so we did. Because the water is low, the expected three or four portages turned out to be seven or eight or nine, hard to say exactly. Creeks you could paddle through the last time Susan's map was updated, well, you can't paddle through them now. Standing atop a beaver dam is like standing on top of the world. Yahoo! you want to yell, and Yahoo! would echo back.
The deepest I got stuck in the muck was up to my knees, both knees, same time. We pushed on, working harder than we expected to. Yet, as I said to the four people waiting for us to clear one particularly messy portage, as I was standing there knee-deep in the muck: I said: This is what we come for, isn't it?
Yeah, it is. If what we got was what we could get at home, why would we come here for it?
This morning the rain waited until we had our coffee and our cups of oatmeal and fruit compote, until we had the dishes washed, the tents rolled up and put away, the gear packed. If it had to rain, we got exactly what you'd want - a shy, beg-your-pardon drizzle. Some little wind blew the clouds away about noon or so and then we had sunshine.
We pushed ourselves pretty hard, made the promised "last portage" three or four times, and finally set up camp towards 5:00 p.m. on a little island with lovely sites for tents, a nice flat rock barely sloping into the water for washing up. I got myself washed up and put on fresh clothes. I would say I was a "new man," but not everything washed off: I am stained with this landscape. It is good to take some of where you've been with you, close as your own skin.
*
NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS
A VISIT TO SMITH CENTER, KANSAS
JUNE 14, 2004 - CONTINUED
I was invited by Starr Jacobs of Smith Center to have supper in the field with her husband, Brent, and with Brent's cousin, Dan Jacobs, as they harvested their wheat crop. I extended the invitation by asking if I could ride in the combine after supper while Dan continued running it. Dan operates the combine; Brent & Starr's son, Steve, hauls the wheat from the combine to the semi-truck that Brent drives; and Brent hauls the wheat to storage. This continues my account of some time spent riding in the combine on a Monday evening three days into Smith County's 2004 wheat harvest.
How does he know when the bin on the combine is getting full? When the light flashes that indicates "Bin Full," it's too late to swing the auger out and get Steve coming with the wagon. He'd have to stop the combine and wait.
"I let it go up to the top of the window behind me," Dan said. "Then I swing the auger out. Usually when he gets here, the bin is full enough."
There was a pheasant running in the wheat ahead of us. Dan pointed at the moving stalks that gave away its position. Very soon the pheasant exploded out of the wheat, flew up and off to the left.
"If you didn't farm," I asked Dan, "what would you do?"
"I don't know," he said. "I honestly don't know."
"When it gets dark out tonight," Dan said later, "it will be dark. No moon out tonight."
At night in the dark, when the wind is blowing, when you turn away from the dirt the combine throws out, you can see what you're doing. When the wind is not blowing, it doesn't matter which way you turn; either way you are blinded by it.
"There's a fog for you," Dan said as he drove into a cloud of the chaff.
"In the dark," he said, "it's easy to get turned around. You know where you are, but you don't know where the truck is. Sometimes you have to ask the guy in the truck to turn his parking lights on."
Millers are attracted to the lights of the combine. Twenty of them were fluttering in front of the windshield. They were good for occasionally cleaning a little dust here and there off the glass, otherwise they just reflected the headlights back at you. Millers are moths with wings that look dusty or powdered, thought to suggest the dusted clothes of a fellow who works in a grain mill.
"Some of this ground here we're going to want to disk, so we can put a crop in this fall," Dan said. "But I'm not sure you're going to get a disk in the ground - it's rock hard."
We were out along the road at the east edge of the field then. "My dad told me there's one thing they don't produce more of," Dan recalled. "That's land. If you've got it, keep it. There won't be any more. They can produce more money; they can't produce more land."
"Here," Dan pointed out, "there used to be buildings. There was a house here, a bunch of trees there. We tore them all down. The old well is where we made that curve right there. The house set over there. We had a guy with a Cat come in, push the house in, and cover it with dirt. We tore out the trees - more brush, really, than trees. It was rough ground here for a few years but we've smoothed it out."
I got a chill at the back of my neck. Ghosts on the landscape. Right here, right now, in this very place.
"The wind picked back up, didn't it?" I observed.
"Yeah," Dan said. "The way it was acting earlier, I thought it was going to stay down."
Now there was a blizzard of dust in the lights of the combine again. It was difficult to see the wheat right in front of us.
Dan turned the combine tightly and headed it back the other way. "If you really want to turn short," he said, "you can stand on the turning brake and it'll come right around. It's hard on the tires, though. They're not made to turn that sharp, so they slide."
