Are We There Yet?, by A.M. Kelley
Sorting through versions of reality

When I was child, I thought the Great Lakes belonged to Michigan. I had no idea we shared them with other states, much less a whole other country.
Then, to muddle my sense of geography even further, my fourth grade teacher—I swear on my pleated, plaid Catholic school uniform that this is true—introduced me to Mt. Rushmore. She said God fashioned the stone faces with natural elements: wind, erosion, etc.
It’s a wonder I have the sense to come in out of the rain.
My horizons have widened and I’ve gotten a few facts in order since those school days but I still have a lot to learn. My current residence in Duluth is only 250 miles from Marquette, on the very western most tip of Lake Superior and visited by the same ore ships. I am surprised how many people here don’t know where Marquette is. I just point east and say, “That way. Follow the lake.”
I signed a six-month lease on an apartment in a very old house with a lot of character and gale force drafts. I already have sewn curtains for every window—not a small project, as five of the ten windows are more than seven feet high. A lot of fabric and time has run through my hands. I listen to Public Radio when I sew. I’m a glutton for talk radio.
I have three stations to choose from, two belong to Minnesota and the other to Wisconsin. Minnesota radio believes its product is superior and Minnesotans think they’re smarter than everyone else. God punishes them for this hubris with stretches of bone-cracking, below-zero temperatures. Still, I see no signs of repentance.
Both Wisconsin radio and Minnesota radio have excellent call-in shows about pets, gardens, health and cars. I listen to endless discussions about national, state and city politics. I know all about war, social security, education, the environment, faith and that strange animal—popular culture.
I listened in as Canadian immigration officials gave advice to U.S. citizens who want to move north. A doctor and best-selling writer explained which fish oil capsules keep the brain lubricated. I know what are the best books of the year, the best movies, the best music, the best schools, diets, exercises, investments and deep sea diving decompression rules. This latter information came during “A Chapter A Day,” a pretender to Michigan State University’s “Radio Reader” Dick Estell.
It didn’t take me long to tire of the endless supply of talk. However, I am a true talk junkie and the radio stays on. I listen, but I’ve toughened up. No more lost sleep over war, tsunamis or the country’s deficit spending. Call it atrocity burnout.
I am saturated with information, but something got past my shock absorbers recently: an interview with a guy who wrote a book about Johnny Cash. The author is Michael Streissguth and his book is Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.
Streissguth loves everything about Cash and his 1968 album and said Cash never got enough respect for his contribution to the culture of that decade. Comparing Cash with Bob Dylan, he calls the latter “a spoiled suburbanite wanker.” If you know what that means, don’t tell me.
According to Streissguth, who has researched the making of the “live” Folsom album down to the last clanging prison gate, the music from the concert was embellished in a recording studio. The record’s producer, Bob Johnston—who, incidentally also was the spoiled suburbanite’s producer—added something to the record which should not be taken lightly.
The addition occurred in this line in the title song: “I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die.” Anyone who’s listened to the song recalls the shocking, loud, rowdy cheer that erupts from the prisoners at hearing Cash sing these words. The outlaw singer and the outlaw audience enjoying a little inside joke about killing.
Well it was all faked. According to Streissguth, during the actual concert, the prisoners of Folsom greeted the Reno line with a stony silence. Johnston dubbed in the cheer and thus began cultivating Cash’s man-in-black image.
It’s only a song, but it makes me realize how easily reality is tampered with. Millions of people have heard that song and bought into a certain outlaw myth as easily as I did the Mt. Rushmore myth.
When I was a child, I didn’t know any better and certain false ideas came quietly into my small world; the Great Lakes belonged to Michigan. My horizon was bounded.
I lived in Poland for one year and experienced the strain of culture shock. Delight and fear often mingled in the same breath. I happened to meet a Polish man who took his Czech hunting dog to the woods for training regularly. I asked if I could go along. When we got to the woods, I stepped out of the car and took my first real breath in months. I remember saying, “I’m OK. This is the same earth.”
Now I see that there’s a lot of competition between states and countries to achieve distinction, to emphasize borders, to insist on differences and to dub over the truth that we are one earth. Here in the north, we have one lake. Throw the idea of ownership out over Superior and hear her big belly laugh come back on the next wave.
—A.M. Kelley