Winning Souls to Barack Obama

This week has been eventful, both personally and politically!

On the personal side, my mother drove to Kansas to spend the first half of her spring break with me on the entirety of mine. We didn't see anything that i hadn't seen before, except for the Spice store which delighted me to no end. But i did get to take her to Wyldewood Cellars, purveyors of "Fine Kansas Wine," where we bought wine made from sand plums (endemic to Oklahoma and Kansas), elderberries, and blackberries. Then i took her to Lindsborg, the Swedish town i wrote about last year, and around the city of Wichita. She, as i, was impressed by the clean, gridded, friendly city i now call home.




Politically, it was a big week for my man Obama. Michigan and Florida will not revote. Good for us, since Obama did not campaign in either state. Also, Fox News decided to release video of Obama's former pastor (former because the Reverend retired several months ago) making some impassioned sermons regarding the complicity of the United States in the way extremist groups have come to view us.

i have been a supporter of Barack Obama for almost a year. Last summer, my brother mentioned him to me and i started doing my research. my brother is the most brilliant person i have ever known, and as he is my big brother, i may have a bit of a hero complex with him. But, he did have the highest SAT and LSAT scores i've ever seen, he does have a degree in history, and he is nearly through law school with strong emphasis on civil rights and constitutional law. Certainly, there are less educated or qualified people to guide me through the political jungle. So when he tells me about a candidate, or an issue, i listen. And i listened about Barack Obama, and liked what i found so much so that i became a bit of a campaigner myself.

Jeff came up for the weekend, so two of my favorite people in the world were here with me yesterday, and after they dragged me to an Episcopalian Easter service and i sat impatiently through a sermon about how dying tomorrow would be wholly acceptable (speak for yourself, lady!), we came to my school to look up the weather for my mom's drive home today. Since we were here and had been discussing the Reverend Wright issue the night before, we decided to listen to the entirety of Barack Obama's speech on race and religion in America.

By the end, my staunchly feminist, gung-ho Hillary mother and my I-guess-I'll-have-to-write-in-Micky-Mouse disenchanted boyfriend who keeps whining about Obama's lack of experience to hide more deeply seeded fears were chocked up and ready to think, if not vote.

It's a long speech, over 35 minutes, but well worth watching. As i tell my students: you don't have to agree with me, but you do have to have all the information before you decide.

Boeing

As anyone who spends more than an afternoon in Wichita can tell you, the aeronautics industry is the fuel of this town. All prosperity comes from and through Hawker-Beecher, Cessna, and Boeing. All three are headquartered and/or have major plants here giving Wichita the nickname "the Air Capitol" of the world.



It's true enough. Famous people come here all the time shopping for their private jets like you would go to a super automall to shop for your next car. my boss even met Harrison Ford that way.

So the decision of the US Air Force to ask for bids to replace their half-century old refueling tankers was a big story here. Boeing put in a bid, as did Northrop, a consortium of companies including the Franco-German EADS (European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company). Wichitans (that's what we call ourselves... no, seriously) were assuming that Boeing would get the contract, as the old refueling planes, the KC-135, are Boeing planes, and Boeing is an American company. So they're a shoe-in, right?

WRONG.

Northrop put in a better bid. Wichita was disappointed, but what can you do? Well, according to Boeing and all the uber-conservative talk show hosts, you take the Air Force to Pentagon Court (otherwise known as, dispute the contract -- on what grounds i don't know -- before the Government Accountability Office).

Now i ask you... how exactly do these people not see their hypocrisy? You cannot run around the world bulldozing capitalism onto everyone else and then whine when capitalism doesn't work out for you. So some Europeans will get our money and our jobs. They freaking competed for them. Not only did they compete for them, they outcompeted the Americans. Isn't that "what America stands for"??

You want to force companies, or government agencies, or private individuals to do what the government thinks is best for everyone? Fine, go for it. In fact, you'll have my vote. It's called socialism. Welcome to the enlightened, gentlemen. But who exactly are these pigheaded conservative idiots who think they can tax the hell out of the poor of America while they run around with five boats and a few BMWs, and then complain about the results of free markets?

Please, please... give me five minutes alone with Rush Limbaugh. Five. That's all i need.

