Yesterday was election day here in Kansas City. Since there were only three questions on the ballot voting went very quickly. I voted “yes” on one issue, which was requesting a small tax increase to fund more public transit. I’d thought about voting “no” on the issue, but while I don’t feel warm and fuzzy about what our politicians might be thinking about doing with the money, I realize there is, and has been, a desperate need for more public transit here. I voted “no” on another tax issue about taxing internet sales when the sale is with an entity outside the state of Missouri. The third issue concerned 5.339 acres of property a bit north of where Nancy and I live. According to the Parks and Recreation Commissioners, the property is “no longer necessary or appropriate for park, parkway, or boulevard use.”
It didn’t seem like a difficult vote to me. In fact, if I could have voted “hell no!” I would have.
I shouldn’t have been surprised with the result, but I was. Actually, I was stunned. A bit over sixty percent of those voting agreed that the property is “no longer necessary or appropriate……”
So, what’s next? Let me hazard a wild guess. Condos? Strip malls? Casinos? There are a lot of things that could be done with 5.339 acres of land. The ancient Romans built their magnificent Colosseum on six acres of land. I don’t want to feed our city’s leaders’ empty heads with ideas, but why couldn’t we do something like that here in Kansas City? Can you imagine what Saturdays and Sundays might be like if we took advantage of such a golden opportunity. The city could round up some of the most notorious croaks roaming our streets and put them in the arena like the Roman emperors did a couple of thousand years ago. The possibility of men tearing each other apart limb from limb while the crowds in the stands munched on hot dogs, barbeque, nachos and drank beer would be exhilarating. The politicians would almost certainly be thinking of the revenue stream this twenty-first century version of bread and circuses would provide. Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, they’d be dancing with glee.
I understand it’s far-fetched, but I’m using the idea as a way of driving home a point.
Consider this. Our Parks Department has declared that 5.339 beautiful acres of land is “no longer necessary” and sixty percent of those who voted agree with them. The very real possibility of strip malls, condos, and casinos looms in the distance.
I wasn’t born into an environment that would be considered pleasant to the eye. I was born in inner city Boston and spent many of my formative years there. Mine was a world of tenements and broken glass. Years after I left Boston for good, I described my inner-city experience in Iambic Pentameter:
The Romantic’s Ghetto
By
Phil Dillon
Some say their roots are in the land
In the strength and dignity of furrowed country rows
Mine are in the blaze of neon
Giving light and breath to the tenements lining ghetto streets.
Some say their faith was honed on cathedral glass
And sharpened by regal priestly robes
Mine was cut on jagged ghetto glass
And purified by the clatter of subway steel.
Some say they have an eye for distant landscapes
Or the refined beauty of a mountain stream.
Mine is tuned to a ragged ghetto face
Or the cloistered ghetto masses forgotten by the rush of time.
Where’s the dignity of life to be found?
In the land? In a stream?
For some it is for sure…..Where is it then for me?
It’s the romance of the Ghetto that will always fill my soul.
Things had to change. It took a couple of experiences from my teen years to stop over-romanticizing that inner-city life. When I was about twelve years old the Episcopal church I attended sent me to a summer camp in Buzzard’s Bay on Cape Cod. There I got to roam around in an environment I’d never been in before. The beauty of the sand dunes, the sound of waves crashing against the shore, and the taste of cranberries picked fresh from the bogs was enchanting.
When I was fourteen I graduated to summer camps in New Hampshire. The environment was different, but every bit as enchanting. I grew to love the sound of the wind whistling through the pines and gazing at Mount Manadnock early in the morning.
That sense of enchantment has never left me. Nancy and I lived for years in Emporia, Kansas, which is about 90 miles south of Kansas City. It’s perched on the rim of the Kansas Flint Hills, which is a Tallgrass Prairie that stretches from Oklahoma to Canada. It is one of the cleanest ecosystems on the planet. To some like our enterprising Parks commissioners it must seem like a lot of wasted space that could be better utilized to build condos or casinos. In fact, there have been some who have recommended erecting hundreds of wind turbines out there to produce energy. Fortunately, the locals rejected the idea, which had been supported by Ted Kennedy and other east coast Democrats. The farmers’ and ranchers’ suggestion that the politicians erect the wind turbines on Hyannis or Maryland’s eastern shore put an end to that ill-advised scheme.
