This is a love story.
I grew up in a small Kansas town, Clay Center, the county seat of--you guessed it--Clay County. The town has a spiffy web site now and a pretty bad-ass water park. When I lived there, the internet needed diaper changes and the water park was a Great Depression-era concrete-lined hole in the ground. Just under five thousand residents lived in Clay Center when I was in high school twenty-five years ago... and the population has been shrinking since.
Dirt and gravel roads criss-crossed Clay County, most of them laid out grid-like in sections. Drive a mile, and you would find a perpendicular section road. Order lived there, neat and tidy, except for the river. The Republican River snaked from the west to south-southeast of town and disturbed the grid. Driving close to the river, I found abrupt ends to gravel paths and dusty drops of twenty or thirty feet to the slowly rolling water below.
My heart fed on those roads and the mystery of overhanging trees and quiet fields. I would drive and drive and drive during lazy afternoons. Gas cost less then, less than a dollar a gallon, and my car was a sanctuary. There were secret places and shadowed hollows of public hunting land near river-bottom fields. Dead ends hid in the county's hills--like a cemetery I once found while driving Mom's four-speed Ford Ranger. The poor machine strained in reverse as I straddled ditches on either side for a quarter mile as we backed away from the locked gates.
Sometimes on lazy afternoons, I would drive away from my small town on a county highway and choose a gravel road to explore. I'd park on the roadside, half in/half out of the ditch, leave my car behind, pick a hill, and climb. I'd be lost to everyone for an hour or two. Alone. Invisible. Gone.
I couldn't live in Clay Center now. I've grown, and the seventeen-year-old me is long gone. He left a legacy in my veins, though. It's why I don't mind my brief commute through the rolling countryside into Jefferson County. It's why I value slow Saturdays and walks on wooded hillside trails on the edge of Lawrence. Northeast Kansas is a cousin to the home I knew, close but not the same.
My heart wants these things--hills to climb and grass and trees and time to just be. I ache for a time when I could disappear for a few hours, lost to everyone and everything.There's no magic in my Kansas memories... just gravel and dirt and plowed-under fields and the muddy swell of a river.
No magic, but plenty of love.
Hills to climb.
Roads to explore.
A love story.
Showing posts with label Kansas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kansas. Show all posts
Monday, February 20, 2017
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Fly-Over Country
Several years ago, I wrote a story titled "The Way of Things in Fly-Over Country." It was a zombie story without being about zombies... and zombie stories are very hard to sell.
I eventually did sell the story to an anthology, and I'm sure a few people may have read it. It even matriculated to James Roy Daley's Best New Zombie Tales volume 3 despite not really being about zombies. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, one in which teenage boys sneak out of an fortified encampment to challenge their manhood on the "outside." No spoilers here, but if you ask, I'll send you a PDF copy (just drop a message to aaron.polson(at)gmail.com).
I've spent my whole life in fly-over country--Kansas--and I've voted in six presidential elections here since my first in 1996. (I was a senior in high school when Bill Clinton was elected, but couldn't vote in the '92 election as I was seventeen at the time... a world away). The state in which I was born, the state I love despite her faults, always goes red. Kansas and her six electoral votes always go to the Republican candidate, regardless of the fact that I have never voted Republican. Does my vote count?
It doesn't always feel like it, just as I'm sure a Republican voting for president in California may feel the same. Just over 400,000 voters or 36% of votes cast in Kansas went to Hilary Clinton. When I look at the electoral map of the United States, the largest swaths are red in every election, despite any percentage won by the other side.
Fly over country. There aren't enough of us here to matter. The electoral system makes us a lock for a Republican candidate even if he has never seen the Republican River. (Which, by the way, ran just south of my hometown of Clay Center. I've written stories about that river.) I'm not sure even one Republican--or Democrat, for that matter--nominee in my lifetime could find the Republican River on a map.
I love my state. I love the sound of a field of wheat in a spring wind. I can still hear the sound of grain elevators running all night during harvest season. I love the dust-tinted sunsets in orange and pink. I cherish the quiet afternoons I spent with fishing rod at that river or some farmer's pond. My formative years unfolded on dirt roads and with shotguns and too many fireworks. We used to shoot cheap shaving cream cans just to watch the spray and white foaming explosion. I am Kansas through and through, regardless of my vote.
