In 1980, the year I worked for the Census, there were over 30 days when even the nighttime temperature was over one hundred. If you didn’t have air conditioning at night you couldn’t sleep. Bankers were getting real nervous. There were a lot of loans overdue and some farmers were getting real mad at bankers for not helping them get through this crisis. Homesteaded farms were going to be selling on the court house steps and farm wives were spending ten hours of daylight going from one irrigation pump to another, trying to keep them running while their husband tried to get a little sleep, after being up all night, trying to keep the same pumps running.
In Kansas those realities meant that sooner or later one or two of the elected “leaders” of the “fuckin’ government” would make a trip to visit farmers in their sun burned fields where the political thing to do is cry crocodile tears for a few minutes and then promise “the full force, might and power of the United States government will be brought to bear on this tragedy” as the Topeka Daily Capitol wrote. This type of talk usually translated into a few dollars and cents. Some kind of program to help offset the lost seed and fuel costs of the farmers. Usually the large election contributors were the fortunate ones who got one of these personal visits. They got a little free publicity!
It was during this terrible heat wave that Bob Dole came, whose most remembered contribution to America today was introducing Viagra on TV. He had instructed his office to set up a whirlwind tour of several central Kansas farms. One photo op of Dole and a farmer was to take place in a field near Assaria, Kansas. The farmer had naturally picked his most burned up field. It looked bad. The field ran on the east side of the Assaria Lutheran Church cemetery. Tombstones would make a good backdrop for the photos.
Alvera Olson, being the relied-upon photographer of the area, was sent out by the Swede Town News-Record to get a photo and some interview copy for the next issue of the newspaper.
The farmer who owned the burned up field met Dole and several newspaper reporters in the field just east of the cemetery. Bob Dole had several persons with him, including a political reporter who would write a story for the Topeka Daily Capitol, the most important paper in Kansas. Reporters from the Salina Journal, the Wichita Eagle, the McPherson Sentinel and of course Alvera Olson all showed up to jot down the typical one liners that Dole was famous for.
Dole bent over and with his good arm picked up a clod of dirt and crushed it in his hand, a very typical farmer-type maneuver. “Well a Russian thistle couldn’t get started here,” he quipped as he tossed the bone-dry dirt back into the field. “How can we expect you men to grow food if there ain’t enough moisture to start weeds?” The crowd that had gathered forced a little laughter. Alvera, in her mismatched ensemble, topped off by her rundown at the heel, high top shoes, broken elastic rolled down white socks, stepped to the side a little, with not a hint of appreciation for Senator Dole’s humor on her face. Dole anticipating a potential negative word about his making jokes cleared his throat and said earnestly. “Miss Olson what do you think we could do?” She smiled and answered, “We ought to get down on our knees and pray to God for some rain.”
And with that she slipped down on her knees and looked up at Big Bob Dole. Well, as the guy who told me about it said, “Dole was screwed. He instantly got down on his knees. I mean the other reporters would have crucified him if he would have hesitated for a moment.”
In Kansas, not only do you treat every newspaper person with the utmost respect, you don’t go against the wishes of an 80-year-old lady. And you have to be particularly nice when she is getting ready to ask Jesus to help out.
Dole turned to look at the rest of the entourage and then closed his eyes, while the knees in a pair of bib overalls and the knees of six more men’s suit pants hit the ground. Alvera told me later, when I asked her about the story, that when she started praying out loud for rain there was nobody left standing.
She told me with a smile “I got Bob Dole down on his knees, nobody else can say that! Hell, I heard he stood up when he asked his wife to marry him.” She paused and then added, “The bad thing about it is, it rained that night and now Bob Dole is taking credit for saving all the crops in Kansas!”
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(Photo: Sameer Sathe/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
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