Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Social Commentary

One Less Used Bookstore

Formerly Murphy-Brookfield Books
Formerly Murphy-Brookfield Books

IOWA CITY— The number of used bookstores in the county is reduced by one. Murphy-Brookfield Books closed after 33 years in business, and its owners sold their historic stone building to the Haunted Bookshop. The deal is done and people and cats were in their new digs when I stopped by earlier this afternoon. Murphy-Brookfield Books went on-line.

I don’t like any of it… except maybe the cats.

I’ll start by saying that if I want to find something to read, there will be no problem. Our home library has enough reading material to last the rest of my life, and then some. Most of what I read is found here. Too, the public library provides on-line access to ebooks I can download to my phone for free if someone else doesn’t have them checked out. From time to time I browse the selection, and it is pretty good. If I can’t find what I want there, I go on-line and buy it from Amazon.com, eBay or one of the bookstores on the Internet. It isn’t for reading material that I frequent bookstores. I can get that at home.

Last year I stopped at the large chain bookseller at the mall. It had changed. It was as if they took everything I liked and removed or placed it out of sight. There was plenty of pulp fiction, and novels that looked like they all had been designed in the same advertising studio— similar titles, same sizes and an array of brilliant covers embossed with foil— lined up like so many treats in an old fashioned candy store. The caché of hanging out at a bookstore, reading and drinking coffee has faded. I’m no longer a fan of coffee bars and besides, who has time any more? I haven’t been back.

Browsing used books is like taking a vacation. I plan the trip for weeks, and upon arrival, one never knows what to expect. By chance, something catches the eye and comes off the table, down from the shelf, or out of a bin. If the price is right, the bound volume comes home.

Through Salvation Army stores, Goodwill and thrift stores, used book stores large and small, rummage and library sales, and estate auctions I have browsed since high school looking for something. In a box of discards I found a 19th Century edition of the collected works of James Fenimore Cooper— the pages turned yellow and brittle, too fragile to turn. At a thrift store in Sweetwater, Texas, for a dollar I bought an autographed copy of Iowan W. Edwards Deming’s “Out of the Crisis” while the rattlesnake roundup was going on. At the library used book sale I found Alexander Kern’s copy of Charles and Mary Beard’s “The Rise of American Civilization,” signed by Kern and dated Sept. 1932 inside the cover. That signature itself was a piece of local history. There is always something to connect to bits and pieces of my history or theirs.

So why don’t I like it? The people seem nice at the Haunted Bookshop. And after all, I was able to survive when the Epstein Brothers closed shop and their portable building was removed from Clinton Street. There is Prairie Lights on Dubuque Street. It was good enough for President Obama, so why not good enough for me?

I didn’t know Mark Brookfield at all… except that he was there most times I stopped by over three decades. I recognized him when I entered, and he was helpful without exception. Whether I was looking for something, or had a box of books to trade for store credit, each transaction went well. I was always happy when I left, and looked forward to the next visit. I doubt he knew me. Now he’s out of sight in the ether.

Maybe I just don’t like change— knowing another landmark off Market Street is gone. One less old haunt in a block where so much has happened in my life. Maybe it’s something else. The new place is packed with books, as if a massive shedding of the printed word was underway— more than just the university community ditching books before moving on. It may be something like that.

So one last time to consider the past, get used to the change, and then go on living with one less used bookstore in which to dig for memories. I won’t get over it. But maybe I will.

Categories
Social Commentary

The Ship Has Sailed

ForwardLAKE MACBRIDE— All the people waiting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to collapse under its own weight had better find something else to do. Almost four years in, there’s no way to hop in the DeLorean, go back in time and undo the good the law has already done.

Don’t get me wrong. I expect to hear more laments and entreaties about how wrong it was for President Obama to do it, and that government is taking over health care, yada, yada, yada. Please people. Get a grip. We went through all of these arguments during the Clinton administration. When the Republican idea of filibustering health care reform to death the way Bob Dole did died, so did the idea of repealing Obamacare. If Republicans gained control of the presidency and both chambers of the legislature, how would the repeal even work three years from now? Could they go back in time and undo the mammograms already provided, the colon screenings performed, or take away the happiness people who didn’t have health insurance experienced when they got it? I suppose one Back to the Future reference is sufficient: they won’t be able to go back in time, and some form of the law is here to stay.