I live in fly-over country. You look at an electoral map and hear newscasters say words like "uneducated." I see people I worked with at the grocery store in high school. I see my uncles farming in Nemaha County. I see the faces of the students who I help enroll in technical college to learn a trade and find a good job. I see my co-workers and the parents of those students. I see humans, my brothers and sisters.
I may not agree with their politics, but I stand with them as a Kansan. I stand with all of us in fly-over country. National politics have disaffected so many of these Kansans. The politics of our state have hurt many of them. They are ordinary people. They love their children. They work hard. They care deeply. And, right or wrong, they believe.
Our country is littered with hate right now. I don't feel comfortable with the president-elect, but that is the subject for another day. My feelings will not change those of his supporters, either. Here in fly-over country, we have opinions, too. All of us. And we don't always agree.
Even so, our strength is together, not apart. Our division is killing us. Failing to see each and every human in this great nation as just that--a fellow human--is killing us.
I'm done blaming. It's time for work. I want to use my voice in this red wilderness, a barbaric howl from fly-over country, until we can look each other in the eye and realize we are, all of us, family.
I eventually did sell the story to an anthology, and I'm sure a few people may have read it. It even matriculated to James Roy Daley's Best New Zombie Tales volume 3 despite not really being about zombies. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, one in which teenage boys sneak out of an fortified encampment to challenge their manhood on the "outside." No spoilers here, but if you ask, I'll send you a PDF copy (just drop a message to aaron.polson(at)gmail.com).
I've spent my whole life in fly-over country--Kansas--and I've voted in six presidential elections here since my first in 1996. (I was a senior in high school when Bill Clinton was elected, but couldn't vote in the '92 election as I was seventeen at the time... a world away). The state in which I was born, the state I love despite her faults, always goes red. Kansas and her six electoral votes always go to the Republican candidate, regardless of the fact that I have never voted Republican. Does my vote count?
It doesn't always feel like it, just as I'm sure a Republican voting for president in California may feel the same. Just over 400,000 voters or 36% of votes cast in Kansas went to Hilary Clinton. When I look at the electoral map of the United States, the largest swaths are red in every election, despite any percentage won by the other side.
Fly over country. There aren't enough of us here to matter. The electoral system makes us a lock for a Republican candidate even if he has never seen the Republican River. (Which, by the way, ran just south of my hometown of Clay Center. I've written stories about that river.) I'm not sure even one Republican--or Democrat, for that matter--nominee in my lifetime could find the Republican River on a map.
I love my state. I love the sound of a field of wheat in a spring wind. I can still hear the sound of grain elevators running all night during harvest season. I love the dust-tinted sunsets in orange and pink. I cherish the quiet afternoons I spent with fishing rod at that river or some farmer's pond. My formative years unfolded on dirt roads and with shotguns and too many fireworks. We used to shoot cheap shaving cream cans just to watch the spray and white foaming explosion. I am Kansas through and through, regardless of my vote.
I live in fly-over country. You look at an electoral map and hear newscasters say words like "uneducated." I see people I worked with at the grocery store in high school. I see my uncles farming in Nemaha County. I see the faces of the students who I help enroll in technical college to learn a trade and find a good job. I see my co-workers and the parents of those students. I see humans, my brothers and sisters.
I may not agree with their politics, but I stand with them as a Kansan. I stand with all of us in fly-over country. National politics have disaffected so many of these Kansans. The politics of our state have hurt many of them. They are ordinary people. They love their children. They work hard. They care deeply. And, right or wrong, they believe.
Our country is littered with hate right now. I don't feel comfortable with the president-elect, but that is the subject for another day. My feelings will not change those of his supporters, either. Here in fly-over country, we have opinions, too. All of us. And we don't always agree.
Even so, our strength is together, not apart. Our division is killing us. Failing to see each and every human in this great nation as just that--a fellow human--is killing us.
