No place makes life seem so short like a cemetery. Birth, childhood, first steps, first words, school, first love, family, kids, work, feelings, thoughts, achievements, joys, tragedies – everything that makes up a person’s life becomes just a dash between the two dates. Most of the people will never have anything named after them, will not be a subject of a documentary or even have their own article on Wikipedia; no one will want to dress up like them, sell their costumes or posable figures. At the cemetery we promise not to forget, but to the next generation a person becomes just an image on strangely colored photos, a subject of nostalgic anecdotes and a name on a small gravestone. Their children will wonder about the origins of their foreign-sounding middle names, tracing them on a family tree compiled by an aging relative, trying to capture the memories before they are slowly dissolved in time. The only difference between us and our ancestors is that we leave more proof of our existence – photos, videos, blogs, facebook profiles – these things will probably float around somewhere long after the end date is stamped on our gravestones.

No place makes a person want to live like a cemetery…

Just a few more billboards on the way home.

I’ll pay attention when your real life sandwich looks like this photo, otherwise I am watching the road. You betcha™.

Many things are wrong with this, including idiotic faux-foreign words like “Frappe” (WTF?) and “McCafe´”, but “reboot your brain”?, do you reboot it before or after getting a “frappe”?  And what if it reboots in a safe mode? I ain’t lovin’ it.

Nothing wrong with this billboard, but every time I passed it I thought that it succinctly expresses my general attitude towards ballet. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

The shortest route from Kansas City to Memphis is via Springfield, MO and rural Arkansas where highway is controlled by the roaming gangs of deer who stand around the road contemplating if they will let you live. I wouldn’t recommend driving there in the dark.

I didn’t want to go to Memphis. Even though I learned English trying to sing along with Elvis (and that’s why people often ask me if I am from Tupelo),  I didn’t feel the need to visit his house and other Memphis attractions didn’t really seem worthy of a fairly boring 8-hour drive. Usually we try to see things along the way, but there wasn’t much to see and the only memorable item was a town called Cabool, mostly because of how out-of-place the name seemed somewhere in rural Missouri.

Memphis turned out to be a fun place for a weekend trip, with enough things to keep you busy for a few days.

When the weather forecast for the weekend was published few days ago, I knew it was time to get out of town for few hours. Nothing clears out the mind like two hundred miles in rural Kansas on a first sunny and warm Sunday of the year. I started to look for a place to visit on the best Kansas travel resource but nothing grabbed my eye, so I just looked at the map and noticed a place called Admire, KS. I knew I had to go there and admire it.

U.S. Route 56 leaves Olathe, passes through the armpits of Johnson County known as Gardner and Egderton and makes its way towards Oklahoma through the fields as far as the eye can see. Rolled down windows let the fresh air in and the smell of old hay, burning leaves and an occasional skunk filled up my lungs. I was on the way to Admire.
By the way, have you ever been to Scranton, KS?

Now you have.
Much more interesting is the town of Burlingame down the road.

Burlingame looks like a worn out Mayberry…

…where Aunt B’s is the name of a restaurant.

Aunt B’s niece is getting married next week, so you’ll have to eat elsewhere.

Flower arrangements by Missy’s Flower Shop.

Meat for the wedding is already stored in the Meat Locker.

The Wedding announcement will be published in the cleverly named Newspaper (founded in 1863).

On the guest list is the frequent customer and an old-timey lawyer…

…who enjoys spending his lunch hour from 12 to 1 at Aunt B’s.

Miss Jandi and her students will also be in attendance.

Cheer-leading poodles are the only advertisement for her business.

Church is conveniently located around the corner.

Burlingame will have to wait for another visit, when I may be able to solve the mystery of the piano keys above the tire shop windows.


I still had a long way to Admire.

People in these parts still keep cannons in their front yards, just in case.

Finally I was close to my goal. While taking this photo I drove into something that I can still smell on my car and can only describe as putrid.

Admire was right in front of me.

