Yesterday I promised I was going home and that I’d leave you alone.
My apologies but before I do, I want to talk about Ursula again. (I wrote about her a few days ago, the post is still up.) A friend messaged me and asked me if I liked her. He shouldn’t have had to ask. That he did is my fault. My bad writing. I wanted readers to like her. I like her very much. More than that, I admire her.
Ursula is not a victim but she is a sympathetic character. Her father abandoned her when she was in high school, married her off when she was sixteen. The first marriage went bad and she kept trying. In her third marriage, she was physically beaten. Using nothing but wits and grit (those quintessential American values we all pride ourselves on), she’s assembled an enviable life, a life of tranquility and peace surrounded by the animals she loves and trusts in a beautiful place. Finally, she’s safe.
She’s a born-again Christian and has those insufferable beliefs. But why wouldn’t she? The Christian right has aggressively courted her. They’ve given her difficult life context, a belief system, they’ve made her important. What have we, the liberal left, done for her? We’ve been failing for decades, abortion is irrelevant to her life and we lost that one anyway. Guns, she’s a woman who lives alone in the country, she has guns. Minimum wage, we haven’t touched that since what, 2007? What good have we done Ursula?
We don’t even talk to her. Remember, we’re democrats, we’re the “professional class” (thank you Bill and Hillary). Too bad there are not enough of us “professionals” to win elections. But no, Ursula is not our type and we’re going to criticize and belittle her until it’s we who are no longer relevant. Because Ursula is much of America today. She’s looking for a belief system because she needs one (we all need one). And because we on the left failed to provide one, she looked elsewhere. And we have the gall to call her a hypocrite for taking a few dollars a month in disability? That’s the least she deserves. After all, it’s we who abandoned her.
In our condescension, we imagine ourselves to be the intellectual elite, the smart people calling the shots and charting direction for the good of the little people. And the little people are sick of it. Because we’re not good at it. We don’t honor them or value them or, as I wrote above, even talk to them. We don’t provide aspiration and vision, we don’t project optimism and hope, we don’t paint a picture of a better tomorrow. And worst of all, we don’t deliver on whatever modest aspirations we do articulate. We’re losers. And nobody wants to be associated with losers, no matter how smart we imagine ourselves to be.
Reconsider your thoughts on Ursula. I’ll try to be a better writer.
Two nights ago, I slept at Ursula’s house in Niota, Tennessee.
Ursula is a friend of a friend, she’s fifty-one, a thrice divorced born-again Christian who rides a Harley and has a prosthetic leg, she lost the leg in a motorcycle accident nine years ago. She breeds and raises birds; chickens, ducks, quail, song birds; pretty birds in an enormous variety of sizes, colors and plumage that strut and peck and cluck around her big fenced backyard. She’s also got three small dogs and a son who lives in Chicago.
Her first marriage was to a Navy man when she was 16. Her father was career Navy, divorced, and reassigned to Guam. She was going into her senior year in high school, she married so that she could stay in the States and finish school. They had her son. Her divorce two years ago was from a psychopath who beat her. I asked her about relationships, she adamantly has no interest.
Ursula
Ursula’s birds all have names and personalities that she describes with annoyance and affection. They come when she calls, they sit in her lap, take food from her hand, follow her around the yard. Lucky sits on her shoulder as she does chores. Her love is obvious, her conversations about them have the intelligence, confidence and syllables of science.
More beer and some colorado and our conversation changed from ducks to people. The sky is black, the stars bright, she’s got tiny lights strung on the coops and cages that twinkle, the air has cooled and has a soft touch. We argued about the nature of humans. I told her about friend of mine, Ron, who a few winters ago got a job as a union roofer. Ron was homeless, he didn’t have a vehicle or vehicle insurance or cold weather clothing or the most basic tools or money for lunch. And his cellphone was failing. But the job paid well and I lent him money and sold him an old company truck on credit. (Ron was killed a couple of years later by St. Paul Police.)
She argued that the help I gave Ron was crippling, that he needed to make his own way, that the lord placed a premium on personal endeavor, that any help, particularly government help, creates dependency and weakness. Ursula was defending her god. I’m an atheist.
Our argument approached vitriol and I began to worry about where I was going to spend the night. I was tired and I’d been drinking and I really didn’t want to get back on the motorcycle. Also, this is supposed to be a listening tour. I started talking about the beauty of the night sky and the colored lights on the cages, a change of subject she accepted without hesitation, and we went back to talking about birds and motorcycles. For breakfast, we shared an Amish-grown cantaloupe. The birds got the rinds.
