On the drive from Chicago to Los Angeles, we were rolling along Interstate 80 through the vast, wheat-filled void that is central Nebraska. Even more so than the desert, Nebraska gives you the overwhelming feeling of being in a very specific place, while at the same time being lost in a sea of all-encompassing uniformity. I imagine that if and when the apocalypse comes, the whole world will look like Nebraska.
Just up the road from the town of Pleasant Dale, Nebraska (home to 245 souls as well as the fifth-largest honey glazed ham factory in Nebraska) there is an abandoned gas station with a towering rusted metal sign which reads “GAS”. It was this sign which prompted us to interrupt our westward progress at exit 388 off I-80. Across the street from the gas station is an ordinary-looking house, except for the paint job—all hippie rainbows, flowers and stars. This is the “visitors’ center” for the Prairie Peace Park, a 37-acre chunk of land filled with folk-art exhibits dedicated to advancing the cause of world peace.
There were flower planters made from decommissioned missiles, the “peace gazebo,” the “friendship path,” the “Amber Waves of Grain” exhibit—3,200 small wooden cones representing the United States’ Cold War nuclear arsenal; a baked clay mural created by various artists from around the world. Inside the house, we watched a video about peace groups. We saw a paper crane display about Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese schoolgirl who contracted leukemia as a result of radiation poisoning from the Hiroshima bomb. In accordance with a Japanese tradition, she tried to fold 1,000 paper cranes to be granted her wish for health and world peace.
We walked the “path of hope”, a maze built out of wooden planks inscribed with the “thirteen violent practices” which lead to war. Later in the maze, a corresponding set of “thirteen peaceful practices” proposed to show us how to overcome war. The practices listed rang with emotional truth, but were so simplistic as to be childlike. If “slavery” is the violent practice in question, then of course “equality for all” is its peaceful antidote.
The entire project appeared to be the creation of one man, Don Tilley, who also seemed to live in the house at the park. The philosophy it expressed was a mishmash of hippie idealism, new-age crystal-gazing and Christian optimism. The whole park had very much of a low-rent dime-store feel to it. When we visited in August, Mr. Tilley told us that the park would be closing at the end of the month, due to a lack of funds and volunteers.
Were I of a different temperament and political persuasion, I might’ve found the entire endeavor absurd and amusing. As it was, I found it poignant and tragic. The fact that a center dedicated to world peace couldn’t keep up attendance enough to even cover its own meager operating expenses seemed to speak volumes about where our priorities as a nation lie. A single piece of modern military hardware probably sells for more than the entire budget of the Prairie Peace Park during its twelve year history.
Mr. Tilley personally took us around the park, pointing out and explaining the various exhibits. He is an old man, and he moved slowly, but he seemed burdened by more than age. It must be a terrible thing to watch your dream coming to an end. Toward the end of our visit, he started giving us all kinds of Prairie Peace Park memorabilia. He gave us bumper stickers and t-shirts, and books, and buttons. We tried to pay him for these things, but he said the park was no longer accepting donations—there was no point.
May 12, 2006