I'm done blaming. It's time for work. I want to use my voice in this red wilderness, a barbaric howl from fly-over country, until we can look each other in the eye and realize we are, all of us, family.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
When You Attack My Family
Tears came as I drove my four-year-old son home from preschool yesterday. I had been doing a good deal of processing since the heinous attack on an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning. Many voices have risen, and mine is perhaps the least important among the crowd. After hearing commentary from the Justin Torres of the Washington Post yesterday on All Things Considered as we drove home, the dam broke.
Mr. Torres uses the word "sacredness" to describe the club in his Post essay (In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club). On NPR he says "people talk about the gay bar like it is church."
Look, I'm a white, middle-aged straight man from Kansas. On the surface, I'm as far from Latin Night at Pulse as anyone in this country. But I've been there--different city, different club--and I've seen that sacredness first-hand on the face of some of my closest friends.
No, not friends. Family.
When you realize this attack was on us, our family, it changes everything. Those weren't "just" gays, or Latinos, or whatever-box-you-might-try-to-put-them-in-to-make-you-feel-safe. They were us. Our brothers and sisters and family.
My heart breaks when I hear of this tragic event bastardized into Islamophobia or a rallying cry for the gun-crazed Right and their "out of my cold, dead hands" mentality. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are family, too, and they've suffered at the hands of men who look a lot like me. I grew up in a small town in which everyone owned guns, hunting was a way of life, and shooting cans of Barbasol to watch them explode in a cloud of foam was just "something to do" on lazy Saturday afternoons. The sacredness of church, mosque, synagogue, or gay club does not stop at the second amendment.
I shed tears on the drive home yesterday for all of us--gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, Latino, black, white, whatever-you-are. I shed tears for the sanctity of life and how awfully easy it is to have that life stolen. I shed tears for all of us, our American family, and how God-awfully dysfunctional we can be.
I'll pick up my son again this afternoon. There will be more NPR coverage of Orlando. He will one day grow old enough to talk about such tragedies. I hope and pray I can help him understand what the word sacred means in exactly the context Mr. Torres used it. I hope and pray he will know the meaning of family, too.
***
Listen to "'These Are My People': Writer Reflects on Orlando Attack in 'Washington Post'"
Read "In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
On Being from Kansas
Here come the Wizard of Oz jokes...
And that's the first thing you need to know about being a Kansan. You and your home state are often the butt of jokes--stale, tired jokes which are told with impunity.
"Where's Toto?"
"Where's Auntie Em?"
"Where's [insert any Oz character name here]?
When I worked at a grocery store in high school, one "import" family would shop wearing matching "We're not in Kansas anymore" t-shirts. True story. They'd come in on a weeknight around 9 PM, an hour before close, and wander the aisles in those shirts.
It goes beyond Oz. I've known folks from more populous states/the coasts who really, truly seem to believe we still use Conestoga wagons for transport. Ha ha. Our state is flat as a pancake... a few years ago, one mathematician "proved" Kansas, relatively, was flatter than a pancake. And it's not as if our state government helps us much. We've suffered embarrassing State Board of Education fights over evolution and passed legislation requiring voter ID, because, as you know, massive amounts of illegal immigrants flock to Kansas so they can vote illegally. I hear they're bused in, in fact. "It's all those damn Democrats' doin'!" wails the old man with belly-length beard next to the spittoon.
I say "we," but I never voted for such a thing. Maybe our collective unconscious remembers a time when "illegal" voters did arrive in our fair state (before it was a state). But that, dear friends, was before the American Civil War... back when Kansas meant something progressive and on the edge. Bleeding Kansas. In the years leading to the most deadly conflict in United States history, the first shots were fired here. Legendary terrorists like John Brown murdered in the name of abolition and William Quantrill burned my adopted city, Lawrence, to the ground.
Our state motto, Ad Astra Per Aspera, reflects on the struggle to join the Union.
To the Stars Through Difficulty.
That's good stuff. That's why I'm proud to be a Kansan despite the jokes and hayseed assumptions. I'm proud to be a Kansan despite our own failings and weaknesses. This is a place where people understand suffering and sacrifice. This is a place of good, hearty people who tell the truth. Honesty is valued here and hard work, too.
