When the Walls Fall Down

*Care Warning: This post contains talk of racism.

One Sunday morning I was sitting in church listening to the minister talk about where the collection money was going that month as he pointed to a poster on an easel at the front of the congregation. I looked at the poster with the sad black faces of children from a nation far away from my tiny rural town while the minister talked about starvation or clean water or some such thing. I probably should’ve felt sorrow for those children. But at 11 years old I felt something different. I looked at that poster of those Black children and then I turned around and looked at all the faces that belonged to the people in my childhood church. All of them white, digging around in their hand bags and wallets, helping to save those poor children. And then I thought about how my town didn’t allow Black people to live there. Although I didn’t come across the term Sundown Town until graduate school, I had heard the familiar phrase that goes along with a Sundown Town; sometimes in school or walking around town. A phrase that I won’t repeat here. That feeling that I had in church that day was hypocrisy. I didn’t know that word so I probably really thought, “What a total load of BS.” And that was the first day I started questioning organized religion. I kept my bible under my bed and continued to read a passage each night, determined to make it through the whole thing. And the only thing I remember from my pre-teen years of reading the bible is that I was probably going to hell. I’m not sure why.

My dad didn’t have much use for church, he spent his Sunday mornings doing…I actually don’t know what he did when we were at church. He would meet us at home afterwards and we’d usually pile in the car and head to the nearby college town where we’d eat at a real restaurant and shop at the mall while he hung out at the book store. Maybe on Sunday mornings he was preparing his teaching lesson plan for the next week. I met a farmer this summer who had morning coffee with my dad and told me he used to give him books to read. My dad didn’t have time for church as he was out doing the things in the community that needed doing. Acts of service. Things that filled him up. Whether he was checking in on a student in need or figuring out a new strategy to reach a student who was struggling in school. He was always connecting with people with a joke or a new way to look at a problem or just one of his side hugs. He was an imperfect person as all of us are. I remember scolding him for telling a joke that I understood was racist when I was in college. But I also remember him telling me about when he applied for his teaching job in the late 1960s, he had to submit a photo of his family. When I asked him why, he explained the racism behind it and plainly told me that the administration wanted to make sure they were hiring someone who wasn’t black. My dad may not have understood the experiences and circumstances of all of his students. He may not have agreed with their choices or their values. But the one thing he always tried to do was to help them become better. Better athletes, better public speakers, better humans.

Sure, my dad did go to church occasionally on those non-negotiable holidays like Christmas and Easter. Sometimes he even enjoyed the sermon if the minister was a particularly good story teller. He loved a good story. But I distinctly remember one Easter when he went to church with us. Someone approached him afterward and said, “Fred, it’s nice to see you here. I think the walls of the church might fall down!” And there it was. The judgement. My dad told us he was never going back to church again. Not exactly a welcoming environment to keep butts in the pews.

One of the things I liked about my childhood church was youth group. It was on Sunday afternoons and mostly focused on acts of service like raking leaves or shoveling snow for elders in the church who couldn’t do the work themselves. I loved the community aspect and thrived on the feeling I got from helping others. And I got to do it all with my friends. We were building community and forming connections. That’s the part of church that I loved. Off of the hard pews and outside of the watchful gaze of the adults who always seemed to be judging us within those brick walls.

Fast forward to a new kind of Christianity. A religious movement that judges the most vulnerable among us the harshest of all. Violence is acceptable and encouraged. Violence in the language that we use when we’re hiding behind our screens. Violence in public spaces when we believe the law is on our side because we are the righteous ones. There is a large group of people who believe that God has chosen a leader and that leader can do whatever he wants as long as our ministers promise us salvation. Salvation in return for keeping our mouths shut and for silencing others. For going along with the crowd instead of thinking for ourselves. Even for inflicting physical harm against those whom we deem unworthy. I read that bible cover to cover in junior high and I am here to tell you we have lost the plot. I am not going to hell and even if you believe I am, is it your job to beat me on the way there? I’ve been bullied and I’ve also bullied people. It’s exhausting on both sides. Aren’t we all so tired?

