Friends, I’m hopeful that we will survive the culture wars sabotaging this great country of ours. Despite the Republicans and Democrats, and their brethren the media circus, all hell-bent on driving our collective blood pressure into the stratosphere, I believe there’s a solution out of this mess. We already know what it is. And it won’t cost us a penny.
But we’re going to have to be very brave.
Let me tell you a story.
It was a hot summer afternoon in Manhattan, Kansas, back in 2021. The kind of day where birds sweat in the shade. A slight southwest breeze tickled the Cottonwood leaves who were too drowsy to rustle back. The mercury registered two digits, three with the heat index. In other words, a perfect day to be out on the lake.
Daniel and I rented kayaks at Milford Lake near Acorn’s Resort, a family-run campground with a cafe. Over burgers, several folks told us that Nudie Beach was a worthwhile destination.
About a half-hour later, we paddled up to a sand-spit. The fine white sand sparkled and stretched, and we quickly hauled the kayaks onto the shore, securing them to some rocks under a few Cottonwoods. When we crested the dunes, we saw about 50 or 60 yacht-like vessels anchored in the gentle curve of Nudie Beach. A moment later, we heard sounds. Laughter, shrieks, but mostly music pumping from each boat–some country, more heavy metal, mostly hip hop. Children careened down slides, splashing their siblings. Circles of adults bobbed further in the deep, about five to 8 per pack, sporting baseball hats and tattoos, all drinking beers.
“Want to check out the party?” Daniel asked.
“Oh yeah!” I grinned.
We waded into Nudie’s waters between the Doctor’s Orders (hip hop) and the Predator II (country). Soon, I realized that Two People were Not Like The Others. Was it my Jackie-O sunglasses and straw beach hat? Daniel’s tattoo-free shoulders?
We reached the last of the engine-powered motorboats (the Siren, heavy metal), figuring out what to do. We didn’t really want to head back to our wimpy kayaks just yet. Not with the kids’ cannonball jumping contest off the back of the Siren, or the adults’ beach ball game near the Bumbled Bee.
Our gaze must have drawn attention because someone hollered, “You checking out the scenery?”
Was our gawking that obvious? “Uh, yeah….”
“Y’all from around here?”
“Manhattan.”
“Ya sure don’t sound like it. Come on over!”
A group of about 5 adults waved to us. Big smiles all around, everyone properly social distanced a good 6 feet apart. The water felt refreshing.
Apparently our accents betrayed that our places of birth were not Manhattan, Kansas. The woman with the KC Chiefs baseball cap looked straight at my husband and wanted to know where we were really from. Daniel answered Berlin, Germany, which led the men to get excited. Someone’s great-grandparents were from Germany–didn’t remember where, but they spoke German growing up. Another man with a US Army cap said he’d been stationed in Kaiserslautern–loved it over there–the food, the people, great place. A fellow with a sleeve tattoo asked if this was our first time at Nudie Beach. I said that it was, and what’s the story with the name? Everyone laughed. He reassured me that I wouldn’t see any birthday suits. But lots of boats. His was the Bumbled Bee.
Everything was going a-okay, when suddenly the sky was darkened by a large, tall motorcycle-cop-looking dude. The Big Guy stood at least 6 feet 5 inches tall, with an American flag tattoo on one shoulder and an eagle on the other. Sunlight bounced off his mirrored aviator sunglasses, and his auburn mustache commanded the space between his chiseled jaw and burly nose. He crunched his beer can with his paw.
“Are y’all Biden folk?” the Big Guy asked.
A hush fell over the circle. His buddies stopped talking. Even the heavy metal guitar seemed to hold its breath.
I looked at Daniel. Worry flickered across those blue eyes.
I turned to the Big Guy, smiled my brightest smile, and said, “why yes. We are Biden folk.”
Silence hung over the lake. I continued, “Are you Trump folk?”
“Yes, ma’am!” erupted all around me. “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Then silence.
“Well,” I beamed my most All-American smile, “now that THAT’s settled…. How about those Chiefs?”