Maybe it's because of our position as butt of so many national jokes that Kansans have become so patient. There's intolerance here--unfortunately more than I want to believe at times--but when you meet a Kansan one-on-one, the facades of bigotry often melt away. Not always, but often enough to know something good lies within. We know we have warts. We know we have scars. But, from my experience, we own them. Maybe not every individual... but a collective "we." One cannot have suffered repeated offenses without developing a degree of humility.
A Kansan knows it isn't very humble to speak of one's humility. We know we are broken as much as anyone else, but we are also aware of our humanity. We want good, honest stories more than we need grand lectures from any pulpit--even a secular one.
I work as a guidance counselor in a small, Northeast Kansas high school. Every year, we receive at least one new student from some other portion of the country--California, Florida, Michigan in the last few years--and are charged with the care of this adolescent. We joke that we're supposed to "save" them because we are used to being the brunt of jokes."Send the boy to Kansas. They'll learn him right. And if not... there's nothing to do out there, anyway."
We take this "orphan" in an make him our own. We care for her and teach her how to be good to other people and that she matters. We build relationships. We listen. We try again when we fail because we know--thanks to lessons from our rough climate won by generations of farmers and ranchers--failure is coming.
But so is triumph, little victories of the most mundane, everyday variety.
Go on. Make fun of us. Ask about Toto (the dog not the band). Try and win us with golden tongues and well-formed words. Just be honest. Genuine. Flawed and human. If you are, you just might belong here:
And that's the first thing you need to know about being a Kansan. You and your home state are often the butt of jokes--stale, tired jokes which are told with impunity.
"Where's Toto?"
"Where's Auntie Em?"
"Where's [insert any Oz character name here]?
When I worked at a grocery store in high school, one "import" family would shop wearing matching "We're not in Kansas anymore" t-shirts. True story. They'd come in on a weeknight around 9 PM, an hour before close, and wander the aisles in those shirts.
(sic 'em, Toto)
It goes beyond Oz. I've known folks from more populous states/the coasts who really, truly seem to believe we still use Conestoga wagons for transport. Ha ha. Our state is flat as a pancake... a few years ago, one mathematician "proved" Kansas, relatively, was flatter than a pancake. And it's not as if our state government helps us much. We've suffered embarrassing State Board of Education fights over evolution and passed legislation requiring voter ID, because, as you know, massive amounts of illegal immigrants flock to Kansas so they can vote illegally. I hear they're bused in, in fact. "It's all those damn Democrats' doin'!" wails the old man with belly-length beard next to the spittoon.
I say "we," but I never voted for such a thing. Maybe our collective unconscious remembers a time when "illegal" voters did arrive in our fair state (before it was a state). But that, dear friends, was before the American Civil War... back when Kansas meant something progressive and on the edge. Bleeding Kansas. In the years leading to the most deadly conflict in United States history, the first shots were fired here. Legendary terrorists like John Brown murdered in the name of abolition and William Quantrill burned my adopted city, Lawrence, to the ground.
(A Painting Depicting Quantrill's raid from the LJ World)
Our state motto, Ad Astra Per Aspera, reflects on the struggle to join the Union.
To the Stars Through Difficulty.
That's good stuff. That's why I'm proud to be a Kansan despite the jokes and hayseed assumptions. I'm proud to be a Kansan despite our own failings and weaknesses. This is a place where people understand suffering and sacrifice. This is a place of good, hearty people who tell the truth. Honesty is valued here and hard work, too.
Maybe it's because of our position as butt of so many national jokes that Kansans have become so patient. There's intolerance here--unfortunately more than I want to believe at times--but when you meet a Kansan one-on-one, the facades of bigotry often melt away. Not always, but often enough to know something good lies within. We know we have warts. We know we have scars. But, from my experience, we own them. Maybe not every individual... but a collective "we." One cannot have suffered repeated offenses without developing a degree of humility.
A Kansan knows it isn't very humble to speak of one's humility. We know we are broken as much as anyone else, but we are also aware of our humanity. We want good, honest stories more than we need grand lectures from any pulpit--even a secular one.
I work as a guidance counselor in a small, Northeast Kansas high school. Every year, we receive at least one new student from some other portion of the country--California, Florida, Michigan in the last few years--and are charged with the care of this adolescent. We joke that we're supposed to "save" them because we are used to being the brunt of jokes."Send the boy to Kansas. They'll learn him right. And if not... there's nothing to do out there, anyway."
