Days of Cornfields and Soybeans

I grew up in a small, idyllic country town in the Midwest where the soybean population outnumbered the people. It’s a rural area with plenty of farmers who work the same land that their great grandparents did. It was the time of after-school specials, “The Facts of Life,” and the “just say-no-to-drugs” era.

We had one main street running through the center of town, proceeding directly out, with one traffic light. The other traffic light was the one used only for going to and from the local high school; the rest of the time it would flash its yellow caution lights. I often say about my town, “If you blink you miss it.”

There was the one family-owned grocery store that was passed down from generation to generation. And what Midwest small town is complete without a Dairy Queen? Ah, the joys of a carefree summer day, riding bikes and doing chores to earn some cold hard Dairy Queen spending money! As quickly as we earned it, we would ride straight to the Dairy Queen, handing over our coins and dollar bills for the sweet reward of a hand-dipped chocolate cone.

Nonetheless, it provided all the small-town comforts—like knowing all your neighbors, every kid in your class at school, and pretty much everyone in the school. It’s the kind of place where it was safe to ride your bikes all day long, playing in the neighborhood. But you knew as soon as the street lights came on, you’d better be on your way home or risk getting into trouble.

It’s the kind of small town where the community banded together to save the opera house that stood for hundreds of years so that it wouldn’t crumble away. Safe. Secure. Small. Cozy. My hometown was that kind of wholesome place. It’s the kind of place where the whole town looked forward to Friday night lights, the smell of the concession stand in the air, and the whistles and cheers from the crowd that signaled it was the weekend.

It’s the kind of place where we did 4-H projects during the summer and took great pride in our various projects. I learned everything from how to sew to first-aid skills to gardening—as well as the joys of raising chickens (not fun to give them a bath).

There was the time I convinced my family to get me a goat, which was supposed to be sold at the market during our county fair at the end of the summer. But my goat, of course, refused to gain enough weight to be sold . . . so the one summer with a goat turned into four summers. This led to much grumpiness from my family, who now had to keep the goat beyond what the initial plan was supposed to be. And to add insult to injury, the goat doubled in size and weight shortly after being too lightweight to sell at the county fair. Who says he wasn’t a smart goat? I will never forget the time my poor goat got into the biggest trouble in the world with my grandpa. My goat (before he got too fat) would jump over the electric fence and walk wherever he wanted around the farm. Most of the time it wasn’t that big of a deal . . . until the time he decided to take a walk on top of one of my grandfather’s Cadillacs. Well, as you might imagine, that pretty much sealed the deal on getting to keep my poor goat. Not long after that incident, grandpa said he had found a new residence for him.

This was the kind of small town where in second grade I made the “special honor roll”—all A’s—and was awarded with a day of baking cookies at my teacher’s house with the other students who also made the grades. Winning this precious honor gave you bragging rights for years in our little world. You would have thought you had discovered the cure for something, with the bitter battle of the students to reach the “all A’s” on the report card status. It was seriously competitive for second grade. Our parents didn’t think twice about sending their children to their teacher’s home for the day—obviously very different from today.

We had a contest each year in grade school where we wrote, illustrated and created our own books. Each grade level would choose the top three books in the class and one person from each elementary school went to the state Young Authors’ Conference with their teacher. It was a great honor to win—plus the winner also got a day away from school, so that was always a plus as a child. When I was in fourth grade, my book won that year for my class! And not only that, but I also got to go to the Young Authors’ Conference. That was one of the highlights of my childhood.

One thing I can look back on and believe without the shadow of a doubt was that we lived a pretty sheltered kind of life. I can only think of one time as a child when I clearly understood that there was violence in the world and we were not secluded.

It was a regular day and I was walking home from school when all of a sudden there was the sound of ambulances, fire trucks, and police sirens blaring in the distance—something that we did not hear a lot. Sirens and fire engines are truly cause for concern when you never hear them in a small town.

When I got home, my mother told me the sad news. An upset, former patient went into our town’s doctor’s office and killed the doctor . . . just like that. Stunned, shocked, and in total disbelief, I suddenly felt like our small town was a little less safe now. A little bit of that protective, secure feeling popped the day our family physician got fatally shot.

