Yesterday I decided to head home. I’d had enough of travel and wanted tosleep in my own bed for a while. I wanted to spend some time with Dan,working with him on figuring out our future.

So from Moosonin Saskatchewan, I turned southwest. I crossed thesugar-beeted plains of North Dakota, and the rolling badlands of Montana.This morning I’m in Red Lodge, Montana, just northeast of YellowstoneNational Park. I’ll cross through the park, alongside the Grant Tetons, anddown to Salt Lake before making the long and boring crossing of Nevada toReno. Then across the Sierra and down towards home.

I’m 18 hours from home, which means I’ll be there in two nights.

Coyote

They turn the corner, off Highway 6 and into West Liberty, Iowa. They come in waves of green, yellow, red and blue. Massey-Harris, Farmall, Ford, Cockshutt, Allis-Chalmers, Oliver, one ludicrous Lemuhzeene, and wave after wave of John Deeres. Most have one rider and average about 10 miles an hour. Most are flying one or more American flags.

This is Iowa’s Tractorcade, a parade of tractors across the state. But it’s also a multi-day road trip, a summer outing between planting and harvest for farmers young and old riding 366 of their favorite tractors.

Families sit in the grass alongside the roadway, bringing lawn chairs and fanning themselves, watching the tractors pass. As each one passes, the spectators wave. The kids jump up and down with excitement. Old men with sun-browned leathery skin wave back, reach into a feed bag, and hurl a handful of candy at the kids. The kids scramble in the grass for the treats, and the old men on the tractors grin and wave some more.

Most of these tractors are at least a half century old. There aren’t any new mega-agribusiness machines here. These are machines which worked the family farm and probably still do their share. They’re just strong enough to pull a plow, pull a truck out of the mud, and occasionally get stuck themselves. But there’s no mud on them now. They’ve been polished and
cleaned, and this is their parade.

I stand by the side of the road and wave, a big silly grin on my face. I remember our old John Deere, blue with white ‘racing’ stripes. I remember the first time I was allowed to drive it, my terror and excitement, and the incredible power of that small tractor.

We used to plant the corn fields by hand, walking up and down rows, seeding acre after acre of black soil with the hot-burning energy of our youth. It was slow work, and incredibly tedious. I vividly remember how much I hated that work, and I also realize that it made me the man I am today.

The next year we got our first automatic planter, powered and pulled by our John Deere. It was a miracle machine, and could plant an entire field in a day. Life was good. Or at least better.

Seeing these men and women reminds me of the work that’s involved in producing an ear of corn, or a loaf of bread. When I eat tonight, I’ll remember these folks, bouncing down the road, smiling and waving and throwing candy to the kids.

Coyote

I do return to Omaha to join in their pride celebration. My shyness wasovercome by my desire for new experiences, so on Saturday morning I turn myvan westwards again to Omaha.

The parade is happening in Old Town, a neighborhood of old brick buildingsnear the Missouri River. One block of 15th Avenue was blocked off, andthere are booths, a stage, and a beer garden. All of the bars are open, andfolks wander from place to place, hugging old friends and making new ones.

A few hundred folks wander between the booths checking out the rainbow flagstickers, community groups, and t-shirts. This is one of the most exoticcollections of folks I’d seen in the Midwest. There is a couple herdingtheir two children amongst the booths. Under that tree are a bunch of clubkids, looking too fashionable to be out in daylight. One of them winks atme, making me blush. Over there, and there, and there are big ol’ dragqueens. The one over to the left must be 300 pounds and has a beard. Shedefinitely catches your eye in a bright red sequin dress and white ‘pancake’face makeup.

The parade is supposed to start at 1, so of course it starts at 1:30. Imove up and down the parade line, taking pictures. The parade winds throughthe touristy Old Town streets, and most of the tourists stop to watch.After all, you won’t see this in What Cheer or Surprise or Friend. Youwon’t even see it in Lincoln, which doesn’t have a gay parade.

The parade is headed by three women on horseback, carrying the U.S.,Nebraska, and gay pride flags. There aren’t many fancy floats… mostgroups walk or have a pickup truck draped with signs. (There aren’t anyprotesters, either, which are a part of every San Francisco parade. MaybeOmaha is too below-the-radar.)

