Thursday began as expected with coffee & breakfast. This time however, we were quite possibly treated to the b
est server the Iowa 80 has ever employed. Christi was a very pretty blonde, in her early 20’s and quite reserved at first, but as time went by became quite friendly and some would say… even playful. After Sally and her 45- minutes between half fill- ups the day before, Christi was stopping at our table at least every 5- minutes, and rarely let the cups get below half full. Slowly, we learned that she was a single mother of a young daughter, who has a pain- in- the- ass ex… and no life. Chris and I felt badly for her and, remembering Corbin City, only half- kidding suggested that the three of us get together at whatever bars 
Walcott offers. That went nowhere, of course, but our “first- shift” stay lasted the rest of the morning and all the way thru the rest of her shift, which ended at 3pm. We were quite happy and bordering on caffeine overload while Chris had actually taken up coloring- with crayons- by the time we packed up to see the Trucker Jamboree that was now in full swing.Fun Fact: I believe this is the first time, in 150+ posts, 30+ states, and 14- months, I have EVER typed the word “crayon.” Thanks, Chris!
The Jamboree initially reminded me of a brand name circle- jerk. It was first and foremost a "Corporate Fair." There were logos and sales- generated displays everywhere, particularly beneath the massive tent. It was the type of setting where any of my old radio stations would surely have reserved a booth to pass out bumper stickers and free Styx/ REO Speedwagon tickets. This part was a bit too familiar for me, but I loved the truck displays. There was everything from Semi- Truck Hotrods, to 100- year old antiques, the latter of which I found fascinating. I have long loved old
cars & trucks, despite knowing nothing about them mechanically. It was nostalgic to think who had originally bought and used these relics, and more than once I pictured the jalopy the Tom Joad had ridden to California.We did a couple of slow laps around the site and in that time I came to realize that the nostalgia had unexpectedly continued. I had begun to appreciate Iowa, while at the same time remembering how I had all but hated it when I had lived here. It's funny how you view the same scenes differently at alternate points in life. Everywhere I looked were families. Young, 20- something couples with toddlers, people my age with teenagers, and periodically multiple generations walking together. Kids were everywhere, many actually working as volunteers’ side- by- side with their parents. It struck me that there was an ACTUAL sense of community; one not manufactured or contrived for image out of a sense of “Nuevo Idealism.” This was their heritage and tradition. It was, pardon the phrase hippie, organic.
I quietly snickered when I realized that this might have been the most conservative crowd since North Carolina in 2008, and that they had achieved the very thing that the hippies in Portland and Santa Fe were seeking: Community. The irony being that these farm boys would ultimately pummel most of the “community forging” progressive- elitists I have met. It occurred to me that perhaps the answers the dreadlocked granola- eaters seek exist, but wrapped within the very thing they despise: traditional conservative ideals. The brand of Conservatism that has nothing to do with Mississippi Racism, Pat Robertson, or Dick Cheney. A Conservatism where people are self- sufficient, take an unforced genuine interest in their neighbors and, yes, their community, but not needing or wanting a "Daddy State" as their babysitter. To a man, I’ll bet if you asked they’d point out that with an abdication of personal responsibility comes the correlating abdication of personal freedom and choice. Depending of course on rather you consider “credit or debit” or “paper or plastic” choice. I’ll leave the rest of the Illusion of Choice rant to Carlin. No need to thank me... I hear the chorus of "Thank God's" loud and clear!
However, and unlike many of mine, this particular mini- rant serves a purpose. Beyond the inner social- dialogues, walking around in this atmosphere with these friendly down- to- earth people began a process of snapping my purpose into perspective; reminding me of what I had encountered in 2008 while seemingly doing nothing in places like McCammon; much as I was at this Jamboree. The majority of my best experiences had little to do with living in the woods, or walking down a fucking road trying to get to the next town just to do it or update my mental- map, while hoping to have Grand Adventures to use as anecdotal evidence to prove my badassitude. No, it was the direct (or even indirect), seemingly random, insignificant interaction with all sorts of ordinary people. Passively being the sidecar, rather than it's propagandist.
It was the group in Randleman, after sitting passively at a gas station for nearly a day.
It was Drunken Dennis driving across the Rockies and randomly dropping me at Leah’s door, after passively sitting in Ft. Morgan for 2- days.
It was rides that had resulted from passively sitting on the side of the road: “Z”, Jack, Corey, Jo, Doug, Florian, Ken.
It was sitting quietly at a picnic table at a truck stop in McCammon, Idaho passively watching people: Ciel, Rick, and others.
Sure, it was also train hopping, but it seems the best stories and biggest lessons have oftentimes come when I am not seeking anything; waiting for “chance” to carry me off; just being where I was. This is Eckart Tolle’s “Present”: not being obsessed on the past or the future; where you’re going or how far you’ve been. In this case, it was not a lightning bolt of realization, but the Seed of Recall sprouting in the fertile, metaphorical farmland of Walcott, Iowa.
Chris and I staked out a piece of damp ground shortly before Aaron Tippin. He struck up a conversation with a woman from Illinois while I wandered off on the phone. The concert was good, since I knew at least a few of his songs, and afterwards we witnessed what was, unequivocally, the WORST fireworks “display” ever. I have seen better fireworks on a cul-de-sac!The crowd, sparse early, had exploded just before Tippin took the stage around 7. The traffic was so heavy coming in that it nearly backed up onto I-80. Chris and I made our way to the front of Iowa 80 after the mass exodus had begun, getting coffee and finally setting up shop hoping to take advantage of the insane volume of slow moving, happy drivers. Neither of us was comfortable hitching with the police directing traffic next to the exit, so we tried the well- lit driveway leaving Iowa 80 hoping to reel in a truck, to no avail.
When it began to lightly rain, we took our toys back to the front door where was witnessed one of our more intriguing incidents to date. As we were quietly sitting here, a nondescript couple passed in front of us followed by what seemed, initially, to be a replay of the “Fair Maiden of the Wood” incident in Maryland. Chris bolted off the bench, yet again mumbling something that sounded like Klingon while picking something up and sprinting after them. Considering the time of day, 
I half expected him to return with a fat lip, but all was well when he proudly came out of the store. The man had dropped a $50 bill out of his pocket and it had landed directly in front of us, which I had missed. Chris had chased him down to return it.A brief discussion on rather we should have returned it ended in full agreement that we definitely should have because we had blatantly seen to whom it belonged. The thing that troubled me was that he initially (offhandedly) indicated that retuning it would "keep karma on his side.”
This thought took me back to Randleman and Pastor Snake’s sermon about “loaded charity”; attempting to make a “business deal with ‘God’” by performing acts of charity simply to move ahead of the Heathens at Heaven’s gate. Perhaps, that $50 falling in front of us, and not 20- feet to the left or right, WAS “...karma on his side?” Either way, returning it was the right thing to do, but these motivational questions tuned my antenna to see what kind of karma Chris would incur from this point on. Be careful when reaching into Bitch Karma’s rabbit hole… it runs deep!As it turned out they were, as you can imagine, grateful for the honesty. Chris struck up a conversation after they came out thanking him and handing him his reward: $2. Apparently the woman was half of a husband/ wife team that took I-80 all the way to California almost on a weekly basis, but not THIS week. She said she'd be happy to give us a ride because we were "obviously honest people." We'll see how that works out in the end, we do have their cell numbers!
With that, quite an eventful day ended. We had discovered the hard way that we were sleeping almost directly on top of a large anthill for the past two nights, so we switched nests, moving down a few trees as we prepared for a full day of trying to leave the hospitality of Iowa 80 behind us on Friday.