It was after 10:00 p.m. when we unloaded the last bin of wheat into the wagon. Dan couldn't see the truck. He knew where he was, but he didn't know for sure where the truck was. He had to drive only a short distance to a terrace to get his bearings; he adjusted his direction slightly and soon enough we pulled to a stop near the road, near where I'd left my car.
I had to get down out of the cab of the combine and head for town. Steve was unloading the last wagonload of the day into the truck. The other truck was being parked a quarter mile down the road. Dan said he was going to park the combine over there, too. It's the neighbor's ground, it has been disked and is bare dirt. "We won't leave the combine or the other equipment out here on the wheat stubble," Dan said. "Lightning could start a fire in the stubble and burn up our equipment."
Even when you sleep, you have to worry.
I thanked Dan for letting me ride with him. I got into the car and turned it in the other direction. In my headlights I saw Brent walking back up the road to get the other truck. I stop, get out to thank him, too, for the chance ride the combine.
"You know your way back to town?" he asked me.
"You head that way and that way," I said, indicating a direction straight ahead, and a right turn from straight ahead. "I just keep going that way and that way til I reach the main road."
I knew where I was. I knew where I was going.
"Just watch for the lights," Brent said. He meant that the lights of Smith Center will show up off to the northwest.
And they did. I was driving back roads in the dark, I was headed for Smith Center. I knew where I was. I knew where I was going. I know where I've been.
These Kansas farmers are not so different than the Iowa farm folk I grew up among.
To be continued....
*
from
MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 13, 1998
Years ago - twenty years ago now - when I was hauling bundles of the regional newspaper Fox River Patriot store-to-store along a four-hundred-mile route, I first sensed so strongly that the place makes the man. In very marked contrast to the good black prairie where I found people of good cheer, on the marginal sands those I encountered were crabbed and a little more surly, short-tempered, hard-pressed. It wasn't just one or two incidents that gave rise to the observation, but repeated occurrence across two years of hauling papers. A hard land makes a hard people. A hard land deforms a man, perhaps. A rich land blesses him. I would add that the better land resulted in a better store as well - brighter, better stocked, better kept. On the marginal sands, you could see the stores themselves were more marginal.
I could make that same trip again now without papers, couldn't I, stopping the same places, observing the people, getting a gauge on whether anything has changed - either in my way of seeing things, or in the people themselves. It might be an interesting trip.
Moisture on the windshield this morning. A blue sky. High, thin clouds. And some low, wet, cold ones too, scattered. We won't know for a while what kind of day is coming.
The earth has a forgiving memory. She is mending where the tree came down along Washington Street. When the green grass grows in thick, we won't know a tree ever stood there.
Sometimes we don't now how to read the signs from our own past.
A thick ground haze out in the country, almost a Canadian morning, folks! More sweet corn has been taken, all of it so far on the east side of Highway E, none of it on the west side. Duh, Tom, look close to the ground in that field you thought was soy beans; don't you see the purple? That's how you tell it's a field of beets! Even knowing this, even with my glasses on, it's still tough for an Iowa farm boy to recognize a field of beets.
A good poet would make poetry of a day such as this. The lingering, smoky smell where the barn burned. The sweet, wet aroma near the new houses north of Five Corners. The diffusion of light in the curtain of haze to the east. That woman and her dog, walking. I, on the other hand, will simply note that they've been seen. Been scene. Been here. You hear that, people? We were here; we mattered this little while.
>
Saturday, August 14, 2004
SATURDAY'S POEM
---------------------------
THE BRIGHT WATERFALL OF ANGELS
by Susan Firer
Everywhere that summer there were angels,
hanging over the lake piers deflated with prayer,
blowing like soap bubbles past night windows,
flying from the weekend colored skirts
of young girls. In August, under the full
moon, I walked Oakland Ave., and a night
bus, windows burning yellow with angels, passed.
And still, I could see people praying for more
bird angels, drug angels, kaiser roll angels, money
angels, love angels, health angels, rain angels.
There were angels with hearts large as bagpipes
who circled our village's ice cube houses
and flew bright loud into our bang nights.
There were angels in movie houses and in sweet corn
stands, and angels who dropped like catalpa
snakes from summer. One angel followed
me into our Chang Cheng Restaurant. Where
were the angels that summer when the neighbor-
hood women were being hunted and ripped
open like field animals? Or when the man
who walked away from DePaul Rehab gave up
on my garage? When I came home from "The Wizard
of Loneliness" the Flight for Life
heliccopter was landing in my front yard.
And a young man was leaning against my garage,
his throat an awful open clown smile.
Rivers and streams of dark blood
ran down the alley. All the children
awakened by the helicopter ran barefoot
and pajamad through the actual
blood and night. Mary,
the neighborhood nurse, kept telling
everyone there was a murderer loose.
