A personal novel with actualist poets, jumping trains, and unrequited love
KINDLE SPECIAL - 99c through the month of May
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQ9612R
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Tall Corn State
Tall Corn State
A personal novel with actualist poets, jumping trains, and unrequited love
KINDLE SPECIAL - 99c through the month of May
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQ9612R
A personal novel with actualist poets, jumping trains, and unrequited love
KINDLE SPECIAL - 99c through the month of May
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQ9612R
Thursday, April 16, 2026
It's always good to go back to Iowa, even if my reason to go basically is to fine-tune my cochlear implants in the UI Hospitals. They want to do research on people like me so they buy me a hotel room and I stay an extra day.
I arrived in my hotel room, seven floors above Coralville, just as a storm was rolling in. I opened the curtains wide and watched the lightning cross the sky; it was very dramatic. The television had little ticker-tape warnings below the picture that mentioned all the counties that had tornado watches; in the eastern part of the state, most of them.
The dark Back to the Future (second one) was on, but it just wasn't holding my attention. Instead I looked at the storm and down at the hugely busy First Street Coralville. I'd worked here almost fifty years ago delivering newspapers up and down road. In those days people still read newspapers and they even paid money for. them; I would put a slug quarter in the machine, pull out old one, and put in new ones. I did all starting at abouut three-thirty a m. I would also wrap papers in bundles, tie them in twine, and drop the bundles on street corners.
One night a policeman pulled me over out in the neighborhoods. We were in the habit of driving all over the road out there because it was four the morning. But that morning maybe I'd jumped a curb or done something stupid, not intentional. As usual he suspected alcohol even if he'd seen that same old Suburban out there for many years, and after all he'd never met me, though he'd seen me enough times. So he met me, decided I wasn't drunk, and sent me on my way. Just checking, he said.
Last night, after about five minutes I got tired even froom watching the storm - I was very tired - and just fell asleep on their wonderful bed, no shower no nothing. That was tired! Partly it was just from reliving my Iowa City/Coralville. days.
But at three thirty a m I woke suddenly, wide awake. I don't know why - it. wasn't a bad dream - but now I realized again, that I was back in Coralville where I dropped all those bundles so many years back. At three-thirty I would just be taking a shower or going to work. So I took a shower.
Now I looked out on First Avenue again; just a single truck rolled down the street. Some things don't change, or change slowly. It was my street again, empty, and now I went back to sleep, no problem.
I arrived in my hotel room, seven floors above Coralville, just as a storm was rolling in. I opened the curtains wide and watched the lightning cross the sky; it was very dramatic. The television had little ticker-tape warnings below the picture that mentioned all the counties that had tornado watches; in the eastern part of the state, most of them.
The dark Back to the Future (second one) was on, but it just wasn't holding my attention. Instead I looked at the storm and down at the hugely busy First Street Coralville. I'd worked here almost fifty years ago delivering newspapers up and down road. In those days people still read newspapers and they even paid money for. them; I would put a slug quarter in the machine, pull out old one, and put in new ones. I did all starting at abouut three-thirty a m. I would also wrap papers in bundles, tie them in twine, and drop the bundles on street corners.
One night a policeman pulled me over out in the neighborhoods. We were in the habit of driving all over the road out there because it was four the morning. But that morning maybe I'd jumped a curb or done something stupid, not intentional. As usual he suspected alcohol even if he'd seen that same old Suburban out there for many years, and after all he'd never met me, though he'd seen me enough times. So he met me, decided I wasn't drunk, and sent me on my way. Just checking, he said.
Last night, after about five minutes I got tired even froom watching the storm - I was very tired - and just fell asleep on their wonderful bed, no shower no nothing. That was tired! Partly it was just from reliving my Iowa City/Coralville. days.
But at three thirty a m I woke suddenly, wide awake. I don't know why - it. wasn't a bad dream - but now I realized again, that I was back in Coralville where I dropped all those bundles so many years back. At three-thirty I would just be taking a shower or going to work. So I took a shower.
Now I looked out on First Avenue again; just a single truck rolled down the street. Some things don't change, or change slowly. It was my street again, empty, and now I went back to sleep, no problem.
Monday, January 12, 2026
three weeks after the event
In the free time I had, I visited Scattergood School, where I used to work. It was still there, still beautiful. The meetinghouse, though it no longer had a wood stove, was still its usual meetinghouse, austere, beautiful. I met some of the faculty who were preparing for students to come back over the weekend.
I told them of the days of 84-86 when I worked there. At the cemetery, someone told me that they had to move the interstate so it wouldn't go over that cemetery; because they moved it, it had to make a curve over a nearby hill. This is why we could hear the trucks changing their gears out on the interstate right below the meetinghouse. I told them how loud it was when I was there; how I said someone should build a wall; how they said it had been thought of, and a wall appeared sometime in that era after I'd left.
