Free And Now We Shall Do Manly Things by Craig Heimbuch

Wright, the Wright Brothers. Ted Nugent is from Michigan. John Wayne. I’m reminded of Herbert Hoover as I pass his memorial highway just east of Iowa City. Bob Feller and Jim Thome. Warren Buffet, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren Harding, Abraham Lincoln for God’s sake. Harry Truman was from Missouri, I think that counts. Ronald Reagan. Charles Shultz. Walt Disney and Ray Krock. Michael Jackson was from Indiana, though I’m not sure he counts. But Larry Bird and Magic Johnson—Indiana and Michigan, respectively—certainly do. Harry Houdini claimed to be from Wisconsin, though he was born in Hungary. Miles Davis, Ely Lilly.
    The writers alone who called the Midwest home make for a staggering list: Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Elmore Leonard, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Kurt Vonnegut, Saul Bellow. Jonathan Franzen is from Illinois. Two of my personal heroes, Bill Bryson and Garrison Keillor, are from Iowa and Minnesota. The lists go on and on.
    All my life, I thought I needed to be from somewhere else in order to be the person I wanted to be, but the more I drove, the more I realized I was already from somewhere. As the miles wore on, past Waterloo and on the home stretch to Mason City, I contemplated the men of the Midwest. I thought about all their accomplishments that, inevitably, led to a critique of my own. I’m in my thirties, a husband and a father, and, yet, I don’t feel like a man. I feel like a watered-down version of a man. I certainly don’t feel like any of the men listed above and don’t even feel like a Heimbuch man. I feel like my life is too much about compromise. That’s not to say that being a man means living without compromise, but I do feel too ready to give in, too willing to cower, to hide from problems, and to shy away in the face of opportunity. I realize that, if I am ever to become the man, the husband, the father, the writer I want to become, I need to learn how to face life standing up.
    I spent two days in Iowa for the funeral. I shot about five hundred rounds with my brother and cousin at the shooting range my uncle Mark has built on his property. I slept in his basement and listened as he explained the finer points of gun mechanics, hunting laws, and the latest thing that has him pissed. I realized I don’t allow myself to get pissed. I don’t roar the way he does. Uncle Mark has kind of a famous temper. When he witnesses something that he feels isn’t right, he speaks his mind. When his kids do something stupid, he’ll yell himself hoarse about it. But, inevitably, he hugs them and helps them out of the jam they’ve gotten into. He told me stories about the jams he’s been in. He told me about getting in trouble in college, about my dad getting in trouble. He embraces his failures. I’ve never been in trouble—not really—and yet, I tend to run at the first sign that I might be wrong—cover it up, silence it. It makes me feel weak, to hear someone talking about how they’ve been wrong. Because I could never do that, could never admit it.
    Hours were spent in small conversations. My dad and his cousins told hunting stories. My cousin told me about the time he did something that got him in hot water, something brave and unthinkable for me. My dad told the story about the first time he went deer hunting. He was younger than I am and already married with two children. He was so scared he shot the same buck three times. “They told me to keep firing until it went down,” he said, laughing. I tried to relate to the story, but, really, I couldn’t. I don’t know what that feels like. I don’t know the nerves, the twitching hands. I don’t know what a real adrenaline rush feels like. I don’t know the thrill of the hunt. My best adrenaline story involves working up the nerve to ride a roller coaster that was particularly tall. What kind of a man am I when I don’t know what it means to tell