Chapter 2: The Legend of Roger the Donut Man

Davenport, Iowa / Film: FujiFilm Pro 400h, 120mm

Distance Traveled: 2272 Miles

As my Midwestern chapter of the trip comes to a close today, I look back at all the beautiful sites I came across: The cold embrace of Lake Michigan, the grand power of the Mississippi River, and corn.

So much goddamn corn.

Seriously, how much corn can be produced? Does corn come with every meal, or is it served like bread in a basket as an appetizer at local restaurants?

My Midwestern friends said the reason the sky was always so hazy was because of corn production. EVEN THE HEAVENS ABOVE ARE FULL OF CORN.

Alright, enough about corn.

As much as I’d like to share my story of the road visiting friends, family, and seeing some of the most gorgeous countrysides i’ve ever laid eyes on, it’s all overshadowed by of the best tales I’ve ever been told - one of those tales that is just begging to be retold.

This is the story of Roger the Donut Man.

This story starts in a place in the heart of Illinois called Rushville - a sleepy little farming town with a population just barely cracking over 3,000. My good friend Colin (who was a fellow counselor of mine at good ol’ Pali Adventures) was born and raised in Rushville. Like every good American small town, there is a donut shop just off the town square. And the purveyor of these donuts is no other than the man, the myth, the legend: Roger.

Roger is a cross-eyed, portly-sized man, and the only provider of fried dough in the greater Rushville area (at least, so i’ve been told. I’ve never met the man. But i’m sure, just as I do, you’ll want to meet him). Roger is the father of Colin’s good friend, and a local hero. He wakes up at 1AM, drives down the icy morning roads of rural Illinois, and begins making the donuts that the town so loves. As the Midwestern sun crests over the hilly landscape around 4:30 AM, the doors open - with a line already out the door. The townsfolk can’t get enough of his donuts. Legend has it, if you don’t get there before 6AM, you’re out of luck - the donuts are already sold out. But don’t fret - you can buy the day-olds for pennies on the dollar. “Why are there day-olds if the donuts sell out?”, you may ask yourself. That is a question i’ve been excruciatingly pondering for the past 2 weeks, and it only adds more mystique to the legend of Roger.

Roger’s bakery is the diet staple of Rushville’s elderly community - which constitutes a grand majority of the Rushville population. They can’t get enough of it. They are there, waiting, ready to pounce on Roger’s business to get a taste of those sweet, sweet Midwestern donuts. All signs point to this being a successful, small town business that supports the community, which any purveyor would love to provide. But, here is the kicker:

Roger is absolutely done with running the only donut shop in town.

He constantly begs his sons to return from St. Louis and from civilization to take over his beloved bakery. They always refuse, prying away the icy cold small-town hand that always tries to retrieve it’s brood once it’s left the roost. This leaves Roger with an absolutely daunting task: to run the donut shop on his own, tortured by the very donuts i’m sure he once loved.

Here is a man who for the past 30 years has neglected the human need to sleep during the fall of the sun, and in defiance of nature, God, and everything that is healthy, has woken up every day at 1 AM to provide fried dough to a community that is holding his very soul hostage.

He would come home at 2 PM when his shop closed and plant himself on the living room recliner, where he would root himself in before the donuts came beckoning for him to return to the fryer. Most of Colin’s friend’s memories include his father in a half-sleep stupor on his chair - either watching the television or fading in and out of consciousness. His fatherly duties overshadowed by the donuts that provide the very shelter that sits over his head.

Once, Colin’s friend approached his dad while he was rested on his recliner, who’s eyes seemed to swirl around his head like a cartoon character who had just been hit over the head with a wooden hammer.

“Dad, are you alright?", he asked.

“I must…tend to the donuts.”

“Dad, the shop closed 3 hours ago. What donuts?”

“The donuts… THEY ARE IN MY HEAD.”

This man is constantly haunted by this Sisyphean task of his own creation that is slowly driving him mad. Like a true Shakespearian tragedy, he has yet but only one choice - keep making the donuts, or have the townsfolk outside of his house pitchforks at the ready. Part greek myth, part destitute French new-wave film of the 1940’s, Roger is held prisoner in this jail he unknowingly designed himself.

I don’t know whether to feel pity or pride for Roger. Here I am sitting on a porch of a campground typing this story, knowing that Roger is already pouring a lop of sweat over his fryer as he drops another ring of dough into the deep, billowing depths of oil that invisibly shackles him to his haunting task. All I know is that Roger deserves a vacation, an ice cold beer, and a fucking statue erected in his honor in the middle of the Rushville town square.

So if anyone is looking to take over a bakery, I know exactly the man you should call.

ALBUM RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

Once I was lying on my good friend Emory’s couch during a visit to LA, directly after a bar-hopping adventure all over West Hollywood. He said to me, “You want to hear one of the best albums you’ve ever heard?”

Thus started my first listening to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. An entirely melancholy album full of some of the best songwriting you’ve ever heard accompanied by an almost haunting-yet-soothing plucked guitar, this album will either get you in the perfect mood to see the fall leaves change in the trees around you or will make you lament a heartbreak you haven’t thought about in years. Like Van Gogh, he was a man who was entirely not appreciated during his short lifetime. Give the album a listen, and i’m sure you are going to save it for the next time you wander into a rainy field to try and find beauty in sorrow after your next break up.