I am amazed at the people who have reached out to check on me in the past couple of days since the election. Aside from my mom, the messages have mostly been from my queer friends. My friends who are among the most vulnerable in this country are reaching out to check on me. “Are you okay?” “How are you feeling?” One childhood friend who is gay even told me “I love you…you need to hear that.” Wow. What an amazing group of people I have in my life. The kindness they continue to show in the face of such hate is admirable.

Sometimes I think I should go back to church. I occasionally miss the sense of community that a church can provide. I know it can be a source of comfort to some. But now I know that I’ll never go back. Not after all of this. What I will do is find some new volunteer opportunities. I’ll build connections in my acts of service. I’ll reach out to friends who need encouragement. I’ll be a landing pad for folks in need as I’ve been my whole life. Mostly importantly, I’ll do my best not to judge. Don’t be fooled, I’ve seen pictures of myself and apparently, I have resting judgement face. Rest assured I can’t help it, that’s just how my face is. But inside, my heart looks different. It’s a little beat up and needs some time to heal but it’s still beating. If your church is an important part of your life, I sincerely hope that these challenges are being discussed there. And if they are not, may you be brave enough to use your own voice to bring them up or find another space where you, your family and your community are safe.

What About Bob?

The cockroach crawled out from under the refrigerator, tipped his hat and then retreated, smirking as he disappeared. When he came back an hour later, I named him Bob. He seemed annoyed. 

Afterward, I had a conversation about Bob with a friend who grew up in South Georgia. She asked, “Well, was it a cockroach or was it a palmetto bug?” 

Y’all-- I’m using “y’all” here because I need some credibility with the Southern crowd when I say this -- it doesn’t matter how hard you try to re-brand the giant flying cockroaches. No amount of lipstick is going to turn a cockroach into a palmetto bug. 

“Hey, they fly and they live in the palmetto trees, let’s try to rename them to make ourselves feel better.”

It’s not going to happen. They’re always going to be giant flying cockroaches to me. 

I was first introduced to a palmetto bug during one of my family’s vacations in Panama City Beach, Florida. In the 1980s, those one- and two-story mom-and-pop motels were still standing and stretched as far as you could see down the Miracle Mile Strip. 

We always stayed beachside, but that year the only rooms available had doors that faced the parking lot. It rained every day that week and one evening we were coming home from dinner and something large dive-bombed our heads. We didn’t see it but heard it come to rest in the palm tree outside our motel door. It was so upsetting that, like good Midwesterners,we all pretended it didn’t happen. We didn’t speak of it again until the next night when it was raining and my dad went to the dog track. 

My mom, my sister and I settled in to watch TV. Soon, I saw a giant cockroach broadcast on TV and then almost immediately realized it wasn’t being broadcast. It was on our TV. 

We were screaming on the bed and my mom was whacking the floor with a shoe and trying to remain calm. She told us she killed it. We wouldn’t find out until years later the giant roach had crawled under our bed. She lied to us because she realized we wouldn’t sleep if we knew. It was probably the most important parenting decision she ever made. We never stayed in a room facing the parking lot again.

My husband and I got married on July 10, 2004 and a few days later we headed to our honeymoon in Savannah, Georgia. (Yes, we were Yankees. Only Yankees would consider going to Savannah in July on purpose.) 

We drove into town and I saw a woman who was waiting to cross the street had hiked her long flowing skirt up past her knees and wondered why. Then we stepped out of our air-conditioned car and my lungs seized from trying to breathe in water. Even those summer vacations in Panama City Beach as a teenager hadn’t prepared me for that kind of heat and humidity.

Our first night in town we went on a midnight ghost tour, and I wore jeans – because in my Midwestern mind it was dark and I assumed it had cooled off. The heat index was in the high 90s and I immediately regretted my outfit. 

