Kirksville

While at dinner yesterday with my dad, stepmom (visiting from KC), and brother, I was telling them about an episode of "This American Life" I had listened to earlier that day. It was titled "Accidental Documentaries" and consisted of three acts about audio tapes that had been found in thrift stores, attics, and basements. These discoveries preserved small segments of history for a family, town, and American life in general. The second act was about Ira Glass, the show's host, and some tapes he had found in his basement. When he played those tapes, he found out that his own father had had a career in radio. He never knew that. It was never talked about.

As I was telling them about that, Ann says, "I saved every tape of your dad's radio show."
I blinked, "Excuse me?"

Turns out I lived a total deja-vu last night. Ira Glass never knew about his father's radio career, and I had NO IDEA my own dad had a radio show in Kirksville Missouri. It was a weekly talk show spot where my dad led question and answer sessions about mental health.

I decided for my dad that he needs to write a book. They lived in Kirksville for, I don't know, like 2 years maybe. It's a short enough amount of time to write about a detailed memoir of their time in a small rural town, flanked with a prestigious university, a medical school, and a reknowned mental health hospital. That mixture always calls for very interesting encounters among a variety of people. I was thinking for his book (I'm serious about this) :) my dad should outline his encounters on his mental health radio forum and use them to segway into his own personal memoirs. For my dad and stepmom, that town served as a fresh beginning for two scandalized families.

My memories of Kirksville include the whole every other weekend ordeal that many divorced children have to go through. That included the dreaded 3 hour, hilly, carsick, car ride from Kansas City. There were still some rough patches in Dad and Ann's new marriage, which no kid should have to be aware of, but I knew they loved us. There were many wonderful memories such as running across the busy highway to go to the pool, a tornado, sharing a duplex with a wealthy and kind black doctor, the seemingly endless plot of land we lived on, the awesome halloween grave yard we created in the front yard, and a hilariously awful amature circus.

Kirksville left enough of a mark on us that Bremen and I chose to go to school there as undergrads. And wow, what wonderful memories I have during my 4 months there before I transfered to BYU. I would never go back on that decision.

So though we all had lives in Kansas City both before and after our short time in Kirksville. That place was important to our family. Maybe we should ALL write our own stories and combine them into one book, like in an essay format. I'm telling you. It would be good. There's rumors of my step-sister sneaking out the window at night to go kiss boys. There's also the drama and real heartache of watching my step-brother suffer from a deadly disease. And to this day, a walmart stands as one of the greatest forms of entertainment with horse and buggy hook-ups for all the Amish people!