Next comes Mr. and Miss H.G.R.A. 2002 standing in the bed of a green pickup.I’m guessing that this stands for Heartland Gay Rodeo Association. He’swearing jeans, a white shirt, and a white cowboy hat, while she’s wearing atight black and red dress. (She is a boy, incidentally.)

Then comes a line of young black girls, high-stepping down the street inbright orange, blue, and white costumes and dancing to the beat of a halfdozen drummers.

There is a huge contingent of gay Christians (the Metropolitan CommunityChurch). Folks on the sidewalk applaud and cheer as they pass. (This is,of course, bible country.) They carry banners proclaiming JOY, LOVE, andHOPE.

There is a PFLAG contingent. (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.)They’re driving a minivan decorated with pictures of their gay kids takenwhen they were young. Here (like everywhere) the PFLAG folks get hugeapplause as they pass.

A Green Party member approaches me asking for donations for his candidate.I tell him that I used to be a member of the party, until Republicanshijacked the party and used it to get George Bush elected. He says “Oh,please!” and walks away.

Two dykes on bikes drive on Goldwings, revving their engines and waving.They spot a woman on the sidewalk, straddling a moped and waving. “Joinus!” they yell, and she does, putting alongside the big bikes as the crowdcheers.

At the rally, I catch the eye of a very cute guy passing by and we starttalking. He’s William Lewis from Lincoln, and he’s in town for the parade.We start talking, and I like him right away. We hang out together for therest of the day.

For a while we stand under a tree and watch the post-parade rally. One ofthe highlights is when about a dozen teenagers get up on stage. They’recute kids, girls and boys somewhere between 13 and 18. They come from smalltowns in Nebraska and Iowa, and we’re told they’ve all formed gay/straightalliances at their schools. The crowd applauds them wildly. They smileshyly and look down at their feet, but they’re heroes to us.

It’s hard to be a kid in high school, and incredibly hard to be a gay kid.I vividly remember when Aaron Fricke took another guy to his senior prom inthe next town over from mine. Everyone was talking about it, and most feltthat he shouldn’t be allowed to go. Imagine being 15, and thinking you’rethe only one who feels the way you do. It’s not surprising that gay kidsare at a much higher risk for suicide than straight kids.

Later, William and I check out some of the bars, and they’re incredibly fun.In fact, they’re much better than the bars in San Francisco. There is agreat country western bar, DC’s Saloon, where guys two-step while otherslean against the fence around the dance floor. There is Max, a modern danceclub with multiple rooms and moods, and Gilligan’s Pub, where you can drinkor eat. I’m not quite sure why, but Omaha’s bars are much more fun thanthose in San Francisco.

Coyote

Today I head out from Waco, first south to pass through McCool Junction.All through town I sing to myself “McCool Junction, what’s your function?”I stopped for gas and water and continue on, turning east. From today on,I’m going to be moving in the general direction of Michigan, where I’ll bespending the Fourth with my in-laws.

I pass through Exeter, Friend, Dorchester, and Emerald. (If this last townwere in Kansas, I would stop to look for Dorothy. And the locals would haveheard it all before.)

Passing through Lincoln again, I recover my watch. I’d left it in my hotelroom two nights before. It’s just a Swatch, but I get attached to thingsthat are kind enough make the journey with me.

From Lincoln I continue northeast towards Omaha. In west Omaha, I stoppedat Boy’s Town. I remember reading the story of Boy’s Town as a kid, andthinking that it sounded like a really cool place. At the entrance to’town’ is a statue of a kid carrying a much smaller kid on his back, and thequote “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s my bruddah!” Well, perhaps it’s notspelled that way, but that’s how I’ve always imagined it. Taking a pictureat the base of the statue, I feel giddy and practically dance back to my vanfor the drive up to the ‘town’ proper. Boy’s Town, the stuff of Reader’sDigest and Scholastic Reader, and here I am.

Remember when I spoke before about using quotes around things? Boy’s Townisn’t *really* a town… it’s more of a campus. A really nice campus, butdefinitely a campus. Well-tended rolling green lawns with large statelyshade trees, administrative and dorm buildings of brick and stone… Boy’sTown would fit quite nicely into the ivy league.

Trying to find the visitor’s center, I wander into a huge auditorium filledwith milling kids (boys and girls.) Up on the screen at the front of theauditorium is a 1950′s era film explaining artificial inseminationtechniques. The kids move like highly excited particles from seat to seat,the noise of their restlessness almost drowning out the voice from the film”…a stiffening of the rear legs indicates that the heifer is ready for theprocess to proceed…”. I wander out into the sunlight in a confused daze.