About three or four times a week my duties as a service engineer for FedEx required a trip to Wichita, which meant an early morning drive through the Flint Hills. I’d leave the house right around dawn and pass by the almost treeless environment, catching a glimpse of Orion’s Belt as it surrendered to the daylight and the wonder of taking peeks at the rolling hills that seemed to stretch into eternity itself. After a few trips I decided to stop on the way and reflect on what I was seeing. I wrote about those reflections and they follow:
Reflections at Mile Marker 109, Kansas Turnpike
By
Phil Dillon
© 2002 Phil Dillon
It’s the cusp of dawn. I’m chasing Orion’s Belt and bull-haulers down the Kansas Turnpike. At mile marker 109, about a furlong or two south of the cattle pens, I stop.
The occasional rush of southbound traffic breaks the dawn silence. Like a general poised in his appointed place, I review the early morning parade. Saints and scoundrels, gospel singers and politicians, truckers, ranchers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mothers, fathers, children, all pass by. Problems and opportunities wind their way down the highway with them.
I touch the highway sign. Mile marker 109. I feel the bits of rust creeping up on the metal. It’s man-made, temporal, placed on the edge of the eternal. It speaks. “This is where you are.” It speaks of commerce and progress passing by. It speaks of cattle and concept drawings on their journeys past a solitary milepost planted on the edge of eternity.
I turn, take a step, and cast my gaze across the prairie. Like the storied astronaut of my youth, that one small step transports me from one world to another. Thoughts pass by. Some pass quietly, humming like the Toyotas and Fords on the highway. Others I hear in the distance. Their low, grinding hums become roars as they draw near, like the Peterbilts and Kenworths hauling their precious cargoes from Chicago to Dallas or the Twin Cities to San Antonio.
While the darkness has not yet surrendered to the day, there are hints of color along the rim of the eastern sky. I sense that they carry the faint whisper of an announcement of the millennium to come. The ageless ritual proceeds, moment by moment. Light overcomes the darkness. The unbroken sky and the endless sea of grass now join together in a hymn of praise. The morning breeze caresses the tallgrass. The blades of grass, in turn, wave gently to and fro, worshippers caught up in the glory of this moment.
Thoughts glide effortlessly through the air, then stop to gently kiss the earth. The earth gratefully receives the kiss from above and pleads, “Maranatha…..Maranatha.”
A hawk circles above, wings outstretched, reaching for an unseen spire. As he circles, the dawn sun touches him, revealing his priestly robes and eyes of fire.
I sense that I’ve entered a great cathedral. I’m overwhelmed by my own smallness. I fear. The hawk descends slowly, gracefully and speaks. “You are indeed small. But, fear not. You’re known…..You’re known. This is where you are. Mile marker 109. This is the place where the line between now and forever is drawn. Here you own nothing, but are given the grace to be a part of everything. The language of the world you left is ownership. The language here is stewardship. This is the place where moth and rust do not corrupt.”
His appointed ministry complete, he now lays hold of the morning currents and moves effortlessly off to the east.
I feel the warmth of a tear as it drifts slowly down my cheek. My epiphany’s complete. I turn back and take another small step, returning to the world I left moments before. I take my place in line with my fellow travelers, the builders and dreamers, the movers and shakers, the commerce and the concepts. Our daily procession has taken us past this place…..mile marker 109.
I’ve been part of that daily procession many times since that encounter and each one has given me what I believe are some wonderful insights. I’ve learned that, while I’m a very small speck in a very big universe, I am still known. I’ve learned that this world doesn’t revolve around cattle cars and concept drawings, nor does it revolve around the idea that this world needs more condos and casinos. Things really are much bigger than the so-called movers and shakers could possibly imagine.
I realize that I can’t change the results of the election. I’m disappointed, but I’m not going to mount a “stop the steal” movement here in Kansas City. I’ll just close with a snippet from an old film titled “The Hoodlum Priest.” At the end of the film, a young man who had been befriended by Father Charles Dismas Clark, was on his way to the gas chamber. Outside the chamber there is a protestor bearing anti capital punishment sign. As the man pulls out a cigarette, a guard lights up his letter and tells the man, “You’re not gonna’ change the world carrying that sign around.” The man responds, “I’m not trying to change the world; I’m just trying to keep the world from changing me.”
And that’s where I am today. Like that lonely protester I’m just “trying to keep the world from changing me.”