Crossroads: Listening to America
By John Van Dyke
I don’t know if what I am writing here will change anybody, but traveling the country and talking to people sure changed me and had an impact on how I see my country. I have a connection like never before and realize how little I knew about a lot of things that matter.
“There are sort of two narratives right now: There’s ‘It all has to be about data,’ and then there’s ‘Let’s return to talking to people as humans, and make people feel something.”
Kansas was like a magnet pulling at me. Every time I thought about my first road trip, middle America and those places we call the heartland and flyover country, Kansas was calling me. I had this picture in my head of that famous painting “American Gothic” by Grant Wood and Dorothy talking to her dog Toto. And then there were all the states with sports teams with names that I could remember. Corn Huskers, Buckeyes. Funny how we associate a place with something convenient, and don’t bother to know anything else.
Why is it that outsized politicians come from sparsely populated places. There might be something to that, but someone else will have to answer that.
Manhattan Kansas is a college town. Kansas State University is there. There are two main streets, configured almost like a T and the campus is located on one end of the T. A comfortable convenient modern hotel houses visitors and I was fortunate not to be there during one of the many school occasions when it would be impossible to find a room. All college towns are the same in that regard. I soon found the local hangout. A coffee place, but also served beer, and food, a place with a lot of tables inside and out. Students, faculty, and locals spent a lot of time there. It was my early morning coffee place and I got to know Keith the young manager. He liked what I was doing and agreed to a conversation later in the day when he could take a break, but told me to talk with Jon who was sitting at a table having a coffee and a pastry, said he was a really nice guy. I introduced myself and sat down with him. Jon was, I would guess, in his late 40’s or early 50’s with long wavy blond hair down to his shoulders. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and had a ruddy boyish complexion. I noticed the yellow wrist band he was wearing. When he said he was a house painter, I thought for a moment about the hazards of being a painter, years of toxic fumes and sometimes too much alcohol. He had a painters complexion. What a nice thoughtful guy and willing to reveal a lot about himself. I had thought about the kinds of people I wanted to talk to, and he certainly fit. He told me about growing up and the pranks he played as a kid, he was grinning as he was talking, he still is that kid, just older.
“It’s scary, right now” so many things are changing and it is hard to keep up. “I can tread water, but I can’t swim.” Jon is one of those struggling with technology and the world changing around him. He has a daughter that he leans on for advice about technology, but he dispenses wisdom and experience with her and she encourages him to accept the changes. He is proud of his daughter and her college education. I was moved by his honesty and vulnerability as we talked and if I were to guess, he is a liberal in his thinking and conservative in his values. That is a conundrum I would run across often. He said he takes life a day at a time, “You get up in the morning and you have choices, for yourself and for others.” He is, a nice guy, I liked him.
Sunsets and nice people.
I was starting to get a feel for this part of the country, which I knew nothing about. It is when I started to understand how our places shape us.
If you saw Keith, you would guess he worked in tech, an IT UI UX or programmer kind of guy. Close trimmed beard, hair cut close on the sides with a little pomp on top. He is in his late twenties, has a little sparkle in his eyes, and said he already was feeling old. He told me about going to a youth conference that was tech related and realized how much had changed in just three years when confronted with kids in their late teens. We talked about the culture wars that were starting and some of the media today. He said in Kansas you are insulated from the politics of both our coasts.”We’re in the middle, and by the time it gets to us it’s been filtered.” It is hard to get diverse news stories from major media, “You really have to work to stay informed on all sides of a subject.” He goes to Chicago for Cubs games, other than that he is siloed where he is at. We talked about people stuck in the past, and wanting to go back. “You can’t drive a car forward looking in the rear view mirror” was his response. He sees value in dialogue, and told me he appreciated our conversation, getting to know each other, an example of expanding awareness and thinking. Then added, in Kansas, we are known for nice sunsets and nice people.
One of those nice people I met was Victoria. She worked as Keith’s assistant manager.
“Adulthood is an attempt to become the antithesis of the wounded child within us.”– Stewart Stafford
Victoria is in her early twenties. Graduated from college with a degree in education and is uncertain what she wants to do at the moment, but helping people somehow is in her future. One thing for sure, she said, I will not live the life I had as a child growing up, raised by a single father who was ill most of his life and struggled to pay medical and family bills. She has been in the process of changing her life. Yet her experiences have left her with compassion and empathy for others struggles. She is an advocate for social programs that provide medical assistance and food assistance to those in need. I asked her about life in Kansas. She definitely thinks politics has turned to a bad place, and talked about the difficulty for some to vote. “Jim Crow laws are not gone” she said, in a primary election people could not vote that did not have a drivers license. “People who can’t afford to have a car, they don’t have drivers licenses.” As we talked she revealed that religion played an important role in her life, and I realized that was how she connected with Keith and the job at the coffee shop. They go to the same church and I suspected Jon was also part of that church community.
I would learn as I traveled around the country, that church is important to a lot of Americans. We tend to hear only about the Political minded, media obsessed Evangelical leaders that promote divisiveness, and forget all the many others who promote inclusiveness. I had a great conversation in Oxford Mississippi on this subject.
Walking on a college campus has always been special to me. Maybe it is the community it represents. A place of learning inhabited with the curious, the passionate, the achievers, grand structures, fountains, humanity, and wisdom.
I was walking on the campus at Kansas State University, looking around and shooting with my video camera. I take my video camera everywhere. It is rigged with a handle so I can hold it at arms length and it hits me about mid thigh which is in my mind the perfect height for shooting. It also is a little stealth because people see the camera but don’t realize I am shooting. So I capture places and people going about their normal lives without reactions. Yet the camera gives me credibility to start a conversation with people I meet. That was the case when I met Erin who was sitting in the shade of one of the many trees lining campus walkways, she was straddling a bench, reading a book. I walked over and starting talking about the school, asked what year she was, and her major. I explained what I was doing, going around the country having conversations, discovering who we are. She got it, and agreed to a short conversation before her next class. I always start the conversation asking about home, community, family, things we all care about. It’s how you know someone. Erin comes from a small town in Kansas with a population of 4,000 people, agriculture, corn, and services pretty much drive the economy. Her father is a dentist, and Erin is going to continue the family work, she is studying to be a dentist. We talked about generations, and concerns for the future, the things going on politically, and also the environment. She is concerned and aware for her age, and thinks we are going to need to fix some things sooner than later. “My generation cares, my parents just don’t worry because they won’t live long enough to experience the problems.” Adding, that a lot of older generation there, share that view. She acknowledged it is a problem. I asked her if young people in school cared about voting, and her thoughts on low voter turnout in the 2016 election and the problems of voter apathy. She said a lot do not think their vote would count and talked about a class they had on the Electoral College. “That is it was maybe a good idea when it started, but today it is corrupted and does not fairly represent the country and the people.”
I was surprised, I did not expect this to be a topic in Kansas. It would not be the first time I would be surprised as I was peeling back the layers of my own biases and perceptions.