At least it was a god-fearing town.

High school looks little over-sized for the population of 117 (0.56% Native American, 0.56% from other races, and 3.39% from two or more races. 1.13% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.) That’s .65 of a Native American, must be handicapped or something.

Every tall structure begs you to admire it.

Last Chance Cafe is the best and the only pizza deal in town.

Another water tower was built mainly to display the town’s name.

I had a short drive to Emporia…

…where Jesus Christ wanted me to stop and accept him. Sadly there was no parking.

A friendly cock pointed the way home.

I felt tired but refreshed at the same time. With my head cleared up I settled down on the couch thinking about the roads, small towns, open spaces and partial Native Americans.

Today’s Stuff White People Like brought up a subject of political prisoners. Strangely, I probably know more about American political prisoners and dissidents than many of you. Soviet propaganda machine loved to get the people involved in a cause of standing up for a political prisoner. It served many purposes, not the least of which was to show the Soviet people that the grass wasn’t that much greener on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. Growing up in mid-seventies and early eighties I recall a few campaigns when millions of “outraged” Soviet people of all ages wrote letters and collected signatures to free some unjustly imprisoned victim of imperialism.

According to the Soviet press, Angela Davis was arrested for her progressive views and the government fabricated the charges of her being and accomplice in a murder case. Her arrest was supposed to “discredit and hurt the Black Panther movement and start a misinformation campaign against the Communist Party of the USA”. Thousands of people signed petitions to “Free Angela Davis” and Soviet school kids participated in a “Million Roses for Angela” drive where they were mailing postcards with hand-drawn roses and their pleas for Angela’s freedom to the American president. As a special touch they weren’t attaching any stamps so that evil bastard President would owe the missing postage. In reality Angela Davis was arrested when her gun was used in a hostage situation and a shootout and she was charged  as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide. After 18 months in prison she was acquitted and released, clearly as a result of the White House being flooded with a million postcards; she went on to visit the USSR and meet L.I.Brezhnev and is presently working at UC, Santa Cruz.

Leonard Peltier was imprisoned by the military-industrial complex and imperialist murderers from the CIA for being an outspoken advocate for the rights of the Native Americans. The Soviet people stood up in his support with another letter-writing campaign, meetings and demonstrations but failed to get him released. One central newspaper was printing out pre-filled petitions which were supposed to be cut out, glued to a postcard and mailed to the (still an evil S.O.B) US President. In reality Peltier was arrested and convicted of killing two FBI agents and although the allegations had been disputed they were never overturned.

Charles Hyder is hardly known in this country but his name is familiar to anyone who grew up when his name was mentioned daily on the Soviet TV and in the press. Dr.Hyder was a progressive American astro-physicist who used to work for NASA. In 1986 he protested against the use of the nuclear weapons and the arms-race by staging a 218-day fast in front of the White House. All of the progressive humanity (except of course the heartless imperialists in this country) watched in awe as the aging professor was weakening by the minute for the cause of detente. Soviet TV broadcast daily updates on his health condition while that callous S.O.B President Reagan let this hero waste away. Gorbachev wrote a personal letter to Hyder and the Soviet people expressed their strong support for his cause and even offered to send him food and money. In reality, the consensus was that Hyder was cheating, either eating at night or sneaking food somehow because no one survives 218 days without food even to prove a point. In addition, it turned out that his doctor ordered him to lose weight due to a health condition. A Soviet correspondent faked the daily reports by changing his clothes and filming up to five updates on the same day. Dr. Hyder died in 2004.

There were some others that I don’t personally recall like Assata Shakur or the ones where the person was not a dissident but just a victim of capitalism like a fake homeless guy Joe Mauri.

The common thread was the forced enthusiasm with which the Soviet people stood up for anyone, anywhere, for any reason. Propaganda, constant barrage of falsified information and mandatory attendance of these “spontaneous” events created an impression, an impression is what we were after in the first place.

I’ll conclude with an anti-American poster from the olden days.