Note: Our friend, Karen Nichols, said I needed to publish somewhere a comment I made from her posting of this beautiful essay by Jacqueline Kehoe about our beloved home state (that adopted me as much as I adopted it) and so I will publish it here--for now and with more thoughts than my lengthy prior comment.
I first came to Iowa in 1999, I did not at all believe that anywhere could be "home" enough for me, except in the arms of my beloved partner in life, Betsy. And given my families history of rambling, there was no reason to believe that Iowa would be anything more than the next weigh station on the road. My father, like Professor Harold Hill from "The Music Man," was a traveling salesman and we wandered from Chicago to Highland Park, Illinois to Dallas, Texas and eventually to Dayton, Ohio where I would live in six different homes and two apartments in the area and attend two colleges with a year of contemplation between them.
After college ended in 1982, I grabbed my newly minted diploma and hastily left the corroded part of the rust belt vowing never to return. And, firmly cemented in my mind (which was then baking under the sun in Richardson, Texas) humbled by an El Dorado that no longer had any gold, I rationalized that, even if I were to return to the Heartland--I would never live in an e-i-e-i-o state. Ohio or Iowa? -- you'd have to be kidding. But, in 1986, after moving on with my new bride to Corpus Christi and living on the TexAas Riviera for 13 years, I sought greener, and four seasoned, pastures and eventually did reconsider the soft underbelly of the Midwest once again -- this time ostensibly for a dream job. I dragged Betsy, my usually willing accomplice who I had promised via a Garfield poster, that if she "stuck with me kid," we'd go places. Kicking and screaming off the beaches of the Gulf Coast of Texas and away from the bosom of dear friends, she did so in the year before Y2K was going to end life as we knew it.
And you know what happened, right? We both fell and still feel in love with Iowa. This place where passive meets aggressive head on and gave it a name--"Iowa Nice." This place that fractures into discernible halves through the Capitol in Des Moines. This most purple politics state. This place where common sense is valued above all book learning, but a good education matters -- because Iowans don't suffer fools.
But we do live with the maddening disconnect between supporting things like marriage equality for all and also the lackadaisical regulation of hog containment facilities and all things agricultural. In Iowa we may not agree with you, but we will disagree without being disagreeable (unless you are just plain acting like a jackass).
And despite the politics, we see the people here striving to be better and also not caring what you or I think. We love that both John Wayne left here and Diablo Cody came here. Ashton Kutcher, a favorite son, says "I'm from Iowa, we don't know what cool is!"
We love that you can have a conversation that never ends or can get a single index finger waggled at you that tells you all you need to know. That you are accepted here--hard fought as it can feel in a place where Dar Williams keenly observed that safe people go into our houses and burn.
And it can be an extensive slow burn. As we observed first hand in our first Iowa home: a turn of the century, haunted Craftsman home set against 10 acres of prime farm land within hollering distance of Interstate I-80. We bought into what we thought was the requisite Iowa experience hook, line and, sinker. And then we learned that small town Iowa is not about bucolic farms or Grant Wood pastorals, it is about where you come from and who your people are. We were vagabonds from the American middle-class diaspora--we were nomads in search of an oasis. No "Native Iowan" bumper sticker for us. No secret Masonic Handshake either. Just cool, reserved, palpable judgment.
After a year or so, we sought out and found our place among the Iowa tribe. The ebbing and flowing college town of Iowa City unfolded like morning glory cups for us. Through Betsy finding refuge in the Unitarian Universalist Society's choir and me diving into progressive politics, we felt the slow warmth, of sitting in front of a sunny window on a chilly day from Reluctant Iowans--people like us who had been force-marched by one half of their team or the other to this area. But for Real Iowans, like our "Native Iowan Proud" 80-year-old across the street neighbor, Old Bob, we endured him measuring us twice and cutting us once from people worth knowing while silently shoveling snow across the street for an entire winter before any words of greeting to him were acknowledged or pleasantries exchanged. Even though his first words to me were, "You think we got enough snow?" -- I understood implicitly that the Wells Fargo Welcome Wagon had just arrived with sumpin' special just for me.
But it wasn't until after 9/11/01 that the floodgates of Iowa concern for each other burst open. Crisis brings out the best in Iowans. Since then, we have not looked back -- like all Iowans, you constantly look forward. A deer may cross the road at an inopportune moment and you have to be ready for whatever comes next.
