March 19, 2008
by Mike Palecek

AUSTIN, TEXAS - "Move, you idiot!"

It's happening. Life on these interstate racetracks is getting to me.

I read the bumper sticker on the maroon van.

Jak Se Mas.

"Jake-see-moss?"

"What kind of g.d. thing is that? Indonesian? Move! You Sampan, Tibetan, Waco Turban Cowboy."

I pass on the left, look out the corner of my eye, "Jak Se Mas."

"Yaksay Mash."

It's Czech. My people. Hello in Czech.

I wave and smile.

We recognize each other. Hi. Hi.

We are idiots. My people are idiots.

Yesterday I was in Stephenville, got gas, asked about the guy who saw the UFOs. The girl says he lives in Selden and points the way I'm going.

Selden. And I live in Sheldon.

A sign.

At the sign, with all the inhabitants also listed on the sign, I turn left.

I wave at a guy in his driveway, sitting and reading. I turn around in the church lot and come up behind the guy. He waves backward. He already knows I'm there. I ask about the other guy, who saw the UFOs.

He acts as though he is used to being asked, then directs me to the hill, turn right at the church.

There are several houses, farms, ranches, spreads on the road. I pick out three that have dogs, many dogs, and I decide not to get out. I pick one with no dog and the couple comes out, smiling, used to being asked the question, and point me up to Mike Odom's place.

Up on another hill

I go up there, down the long lane. More dogs, but one is tied and the others are in the kennel.

I knock and knock. Nobody around.

Back in January it was reported worldwide that right here, in this backyard with the scrub and the hot tub and the children's toys and the sitting chairs, at about six in the evening, Mike Odom, Steve Allen and Lance Jones saw something big in the sky, perhaps a mile long and a half-mile wide.

It headed toward Stephenville, then ten minutes later, it headed back, like a little brother sent to town for smokes.

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I wish I could have talked to Mike. But just standing here with the dogs tied up is pretty good too.

On my way out of town I wave at the guy in the chair in his driveway. He waves back.

I also stopped at Mt. Carmel, outside of Waco.

Remember the Branch Davidians?

To me this is holy ground. I don't care what those people believed, that's not what's important to me.

But I feel a connection. I saw these buildings burn on TV back in 1993. Ruth and I were operating the Byron Review, a small newspaper in a small town in southeast Minnesota.

It wasn't too long after I had gotten out of jail for protesting against the U.S. military. I guess that being in prison, encountering Americans in their courts and justice system, their military, you come to understand that this is not really "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

We all saw it, the flames, nobody coming out of the buildings.

They all burned. We burned them. Our government, our FBI, our ATF.

Later there was a trial. But it was not the FBI on trial, it was the surviving church group members, guilty of not being burned alive.

This place is not a national monument. There is no large sign, no camper parking facilities, no gift shop. There are no smiling families with arms around each other's waists asking Oriental strangers to take their photo with the big mountain in the background.

But it should be. You have to want to find this place, on the Double EE Ranch Road, way out in the country.

There are three of us standing here. Right at our feet is the burned, buried bus, the underground passageway, the underground storm shelter.

You can touch it. It is not glassed-in, not guarded, no surveillance cameras, no maintenance man waiting nearby to wipe up any mess you might leave behind.

There are gold fish in the water in the remains.

Right here eighty-two people died, eighteen under the age of ten. Standing right here you can see their charred bodies, while America stands a few feet away, with guns, and the rest of us sit in front of television sets, watching.

At the entrance to the land there are gravestones for each of the eighty-two.

... "Theresa Nobregg, age 19; Gregory A. Summers, age 19; Vanessa Henry, age 19; Raymond Friesen, age 77; Mayanah Schneider, age 2; Melissa Morrison, age 6; Lorraine Sylvia, age 40. ...

Each of the stones has the same day of death: April 19, 1993.

It says that for fifty-one days these people were able to hold off the United States.

I think this is really America.

This is where tourists should go, along with Ruby Ridge, the motel in Memphis, the Ambassador Hotel, the Jumping Bull Compound.

To hell with Mount Rushmore.

It's a long way to Amarillo. If I get there, then maybe I'll see ya.


- Mike

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Mike Palecek [send him email] is an activist for peace and social justice. He served time in federal prison for civil disobedience and has run for US Congress. He has authored a number of books [click here to view] on behalf of the cause.

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