There were hats. Almost everybody wore one. As the women filtered through the doors one or two at a time, the Wednesday Club might have been a hiccup in the time space...or was it a time-place continuum: a dignified, brick, white columned place with a boardroom, a century plus of history, and a structure which charged each member with a task: from pouring coffee to running the state of the art sound system to inviting the guest lecturer in one of twelve different disciplines. Two women in the restroom adjusting their Halloween finery were discussing the whereabouts of a third: ‘Has anyone seen her yet?’
‘Well, no, and I called at eight and there was no answer….’
Oh no! I thought, imagining an injury or bad fall…..
’But she may be playing tennis…’
So much for preconceived notions...my mental vision is shattered by a two handed backhand...
Our hostess is a member of Missouri Farm Bureau and has read Blake’s opening articles in the Farm Bureau’s Show Me Magazine. In one of her introductory letters, we learn she and her husband have a farm in Crawford county and they understand that cattle need protection from predators and the elements and why some people need to harvest three deer “to make it through the winter.” In her words, “this is likely not know by many in the city”. Blake’s talk will have to deal, at least tangentially, with the approved topic in the History section: Omission in U.S. History in the Media. Whew! Because it is very clear that discussing spitting contests and name calling, whether social media present or yellow journalism past, is beyond the pale of the good manners and propriety of the Wednesday Club, Blake’s talk mentions what the media gets wrong, but its main focus is what agriculture gets right.
Every day and in every way, today’s agriculture overcomes obstacles of weather and climate, disease and fertility to feed the people of the world. But you have to get past the “bad news” to learn about this a modern day miracle.
Fortunately, the women (and man) of the Wednesday club are receptive to this tale. They are folks of a generation that understands science; many have been associated with medicine or Washington University in their professional lives. They are also of an age to enjoy or at least tolerate multiple pictures of cute grandchildren and to poke gentle fun at the minor technological snafus posed by holding a mouse backwards. This is an audience unfazed by the science of genetic modification, but a little ouchy about ethanol; after all, one of their previous guest lecturers was from the Danforth Plant Science center. Someone asks about food deserts and another member seems quite concerned when Blake mentions that we have been using no till farming for twenty years on our highly erodible soils. Turns out her farmland is in Illinois where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the soils are deep, black….and flat.
Off to lunch, where, in a flashback of nostalgia, I halfway expect to be served a cottage cheese filled pear on a lettuce leaf. Didn’t happen. Instead, I compliment the coffee and eat my Halloween hued cupcake, enjoying the cheerful chatter from the tables all around. When we were first married, I accompanied Millie to a couple of meetings of the neighborhood Morning Sun Extension Club where the ladies were primarily of Blake’s Grandma Hurst’s generation with names like Eunice, Gertrude and Velma. And, later, I was a faithful member of the Atchison County Republican Women and an erratic attendee of the Tarkio Garden Club with stalwart women all a generation or two older than me. But kids and work took precedence over civic groups and meetings and I hardly noticed when local organizations like these faded away. The women of the Wednesday Club shore up their volunteerism with a hearty dose of accountability and duty; surely the full tables this Halloween are indicative of a relentless and iron willed civic spirit. Today’s individualistic bent allows us to tailor our self improvement on our own at any time and place of our choosing. But associations like the Wednesday Club keep the “community” in “betterment”. The past of our grandmothers, if not the hats, lives on at the Wednesday Club, and the culture of our future is better for it...
