Proud to be an Iowan

Note: I found this again, a post from 2009.


Did you know that all of Marion County lies on a geological feature called the Southern Iowa Drift Plain? It was shaped fundamentally by glacial deposits left over 500,000 years ago. Our hilltops are what remains of those deposits, and our valleys are the product of erosion. Some of that erosion comes from the melting waters of the subsequent glacial advance of the Wisconsin Ice Sheet, which came as far south as Des Moines about 14,000 years ago. In your imagination, take our highest hills, add a few feet of windblown sediment on top, and then fill in all of our valleys with earth. The flat plain that results is what the geological landscape of Marion County looked like several hundred thousand years ago, long before people arrived.

Friday I went to the 2009 Iowa Studies Conference at DMACC in Ankeny. Carolyn Formanek, Tom Schmeh (co-chairs of the Knoxville Historic Preservation Commission) and I joined over three hundred Iowans who had gathered to learn about and share their knowledge of Iowa (Tom was also a presenter. With Larry Ball, Jr. he presented a history of the Des Moines Speedway 1915-1916). The lesson I learned about the geological features of Marion County came from a presentation made by Ankeny High Social Studies teacher Taylor Anderson. A dynamic speaker, he presented aspects of his high school course called "Why Iowa?" Topics his class address include Iowa geography, Native Americans, explorers, settlers, the growth of cities, agriculture, industry, recreation, tourism, and the contributions Iowa and Iowans have made to the world.

Anderson brought sample materials to demonstrate student work, and Marion residents will be pleased to learn that Knoxville and Pella are seen as important Iowa places by Ankeny students, with mentions of the Knoxville Raceway, Elk Rock State Park, Slideways Karting Center, the Royal Amsterdam Hotel, Tulip Time, the Scholte House, Wild Rose Pastures and the Pella Opera House.

Taylor Anderson is proud to be an Iowan, believes that we as Iowans have lots to be proud of, and that we need to share this with the children of Iowa so they see home as a good place to stay and make contributions to when they become adults.

There were dozens of papers presented at the conference, including topics on Iowa military history, ideas for educators, historical archives (including radio), President Herbert Hoover, the homicides at Villisca in 1912, Iowa's Native Americans, immigration, the Little Brown Church in the Vale, how to learn from cemeteries, the women's suffrage movement, significant poets, Frank Gotch--the great Iowa wrestler, Chiefs Keokuk and Black Hawk, the underground railroad, among many others.

One of the highlights of the conference was the keynote speech by a dear friend of mine, Zachary Michael Jack, a fourth generation Iowan whose family owns a century farm in eastern Iowa. Zachary loves Iowa, and has compiled a new book of historical and literary readings titled Iowa: The Definitive Collection, Classic and Contemporary Readings by Iowans about Iowa. It's a thick book, a heavy book, with over 500 pages that celebrate our past and who we are today. World famous sons and daughters of Iowa join those long forgotten to tell our story. I've only barely opened the book, but have been pulled in--not into a dull history book--but into a lively tale that should be told and told again.

As I write this, a fresh pot of coffee is brewing. It's early Sunday morning, and the my family is beginning to stir. It's a comfortable time, as the sun rises very slowly into a day that will pass quickly. In a moment, I will shut off the computer and settle into my chair, and open Zach's thick new book on my lap, settle in, take a sip of coffee, and read. To learn more about us.

That moment is now.

Love and Other Delusions: A Book Review

Love and Other Delusions, by Larry Baker of Iowa City will be released April 15 by Ice Tea Press, a fiction imprint of Ice Cube Press, based in North Liberty, Iowa. The Press has published many wonderful books about Iowa. Their books can be purchased at your local independent bookstore, and on-line at their website http://www.icecubepress.com/.

Here is my review of the book.

Some art just points us at the direction it wants to take us and presumes that we we’ll get there. Other art takes us gently by the hand to lead us towards its goal. Larry Baker’s art in “Love and Other Delusions” does a bit of both, but most of the time it engages us more fully, in an deeply intellectual wrestling match with matters of the heart, if not the soul.  And at its best, and for I what I suspect will be the case for many readers, the heart involved is our own.  

The asymmetries in “Love and Other Delusions” are profound, and help establish the fundamental drama of the piece.  Alice is a privileged thirty year old teacher who seduces one of her students, an intelligent, handsome, engaging, eighteen year old. Danny is from a hardscrabble background, who steals from the theatre he works in to support his ill father, as well as a younger brother and sister.  Their mother abandoned them long ago. And in walks Alice, beautiful, well off, confident, but older. Not quite their mother’s age, but close enough, with the lovers age gap proportionately decreasing over the next few decades and the affair less startling as the story unfolds.