I finally find the visitor’s center, which contains the Boy’s Town GiantBall of Stamps. During one particularly cold winter, the boys of the Boy’sTown Stamp Club started pasting old cancelled stamps together into a ball.The result was a 600 pound sphere, 32 inches in diameter and perfectlyround. It sits on a pedestal in front of a wall similarly covered instamps. There are supposed to be 4,655,000 stamps in the ball. In one tripI’ve seen the Giant Ball of Twine and the Giant Ball of Stamps. Wow, am Iliving in McCool Junction, or what?

On my way through Omaha I see a bunch of people walking alongside Route 6with rainbow flags. Whoa! I manage to make a U-turn, find a place to park,and go talk with them. They’re now holding up signs saying that the OmahaPride celebration will be tomorrow. I nice older gent tells me where andwhen, and I wonder whether I should return to see what Heartland Pride isall about.

Tonight I’m in Cold Spring Park, outside of Lewis, Iowa. (Where, accordingto local legend, Kool-Aid was invented by a pharmacist as a cure for hishangover.) It’s a small park consisting of a few dozen sites, pit toilets,and a bunch of RVs. There is a lake for swimming and fishing, and theranger tells me that folks come from miles around to hang out in the park.It’s been a local gathering spot since the 1890′s.

As I pull in, I’m playing Beck “Odelay” on the stereo (“I’m a loser baby, sowhy don’t you kill me?”), and as I circle looking for a site, everyone iseither glaring at me or glancing at one another in a ‘here comes trouble’sort of way. I switch to Dusty Springfield’s “Dusty in Memphis” (“The onlyboy who could really turn me, was the son of a preacher man”) and suddenlyeveryone is smiling and waving. Music makes a great ambassador. The rightmusic, that is.

The park is filled with lots of very friendly kids. They’ve formed a packand are circling the park. The pack keeps coming over to take a look at myvan, and I’m happy to show them around. One learns I’m a photographer andasks me to take his picture with my camera. After getting his grandma’spermission, I take a digital snapshot and ask her to send me an email sothat I can send it to her.

While walking around the lake, I meet Ryan, a local teenager looking forfrogs. We talk for a while, and he tells me he’s weird because everyonethings he’s a nerd. I let him know that they won’t be laughing when he’spulling in six figures and they’re pumping gas, and he laughs. We continueto talk while walking around the lake, talking about life and his escape>from Iowa. We compare our favorite computer games, I find our that Ryanhasn’t entered the Dungeons and Dragons phase of his nerd development, andwe talk about our goals for life. We have the natural camaraderie of twounderdogs.

As I’ve moved east across Kansas and Nebraska and into Iowa, things havegotten greener and more lush. The fields of Iowa are rolling and green,even without irrigation. That’s bad for my photography, but it’s beautifultoo. Life seems like less of a struggle here. Iowa feels like a placewhere people can take the time to enjoy a weekend camping with their family.

Coyote

From Manhattan, I head north. Just outside the small town of Wheaton, Idrive across pastures, following tractor ruts to an open field filled withpink, purple, yellow, and white wildflowers. There is a steady breeze,cooling me down and causing the flowers to ripple like a sea of paint. Itwirl like Julie Andrews, imaging the world a perfect place and myself thesole occupant.

Then three large bombers fly over the horizon, in a row and low to theground. The last one breaks formation, drops to within a few hundred feetof the ground, and aims directly at me. Me and my white van apparently makea nice practice target in the green fields of Kansas.

I continue through Wheaton, where the only people in view are two young boys(riding their bikes) and two old men (cutting their lawns.) The former willbecome the latter all too soon. (If you’re Hindu, the latter will go on tobecome the former.)

North to Lillis, a ‘town’ consisting of perhaps five houses and twogovernment buildings. On to Frankfort, then Marysville (“Black SquirrelCity!”), Herkimer, Bremen, and Hanover. This area had obviously beensettled by Germans.