I asked them about the "multiple casualty event" that had happened a little more than three weeks from that day. I had been coming back from my surgery, and had seen many trucks on the side of the road, some in the shoulder or the median, some with their blinkers on. That was two days after the event, and they were still clearing trucks from the side of the road. In the event, there were maybe thirty or more accidents, forty injuries, twenty hospitalizations, nobody dead. The best they could figure ice descended on the road and caused all the accidents, going both ways, in a six-mile stretch east of West Branch.
I had been stunned to figure, based on the reports, that it happened more or less right at Scattergood, perhaps even on the hill that the interstate had to climb, the curve it went around. I asked the people at Scattergood if they had any memory of that night, but they didn't, and even the director had no idea what I was talking about.
Same at the hospital. The "mass casualty event" had faded into a distant memory, something that happened on the slippery interstate during an ice storm, one of many events if you look at the whole state and the whole winter.
No question, I-80 is busy these days between Davenport and Iowa City. People go about 70 and go bumper to bumper, and may not be prepared for an icy patch on a cold winter night. It wasn't unusual for the state or maybe even for that stretch of road. It stuck in my memory mostly because of the location and because of what I'd heard at the cemetery. It was an old Quaker community: ancestors of both Nixon and Hemingway were supposedly buried there. The cemetery looked to be in good condition; so were the grounds of Scattergood.
But Iowa was carrying on as if nothing had happened.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Bad Wrecks on the I-80
These days the part of Iowa I know best is I-80 between Davenport and Iowa City, where I go for cochlear implant surgery like I did yesterday. I was a little nervous, because it has been cold and icy here, but the roads were fine and we made it to the surgery on time, at about 9 30 am. I got through it successfully but it took me a while to get out and my wife was driving us back east to Illinois, and we stopped for gas in West Branch.
I used to live in West Branch! I lived at Scattergood Friends School, about three miles east of West Branch, for a couple of years in the eighties. Very nice and interesting years. But I didn't know anyone at the Casey's; it's possible it wasn't even there in the eighties.
What I haven't told you is that there was a huge accident on I-80, right there east of West Branch, on Saturday. More than sixty accidents were involved. People were delayed for as much as seven hours. Traffic backed up all the way back into Coralville and the hospital had to decide who to treat first, with so many people coming in. One person had to be extracted from a car but miraculously nobody was killed.
By Monday evening at 5 o'clock a lot of the trucks still hadn't been removed from the roadside; there were also various cars in the ditches going both ways, with a kind of green ribbon/tape on them, presumably signifying that they could be left there until removed, and were not an emergency. Some of the trucks were right on the shoulder, and two of them actually had their blinkers on. This alone was enough to slow people down and so, though I blamed rubbernecking, it was small wonder that the heavy traffic going east a few miles beyond West Branch slowed down considerably and backed up almost to West Branch. We were aggrieved at the ten minute (or so) delay but were lucky it wasn't more and could hardly imagine a seven-hour delay on a much colder night on Saturday. Also, the roads, for us on Monday, were clear, whereas on Saturday I imagine there was a terrible combination of clear and icy, just bad enough for sixty cars and trucks to go slamming into sixty more on some stretch of that road.
So as we inched along we became rubberneckers by necessity, and saw the innards of smashed up trucks right up against the roadside, and the ones with the blinkers on, which had back wheels hanging over the ditch and couldn't be moved so easily, or so quickly. Now this was scary to me, because I have a son who is a regional trucker in Arizona/California, but is becoming a 50-state trucker soon enough. And what is it with the trucks? Some people blamed young truckers carrying "dry loads" and driving too fast. Presumably all sixty were driving too fast, if they were crashing into sixty others. And sometimes you can drive smart and careful and the people in front of you or behind you make you into a statistic (or hospital admission) anyway.
This I think is not unknown to Iowa. Several people commented on how common it was on I-80 and that is in fact my experience, one of the scariest things about living in the state. It's partly because you get up on 80 to make good time and you go as fast as you can and are allowed to, and the weather can change or become deadly somewhat abruptly; things just freeze. Water, cold, snow, frozen, bingo, cars and trucks off the road. Some of them flip. Some bash into each other. It's not pretty.
That's all. I go back Jan. 9 and again Jan. 25. Pray for me; January is not generally any better than December.
I used to live in West Branch! I lived at Scattergood Friends School, about three miles east of West Branch, for a couple of years in the eighties. Very nice and interesting years. But I didn't know anyone at the Casey's; it's possible it wasn't even there in the eighties.
What I haven't told you is that there was a huge accident on I-80, right there east of West Branch, on Saturday. More than sixty accidents were involved. People were delayed for as much as seven hours. Traffic backed up all the way back into Coralville and the hospital had to decide who to treat first, with so many people coming in. One person had to be extracted from a car but miraculously nobody was killed.
By Monday evening at 5 o'clock a lot of the trucks still hadn't been removed from the roadside; there were also various cars in the ditches going both ways, with a kind of green ribbon/tape on them, presumably signifying that they could be left there until removed, and were not an emergency. Some of the trucks were right on the shoulder, and two of them actually had their blinkers on. This alone was enough to slow people down and so, though I blamed rubbernecking, it was small wonder that the heavy traffic going east a few miles beyond West Branch slowed down considerably and backed up almost to West Branch. We were aggrieved at the ten minute (or so) delay but were lucky it wasn't more and could hardly imagine a seven-hour delay on a much colder night on Saturday. Also, the roads, for us on Monday, were clear, whereas on Saturday I imagine there was a terrible combination of clear and icy, just bad enough for sixty cars and trucks to go slamming into sixty more on some stretch of that road.
