The bar is named What's Up, and has a clever little logo: a question mark followed by an up arrow. I spoke with the owner, Andy, a little bit before Deanna and Sonia caught up. It blew his mind that not only was someone riding across the country on a bicycle ("Like, an actual bicycle?"), but there existed a classic route for that journey and his bar was right on it. Andy and his two friends at the end of the bar, Shawn and Twig, went through the now-classic stages of reaction to this news: first, some indirect hostility and questioning of my sanity, followed by confusion when I played along with it (see the title of this blog), acceptance once the "friends giving each other shit" template kicked in to resolve cognitive dissonance, and finally respect once they decided that, at the very least, I was doing a difficult thing.
Conversation seemed to go pretty well for a couple beers, during which Deanna and Sonia arrived. After a while, Andy asked what he had clearly been wondering from the start: if we were "Obama people". I said I thought he was alright, which brought about a few moments of awkward silence. There was a little discussion about Trump, who would "at least do something about the illegals", but conversation went back to being generally pleasant afterward. By the time we left to try the community pool, Twig offered to buy two shots if we came back. I said I would. He didn't believe me.
I went straight to the pool, which was about to close. Deanna and Sonia stayed to set up their tents while I floated around and received instruction in "really cool jumps" from a local kid on the diving board. I try not to say no to interesting situations, so after swimming, I made good on my promise to return to the bar instead of getting the sleep I should have wanted. I walked in on Andy, Shawn, and Twig discussing plans for their own bike trip: a 20-mile ride from Dighton to a location where they would leave a cooler full of beer as motivation. Throughout the course of 5 more beers (it's Kansas, the beer is light), they showed me how to use Snapchat. I sent them a picture of my face while pooping. They decided I was alright. We discussed things including Trump's wall, which led to an admission that "Mexico will pay for it" was stupid and possibly some acknowledgement that the wall won't even work, but the feeling seemed to be that even a massively irresponsible and ineffective effort was better than encouraging them like Obama somehow does. I really wish I had thought to simply ask why illegals were such a pressing problem, because I suspect that would have let me debunk some myths around illegal immigration: they're hardly "criminals and rapists", for example, given that their crime rate is lower than that of citizens despite their relative poverty, which you'd expect to increase crime. They're not "taking our jobs" because they take jobs that citizens often won't, reducing food costs in the process (exploitation is another matter). They don't live on government handouts because, generally, they're ineligible. And they pay taxes. That doesn't change the fact that they're here illegally, but that's a case for immigration reform, not a massive monument to racism.
Two women showed up later that night, and everyone played the gender roles expected of country men and country women. The women worked the guys for drinks and the guys felt them up and generally demeaned them. I actually called this out a couple times, which might not have been wise, but all that really came of it was a statement that I "just don't know how things work out here". Later, I talked with the woman who was clearly more the desired of the two, and thus the more abused. She mentioned a history of abusive relationships and expressed a lot of genuine pain and frustration, though whenever she thought she said too much, she would switch back to rationalization and excuse-making: they're all "just country boys", after all, and it's different here. We now have $50 on whether the guys will complete their bike trip. I say they'll go, she says they won't.
All in all, self-congratulatory as it is, I was proud that I was able to actually say something about hot-button and important issues like politics and feminism. If nothing else, I think I at least provided an example of a liberal that wasn't evil and power hungry, and a feminist-ally that wasn't just whipped by some man-hater. At some point, Twig convinced Andy to give me some shirts with the What's Up logo on them as a sponsorship. I took three, one for me and one for the two back at cam.
After 2 AM, I got to meet the new deputy, who came by to politely introduce himself to the local color (Andy, Shawn, Twig, and I). Andy assured him that he had just forgot to turn off the open sign, and the rest of us disappeared while Andy had him distracted. We weren't doing anything wrong, as far as I could tell, but that didn't seem to make Shawn and Twig feel at ease. I put on long sleeves and pants despite the heat and humidity, sprayed myself with bug repellent, and went to sleep on top of my bag. That is the only tolerable way to sleep out here.
Here's the pool and our camping spot:
Thanks for allying it up!
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