Kansas Folklore
Spoons under pillows, the flight of a sparrow, watermelon seeds, and other signs
The Sunflower State
Kansas, though at the center of the country, is a state that is passed through and passed over. It’s where home is and where home always has been. I’ve ventured for a week into the Mulberry River of Arkansas, tickled the edge of Oklahoma, and touched down in Michigan for a college visit. And I spent many years in Illinois at college. But for the most part, this state is where I’ve stayed.
Kansas harbors many of German, Swedish, and Czech heritage (the Czech brought in the Red Hard Turkey Winter Wheat that fills up our fields).1 And though I’ve never checked, the name Urich certainly has that flavor—though my Dad is adopted, so he’s of uncertain blood—and we’ve never much cared to nail down our past. I have his stubbornness, his kindness, and his stubborn kindness. My Great-Grandparents on my mom’s side sailed over from Ireland, and so I have ginger speckled amongst my scruff. I borrow a caustic wit and sarcasm from my Grandpa Chuck, my mom’s dad, as well. But these aren’t heritages that have taken up root in my core, or that I draw any particular power or inspiration from: perhaps I draw inspiration more from the absence than the presence.
We have a family friend—who has become something of a surrogate son—named Liam. He’s a Latvian fellow, aspiring DJ, who is fully subscribed to the bootstrap ethos of our mid-American square under the sky. He stayed with us one summer studying abroad, and liked us enough to come on back. He’s a good guy. But once remarked about this place, “Where are the young people? Is there anything to do here?” Well, Liam, there isn’t anything to do here, and I have no idea where the young people are. I think this state is entirely made up of middle aged parents and their perpetual toddlers. If you go into the city, you will find some young cats prowling about the bars, some jazz floating out of some lounge, and there is Lawrence, the state college town. Walk down Mass Street and you’ll find there’s plenty of record stores and crystal shops with a skunk-ish scent seeping out…
But he’s right. It’s a place you’re either settled in or are ready to run from. It’s quite white, in that Good White People by Shannon Sullivan sense, of well-meaning, well-to-do folks, but that are typically more interested in defending their moral comfort than in making a difference down on Troost Avenue. It’s quite green, in the sense that any lawn you’ll see looks the exact same—and there’s always someone running a lawn-mower somehow. It’s quite grey: we keep the art inside the classroom.
But despite the limited color palette, we have some places in these hills. There’s the Louisburg Cider Mill that has the best apple cider and cider donuts a tongue can taste. There’s Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que, and good barbeque all around us, that is forgettable until you go somewhere else and realize ain’t a single motherfucker up north knows barbeque from chicken shit. The Chiefs are apparently pretty good, though don’t ask me about it: I learn from other people. And we’re a kind bunch. My Uncle John came to Lake Forest in Illinois and said “Hi! Hey, how are ya?” to every person he passed, and the students were taken off-guard, off-balance and deflected out of their headspace. He once won an award for being—I’m not even kidding—the kindest person at the school he was volunteering at. He shouted to some people playing blowing bubbles across the quad, “Bubbles! Yeah!” It’s not embarrassing, honestly, it’s just a nice reminder that you can totally go up and talk to any motherfucker you want. We like people and think we can learn from them.
People often reply surprised and interested when I say I’m from Kansas, but I think the reaction would be similar if I said I was from the Land of Beeply-Dooply-Sumble-Blabble: Nobody knows anything about it, so it’s kind of fun to have the experience wherein one goes, “Oh shit. Kansas. I forgot that place existed.” And typically, I follow it up with a lot of shit talk. But a lot of my grievances come from the fact that I feel like I’m the only one seeing it.