As we were walking down the sidewalks of haunted Savannah, I heard a rustling in the leaves on the ground. It was quiet when we stopped, but when we began walking, the rustling sound started back up. 

I asked someone about the noise. A woman from Lakeland, Florida said this was the sound of the palmetto bugs running under the leaves. I was horrified. 

The woman said roaches are common in Florida and she had gotten them inside her peanut butter jar, even though the lid was screwed on tightly. You can imagine my disgust but also terror, because in a couple weeks we were moving to Florida. (I had already found an email from one of my husband’s new co-workers about alligators and “spiders as big as your palm.” I almost didn’t go through with the wedding.) Cockroaches in the peanut butter jar? Nope. 

The rest of our vacation was spent in the pool and napping, because it was just too hot to go anywhere. Three days into our trip, I found myself standing on a street corner, waiting to cross. My hand reached down to the hem of my long flowing skirt and I pulled it up above my knees. I understood. 

A few weeks later we would pull into Tallahassee in the U-Haul truck, and when we opened the door, I thought we’d moved to Hell – it was that hot. Who moves to Tallahassee on July 29th? Yankees. 

Two weeks after we moved in, my husband took a business trip, leaving me behind. We lived in an apartment and the maintenance man had briefly left the front door open.  

I turned around and saw it on the carpet crawling away from me. It had to be two-and-a-half inches long. I gasped. I grabbed a shoe just like my mom all those years ago in PCB and  pounded and pounded on it. Nothing happened. I think I heard it laughing as it crawled under a large piece of furniture. 

I went into hysterics. I marched down to the rental office and two people said, “Hi, how can we help you?” and I lost it. I started sobbing and said something like: “There’s a huge cockroach in my apartment and I’m not from here, and where I’m from, only dirty people have cockroaches.”  

I am aware of the difference in German cockroaches and the giant flying cockroaches. I had German cockroaches twice in apartments back in Illinois and I don’t consider myself dirty. (Cluttered perhaps but not dirty.) But we had just moved in. It was hot. I was delirious. I was a Yankee. The people in the office sent the bug guy up later that day.

I called my best friend in Chicago and told her what happened and wondered how I was supposed to sleep at night. 

She said, “Well, you should sleep with the lights on because I hear they don’t like light.” 

I replied, screaming, “It 2:30 in the afternoon and it didn’t seem bothered by the daylight!” 

She replied, “I know, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” 

Worst of all, the next day I realized how silly I must’ve seemed and went down to the rental office to apologize. I walked in and just like the day before they said, “Hi, how can we help you?” I told them I felt silly about yesterday and I was sorry, and they said, “We don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

I reminded them of the cockroach rant, and although they wouldn’t make eye contact with me, they pretended like it hadn’t happened. They acted like they didn’t recall me standing there snot-nosed, telling them how my husband had left me in this god-forsaken hot-as-hell and how-do-you-keep-your- hair-straight-in-this-swamp-air town. They never did acknowledge what happened. I guess there are some things Southerners have in common with Midwesterners.

After living here for 16 years I have learned a few things. A native Floridian told me the palmetto bugs live in the cast iron plants, so whenever I move, the first things to go are the cast iron plants and the palmettos. 

I’ve never heard the roaches crawling in the leaves on the ground. I think in Savannah it was a symptom of a tourist town with all the bars and restaurants and dumpsters.

I’ve learned about roof rats, and although I’ve never seen a banana spider as big as my palm, it’s only because I don’t go outside in September on purpose. 

A healthy fear of gators keeps me away from all bodies of water outside the ocean. 

I know every house will have bugs because the winters aren’t cold enough to kill anything. 

The three things I know for certain are: I will always be a Yankee, I will always screw my peanut butter lid on extra tight, and no matter how many marketing specialists you bring in to change the name, they will always be giant flying cockroaches to me. 

There's more than corn in Indiana

Last week I heard that Indiana Beach is closing down after 100 years. I was really sad but not for the reasons that others might be. I only visited Indiana Beach once as a teenager but I grew up watching a lot of TV, and that jingle performed by an animated crow from the Indiana Beach summer commercial would stay in my head far into the new school year. “There’s more than corn in Indiana…Indiana Beach.” 