We take this "orphan" in an make him our own. We care for her and teach her how to be good to other people and that she matters. We build relationships. We listen. We try again when we fail because we know--thanks to lessons from our rough climate won by generations of farmers and ranchers--failure is coming.
But so is triumph, little victories of the most mundane, everyday variety.
Go on. Make fun of us. Ask about Toto (the dog not the band). Try and win us with golden tongues and well-formed words. Just be honest. Genuine. Flawed and human. If you are, you just might belong here:
The Flint Hills of Kansas seen from the air (Jim Richardson, National Geographic)
(Flat as a what?)
Friday, February 14, 2014
Love Wins
Sometimes, a guy needs to stand up and be counted.
I love my state; I do not love nor do I agree with the bigots in charge.
I fully support the right of anyone to marry and enjoy the same legal protection afforded anyone else. More than that, I believe love is love and gay men and women deserve the same shot at the uphill battle of lifelong commitment and fidelity as any straight man or woman.
You may not agree with me, but your view on gay marriage does not matter to me.
You may not agree and say your faith informs you. Okay. Fine. As long as you're using Biblical support, have fun with your multiple wives, slaves, and stop eating ham, okay? And really, stay away from cotton and wool together (yes, that's banned, too). Thanks, Leviticus. You're full of fun. And there's that part about women being silent. (Timothy 2:11) And the stuff about wounded penises and testicles. (Yes, that's in there, too--Deuteronomy 23:1--but it evidently doesn't have anything to do with a botched circumcision... or does it?) But I'm not the guy who's going to use all this Biblical mumbo-jumbo to pretend I'm going to sway your opinion about gay marriage or civil rights in general. You've already made up your mind. This is not a debate.
Let me repeat: your view on gay marriage does not matter to me. And I don't suspect that my view matters much to you.
What does matter is right and wrong--civil rights and civil wrongs.
My state, Kansas, just did a big whopping wrong. Let me revise: the leaders of my state (at least the House of Representatives) did a big whopping wrong in passing House Bill 2453 (which explicitly protects religious individuals, groups and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples, particularly those looking to tie the knot.) For more, CNN has a pretty good break-down of the law. Those crying "liberal media" can check out this Fox affiliate's take and realize it's the same press release from CNN. Keep crying.
And our Governor, Mr. Hypocrite himself, told the Topeka Capital-Journal, "Americans have constitutional rights, among them the right to exercise their religious beliefs and the right for every human life to be treated with respect and dignity."
Every human life? How about gays. They're human. Hell, any gay individual I know is pretty much more human than the legislators who voted "yes" to this piece of garbage.
I'm proud to be a member of an open and affirming congregation in Lawrence, KS. (Love you, Plymouth Congregational Church.) I'm proud to know plenty of wonderful Kansans who think our legislators are morons.
I'm proud to call several gay men some of my closest friends--not because they happen to be gay, but because they are some of the most amazing people I know. Folks who have been there for me in tough times and good times. Family.
Don't mess with family.
It doesn't take much to imagine a world in which I couldn't marry someone I loved. Kim and I are in our second marriage--and our union would not have found favor with Biblical law at one point in history. Hell, we'd probably be stoned to death or something asinine like that. It sounds ridiculous now, but the slope is steep and quite slippery when a modern political entity in a democratic nation can start to write bills promising discrimination and promoting bigotry.
I've tried to keep this as positive as I can. It is Valentine's Day and love wins. Love always wins in the end. Your view on gay marriage does not matter to me, but in promoting a law like House Bill 2453, Kansas made this a civil rights issue. Kansas is poised to make history--on the wrong side of history.
I love my state; I do not love nor do I agree with the bigots in charge.
I fully support the right of anyone to marry and enjoy the same legal protection afforded anyone else. More than that, I believe love is love and gay men and women deserve the same shot at the uphill battle of lifelong commitment and fidelity as any straight man or woman.
You may not agree with me, but your view on gay marriage does not matter to me.