Ursula receives SSI disability payments for her leg.
Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a group of Indian nations consisting of the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Muscogee and the Seminole (the “five civilized tribes”) were forcibly relocated from their ancestral homes in the southeastern United States to areas west of the Mississippi by the United States government. Along the way, thousands died of exposure, disease and starvation. Yesterday I rode parts of the Trail of Tears.
Covid killed Todd Yannayon last September. He was 59 years old. I stopped to take pictures of his abandoned store and Gina came out of her trailer. She lives alone across the Trail of Tears from the store with dogs and chickens. She lived in that trailer with Todd for 14 years. He was her fiancé.
Gina
She gave me a copy of Todd’s funeral program. It includes a picture of Todd on the motorcycle they rode together. She misses the riding. The program includes her as “girlfriend” in a list of kids, sibs, steps and in-laws. It includes a page dedicated to a poem that Todd wrote when he was in high school; Gina’s grief sits between two comas.
Funeral Program
The store includes five or six ancient wooden buildings deteriorating rapidly. She has asked his sons to help, they’re in their thirties and living their lives. It’s theirs, not hers, and they don’t have time but she lives across the road.
One of Todd Yannayan’s “stores”
There is barely noticeable concrete bridge that crosses a tiny stream just down the hill from the store. Gina lobbied the state and the bridge is now the Vincent “Todd” Yannahon Memorial Bridge.
Vincent “Todd” Yannayon Memorial Bridge
It was her willingness to be vulnerable with a stranger, her gentleness with the dogs, her overwhelming loneliness that make Gina such a wonderful subject to write about. She deserves better words than mine.
Luay is 46, an Iraqi immigrant. He came to the United States when he was 13 and has a heavy accent. He’s single and rides a Harley Davidson.
We were having lunch at separate tables. I gathered my silverware and menu and sat with him. He had a grilled chicken sandwich and four beers, I had a club sandwich and fries. We talked bikes and good rides and politics.
Luay voted Trump in ‘16, didn’t like Clinton; Biden in ‘20, didn’t like Trump’s violence. He’s disappointed in Biden, we’re spending billions of dollars in Ukraine and we have people in this country having to choose between “gasoline and toilet paper.”
I asked him about being single, he said he liked his freedom.
Two nights ago, I stayed at Jackson’s Trace motel in Sylacauga, Alabama. In the morning, Alexander from two doors down told me he had chest pain and that he’d had open heart surgery, he yanked down the neck of his t-shirt to show me the scar. The shirt was stained and already so stretched it didn’t take much yanking. He said his house had burned down and his car had been vandalized and that he needed to meet with the judge. Cornelius, another neighbor, was born and raised in Sylacauga and wanted to talk about the Revival. He’s unemployed looking for a job.
I stopped at Heart of Dixie Harley Davidson in Pelham, Alabama to pick up a quart of oil. They have at least one black customer.
Heart of Dixie Harley Davidson
White guy in golf shirt, Bermuda shorts, flip flops in a parking lot asks about The Revival and me. I said I was here to talk with people I might not agree with, to try to break through the media filter. He said, “I’m with you. I watch Tucker every night”. He was on his way to the waterpark with his wife.
I motored past a roadside stand selling jellies and pickles and turned around and went back. I got some blueberry jelly for Jane and some sweet pickles for me. Jayde was a victim of sex trafficking by men in the Marine Corps and unable to escape. Her mother hadn’t believed her. She’s 36 and has been in the program for two months. She talked for several minutes.
City of Lights Dream Center is a 12-month support program for drug rehab, victims of domestic violence, poverty and the like. They asked me to write about them. Photo left to right: Jordyn, Jayde, Kim, all in the program. The jam and pickles were twelve bucks, I gave them a twenty and told them to keep the change.
I chatted with Hehe last night at the Redwood Inn while I was doing my laundry. She’s fourteen going into her sophomore year. Her parents are from Mumbai and own the motel. She’d never been to India and wanted to hear about it, wanted to know if I’d liked it. I told her that Jane and I were engaged at the Taj Mahal. Hehe has three sisters, two are in college. It looks like Grandma lives here, too.
In the Army, Billy T was a friend and roommate. He was from Chattanooga. I thought I’d try to look him up.