Everyone started laughing. The fella next to Daniel gently punched him in the shoulder. The Big Guy nodded. The woman wearing the Chiefs cap asked, “honey, do y’all want a beer?”
I knew I had to drink the beer with these folks. If American domestic tensions were to be resolved, this was the moment and place to start.
And what a restorative beer it was! Turns out, one fellow’s brother-in-law brewed it himself at the Kansas Territory Brewery in Washington, just outside of Marysville. He pointed to his hat which bore the brewery logo. The brother-in-law had grown up on the family farm, but got into brewing while studying at K-State.
“So wait a sec,” I asked. “Does your brother-in-law grow his own wheat? Hops? How’s that work?”
“No, he gets it from another farm down the road. Not sure about the hops. Maybe Virginia? I think the yeast comes from Iowa. He started out with those guys in Manhattan who opened that place down on Poyntz Avenue, the ones who brewed in that warehouse out by the airport.”
“Ain’t that the place the city shut down?” the man with the sleeve tattoo gulped his beer.
“Pshaw! The city didn’t shut it down,” the Beer Cap man said. “They outgrew the facility! That’s why they moved clear out to Wash County. You know that.”
“Yeah, but the city did something.”
“Uh huh. They let those boys start their career.”
The conversation shifted to John Deere tractors. Specifically, how superbly the air-conditioned cabs operated, but dang if the company didn’t have farmers by the balls, what with a new tractor costing upwards of $200K. I realized that said tractor cost a not much less than my house. We talked about how when the damn machine breaks, you have to BY COMPANY POLICY only contract authorized John Deere technicians who were more like computer scientists these days, and who’s got time to wait a week for someone to come out and fix the wiring? I thought about my engineering students, some of whom worked summer jobs at John Deere. They might be the same technicians.
(Update: as of 2023, farmers and John Deere settled the lawsuit so tractor owners can now repair their own machines)
“How do you know if the crops are doing okay? If the soil’s good?” I sipped the beer.
“Oh you get out of the tractor and you pinch it with your fingers, like this.” The man with the feed cap demonstrated, rubbing imaginary soil with his fingers, not unlike how I pinch cookie dough to check for consistency. “Then feel for water, if the soil is too wet or too dry. If you’ve got to change your irrigation.” I thought of the massive irrigation machines I’d seen along I-70. “And then, you smell it.”
“You smell the earth?”
“Yeah. My Dad taught me how to do that. His Dad taught him. But now the new tractors can register the water content in the soil for you. Means you can drink more beer on a hot day. Hey Kathy, can you toss me another cold one?”
The Big Guy mumbled something about “Stupid environmentalists want everything organic. Bullshit!”
The conversation stopped. The Kansas Territory Beer fellow shifted his weight uncomfortably. Suddenly, everyone developed a fascination with the water.
“Please don’t stop talking on my account,” I said. “Just because we have different political ideas doesn’t mean we can’t get along. In fact, I WANT to hear what you have to say.”
After a long draw of lager, the man with the Army baseball cap asked, “So what do you think of this COVID-19 mask mandate?”
Best public health policy ever, I wanted to say.
“I think it depends on who you are and where are coming from. I mean, if you live in a big city like Berlin or Los Angeles, and you’re surrounded by a lot of people, it makes sense because the virus is air born. Or if you live with someone with special needs, like a kid with asthma or a cancer survivor–yeah, wear the mask.”
The woman with the KC Chiefs nodded, as did the Army cap man. I continued.
“I mean, what if you’re a college student going to classes with 25 or 100 other kids in a room with no windows and not the greatest ventilation? And then you go back to your dorm with hundreds of other students? Then it makes sense. I know I sure don’t want to catch COVID, and I don’t want to pass it on to anyone, so I’m going to wear a mask even if I don’t like it. The doctors and dentists know that masks work, even if they are a pain.”
At this point everyone in the circle nodded, even Big Guy. I took a sip of my beer. “What do you think? What’s it like where you live?”
