The Great Western Jackalope
I’m taking a brief exit from our four part series on cars to ponder an American curiosity by asking:
Wait, are they for real?
Not once, but twice, this question was raised to me recently in hushed tones, as if the inquirers knew better, but needed a nudge of reality.
One of the inquirers was standing beside me in the Wall Drug gift shop where a pantheon of the quixotic creatures hang in taxidermy.
But, no, they’re the product of a human’s imagination, one that was, perhaps, lightly seasoned by the watercolor beauty of the Great Plains.
We’re Gonna Put You In The Movies
In late September, Becky and I walked through Wall Drug’s cafeteria where Frances McDormand played a line worker in the film Nomadland.
Seven months previous, on a whim, we saw this critically-acclaimed movie at Reel Cinemas. We had zero advanced knowledge, save for a trailer.
Seeing that we were planning a year’s study leave with the potential for some long hauls, I thought it might get us in the mood.1
Shot entirely on location throughout the western states, the film is stunning.
Director Chloé Zhao employs a cast of untrained actors who sometimes were not aware they were participating in a dramatic film, not a documentary.
So, they played themselves to-a-T as nomadic van-dwellers.
Bob Wells, who runs CheapRVLiving on Youtube, became an acting sensation playing himself as a grieving father and divorcee. His tears are real. He says about Zhao:
About two, three days before the scene, she came in and I told her…about my son. And of course, she asked if I would be willing to share that. I have not handled the death of my son at all well, and it’s been a very private thing. And actually, I think the movie was very, very healing for me — actually saying it, telling the world. It was a gift to my son’s life and of my life to the movie.
Free As A Jackalope?
McDormand plays Fern, a fellow wanderer, un-tethered from her dead husband and abandoned mining town in Nevada. She lives out of a bunker that doubles as a white van.
On several occasions, you’re led to believe that she’s going to settle down.
In rural California, a warm embrace awaits her at a homey retreat with a caring family, but after a night in a comfy bed (eecchh!), she departs for the open highway.
McDormand’s portrayal of the emptied soul, looking for love and life under the stars and in campgrounds, is magically believable.
Bob Wells thinks the film is about grief, the kind of grief that can only be healed, for some, by a long, long trek through the wilderness.
It’s in that arid place where many like-hearted travelers find camaraderie and fellowship. Some are on their way to settlement, some never make it beyond the fire ring.
In the desert, another ranger from Nazareth received comfort from little creatures and angels before heading back to the society of humans.
Even the “seven spirits,” an anti-example from Jesus’ own teaching, wander through arid places only to return to a nicely swept house.
We all long for a place to call home.
Fern’s trajectory, by the close of the movie, is guesswork in the details, but hopeful just the same.
Solitary Confinement
My fascination with the horned bunny began with my first visit to this mega-tourist stop in Wall, South Dakota.
I was ten years old and held captive to a 3 week long trek in the rear-facing seat of a Dodge Polara station wagon…with no iPad and a companion called Boredom.
If I asked my parents for a Jackalope bust, I’m sure they demurred and suggested I pick something like a post card or maybe some Mexican Jumping Beans.
The Jumping Beans turned out to be an equally mind-bending freak of nature and very real, you must know.2
On The Row House Road Show 2021, I did get the post cards. I’m a sucker for high art and cryptozoological ephemera.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get one from me.
Eh, what’s up, Doc?
I pity the jackalope, though. Not much of a future, unless someone’s willing to shell out the 95 dollars.
F’reals, the nomadic life is out of the question for Jackie.
Even if he had a lovely burrow to return to, he couldn’t get through the front door to snuggle with his dear J-Lope (an anterless doe, we presume).
Plus, his stately antlers will only get caught in a tumbleweed if he tries to hide from Elmer Fudd.
This is why I’m pulling for The Western Jackalopes.
Gazing at the Wall Drug wall, I’m reassured that their trajectory is most certainly home sweet home.
And with that, I wish you a meaningful season of Advent as you long for the same.
We had bought a truck and trailer in anticipation for a little nomadic dalliance of our own, but that rig proved to be a bigger hassle than we bargained for. I talk about how we pulled back to our Subaru and a series of smaller treks here.
By the time we reached the next state border, I had discovered, much to my turned stomach, that these twitching and snapping beans were the tombs of living larvae, eating their way out. A fitting metaphor for my nervous, energetic, fantastical self in a bucket hat…in a jump seat.