The Diary of Queen Mothy |
Peebles 2004 written @ 6:20 PM on September 19, 2004 When someone says "Ohio," what do you think of? Most people say, "I don't know." Or maybe even, "Nothing." That's because a huge percentage of Ohio are leagues upon leagues of farmland, and me, being your low maintenance millenial city slicker-of-a-sort, in spite of the fact that I lived in this state for about six years now and I'm a new age-ish tree hugger, I often still have these minature culture shocks. Because there is, after all, nothing in Ohio. And, no, Cleveland doesn't count. Reason why I write about this? Answer: Brian, a couple groupies from theatre, and I went to his hometown yesterday, that is, Peebles, Ohio. Oh yes. Read on if you want a hashed comedy of city slickers in the countryside, a la Tim Allen and Christy Ally in that Amish movie. Brian told me that Peebles, home to Serpent Mound, a national landmark, is a small community made up of mostly Baptist and Church of God folk and very conservative Republicans, boasts a cultured Amish community (yes, for real), miles of farmland and creeks, rolling hills, gravel roads, and a movie theatre that takes 45 minutes to get to. God's country, kids, fo' sho'. Think Footloose. Anyway, Peebles was having its big end-of-summer festival this weekend, and Brian, who's been working in a theatre in Montana for the past six months or so, promised his parents a while ago that he would be home for the festival. Then something unexpected happened about two weeks ago: Brian's parents showed up at his dorm unannounced and demanded to know if he was gay. Despite his somewhat strict, conservative upbringing, Brian told them the plain truth. After he let them have a couple of days to digest the information, things were cool again, but Brian didn't want to return to Peebles by himself (small town, word gets around fast, I guess) so he invited me along. No, I wasn't going to be the pretend-girlfriend. I was just there as a buffer zone, I think. Then three theatre groupies tagged along, and we were five merry troubadours. So Saturday morning, we piled into Brian's car and headed for Peebles. I brought my camera with me because, as an artist, you never know what the hell you're going to find once you step outside your usual territory (the art profs always tell us to travel). After about an hour or so of driving from Cincinnati, the tall buildings and asphalt roads began to fall away and narrow in favor of vast stretches of cornfields on a perfectly cloudless day. Flocks of starlings ebbed and flowed above the wide fields. Small lakes, the remnants of glaciers from eras gone, dotted the land where cows and horses grazed. I have two huge art history exams this week so I brought along my textbooks, but I can't say I read a whole lot because the land was so beautiful. When we finally arrived in town, the voluntary police department (yes, you read that right... "voluntary" police) sectioned off the main street where the festival was happening, so we began traveling along the backroads. Brian wanted to show us his house and family's lands. The word "backroads," of course, mean something entirely different in this neck of the woods-- something along the lines of "the path that Odysseus took to get home." He took roads through these forests hills, on both paved and graveled one-way roads, through farms, along creek banks and long cliff drops. He pointed out these vast fields that his family owns, acres and acres and acres of cornfields and pasture. Finally we arrived to his house, which is this large charming place, the kind you see in old pictures even though its new. His property extended down the length of the road; his dad had planted a cornfield this year, and the stalks were well above six feet tall. His neighbors own cows and have tractors dotting the hillsides. Jesse, Stephanie, and Jeremey ran to the cornfields because none of them had ever been next to one so closely. They began jumping around and running down the rows of stalks. Brian was confused: "What the hell are you guys doing?" Jesse was probably the most excited. "Look, I'm in a cornfield! Wooooo! Take a picture of me, Sam!" So I did. I didn't join them in the field because even though I've never lived in the coutryside, I know they would be itching from the bugs as soon as they stepped out. Which they were. Brian took us to Serpent Mound after he showed us his house and introduced us to his brother and his dogs. I got a couple of pictures, which I'll post here as soon as I get them developed. He also showed us the field where people found crop circles last year (review my archives for that story, lol), which is half a mile from Serpent Mound. In case you're not familiar with Serpent Mound: it's this Native American effigy created hundreds of years ago by the local tribes (some say it was the Adena Indians, but recent radiocarbon dating states otherwise). The natives made a long serpent-like creature in the woods by piling dirt and artifacts and burial mounds up in a consistent form, now overcome with grass. Serpent Mound used to have a stone altar, too, but the caretakers had to remove it because all the New Age hippies (my peeps) kept making pilgrammages to the mound, lying on the effigy (which damages the site) with crystals on their chests chanting and meditating to their pagan gods, and leaving offerings on the altar. I cracked up when Brian told me that part. "One year they even hired the Boy Scouts to run the hippies off," he added, which caused me to fall down on my ass laughing when I pictured Brian in an Eagles Scout uniform chasing hippies off Serpent Mound with a stick. If you knew Brian, you'd laugh too. He brought us to Amish country that afternoon as well. Did you know, dear readers, that every Amish family owns a peacock? Why a peacock I have no idea, but evidentally there's a big tradition behind it. The capadres went nuts at the Amish bakery and pratically bought them out. I didn't buy anything because I've been slightly feverish and dizzy the past couple of days and couldn't stand up straight for very long, much less concentrate in a bakery, though it smelled so good. The festival itself was small but something to see. They had livestock judging, cloggers, chain saw competitions, and country bands-- very different for this classical-loving, Broadway-singing chick, I tell you. Jesse, Jeremy, and Stephanie ate their way through that place-- corn dogs, keetle corn, pizza, elephant ears. Oh my God, they had such a great time, they kept threatening Brian by saying they were moving to Peebles. I'd retire to Peebles to live in quiet. The people there are so in tune with the land that there is something almost very magical and ancient about it. One thing that Jesse and I definitely found worth the trip was this huge barn sale someone was having. Not yard sale or flea market, mind you, a barn sale! New Kids On the Block sleeping bag, vintage shoes, a fur coat for $50, Domino Alley and Candyland, trashy romance novels... heaven. Jesse found a cotton candy maker for $2.50. "Didn't Steve in the scene shop say he was wanting a cotton candy maker the other day?" she asked me. "I think so," I said, grinning. "Let's get it for him!" she exclaimed, gushing. So we did. And then we bought a gold bust of Beethoven for a buck, which we're going to give to our musical theatre professor with the inscription "Peebles or Bust 2004!" on the back. Then we bought an orange, red, purple, and green metal chair for $2, which we're going to deposit in the theatre department's lounge with our names on the back and "Peebles 2004: The Barn Sale." You know, some things are funny when you do them and then not funney at all a day after-- but when I woke up this morning I was still laughing about what we did yesterday. When we pulled into school at 11pm last night, we crept up to the lounge and left our shtuff outside offices like friggin' Santa Claus. *lol* Peebles is so far from Cincinnati and the town so small that you don't get any of that orange ambience from streetlights in the sky. When night fell, there were so many stars-- more than I've seen in my entire life. The sky was so clear that you could actually see the foggy arms of the Milky Way Galaxy out in the fields, so absolute and immortal in the black. Remember van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting? It was on that level of energy and spirituality-- completely awesome and rare. In the end, I came home late last night wishing I could give myself a culture shock every weekend!
A Bit of History ~ And Onward! L'Amour Toujours! - August 08, 2005 |
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