 My family took vacations every summer starting when I was a small child but even though Indiana Beach was located on Lake Shafer just a couple hours over the border from where I grew up in Central Illinois, we never vacationed there. Our first family trip was to Bemidji, Minnesota where my dad used to take fishing vacations without us. The year he took us with him was a disaster but that’s a story for another day. I don’t think my dad took another vacation without his family after that year. We went to see relatives and made educational stops like the U.S. Space and Aeronautical Museum and even took some short pit stops at smaller amusement parks. One year we went to both King’s Island and King’s Dominion on our way to Richmond, VA to see my grandma’s relatives. I’m sure that was not a fun trip for my parents. One year, my dad wanted to stop at Gulf Shores, Alabama because the only time he had visited the ocean had been there when he was in college. After that day my dad decided the rest of our vacations would be spent on the beach, lounging and reading and riding the surf on our inflatable rafts in Florida, but we never went to Indiana Beach together as a family.

 But the memory that I have of Indiana Beach still includes my dad. I was probably 17 years old and outside of seeing my dad at the school where I attended and where he taught English, our time spent together at home was fairly limited. My dad was the sort of guy who was uncomfortable with emotion and filled the quiet and awkward spaces with jokes and laughter. If my sister or I started crying, his eyes got big and he went quiet and just walked out of the room leaving my mom to handle things. He once pretended to be sleeping after I threw up on my parents’ bedroom carpet while my mom cleaned it up in the dark. When I cried after falling down, he would tell me not to be such a baby while he dabbed my skinned knees with peroxide. He knew how to work a room full of people but just didn’t do well one on one with his family.

 Fast forward to the summer I went to Indiana Beach for the day with my high school best friend. Indiana Beach originally started as a man-made lake beachfront with waterskiing and wading. By the time I was a teenager, it had morphed into a small amusement and water park. It was the first time I had seen a Lazy River ride and I thought it was the greatest thing ever invented. As a small town kid who grew up with farm kids riding tractor inner tubes down creeks, the Lazy River ride provided hours of sunning and lazing about without the dangers of creek life, and without having to walk all the way back to the house when you were tired. I spent that day riding rides and lying in the sun and eating all the junk food I could get my hands on. And then I went home feeling really sick. My parents were already in bed when I got home and I was downstairs reeling with one of the worst stomachaches I’d ever had with no relief in sight. My dad came down to the kitchen and heated up a mug of water in the microwave. He put a teabag in and added some honey and sat with me while I drank it, telling me it would make me feel better.  He acted as if he had invented hot tea with honey and was trying to market it to the masses. The drink didn’t work but that moment was one of the most touching and meaningful gestures that my dad ever made toward me. The fact that he was able to sit there in silence, not cracking jokes and not feeling awkward in the silence and not being uncomfortable in my pain and sickness. It was a real dad moment. 

 When places like Indiana Beach close down, it not only affects the people who spent every summer there or the local economy. Its reaches are far beyond that. The ripples of that lazy river ride reached out over the border, through the cornfields and into the kitchens of families who don’t know how to communicate with each other. 

 A couple years after my dad died I took a group of teenagers to Indiana Beach for the day as part of a court ordered supervision program that I managed through the local probation office. We rode rides and ate junk food. I specifically remember riding one of those large Viking boats that goes back and forth and I remember screaming the whole time and trying not to vomit. At 26 years old, my center of gravity had changed and I couldn’t keep up with the teenagers around me. I don’t know if any of those kids remember that day. I don’t know if they remember how funny they thought it was to see me lose it on that Viking boat. I don’t know what their lives were like when they went back home that night. I’m guessing many of them didn’t have a moment with their parents like I had experienced with my dad. But just maybe one of them did. And maybe if that memory lingers with them until they’re as old as I am, just maybe there is still more than corn in Indiana.