Every 10-15 miles I pass an abandoned farm, and I almost always stop. Thereis always a gray wooden house in some sort of decay. Big old trees areplanted close around the houses as shade and windbreaks. Sometimes thereis indoor plumbing, and sometimes there is a pump outside the back door andan outhouse a little further out. Some of the houses have bare floors, somehave linoleum, and about half have orange shag wall-to-wall. One notablehouse has a foot of cow manure throughout the interior. Several cowsoccupied the guest bedroom There is almost always old wallpaper peeling>from the walls. I find magazines dating back to the 1970′s, a children’sstory book from 1928, and a full set of Popular Mechanics 1960-1966. Onehouse has a huge stack of Carter-Mondale campaign literature.

The front and back porches were the first things to go, probably becausethey were the most exposed to the elements. The porch roof is often hangingdown at an angle, and the floor is dangerously rotted. There is almostalways a root cellar, and sometimes a storm cellar, a fortified stone bunkerbelow ground and apart from the house. These people knew to fear theweather.

Twice I’ve fallen through the floor into the cellar. This is alwaysdisconcerting.

Occasionally, I find a schoolhouse. Some are well-preserved, withblackboards, chairs, and coat hooks. Others have been re-tasked. One isfilled with tires, five feet deep. Truck tires, tractor tires, and even afew bicycle tires. Another contains an old iron hospital bed.

At an intersection, I wait while 97 coal cars roll by. I’ve been avoidinginterstates since entering Kansas, and I hope to go as far as Michiganwithout getting onto a highway. On the local roads I can cruise at acomfortable pace, stop when I see something interesting, and detour at will.Getting onto the interstate is like being loaded into the barrel of arifle… you’re shot forward in your direction, focused and with no time forthe distracting countryside.

I eat at a café without a name but with a sign advertising the unfortunatecombination “FOOD & GAS”. The waitress sighs and rolls her eyes when Imention that my hamburger, ordered medium rare, is very well done. But shegets me another one, and it’s better. The only other folks in the café arethree men having hypothetical conversations such as “How much would a baleof hay be worth if someone cut it and baled it and hauled it away?” & “Whatdo you think made ol’ Ned’s pickup truck blow up?”

I cross the state line into Nebraska. In the small town of Blue Springs, Ifind an abandoned hydro-electric generating station. I guess that it wasdecommissioned after the town was added to the grid. From the windows ofthe turbine house, I can see a handful of kids across the river swimming andsplashing and laughing under the overhanging trees. I wanted to join them,become young again, laugh easily. At around 5pm, they all pull on shirtsand shoes and head home for dinner, while I continue shooting.

Holmesville, Rockford, Filley, Adams, Bennet, then Lincoln. I spend thenight in Lincoln, the state capital. The city is anchored by the Nebraskalegislature, with its giant domed phallus rising high above the city. Longstreet-lined ‘malls’ lead towards this tower from the four compass points.

Lincoln looks like a larger version of all of the other towns I’ve passedthrough. Trees shade wooden houses and green lawns. Grain elevators sitalongside the railroad tracks. Folks wash their cars in their driveways.Kids bike down the sidewalk. But unlike everywhere else I’ve been in Kansasand Nebraska, some of the folks washing their cars are Hispanic. Some ofthe kids riding their bikes are black.

Today I’ve turned west again, through Raymond, Agnew, Touhy, Brainard,Rising City, and Surprise. I’m camped in Waco at the Double Nickel RV park.The pool is full of local kids who come here after their chores to cool downand socialize. As I type this they’re diving and swimming and splashing,and their laughter rolls across the lawn like water.

Coyote

Two days ago I left Alma heading east, passing through Republican City, Naponee, Franklin (“Home of the Good Life”), before stopping briefly in Lebanon. Lebanon was determined by the U.S. Geleological Survey (“We’ve got Too Much Time on our Hands!”) to be where the lower 48 states would balance if the entire country were composed of plywood. Lebanon was proud of this fact, though not too clear on specifics. For example, does the plywood curve like the Earth, or does it lie flat like a paper map? And if it’s flat, what projection is used? Mercator? (It makes a *big* difference!)

Downtown Lebanon, like many of the towns in north-central Kansas, is mostly shut down. The stores are closed, some optimistically marked ‘For Lease!’, and the streets are empty. One storefront marked “Susie’s Beauty Emporium” featured a 10′ by 20′ map of the United States, with about 20 panels that would flip around to reveal something. Since Susie’s was no longer, the sign was frozen, some panels showing the map, some showing data, and some in mid-flip. The point of the map wasn’t clear to me because the panels didn’t correspond to recognizable landmarks and the data consisted of Japanese Hiragana script and large numbers. (A panel between Texas and Oklahoma proclaimed something in Japanese and the number 12,000.) Below the map of the U.S. was a very shabby map of Japan, with no data at all. It was all very mysterious. If anyone were on Main Street, I would have asked them about it, but no one was.

