I often wonder how it is that as adults we are content to believe the most preposterous lies that even our children won’t take up. I was reminded of one just this week, having finished a beer, and waiting for the second half of a concert to begin at Des Moines’ Hoyt Sherman Place.

“You know if you are sitting out there in the audience, and you’ve never taken the time to travel across this great country of ours in a way that lets you appreciate the vastness of it, you really ought to. David and I are lucky in that we drive ourselves, and over the years we’ve crisscrossed this country so many times. I still haven’t loss my sense of awe at it all. The climates, the people, and the cultures are so varied, yet here we are, all in the same place,” so uttered Gillian Welch having taken the stage after intermission.

The comment brought lots of applause. Some was from a ghost fluttering around backstage somewhere. Hoyt, onto the side of his stately home this auditorium was built, was surely pleased with Gillian’s call for cross country travel. His famous brother, William Tecumseh Sherman, had the same idea some time ago. He went across Georgia, cutting a swath sixty miles wide.

I have no problem with the wonders of travel, only the subsequent smugness of those whom thought they already had.  What better way to appreciate its vastness than to realize its vastness is beyond our comprehension? Here lies the sense of awe. What more stands in the way of that than to believe one already has?

Every child understands that real places aren’t found on maps. As adults we become convinced of the opposite. The crap that wouldn’t fool a child fools us daily.

At the concert’s start, my father struck up a conversation with the couple ahead of us. He spoke with the wife first, whom had a sense of culture about her. When she mentioned Chicago, Dad naturally asked if that was where they were from.

“Oh goodness, no,” she said. “I’m from Fort Madison, and my husband is from just south of here, Madison County, where the bridges are. He’s from a little town you’ve probably never heard of. We live here in Des Moines.”

They were in their 70s, and if the wife possessed an air of graceful sophistication, her husband, short and thin, bespectacled, and with time having turned his shoulders and back slightly in, was an unassuming man and endearing. He turned and offered a smile as he was brought into the conversation.

“We’d be a little familiar with Madison County,” Dad replied. “We’re from there.”

“You don’t say?” said the man rather excitedly. “Where about?”

“A few miles north of Bevington.”

The smile grew larger, “I was once one of nine in a graduating class from Patterson.”

“Do the two of you come here often?” his wife asked.

“This year we have. It’s our third time. Most recently the two of us saw Lyle Lovett.”

The husband’s smile now gave way to a giddy laugh. “He’s my absolute favorite. I’ve seen him many times. The thing is he always has such good musicians with him, and he’s always such a gentleman on stage, both to the audience and to the band.” He almost seemed embarrassed that he had went on so to strangers, that he had momentarily left the map.

The lights went dim. Gillian and Dave came on, and as they brought their guitars into tune, our man from Patterson laid the backside of his hand on his wife’s knee and she laid her hand in his.

When intermission arrived I went to get a beer, and found the same couple ahead of me.

“So what do you know of where I grew up?” the old man asked.

“Well whenever I think of Patterson, I think of a story my Grandfather was said to have often told. His mother had a poor heart, and in 36’ it was so hot he was afraid the heat would kill her. They say there were 28 days where the high was never below 100. You couldn’t stand to sleep in the house, so they slept in the yard, but the ground would be so hot you’d have to let it cool off.  While they were waiting, he’d get her in their car and they would drive with the windows down, trying to relieve the stress.

There were still salesmen traveling through the area, and some moved from town to town putting on a show. One night there was a fellow in Patterson, so they drove to see him and beat the heat. When he came onto his impromptu stage he related to the crowd the following story:

Folks, I had the most God awful dream last night. I dreamt last night not only that I had died, my friends, but much worse than that. I dreamt I had died and went to Hell. There Lucifer gave me the job of shoveling folks into the fire. God I hated to do it, but he forced me to do it, and so I did.

The first group that came along was a group from right down the road here, in Martensdale. Oh I tell you…they were such nice people. But the Devil bade me to shovel them in, and so I did. And the next group, oh, they were closer still. They were from Bevington, and they were even nicer than the folks from Martensdale. I especially hated to throw them into the fire, but the Devil bade me once more, and I did. But ladies and gentlemen, little did I know that the worst of it was yet to come. Why the third group was a group from right here in Patterson. And they were just as nice as all of you. I cried. I begged, but the Devil spoke, ‘Shovel em in,” and with tears running down my cheeks I did.

But I’ll be damned if those folks from Patterson weren’t too green to burn.”

The husband had found his laugh once again, extended his hand, and told me his name.  “Last nam is ‘Camp,'” he said.  I told him mine.

“It was a real pleasure in meeting you.”

“Very much likewise,” said I.

The most famous story of Patterson, that of Jesse Russell Salsbury and his buddy from Illinois, Joseph Downs, we never got to. The pair met in the Iowa National Guard in 1917. Later that year, preparing to leave for France, they erected a flag pole in the Salsbury yard in Patterson. In the wet concrete they both inscribed their names, below which they wrote “Shot in France.” On May 27^th, 1918 the pair was killed there in a gas attack on their trench.

In 1923, the town stood the slab on end and made a monument of it, and you could crisscross this country a thousand times and never see it once. The story is only a local one, and there are no signs directing you to it from nearby Highway 92.

I often thought someday, in an effort to raise funds, they will set another flag pole in the Salsbury front yard and raffle chances to leave an inscription on it. Were I to buy that winning ticket, I’d write, “Dan Hanrahan–Died peacefully in his sleep.” And then, when the crowd had left, but before the concrete dried, I’ll pull from my pocket a list of a few other names with manners of death much more exotic.

I stopped by it this evening, on my home from Creston. Beside the monument is a wreath that has nearly withered away. Above it is an enclosed case, detailing the story. Alongside the story are pinned a few photos, all bleached and faded beyond description. All but one. The lone picture that survives is of J. Russell Salsbury and his friend Downs. Wherever they are standing, it isn’t found on any map, and is as real now as it was then.