My, American Story
by John Van Dyke
You think you know everything.
Then one day you wake up and realize that you don’t.
Does it matter?
Living the dream, I am sitting on my lounge size custom sofa in my open air living space overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a deserted stretch of beach just catching first morning light and the water glowing with a pink hue, I had a sinking feeling that something was not right.
I am in Mexico in a very architectural house I designed and built, forty miles from anything that resembles a town. Some called it a magical place. But on this day it no longer seemed important. It was visceral, like a gut punch. I am not a religious person, but this felt like a calling. I had an urgent need to find out who the American people are. It is January 2017.
There is a lot to fill in here, but I am skipping it for now. Why, do I think I need to do this, and my background. The wild ideas about recreating a classic American road trip, with camera crew, and other wildly expensive notions. Selling the dream house. People asking why, and many thinking I am crazy. Filtering all this down to something doable and that I can handle on my own. In the end it is a solo, self funded odyssey I am about to set out on.
So it is now three months later, I have acquired a small very capable video outfit, and a cool little backpack to hold everything, a couple of accessories, and I am ready to record conversations. It is time to test the waters and start talking to Americans. I have made a list of some things to talk about and the American Dream keeps coming to the top of my list. For some reason it seemed to me, that maybe the American Dream really doesn’t exist, or is broken for a lot of people. My curious instincts are kicking in, and I realize that I am going to do something that I have never done before. This is going to be talking to complete strangers, people I just meet, and getting them to talk to me about stuff, their lives, on camera. Will they?
Where to start? I need to test out the camera set up, and practice my interview skills, actually it is not interviewing, just start them talking. I pick a couple of subjects in my neighborhood, Bainbridge Island, Washington, less chance of rejection, easy access and no travel expense.
My first conversation is with Doug, a bear of a man, a retired fisherman, and a neighbor. We go down to his boat, a good place and setting. He was wearing a faded Obama T-shirt under his plaid shirt. I know Doug, but not really, his house sits back in the woods on two acres and our conversations have always been cursory neighbor stuff. He talked about growing up as a kid in Grays Harbor, Washington, and his dreams of following his father as a fisherman and as a young boy reading magazines about the sea. We talked about real connections, technology, and how we have lost something important. He has a way of connecting the past with the present. He likes to tell stories. I was an eager listener and learned a lot, as I would continue to, from all the conversations over the next three years. I was eager to get home and offload the video and see how it looked and what was said. Very excited, my first conversation in the can.
A couple additional local conversations and I am super excited and encouraged, people really wanted to talk, or maybe I am just a good listener. With my new confidence, it is time to set out to discover my country. I picked the Midwest as the start. Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri seemed so foreign to me, a guy born and raised in Seattle. I had traveled in the world extensively, but knew nothing about a large part of the U.S. Something I would later realize, that we really know little about each other by regions. And, how much our thinking is shaped by the ground under our feet. This was a fourteen day trip starting in Wichita Kansas. An easy fly in, and then rent a car, ultimately returning to Wichita and flying out. I got ten recorded conversations, wow, a pulitzer winning editor of a small town Iowa newspaper, a long haul truck driver in Missouri, a coffee shop manager in Kansas, a house painter, a college student, a retired teacher, a fine artist, a food server, a young Amish store owner, a graduate seeking employment, a diverse group that all had a story to tell. It was truly becoming An American Mosaic, the name I came up with for the project. I was beginning to understand something about my country.
I went on to collect over 100 conversations. In the South, in New England, in the Rust Belt, in the Dakotas, the South West, Texas, Appalachia, all driving the back roads, staying off the Interstates unless it was necessary. Each conversation seemed personal, the first few minutes always talking about background and why or how they got to be where they were. Soon they forgot about the camera, and so did I. Sometimes I forgot to turn on the sound, until a few minutes had passed. I just turned it on and said nothing, loosing a little but not breaking the moment. It is so over used, but there is an authenticity to these conversations, something very real. I can recall most of them and it is hard to say if I have a favorite. But a couple of experiences keep coming back to me.
West Virginia was one of those. I wanted to find out about coal country. Politicians and media fill our head with pictures of poverty, drugs, unemployment, and hillbillies. My research pointed me to the town of Welch, in the south of West Virginia, a once thriving city of 100,000 people, tucked deep in a Hollow in the mountains. I left Charleston early in the morning and set out following the map program on my smart phone. It was to be about a four hour drive. A couple of hours in and I am on a lesser road and in some serious mountains. I notice that the nice lady on the map program has not talked to me for some time. No cell service. I am getting a little concerned and up ahead there is a convenience store, the first thing I have seen in awhile. I pull in and go inside and ask the clerk where I am and how to get to Welch. I learn that I missed a turn about ten miles back, but can go ahead another two miles and then take a left and be back on track. I am so used to the map program that I have become stupid without it. I try and make sense of the directions I was given and proceed cautiously. Another turn off comes up and I pull over to see if there is any cell service. A faint signal. As I am sitting there a very cool bright yellow 1957 Chevrolet goes past me. I head out and follow it, I am a car enthusiast and love street rods. In about half a mile the road takes a bend to the left and reveals a very small town and about a dozen street rods angle parked. I am in Gilbert. I park and get my camera out and start photographing the cars, asking permission from the owners, who are meticulously polishing and setting up for what is a car club Saturday show. I am eyed with suspicion and go over to a fellow sitting in a camp chair and appears to be the alpha of the group. I start talking cars, something I can do and I can identify with clarity the years and models of the cars. That broke the ice and we started talking. Since it’s all buddies, there was not going to be a real conversation, but I did gain some insights. They all worked in coal, retired, did okay on pensions, had a couple of resources for building out cars, and told me to be careful when I told them where I was going. Funny, I had not thought about being careful.
