Categories
Writing

A Book is Coming

Writing space at Five Points in Davenport, Iowa, 1980.

Ambient temperature was to climb to 60 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. It made it to 61. Spring is in the air, even if that thought is not rational given the calendar. I sat down and outlined the path to finalizing my book.

I finished the initial draft on Jan. 5, and am 37 chapters into the first pass of revisions. What are reasonable next steps toward publication? I laid them out.

It will take two to four weeks to finish this pass of the remaining 12 chapters. After our child leaves Iowa after college in the story, the chapters have a different focus. I wrote them quickly, now I must revise them slowly. Given three to four hours of early morning darkness, that should be doable. With each passing day, I lose darkness, yet I will persevere.

After this pass, I plan a structural review. The purpose here is to ensure the book has continuity, that it is going somewhere with intent. I laid out a sheet of 8×11 paper with a chapter title on each, and arranged them in the current order. On each sheet I will define where the chapter starts, where it ends, and then summarize in a sentence or two what story movement is included. I already see some order-switching at hand.

Once structural concerns are addressed, it’s time for a reality check. Is the book saying what I want? Is it meaningful? Once those questions are adequately addressed, it is time for a second pass with re-writing, if needed.

This pass leads to proofreading and getting the book formatted for a local printing in either spiral or comb binding. I will pick the printer and make a dozen or so copies for early readers.

If everything comes together, by Memorial Day, manuscripts have been distributed to a small group of trusted readers whose screening process answered the questions: Did they read the first book when delivered? Did they provide meaningful comments? I have a couple of new readers in mind, with whom I’ve had conversations about my book, yet haven’t read it yet. While I will be in a hurry at this point, the book then becomes potential summer reading for this group.

The next goal is to collect feedback as it comes, in whatever format it is. No later than Labor Day I enter a decision table: Do I print privately as in the first book, or take steps to use a printing service to make the book into various formats: eBook, paper book, and audio book and distribute more broadly? The answer to this question is not made and I would be happy with either outcome.

The three to four hours of writing each day leaves plenty of time for a life. In my eighth decade, every bit of life is important.

Here is the draft preface from my autobiography in progress, with working title, A Working Life: A Memoir. It is a record of lived participation in work, place, institutions, and time. The book will be as good as I can make it, and with diligence, finished this year.

PREFACE

My story resumes after returning from visiting friends in the American South to Iowa City where I would work as a writer. I just finished my master’s degree and had enough resources to get started.

The first book, An Iowa Life: A Memoir, reflects an extended childhood and education. Next, I began writing.

I take you with me as our family moved to Cedar Rapids, then to Indiana and finally back to our present home. When our child left home, and then left Iowa, the story breaks loose into individual essays about ways I lived, worked, and engaged in society.

When I began work at CRST, Inc. I had no career plan. What I learned though my work in transportation and logistics was the country was changing. Industries repeatedly restructured and I spent years listening to thousands of people explain what had just been taken from them. The experience changed me.

To indicate passages drawn from journals, notes, and my public writing, I use italics.

I have limited names and altered identifying details for those who are not public figures.

Categories
Living in Society

Trip to the County Seat

Photo by Edmond Dantu00e8s on Pexels.com

I’m from the government and I’m here to help. Now that I on-boarded with the county auditor to be a poll worker, I can truthfully say that. Ronald Reagan made a joke about those nine words, yet voting is no laughing matter.

On-boarding consisted of driving to the county administration building, locating the appropriate area, entering data on their system, and providing my I-9 documents for photocopying. I completed a time sheet with ten minutes and 20 miles. Easy-peasy.

About eight of us used IBM Think Pads for data entry. IBM sold that business line in 2005 and the company that bought it soon discontinued the product. I’m glad to see our county government using technology to get every last penny from the investment. I had forgotten how to use the track pad, so needed help.

As is usually the case, I ran into people I know from politics. I maintain a friendly relationship with everyone I helped elect at the administration building.

I made two other stops while in the county seat.

