I once took a road trip across the United States. Many people have done this, so there wasn’t anything special about my trip, except maybe for the fact that I will never do that again. Plus the fact that I didn’t make it all the way across. Or maybe because it wasn’t really a trip — I was moving, from Washington State to Columbus, Ohio. But that’s neither here nor there.

Driving across the vast expanses of North America, I got a sense of what it is that Europeans envy about us — space, although this does nothing to cancel out their disdain for cultural and other perceived (or real?) deficiencies. You drive and you drive and you drive and you still don’t get there. Or you end up somewhere you never expected to be, like at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.

The Corn Palace was definitely not on my list of attractions to seek out as I made my way East, but it became, out of the clear blue sky, as these things often do, a kind of locus of understanding. This is not what you would normally expect of a Corn Palace. I certainly didn’t. I didn’t even know there was such a place as the Corn Palace. So how and why would I wind up there?

My ’69 Mustang was towing the smallest enclosed U-Haul trailer available. I had it packed floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I was told that it’s best to place heavier materials in the front of the trailer rather than the rear, so as to avoid finding yourself — that is to say, both car and trailer — forming a large inverted V as you float along the highway. Aerodynamically unsound, this, even though it makes sense mathematically or logically, where it allows us to assert claims like “The statement A ? B is true if A and B are both true; else it is false.” Pretty clear cut, if you ask me. So I took the advice and loaded all the heavy stuff in the front of the trailer. I wasn’t going to become some logical conjunction on I-90 eastbound! Since the only things I had that you could call “heavy” were my books, boxes and boxes of books, I loaded these first. In the end, however, mathematics or logic or just the sheer weight of my (individually not so heavy) books would prove to be not only my undoing, but also the reason for my encounter with the Corn Palace.

I had never studied the weight-bearing characteristics of metals, and so was caught quite unawares when the pin securing the trailer to the hitch on the back of my car was no longer willing to put up with things and decided it was time for a break. In so doing, I myself — which is to say, both car and trailer — were transformed into a crude approximation of a mathematical or logical disjunction, of the kind that asserts “The statement A ? B is true if A or B (or both) are true; if both are false, the statement is false.” The trailer coupler melted its way through the asphalt of I-90 eastbound, just outside Mitchell, South Dakota, home of “The World’s Only Corn Palace.” (Whatever would we do with two of them?)

And yet there’s not just one. It seems that the present structure, built in 1921, is actually the third in a series of Corn Palaces. How or why anyone would conceive of a Corn Palace as a series is beyond me, but then so too were the weight-bearing characteristics of metals. The chronology of the series is somewhat confusing, if we are to trust the brochures that boast of its beauty and singularity. The first palace, we read, was designed by a certain Colonel Rohe of Lawrence, Kansas, in 1892. But the description continues with the interesting piece of information that this chap Rohe (of Lawrence, Kansas) had created an earlier Corn Palace for Sioux City, Iowa, in 1887. I’m not sure how the Palace from 1892 predates the one from 1887, but with a bit of imagination (and maybe too much corn), I suppose anything is possible. Spectators should also take note of the fact that “with a bit more civic pride, franchised Corn Palaces could've covered the Farm Belt.” I had already suspected as much.

This is, after, all the Heartland of America, so it was no surprise to find a gift shop close at hand, a gift shop, we read, that “during peak tourist season, covers the Palace's entire basketball court.” Basketball court? Where the hell did that come from? I thought we were talking about a Corn Palace, or farming, or at least cattle feed. But a basketball court? Excuse me. It’s not even that close to Indiana, where I understand basketball has a long and rich history, maybe even longer and richer than corn. But who in their right mind would put a basketball court inside a Corn Palace? The only answer I could come up with was: the same person who came up with the idea of the Corn Palace in the first place, namely a certain Colonel Rohe (of Lawrence, Kansas).

But don’t let yourself be taken in by all that corn. In fact, all that corn appears to embody incongruities that are nearly beyond the imagination. Take, for example, the postcard depicting the 1907 Palace. Oh, did I just say 1907 Palace? That’s right. 1907. I’m still trying to figure out which palace is the third (and supposedly last) in the series of four that extends over the dates of 1892, 1887, 1907 and 1921, but not necessarily in that order. Who would know for sure? Too bad we can’t ask Colonel Rohe (of Lawrence, Kansas).

Therein lies a chronological sleight of hand that will certainly push your envelope. I don’t know if it’s an example of logical conjunction or disjunction. Or perhaps it’s just one of those logical misjunctions that lie strewn along the highways of our land.

A parting gesture, not unlike that of a soldier’s salute, reminds us that this item, namely, the postcard from the Palace of 1907, is “a perennial bestseller: its design prominently features a huge swastika on the front corner turret.”

Just imagine that.

I had the trailer fixed in Sioux City, Iowa.