The rude 3:40 AM alarm was about as welcome as a pack of screeching incontinent monkeys crashing a Dîner en Blanc. To further shock my system that morning, I was forced to take an effective, but rather uncomfortable, eye opening icy cold shower. You see, my hot water heater had died two days before, but between work and all the prep for that early morning 11-hour road trip departure, there had been no time to throw $150 at a plumber to confirm the tall 14-year-old metal thing in my attic was as useless as a hollowed tin drum on a Jawas’ junk heap. And yes, I said attic. For some twisted reason, the sadist builders of my 50-year-old house decided that the hot water heater should be up there, where it could potentially do far more damage if it leaks and will cost quadruple to install whenever it needs to be replaced.
At 4:04AM, our sometimes-sticking garage door (oh the joys of homeownership; anyone know a plumber that also works on automatic garage doors?) finally completely shut and locked behind us. After weeks of prep, we were at last ready to start our extended weekend journey deep into my wife’s Iowa roots past. While the rest of her family never considered moving out of the Hawkeye state, she got out of there faster than a debutant fleeing the scene of that feces-tossing monkey invasion at the aforementioned all-white clothing and accoutrement gala.
In the many years since she left, my wife has worked hard to find a balance between her past and present self. Her small-town Iowa compassion and values are woven into her DNA, and sometimes clash with my in-your-face, screw or be screwed, New York City upbringing attitude. At least we both agree that the local headstrong, slightly delusional, Texas pride ego thing here where we live, is a bit over the top. Not that I can say that out loud, lots of folks here don’t leave the house without a gun… or two.
It’s always funny to me when our different backgrounds collide, like on that drive when she noticed “that the corn is low for this time year”. The only thing I know about corn is that occasionally boxes of it are shoved in the grocery store produce aisle. But if it’s not there, I can always plop some out of a can or grab some of those “ho-ho-ho”ing Jolly Green Giant’s frozen ears. Now that is something someone who grew up with the just-picked fresh stuff practically in their backyard, would never consider doing unless they were desperate.
Although she has never let it totally define her, my wife’s Iowa upbringing is a deep part of her soul and spirit. And though I might occasionally tease her about the rural world she grew up in (us NY city folks are rude like that, just ask any Texan), but it truly is one of the many things I love about her. Being born in a big city I was able to be an unnoticed loner through my early childhood. But because of her hometown’s small population, she almost had no choice but to participate in a wide array of sports, arts, and community organizations. For years she taught most of the area’s small children to swim when she was a lifeguard at the county’s only city pool. But where most of her peers had no desire to ever leave the state, my wife’s intense wanderlust fueled her dream to see the world. She was a high school exchange student in France, did a college year in London, and permanently left Iowa when she started grad school elsewhere.
My wife is decidedly different and disconnected from those she left behind but is still forever mentally bonded to those people and that place. Of course I am that way about my hometown too. My upbringing might be very different to hers (although I can spot when the weeds growing between the squares of concrete sidewalk are low for this time of year), yet we both understand each other’s tangled emotions about our pasts. The intense desire to escape the world we were born into, our mutual feelings of disconnect because we will forever be transplants wherever we live, and that strange feeling whenever we visit our childhood cities of being more of an immersive sociologist observer then a part of the community. It would be a lie to say I am not a little jealous of the blind arrogant pride Texans have for their state, it’s something I will never feel or experience. I love where I am from and always enjoy visiting, but I am not oblivious to its faults and imperfections.
It was still very dark out when we started our long drive, but even once the sun rose, there was nothing much to look at except sprawling Midwest farms and the long two-lane heartland highway unfurling before us. That is, until eight hours into our trip when we arrived at our noon appointment in a rough Kansas City neighborhood suffering from decades of neglected urban blight. It was like the nearby parts of Queens that my mom drummed into my head to steer clear of when I was a wide-eyed boy just starting to wander beyond the relatively safe familiar blocks near our house
We were stopping there to procure a few hundred bucks worth of that evening’s dinner at the famed Arthur Bryant’s, a rundown bodacious bar-b-que joint smothered in more history than their specialty brisket burnt-ends are in thick vinegary home-made BBQ sauce. Seeking attention and votes from the local everyman, famous politicians from Harry Truman to Barak Obama, John McCain to Jimmy Carter have all walked though their grimy front door and sat down at one of their slightly sticky 1950’s style Formica topped tables to chow down under the thankfully dim yellowed glow of their florescent tube ceiling lights. Based on the faded photos covering all the walls, many other well-known people have previously eaten there too, including my famous wife, but I will get to that part of the story in a little bit
While Arthur Bryants’ ribs, brisket, and pulled pork are renowned for their slow-cooked flavor, the place is just as well-known for its infamous slow service. Frequently the lines stretch out the door and around the block. I guess when you are good, you don’t have to be fast. We had ordered our feast of food days ahead of our arrival, and with only about a dozen folks in front of us, it still took over an hour to get out of there. Of course it was worth it. We also knew in advance it would be impossible to sit in the car with over a half dozen pounds of aromatic goodness without busting things open for samples, so we ordered an additional brisket sandwich to split. It was gone before we left the parking lot.