The ship has sailed for Obamacare, and by that I mean we are in a period of waiting to know how it will work out. The website is working. The reforms set in place are working. The number of enrollments is increasing. What seems most important about new enrollments is answering the question, what kind of medical treatment will people require? Even though part of the new fee structure includes a premium for excess insurance to cover a bad claims experience, if everyone who comes into a plan needs expensive treatment, it will skew the costs. How will that work out? We won’t know until insurance companies review the data and actuarial experience and set 2015 rates. So we wait. For the close of open enrollment on March 31, and to see the claims experience during 2014.

Josh Mitchell of Talking Points Memo has written that as enrollments increase above ten million people (not a typo, read the article), so does conservative rage. Chill dudes. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post has suggested there are three stages of Obamacare acceptance. Get with the program.

What seems clear to me is that once people get health insurance two things will happen. First, life will return to a semblance of normal, and people will discover that having health insurance is far from a perfect situation. Conservatives will be quick to point this out, although we all know this experience is logical and predictable. Secondly, Obamacare will become the paradigm, generating new struggles to reduce government costs for Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition and other programs, while at the same time attempting to do right by the American people. We’re moving forward in the incredible storm and stress that is living in this country.

If you don’t like it, either move into a yurt, or contribute something positive to the discussion, one our country has been having since Harry Truman was president. A discussion that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Tart Cherry Coffee Cake

Tart Cherry Coffee Cake
Tart Cherry Coffee Cake

LAKE MACBRIDE— Six pounds of tart cherries from Michigan were buried below frozen corn, eggplant and broccoli in the freezer drawer. The cherries were frozen in one bag, so I thawed them and separated and strained the liquid to use in a separate dish, and make coffee cake with part of them.

The recipe calls for one can of cherry pie filling, but substituting fresh frozen cherries takes only a bit of  preparation. In a large pan, measure three cups of pitted cherries and place on medium heat. Add one half cup of honey, a tablespoon each of white flour and corn starch, and a scant teaspoon of cinnamon. I’m from Iowa, so I use corn starch, but other thickeners will work, including potato starch, arrowroot, or flour only. Stir gently until the mixture thickens completely and set aside to cool.

The batter is in two parts, the cake and topping.

Cake dough: Cream one stick of softened, unsalted butter with one cup of granulated sugar in a mixer. On low speed, add two cups of white flour and one teaspoon baking powder. Mix thoroughly and add 3/4 cup of milk. When the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, press the dough into a greased, spring form pan. I line my pan with parchment paper, but that is optional.

Topping: Cream one stick of softened, unsalted butter with one cup of granulated sugar in a mixer. On low speed, gradually add one cup of flour and mix until the dough turns into crumbs.

Pour the cooled cherry mixture on the dough in the pan and sprinkle on the topping.

Bake for 45 minutes in a 325 to 350 degree oven. Allow coffee cake to cool before serving, although it will be hard to wait. I reserve superlative descriptions for dishes like this when I say, “it is insanely good.”

Categories
Living in Society

Chickens on the Road

Chicken
Chicken

SOLON— In this small town, people got to talking about the food supply chain when a cooler full of processed chickens fell off a truck destined for the local food bank. The chickens were rejected after the media publicity generated a call from a government agency saying the poultry could not be distributed to the needy. Someone else stepped up with substitute chickens to fill the gap, which can happen in our good hearted community.

That someone raised chickens for the food bank is pretty cool, but is not the whole story. The chickens were discarded because they were not USDA inspected and stamped at a small slaughter abattoir, not because they fell off the truck. As a culture, we are overly reliant on a government food inspection system that may play a role in our legal system, but does not make common sense. It is an example of how we have lost touch with where food comes from and what home cooks have to do to make sure they serve healthy, nutritious meals. The town will be talking about this incident for a while.

On Aug. 30, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the first law requiring inspection of meat products. The law required that USDA, through the Bureau of Animal Industry, inspect salted pork and bacon intended for exportation. Exports of U.S. livestock, and meat products, had fallen under increasingly stringent restrictions by foreign countries. Producers urged the U.S. government to create an inspection program to enable them to compete in foreign markets. Over the years, inspections came to protect the giant agribusinesses and prevent entry, and run out of business, small scale operators like the slaughter abattoir mentioned.

