January has almost spent itself. With only a few days left I can’t imagine what she might do that we might remember better; something different, something profound, maybe even something spectacular. The last thing she wants is to fade away without a trace; nobody wants to be forgotten. I went to Texas as if her bite would be eased by warm breezes and sunny skies but not the case. We got dense, cold fog and mosquitoes by the flocks. After a time the sky did clear and we enjoyed ourselves. But holidays unwind and for the better or the worse, you go back to where you came from.
Last night, after a dozen hours behind the wheel, I was north bound on Missouri, I-49. Before it became an Interstate it was U.S. 71, the main line from Kansas City to Joplin. I don’t need a map. I know all the little towns that used to dot the highway, now bypassed, lucky if they have an exit they don’t have to share with some other little town. Sheldon is one of those. Remnants of the old highway still parallel the train tracks through town but potholes go unpatched and clumps of grass grow in cracks that see mostly kids on bicycles and farm machinery. Where the tracks cross main street it’s nearly a mile out to the highway. The place reminds me of the movie set from Fried Green Tomatoes, Jessica Tandy’s little hamlet of Whistle Stop.
As I passed the Sheldon exit, lights were burning around town and it gave off its own little glow but the sleepy little place was done for the day. My dad was born there, grew up there, clinging to the lowest rung on an unforgiving ladder. His parents abandoned him, left him with a dirt-poor family, a temporary arrangement that turned out to be permanent, one short step from landing in the county orphanage. My dad grew up with a Napoleon complex, a little guy who had to be in a fight every day, win or lose, to prove he was nobody’s pushover. He grew up, moved to the city, learned a skilled trade, married and raised a family. During WW2 and through the 1950’s we made regular trips to the little farm west of Sheldon, caring for my surrogate grandparents, Sally, Ida and Forrest Cole, the sibling children of Sam Cole, the old man who made room for one more.
The Great Depression had left them paupers. They still lived at the house but were too old to work the land. They leased it to another farmer so there was a small income but not enough to sustain. My dad made good money as a tool & die maker but we never enjoyed the trappings of prosperity. Later I learned that we were all there was between them and the poor house; they still had places for the indigent and helpless that were more prison than charity. The Coles were afraid the bank would take the farm and send them to the poor house, a consuming fear that they took to their graves. The Stevens family made sure there was food in the pantry and coal in the chute, that taxes were paid and if legal help was needed it was provided. In my little bubble we lived well enough but without the luxuries my peers took for granted.
In 1950 just before Sally died she was distraught on the verge of panic until she saw the ‘Paid’ receipt for her care, that she wasn’t going to die in the poor house. Dad sold the 40 acres and rented a tiny house on another farm. I was in high school by then. Over a decade of road trips and caring for them I learned to associate the strong, human scent and the smell of coal smoke with everything that made family strong and love so sweet. Ida cooked and Forrest kept the fire going. He was 88 when he passed and Ida followed a few years later at 93. My parents were on vacation in Alaska so it was up to me to represent family at Ida’s funeral. It was in July before our first born arrived in September. The two of us sat on folding chairs beside her casket. Maybe eight or nine others came. It is common for small town funeral directors to have paid mourners when low attendance is foreseen and that was the case I’m sure. But there were familiar names and faces from stories I knew by heart. My little family was her family but there were others as well, out of respect for my dad I suspect. They knew how hard life had been for the Coles, how Ida had been the strong one when the others could not. They knew that pride is the knot one hangs onto at the end of poverty's rope. If you have nothing at all, all you can do is to stand tall and hold your head up. And when arrogant bastards mock your distress you dare to return the insult; “You God damn son of a bitch, there’s a place in Hell for you too.”
The glow over Sheldon slipped out of sight and I knew the next exit would lead to gravel roads west and Bickett Cemetery; the Coles are buried there. I’ve been there a number of times, when we buried Ida, to help with maintenance and spring clean up and some just to pay respect. I’ve heard it said, for as long as someone remembers your name and some of your story then your life hasn’t completely run its course. I take it on myself to go there, to do that. I live in a time when American culture mocks the poor and blames victims for their own plight. There is no pride left for the weak or the disenfranchised, only shame. I find it lonely here with them after all, they are the people I identify with. I have a good education, I succeeded at a career and I don’t need help but they are my people and when they suffer, I suffer as well. I understand that you get a life but sometimes you don’t have it, it has you. It’s really difficult to undo experiences that shape one’s character. Maybe I was 6, I remember Forrest telling my dad, “Republican bankers, God damn sons a’ bitches, ever’ one of them.” If I am suspicious of Republican bankers it comes honestly. And if I give well-healed, self righteous bigots little or no sympathy, it's because they confuse liberty with license, Heaven forbid their profits flag below expectations, it should not come as a surprise that I don't care. There’s a place in Hell for them too.
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