Near Portis, I passed a mile-long freight train that had tumbled onto its side. Cars lay tumbled on their sides along the track, one sometimes laying on top of another. It looked like it had been there for weeks, a clean-up project being postponed.

Near Osborne is the geodetic center of the United States. When surveyors started mapping the U.S., they apparently needed a reference point from which all other measurements would be made. It exists in a pasture southwest of Osborne, a small bronze disk in a cow field. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico all use this point of reference. (If you’re a surveyor, you probably appreciate this.)

I was driving along, thinking about how quirky Americans were, and that got me to thinking about the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. I knew it was somewhere in the Midwest, but I didn’t really know where. I was thinking I’d look it up on the Internet, when I passed a sign saying “Entering Cawker City, Home of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine”.

Improbable things like this happen to me on a regular basis.

I stopped and admired this monstrosity. About 20′ in diameter, composed entirely of brown baling twine, wrapped around and around. It was started in 1953, and was probably a true ball at some point. Now it was more of a dome, the bottom flattened under its weight. I can see what caused some farmer to start collecting used twine in a ball, but at what point did it get out of hand?

A single mom and her two kids were there, photographing themselves in front of the ball as part of their ‘Tacky Tour 2002′ from Pennsylvania to Denver. They’d spent the last year doing research on ‘roadsideamerica.com‘, and had a long list of weird and interesting Americana to visit.

I spent the night in Beloit (“Vision with Values”), which has two Chinese restaurants, though one of them is ‘American/Chinese’. The food was indeed Chinese, though not even close to San Francisco standards. As San Franciscans, we’re spoiled by the richness of our culinary culture.

Yesterday I photographed a one-room schoolhouse in Victor, Kansas. The only things left in Victor were the schoolhouse and an abandoned farm. The schoolhouse was rapidly falling down. Shingles were missing from the roof, the ceiling was coming down, and plaster was peeling from the walls. Inside were a few high-back chairs, a table, and an iron hospital bed. There was also, strangely, a ’70′s era record collection in a wooden crate.

I had the urge for some greasy truck-stop food, so I headed south to the interstate, U.S. 70. I stopped at a Country Kitchen and had the buffet, which included fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and country-style gravy. Yum!

A guy in the next booth was wearing a large wooden cross around his neck on a string. Really large… this thing was 1′ wide by 2′ long. On his head he had a cap that said “Heaven is Real! Do you have Reservations?” He and another guy were loudly talking about the strippers at the men’s club downtown.

Last night I hung out in Manhattan, Kansas (“The Little Apple”). It’s a college town, and probably the first place I’ve been in Kansas where I could live. I hung out in Aggieville having a burrito and beer before catching “Bad Company” at the Seth Child Cinema. (It wasn’t bad.)

My brother Donald spent a few years of his life here at nearby Fort Riley as part of his basic training with the Army. He’d spoken about Manhattan, not very positively, and I didn’t have a picture in my mind. Now I do.. it’s a nice town, not too small, with tree-lined streets and a mall. The Kansas Wildcats logo and their particularly bold shade of purple are everywhere.
Even though I wouldn’t know the Wildcats from the Sabercats, this is probably the first place I’ve been in Kansas where I could settle.

Last night I camped at the Tuttle Creek state park, just north of Manhattan. At around 3:30 am, lightning started striking around me. There was no storm, no wind, just great the-gods-must-be-angry bolts of lightning. Each would be followed almost immediately by the loudest thunder I’d ever heard, a deep explosion that I felt pass deeply through me in waves. I stood outside my camper for a while watching the bolts cross the sky and feeling the sound. Nothing I’ll see on the 4th of July could compete.

This morning I thought I heard thunder in the distance, but then I realized that it’s mortar practice at Fort Riley.

Coyote

About 20 miles southwest of Beloit Kansas, on a dirt road between fields of wheat, I came across the small Elmira cemetery, dated 1876. Here are the epitaphs from one row of stones. I’ll let them speak for themselves.

The last monument was not carved from stone like the others. It was a simple tin marker, looking like it should me at the end of a row of tomatoes. The epitaph was scratched into the tin, and Rubin’s name was spelled wrong.