With the rise of consumerism during the 20th Century, notably after Upton Sinclair published his exposé of Chicago slaughterhouses in 1905, meat inspections became de rigueur. President Theodore Roosevelt led passage of the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act, after overcoming his initial dislike for Sinclair. While the slaughterhouses were undeniably gross, as Joel Salatin pointed out in his book, “Folks, This Ain’t Normal,” there is no substantial evidence of mass meat adulteration or related human sickness prior to Sinclair’s reports.  For more information about the history of U.S. meat inspections, click here.

The consumer protection side of this issue gained public attention during a 1993 outbreak of e. coli bacteria in ground meat. Following the Al-Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, food security came under the umbrella of homeland security concerns. The fear of pathogens in our food supply has become an obsession among some, and the Solon incident is evidence of how ridiculous things have become. What whit of difference would the USDA stamp have made on this batch of chickens? None whatsoever.

Arthur Schlesinger, in his book, “The Cycles of American History,” had me asking the rhetorical question, “what mood are you in?” It seems clear to me that the public purpose we once held our politicians and public figures to has given way to private interest… to the extent a farmer can’t raise chickens and give them to the needy in our society without some petty bourgeois official saying, “no, it’s against the rules, and my corporate masters have deemed them unsafe.” What a sad state of affairs this is, one that serves large corporations more than people who both have chickens and hunger, but prevents them from getting together.

Categories
Writing

On Our Own Into 2014

Snow Tracks
Snow Tracks

LAKE MACBRIDE— On the second to last day of 2013, it is nine degrees below zero with little reason to venture outside. The kitchen is well stocked with food, and there is plenty to occupy an active mind. The only thing lacking is time to accomplish everything that needs doing. For a change, I spent time getting focused soon after waking.

I plan to continue writing this blog in 2014. In case you missed it, there is a tag cloud in the right hand column where readers can pick topics of interest. Seldom have I worked any subject for very long, although local food, worklife and sustaining the human species (locally and more generally) continue to be topics that most engage me. I’ll probably write about those in 2014.

Sometimes my posts are pretty good and other times… If you made it this far, I hope you’ll read more, and either RSS, follow or twitter with me by clicking one of the links to the right.

My commitment is to continue to make it worth while for readers to stop by.

Categories
Writing

Autobiography in 1,000 Words

On the Back Porch
Fillmore Street

LAKE MACBRIDE— At 6:56 p.m. on Dec. 28, 1951, I was born at Mercy Hospital in Davenport, Iowa to Mr. and Mrs. Jack H. Deaton. Curiously, my mother’s full name is not on the birth certificate, although the attending physician, Howard A. Weis, M.D., is. We lived at 1730 Fillmore Street, a duplex shared with my maternal grandmother, down the street from where I was baptized, and three blocks from the hospital. A few photographs and memories of that time survive.  I believe I had a normal city childhood among people who never had much money, but had a well defined culture centered on family, work and church.

Soon after, we moved to a house my parents bought at 919 Madison Street. While there, I was hospitalized for a head injury from a swing set in the basement, and still carry the scar.  My sister was born in 1955, and my brother in 1956. In 1957 I entered Kindergarten at the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School on Marquette Street where my teacher, Ms. Frances Rettenmaier wrote about me, “he has good work habits and is willing and able to accept responsibility in the room.”

My parents sold the house on Madison on contract, and we moved to a rental behind the Wonder Bakery on River Drive. I attended first grade at Sacred Heart Cathedral where Sister Mary Edwardine, B.V.M. was the first of six nuns, along with two lay teachers, who taught me in parochial grade schools. I recall this because Mother kept all of my report cards. During the spring of 1959, my parents bought the house where I lived until leaving home to attend college in 1970. I transferred to Holy Family School in the parish of the same name, and spent some of the best years I recall as the Polish-American odd duck among children who were mostly the descendents of German and Irish immigrants. I met my best friend in the seventh grade and our friendship has endured. I entered Assumption High School during the Fall of 1966.

