Day 10
Splitting Up
Leaving Nauvoo for the final time, we suddenly found ourselves divided amongst several vehicles. Since there were so few of us, we had always fit on just the one bus, but no more. The bus was still large enough, but since this was the last leg of the semester, we needed to bring everything we were planning on taking home with us. For a few of us, that included automobiles. Hollie, Johanna and the Dahls all had vehicles to drive, plus, the Academy was obligated to bring back the two vans belonging to BYU now that the JSA was done educating for a few months. All told, we had a caravan of nine. I joined Jennifer, Jayme and Shalayne in the larger BYU van; we were later joined by Jared and Brieanne. As the day continued, our population would flux and rearrange and so forth, but I definitely developed a Vanite identity before the day ended.
All primates have different cultural customs—for instance, grooming—that they engage in with members of their clan or pack or tribe or corporation or whatever groups of primates are called, but we humans are a bit more advanced than that. Yes, we have moved beyond simple, small-brained grooming! Ha ha! We share cds.
We hooked a cd player up to the van’s tape deck and took turns supplying the tunes. I thought for a moment I might get tossed out on my tush when I put in Natalie Merchant, but I redeemed myself by providing a quick run down for my travelling companions on two Utah bands, Olea and Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband. Suddenly I had moved from pariah to hero.
What a relief.
Keosauqua
Brother Dahl had picked up somewhere an excellent brochure entitled “Iowa Mormon Trails”, and we were essentially following it across the state. (If you want your own copy, I imagine the nice people at The Iowa Mormon Trails Association would be happy to send you one if you sent an SASE to 500 East Taylor, Creston, Iowa 50801 and explained how desperately you long for one of their excellent brochures.) Our first stop, which, absurdly, is not even in the otherwise excellent brochure I’ve just been hyping, was Keosauqua. This is where Pitt’s Brass Band came to play and make money and win contests. This is also where the modern version of Pitt’s Brass Band made up of missionaries and JSAers came to play a few weeks previous.
Although the Van Buren county seat may have seemed like a riproaring place when it was full of bands, the day we passed through it was just another sleepy little Iowa village. We pulled into the Visitors’ Center, a converted chapel, and nosed around. It’s not a Visitors’ Center with a huge budget or many visitors, so there weren’t enough exhibits to keep us busy all day, but we did enjoy the stop and made use of the restrooms.
Perhaps this makes me a good candidate for hermitdom, but my favorite thing about the Keosauqua Visitors’ Center was the dandelions. Since I was a kid, I’ve always wondered what it would be like if there were a lawn composed only of dandelions. While the Visitors’ Center lawn did have grass as well, I have never seen so many dandelions. It was wonderful! I ran out and did some Sound of Music swirling and when I stopped, I was stranded in a sea of yellow, maddening, crazifying yellow. The yellow crept in on me, approaching from all sides, monopolizing my vision, hiding the outside world. Where am I? Am I lost? Have I lost my soul? What is happening?
Terror took hold of me. But just as I was about to sink into an everlasting gulf of endless yellow, the sound of friendly voices reached my ears, and I turned towards the blessed sound and scrambled towards a deliverance from my yellow prison.
I took a moment to correct my disheveled appearance before rejoining the group and immediately being assaulted by Jaime. Apparently, a number of student had decided to hold an impromptu dance in the parking lot while we were waiting to leave, and Jaime wanted to know which song of Mr Shupe’s she should play. I suggested “Banjo Boy” and the dance commenced. “Banjo Boy” is a great little song about “a post hee-haw mover / a funkadelic punk rock groover / a cross between bela fleck and / eddie vedder but better”, which pritty much describes Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband as well. Great stuff. So we wag-wag-wagged our wiggles out there in the parking lot and may I just say, it is absolutely amazing how loud a noise that van’s speakers could produce? I was astounded. We jumped and grooved and wore ourselves into a state of not only being able to sit down again, but desperately wanting to nap.
[ill]
The Problem with Irony
Mr Shupe’s lyrics are topnotch. I believe it is the only time in my life I have opened a new cd only to discover I had read every lyric before even listening to the cd. There are very few bands whose lyrics I have ever read all the way through at all, let alone right off. Probably, my immediate first favorite was “Go to Hell”, which song includes the promise that if “you listen to that darn rock and roll / i swear, i swear / you’re gonna go to hell” and the warning that “hell . . . ain’t that keen / the people ain’t nice they’re downright mean”. Although that may be true, the message is delivered with such delicious irony that it is pure hilarity.
