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 still stand and recognize our anthem, but how many of us sing or even know all the words?  Do we still honor the courage and sacrifices of Americans who defend the nation and its freedoms, and do our citizens still enjoy the liberties of freedom of speech, religion, and assembly?

Kansas is the breadbasket, our heartland. But we worry if we pass that basket to our brethren, we may not have enough to feed our own children. Instead, bad media feeds us fear, and we retreat into our hovels, so we too become hoarders.