My father died in an industrial accident on Feb. 1, 1969, and the company he worked for gave me a four-year scholarship which I used at the University of Iowa beginning the Fall of 1970. My grades were lackluster in college, and I drifted, but graduated in four years with a bachelor’s degree in English, listening to the commencement exercises on the radio while I tie-dyed some shirts in the basement of our rented house on Gilbert Court in Iowa City.

When Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974 I felt a weight had been lifted. I had a little money and decided to tour Europe after college, visiting Canada, England, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany and Holland. While in Rome, I had an audience with Pope Paul VI.

I worked a couple of low wage jobs in Davenport upon my return to Iowa. When the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, I decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and enlist in the U.S. Army that winter.  I began basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C. in January 1976, took Officer Candidate Training at Fort Benning, Ga., and was assigned to a mechanized infantry battalion in the Eighth Infantry Division in Mainz-Gonsenheim, West Germany.

I served in the Fulda Gap, attended French Army Commando School, and was an exchange officer with a French Marine regiment in Vannes, France. On two occasions, some of my Iowa friends were able to visit and we made brief tours of Germany, France, Spain and other countries.

In 1979, after military service, I returned to Davenport and was accepted into the American Studies Program in the graduate college of the University of Iowa. I received my master of arts degree in May 1981, achieving a 4.0 grade average and feeling I had made up for my lackluster undergraduate years.

In order to stay in Iowa City after graduate school, I secured a job at the university, where I met my future wife, Jacque. We were married on Dec. 18, 1982. I began a career in transportation in March 1984 at CRST, Inc. in Cedar Rapids. Our daughter was born in 1985 in Iowa City and brought home to our house on the southeast side of Cedar Rapids. We relocated to Merrillville, Ind. in 1987, where I was a terminal manager for two years. I left the company to work for Amoco Oil Company in Chicago and eighteen months later, returned to CRST. I was transferred back to Cedar Rapids in 1993 and retired on July 3, 2009 as director of operations for CRST Logistics, Inc.

During the time after Nixon’s resignation until the 2000 Al Gore v. George W. Bush election, I remained mostly inactive in politics. The election and George W. Bush’s administration, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks, incensed me enough to get involved again. Beginning with the 2004 election I was very active in partisan politics and contributed in a small way to significant victories in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012. My political life culminated in getting elected as a Township Trustee during a write in campaign in 2012 while I managed an unsuccessful campaign for a statehouse candidate.

When our daughter left home to attend college in 2003, I began to get more involved in our community, and was appointed to the county board of health for two terms. This led to meeting friends around the state and country, and I became involved in a number of organizations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility.

I contributed to advocacy efforts to pass the Smoke-Free Iowa Act, to stop the coal fired power plants in Waterloo and Marshalltown from being built, to ratify the New START Treaty in the U.S. Senate, and to stop a nuclear power finance bill proposed in the Iowa legislature. In August 2013 I graduated from Al Gore’s training as a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

Having helped organize to protect our environment on the first Earth Day in 1970, I have come full circle, making environmental advocacy the center piece of my volunteer time today.

Importantly, I began blog writing in November 2007.

Categories
Home Life

Soup Suppers and Movies

Animal Tracks
Animal Tracks

LAKE MACBRIDE— A winter byproduct of an active local food life is several dozen jars of soup and soup stock in the pantry and refrigerator. Curried lentil, root vegetable, kale and carrot, leftover chili, and many others. With summer abundance, leafy green vegetables (turnip greens especially) are suited for soup making and several large stock pots get canned as excess vegetables and garden seconds appear in the kitchen. Soup will serve as dinner on many nights during the long end of year holiday season, and through the first spring harvest.

Most nights between Christmas and New Years we watch a movie with our supper. This year I got out bankers boxes of VHS movies we collected, when that was the current technology, and hooked up the player. Last night it was “Sense and Sensibility” directed by Ang Lee. After a number of years, I am beginning to understand that the story is about more than Mrs. Dashwood marrying off her daughters. Others we watched are “It’s a Wonderful Life” directed by Frank Capra, “Christmas in Connecticut” directed by Peter Godfrey, and a version of “The Nutcracker,” with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, directed by Tony Charmoli. This morning I viewed Edwin S. Porter’s “The Great Train Robbery,” one of the first narrative films, made in 1903. It’s online here and if you haven’t seen the 12-minute film you should.