I often think of the great scene in Greta Gerwig’s movie Ladybird where Lady Bird is talking about her college essay with Sister Joan. The Sister expresses that her essay is full of love for Sacramento, California—the place Lady Bird so desperately wants to run away from. She’s surprised, and says that she was just describing it, saying what she sees. But the sister insists that she sees love in her essay, to which Lady Bird replies, “Sure. I guess I pay attention.” Sister Joan returns with this: “Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?”2
Signs
I recently picked up a book, Folklore From Kansas: Customs, Beliefs, and Superstitions by William E. Koch. In it, Koch presents his research that took place over many years, gathering folk sayings from volunteers all across Kansas. The book, with the occasional brief page or two explaining the purpose of the section headings, i.e. Luck, Illness and Injuries, and so on, is a collection of the gathered sayings. There’s lots of great gems. “If you swallow a watermelon seed, a watermelon will grow out of your ear,” for example.3 I mean, your ear? Or how about this one: “If you can kiss your elbow, you can change your sex.”4 Someone please get this information to our trans kings, queens, and majesties! Though, it might not be possible for most to kiss their elbows…it might be a bit demoralizing: let’s keep this one under wraps, for now. And another personal favorite: “Long fingers; big stealer.”5 Let me say that one more time, I’m not sure if that really sunk in. “Long fingers; big stealer.” Once more, for good measure: Long fingers; big stealer. I am in love with this, especially as someone with long fingers. I am the “big stealer.”
There are many ones like that that tickle me. “If you say ‘Money, money, money’ on the first star you see at night, you will get a lot of money.”6 I laughed quite loudly the first time I read this one. Whichever “folk” came up with that lore should be taken off the payroll. Another that made me laugh was “Spit on a baby, and both you and the baby will have good luck.”7 Can’t imagine this one got too much circulation. Many spit-proof hoods on baby carriages were likely installed when that wisdom was making the rounds. Ptooie! “Why the fuck would you spit on my baby, Todd?” “Oh, come on. Now both me and the little guy have good luck.” Another charming one is the postulation that “Thunder is caused by clouds bumping their heads.”8 It reminds me of grade school, and that for pretty much any event of weather at recess we had a corresponding, inevitable joke: “God is peeing!” (for raining) or “God is farting!” (for heavy winds) or “God is having sex!” (for thunder).
There’s some other oddities: lots of advice for getting rid of freckles, implying freckles are ugly or undesirable. The meanest one has got to be this one: “Freckles may be removed by applying cow dung, which will bleach the skin. Apply it once a week.”9 This has huge big brother energy. You make your little brother insecure, then say that the solution is some arcane and disgusting concoction he must adhere to strictly. But, as a freckled fellow myself, I did not appreciate my Kansan ancestors hating on the angel kisses.10
Another disturbing account is that “Thursday is queer’s day. If you wear any green on Thursday, you are queer.”11 At first I found this funny, but there a few others that surround it from other sources—“It’s not advisable to wear green on Thursday” and “In high school, it was taboo to wear green on Thursday, because if on did, one was considered to be a queer”—that suggest a darker past for any queer kids back then.
There are others that are intriguing. “A baby nurses nervousness off its mother.”12 And isn’t that true? That we lap up our person from our parents? Or the ones on death: “If you hear ringing in your ears, it’s death’s bells. Knock on your chair to drive them away.”13 Death’s bells is a good name for that ringing, which is apparently the sign of a gradual loss of hearing, or so I’ve been told. Or this one, that evokes a nagging anxious reminder of the degradation of the seasons, “A winter without snow means that there will be many deaths in the spring.”14 It reminds me of some graffiti that remained sprayed on the side of an electrical unit at my college—only taken down this semester—that said, “More Summer. Less Lives.” We inherit the Spring and burn it off in the Summer.
There’s also some classics thrown in—classics for me at least—like “A watched pot will never boil” and “If you make a face too often, your face will freeze that way.”15 The first is good advice—learning to wait well is tough, but a lot of life is waiting around, so it’s a good thing to get good at. The second has a sour taste, because it’s usually told to you as a pouting kid, after you didn’t get what you wanted: “Let’s turn that frown upside-down!”
There are many ruminations on death and birth, illness and health, much advice on how to avoid misfortune and gain all the coveted joys of life, and guides to signs all around us. One has to be careful with our capacity to make connections: the metaphorical engine running in our heads knows no limit, and it’s best to keep it in check. It risks being too external of a reading to assume the significance of folklore stems from how it reflects naturalistic human concerns, or worse yet, as a form of pseudo- or proto-scientific thinking. But, I see a lot of people observing and paying attention to the world around them in this Kansan folklore.