Alice ultimately loses her job because of the relationship, despite the fact her long suffering husband Peter is the Dean of the department of the school where she works.  Or maybe because of it. Who knows? Fortunately for Alice, she doesn’t really need the work, since Peter loves her and will support her, and while he must be heartbroken about her affair not only with Danny, but with apparently many other men, he never finds it in himself to leave her.  In fact, for over twenty years, he lovingly hand rolls her cigarettes, a singular gift.  Not exactly like handing the keys to your car to your drunk wife and sending her on a beer run, but with its own implications for the story.  We never really get to know him--is he so in love that he will forgive her anything, or is he the most significant of her enablers?  Or maybe he has his own indiscretions?  We also learn that Alice and Peter may have a reason as to why both of them behave the way they do, a nearly unspeakable tragedy, which incidentally, deserves not much more than a mention in the story, but still pervades it.

Enablers abound in their lives.  Friends, past and future lovers, and those of us who sit idly by and watch our friends self destruct, thinking it none of our business, whether it is or not.  Both Alice and Danny are powerful personalities, both flawed, yet more powerful than those around them.  Danny’s younger sister has one moment, but perhaps the only one of note before she fades to oblivion.  His younger brother wanders in and out of the story, and while we hope he doesn’t get hurt, we don’t really know if he does or in what way.

For one of her class and time, Alice of course has a therapist with her own flaws, which maybe are not so much her own, but perhaps of her profession. She too has an indiscretion on her hands, and interestingly enough, these women share a bit of regret, if not so much guilt.  Kathy struggles, for all the right reasons, but fails, as she was likely doomed to. Yet another asymmetry. But who, actually, is Kathy? She too, has an ineffectual husband, which may reflect, actually a broader societal condition. Does anyone actually have an effectual husband anymore given that the state of what constitutes “manhood” is in such transition?  While contemporary American society wouldn’t  say it actually likes ineffectual men, it recognizes feet of clay when it sees them, and if it doesn’t see them, it will likely do its best to create them for you.

Danny too has his own flaws, his own indiscretions, his own affairs, and but most vulgarly, thievery of a variety of sorts. But what is theft? Does theft relate only to the material of our world? Theft involves breaking an agreement with respect to private property; adultery is breaking an agreement with respect to sexual exclusivity. Maybe in the end Danny rises above both kinds of theft, maybe not. But really, it’s tough to like a thief who steals material things. Ironically, it’s easier to look the other way when the thief steals not money, but promises.  But really, would you rather have your wife steal a car, or sleep with your neighbor? The former gets her jail time, and while the latter may be devastating, everyone involved will most likely construct some sort of rationalization that is eventually publicly acceptable.  Adulterers rewrite their lives every day, yet a car thief is always a car thief.

But rising above it all is the story.  Cast this story in another time and place, in the middle of a war perhaps, or at a pivotal historical moment, Baker’s storytelling would have been easier, if not more profound.  Set instead in modern St. Augustine and Atlanta, Georgia, places where theaters, park benches, cell phones and credit cards work as significant props to the plot, his chore is more difficult, and likely more meaningful.  Why?  Because the drama is created by the characters, not by external forces.  As such, it becomes internal to us as well, because of likely shared experiences with the protagonists.  Most of us are not identifiable cogs in the engine of history, but all of us hope that we would rise to the challenges if we were, as do the great characters of literature.  Contrastingly, we and those around us live lives full of indiscretion, lies and lust, if not adultery. Or thievery. Cause then is the matter of our own hand, not the product of great historical forces beyond us.  Which is, of course, more real.  And common to us all.

Baker’s gift then is that he creates not only a story of Alice, Danny, Kathy and Peter, but a story of ourselves.  Like our players in the play, our lives are sticky--no--doughy. Doughy with thorns. And we recognize the places where the characters find themselves, geographically, emotionally, and if we’re lucky, physically. We also recognize their decisions, and even if we don’t necessarily agree with them, we can empathize.  Baker writes well enough that their pain is our pain, their joy ours, and their seductions familiar and even titillating, even if uncomfortable.

Literary name dropping is an easy way out of a description of an author’s work in familiar literary terms, but a convenient crutch when I need one here. Drieser comes to mind at times--especially in “An American Tragedy;” Flaubert when I see resemblances between Alice and Emma Bovary, and not to go overboard, the interactions and settings here remind me of the suburban worlds of Updike and Irving.