So as we inched along we became rubberneckers by necessity, and saw the innards of smashed up trucks right up against the roadside, and the ones with the blinkers on, which had back wheels hanging over the ditch and couldn't be moved so easily, or so quickly. Now this was scary to me, because I have a son who is a regional trucker in Arizona/California, but is becoming a 50-state trucker soon enough. And what is it with the trucks? Some people blamed young truckers carrying "dry loads" and driving too fast. Presumably all sixty were driving too fast, if they were crashing into sixty others. And sometimes you can drive smart and careful and the people in front of you or behind you make you into a statistic (or hospital admission) anyway.
This I think is not unknown to Iowa. Several people commented on how common it was on I-80 and that is in fact my experience, one of the scariest things about living in the state. It's partly because you get up on 80 to make good time and you go as fast as you can and are allowed to, and the weather can change or become deadly somewhat abruptly; things just freeze. Water, cold, snow, frozen, bingo, cars and trucks off the road. Some of them flip. Some bash into each other. It's not pretty.
That's all. I go back Jan. 9 and again Jan. 25. Pray for me; January is not generally any better than December.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Parkinson's Disease and the Midwest
I've felt strongly enough about this that when I went to write a novel about Iowa, it ended up being partly about this, if not the main takeaway. I cannot die silent about an issue that affects the region I love.
I read a very good article recently, but then unfortunately lost it and can't pass it along. It was entitled something like "Parkinson's Disease is not an Accident," and it was about increasing evidence that pesticide use is correlated with neurological disorders. Yes! Some scientist had gathered all the data and said that, basically, we can see the correlation, we know what the problem is, but the system is not geared to responding quickly to obvious problems. It's kind of like smoking: they had to have nasty lawsuits for years before the system was able to admit that an obvious killer had been wreaking havoc on American health.
In this case, briefly, pesticides are nerve gas. If we were to outlaw them, or limit them severely, people would accept that, because the proof is there that they are dangerous, and are disrupting our nerves and those of our children. It is the one thing that is doing probably the most damage to American children today - those same children are popping up with increasing autism, adhd, and various other problems too. The article dealt only with Parkinson's, but it was thorough, and the scientist who was interviewed really knew his stuff.
I find that, here in Illinois, I am one of few who get bottled water for home consumption. Presumably a lot of people, including children, are simply living off the tap. And I would guess there is some cleansing of the water that is in the tap. But I would also guess that so much pesticide is seeping down into the water table that we are beginning to see some pretty steep effects. Sometimes it's not just the pesticide itself but some of the metals that are used in their construction, and the chemicals used to bind things together to make them what they are. They are powerful, and they are dangerous, and we need to control them better. We have a lot of land under production.
I'll keep looking for the article. I read it and said, I wish I could show this to everyone. But a few days later it was still an open window on my computer, and life somehow moved on without me writing this. Things are busy here. They're busy everywhere - who has time to save America's children?
I read a very good article recently, but then unfortunately lost it and can't pass it along. It was entitled something like "Parkinson's Disease is not an Accident," and it was about increasing evidence that pesticide use is correlated with neurological disorders. Yes! Some scientist had gathered all the data and said that, basically, we can see the correlation, we know what the problem is, but the system is not geared to responding quickly to obvious problems. It's kind of like smoking: they had to have nasty lawsuits for years before the system was able to admit that an obvious killer had been wreaking havoc on American health.
In this case, briefly, pesticides are nerve gas. If we were to outlaw them, or limit them severely, people would accept that, because the proof is there that they are dangerous, and are disrupting our nerves and those of our children. It is the one thing that is doing probably the most damage to American children today - those same children are popping up with increasing autism, adhd, and various other problems too. The article dealt only with Parkinson's, but it was thorough, and the scientist who was interviewed really knew his stuff.
I find that, here in Illinois, I am one of few who get bottled water for home consumption. Presumably a lot of people, including children, are simply living off the tap. And I would guess there is some cleansing of the water that is in the tap. But I would also guess that so much pesticide is seeping down into the water table that we are beginning to see some pretty steep effects. Sometimes it's not just the pesticide itself but some of the metals that are used in their construction, and the chemicals used to bind things together to make them what they are. They are powerful, and they are dangerous, and we need to control them better. We have a lot of land under production.
I'll keep looking for the article. I read it and said, I wish I could show this to everyone. But a few days later it was still an open window on my computer, and life somehow moved on without me writing this. Things are busy here. They're busy everywhere - who has time to save America's children?
Friday, January 17, 2025
Sunday, September 22, 2024
UI Hosps
I maintain that the University of Iowa hospitals is one of the best art museums in the state, if not the best. It's full of wonderful art. This time, while walking through it, I stopped and grabbed a few pictures. I don't think it's representative, though; I'd like to take a complete tour and get everything that's good, and in fact, get better pictures of everything.