Recognizing the irony in the song and upping the ante, Richard Dutcher included “Go to Hell” in his film God’s Army while his protagonists are proselyting (Mormon for proselytizing—have you ever noticed that?) on an LA street. If the inherent irony in the song wasn’t finger-in-eye enough already, it reached the Danger Level for sure in that scene. (Incidentally, that movie was my first date with Lynsey after I arrived back in Provo roughly a week after the parking lot dance.)
Irony and religion, Richard Dutcher notwithstanding, are generally considered to be enemies, dire opposites. Ironic people, it is argued, cannot be religious people, and thus this book, my protestations aside, cannot be religious. Religious people are sincere and their words can always be taken at face value. Not so ironic people. Nothing the ironic say equals its surface. “The good thing about being an ironic artist,” people who hate irony say ironically, “is that your stuff doesn’t have to be as good as a sincere person’s. A sincere person must produce a perfect product, whereas you ironic people, if you make a mistake, all you have to do is wax postmodern and point it out, snicker, and voila! Irony.” You can taste the venom as it drips from those irony-haters’ words.
But, it might be asked of such an ironic generation as the up-and-coming generation you belong to, Theric, how can any member of said generation be genuinely religious, if religion and irony are antithetical and you, for instance, are obviously ironic? It’s a good question, if a very grammatically complex one. But before we can answer it, we have to examine the original assumptions. Are irony and religion really a dichotomy? I’m not so sure.
Beginning with myself, I feel I am both as ironic as anyone in my generation and yet still wildly religious (as I trust this book illustrates). I have some very firm convictions boiling beneath this snide surface, and I live by them. And besides, its not like irony is something new. Catch-22 for instance (great book) is very ironic and written by a member of the decidedly nonironic Greatest Generation.
But we can dismiss Joseph Heller as irreligious and move on, I know, I know. If I really want to prove my point, I need to find an apostle being wickedly, unmistakably ironic. I submit Parley P. Pratt. My evidence? His wickedly and unmistakably ironic “Joe Smith and the Devil.” Joe Smith meets the devil putting up posters recruiting ruffians to drive out the Saints. Joe asks him what’s up, and the devil is quite embarrassed to be caught in the middle of his evility. They go to a tavern to have some liquid refreshment and a chat and eventually drink to each other. Mind you, they leave as declared enemies as have ever existed, but in the inbetween, Parley P. has managed to skewer everyone who didn’t much care for them Mormons. It’s in the public domain, so I might as well include it as an appendix—take a look at it for yourself. But if that’s not good enough, I suggest you open your Bible to Luke 16:9 and tell me what that is if not irony. I love that scripture. It cracks me up.
I don’t mean to say that religion and irony are inseparable, no. But they do make a fine Venn diagram. [ill] I am, for instance, opposed to ironic discussion of temple ordinances. That is wrong. It is important to understand that irony cannot be aimed at God or anything flowing from him, but irony aimed at us foolhardy humans is not only legal, it comes recommended.
Humanity’s noble aims coupled with its foibles make any undertaking, including religion, at least somewhat ironic. The Christian religion is, inherently, an ironic one, because we recognize that no matter how good a life we lead, no matter what callings we hold or what good works we perform, we are still 100% incapable of saving ourselves and live under the terrible demands of justice. There is no irony aimed at Christ, understand, only at ourselves. The irony of the worthlessness of our actions compared to the glory of Christ’s grace. We are the irony.
And so the underlying irony of celebrating great men—even the very best like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Because even with all the amazing things they accomplished in their lives, they still were unable to save themselves. This ironic understanding is not the antithesis of religion—it is the very essence of Christ-centered worship, the reason we stand all amazed. Christ saves us, and that beautiful truth is the farthest thing from the world of irony imaginable. The only irony is that he chooses worthless creatures like us to save. And now I fear I’ve gotten so philosophical that I have proved myself wrong. And if that’s not ironic, what is?
Mount Pisgah
Turning onto the dirt road that leads to Mt. Pisgah, a sign warned us we were turning onto a “minimum maintenance road” and if we entered, we did it at our own risk. To make matters worse, the bus threw up copious quantities of dirt and Jennifer decided to entertain us by showing off her ability to drive through massive dust clouds hands-free. I rather expected that if we ever made it to Mt Pisgah, I would likely have to be buried with all the other Saints there.
Having arrived alive, I dove from the van, kissed the sweet, sweet earth and stood to look around. There is a pleasantly white obelisk on the site engraved with names including, I am almost positive, relatives of mine. Leastaways, there were two these ladies Cox with their names on the monument and I am quite sure they are related. To me, that is. Otherwise, all I can really say is that for being on a Level B Service road, the grass was very well maintained. But it was already time to head off again.
