Kim Palagyi
Last year I developed a long-term joke where I tried to direct the table-talk conversation back to Little House on the Prairie as often as possible. Though this endeavor panned out only to include three or four references to instances such as the long winter of 1880-81 or that time when Ma treated Pa to a black bird pie, I would argue that the life lessons that the Ingalls family can teach us are surprisingly relevant to the modern world.
Just as the cult classic Clueless is loosely based on Jane Austen’s novel Emma and features the inspiring Cher Horowitz, a teen-queen matchmaker with a penchant for yellow plaid and fast talking, I feel the best muse for a new take on the modern teenager is Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her semi-autobiographical historical fiction Little House series displays the severity of survival in the late 19th century and her stories contribute value to modern adolescent struggles.
Laura’s first lesson is to be a badass. Wilder lived to be 90 years old, and finally succumbed to what Paula Deen would call “the sugars.” She did not shed a single tear when her beloved French bulldog, Jack, passed away from old age by the shores of Silver Lake, and she did not give a flying fruitcake when her Pa ate all of the Christmas candy. Laura is a cross between Gwen Stefani and Beyoncé, demanding to see a ring from “Manly” Almanzo Wilder (her half-chauffeur-slave-half-man-candy hubby) before she accepts his marriage proposal. She easily channels Sabrina the teenage witch by cursing the wretched Nellie Olsen with a form of leech voodoo and crushed plum creek potion and nonchalantly tells scarlet fever to infect someone who actually cares.
However, Laura is also sweeter than Grandma Ingalls’s maple syrup. She gets a real job as a teacher and donates all her wages to her sister Mary for her go to a school for the blind. Likewise, Laura leads Mary on long walks in order to describe to her the brutal but beautiful South Dakota landscape.
How can the spirit of Laura be reincarnated into our landscape, the College of Wooster? Determination can be seen in the stunning persistence of the stray flies that constantly plague Lowry. Generosity is provided by those individuals on campus who commit their time to raising seeing eye dogs for the blind. Laura Ingalls Wilder teaches us to be grateful, to appreciate the service workers who keep the College functioning and the professors who humble us. Whether you are troubled by Rocky Mountain locusts or a perpetually failing computer battery, channel some Wilder fire: get your act together, work hard and treat yourself with a spoonful of white sugar every once in a while.