You may not agree and say your faith informs you. Okay. Fine. As long as you're using Biblical support, have fun with your multiple wives, slaves, and stop eating ham, okay? And really, stay away from cotton and wool together (yes, that's banned, too). Thanks, Leviticus. You're full of fun. And there's that part about women being silent. (Timothy 2:11) And the stuff about wounded penises and testicles. (Yes, that's in there, too--Deuteronomy 23:1--but it evidently doesn't have anything to do with a botched circumcision... or does it?) But I'm not the guy who's going to use all this Biblical mumbo-jumbo to pretend I'm going to sway your opinion about gay marriage or civil rights in general. You've already made up your mind. This is not a debate.
Let me repeat: your view on gay marriage does not matter to me. And I don't suspect that my view matters much to you.
What does matter is right and wrong--civil rights and civil wrongs.
My state, Kansas, just did a big whopping wrong. Let me revise: the leaders of my state (at least the House of Representatives) did a big whopping wrong in passing House Bill 2453 (which explicitly protects religious individuals, groups and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples, particularly those looking to tie the knot.) For more, CNN has a pretty good break-down of the law. Those crying "liberal media" can check out this Fox affiliate's take and realize it's the same press release from CNN. Keep crying.
And our Governor, Mr. Hypocrite himself, told the Topeka Capital-Journal, "Americans have constitutional rights, among them the right to exercise their religious beliefs and the right for every human life to be treated with respect and dignity."
Every human life? How about gays. They're human. Hell, any gay individual I know is pretty much more human than the legislators who voted "yes" to this piece of garbage.
I'm proud to be a member of an open and affirming congregation in Lawrence, KS. (Love you, Plymouth Congregational Church.) I'm proud to know plenty of wonderful Kansans who think our legislators are morons.
I'm proud to call several gay men some of my closest friends--not because they happen to be gay, but because they are some of the most amazing people I know. Folks who have been there for me in tough times and good times. Family.
Don't mess with family.
It doesn't take much to imagine a world in which I couldn't marry someone I loved. Kim and I are in our second marriage--and our union would not have found favor with Biblical law at one point in history. Hell, we'd probably be stoned to death or something asinine like that. It sounds ridiculous now, but the slope is steep and quite slippery when a modern political entity in a democratic nation can start to write bills promising discrimination and promoting bigotry.
I've tried to keep this as positive as I can. It is Valentine's Day and love wins. Love always wins in the end. Your view on gay marriage does not matter to me, but in promoting a law like House Bill 2453, Kansas made this a civil rights issue. Kansas is poised to make history--on the wrong side of history.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Walking On
Okay, I know sports metaphors are overdone...and I don't usually use them. I have a (sort of) personal connection to this one.
The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl. Yeah, yeah huzzah for them and all that. The story I want to tell is about one of their receivers, Jordy Nelson, a kid (and yes, even though he now holds the Green Bay postseason record for yards in a postseason game, I can still call a guy ten years younger than me "kid") who grew up about fifteen miles from my hometown.
Long before Nelson grabbed nine passes and scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl, before the Packers chose him in the second round of the draft, before he set Kansas State records as a senior, he was a walk-on for that Wildcat team as a freshman. And before that, he was "just" a Kansas farm kid.
He saw something he wanted and went for it.
Now he's a world champion.
Does everyone achieve what they "go for"? No. Of course not.
But the only way to guarantee failure is by not trying at all.
I don't even need to explain the correlation with writing, do I?
)
The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl. Yeah, yeah huzzah for them and all that. The story I want to tell is about one of their receivers, Jordy Nelson, a kid (and yes, even though he now holds the Green Bay postseason record for yards in a postseason game, I can still call a guy ten years younger than me "kid") who grew up about fifteen miles from my hometown.
Long before Nelson grabbed nine passes and scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl, before the Packers chose him in the second round of the draft, before he set Kansas State records as a senior, he was a walk-on for that Wildcat team as a freshman. And before that, he was "just" a Kansas farm kid.
He saw something he wanted and went for it.
Now he's a world champion.
Does everyone achieve what they "go for"? No. Of course not.
But the only way to guarantee failure is by not trying at all.
I don't even need to explain the correlation with writing, do I?
)
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