The big bar-b-que dinner was just the first of several weekend treats we had planned to help celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday. So the entire family could stay together, we rented a huge four bedroom ‘rustic’ VRBO wooden cabin on a pond near the small Iowa town where my wife grew up. I carefully chose the adjective ‘rustic’ in that last sentence because from a positive or negative standpoint, ‘rustic’ is in the eye of the beholder.
For most everyone there, it was the good kind of rustic. Especially for my brother-in-law’s pre-school grandson who with Pop-Pa’s help, excitedly learned how to fish for the first time. Although he did mostly fish for “seaweed” (his words), since he had zero desire to touch a worm. For a city boy like me who prefers a concrete jungle full of sleek steel and glass devoid of insects, spiders, and creeping critters, it was more the negative ‘rustic’. As I explained to my sister-in-law’s laughing boyfriend, “I adored seeing the nearby beautiful tree-lined pond just down the lush green grassy hill… through the window.”
Too many recent family gatherings had been for more serious or sad reasons. Along with morning body aches and lousy peripheral vision, that’s one of the many things that happens when you get older, that no one tells you about when you are carefree kid. Because of that, I think everyone really appreciated the light atmosphere of the weekend. We had lots of good meals, plenty of laughs, and pleasant conversations reliving old family memories, while making a handful of new ones. But there was one strange occurrence.
The owners of the cabin described themselves online as artists who grew up in the area and owned a farm. The two cabins they rented were at the end of an unnamed gravel road on either side of a small pond, with another nearby little structure that could be used for weddings or events. We were a little concerned because there was mix-up with our email address when we booked weeks earlier, and though we had a confirmation number, our actual booking no longer showed up anywhere on the VRBO app or website.
When we confirmed a week earlier, the company’s online customer service said we were good to go, but after their initial greeting the host never answered any of our follow-up e-mails and calls with basic questions about the place. We were surprised by the complete lack of instructions we received beforehand aside from the original listing’s listed check in-and out times. Usually, those type of places have all sorts of rules to follow and hoops to jump through to get the keys. Around the time we were close enough for my wife to notice the area’s corn crop was shorter than usual, we tried calling the owners from the car, but we never heard back.
When we arrived, we just walked up, and the door was unlocked. My wife tells stories about how at one point the house she grew up in had been left unlocked for so many months in a row, when they went to leave for a family vacation, no one knew where a key even was. That certainly was not the case where I was raised. Our NYC house had more locks than the Panama Canal. We cautiously walked in and looked around the place, but again, there was no specific paperwork or instructions. The only thing we could find was the guestbook and some slightly faded attached sloppily scrawled handwritten notes about recycling and there being no garbage disposal that were attached to the kitchen counters with several layers of yellowed scotch tape.
Rustic, quirky, woodsy… take your pick. There were lots of words with multiple meanings that could be used to describe the place, but it was perfect for our needs that weekend, even with its 21 sets of unmatching chairs. But my wife and I could not help but worry (okay nothing new, we worry about everything) since we had no contact with the owners in weeks and no guidance or rules about the place itself. It was definitely the cabin in the pictures, we had the correct paperwork, and they had taken our money… but we had questions. What was bothering us the most was that there were no check-out instructions, and we did not want to pay hefty extra fees because we did or did not do something. But the clock was ticking and everyone else would be arriving soon, so we dragged our stuff inside and started hanging the birthday decorations.
The BBQ dinner was a big hit, with plenty of leftovers for the inevitable midnight snacks. Later the next morning, we were just cleaning up from a big chaotic family breakfast when there was a loud knock on the door. Not expecting anyone, my wife wandered over and opened the door with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. She was still a little worried if something went awry with our reservation and we were not really supposed to be there.
That feeling quickly got stronger when it turned out to be the artsy / farmer / owner of the cabin. My wife was about to confirm that we were supposed to be there and ask several questions about the check-out process. But the woman instead said something so surprising and unexpected my wife immediately got flustered and forgot them all.
Looking at my wife, the woman asked are you so and so “from Atlantic Iowa that was famous for athletics?” Stunned and confused, my wife stumbled over her reply saying something like, ‘ I am from Atlantic, but I am not sure how famous I am.’ The woman quickly apologized and said the only reason she dropped by was to confirm if it was really her. My wife was so taken aback, she never did ask any of her questions.
We have not visited the area very often since my wife’s mother passed away, but in the past she has had people in the area recognize her from grade school and had young adults tell her that she taught them to swim when they were little. But no one had ever called her ‘famous’ for anything before. Apparently, somewhere, sometime, in the far distant past, my wife made a strong impression on her.
Of course, I jumped all over that and started calling my wife famous the rest of the weekend. All I kept thinking was the next time we were taking a drive north into my wife’s past, and we were stopping at Arthur Bryant’s on the way, maybe I’d surreptitiously slip my famous wife’s picture onto the wall with all the other celebrities that dined there.
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