WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.400 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.400 --> 00:00:08.530 align:middle line:84% When I was a child, I lived in rural Iowa, 00:00:08.530 --> 00:00:12.460 align:middle line:84% and this is kind of the story about that 00:00:12.460 --> 00:00:15.760 align:middle line:90% and how I came to be a poet. 00:00:15.760 --> 00:00:17.390 align:middle line:84% It's called "A Mile Out of Town." 00:00:17.390 --> 00:00:19.750 align:middle line:90% Can I move this down just a tad? 00:00:19.750 --> 00:00:21.640 align:middle line:90% Good, thanks. 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:23.920 align:middle line:84% "The Golden Pheasant was the Travelleer, 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.230 align:middle line:84% was the Red Star before that, was 00:00:26.230 --> 00:00:29.620 align:middle line:84% the place my mother tended bar and managed the motel, 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:33.970 align:middle line:84% was the corner my dad owned the garage and gas station. 00:00:33.970 --> 00:00:37.330 align:middle line:84% One orange night lard caught fire 00:00:37.330 --> 00:00:40.210 align:middle line:84% and burned the Red Star out of our lives, 00:00:40.210 --> 00:00:44.170 align:middle line:84% burned the illegal punch boards and the prizes stacked 00:00:44.170 --> 00:00:47.860 align:middle line:84% under the counters, burned through grease-soaked floors 00:00:47.860 --> 00:00:50.230 align:middle line:84% and blacked all the hamburger buns 00:00:50.230 --> 00:00:54.460 align:middle line:84% stacked in white cellophane boxing. 00:00:54.460 --> 00:00:57.220 align:middle line:84% So we moved from the trailer into the new motel 00:00:57.220 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:84% and lived in the big unit, the one next to the"-- 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:03.565 align:middle line:90% ooh, it's urban. 00:01:03.565 --> 00:01:06.580 align:middle line:90% 00:01:06.580 --> 00:01:08.810 align:middle line:90% It's an urban love song-- 00:01:08.810 --> 00:01:11.110 align:middle line:84% "the one next to the fuzzing neon 00:01:11.110 --> 00:01:16.480 align:middle line:84% sign that flashed vacancy or no vacancy through the nights. 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:20.470 align:middle line:84% I learned to ride a bike there in our front yard of red rock 00:01:20.470 --> 00:01:24.280 align:middle line:84% chips, fishtailing and skidding with my mother running 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:27.310 align:middle line:90% alongside to steady the turns. 00:01:27.310 --> 00:01:32.440 align:middle line:84% And we had a new place to work, the Travelleer, pine and sheet 00:01:32.440 --> 00:01:35.530 align:middle line:84% rock shingle siding and a red roof. 00:01:35.530 --> 00:01:38.620 align:middle line:84% I told my mother goodnight there many times 00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:41.950 align:middle line:84% behind the thick high bar, pushing my way 00:01:41.950 --> 00:01:45.580 align:middle line:84% through the grownups who hugged and gave me whiskey kisses. 00:01:45.580 --> 00:01:49.840 align:middle line:84% There was always a half-breed dog to follow me home. 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:52.600 align:middle line:84% Before I was in first grade, I was tall enough 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:56.830 align:middle line:84% to look into the soapy dishwater and dry glasses, 00:01:56.830 --> 00:01:58.750 align:middle line:90% make them squeak. 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:01.270 align:middle line:84% I could cut French fries with my dad 00:02:01.270 --> 00:02:04.870 align:middle line:84% and lift them in wire baskets out of the hot fat. 00:02:04.870 --> 00:02:08.570 align:middle line:84% When we worked in the kitchen, it meant Cook was drunk, 00:02:08.570 --> 00:02:12.550 align:middle line:84% but he was a good cook and told me stories, his cigarette 00:02:12.550 --> 00:02:14.890 align:middle line:90% sticking to his lip. 00:02:14.890 --> 00:02:17.710 align:middle line:84% He had the only tattoo I'd ever seen, 00:02:17.710 --> 00:02:21.580 align:middle line:84% and I guessed it must have come from the Navy. 00:02:21.580 --> 00:02:24.700 align:middle line:84% The weekends were dance music and cars turning in 00:02:24.700 --> 00:02:28.060 align:middle line:84% from the highway late at night, people puking in the parking 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:32.830 align:middle line:84% lot, and men standing by pickups talking and laughing 00:02:32.830 --> 00:02:36.970 align:middle line:84% with women, June bugs in the summer frying themselves 00:02:36.970 --> 00:02:38.410 align:middle line:90% on the neon. 00:02:38.410 --> 00:02:43.360 align:middle line:84% We made beds and beds and beds for accordion players, 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:47.890 align:middle line:84% organ players, and sometimes a three-piece band. 00:02:47.890 --> 00:02:52.720 align:middle line:84% I mostly played alone, was Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, 00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:56.650 align:middle line:84% a football player in white sandals, a paratrooper jumping 00:02:56.650 --> 00:03:00.010 align:middle line:84% off combines and corn pickers with a Blo-Up life 00:03:00.010 --> 00:03:01.900 align:middle line:90% vest for a chute. 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:07.120 align:middle line:84% I begged my mother for guns and holsters, rifles and footballs. 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:10.040 align:middle line:84% She thought something was wrong with me. 00:03:10.040 --> 00:03:13.750 align:middle line:84% I never pretended to be a girl or wanted to dress that way. 00:03:13.750 --> 00:03:17.500 align:middle line:84% I imagined skirts into fantasy ritual items 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:22.270 align:middle line:84% and wore hats to church as tribal garb. 00:03:22.270 --> 00:03:25.810 align:middle line:84% Levi's were all I wanted, and I wore them like a biker 00:03:25.810 --> 00:03:28.720 align:middle line:90% until the dye made my legs blue. 00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:33.160 align:middle line:84% I hurried among adults, mumbling like a radio left on low, 00:03:33.160 --> 00:03:37.300 align:middle line:84% a running, bedraggled pygmy in loose curls, 00:03:37.300 --> 00:03:41.440 align:middle line:84% armed with old sticks, pans, a motley uniform 00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:46.270 align:middle line:84% of pinafore top, brown oxfords, and a red cowboy hat, a coaster 00:03:46.270 --> 00:03:50.710 align:middle line:84% wagon, all of it beginning to talk to itself, 00:03:50.710 --> 00:03:54.250 align:middle line:84% all of it beginning to be a poet, talking to itself. 00:03:54.250 --> 00:03:57.910 align:middle line:84% And every year on the feast of St. Nicholas, out of nowhere, 00:03:57.910 --> 00:04:02.380 align:middle line:84% candy flew through the window, the expected fruit 00:04:02.380 --> 00:04:06.100 align:middle line:84% of believing, of being rooted there, growing up 00:04:06.100 --> 00:04:09.610 align:middle line:84% a mile from Remsen, Iowa, on the two-lane highway 00:04:09.610 --> 00:04:13.950 align:middle line:84% with the tall green corn all around." 00:04:13.950 --> 00:04:15.000 align:middle line:90%