On the way in, I stopped at the used book store to see if they had certain titles by John McPhee whose Draft No. 4 I just finished. They had a McPhee reader with parts of the essays I sought for five bucks. A while ago, I had asked them if they had a copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. I gave my copy to our child and wanted a replacement. When they said they didn’t have it, I procured it elsewhere. On Friday, they had been unexpectedly holding a copy for me. I declined it in person, yet on the way home, reconsidered it. Surely I could find a home for it. I emailed I would buy it if they still had it.

The other stop was at the grocer. It is conveniently located on Highway One which leads to our home near the lake. It has long been a stop when I have something to do in the county seat. I like the wholesale club better, yet they don’t have the granularity of item selection a home cook needs to run a kitchen. This produce section is particularly loaded with organic fruit and vegetables, all in a single location with non-organic. Too, when I fill my cart, the total is usually less than $100. At the wholesale club it can be double or triple that with less items overall.

I won’t be lording my new government employee status over too many people. The small bit of income will easily find a home in our budget. In fact, even though the general election is not until November, the money is already spent.

Categories
Creative Life

A Life of Photos Part XIII

2009 photo at a political event in Iowa.

In 2009, I had a digital camera before smart phones and the several thousand images I took show I was learning. Getting a subject in focus with proper lighting was hit or miss. I hadn’t thought much about framing. There were a disproportionate number of misses.

However, some of the shots stood out.

I made some trips that year and took touristy photos like these:

At Bristol, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
This spot in Tama, Iowa, along the old Lincoln Highway, has been photographed by many others.

Most of the photos were of things and places near where we live.

Wildflowers in the state park trail.
Ripening wild black raspberries.
A pint of wild black raspberries.
Field corn near the state park trail.

My garden dominated the folders.

Zucchini
Protection from frost.
Composting leaves.
Lilacs.
Japanese Beetles on a squash leaf.
Volunteer daylillies.
Note how much space there was between garden plots. That would change with time.
Holiday sugar cookies.
Categories
Writing

Writing My Way Out

Geese on the thawing lake on Feb. 12, 2026.

Despite issues with out current political and social environment, I must press toward completion of my book. Mine has been a life of delayed gratification, and in my eighth decade, I am running out of time to finish this work.

As I write, the administration announced repeal of the Endangerment Finding. Commentators are commenting about it, and I don’t have anything unique to say. Why wouldn’t we want to reduce and control pollutants entering the atmosphere? No one asked me.

This second book is going to be better written than the first. Maybe I am learning how to shut the world out and focus on craft. That is necessary not only in creative work, but in many aspects of our lives. While my writing space encompasses the entire world, at this stage of the work, close focus is critical. I can only consider one idea at a time, one sentence at a time, the way an air traffic controller lands airplanes. Hopefully the book will make a safe landing.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

First Day in the Garden

Frost in the ground.

After struggling to get the fork into a pile of grass clippings, I gave up for the day. Everything was frozen solid, even after a few days with ambient temperatures well above freezing. Highs in the 40s and 50s are forecast the rest of the week. Maybe I will accomplish my goal of clearing one plot this week to use as temporary storage. Not that day, though.

I am in the garden way early this year, so there is time for preseason work. I seeded the first indoor trays last Saturday and by Tuesday some of the varieties already had leaves. I hope they all germinate by this Saturday when I prepare the next tray of seedlings. Warming pad space is at a premium the next eight weeks.

When we moved to Big Grove Township there were scrub grasses and a lone mulberry tree on the vacant lot we purchased. The tree appeared to have been planted by a bird’s droppings while it perched on a surveyor’s re-bar marker. The ground had a high clay content which suggested the farmer who made his farm into a subdivision had removed the topsoil before selling plats.

From that clay I built soil in a garden that now occupies one fourth of the 0.62 acres we own. When I started, the first plots were small with a large grass border around them. Today I can’t get the mower between the plots to cut foxtail grasses and other weeds that grow there. I got big after working on a vegetable farm for eight years, bringing home the skills and techniques I learned there. After years of expansion, it seems time to bring order to what I do. This is likely why I am outdoors in the garden the second week of February.