The problem is that, when you're in the hospital, you're distressed. In my case, because it was a lower-stress day, when my cochlear implants would be activated, I was in a fairly good mood and I could stop at things that struck me, and actually look at them. But that's rare. Most days I'm like the other people in there: worried; facing the fact that I'm declining fast; thinking about death around the horizon, etc. Not a good frame of mind for perusing art.
From Galesburg however I have learned two things. I learned them mostly by being stopped by trains, which interrupt us regularly. First, there is some fanatastic art out there in the world, which can really add to your life. Second, you may not always understand it, but you can usually identify how it makes you feel or what about it contrasts with its environment to give you a certain boost. All art happens in an environment, and UI Hosps' art is in some of these pictures very much in the Iowa place we all well know: Kinnick Stadium, the Children's Hospital, etc.
I am getting to know the place better. It is very intimidating to one or even three-or-four time visitors; it takes a while. Now that I'm a little more comfortable I can actually look at the art. I don't always understand it (what is going on behind the Old Cap, below?) but I can tell you what I like.
My apologies to the artists, whose names I tried to remember, but failed. These are poor pictures/representations anyway, and if you want the real thing just go to UI Hosps and you'll find them pretty quickly. I'm still looking to see if they have any Mario Lasansky (I'm sure they do somewhere) and ultimately I'd like to make a full tour and give you a much wider, more complete report. I like art now, and I at least want to identify the things that make me an impressionism fan.
The art was so fine, it popped my out of my gloom. And now, with my new cochlear implant, I hear tinny sounds and have lots of noise to make my life a little more full.
The problem is that, when you're in the hospital, you're distressed. In my case, because it was a lower-stress day, when my cochlear implants would be activated, I was in a fairly good mood and I could stop at things that struck me, and actually look at them. But that's rare. Most days I'm like the other people in there: worried; facing the fact that I'm declining fast; thinking about death around the horizon, etc. Not a good frame of mind for perusing art.
From Galesburg however I have learned two things. I learned them mostly by being stopped by trains, which interrupt us regularly. First, there is some fanatastic art out there in the world, which can really add to your life. Second, you may not always understand it, but you can usually identify how it makes you feel or what about it contrasts with its environment to give you a certain boost. All art happens in an environment, and UI Hosps' art is in some of these pictures very much in the Iowa place we all well know: Kinnick Stadium, the Children's Hospital, etc.
I am getting to know the place better. It is very intimidating to one or even three-or-four time visitors; it takes a while. Now that I'm a little more comfortable I can actually look at the art. I don't always understand it (what is going on behind the Old Cap, below?) but I can tell you what I like.
My apologies to the artists, whose names I tried to remember, but failed. These are poor pictures/representations anyway, and if you want the real thing just go to UI Hosps and you'll find them pretty quickly. I'm still looking to see if they have any Mario Lasansky (I'm sure they do somewhere) and ultimately I'd like to make a full tour and give you a much wider, more complete report. I like art now, and I at least want to identify the things that make me an impressionism fan.
The art was so fine, it popped my out of my gloom. And now, with my new cochlear implant, I hear tinny sounds and have lots of noise to make my life a little more full.
Monday, May 6, 2024
Review page
A wonderful review page for Tall Corn State...
https://www.bestbookeditors.com/uncategorized/tall-corn-state-by-thomas-leverett
https://www.bestbookeditors.com/uncategorized/tall-corn-state-by-thomas-leverett
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Caitlin Clark
I would be remiss not to put some kind of tribute to Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes here. They gave us a wonderful season and changed women's basketball forever.
As a Hawkeye fan, I got drawn in early and got special notice that Hannah Stuelke is a relative of mine (second step-cousins, twice removed, to be exact). I wasn't able to actually watch any games so didn't get drawn in so much by the live-action angle of it; I just read about them afterward and occasionally posted using home-made pop art.
There are many reasons Caitlin got a wide range of fans, intense national interest, and status as a huge star. Yes, this was in spite of the fact that the South Carolina team was actually way better than the Hawkeyes. Caitlin kind of just drew in her audience with her way of being. She's a kind of combination of very competitive and super-polite, self-effacing Iowa farm girl, and people just responded to that, or maybe they were just ready for that new kind of hero. Girls especially, and I mean young white ones mostly here, especially respondsed to it, in Iowa in particular.
Some say that Iowa's theocratic backward state politics have led Iowans into despair and self-loathing, which made the state itself ripe for a hero who is strong, competent, and still clearly Iowan to the core. The fact that Caitlin is from West Des Moines and Hannah is from Cedar Rapids made me at least feel that the team was home-state Iowan, unlike many basketball teams today that are a product of super-effective national recruiting machines. Iowa had to pay a premium probably to ensure they stuck with the team and didn't wander off to some lucrative transfer option. But they wanted to play for Iowa. And they made the season for everyone.
