University of Virginia Library

Walter Bardenwerper

Death In A Small Town

Waterford, Wisconsin. Small
towns, like small children, have an
acute but unenduring sense of
tragedy. When a village of 2,000
loses one of its more popular and
likable high school students, a deep
gloom makes itself felt in every
quarter. Even though the feeling
does not last, the death etches itself
in the community memory, and the
people talk about it for years. What
they have to say exhibits a maturity
of thought that we in the cradle of
academia tend to underrate.

The observations, of course, are
closely related to the particulars of
the event. In this case, the event
was an automobile accident—a very
violent one in which two students
were killed. The idea that seemed
to linger around town was one
which Charles Reich needed a
whole book to explain. In essence,
it was the idea that we are moving
too fast for our own good. This is
not to say that fast cars and bad
drivers are the sole cause of such
sad events. But the frenzied motion
they exhibit are symptoms of the
larger American obsession with
action for its own sake.

The kids who died in Waterford
had no destination that required
such an insane speed. But the
nothingness of the activities at both
ends of the ill-fated ride led to a
search for excitement in the motion
itself. The people of Waterford
(many whom have observed this
same event regularly for years)
seemed to express the same regret
at what we have lost in our manic
desire for stimulus and activity that
Reich got so much credit for
discovering in The Greening of
America.

Amusement Sought

What has happened, according
to the rural sages, is that the
intrinsic quality of natural
experience is no longer fulfilling. A
snowfall is so commonplace, for
instance, that watching it, or
frolicking in it, are too slow and
passive; what is needed is a
snowmobile capable of moving
across it at high speeds. A country
road in autumn is only worthwhile
as a blurred background for the
spurious motion of a motorcyclist.
Readers can create their own
examples to form a sizable list of
once enjoyable, now extinct,
activities.

The obvious tendency, then, is
to seek a new source of amusement
and excitement whenever
something loses its attractiveness.
This is the age-old problem of the
quest for some illusory goal which
always gets harder to fulfill. The
problem now is that it is also
getting more dangerous to continue
the quest. What the townsfolk were
saying is that maybe we have gone a
bit too far in manufacturing ways
to avoid taking life more slowly and
savoring whatever it has to offer.

The fact that these basically
conservative Midwesterners come to
the same observations as the Yale
professor is not really surprising. It
points to the universality of the
problem. It is also not surprising to
find that no one is doing much
about it. Not much can really be
done, except by people
individually. But what is surprising
is that, contrary to popular belief
apparently simple people are
speaking such fundamental truths,
even if they do not know it.

Waterford, of course, will
survive the event. As much as it
loved those kids, it will not mourn
long. What it will do is go back to
living the same way it always has.

In no time, people will forget that
they even wasted valuable time
pondering the meaning of death.
But the next time the same thing
happens I want to be there to ask
people what is on their minds. My
guess is that will come to the same
conclusions all over again.

The tree that the car in this
story hit looks like it had grown
right through the middle of the
twisted metal. Detroit's masterpiece
was destroyed beyond recognition.
The tree stands unmolested. The
newspapers thought that picture
said something. It sure did.