Midwestern Noir

LETTER TO KANSAS

Dear David and Buddy,

Well, I picked you and Buddy See because of all our classmates—both of you are pretty much the epitome of the Kansas intellectual elite.

The Kansas intelligentsia. You always were the cream of the crop and I’ve paid attention to how you two gentlemen have matured over time.

The same with Richard James—who saved my ass in the Key Club. I was pretty much an amateur asshole when it came to group dynamics and leadership back then. Others should have held that position, but I was ambitious for the Air Force Academy and wanted my dossier to show it.

What did it show? Blind ambition and naivete. A total child-idiot lack of any possible kind of leadership and so-called middle-class whatever. What a stupid little nincompoop I was—it’s laughable in retrospect. But then 50 years later—surely one wises up? And one asks oneself questions like—Why was I such an asshole? Why such delusions of grandeur? Puffed-up illusions and petty superiority trips?

What about now—surely I have no such Midwestern noir illusions?

BTW James’s father Carl James worked with my grandmother in Concordia there in Republic County. She was for many years the County Superintendent of Schools in Belleville.

Of course, times have changed. Her position is no more—just like all the little county midwestern red school houses. And family farms. Gone now—corporate farming prevails. Satellites beam the way harvesters do their thing, the way crops are sprayed, the politics of GM wheat, corn and who knows what else. But that’s another story…

But back then in 1962 when we celebrated our EHS graduation—my grandmother Theresa Kelly recognized Carl James up there on the Civic Auditorium stage. Handing out diplomas for our class.

She greeted him from the audience after the ceremony was over. “Hello Carl!!!,” she exclaimed. “Well, hello there, Theresa!!!”—Carl waved back to her.

This perhaps was the kind of milieu—that’s what secondary education was like back then. A sense of collegiality—between Kansas passing generations of teachers and administrators.

But what do I know? I know Zip—about the Zeitgeist then or now. Theresa’s county commissioner office—abolished years ago—all the rural little school houses long gone. What can I say? Other than the classic art deco Republic County Courthouse in Bellevue—now a Community Center where she worked all those years. And the one-room school-house where she began teaching. It's all history now—so what's new?

The kind of professionalism that was real back then—well, it isn’t much written about now. The way Kansas has changed—the way RFD & city lifestyles have turned into what they are today.

There’s not much oral or written history remaining about this Midwestern history—the kind of excellent professionalism of teaching we had back then.

Most of our EHS guides—had Masters degrees from KU and some from back East at Columbia. We were lucky back then—it was truly an Athens of the Midwest. Kenyon Heights there on the hill—overlooking Emporia. I look out the window westwardly—the Maplewood Cemetery waits for me.

What constituted the excellence of the C of E and KSTC faculty back then? And now after all these years—how do I view these former mentors? Why did I mope in the Sunken Gardens back then—like Tennessee Williams in "Summer and Smoke." 

For many years, I lived next door on Rural Street to a rather interesting woman—who took me under her wing. She was Mrs. Shaffner who was the wife of the C of E football coach—and geology science teacher… 

The College of Emporia was known as a religious school from its inception—until it gradually became more secular in the 1950s and 60s. In Conrad Vandervelde''s history of the school—he tells of some of the restrictions:

Smoking, card-playing and dancing were prohibited. Bible courses were required each year and chapel was held daily. Ball games were arranged so that Sunday travel would not be necessary. Monday was the weekly holiday to discourage travel on Sunday. The college laboratories and library were closed and athletic facilities were not used on Sunday.

But that’s a long convoluted other story—worthy of how many C of E recollections? That other first Carnegie Library building west of the Mississippi—standing there rotting and mildewing from dampness like me? It might get renovated someday—but not me that's for sure. I'm rotting away—into nothingness. These words—the only things left.

As you said, David, this professionalism we got at EHS—it’s not what the kids are getting today in their classrooms. Why? I dunno. I don’t profess being much of an academic intelligentsia—other than pushing the agenda that the English language seems to do the Trick for me. Rude like brilliant Doxtator—was I ready for what happened next?

Walking down the hallway once—this leather briefcase of TW Jaggard came sliding fast outta Doxtator's classroom. I stopped—then picked it up. Took it back into the room—where they were disputing as usual. 

Doxtator was trying to get rid of TW—but then TW was persistent. "C'mon now, gentlemen," I said. "Is this any way for the two most intelligent men in Emporia—to debate important issues of the day? They smirked—I smirked. We all smirked...

Our mentors like Doxtator, Bloxom, Price, Rice, Jaquith, Sullivan and Parker—they were the Midwestern noir mentors of what was to come. Even my mother knew them well—her fondness for Orville Parker so charming. Her pretty flute—encased in dark velvet. Up there—in the attic with her dreams.

Richard Stauffer’s giant looming stone monuments—standing west of Emporia. Looming ancient Stonehenge monuments—ageless Strong City limestone artistic monoliths. Reminding me of the decaying old fenceposts—still strung out there in the yawning emptiness of tall grass prairie silence.

Then there’s my mother’s generation of the ‘40s—as well as for us at EHS in the Sixties. The ancient, inscribed, bolted-down desks—lining in rows there in the EHS classrooms. My generation of the Sixties—her generation of the Forties. All one Piece…WWII and Viet Nam.

But what do I know—about such matters? Other than being there? The way time flows and forgets—the Emporia Gazette is full of obituaries. The delineation and demise—the reportage of this and that. First you dream—and then you die...

All the small town strange scenarios—the men who lusted after my red-headed mother. The lewd dentist —the ogling freak owner of the birthday party Roller Rink. She shrugged—perhaps even enjoyed it. She wanted me to see—that she still had some sex-appeal? Leaving "Peyton Place" in her Escritoire—for me to read and peruse... 

But really like who cares? These three EHS Echo yearbooks—sitting here on my desk. Not that much different than my mother’s three yearbooks—outta the long gone ‘40s Emporia past.

All her young handsome WWII yearbook lovers—you can see it in all their naive faces that the innocence was soon to turn into something else.  

The stark black and white Depression tensions—the looming precocious chiaroscuro of future WWII sacrificed victims—the cutie-pies already deader than a doornail a long time ago. The war economy ever since—to avoid the horrors of the Depression.

Deader than a doornail—the living dead of all the future generations waiting to be deceased. In this yellowing EHS Echo Yearbook from 1962—the Viet Nam dead stare out at me.

The yearbooks of the ‘60s—like Amy Jane's yearbooks of the '40s. They have a way—of telling stories about a lot of things. Things I didn't wanna know—things I wish I maybe I didn’t know… But like maybe that's why I'm writing this down. More for me than you...