She said all the right things when she was interviewed and she gave proper credit to her teammates who have indeed carried a lot of the weight. I like how she's humble when she needs to be, and she's pretty in a natural, confident, strong kind of way. It's hard to define exactly what about her attracted fans' adulation. On the court, it appeared that it was that she could always make threes, and often did, and this made her a threat every minute that she had the ball. That also put her in the class of male athletes like Stephen Curry who can make baskets from anywhere on the court.
I still have an old feud with the ugly Hawkeye logo, of course, but I'm finding it a lot more fun to be a loyal fan of my alma mater (one of them anyway - I went to Iowa twice) - and proud to be associated with this team. I'm a huge Caitlin fan.
As a Hawkeye fan, I got drawn in early and got special notice that Hannah Stuelke is a relative of mine (second step-cousins, twice removed, to be exact). I wasn't able to actually watch any games so didn't get drawn in so much by the live-action angle of it; I just read about them afterward and occasionally posted using home-made pop art.
There are many reasons Caitlin got a wide range of fans, intense national interest, and status as a huge star. Yes, this was in spite of the fact that the South Carolina team was actually way better than the Hawkeyes. Caitlin kind of just drew in her audience with her way of being. She's a kind of combination of very competitive and super-polite, self-effacing Iowa farm girl, and people just responded to that, or maybe they were just ready for that new kind of hero. Girls especially, and I mean young white ones mostly here, especially respondsed to it, in Iowa in particular.
Some say that Iowa's theocratic backward state politics have led Iowans into despair and self-loathing, which made the state itself ripe for a hero who is strong, competent, and still clearly Iowan to the core. The fact that Caitlin is from West Des Moines and Hannah is from Cedar Rapids made me at least feel that the team was home-state Iowan, unlike many basketball teams today that are a product of super-effective national recruiting machines. Iowa had to pay a premium probably to ensure they stuck with the team and didn't wander off to some lucrative transfer option. But they wanted to play for Iowa. And they made the season for everyone.
She said all the right things when she was interviewed and she gave proper credit to her teammates who have indeed carried a lot of the weight. I like how she's humble when she needs to be, and she's pretty in a natural, confident, strong kind of way. It's hard to define exactly what about her attracted fans' adulation. On the court, it appeared that it was that she could always make threes, and often did, and this made her a threat every minute that she had the ball. That also put her in the class of male athletes like Stephen Curry who can make baskets from anywhere on the court.
I still have an old feud with the ugly Hawkeye logo, of course, but I'm finding it a lot more fun to be a loyal fan of my alma mater (one of them anyway - I went to Iowa twice) - and proud to be associated with this team. I'm a huge Caitlin fan.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
What a year
But then there's Hannah Stuelke, my second step-cousin twice removed, and she's having quite a year too. Hannah is only a sophomore, but she has good chemistry with Caitlin - they each know what each other is doing, so that when Caitlin passes to Hannah Hannah can score. And this she did to the tune of 47 points the other night, setting a Hawkeye-Carver Arena record for both men's and women's. When Caitlin won the record for assists, she was passing it to Hannah. Caitlin, it seems, is much more focused on winning than on setting the scoring record herself, which she will undoubtedly do. Hannah is getting a lifetime opportunity to play beside one of basketball's best.
Sometimes I wonder if it's just a very insular state making a big fuss out of something that really isn't that big a deal. To me, it is a big deal inasmuch as we don't often see women basketball players get such press, and Caitlin at least is worth the press coverage. She's worth it because she's so good. And I like the fact that both women are Iowans, grew up Hawkeyes and now giving them some good press.
I'm still mad about the ugly logo though. Forty or fifty years of being an Iowa fan, and it just doesn't go away.
Friday, January 19, 2024
Trip to Iowa City
I set out for Iowa yesterday morning at about breakfast time; I had an ENT appointment at the UI Hospitals, a place which I have gotten to know better since I got old. From Galesburg it is 40 minutes up to Quad Cities and from there about 60 west to Iowa City; there has been snow and ice but the roads seemed to be ok and it was sunny.
The first indication that there had been trouble was outside of Galesburg, where a truck cargo crate lay open on the shoulder, the truck itself not there. But the real trouble was in Iowa, west of Davenport, where I saw trucks pulled over and abandoned; cars in the ditch; cars on the shoulder, abandoned; cars in the median abandoned; a truck facing the wrong way on the shoulder, abandoned; I even saw cars abandoned on the shoulder, that had been plowed on top of - not going anywhere soon, I guess?
This carried on all the way into Iowa City, where I found the ramp, and the ENT, after getting lost a couple of times. I was curious about why they would have so much trouble towing anything out of there. The roads, as I drove, were ok, and it was only about twenty. The drifts of plowed snow were packed solid I'm sure, so that once you went off the road you'd have trouble getting back on, and I'm sure the tow trucks were aware of that. There was evidence that some cars had gone down in the low spots and driven around for a while trying to get back on the road, unsuccessfully. My guess was that they'd been told to abandon out of concern for their personal safety in fifteen-below weather, and that the IDOT would rather have their cars sit there three or four days, as long as they weren't in the road itself, and let the cold snap pass through.