We were soon soldiered away to our grandparents’ farm to take our minds off of such terrible things. How quickly we became distracted by taking a shopping trip to Walmart where we were allowed to add whatever we wanted to the shopping cart! This was not like at home where we were on a tight budget.

At Grandma and Grandpa’s house, I got to eat ice cream every night before bed and ate the best biscuits and gravy you could ever imagine every Sunday morning. Country living did have its perks! Ah, yes . . . the life of living in a small town in the country was simple, wholesome, and definitely all-American.

We were so all-American that when the topic of sex education came up . . . well, most parents were the ones blushing. Now, I’m not saying I grew up in a town as strict and closed-minded as the one depicted in the movie Footloose, but let’s just say our parents cringed at the thought of us learning about the birds and the bees.

For my mom, though, she let the school’s sex education class be my “talk” about how sex worked. I even remember going to the drive-in when I was an “older teenager” (high school range) where the second movie after the family-friendly flick was Fatal Attraction. I guess those running the drive-ins must have anticipated that the children would be fast asleep by the time the “late-night” more grown-up second movie started! I was a teenager having taken the sex ed class, yet the adults who took me to the drive-in movie took drastic measures to ensure I did not see or hear any of the “adult” content in Fatal Attraction. Whenever any of those particularly racy scenes would start, they would immediately turn the radio off to turn off the audio. They also devised a rather crude (but fairly effective) MacGyver-style shield for the visual part of those scenes. This shield was made of an afghan that the adults quickly used to cover the front windshield to obscure my viewing—while they stuck their heads out the windows to watch it themselves. Well-meaning adults they were. Talk about mixed messages . . . you can learn about sex, but you’re not allowed to talk about “it” and you’re not allowed to see “it” depicted in the movies, but the grown ups can. . . . Oh, the woes of adolescents! So I continued to be subjected to the small-town mindset where I could learn about “it” (the birds and the bees), but that was all.

Yet there were a few times as I got older that I realized not everyone was like those in my small town. Like the summer going into college . . . I worked at the concession stand and experienced my first viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This might be “the” movie that most college kids see for the first time and have their minds blown, because all I can say is that’s what happened to me.

I worked with older college kids at this summer job. One particular guy kept coming to work tired and late, so one day on a break I asked him about it. He explained he was always tired because he always went to the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so he got home late every weekend.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show. What’s that?” I ask naively.
“It’s only the most fun time you can ever have at the movies. People dress up like the characters in the movie, throw things at the screen, shout out quotes, scream and dance! It’s amazing,” he responded.
“Hmm . . . sounds interesting,” I say.
“The next time I go you’re welcome to come with me,” he says without hesitation.

I gathered my courage on the night we planned to see the show. As we were driving up to the theater, the first time I’d ever been to see an indoor movie at midnight, I could see people were lined up outside—wrapping all the way around the building! I could not believe this. I had never seen so many people at a movie before—any movie.

This was utterly amazing to me. As we made our way to the back of the long line, I suddenly felt keenly aware that I was a “virgin” of sorts in this crowd. I was for the first time in my life within arm’s length of many men dressed in women’s lingerie. I was totally confused. My friend didn’t mention this little tidbit about the movie—just how fun, creative, and interactive it was going to be. This would be only one of my many “firsts” that night. I truly was like the naive, dumb, virgin characters, Janet and Brad, in the movie, not even knowing I was in over my head.

For anyone not familiar with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it truly is a one-of-a-kind experience, a cult classic with an even bigger cult following. These fans know every word of the movie, dress as the various characters, bring props to be used at particular times in the movie, and they also sing and dance. . . .
I’m sure we have all had this feeling of awe and wonder—and of understanding and not understanding what the hell is going on around you. It definitely leaves an impression like few other experiences. That was the second time in my life when I understood that there are so many interesting and exciting people in the world beyond my small town. I wanted to see and learn from them. I wanted to have adventures. I wanted to have their confidence.

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Excerpt from Exploring the Art of Seduction by Melissa Van Oss. Copyright 2023 by Melissa Van Oss. Reproduced with permission from Melissa Van Oss. All rights reserved.