OHIO
Swanton
The Eco Camp, a solar-powered yurt encampment, is a magical place invented and presided over by Alexander, a lovely man from a small town near Hamburg, in Northern Germany. The clear dome to the left was a Covid-necessary measure: There is a communal cooking and hanging-out area (there are many of the latter, actually), but social distancing rules prevented that, so Alexander installed individual living-room domes for each party of campers, complete with a nifty propane stove and table combination for cooking (see below).
Scene: Exterior, path to shower building, located in the adjacent campground: mostly RVs, a few tents).
Me (to myself, observing the sign above): What the??
Scene: Exterior, Eco Camp, later that day.
Me: So, did you see that sign, “We’ve found Jesus. Go away.”? I mean, what the hell? For one thing, what is it about ‘Love they neighbor as thyself’ that they don’t get?
Alex (gently): I think you should read it again.
Me: Huh?
Alex: This is for the people selling magazines, or trying to get them to vote for this person or that person, or to pledge their lives to Jesus. They’re saying, We’re good. Leave us alone.
Me (chastened, deflated): Oh. Oops. I guess I assumed this was a bunch of intolerant right-wingers.
Alex: No! Not at all. That place is gay-owned. This place is gay-owned.
Me (shrinking further): Ah
Alex: There was only one guy — he lives right over there. He was flying an American flag, an Ohio flag, and a Confederate flag. I asked him, Why are you flying the American flag and the Confederate flag?
(aside) I can get away with those questions, because I’m a foreigner.
He said, ‘Well, cause I’m just a hick. I guess that’s just what you’d call the hick flag around here.’ But I said, ‘No. The Confederates were against the United States. They were the enemy. You’re flying the American flag and the enemy flag. It doesn’t make sense.
Me: What did he say?
Alex: He didn’t say much at the time. But a few days later, he took it down.
Council Bluffs
Council Bluffs is much the smaller city [compared to Omaha] and the Bluffs from which it takes its name are not steep river embankments as we had supposed, but a high residence-crowned hill behind and above its innumerable railroad stations. Nothing, by the way, seems more typical of American towns than to have a “residential district” on the “heights.” — Emily Post, By Motor to the Golden Gate (1916)
Along the Missouri
Omaha … is divided from Council Bluffs by the coffee--colored Missouri. How can as much mud as that be carried down current all the time and leave any land above, or any river below! — Emily Post, 1916