Paying Attention
Love likely is not just attention. But attention is surely a primary part of love. Audrey told me once that she was babysitting and the kids would not calm down. She called her mom, exasperated, for advice. Her mom told her that if a kid is throwing a fit, they want one of two things: food or attention. And that seems about right. How often do you feel all pent-up and anxious and awful, but then you get some food in you, and you feel better? And how often are our emotional troubles because we don’t feel like anyone has really listened yet, that is, that no one has paid us the right kind of caring attention yet? You’ve yet to really be seen? One of the best ways to be a better friend, lover, or leader is to listen, to stop trying to offer advice, or do this or do that, and to let them unfold. Not all the time, but sometimes you should not try and do anything, you should just pay attention. It’s also, often, the solution to hatred. Hold off the hate for a moment and just take stock: look around, ask questions, and see what happens. If you stop and pay attention, even if you are in Kansas, where you are will refresh you.
Before I leave off, I’d like to mention one more thing that attention can do. It can lead to correcting some mistakes. Have you ever proofread something, over and over and over again, and you are absolutely certain that it is spick-and-span, perfect, and flawless? But then, upon submitting it or sending it off somewhere, you look it over one last time—this time a bit more relaxed—and you immediately catch a glaring mistake, as obvious as a booger in your nose?
I used to think that the call of the Mourning Dove was an owl. My whole damn life I thought it was an owl. But last summer, I became curious, and I looked up the call online. (Truly a feat of human technology that I can look up, “bird that goes Whoo-OOO-ooo…ooo…ooo” to Google, and Google is like, “Oh, yeah. Of course. I got you.”) Much to my embarrassment, it was not an owl at all. But now, whenever I hear its distinctive cooing, I know it’s not an owl, and I know its real name.
Not only that, but it gets its name because it sounds sad, like it is grieving. “If you hear the cry of a mourning dove, sorrow will come.” So goes another Kansas folk saying.16 But the Mourning Dove’s call is actually the sound of finding a mate, of preparing to rear its young, and the sound of claiming a place as home.17 Pay close enough attention, and you’ll find your mistakes. Listen closer still, and you can find joy where once there was sorrow.
Thanks for reading and all the best,
Nicholas
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/kansas-history-and-heritage-177525806/
https://y-t.be/eknr. Here’s a link to the scene. It’s poor quality, but either way it’s a good scene. Fantastic movie. Lady Bird is Gerwig’s best. Frances Ha is on its heels, but Lady Bird takes the cake.
Koch, William E. Folklore from Kansas: Customs, Beliefs, and Superstitions. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 1980, pp. 182
Koch, pp. 184.
Koch, pp. 178.
Koch, pp. 201.
Koch, pp. 290.
Koch, pp. 298.
Koch, pp. 182-184.
My mom always told me growing up that each freckle was a kiss from an angel. Now that’s a folk belief I can get behind. No cow poop, just angel smooches :)
Koch, pp. 205.
Koch, pp. 53.
Koch, pp. 161.
Koch, pp. 162.
Koch, pp. 189 and 184.
Koch, pp. 246.
Book of North American Birds, edited by James Cassidy et al. The Reader’s Digest Association, 1990, pp. 77.
From southern/central Illinois, I give you, "There is more than one way to skin a cat." I grew up hearing this in equal frequency to tamer sayings like, "a watched pot will never boil," and "now we're cooking with gas/butter," so I never really questioned the gruesomeness of it until I was much too old. I, for one, would far prefer to remain ignorant toward all tactics of cat-skinning.
Beautiful piece, brother! I may have to start wearing green on Thursdays in defiance now lol But in all seriousness- I loved all the folk sayings, and remember hearing quite a few of these growing up here too. It's fascinating how so many of these have been passed down for so long that even some of us young people still remember them!