The Town Formerly Known as Kanesville
Arriving in Council Bluffs, We parked our fleet in a secluded spot and were met by local expert Gail Holmes, who showed us some open space that had once had significance to the Saints who had lived in the area a long, long time ago. I can’t tell you what exactly that significance was, but I am sure that it was quite the significant significance. Other than that, I’m afraid I honestly can’t recall. Sorry. After our walk, we all piled onto the bus (we had to remove some of the luggage and toss it into other vehicles) and drove over to the Kanesville Tabernacle. This was the highlight of my day. The Kanesville Tabernacle is special not just because it is a good looking place and emphatically historical, but also because it was built by a group of Saints who wanted to commemorate Kanesville history. The Church decided it really couldn’t rebuild and maintain the Tabernacle, so a couple nonprofits were formed to do it. It is, as I stated, a good-looking place and built as closely as possible to match the original. Go there and have them tell you the story behind the building—it’s fascinating. Inside is some fantastic stuff, but they’re not finished yet. They have to put it together little by little, but little by little it is becoming something great.
Henry W. Miller
Henry W. Miller was the founder of Miller’s Hollow (which later became Kanesville); there is a heroic sculpture of him clothed in buckskin and wielding an ax outside the new Tabernacle. December 6, 1847, he was asked by the Brethren to build the original Tabernacle in order that the Saints might gather and sustain a new Church president. Brother Miller built the building in two-and-a-half weeks with two hundred men. Impressive.
It was the church’s first tabernacle.
And so those church members who could, gathered to sustain Brigham Young as a prophet, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as his counselors. Must have been exciting.
Drive-Thru Religion
Next to the rebuilt Kanesville Tabernacle, is a drive-thru—not for the Tabernacle, mind you, just next door. Next to the drive-thru on the Tabernacle side are three cement slabs with plaques displaying from left to right, “A Revelation for the Pioneer Trek” (section 136), “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and “Reorganization of the First Presidency” (a description of the Kanesville Tabernacle’s raison d’être). Visitors to the Tabernacle can walk up and read these plaques. Perhaps the cement was placed there originally just to protect visitors from out-of-control drive-thruers, and then the plaques were later added for aesthetics; I don’t know, but it seems to me that with a captive (albeit temporarily so) audience on the opposite side, plaques should also be placed on the drive-thru side. Perhaps after six months of reading revelations whilst waiting for gorditas, folks will become intrigued enough to properly answer that golden question, “Would you like to know more?”
Lost
The bus returned to where the other vehicles were parked and we all hopped into our previously claimed seats and prepared to drive over to the hotel. Brother Dahl shouted out some basic directions followed by, “Just follow me,” and we put on our seatbelts. Then our driver looked to see if the other vehicles were fully belted and ready to go and discovered, to her consternation, that they were gone. We all hopped back out to make sure she was correct. She was. We and two other vehicles had somehow been left behind. No one had seen which direction they had pulled out.
We put our heads together and tried to recall exactly what directions Brother Dahl had given. After some back and forth, we reached a consensus and pulled onto the main road and turned, as we would later learn, the wrong direction.
It didn’t take long for us to get suspicious of our direction. It seemed to us that our hotel, wherever it was, was likely near Council Bluffs, and we seemed to be heading, not only away from Council Bluffs, but away from any form of sentient life whatsoever. But we persevered, and turned about where we remembered Brother Dahl saying. Now we were moving not only away from Council Bluffs in space, but also in time. We stopped in about the sixteenth century and hopped out once again. After a council of our own in which bluffing was strictly unallowed, we determined to head back in the direction of the present and the Missouri River and see if we couldn’t find a gas station and get some directions from a local.
We found some success with this plan. After returning to the year 2000, we found a gas station and I went in to ask directions. All we knew for sure was that our hotel was in a cluster of hotels, and that most likely our hotel was a Fairfield Marriott. Armed with this information I asked the stoned kid behind the counter which way we should head. He didn’t quite understand and pulled out some chewing tobacco and told me the price.
“No, no,” I said, and tried again.
The kid was a little confused. “They hain’t finished building that motel yet,” he told me. Not entirely certain we had yet driven all the way to April 2000, I insisted that this was no problem and started formulating a story about us being subcontractors if he refused again, but he did not. However, he was unsure of the exact directions. He never goes into the city anymore, apparently, and was not sure about that freeway thing.