We did not set out to build habitat when we moved here. The decision to site the house closer to the north property line — as opposed to in the center — mattered more than I knew. Placement of the foundation determined what remained open, how wind would move, where trees should be planted. We were thinking of how to build additions when finances permitted. Now, a deer path runs the length of the lot on the south side of our home. When winds come from the west, there is a corridor on the north side where it sweeps through the fruit orchard, and into the back yard. Over the years wind has taken a toll on the many trees we planted here. We never built an addition, nor even a deck.

The abundance of wildlife remains mostly unseen. There have been birds of all kinds, opossums, foxes, and after many years of waiting for trees to grow, there are squirrels. There are too many deer, although by developing a path from their space in a nearby woods to an large apple orchard to the west, they mostly leave me alone.

As I contemplate today’s schedule I plan more time in the garden. Maybe the dead vegetation will have loosened enough to move it. Maybe not. In either case, there is plenty of time for preseason garden work.

Categories
Living in Society

Dooley or Jones for Secretary of Agriculture?

Susan Jutz, Carmen Black, Paul Pisarik, Bobby Kaufmann, and Bill Northey at Local Harvest CSA Sept. 24, 2015.

It may be futile to pick a candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture in the June 2, Democratic primary. Running are Wade Dooley a sixth-generation farmer and Practical Farmers of Iowa member, and Chris Jones a scientist, former University of Iowa research engineer, and veteran of the Des Moines Water Works. The problem for Democrats is Republican incumbent Mike Naig is expected to win the general election.

To the extent Big Ag controls this race, Naig — a former Monsanto lobbyist — has the inside track. Whether any Democrat can overcome that advantage is an open question.

Either Dooley or Jones would be outstanding secretaries, with a focus on things that matter to all Iowans, not only farmers. There is no reason for me to pick a horse in this race in February, so I won’t. I will post the about page of the two Democrats to use as a reference and return to this topic if something newsworthy happens. In alphabetical order:

Wade Dooley

Wade Dooley is a sixth-generation Iowa farmer who has spent his life working the land along the Iowa River northwest of Marshalltown. He’s been farming since he was 14 years old, and after graduating from Iowa State University and working in the seed industry, he returned home to farm with his father on their family’s Century Farm in 2008. Over the past 18 years, Wade has focused on building a more profitable and sustainable operation, implementing conservation practices including diverse prairie restoration along the Iowa River and using no-till farming and cover crops across all his acres.

Wade believes that strong communities are built when people work together toward common goals, and he’s put that belief into action throughout his life. He currently serves on six local boards and committees, and was recently a board member of Practical Farmers of Iowa, a non-partisan organization focused on farmers helping farmers. Whether it’s speaking to local leaders about conservation practices or working with neighbors to solve problems, Wade has always believed in the power of listening to each other and finding solutions that work for everyone.

Wade is running for Secretary of Agriculture because he believes Iowa’s farmers and communities deserve leadership that puts their needs first. He’s seen firsthand how the right support can help family farms succeed and small towns thrive, and he knows the Department of Agriculture has the resources and expertise to scale solutions for communities across Iowa. As Secretary, Wade will bring a practical, results-focused approach—willing to try new ideas, measure what works, and change course when something isn’t working—while working across differences to get things done for Iowa.

Wade lives in Albion, Iowa with his wife, and they are preparing to welcome their first child.

Chris Jones

A leading advocate for environmental justice in Iowa, Chris Jones has studied the state’s water quality for decades. At the University of Iowa, he worked as a research engineer, studying contaminant hydrology in agricultural landscapes. Prior to that he worked for the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. He has a PhD in analytical chemistry from Montana State University and a BA in Chemistry and Biology from Simpson College in Indianola.

In 2023, Chris published The Swine Republic: Struggles With the Truth About Agriculture and Water Quality, which was selected by the Library of Congress as Iowa’s representative in the 2024 National Book Festival. He continues to write about water quality and related issues on Substack.

Chris was born in Monmouth, Illinois, where his father worked as a clerk for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The family returned to Iowa in 1967, where his father continued his railroad career. He spent his childhood in what was then the sleepy town of Ankeny. His mother worked as a secretary for the U.S. Postal Service, which included a stint as the secretary for the Des Moines Postmaster.

