Take Me To Another Place

This morning, after a quick survey of the campgrounds, I pulled the tent’s stakes out of the ground, picked the whole tent up (complete with poles and rain fly), and moved it to a site overlooking the lake. I arrived at Chickasaw State Park in Tennessee late last night and wasn’t able to make an accurate assessment of the various tent sites. The spot my tent is now on is awesome (like a hot dog). It overlooks a lake (the sun will set on the other side of it tonight) and a wooden pedestrian bridge which spans the width of the lake and leads to a swimming area and beach on the other side.

After getting all my stuff resettled, I built a fire and read while the wood turned into coals. When the coals were low enough so that the bricks I’d placed in the fire were resting above them, I placed a pot full of rice and a couple kinds of beans on the bricks to cook.

I finished eating my first bowl as it started to pour. I sealed up the pot, placed it back on the fire (I always put in extra water so it can simmer all day if need be), and headed to a local coffee shop with a WI-FI connection.

After ordering a coffee and setting up my computer and notes, I began checking my e-mail. In three hours I didn’t get through even one e-mail.

Henderson, where the coffee shop is located, is a Christian college town. During the regular school year it’s home to 2,000 students, but during the summer, there are only a few hundred students in town. Consequently, the coffee shop I was sitting in gets almost no business in the summer. Consequently, the man who works at the coffee shop seems to be itching for conversation. This is something I can relate to. So, although I had some work to do, I talked to him for hours and hours, until the battery in my computer died from boredom.

So, instead of writing a blog about what I was going to write about (I’ll get back to it later) I’m going to write about my conversation with the coffee shop guy (I came back a few hours after his shift ended and sat near an outlet). He was actually a very nice guy and I’m glad we got the chance to talk.

He asked me if I had any siblings. I told him I had two sisters, one younger and one older. I told him about my road trip, but I didn’t mention the book. I showed him the online map of the trip (at the bottom of this blog).

He told me about his family and his relatively new child. He has a few siblings and his family farms land that’s mostly rented. They grow winter wheat and soy beans. The soy beans go toward animal feed, but he’s hoping there will be opportunities to raise soy beans for fuel in this area soon. He’s not happy about gas prices and doesn’t understand why diesel is so much more. I told him I didn’t understand this either. In fact, no one I’ve met on my trip (and I’ve discussed gas prices with maybe 35 people since I left) understands why diesel is so much more.

I told him about some of my own experiences working on a farm.

After we’d talked for a while, he commented on my lack of a northern accent. This struck me as very odd since, to me, he had a very strong southern accent. I’d always thought there was a kind of inverse relationship regarding perception of accents—like if I think you have an accent, then you must think I have an accent, too. Right?

Since leaving the New England area I have been making an effort not to drop my Rs. People seem to understand me better when I don’t talk all Boston thuggish at them.

He asked if my family had any connection to the Civil War. I told him I didn’t think so, although in truth, I suspect we do have some connections. My father’s side of the family has been in Maine for hundreds of years and I know an inordinate number of Mainers went to the Civil War in search of something more exciting than Maine—at least, an old Mainer once said something along these lines to me when we were looking at his small town’s Civil War monument. For such a small town, it had a lot of names on it. And if I recall correctly, a few of them were much younger than 18 when they enlisted.

The coffee shop farmer guy talked a little about his family’s links to the war. I told him about the reenactor I’d met while camping. I also told him that my father fought in Vietnam and my grandfather fought in World War II. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of these facts. I whip them out whenever I’m confronted by someone who’s talking about war in a pro-war way—as if these facts somehow reflect on or speak to my own views, courage, and patriotism.

We talked about the election. I asked him who he was voting for. He said he honestly didn’t know yet. He’d been pulling for Hillary just because she already has eight years White House experience. I told him I was probably voting for Obama, though as far as republicans go, McCain doesn’t seem too bad. I generally keep my opinions about this stuff to myself since I don’t really know anything about anything when it comes to politics, but we were being pretty honest about our views, and I was the one who originally asked the question.

We both agreed that no matter who won, there were probably going to be some big changes. We both agreed that this was probably for the best.

Then we started talking about the war in Iraq.

We’re both against it, though neither of us out and said that we were against it.

He told me about people he knew who’d been over there several times. None of them had nice stories to tell, and none of them had really known what they were in for when they signed up.

Then he said, “And the price of oil isn’t even cheaper. It’s gone up!”

I really appreciated him saying this—in my experience, most people don’t have the courage.

Most pro-war people I’ve encountered only talk about the need to stop terrorists, about the need to force democracy on people, about how it’s good that we got Saddam out of there regardless of the means (“So you’re telling me you think it would be good to have Saddam back in power over there?!?!?!?”). And most anti-war people either can’t or won’t talk about the equation regarding the worth of a human life versus the worth of oil to this country. And there is such an equation. Right?

I like the coffee shop farmer guy’s views. If it’s not going to make life better for us, if it’s in fact going to make life worse for many of us (and many more of them), why do it?

I like coffee shop farmer guy calling things what they are (or at least what he perceives they are), but what I like more, is coffee shop farmer guy’s willingness to attempt equating the cost of human lives with the cost of oil. If oil prices had gone down would coffee shop farmer guy agree with this war? Maybe not, but at least he’s not afraid to talk about things in those terms.

I don’t know if any type of war is moral, but I prefer talking about wars that are fought over commodities and land. Wars fought over ideals frighten me and I have no idea how to discuss them.

When we were done talking about all this, we discussed how I swear more and speak faster than him. He’s glad to have grown up in the Bible belt where he’s learned that it’s wrong to cuss. I tried to explain that the way I swear isn’t really cussing at all—it’s more like garnish.

Coffee shop farmer guy wants nothing to do with garnish.

I told him that my grandfather is a minister. I’ve gotten a lot of miles out of this. I whip it out whenever I’m confronted with very Christian people—as if this fact somehow speaks to my own beliefs.

When we were done talking about all the things we could think of to talk about, he read me prices from the Piggly Wiggly circular in case I needed to do any shopping while in town.

He asked me if I liked veiny (this is what it sounded like to me) sausages. After having him twice repeat the food in question, I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He brought the circular over and pointed to a picture.

I said, “Oh, Vienna sausages. I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about.”

He said, “Oh, that’s how you guys say it? Well, I don’t care what you call ’em—three cans for a dollar is a pretty good price.”