VHS Movies
VHS Movies

Once our video-cassette player wears out, I’m not sure what we might do. They continue to be sold and we used to keep an extra one in the house, but no more. When we reach the creek, if ever, we’ll cross that bridge.

There is an open question about a diversity of technology over the long term. Will we be able to open *.jpg and *.bmp files in 20 years? What about Microsoft Outlook files where tens of thousands of emails are stored? Will Amazon.com and their Kindle files persist? There is too much life to be lived to worry about that now. Presumably, we’ll go with the flow, and break out the old technology to access them like we do with the VHS tapes. Like in so many ways, we are in this together as a society, and as is currently said on the Internet, these are first world problems.

It is a simple pleasure to find the boxes of tapes in storage, set up the machine and pick one each night to watch with family. It is part of a workingman’s life, subject to change. Technology and popular culture are the least of our worries as we go on living in the post-Reagan society.

Categories
Home Life

Working Class Reflection

All Roads Lead Home
All Roads Lead Home

LAKE MACBRIDE— The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve have become a quiet time of reflection over the years. Queen Elizabeth agrees that “we all need to get the balance right between action and reflection.” Nonetheless, there is not much action here in Big Grove among the holidays. Taking front stage is reflection about music and other media experienced through the years, including these ten memorable concerts.

August 27, 1966 — Herman’s Hermits at Municipal Stadium, Davenport, Iowa.

April 3, 1970 — Van Morrison at Fillmore East, New York, New York.

March 20, 1971 — Grateful Dead at the University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

April 24, 1971 — Laura Nyro at the University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

February 20, 1973 — Ravi Shankar at Sinclair Auditorium Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

February 24, 1973 — Grateful Dead at the University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

July 22, 1974 — Johnny Cash at John O’Donnell Stadium, Davenport, Iowa.

July 27, 1974 — Eric Clapton at Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, Davenport, Iowa.

April 25, 1975 — Jefferson Starship at University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

March 25, 1983 — B.B. King at the Col Ballroom, Davenport, Iowa.

August 28, 1992 — Sharon, Lois and Bram at the Star Plaza Theatre, Merrillville, Indiana.

October 24, 2006 — Sir Elton John at the Cow Palace, Daly City, California.

November 4, 2012 — Bruce Springsteen on Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa.

Categories
Home Life

Christmas 2013

Christmas 2013
Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas. May there be peace on Earth, especially in South Sudan.

Categories
Home Life

Christmas Eve 2013

Gift under the Tree
Lump of Coal

LAKE MACBRIDE— Sixteen degrees below zero on Christmas Eve morning and the furnace just ignited. The Internet connection is down, but there is phone service to connect us to the world as the coffee steams and the laptop glows along with the colored lights of our decorated Christmas tree. The sound of the dishwasher creates noise that muffles the outside. Now the water softener cycles, adding to the score. And then the furnace turns off, having warmed the thermostat to 60. It seems quiet as memory reminds me it should be this day, despite the symphony of sight, sound and touch.

Ours is a small family, spread around the country. We have never had a Christmas holiday where we needed to do more than set up a card table or two away from the grown-ups. No card tables needed today. Do people even have card tables any longer? No travel plans, so I took a nap. After waking, the Internet connection was up and so was the sun. A brilliant day to be thankful for our many blessings and to make contact with friends and loved ones. There is more contact in the era of telephones, social media and Skype than previously, especially when it is too cold to go outside unless one is required to do so by work or trade.

Yesterday I made a batch of shortbread cookies― a contribution to holiday treats. Regardless of what we cook at home, Christmas gifts add to the edible bounty, with a fruitcake from Mother and some apple butter from a friend. Having enough to eat has never been a problem in our household, and the festive fare won’t last long. One batch of cookies is enough this year, although since writing the first sentences of this paragraph, I took a bag of rhubarb out of the freezer and made rhubarb crisp for dessert.

This year I left the lump of coal in the bin with other unused Christmas ornaments. It was a joke gift and except for 2013, it has been under our tree every year. Not this year. We’ve all been naughtier than we should and nicer than we thought. No need to joke about it. We just need to be better after this day of rest and quiet.