The tractor man said, “I see your point, but don’t you think it’s a little extreme that schools were shut down for so long? And then little kids had to wear masks when they did get to go back to school? It scared them half to death.”
“It was scary. Our daughter was terrified. She and her best friend only got to see each other for a bike ride, and even then, they were both scared of catching COVID,” Daniel said. “She didn’t to see some of her friends for over a year.”
The Army man nodded. “It was really hard on the kids. Confusing, too. Up where we live, half the school is related to each other. They’re in each others’ houses after school or at church, and nobody’s wearing a mask then.”
“How big is the school?”
“Lemme see….about 1200 people or so live in or around town….I think about 125 kids go to the school.”
“We had125 kids in my graduating high school class,” Daniel said. “Honey, didn’t you teach at a high school of 1200 kids?” I nodded.
I did some quick calculations. I’m from a population area of 12.5 million people. That’s four times as many people as live in the entire state of Kansas. We might as well be talking about different universes.
“The whole on-line thing was a good idea, but it just didn’t work,” the woman with the KC Chiefs cap said. “How do you get little kids to sit in from of a computer, let alone when the internet doesn’t always work?”
I nodded. “Some of my students told me they had to drive to McDonald’s to access reliable Internet so they could Zoom into their on-line K-State classes.”
“They’re lucky they had a McDonald’s. We had to drive to, where was it again? Marysville?”
I hadn’t realized how vastly different our conceptions of reality were. As a city person, I took for granted advantages like hospitals and reliable Internet. Noise and crime were part of the trade off. But listening to these folks talk about life on the farms, I began to understand that rural communities had advantages, too. Like a quarter of the town being extended family, or the quiet open countryside, and a lack of crime. It occurred to me that both city folk and rural folk were correct…and both made assumptions based on ignorance.
“Can’t wait til this COVID mess is all over,” said the man with the Army cap.
“I’ll drink to that!” I lifted my beer.
Having dabbled in politics as much as we comfortably could, the conversation shifted to safe grounds of K-State football. As all were Wildcats, we reflected on how Coach Bill Snyder brought dignity back to the stadium. Was it really so bad if the band played Sand Storm during a K-State/KU game?
I was about halfway through my beer when the KC Chiefs capped woman turned toward the Bumbled Bee and waved her arms. “Peyton! Avery! Come here!” She beamed. “These are my kids. Now, I want you kids to meet these fine folks. When you go to K-State, this gentleman could be your Physics professor. And this lady could be your English teacher. Go on. Say hello now.” Peyton and Avery squirmed under their mother’s firm gaze, but managed to say, “nice to meet you.”
Avery swam back to the Bumbled Bee, but Peyton told us that she wanted to be a veterinarian. Large animals, not small. I wondered the difference, thinking maybe big dogs like Great Danes as opposed to hamsters. Nope. Large Animals include cows, horses, pigs and sheep, plus the occasional bison or alpaca. Peyton told me that some animal always needed medical care on the farms, so she’d have no shortage of jobs after graduation. I later learned that most Large Animal veterinarians hold doctorate degrees.
I drained the rest of the IPA. Someone offered me a second, but I declined. We had to kayak back to Acorn’s. We parted ways, fist-bumping Peyton, her mom, and the fellows on either side. Even Big Guy tapped his ball cap brim. The Kansas Territory Beer man made sure to say how much he appreciated our conversation. I made a mental note to pick up a 6-pack of Life Coach lager.
That’s why I hold hope in my heart. If we can talk–and listen–to each other, with dignity, and courtesy, then this country has a chance. We’ve got to stop assuming that the Midwest is “flyover country” where ignorant bumpkins eat liberals for breakfast. Equally important, we need to quit believing that all Coastals are rich snobs who think their Tesla is smarter than the 4H Valedictorian. I’m preaching, I know, but maybe, just maybe, if we subdued our phones and spent more time splashing around at Nudie Beach, we might simply remember how to get along better. Now that’s a party I’d like to join.