I took what little information he gave me and a packet of salt from the hot dog condiment bar (a grain for everyone, you see), and went back to the van. I told all three drivers what I learned and handed out the salt. We drove back onto the road we had come in on and immediately, the Missouri River came into view.
Those of us not driving peeled our eyes, looking for hotel clusters. Finally we saw one that included a Fairfield, only to discover we had missed the exit. Blocking three lanes of traffic on order to be able to involve all three vehicles in the conversation, we arranged to turn around at the next exit. Which we did, only to miss the correct exit once again. On our third pass we pulled into the Marriott parking lot and the weeping masses hailed us. We took heroic poses and flashbulbs exploded.
My first concern on arriving was to find the Dahls and Toones and apologize. But it was no problem. They were satisfied we had not been screwing off and were just glad we had arrived. Brother Dahl promised that should they drive off on us again (unlikely, since we were flying home the next day), he would be sure to give us clearer directions before his disappearance. Then they sent us off to eat.
A Full Circle
Once again flirting with the afterlife by crossing dangerous roads unsafely, a flock of us went to a restaurant chain I had never heard of called Perkins to eat. I ordered quesadillas and requested lots and lots of salsa and cranberry sauce. Even though the quesadillas were large, they were still just quesadillas and the fact that they filled me is really quite remarkable. In fact, I left with a Styrofoam doggy-box holding a slice of my quesadilla and several little containers of salsa, cranberry sauce and sour cream. I knew these would come in handy tomorrow, whatever I ate, for salsa, cranberry sauce and sour cream are three condiments that truly compliment every other known food.
The circularity comes in when you consider that the day before bussing up to Nauvoo, I stayed the night with a family named Perkins and the day before flying home I ate dinner at a restaurant called Perkins. If that doesn’t give you the creeping chills I don’t know what will.
Des Moines
No, Council Bluffs is not suddenly Des Moines, nor did we stop there for sandwiches at anytime on Day 10. However, I once had a dream about Des Moines. I was a university student there, and Des Moines was on the Iowa-North Carolina border. This struck me as a little odd even in the dream, and said so, but everyone pointed out it obviously was on the Iowa-North Carolina border, duh. I was also surprised to learn that Des Moines was the nation’s largest city. It was one of those dreams which for some inexplicable reason has stuck with me ever since the dreaming. But see, I had this dream while I was in Nauvoo, so it is doubly related, you see.
There just isn’t anything quite as uninteresting as being subjected to a stranger’s dreams, is there?
Ending the Day
A handful of us wandered around our hotel’s environs, particularly intrigued by the castle-themed Settle Inn. I challenged the knight to a bout of fisticuffs, but he ignored me.
We returned just in time for my final and only combined performance of A Musical Extravaganza. I slipped Songs from a Bus into its appropriate spot in the original opera (between falling in love and going home) and went to it. Having left the original lie fallow for so long, all the jokes seemed fresh again. (Even though I occasionally forgot what came next and had to be prompted. But that my audience could prompt me at any point actually added to the performance. It made me feel loved.) Laughter was hard and frequent and the applause surely over the allowed decibels for a hotel. LeAnn and Marcus felt they had obtained immortality and I was prone to agree with them, lucky glovers. I was pleased with our performance.
After the backpatting ended, Brother Dahl took some time to compliment me. Now that he no longer had to worry about the bother of leadership, not really, he honestly told me he loved it and hoped I would only ever use my talent for the Lord’s side. I assured him that was most certainly my plan.
Once in high school, when I was visiting my Grandma Jepson and down in the basement thumbing through my grandfather’s old stuff (I believe he and I would have made the greatest of friends had he only lived a little longer—I wish I had memories of him pushing around my stroller), I took to reading one of his old, marked-up copies of the Book of Mormon. I found myself in Moroni 7. Verses sixteen and seventeen hit me as they never had before, and became my standard for artistry. Whatever persuades men to do good comes from Christ, and whatever does the opposite comes from that other guy. Moroni doesn’t leave much room for other options. It is or it isn’t. “Art” is a natural grey area, so sometimes it is advantageous to step back and realize that either it is or it ain’t. That’s a healthy exercise, I believe, for any artist, and a required one for he who would be a Saint.
Before heading up to bed, I played cards with a number of people, ending with only Heather, Jayme and Gabe. Cards had become a prebed ritual, and a method to laugh and know one another—one more thing I would miss. The final round was especially fun, as we each cheated blatantly and enormously in the others’ favor. If a game called Egyptian Rat Screw (or, as some believe, Egyptian Rat’s Crew) can inspire such charitable chaos, then you know you’re among friends.
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Thanks for revisiting Nauvoo with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.