Chris has three adult daughters: a physical therapist, a statistical biologist working for the CDC, and an atmospheric chemist working in Colorado. He enjoys fishing, hunting, and tending his garden and orchard. He lives in Iowa City.

Postscript: If one blows the other out of the water on fund raising, that may influence my vote.

Categories
Sustainability

When the Last Nuclear Limits Expire, Silence Is a Choice

B-61 Nuclear Bombs

For the first time in more than half a century, the world’s two largest nuclear powers are no longer bound by a treaty limiting their strategic arsenals. Last week, New START — the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia — expired.

What does that mean? It means that even countries long considered peaceful and stable, like Canada, are now openly debating whether to break with the post-war consensus and acquire nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

This outcome is no surprise. The arms control community sounded the alarm throughout last year. Their concerns are consistent and grounded: Russia and the United States possess roughly 80 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and without a binding arms control agreement, both nations are positioned for renewed competition in strategic forces. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the drive to reduce — and eventually eliminate — nuclear weapons was strong, producing decades of treaties and norms. Over time, that momentum weakened, leaving us where we are today.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley has long been skeptical of New START. In a recent email addressing the treaty’s expiration, he wrote, “I remain concerned about the effectiveness of the New START Treaty. I had reservations about the treaty when it was negotiated under President Obama and remain concerned today. From the beginning, the New START Treaty lacks the robust verification mechanisms that previous arms agreements imposed upon the Russian Federation, previously the Soviet Union.” His views reflect long-standing concerns about verification and enforcement.

While we do not agree on every point, Senator Grassley and I have maintained a dialogue on nuclear arms control going back to at least 2009. Where the senator could play a constructive role is in legitimizing concern about arms control beyond the small circle of activists who often take center stage, and into the offices where decisions about war, peace, and federal spending are actually made. I asked him directly to encourage the president to accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s public proposal to extend New START for one year while a follow-on treaty was negotiated. Perhaps Senator Grassley’s influence is limited. Still, he takes arms control seriously, and that makes engagement worthwhile.

The financial consequences of abandoning arms control are also significant. According to the Congressional Budget Office, current U.S. government plans to operate, sustain, and modernize nuclear forces — and acquire new ones — would cost an estimated $946 billion between 2025 and 2034. The absence of a treaty increases pressure on nuclear states to expand or hedge their arsenals, even as both Russia and the United States pursue costly modernization programs. As nuclear budgets grow, they inevitably crowd out other national priorities.

A renewed arms race would not make us safer. The danger of unconstrained nuclear competition is not confined to Washington and Moscow. In a recent letter to the Toronto Globe and Mail, Dr. Tim Takaro of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War warned that even a limited nuclear war could leave billions dead and civilization in ruins. Deterrence, he argued, is not insurance — because failure is catastrophic. A world with more nuclear-armed states is not a safer one.

Senate Resolution 323 offers lawmakers a chance to state plainly whether they support renewed arms control or are willing to accept a future without limits. It calls on the United States to pursue new agreements with Russia and to reassert leadership in reducing nuclear risk.

When our collective resolve to pursue arms control wanes, silence itself becomes a choice. This moment calls not for resignation, but for engagement.

~ A version of this post appeared as a guest column in the Feb. 13, 2026 edition of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Categories
Living in Society

Close the Casino Loophole

Iowa State Capitol

Following is an email sent to my State Representative Judd Lawler on Sunday, Feb. 8. A subcommittee advanced HF 781 last week and there is debate about whether it is right for Iowa in 2026. Of course it is.

Dear Rep. Lawler,

I live in rural Solon in your district. I appreciate receiving your legislative updates and read them all. Not too many, and not too few of them. Thank you.

I am writing today to ask the House Commerce Committee take up HF 781 which was passed out of committee last week. As you know, the bill seeks to close the loophole regarding smoking in casinos left open to pass the Iowa Smokefree Air Act. 

I was on the Johnson County board of health when the law went into effect on July 1, 2008 and it was important for all the good things the law does. At the time I felt if compromise was needed to receive the positive benefits of the law, then so be it.

