Beauty in Diversity

Late this afternoon I was cruising in my truck down a country road out on the eastern plains. The weather had been cloudy for days, and this morning rain finally started to fall. It was a cold, wet spring day and I was taking the long way home from the dairy.

All at once the rain stopped. As if the breath of God were blowing down on a frothy cup of chai, the clouds ahead of me broke apart and the sunlight poured through. In an instant I was under a blue sky. The rolling green countryside, dotted with big red barns and sprinkled with horses, stretched in all directions. The Rocky Mountains stood hazy and dark in the distance, and the world felt so alive. So perfect. Some lonely old country song came on the radio. I smiled. I cruised.

My day started early with the farmer's market, as every Saturday during the growing season does. Today we had the first of the asparagus! Unless you've eaten thick, tender stalks from an old plant cut early in the season, and just hours after harvesting, you've never had asparagus. That crap in the grocery store, even the stuff from Whole Foods, is only asparagus in appearance. I also picked up fresh mushrooms, a few pounds of crisp baby spinach, two dozen eggs from chickens that eat grass and bugs, ten pounds of anasazi and black beans, cider from last fall's apples (spent the winter in the deep freeze), purple potatoes, white and purple onions, green garlic, fresh goat cheese and a few other things. This afternoon, on the way out to the dairy for raw milk, I stopped by Rocky Plains to buy local, grass-fed bison, pork and chicken - steaks, pork chops, sausages, ground round, roast, marrow bones, Rocky Mountain oysters, bacon, etc.

I can honestly say the highlight of my week, and one of the highlights of my life, is the farmer's market. I can't tell you how happy - how downright giddy - I get over local, farm-fresh produce and the people who produce it. It isn't just the superior flavor and freshness or the nutritional value. It's more than the community aspect too. It's more even than the "green" aspect and the self-sufficiency factor. A big part of it is just the simplicity of the system. It appeals to me on such a deep level. There are no factories, no complex and convoluted chains of corporate fat cats, no elaborate distribution networks, no chemicals, toxics or synthetic additives, no vile marketers trying to invent new "products" with flashy branded labels, no wasteful packaging, no nutrition labels, no fads, no gimmicks. It's just sunshine, some nice farmers, some beautiful produce, and some very happy customers and neighbors. I dig that in a big way.

This year I'm planning to supplement my diet with some wild game. My ultimate fantasy is providing all of my own food, and having no use for the industrial food system. I shopped for hunting rifles after lunch. It's been a few years since I shot a gun and I haven't owned a gun since I left Texas. I haven't been hunting since my early college days. I took a few shots on the rifle range. There are a lot of options, but I think I've settled on a sweet Remington 700, vintage 1979. It's got a gorgeous woodgrain stock and all metal sights - today they're mostly plastic. This one has been well cared for and lightly used. It's a very good find. It's a perfect all-around hunting rifle, from coyote to elk. I'm prone to impulse buying, so I decided to think on it a few days. If it's still at the shop next week, then it was meant to be mine.

I have to say it has been a long time since I set foot in a gun shop. It was worth it for the culture shock alone. This shop is in Weld County, which is about as close in culture to rural Texas as Colorado gets. In fact, while I was there Texas came up in conversation. Some of the patrons were swooning over Texas' legendarily pro-gun politics. The employees' uniforms had the following quote printed on the back: "I'll keep my money, my guns and my freedom. You can keep the 'change'" with a badly drawn illustration of an American flag and a gun. A poster on the wall showed pictures of Obama and McCain on dollar bills, with the text, "Don't blame me, I voted for the American."

I had to laugh. My only other option was to blow a gasket. Not to get off topic, but I've recently reconnected with a whole lot of my old high school friends and acquaintances through the magic of Facebook. Probably ninety percent of them would think those shirts and posters were right-on. Even a half-way educated person would see the utter ridiculousness of them, but we're not talking about educated people here. Not even close to half-way. But does that make them bad people? I went to school with those kids, some of them for twelve years. I know they're not bad people. I knew them before we were old enough for politics and religion to come between us. The guys at the gun shop were just as nice as they could be. They were so willing to help and talk about this and that, share hunting stories, give tips on scoping out used guns, etc. They weren't pushy salesmen. I distinctly felt like they wanted to help. But the tiny world they live in doesn't allow them to see very far beyond their own noses. You know, I can remember a time when I supported George Bush. Yes, I mean DUBYA. I can even remember a time in high school when I thought segregation was a good thing, that blacks and Mexicans were all dirty freeloaders that couldn't be trusted. I went to church and Sunday school - I even voluntarily got Baptized because I thought it was the only way for me to go to Heaven. It makes me chuckle now. I remember the first time I saw a man with long hair. I was a child. I cried. My Aunt Kiku (Karen Sue - but as a baby I said, "Kiku!" and it stuck), among the most tolerant of the family (and that's not saying a lot), tried to explain that he wasn't a bad person just because he had long hair. It kills me to admit this, but I can remember a time long ago - long before I'd even heard of Hitler or the Holocaust - that I though genocide wouldn't be such a bad idea. Of course I didn't know the term. Hell I didn't know much of anything. I wasn't stupid, just incredibly naive, sheltered, brainwashed. I had no real concept of many of the ideas I was taught. Black people were just the scary homeless figures that lived in downtown Houston, a place our family very rarely ventured. They weren't real to me. They were like boogiemen - a scary thing I'd heard about but never really seen. It was easy to imagine wiping them out. Just like vampires and werewolves. All I knew was my tiny little world in Huffman and what the adults told me. Small Texas towns don't allow a lot of room for thinking, questioning, learning anything at all about the world beyond. I knew all non-white races only by their horribly racist names. But it was normal. We weren't angry or spewing bile when we said those words. It's just what they were, in our tiny little world views.

Moving off to college was rough for me. It was shocking. It was eye-opening. But I, unlike many of my old high school friends and acquaintances, DID go to college. I asked questions. I traveled. I experienced just a little more of the world. But I think the greatest driving force in my life was my sexuality. That, more than anything else, forced me out of the tiny world of Huffman. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. And I suppose that even today, as "extreme" as I would be considered by my hometown, I'm still tied to those roots. I still love the simplicity of country life. I love trucks and rifles and cowboy hats. I have no desire to be some kind of backwoods dumbass and get into bar fights (like plenty of people I've known in my life). I guess I just like the simplicity and the honest ruggedness that these things symbolize. Yet I've noticed that when I go home to Texas, especially when I visit my family or very old friends, I feel compelled to put away the cowboy hat. I want to wear fashionable city clothes and put on airs and talk about my job and politics and religion. I want to conduct myself in a way that separates me from them and puts me above them. I guess I want to say, "I am NOT like you!" But when I come back home - the home I've made for myself - I relax back into a way of life that, in many ways, fits well with my Texas roots. Isn't that curious?

My life is a dichotomy. I've said this before. There are two people living in my head: a Texas good 'ol boy and an educated liberal activist. Now if that ain't a fine how-do-you-do! I don't claim to know everything. In fact, the older I get the more I realize I know nothing. I don't want to fight with the conservatives because I believe in Obama. I don't want to fight with the liberals because I drive a Super Duty. At best I just want to be friendly with everyone. If not that, then at least just let me live and do my thing.

I do find a degree of entertainment value in being a Super Duty-driving, gun-owning, cowboy hat-wearing Obama supporter who gives money to Greenpeace. I guess it takes all kinds.