"No one could do that much damage to themselves.
I'm a nurse, I'm telling you that no one could
do that much damage to themself."
And the police, and firefighters, and pilot,
and attendants their rubber gloved hands filled
with the moon, and someone held up the knife
the man used on himself. Off they rolled
him on a cot into the helicopter.
When they took off lighted and loud into the mid-
night sky, I saw angels of despair, windfull
and spinning happy on the helicopter blades.
There were angels who wrote their names on leaves,
and show-offs who rode August's tornadoes.
Nights the sky was often a thunder of angels,
a heat lightning sky, where angel wings fit
together in crossword puzzle perfection.
At the State Fair that August, the great
chefs of Wisconsin came to convince the world
of the superior beauty of carved cheese over carved
ice for table centerpieces, and although originally
they had come planning to carve cows and swans,
always the cheddar blocks turned to the gold
cheesy beauty of angels. Angels hid
behind apples, behind goldfinches, hid in foot-high
Mexican-stuffed toads who stood forever on
their back legs, their front legs shellacked forever
into playing red painted concertinas.
And if someone would have come to you as many
years as you are old ago, and told you:
You will be slapped around, a man will cut your
mouth open, only because he says he loves you,
and you will have to give up lovers, before they are,
and children before they are yours;
friends will call you from sexual assault centers
and their stitched together voices will tell you
things done to them that you will never be able to forget.
Some friends you will bury and children and parents, too.
(Your mother and father will breathe flowers
from their graves.) Your body's skin and bones
will cartwheel around you, tilt-a-whirl around you
until you are nauseous and dizzy and uncertain.
The money angel will never like you; often
you will sleep with razor blades. Often
you will fall out of the trap door of yourself
and have to climb back up and start over, and
sometimes the angels will help and often they won't,
and you can never count on either. And if someone
had to come to you, as many years ago as you are old
right now, and told you all this, and more,
would you sign up for the bright waterfall of angels?
Would you be silent? Would you whisper, or shout:
Bring on the tour, the bright waterfall of angels tour?
"The Bright Waterfall of Angels" appeared previously in The Underground Communion Rail (West End Press). Susan Firer's fourth book, The Laugh We Make When We Fall, won the 2001 Backwaters Prize and is published by Backwaters Press (Omaha, NE). Her third book, The Lives of the Saints and Everything, won the Cleveland State University Prize and the Posner Award for the best book of poems published by a Wisconsin author in 1993. Her other books include The Underground Communion Rail (West End Press) and My Life with the Tsar and Other Poems (New Rivers Books). Her work has appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Best American Poetry 1992, Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Press), A Whole Ohter Ballgame: Women's Literature on Women's Sport (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), Ladies, Start Your Engines: Women Writers on Cars and the Road (Faber and Faber), Hummers, Knucklers, and Slow Curves (University of Illinois Press), Boomer Girls (University of Iowa Press), The Georgia Review, Ms., Chicago Review, Iowa Review, and others. She is a recipient of a Milwaukee County Artist Fellowship and a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship. Two poems from her most recent book were featured and archived on Verse Daily. Recent work has appeared in New American Writing, Third Coast, and Lungfull!, and is forthcoming in The Book of Irish American Poetry (U.of Notre Dame Press).
---------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About seventeen of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Fred First, "In Living Memory" - April 3, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Colleen Redman, "Tincture Making" - May 15, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Mark Vinz, "The Old Hometown" and "Midcontinent" - April 17, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
---------------------------
THE BRIGHT WATERFALL OF ANGELS
by Susan Firer
Everywhere that summer there were angels,
hanging over the lake piers deflated with prayer,
blowing like soap bubbles past night windows,
flying from the weekend colored skirts
of young girls. In August, under the full
moon, I walked Oakland Ave., and a night
bus, windows burning yellow with angels, passed.
And still, I could see people praying for more
bird angels, drug angels, kaiser roll angels, money
angels, love angels, health angels, rain angels.
There were angels with hearts large as bagpipes
who circled our village's ice cube houses
and flew bright loud into our bang nights.
There were angels in movie houses and in sweet corn
stands, and angels who dropped like catalpa
snakes from summer. One angel followed
me into our Chang Cheng Restaurant. Where
were the angels that summer when the neighbor-
hood women were being hunted and ripped
open like field animals? Or when the man
who walked away from DePaul Rehab gave up
on my garage? When I came home from "The Wizard
of Loneliness" the Flight for Life
heliccopter was landing in my front yard.
And a young man was leaning against my garage,
his throat an awful open clown smile.