However, since then, there is new, discouraging information about the frequency of cancer in Iowa. Second hand smoke is a known carcinogen, and limiting or removing it from casinos is a proposal whose time is right. We owe it to casino customers and workers to do this.

When I managed some trucking fleets in Pennsylvania I brought my managers into the Philadelphia area and we visited the Trump casinos in Atlantic City one night. The air was clean inside them. The future president fought regulation of tobacco smoke inside his casinos because he felt customers would seek gambling in nearby Pennsylvania. Of course, that argument is less relevant in Iowa today since of the surrounding states, only Missouri permits tobacco use inside casinos. 

I wanted to let you know this is a long-standing issue for me. I urge you and the Commerce Committee to take up the bill before the first funnel and pass it to the floor for debate.

Thank you for reading my message and good luck this session.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Garden Beginnings

Markers for kale, collards and chard in a tray of soil blocks on Feb. 7, 2026.

The first day’s seeding session went quickly and well. I bought soil mix and garden seeds last fall, and cleared the table I use indoors — with a heating pad and grow light — last month. Experience pays as I was able to find and put together everything else in a couple of hours on Saturday morning, producing two trays of 50 soil blocks each. Mostly, I planted cruciferous vegetables.

We’ve been saving plastic yogurt tubs and today I drilled holes in a dozen of them for an indoor herb garden. It will be a new experiment. If successful, it will have been worth trying. Bread on the water.

I’ve been looking at photographs from previous gardens and was inspired by this one to grow leeks again. We returned to leek-potato soup in the kitchen and prefer our own leeks over store bought because we understand all the inputs. I ordered a bundle of leek starts from a new to me seed company.

Garden produce in 2008.

When it is cold outdoors, I put kitchen scraps in a 5-gallon bucket in the garage until it warms and I can dump them in the composter. Because of the cold, the composter is not doing much work and is two thirds full of kitchen waste. The other garden waste composter has hardly anything in it. When I make my indoor herb garden, I won’t use garden compost in the soil mix because it hasn’t decomposed enough and therefore might be stinky.

Part of apple sorting is putting low grade ones in a pile for wildlife. By spring they will be gone. (Update: when I took the compost out on Feb. 7, 2026, they were all gone.

This year seems different in that the pace of everything from the garden to finishing my book to politics is swift and deliberate. As long as I remember who I am, I’m okay with that.

Categories
Reviews

Book Review: Bone of the Bone

Sarah Smarsh’s strongest work to date is in Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class. Her first book, Heartland, was a sensation; her second, She Come By It Naturally, fell flat for me. Smarsh’s strengths are well suited to the type of short essays in Bone of the Bone.

In 2019, I attended an event in Iowa City where Smarsh was interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz. Smarsh later wrote about this night in the essay, “In the Running,” where she described her consideration of a run for U.S. Senator from Kansas. At the time, I felt she was reserved. Reading the essay, I learned that in the green room before it started, she discussed the choice between being a writer and running for office with Schultz and husband Sherrod Brown. Brown was in Iowa exploring a presidential run, and earlier that day I heard him speak to small group of elected officials and activists about the dignity of work. Smarsh ends the essay by deciding not to run. In retrospect, her reserve that night makes sense.

When Smarsh assumes the persona of “Daughter of the Working Class,” I’m both thrilled and slightly annoyed. Thrilled because she writes from a perspective we hear too rarely: a woman who grew up poor and worked her way into public life. Annoyed because the persona sometimes feels deliberate, as if it stands between the reader and the fuller self behind it. I sensed that in Iowa City and again in this book. She makes the journey worth it.

What I admire most about Sarah Smarsh is how she integrates rural landscape, domestic life, and work into a lived sense of place. Her prose is stripped to essentials, plainspoken without being spare, and that economy draws me in. I respond to this style because it treats labor and class not as abstractions but as daily facts, shaping how people live, eat, and speak to one another. Unlike many essayists, Smarsh’s didactic impulse is present but hidden, carried by narrative rather than argument. The writing rewards our attention without insisting on agreement.

Smarsh is at the height of her writing ability in Bone on the Bone, which appeals on many levels. I highly recommend it.