That kind of stuck with me.
I’m entering Welch, West Virginia. Surreal is what comes to mind. It’s mid day Saturday, I turn off to the left, drive along a narrow valley floor and up ahead I see a lot of very tidy four, five and six story nicely designed brick and stone buildings circa 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s. There are two parallel streets that are narrow, so they are one way each. I take the gradual right onto the street heading in, and immediately notice there is nobody, no cars, the buildings are all empty, it’s as if everyone just left before I got there. I come to the end of the first street and make the loop to the one way street heading back and again nothing but empty buildings. About half way down is a parking structure, one of those pancake three floor designs that were common in the 60’s. Turns out this was one of the first of its kind in the U.S. Back to the garage, I pull over and notice this guy and a young girl setting up a folding table in the ground level. The first person I have seen in this town. I grab my camera and slowly walk over to them, not sure what I am going to find. I say hello, introduce myself and offer my hand. He acknowledges me and says his name is Roberto. He is Hispanic, and is setting up for a small Saturday market that will start in about an hour. He is known as Taco Man and sells tacos, his daughter said she is Taco Girl. We talk, I get a conversation on camera and end up getting two more there. From there I headed down the road to Gary Hollow, a stay at the only B&B, and a couple more conversations. Asking about where to get something to eat for dinner, the couple who own the B&B invited me to come with them to a relatives house for dinner of hamburgers, the only other option was a gas mart convenience store that had frozen pizzas. The offer sounded good to me and it was a chance to have dinner with hillbillies. I genuinely liked these people, they get played by the politicians and the coal companies. They have for years, as the song goes, “I owe my soul to the company store”. A few younger people are trying new ideas beyond coal. But coal is in their blood. I left feeling that I will return to this place someday to tell their stories.
Probably the one conversation that sticks to me is one that is not recorded. I had been driving back roads in Kansas and a speed limit sign indicated I was approaching another town, hamlet, or wide spot in the road. Everything is flat, few trees, and mostly corn for crops. As I was slowing down, an abandoned grain elevator was coming up on my left. I decided it was photo worthy and I needed a break from driving anyway. It was on a corner of an intersection, small road meets smaller road. A large wide open area was between the grain elevator and a long low flat roofed building that had a covered porch on the road side of the building. I got out, stretched, and pulled out my video and still cameras from the back seat. There was a wind blowing, kicking up a little dust and a piece of loose tin was clanging, creating a setting that could have been in a Sergio Leone western. As I am filming the grain elevator, I notice someone is sitting in a chair on the porch of the long low flat roof building. I can feel I am being watched. My first thought is maybe this is a conversation, it had been a day without one. I walked over towards the porch, he just sat there mostly not looking at me. I said hello as I approached, it took a second hello to get a response. We exchanged names, his was Jerry. He asked what I was doing and where I was from. I explained my project, but he didn’t really understand why I was there, and said this was “fly over country” and added “we kind of like it that way”. He also said “you people from the coasts think you know everything”. I told him I didn’t and that was why I was there talking to him. I think he appreciated that and he proceeded to tell me a little about himself. He would not be filmed or allow me to take any photos, finally saying he just didn’t feel right, he was grieving the loss of his son the week before. Jerry was in his 50’s, a little heavy set and wearing bib overalls, I am guessing his son was in his late 20’s or 30”s. He said his son was his reason for him being in Williamsburg, population of 237. We talked about what was ahead for him, he said he had a lady friend in California, maybe he would visit her. I told him that might be a good idea, a new adventure and putting his attention on something else. We had a nice conversation, two strangers nothing in common, from different places and backgrounds, sharing thoughts about grieving, family, life, moving on and realizing we have things in common. We made a connection, what I had hoped to do. He wished me luck with my project. I’m guessing Jerry remembers the conversation, I know I do.
We don’t know everything. There is so much more out there. I have learned that media, social media, politicians, religious leaders, business, technology, all feed us narratives about each other that do not align with what I found in my travels around the country. We are being pulled apart and it contributes to how divided we have become.
It matters.
As the year ends and 2021 begins, there is so much that needs to be told about Americans, who we are today and our diverse ideas and needs. I will continue to tell American stories.