In the hospital the ENT had got their signals crossed and a bunch of tests and surgery preparation that I'd been promised never took place. In fact, because of some problems, they said, it took them two hours just to see me. They did however confirm that I was ready for my cochlear implant, and they promised to call and set up appointments soon. I ended up somewhat disappointed, with hree hours waiting with not much to show for it.
And, the whole time, I worked my phone, where weather reports showed another snow coming through. Great. I read the reports over and over until I found out that it would come any minute; it would only be an inch or two total; it would blow around in high winds all evening; and it would never really get below zero though eight or ten is cold enough. When I left (I'd missed lunch) I was spit out of the hospital back on Melrose, in a part of Iowa City I don't know very well, and I ended up back on 218 and getting straight on the interstate back home. I was starving but anxious and I decided to hightail it before the snow got worse.
But now I had another problem. My car chose this particular day to run out of wiper fluid, and it was a day I really needed it. The snow was not very wet but had disrupted visibility. The salt and dust kicked up by the trucks quickly made my windshield hard to see out of. I squinted as hard as I could to stay behind whatever truck was immediately in front of me.
It occurred to me, as I was driving, that there had to be a reason that I-80 from Iowa City to Davenport has become bumper-to-bumper over the last thirty years since I was up here last. My theories are 1) popularity of world's biggest truck stop in Wolcott; 2) high road taxes or weight restrictions in southern Minnesota, or whatever would be the east-west competition for 80, or some combination of the above. Is it mostly trucks? And if not, is there a reason ordinary people like myself want to be on the road? My friend in Iowa City says locals have begun to take the back roads (6) even though I can tell you it's not exactly a straight shot.
Going back, the same thing. Two cars, up on two wheels, belly facing traffic. A truck backwards on the shoulder, facing traffic. Cars off in the shoulder or way off the road. Abandoned. In one case, I saw a tow truck working on ssomething. One. There were about fifty others, abandoned.
There had been one good thing that happened that gave me hope. UI Hosps in general hadn't come out looking good. But as I pulled down the icy parking ramp, and pulled a little too far at the machine where I'd have to insert my ticket and scan my code, the woman working there noticed that I was on the edge of tears, and offered to just do it for me. My hands shaking, I gave her the ticket and scan code and she did it. I was so grateful! It saved me from backing up on icy pavement, with a car right behind me.
On 80, I had to pull over twice to use snow to wash my windshield. I needed gas, and considered buying antifreeze and putting it in myself, but I held out until Illinois and by then the roads were much clearer; one more snow-wash of the windhield at the Casey's in Andover, and I made it home ok. With fewer trucks on the road, less traffic in general, I can see just fine out a dirty window. But I have trouble at home trying to read anything. My eyes are just plain worn out.
The first indication that there had been trouble was outside of Galesburg, where a truck cargo crate lay open on the shoulder, the truck itself not there. But the real trouble was in Iowa, west of Davenport, where I saw trucks pulled over and abandoned; cars in the ditch; cars on the shoulder, abandoned; cars in the median abandoned; a truck facing the wrong way on the shoulder, abandoned; I even saw cars abandoned on the shoulder, that had been plowed on top of - not going anywhere soon, I guess?
This carried on all the way into Iowa City, where I found the ramp, and the ENT, after getting lost a couple of times. I was curious about why they would have so much trouble towing anything out of there. The roads, as I drove, were ok, and it was only about twenty. The drifts of plowed snow were packed solid I'm sure, so that once you went off the road you'd have trouble getting back on, and I'm sure the tow trucks were aware of that. There was evidence that some cars had gone down in the low spots and driven around for a while trying to get back on the road, unsuccessfully. My guess was that they'd been told to abandon out of concern for their personal safety in fifteen-below weather, and that the IDOT would rather have their cars sit there three or four days, as long as they weren't in the road itself, and let the cold snap pass through.
In the hospital the ENT had got their signals crossed and a bunch of tests and surgery preparation that I'd been promised never took place. In fact, because of some problems, they said, it took them two hours just to see me. They did however confirm that I was ready for my cochlear implant, and they promised to call and set up appointments soon. I ended up somewhat disappointed, with hree hours waiting with not much to show for it.
And, the whole time, I worked my phone, where weather reports showed another snow coming through. Great. I read the reports over and over until I found out that it would come any minute; it would only be an inch or two total; it would blow around in high winds all evening; and it would never really get below zero though eight or ten is cold enough. When I left (I'd missed lunch) I was spit out of the hospital back on Melrose, in a part of Iowa City I don't know very well, and I ended up back on 218 and getting straight on the interstate back home. I was starving but anxious and I decided to hightail it before the snow got worse.
But now I had another problem. My car chose this particular day to run out of wiper fluid, and it was a day I really needed it. The snow was not very wet but had disrupted visibility. The salt and dust kicked up by the trucks quickly made my windshield hard to see out of. I squinted as hard as I could to stay behind whatever truck was immediately in front of me.