So now, I love that one of the first mosques in the Midwest was in Iowa and the Mennonites, Quakers, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, Jews, Catholics, and even the most and least secular of humanists are perfectly comfortable in not discussing their beliefs here -- unless you ask -- and then Katie bar the door. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses and LDS missionaries are given a fair shake, as long as they do not trample the new garden beds that are so carefully tended.
We accept tragedy and triumph with a potluck and a handshake and awkward hug. We can as easily avoid saying hello to you as we will joyfully banter while loading sandbags together side by side -- when the rivers we love overrun their banks. And later, when the crisis has been beaten back, then we will bicker and rebuild. That's what we do.
We will forever be divided over loyalties to one thing over another: Hawkeyes v. Cyclones and Democrats v. Republicans, Eastside High v. Westside High, But when an Iowan "makes it" in the greater world, we all make it. Loyalty is hard earned, but it is ten times as hard to lose here. We talk about former athletes and coaches like Dan Gable and Hayden Fry as if they were still competing for Iowa glory.
It is not a place where people don't understand if you talk about moving on. Sure we have our Snowbirds scooting down to Texas and Boomerang-ers moving back to raise families or to retire. And we have plenty of people who swear another Iowa winter will be the death of them. But even as some skedaddle for the comfort of warmer climes or the lure of the big city or a view they haven't seen before, Iowa is forever imprinted on us.
We miss its mixed metaphors and skies with clouds and sunsets that never fail to elicit awe. The roil of the landscape that explodes in the spring barely waiting for the dingy brown, grey, and black of retreating winter snow and ice to give way to vibrant green. We miss the monocultural statuary made of corn fields that follow the contours of the hills and valleys which say "Grant Wood was here." But mostly, we miss each other.
We are simultaneously the "Field of Dreams" where magic happens, but also the intrepid, staid Iowan to whom our state motto proudly proclaims, "Our liberties we prize, our rights we will maintain." And so we caucus and create a spectacle for all the world to see. Meredith Wilson, who wrote "The Music Man" and the University of Iowa "Fight Song" said, " You really ought to give Iowa -- Hawkeye Iowa, Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake -- Ought to give Iowa a try." And you really ought, if you feel like it -- bring a covered dish.
I first came to Iowa in 1999, I did not at all believe that anywhere could be "home" enough for me, except in the arms of my beloved partner in life, Betsy. And given my families history of rambling, there was no reason to believe that Iowa would be anything more than the next weigh station on the road. My father, like Professor Harold Hill from "The Music Man," was a traveling salesman and we wandered from Chicago to Highland Park, Illinois to Dallas, Texas and eventually to Dayton, Ohio where I would live in six different homes and two apartments in the area and attend two colleges with a year of contemplation between them.
After college ended in 1982, I grabbed my newly minted diploma and hastily left the corroded part of the rust belt vowing never to return. And, firmly cemented in my mind (which was then baking under the sun in Richardson, Texas) humbled by an El Dorado that no longer had any gold, I rationalized that, even if I were to return to the Heartland--I would never live in an e-i-e-i-o state. Ohio or Iowa? -- you'd have to be kidding. But, in 1986, after moving on with my new bride to Corpus Christi and living on the TexAas Riviera for 13 years, I sought greener, and four seasoned, pastures and eventually did reconsider the soft underbelly of the Midwest once again -- this time ostensibly for a dream job. I dragged Betsy, my usually willing accomplice who I had promised via a Garfield poster, that if she "stuck with me kid," we'd go places. Kicking and screaming off the beaches of the Gulf Coast of Texas and away from the bosom of dear friends, she did so in the year before Y2K was going to end life as we knew it.
And you know what happened, right? We both fell and still feel in love with Iowa. This place where passive meets aggressive head on and gave it a name--"Iowa Nice." This place that fractures into discernible halves through the Capitol in Des Moines. This most purple politics state. This place where common sense is valued above all book learning, but a good education matters -- because Iowans don't suffer fools.
But we do live with the maddening disconnect between supporting things like marriage equality for all and also the lackadaisical regulation of hog containment facilities and all things agricultural. In Iowa we may not agree with you, but we will disagree without being disagreeable (unless you are just plain acting like a jackass).