#!@*

Freeport and Bluff City, Kansas

Now that the weather is growing more agreeable (and i say "more" agreeable only in the sense that we are moving from snow and ice season to the much warmer tornado season before we move into the dog days of 100+ heat), i am off once more to hunt ghost towns. This past weekend was Freeport, Kansas.

On the way to Freeport, we passed through a number of charming little Kansas towns including Goddard (home of the Roaring Lions) and Viola, where i stopped for gas and one of those popular church marquee photos:


We also passed through Conway Springs and Argonia, Kansas. In Argonia, i took Kansas route 210 south from the town. Shortly (and i mean shortly) thereafter, Kansas route 210 ended and i was following a paved but marginal road south looking for 30th street NE. Once on 30th, we encountered a sign that said "Pavement Ends" and sure enough, it did. After that the truck was plowing through a mix of red clay and manure. Even marginal Kansas roads are usually well marked, but for one reason or another these were not, so i started guessing for the next turn, which was supposed to be at NE 100th. Much to Jeff's continued amazement, i chose one and we found ourselves coasting into Freeport, Kansas. my reputation as "navigational genius" is quite secured.

Freeport's claim to fame is that it is the smallest incorporated town in the US with a bank. So, i took a picture of the bank. The grain elevator (which you can see reflected in the window) is also operational. So is the post office, though only for about 3 hours a day. It's really too bad we didn't go there when the bank was open. We looked in through the windows, and it looks like a scene from the 1940s. There's an old hat and coat rack right next to the door, wooden bars around the one teller with a sign overhead reading "chasier" and a tin ceiling.


The best thing about this bank was the facilities, which you have to see to believe:

As Jeff put it: when you go to make your deposit at the bank, you can make another deposit out back. No door on this restroom. i guess with a population of 8, you don't worry so much about people wandering by.

i did meet a denizen of Freeport. A middle-aged guy in his truck was pulling out of the grain elevator as i took photos of the "downtown" strip. He was quite nice and answered a lot of my questions about Freeport, pointing out a number of points of interest. He had been born there, and lived there all his life. Seen it deteriorate over the years to what it has become, but he didn't seem bitter about that or annoyed by me poking around at the ruins as i might be had i been in his shoes. Others were aware of our presence, but the only indication they gave was turning on their porch lights as they looked out dirty windows at us. This downtown area contains the post office (other side), bank, and what used to be a grocery store and a repair garage.


Before leaving me to finish poking around, this Freeport man suggested if i was interested in dingy old towns i might want to check out Bluff City, which was just a few miles south. He gave me good directions which i easily followed. Bluff City, i have since learned, has a population of about 80, but it was much, much creepier than Freeport. i did not have the cojones to get out of the truck in Bluff City, so much like the movie "Wrong Turn" it was.

Bluff city sits about 11 miles north of the Oklahoma border and 5 miles south of Kansas route 44 in Bluff county. There is a small network of roads, a working post office, and a high school turned senior center. The rest is mostly residences... if you can call them that.

i didn't dare to take pictures of the worst of them. Most had a number of 1970s or 1980s vehicles out front, many of those with busted wheels or rust on the window glass (i don't even know how that happens). They almost all had broken wooden swing sets in one state of disrepair or another. Many homes looked unlivable with fallen in porches and roofs, cracked windows or hanging doors. Others just looked squalid with sofas in the yard next to old farm equipment, and in one case an enclosure of fighting goats. Of this i did not dare to take a photograph. For many of these, i snapped them on the fly. For the ones on the right side of the road, i implored Jeff to do so for me.

one of the more picturesque homes in Bluff City

Bluff City's City Council Building


Bluff City High School

i left this town with many senses. One, i felt extremely lucky. i don't live like this, and i never have. i wish there was something i could do so that nobody ever did have to live like this. Then that thought makes me feel extraordinarily arrogant. Who knows how these people want to live, or if they're happy here, or if they pity me picking through city traffic at rush hour?

My other sense was that of extreme creeped-outedness. This place literally looked like something out of a horror film. Some nubile young actress should have been driving through here with a bottle of Fiji water, an out-of-order cell phone and an overheating engine.

Looking forward to the next one...

P.s. - Found out later that i missed the first tornado of the season by about an hour. :( We left Bluff city around 3:45, and travelled south of Milan, Kansas at around 4pm. At 5 that evening, the first Kansas tornado of 2008 touched down outside of that town. Had we done things a bit differently, i'd have been in a perfect position to photograph it. Bummer.