Rivers and streams of dark blood
ran down the alley. All the children
awakened by the helicopter ran barefoot
and pajamad through the actual
blood and night. Mary,
the neighborhood nurse, kept telling
everyone there was a murderer loose.
"No one could do that much damage to themselves.
I'm a nurse, I'm telling you that no one could
do that much damage to themself."
And the police, and firefighters, and pilot,
and attendants their rubber gloved hands filled
with the moon, and someone held up the knife
the man used on himself. Off they rolled
him on a cot into the helicopter.
When they took off lighted and loud into the mid-
night sky, I saw angels of despair, windfull
and spinning happy on the helicopter blades.
There were angels who wrote their names on leaves,
and show-offs who rode August's tornadoes.
Nights the sky was often a thunder of angels,
a heat lightning sky, where angel wings fit
together in crossword puzzle perfection.
At the State Fair that August, the great
chefs of Wisconsin came to convince the world
of the superior beauty of carved cheese over carved
ice for table centerpieces, and although originally
they had come planning to carve cows and swans,
always the cheddar blocks turned to the gold
cheesy beauty of angels. Angels hid
behind apples, behind goldfinches, hid in foot-high
Mexican-stuffed toads who stood forever on
their back legs, their front legs shellacked forever
into playing red painted concertinas.
And if someone would have come to you as many
years as you are old ago, and told you:
You will be slapped around, a man will cut your
mouth open, only because he says he loves you,
and you will have to give up lovers, before they are,
and children before they are yours;
friends will call you from sexual assault centers
and their stitched together voices will tell you
things done to them that you will never be able to forget.
Some friends you will bury and children and parents, too.
(Your mother and father will breathe flowers
from their graves.) Your body's skin and bones
will cartwheel around you, tilt-a-whirl around you
until you are nauseous and dizzy and uncertain.
The money angel will never like you; often
you will sleep with razor blades. Often
you will fall out of the trap door of yourself
and have to climb back up and start over, and
sometimes the angels will help and often they won't,
and you can never count on either. And if someone
had to come to you, as many years ago as you are old
right now, and told you all this, and more,
would you sign up for the bright waterfall of angels?
Would you be silent? Would you whisper, or shout:
Bring on the tour, the bright waterfall of angels tour?
"The Bright Waterfall of Angels" appeared previously in The Underground Communion Rail (West End Press). Susan Firer's fourth book, The Laugh We Make When We Fall, won the 2001 Backwaters Prize and is published by Backwaters Press (Omaha, NE). Her third book, The Lives of the Saints and Everything, won the Cleveland State University Prize and the Posner Award for the best book of poems published by a Wisconsin author in 1993. Her other books include The Underground Communion Rail (West End Press) and My Life with the Tsar and Other Poems (New Rivers Books). Her work has appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Best American Poetry 1992, Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Press), A Whole Ohter Ballgame: Women's Literature on Women's Sport (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), Ladies, Start Your Engines: Women Writers on Cars and the Road (Faber and Faber), Hummers, Knucklers, and Slow Curves (University of Illinois Press), Boomer Girls (University of Iowa Press), The Georgia Review, Ms., Chicago Review, Iowa Review, and others. She is a recipient of a Milwaukee County Artist Fellowship and a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship. Two poems from her most recent book were featured and archived on Verse Daily. Recent work has appeared in New American Writing, Third Coast, and Lungfull!, and is forthcoming in The Book of Irish American Poetry (U.of Notre Dame Press).
---------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to tmmontag@dotnet.com . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some high class readers. About seventeen of them, by our current count.
INDEX OF THE THIRTEEN MOST RECENT SATURDAY'S POEMS
o Harriet Brown, "Speaking Midwestern" and "Where We Went" - July 10, 2004
o Robin Chapman, "By the Wisconsin River" - June 12, 2004
o Susan Firer, "The Butterfly Graveyard" - May 22, 2004
o Fred First, "In Living Memory" - April 3, 2004
o R. Chris Halla, "My Prairie Wedding" - June 5, 2004
o Karla Huston, "Night Swim" and "Summer Storm" - July 31, 2004
o Loren Kleinman, "Formaggio" and "Jetsam" - July 24, 2004
o Colleen Redman, "Tincture Making" - May 15, 2004
o Jim Reese, "Ritual" and "Willing and Ready" - May 29, 2004
o Robert Schuler, "Thaw, 2003, Stanton Township" and "The American Millenium" - June 26, 2004
o Judith Strasser, "Apostle Islands History" and "County Road" - July 17, 2004
o Marilyn Taylor, "Surveying the Damage" - June 19, 2004
o Mark Vinz, "The Old Hometown" and "Midcontinent" - April 17, 2004
o Complete index to poems here
>
