Objects in The Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are
“If you make the mistake of looking back too much, you aren’t focused on the road in front of you.” ~ Brad Paisley
Chadron was rated as the best place in Nebraska to live.
According to the Rapid City Journal, this honor was bestowed by a FOX News website. Chadron is a rural community of approximately 5,000 residents located in an isolated section of the Northwestern part of the state. It is also the governmental seat of Dawes County where 70.6 percent of the population voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election.
The Dawes County website shows a bar graph where the dot to indicate political preferences is located at the end of the page, beyond the red zone. As in VERY conservative.
The entire state of Nebraska is not as conservative as Dawes County.
Chadron was my hometown.
I plotted and planned my escape from Chadron beginning at age five. I knew this town was not for me. I left for good with a Get Out of Jail Free Card from Uncle Sam. I had just turned eighteen years old, joined the Navy, and never looked back.
Trouble will find you, especially if your looking for it. I looked for and found plenty of it in Chadron, Nebraska.
Chadron State College was the town’s claim to fame. Imported athletes, from neighboring communities and places as far away as New York, competed on football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, track, and rodeo teams. I was barely in high school when I became a champion boy chaser.
Even back then, where there were college kids, there were drugs. Actually drugs were the main form of recreation in Small Town America in the 1970s.
And, though I was barely sixteen, none of the bars on Main Street, USA, carded anyone. Nineteen was the legal drinking age in 1972.
My teenage years were not the good ole days. I’m full of gratitude my sisters and I made it out alive from the best place to live in Nebraska.
In the summer of 2022 I traveled to Chadron to visit my mother. Getting there from anywhere is a feat of determination.
The road trip was about more than seeing my mom. Along the way, I visited hot springs, my daughter in Albuquerque, friends in Santa Fe, a writing conference in Taos, and a sister in Colorado. All of which I enjoyed but I had a vague sense of dread riding along with me.
As I drove through acres of Ponderosa Pine, exposed bluffs, and Black Angus cattle grazing peacefully on tall green grass, my mood spiraled into a deep funk.
Large circular bales of hay fresh cut were lined up in the fields. Puffy white clouds and a sun high in the sky reminded me of child’s artwork. A small herd of antelope played in the distance. (They really do play.) I became angry in an irrational way.
Chadron, Nebraska was where I learned to survive. As a girl child, I battled the Sisters of Mercy in parochial school, defended myself from my father (who was not in heaven), fled bullies, fought drunken cowboys, dated a drug dealer, endured mean girls, became a mean girl, and gave the judgmental, critical, conservative residents in the best place to live in Nebraska something (well, many things) to talk about.
This town was where I felt alone and unsafe. Being angry was my comfort zone. I was angry a lot. And to cover that up, I acted wild and crazy.
My mother once told me that I received a “spanking” from good ole dad when I was six weeks old.
I couldn’t believe what she’d said. I had never heard this story before. If it was true it would certainly explain why, during my entire childhood, I’d hoped my real parents would arrive, and take me back home with them.
“Why would anyone spank an infant?” I asked her.
“You wouldn’t stop crying and he couldn’t take it anymore.”
I didn’t bother to ask why she had not tried to protect me. I knew the answer. She couldn’t protect herself. At the time I was born, she was a teenager married to a drunk, living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
What could go wrong?
Lots went wrong in my family.
As an adult, I attended a professional development workshop on trauma. The teachers were required to take the Adverse Childhood Experience questionnaire to explore the effects trauma had on students and their ability to learn.
An ACE score is a total from 1 to 10 to determine different types of neglect, abuse, and other events that significantly affect children. The higher the score the more likely mental and physical health problems will manifest later in life. And, the child will have difficulty retaining basic information while in survival mode.
Yikes! No wonder I barely graduated from high school.
I read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.
The take away is that the mind might move forward and forget many details of traumatic experiences, but the body remembers. Three modalities that counteract trauma are EMDR therapy, actions that connect body and mind such as a yoga practice, and being mindful in daily activities and relationships.
Another interesting read is What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey.
Perry and Winfrey explain how trauma affects the development of the brain, basic understanding of trauma, and steps to heal from events that were traumatizing. Oprah shared stories from her childhood as examples of trauma and how it affected her.
The tricky thing about trauma is that not everyone experiences it the same. One event from my childhood stands out. I was in the fifth grade and Sister Mary Monica hated one student above the rest. He was a pain in the ass, as only a preadolescent boy can be. He could make bird sounds come from different directions. It drove her nuts. She accused him of all kinds of stuff including theft. This kid’s mother showed up in our classroom at the invitation of the despicable nun. The mom called her son to the front of the class, removed a leather strap from her purse, asked him to bend over, and commenced to beat him.
I was not easily horrified, but this memory is forever burned in my body.
Being “spanked” at home was one thing. Assaulting a child in front of a classroom of children, with a nun cheering on the mother was an entirely different level of trauma.
Years later, I ran into a classmate while visiting my hometown. I had to know if she could recount my violent memory of that event. She didn’t remember.
Mom is now 86. She drives to Walmart several times a day. She attends mass. Belongs to various social groups and has many friends with whom she shares a small town history.
I had coffee with her and a group of ladies at the senior center. They check up on each other. If someone is absent they know why. I’m sure they voted for Trump and will do it again if he runs. I don’t understand, but I overlooked it because they are adorable. And, they love my mother.
I watched mom struggle with her daily life. It was heartbreaking. For example, she had her glasses in her hand, and then spent the next 20 minutes looking for them. Every conversation was a game of charades because the correct names, places, or information wouldn’t surface to be spoken. She has trouble with her hearing aides. She is frustrated, but determined to get out and socialize. I realized I was no longer angry. I was, and am, scared.
Living in Chadron, Nebraska means decent medical care is 100 miles away. The wind blows non stop, and it is hotter than hell in the summer. In the winter the wind blows nonstop and its cold. There are few fast food joints and fewer restaurants. Downtown is deserted with empty store windows and sidewalks.
There are several bars doing a brisk business.
I can’t help but wonder why FOX News has bestowed it’s seal of approval on Chadron.
Is it because nearly everyone in this town is glued to the FOX channel on their TV sets?
Is it because Chadron, Nebraska is the midpoint between Los Angeles and New York City?
Is it because the World Champion Buffalo Chip Throw is held there every July?
It continues to be a mystery.
Chadron must be the best place in Nebraska to live because, FOX News would never broadcast or publish anything that isn’t true.
Every time I drive away, I look in the rearview mirror and swear it’s the last time I will ever visit Chadron.
This time, I didn’t look back.