There is another element to Baker’s work that I recognize in at least one of his other books--”A Good Man,” and that element ia how he weaves in and out of clarity and opacity.  The clarity is in the richness of description, of characterization, and of language.  And just when you start to think you know what is going on, boundaries become fuzzy, nearly opaque. Time becomes a character, and characters blend in and out of each other, and its difficult to tell who is who, and when and where we are.  And when “Love and other Delusions” is at its very best, we ARE Alice, or maybe another character, because those of us who are old enough to have been around the block a time or two and have taken and or given our share of lumps, share her story.  Or his story. Or at least a part of it.  Maybe we are her story.

And we may not like it.  But we know we aren’t alone.  

And with respect to love, is it indeed the delusion Baker asserts in his title?  The cynic says of course it is. No question.

The romantic replies, maybe. But what better does the world have to offer?  Most of us will take love when we can get it--and its delusions.  As did Alice.

Robert Leonard

Author of “Yellow Cab,” University of New Mexico Press, 2006.

Corn and Beans from 20 Thousand Feet

Learning about modern agriculture and its complexities have been one of the best parts of our move back to Iowa.  The interconnectedness of weather, corn and bean productivity, and how it all relates to the pork and beef industry, the price of gas, and yes, the weather in Brazil and a tsunami in Japan are fascinating subjects.  I've had at least two great teachers--Leslie Miller and John Jensen with the Iowa State Savings Bank in Knoxville.

If you think you know agriculture, you will probably enjoy the following interview.  If you don't know anything--I think you will find it fascinating--even wondrous.  Here is the interview.

Michele Bachmann Calls

One of the best things about working in radio in Iowa is getting to speak with all of the presidential candidates.  Before the 2008 caucus, I interviewed nine candidates, including President Obama and Mike Huckabee.  My program is 15-20 minutes long, so they have to spend some time with me.

This time around, the Republicans have been on a tighter leash for some reason, and while I have worked very hard to get to interview Pawlenty (before he dropped out), Bachmann, Cain, Paul, Gingrich and Romney (Perry hasn't been here yet), it hasn't happened.  No one wants to commit that much time, or go much beyond the basic "cattle call" media shout out.

That is, until an acquaintance of mine and Facebook friend Eric Woolson started working on the Bachmann campaign. I mentioned how difficult it had been to get interviews to Eric, and the next morning I was able to speak with Congresswoman Bachmann.  Thanks Eric!

Here is the interview.

Fall Migration at Lake Red Rock

If there was a prettier place in Iowa than Lake Red Rock this week, I would love to see it.  I went to check out the lake and the annual migration of birds with Marion County Naturalist Marla Mertz.  While we spoke about many birds, the thousands of pelicans stole the show.  The photo above was taken by Ron Huelse of Knoxville, one of Iowa's finest nature photographers.  To hear the full interview with Marla click here.

Marion County First Responders and Dispatcher Think Back to 9/11

A few days ago, I decided to hear what our first responders thought about when they contemplated 9/11.  My interview with over a dozen individuals for KNIA/KRLS can be found here.  It's worth listening to.

The Gift

When I first looked into your malachite eyes

so many years ago I forget, they drew

me in and I fell like a pebble down a well

except for the splash, cause I just kept

falling and have never hit bottom.

And I knew that there was something

ancient and wise in you that I would never 

understand, but it didn’t matter, because 

I just knew that I had to be close to it. 

In its glow. Whatever it was. And is.

And in my wisps of memory, I remember

driving up a hill and watching a girl walk

up the sidewalk, and me thinking in my

loneliness that I wished that I had

a girlfriend with a nice butt like that.

And then the girl turned her head,

and miracle of miracles she smiled

at me and she was you.

And ever since that first gift of a smile, 

you’ve brought me immeasurable

bounty. Much better than Zeus’ gifts to

Copia, Fortuna, and Pax. The cornucopia.

Years of interesting conversations most

couples won’t have in a lifetime 

about issues both mundane and sublime.

Always thoughtful, if not always in agreement.

Miles of roads travelled, hand in

hand with each other, and sometimes

with ancestors, both yours and mine.

Time stands still, and flies.

Acres of understanding of my strange

Iowa man/boy ways.  Sometimes

above and beyond your own best judgment.

Thank you.

And my God, the gifts of children,

first yours, then ours, then ours again. Then

lovely grandbabies. You brought your teeming

river of life up and over the banks, immersing me.

Joyfully.

And now I’m the luckiest guy in the world

pulling kid’s bikes out of the driveway,

cooking spaghetti for the millionth time,

unplugging clogged toilets, hearing

the story of Archaeopteryx yet again,

among thousands of the other small

joys of our good life.

And believe it or not, every time

I look into your green eyes, they still draw

me in and I fall like a pebble down a well

except for the splash, cause I just keep

falling and know that I will never hit bottom.