One of my favorite essayists, Calvin Trillin, writes about his attempts to keep his Kansas roots and Midwestern values alive while raising his two daughters in New York City. At times, the cultural and generational divide was so vast, his expectations and values so seemingly incongruous, he struggled to find a way to explain himself to his children. Eventually it came to him, the theme that might make his actions more comprehensible: "Despite all evidence to the contrary, you are being raised in Kansas City."
Of all the driveway moments in my life, none have ever resonated in quite the same way as listening to that native son of Kansas reaching out and offering me the key to my childhood. Months after hearing Mr. Trillin and experiencing that epiphany, I shared his story and family theme with a few of my siblings.
We laughed, identifying with it, swapping our own stories. Then we began to expand on it. Not only was our father born at home on a Kansas homestead to a schoolteacher mother and an older French Canadian immigrant father, but he was raised during the Great Depression and the "dust bowl." Shaped by their twin hardships, he then came of age during World War II.
A half a continent away, our mother grew up part of the same generation, volunteering for the Army Cadet Nurse Corps in World War II. Before she graduated, the war drew to an end. At about the same time, a certain young man left behind his roots, leaving Kansas to work in the Yakima Valley. They met, fell in love and were married in a whirlwind romance, convinced they could overcome just about any challenge through faith and being frugal, self reliant, stoic and resourceful. Years later, I have decided that, despite all evidence to the contrary, my siblings and I were raised in Kansas during the Dust Bowl, Great Depression and World War II.
Saturday January 19, 2008
Lois Grammon-Simpson
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