Midterms
A Kansas farm fades, leaving an unsettling void, not tornado-ripped, but familiarity erased in Evanilore. Our political landscape of early voting in midterm elections, dark on the horizon with a thin hopeful rainbow. The storm has not passed; ideologies have reaped what they have sown: doubt, despair, a Grapes of Wrath economy where the homestead is no longer homey. Here in Kansas, they pray the tornado will strike because the last crop only paid the insurance premiums, and an act of a loving god might give them enough to move on, move out, move into a child’s home or an old folk's home, not a camper on the back 20 acres. The American dream, the belief that this is “a land of opportunity that allows the possibility of upward mobility, freedom, and equality for people of all classes who work hard and have the will to succeed,” now looks like our flags, faded, tattered, and worn, whipping in the winds on their halyards without a backup line. Under our Friday night lights, we st...