It occurred to me, as I was driving, that there had to be a reason that I-80 from Iowa City to Davenport has become bumper-to-bumper over the last thirty years since I was up here last. My theories are 1) popularity of world's biggest truck stop in Wolcott; 2) high road taxes or weight restrictions in southern Minnesota, or whatever would be the east-west competition for 80, or some combination of the above. Is it mostly trucks? And if not, is there a reason ordinary people like myself want to be on the road? My friend in Iowa City says locals have begun to take the back roads (6) even though I can tell you it's not exactly a straight shot.
Going back, the same thing. Two cars, up on two wheels, belly facing traffic. A truck backwards on the shoulder, facing traffic. Cars off in the shoulder or way off the road. Abandoned. In one case, I saw a tow truck working on ssomething. One. There were about fifty others, abandoned.
There had been one good thing that happened that gave me hope. UI Hosps in general hadn't come out looking good. But as I pulled down the icy parking ramp, and pulled a little too far at the machine where I'd have to insert my ticket and scan my code, the woman working there noticed that I was on the edge of tears, and offered to just do it for me. My hands shaking, I gave her the ticket and scan code and she did it. I was so grateful! It saved me from backing up on icy pavement, with a car right behind me.
On 80, I had to pull over twice to use snow to wash my windshield. I needed gas, and considered buying antifreeze and putting it in myself, but I held out until Illinois and by then the roads were much clearer; one more snow-wash of the windhield at the Casey's in Andover, and I made it home ok. With fewer trucks on the road, less traffic in general, I can see just fine out a dirty window. But I have trouble at home trying to read anything. My eyes are just plain worn out.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Caucuses
I have an interesting story about the caucusess whicsh I'll share in a bit, but first I want to say that of course I'm disappointed in Iowa Republicans for voting for a pedophile, rapist, thief, fraud, liar, sore loser, and country-destroyer. My political feelings are here.
But this post is not really about how bad Iowans are at judging character, as I believe they're not really all that different from other folks, and everyone is getting a little desperate these days. White folks, anyway, are getting desperate to lock in white privilege, lock out Mexicans, make abortion illegal, and outlaw GBTLQ, which they are still somewhat stuck on. I'm more concerned now with the way Iowa is portrayed in the national media. And, if it's such a bastion of moral Christianity, what's it doing voting for a guy like Trump?
Here's my story: in 1980, I was living in a hovel on East Benton street, near the Armory, in Iowa City. The caucuses were not part of the national news cycle, but Jimmy Carter's boys were determined to make them that way. The Democratic caucus was wide open that year, with Carter, Fred Harris, and Jerry Brown; I was for Brown. But I was the only one for Brown, so they told me to pick one of the others. I picked Harris but rather quickly and ambivalently. Both sides were appealing to me.
But later, I found out that Carter won my precinct. How could that have happened? I voted the deciding vote against him! I was outraged and ended up voting third party in that election and the following one; I refused to support Carter after that.
It was my understanding that Carter had an operative, Hamilton Jordan, who was very smart but somewhat unethical. This Jordan guy was charged with moving in, ensuring that Carter won Iowa, and then showing on the national press circuit that this was a sign that he was the up-and-coming guy and was on a roll. The strategy worked, and from then on, the Iowa caucus was a thing. An important thing. The Hamburg Inn was never the same.
This year, I doubt if Trump fixed the caucuses; he didn't need to. He's got plenty of money that can do that very thing, and he can use it to buy what he wants. Although you can call buying voters "fixing," it's different from what happened to me in Iowa City that year. What bothers me is when the people vote for one person, and another one wins. I have no evidence of that at the moment, although I'm sure it's possible. A thief and a fraud will be that way no matter what he does and where he applies his interest; he's already demonstrated a total lack of morality, as far as I'm concerned.
But can Iowans see it? I'm not sure people are looking at the same picture. Or maybe Biden, in his aging, befuddled representation of the steamroller of the modern "woke" world, makes them so mad that they see what they want.
I find myself thinking Iowa might have been better off if they'd just skipped it altogether. People are blasting Iowa, a if it's a state of cornfed ignormamuses, but I think most states would give you about the same result. And it's not all bad, given that 1) only about half of Repubs voted for Trump, and far fewer will drift toward him than away from him as it becomes clear what a fraud he's been; 2) Iowa doesn't generally pick the winner these days, but rather sets the table with the midwest view of what's available. It's just a starting point, in other words.
These days I'm just about forty minutes from Iowa; we have all the snow, the bitter cold, and the farm country politics. The western part of the state (of Illinois) would for sure have voted just like Iowa. I feel like it's a modern war-time Germany: "Hey people - they're killing children just out of sight!" Not that I have any idea what to do about the Israeli-Hamas war.
But this post is not really about how bad Iowans are at judging character, as I believe they're not really all that different from other folks, and everyone is getting a little desperate these days. White folks, anyway, are getting desperate to lock in white privilege, lock out Mexicans, make abortion illegal, and outlaw GBTLQ, which they are still somewhat stuck on. I'm more concerned now with the way Iowa is portrayed in the national media. And, if it's such a bastion of moral Christianity, what's it doing voting for a guy like Trump?
