Perplexing. Buzzing around the High Plains this week I noted that some flags are at half-mast and some not.
This half-staff stuff must stop. I have no idea whose death made possible this latest flag lowering but it does seem like the flag is at half-staff about half the time, or more. We may as well just leave the flag where it is now, cut off the top half of the pole, and never move the flag again; that way the flag can be at full-mast and half-mast at the same time. Ridiculous. The thing with Ted Kennedy just sort of says it all. Certainly one of the most divisive characters in modern American politics, I can safely bet that well over 50% of Americans despised this liberal wonk who voted for Lefties 99% of the time. Who decides if this US senator or that US senator gets a half-staffer? I say stop it. It's out of control. It's a bad joke. No more half-mast for anybody or anything.
Speaking of divisive. Who has had it with Obama? I personally am tired of the empty suit, the empty rhetoric and the toothsome smiles. Stop making war on half the world, Mr Obama, and stop threatening war on the other half. Make peace. Follow through with your campaign promises. You were elected because we were just sick and tired of a smirking clown in the White House who tossed out world-wide threats like other people eat popcorn, who sanctioned torture and surrounded himself with some of the most sinister men the world has ever seen. You were elected by white people, Mr. Obama, not because you are black but because you promised to stop these non-stop wars. To many white voters you looked like a breath of fresh air. You were not. In less than a year there is the stench of corruption and duplicity surrounding you that takes most presidents years to acquire. Where is that Iraqi shoe-thrower when we need him? Send in the shoes!
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Poster of the Day
Despite its Italian-sounding name, Antonino is an old German community. At the close of the Nineteenth-Century these thrifty, industrious immigrants flocked to the High Plains around Hays, Kansas, and established their own communities. When I lived here in the late Seventies, I still recall German being spoken in the supermarkets.
I biked to Antonino today. One way is maybe eight miles but the day was gorgeous and the wind was behavin' and when those two come together I ain't complainin.' Just west of town is the community cemetery. Here I stopped, opened the little gate, then rested and watered in the shade of a large statue depicting the crucifixion. Like the blood of Christ above, the sweat of Tom dropped down to the bricks below.
Perched on a gentle slope above the Smoky Hill River valley, this cemetery is a large one, I judge, surrounded on one side by a fancy wrought iron fence and on the others by the ubiquitous post rocks (top, limestone posts cut from the ground to make up for the lack of wood on the plains). But it does seem odd. In that large plot of land--maybe 3-4 acres--only a hundred or so souls rest in peace, and these in the middle, taking up only a fraction of the space. Obviously, the city fathers long ago looked to a day when Antonino would be a booming, bustling hive of industry, commerce and agriculture with plenty of dead folks to fill the plots. But that day never came. Barely a crossroads today, no more than fifty souls call the village home. The dead easily outnumber the living.
Sauer...Klaus...Pfanenstiel...Reichert...Wasinger...Keberlein...Munsch....
the names on these New World stones trace back to the earliest beginnings of the Old World. Touchingly, separated from the adults, a children's cemetery. The two dozen markers here, many made of metal, appear to be done by hand, as if it were the last loving act a heart-broken father could perform for his child.
The plain surrounding the cemetery is almost treeless. I walked about this wind-swept ridge, looking at the markers, avoiding the little cacti that refuse to die after a thousand mowings. Chewing on some buffalo grass that grows here reminded me of oats. A flock of small birds passed high overhead. I had forgotten that wonderful whooshing sound so many working wings make.
Some of the stones have little round photos of the deceased.
"Dale F. Rohr, November 19, 1948-June 5, 1969."
Dark suit...thin black tie....innocent looks...his high school graduation photo. One year younger than me, we look nothing alike....but then again we do.
An ambulance speeds by on the lonely little highway in front of the cemetery, lights flashing but siren silent. The irony.
Back after a glorious pedal over the plains.
Each day the weather gets better. Today, straight south on a paved road with no shoulder but...no problem. Very few cars use this road and those that do give a biker plenty of room. The wind, of course, is always a problem up on the prairie plateau but for every action there is an equal reaction and sailing back with a stiff breeze at my butt is just the greatest thing.
At one ranch I passed, I noticed that out back several hundred yards, amid a waste of rusting farm equipment and sundry junk, sat a big blue bread box. Someone's older stoner brother, no doubt, abides with his habit and eccentricities in that painted school bus. Who hasn't seen this a hundred times? A school bus squatting in a debris field. Let's call it rural recycling.
A little further on was a field of sunflowers-for-profit. So heavy-headed with seeds were these that none could lift their face to the sun anymore. With bended necks, all drooped on their chins submissively, I thought. Harvest and the dying time are already upon the plains.
Generally, when I arrive back in town, I plant myself for a fifteen minute cool-down in the pretty little park at 10th & Main. Here, I am in my glory. Not only do I share space with the wonderful statue of Wild Bill Hickok (above), but if I am really lucky a train on the old Kansas Pacific thunders by only a few yards from the park. The horn will blow out your eardrums. Since my diaper days, when I popped up in the crib each morning to watch the old Missouri steam engine pass by the window, I must always stop and watch a train go by even today.
Across Main is 10th Street. This is the front street of the notorious old Hays City that Custer, Cody and above all, Hickok, made so famous at the time. Modern bronze plaques at virtually ever door tote the tally of the poor nameless wretches who did, at least, make a name for Wild Bill.
On the corner of 10th and Main is the old bank building. Every half hour or so there is a loud and terrible taped screeching of owl, falcon and hawk sounds, designed to keep the pigeons moving. It does not work. The pigeon may have a brain the size of a raisin but with him, as with everything else in life, familiarity soon breeds contempt. On the roofs above, the birds continue to poop twice a minute and madly mate to make even more pigeons.
Apologia: I have repeatedly neglected to mention this but for the past several months yours truly has been blogging for something called Great History. If interested, go to greathistory.com and look for me under American History.
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Candy from the Past
