Life Force Magazine

APRIL 2013 BACK ISSUE

by Jim Richardson It has been 35 years since I took my first picture in Cuba, Kansas, just a small town on the plains of Kansas. Nothing about it would attract the attention of the world news media, there is nothing unique or exceptional. No trends are represented here nor can it lay claim to fame and certainly not to fortune. It is not poor, but life is a scramble here, and no one gets rich off the surrounding small farms or from the few remaining businesses. This project started simply enough: I thought I would photograph the dying small towns of the American midwest in the style of W. Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier-Bresson. I wanted to make images with more staying power than the daily news pictures I was taking for the Topeka Capital-Journal where I was a staff photographer. And so it was that I started taking pictures of rural Kansas. I don't remember my first day in Cuba because I had no expectation of staying so long. And perhaps I was like everyone else, who could only see a dusty main street without visible life. But over those intervening decades the good folk of this wide spot in the road have taught me well. The community came to life for me. Saturday nights at the Mustang Inn, and rain day beer for farmers at the Lazy B Bar, the Cuba City Band practicing on main street led by plumber Elmer Dolezal, afternoons in Wes's gas station with the old guys playing cards, Doc McClaskey settled on a stool in the cafe where he could collect gossip and keep and eye on his office across the street, the Harvest Festival with strange events like the People Pull (better than a tractor pull any day) and the not-to-be-missed Night- time Blindfolded Riding Lawnmower Races. None of it was what I expected, but it was everything I wanted. It was fun, and I decided I should stay a while, and now it's 35 years. I'm still going back. I expected the town to die. That's what small towns on the prairie are supposed to do, and that's what documentary photographers like me are supposed to record. It hasn't happened yet, largely because these folks have an absolute genius for staying alive. It would be a mistake to look for one secret of survival, when it has to be done every single day with hard work and passion. I learned some of how towns live and die from Jeannine Kopsa, (and uncomfortably large woman by modern, urban society's standards) who wrangled event after event into the year. She told me once that Cuba was a town of 300 but a community of 700, that people from other places came to Cuba to be part of the community (and, likewise, that some people who lived in Cuba never took part in the community.) The Cuba community was a whole bunch of connections between people. I could see that when the Harvest Festival was dedicated to Doc's 50th anniversary of practice in Cuba. Baby picture papered his office wall and parade floats were loaded with the generations of babies he had delivered, people now pushing middle age aside and looking toward retirement. That evening we gathered them together for a picture, some 200 of the 700 people he had brought into this world. It was profound. Then two years later Doc retired and a month later he was dead. And, oh my God, it was a dark, dark day in our hearts as we stood around his casket. But then, like a miracle, Rev. Tom Ballard gave us a blessing, saying "Doc is not here, he is gone." Life would go on, and it has. Some buildings are gone now, but there is a new bank building on main street. The blacksmith shop where I photographed Joe Sturba's last days, which in the intervening years fell into ruin, has been restored. The old one-room-school has been moved onto main street as a museum. Dale and Laverna Huncovsky keep the the groceries (and homemade sausage) coming out of the Cuba Cash store, they've opened up a new cafe that's absolutely jumping on the weekends, Jay Beam's new service station stands where Wes's old one was, and the Rockathon sets a new record for rocking-chair rocking every year. (Besides that this simple event raises money, nearly a half million dollars for community projects since it began twenty five years ago.) Cuba is rich in ways I never could have imagined. They taught me a lot about small towns. But they taught me more than that. Richness exists in many places but in ways we do not expect. I carry that lesson with me around the world when I'm on assignment for National Geographic. It is one of my most valuable tools. And it has made me more humble. Because as I look back on those years in Cuba I am struck by one thought: I missed so much. It was richer than I could ever have imagined or could hope to capture.