And despite the politics, we see the people here striving to be better and also not caring what you or I think. We love that both John Wayne left here and Diablo Cody came here. Ashton Kutcher, a favorite son, says "I'm from Iowa, we don't know what cool is!"
We love that you can have a conversation that never ends or can get a single index finger waggled at you that tells you all you need to know. That you are accepted here--hard fought as it can feel in a place where Dar Williams keenly observed that safe people go into our houses and burn.
And it can be an extensive slow burn. As we observed first hand in our first Iowa home: a turn of the century, haunted Craftsman home set against 10 acres of prime farm land within hollering distance of Interstate I-80. We bought into what we thought was the requisite Iowa experience hook, line and, sinker. And then we learned that small town Iowa is not about bucolic farms or Grant Wood pastorals, it is about where you come from and who your people are. We were vagabonds from the American middle-class diaspora--we were nomads in search of an oasis. No "Native Iowan" bumper sticker for us. No secret Masonic Handshake either. Just cool, reserved, palpable judgment.
After a year or so, we sought out and found our place among the Iowa tribe. The ebbing and flowing college town of Iowa City unfolded like morning glory cups for us. Through Betsy finding refuge in the Unitarian Universalist Society's choir and me diving into progressive politics, we felt the slow warmth, of sitting in front of a sunny window on a chilly day from Reluctant Iowans--people like us who had been force-marched by one half of their team or the other to this area. But for Real Iowans, like our "Native Iowan Proud" 80-year-old across the street neighbor, Old Bob, we endured him measuring us twice and cutting us once from people worth knowing while silently shoveling snow across the street for an entire winter before any words of greeting to him were acknowledged or pleasantries exchanged. Even though his first words to me were, "You think we got enough snow?" -- I understood implicitly that the Wells Fargo Welcome Wagon had just arrived with sumpin' special just for me.
But it wasn't until after 9/11/01 that the floodgates of Iowa concern for each other burst open. Crisis brings out the best in Iowans. Since then, we have not looked back -- like all Iowans, you constantly look forward. A deer may cross the road at an inopportune moment and you have to be ready for whatever comes next.
So now, I love that one of the first mosques in the Midwest was in Iowa and the Mennonites, Quakers, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, Jews, Catholics, and even the most and least secular of humanists are perfectly comfortable in not discussing their beliefs here -- unless you ask -- and then Katie bar the door. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses and LDS missionaries are given a fair shake, as long as they do not trample the new garden beds that are so carefully tended.
We accept tragedy and triumph with a potluck and a handshake and awkward hug. We can as easily avoid saying hello to you as we will joyfully banter while loading sandbags together side by side -- when the rivers we love overrun their banks. And later, when the crisis has been beaten back, then we will bicker and rebuild. That's what we do.
We will forever be divided over loyalties to one thing over another: Hawkeyes v. Cyclones and Democrats v. Republicans, Eastside High v. Westside High, But when an Iowan "makes it" in the greater world, we all make it. Loyalty is hard earned, but it is ten times as hard to lose here. We talk about former athletes and coaches like Dan Gable and Hayden Fry as if they were still competing for Iowa glory.
It is not a place where people don't understand if you talk about moving on. Sure we have our Snowbirds scooting down to Texas and Boomerang-ers moving back to raise families or to retire. And we have plenty of people who swear another Iowa winter will be the death of them. But even as some skedaddle for the comfort of warmer climes or the lure of the big city or a view they haven't seen before, Iowa is forever imprinted on us.
We miss its mixed metaphors and skies with clouds and sunsets that never fail to elicit awe. The roil of the landscape that explodes in the spring barely waiting for the dingy brown, grey, and black of retreating winter snow and ice to give way to vibrant green. We miss the monocultural statuary made of corn fields that follow the contours of the hills and valleys which say "Grant Wood was here." But mostly, we miss each other.
We are simultaneously the "Field of Dreams" where magic happens, but also the intrepid, staid Iowan to whom our state motto proudly proclaims, "Our liberties we prize, our rights we will maintain." And so we caucus and create a spectacle for all the world to see. Meredith Wilson, who wrote "The Music Man" and the University of Iowa "Fight Song" said, " You really ought to give Iowa -- Hawkeye Iowa, Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake -- Ought to give Iowa a try." And you really ought, if you feel like it -- bring a covered dish.
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