A large wagon with broad wheels and an arched canvas top; used by the United States pioneers to cross the prairies in the 19th century.
I have long felt a little bad about an encounter I had in Nebraska with a father and his young son.
It is not an incident worthy of too much scrutiny, but I could have thought twice about what I said and how I said it.
I had been driving all day (for many days) seeing sights and objects associated with the American Pioneers. I did not stop for the truly tacky exhibits but I saw many of the standard Nebraska roadside monuments.
At one of these monuments I spotted a father with his son and I asked the man if he had been to a certain well-advertised national park. He said he had, and I, crabby and tired, asked "Was it WORTH IT?"
I can’t seem to put into words how my tone of voice made it sound like he was an ass for spending $8 for admission to another Nebraska national park, and his reaction seemed to reflect my inappropriately cranky line of questioning.
His son (9 or 10 years old) also seemed to react to my irritated tone of voice. I sounded accusatory, and I imagined that the boy later confronted his father about my accusations.
A puny, self-absorbed account of an insignificant incident which nevertheless reminds me of how these encounters with strangers can be revealing.
It was a college professor (of some unrelated subject) who described the cultural anthropological phenomenon of the Familiar Stranger. That professor described The Familiar Stranger differently from today’s more popular definitions of the phrase. He described The Familiar Stranger as someone you had never seen before and whose anonymity freed you of consequence, encouraging you to open your heart to the person and tell them all. You might find such a person sitting for hours in an airport waiting area, or they might be a fellow passenger on a long train ride.
As the professor described them I recognized these people, these familiar strangers from airports and Amtrak train rides from Tampa to New York. People whose names I never knew who had filled my head with words and stories, outpourings released not for me to remember but for them to forget.
I think that the natural mental overhang of anxiety associated with commercial aviation and long-distance train travel make these prime settings for Familiar-Stranger-esque encounters. In my case the setting of a Nebraska national monument in the late afternoon proved to be a setting conducive to this sort of mental exhaust.