Here's my story: in 1980, I was living in a hovel on East Benton street, near the Armory, in Iowa City. The caucuses were not part of the national news cycle, but Jimmy Carter's boys were determined to make them that way. The Democratic caucus was wide open that year, with Carter, Fred Harris, and Jerry Brown; I was for Brown. But I was the only one for Brown, so they told me to pick one of the others. I picked Harris but rather quickly and ambivalently. Both sides were appealing to me.
But later, I found out that Carter won my precinct. How could that have happened? I voted the deciding vote against him! I was outraged and ended up voting third party in that election and the following one; I refused to support Carter after that.
It was my understanding that Carter had an operative, Hamilton Jordan, who was very smart but somewhat unethical. This Jordan guy was charged with moving in, ensuring that Carter won Iowa, and then showing on the national press circuit that this was a sign that he was the up-and-coming guy and was on a roll. The strategy worked, and from then on, the Iowa caucus was a thing. An important thing. The Hamburg Inn was never the same.
This year, I doubt if Trump fixed the caucuses; he didn't need to. He's got plenty of money that can do that very thing, and he can use it to buy what he wants. Although you can call buying voters "fixing," it's different from what happened to me in Iowa City that year. What bothers me is when the people vote for one person, and another one wins. I have no evidence of that at the moment, although I'm sure it's possible. A thief and a fraud will be that way no matter what he does and where he applies his interest; he's already demonstrated a total lack of morality, as far as I'm concerned.
But can Iowans see it? I'm not sure people are looking at the same picture. Or maybe Biden, in his aging, befuddled representation of the steamroller of the modern "woke" world, makes them so mad that they see what they want.
I find myself thinking Iowa might have been better off if they'd just skipped it altogether. People are blasting Iowa, a if it's a state of cornfed ignormamuses, but I think most states would give you about the same result. And it's not all bad, given that 1) only about half of Repubs voted for Trump, and far fewer will drift toward him than away from him as it becomes clear what a fraud he's been; 2) Iowa doesn't generally pick the winner these days, but rather sets the table with the midwest view of what's available. It's just a starting point, in other words.
These days I'm just about forty minutes from Iowa; we have all the snow, the bitter cold, and the farm country politics. The western part of the state (of Illinois) would for sure have voted just like Iowa. I feel like it's a modern war-time Germany: "Hey people - they're killing children just out of sight!" Not that I have any idea what to do about the Israeli-Hamas war.
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Kindle Special
Tall Corn State: An Iowa Story
KINDLE SPECIAL TU-FRI Aug. 22-25
https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Corn-State-Iowa-Story-ebook/dp/B08XQ9612R
KINDLE SPECIAL TU-FRI Aug. 22-25
https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Corn-State-Iowa-Story-ebook/dp/B08XQ9612R
Friday, August 4, 2023
Thursday, July 27, 2023
Tall Corn State Kindle Special
An Iowa Story
Tall Corn State - lively personal novel with actualist poetry, jumping trains, & unrequited love
Kindle Special TH-SAT July 27-29
on Amazon
Tall Corn State - lively personal novel with actualist poetry, jumping trains, & unrequited love
Kindle Special TH-SAT July 27-29
on Amazon
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Saturday, April 22, 2023
Tall Corn State
lively personal novel with Actualist poets, jumping trains & unrequited love
Kindle Special FRI-SUN Apr. 22-24
https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Corn-State-Iowa-Story-ebook/dp/B08XQ9612R/
lively personal novel with Actualist poets, jumping trains & unrequited love
Kindle Special FRI-SUN Apr. 22-24
https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Corn-State-Iowa-Story-ebook/dp/B08XQ9612R/
Saturday, April 1, 2023
Friday, December 9, 2022
Documenting the Revolution
Duer, D. (2022, Dec. 8). Baker (Jobs of My Youth #5). David Duer Blog.
Here, a friend of mine tells about his experience at Morning Glory Bakery. All true, too, I believe, even the part about his having a crush on all the women he worked with. I think he gets more details about the place right, and I think that kind of documenting is good. Someone should write a serious, non-fiction, true account of the whole blessed story.
But if all one does is capture the magic of working and living down in that basement restaurant/bakery, that's still enough. It was special, a special time in this world.
Here, a friend of mine tells about his experience at Morning Glory Bakery. All true, too, I believe, even the part about his having a crush on all the women he worked with. I think he gets more details about the place right, and I think that kind of documenting is good. Someone should write a serious, non-fiction, true account of the whole blessed story.
But if all one does is capture the magic of working and living down in that basement restaurant/bakery, that's still enough. It was special, a special time in this world.
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Tall Corn State
Tall Corn State A personal novel with actualist poets, jumping trains, and unrequited love KINDLE SPECIAL - 99c through the month of May ...
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I have an interesting story about the caucusess whicsh I'll share in a bit, but first I want to say that of course I'm disappointed...
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I've felt strongly enough about this that when I went to write a novel about Iowa, it ended up being partly about this, if not the main ...
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My friend Jeffrey Morgan says this picture is proof that we were the first musicians on the ped mall. Some people have pointed out that s...