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Notes From the Boonies

By Paul Wisovaty

The astute reader will have noticed that most of VVAW's leadership hails from the more cosmopolitan parts of America. We have Barry from Chicago, Joe in Champaign-Urbana, John in Milwaukee, and Elton in Georgia. (Wait a minute, I was stationed at Fort Gordon; that may be the exception that proves the rule.) Anyway, way down the ranks among the FNGs still pulling pots-and-pans KP duty, we got this guy whose Veteran column has been entitled (by the editors) "Notes from the Boonies." Truth to tell, that's not that inaccurate. If Douglas County males could vote on renaming this place, I'd be living in Nascar County, Illinois. Besides, Stephen A. Douglas was a Democrat, and that don't float very well in this neck of the woods either.

Okay, so we don't have the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. We don't wear shoes six months out of the year. And sometimes we get a little more friendly with our daughters than the law prefers. But I'll tell you this. Right here in Douglas County, we have something Barry and Joe and John and Elton don't have, and something they don't even have in Berkeley. What we have, about one hundred and sixty miles south of the town that hasn't won a World Series since Christ was a corporal (as our drill sergeants used to tell us), is America's one and only Hippie Memorial.

If you will pardon me, I will now get a little more serious.

The Hippie Memorial was constructed several years ago by a gentleman from Arcola, Illinois named Bob Moomaw. Bob passed away a couple of years go, in his early sixties, and in 1999 the Arcola City Council elected to place his Memorial on City property. From what I can tell, Bob was considered a bit of a local flake, he being a pretty left-wing guy in a right-wing world, but he was nevertheless very much liked in his hometown. (I guarantee you, I couldn't have gotten away with it.)

I will now reproduce for you the dedication speech for this memorial, given last year by his widow upon that occasion. It will say a lot more about Bob's magnum opus than I ever could.

"Bob explained that the Memorial is made of iron rods, junk parts and crafted metal. Each foot represents one year of his life. The short portion on the left is the first 26 years of his life, which included the Depression, World War II, the Red Scare and the hypocrisies of the 1950s. Bob said it was like living in a coal mine with a three-foot ceiling. The tallest man he ever met was three feet tall, because society forced people to stoop.

"The memorial rises to six feet representing the 60s to the 80s, when the Hippies hit and raised the ceiling off everything. Everyone got to stand up against repression and oppression. Bob said it was like growing up. They broke free from small-town morality during the Kennedy Camelot and the Hippie Movement. The metal shapes are brightly colored, showing love and peace symbols and individuality. In 1980, Ronald Reagan necked society down into small-mindedness again.

"The crossbars are the 'webs of his life.' As his life passed through time, other people's junk stuck to him and made him what he was - the product of leftovers from a previous existence. He said he never got to determine a thing in his life; it was all determined for him. He said he left the pieces raw so they could rust, the way life is, junk collecting rust.

"Was Bob Moomaw a hippie? No. He did have a beard and a ponytail while attending Eastern Illinois University. He was there at the same time and place as hippies were, but was raising his children then to use the freedom of their minds to search for knowledge and education as he did. As he said: to his shame, he was no hippie. Hippies, he said, gave us freedom to appreciate individual artistic creativeness. That is what aspect of their existence he is honoring."

That's it. That's the dedication speech, and a kind of loose explanation of how this ungainly and unlikely edifice ever came into being. Like Mrs. Moomaw said, most of it is junk, but it's the "non-junk" parts - the years when the hippies burst upon the scene - that the artist wanted to memorialize.

Maybe this is one of those "you had to be there" columns. I mean, it's not like busloads of tourists stop in Arcola every day to see this thing. We do have tourists here, but they're usually more interested in the Amish craft stores and our new golf course. Douglas County has one of the few original Grand Army of the Republic rooms still in existence, and we're in the process of building a National Korean War Museum and Library, which is a pretty big deal in its own right. The Douglas County Tourism Council regularly trumpets these attractions to anyone who will listen, which of course it should.

But you know what? I just love this goddamn Hippie Memorial. It sits there with all the fanfare of a latter-day Ozymandias, and is very much a stranger in a strange land. I should like to invite all of our enlightened readers to come on down to Douglas County, Illinois some day, in between the otherwise serious things you're doing in your lives, and, well, just dig it. My friend Mary Dilliner and I will give you the cook's tour, and then we'll take you across the railroad tracks to Snoopy's 45 tavern for a few cold cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

You just can't get any closer to the heart of America than that.