LAKE MACBRIDE— Snow weighed upon the blue spruce and pin oak trees begging someone to shake it loose so the branches won’t break. That someone is me. It snowed between four and five inches overnight, framing up several hours of outdoors work to add to the plans for decorating the house for Christmas and baking a batch of cookies. Today, with its simple pleasures and honest work, may be one of the best days this year.
Having done my tour of duty on the Salisbury Plain, memories are scant. I stayed at a youth hostel, and made visits to Salisbury, Bath and Stonehenge. Another traveler, who spent the previous few weeks wandering about the moorland of southwest England, invited me to accompany him. I declined. It sounded too much like Iowa, and a bit dreary. I bought a post card at the Stonehenge gift shop and worked my way from the chalky plateau to the chalk cliffs of Dover and then to Calais, where my journal of Salisbury and England was pinched with my backpack after crossing the channel in a hovercraft.
I never looked back on England, and don’t understand the fascination with Stonehenge at the winter solstice. It is an old thing, shrouded in lost history. I’m more thankful that the days start getting longer, and planning for 2014 can begin in earnest.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The last three times I’ve been to the grocery store, the person in front of me in the checkout line has commented that some baking must be planned in our household. What they don’t know is because of my work on farms this year, flour, sugar, butter, dried fruit, chocolate chips, and other shelf-stable and dried goods are all I need to pick up. Going into 2014, the pantry and freezer are still pretty full of the season’s goodness, with a couple of months food on hand should disaster strike.
There are usually some luxuries on the conveyor belt leading to the cash register: a small jar of hazelnut spread mixed with chocolate and skim milk, cured Spanish olives stuffed with pimiento, a bag of caramel corn on special, or a box of snack crackers. Those items not withstanding, the majority of food we buy at the grocery store is raw material to supplement our pantry while cooking our own meals. As people have noticed, what we buy at a grocery store is evidence that we use appliances beside a microwave oven in our home kitchen.
People snoop at my purchases, but I don’t mind. I do the same, but don’t usually comment, having been raised differently. When people comment, I respond politely, giving out as little additional information as possible, saying something like, “the sugar was on sale for $0.25 per pound, so I thought I would pick up a bag.” Like it or not, checkout is a sociable time.
I have gotten to know some of the cashiers at the mega-mart, and they call me by name after the transaction. They must read it on the display screen after my debit card goes through. It is not a personal relationship, but familiarity after long years of my repeat business and their continued employment. It is not a bad thing, and as people smarter than me have said, the sweetest sound is that of our own name. It’s good salesmanship to call customers by their name.
Neighborliness may have been reduced to these brief commercial interludes in the grocery store. Where I live, seldom do I see my neighbors outside, and even less frequent is an in depth conversation about anything other than the weather. I speak with my friends via email, and in person at events, but that is conversation through association rather than neighborliness. A little more neighborliness would be welcome in our increasingly contentious society. Even if it is only in the checkout aisle.
SOLON— After proof reading the newspaper last night, it is hard to feel cheery this holiday season. The Area Agency on Aging has cut off funds to our congregate meals site, and the seniors found the proposed replacement meals to be a form of prepackaged pabulum. The administrators at the agency blamed the change on not enough participation and on the sequester.
A group of politicians and community folk put on a telethon that raised some $100,000 for the agency. That money was raised and will be spent outside our community. The Senior Advocates, a local 501 (c) 3 group, along with the Old Gold Dining site council, decided to do something else, and contracted with a local business to furnish meals during 2014. Where the money to pay for it will come from is an open question.
The county board of supervisors provided some money to cover the initial funding gap, but has expressed reluctance to fund a private business providing the meal service going forward. The city also provided some stop-gap money, but after going on a spending spree on Main Street, money is tight for them as well. Undaunted, community advocates will find the money somehow.
Our town has an active ministry of food. In addition to the countless soup suppers, pancake breakfasts, fish fries and church potlucks, the three churches formed a food bank. One of the churches hosts a free community meal on Thanksgiving and Christmas for anyone who comes. Bottom line is seniors will have an opportunity to eat without the federal program. The trouble is, taking care of seniors is only partly about food.
What is more important is that congregate meals are a way for people to break the isolation that so often comes with aging. It is a way for people to be motivated to get out of their pajamas, clean up and do something with others. I’m no expert, but people who are say that is an important part of making seniors feel a part of the community, and maintaining mental health.
The federal sequester isn’t real until we see how it impacts people we know. Our community needs haven’t changed, nor have the people who are trying to meet the special needs of senior citizens. One has to ask about the values of a country where we pay enormous subsidies to businesses, and forsake one of our most vulnerable populations. Our community is working to prevent any of our seniors from being left behind, so government, if you can’t help, please get out of the way.
SOLON— El Sol Mexican Cuisine has been a hit since it opened. The small space at 240 E. Main St. can be crowded and a fun place to dine. On busy days, the noise level can high and the excitement contagious. It is Solon’s place to get tasty Mexican fare and enjoy life.
We recently had dinner there, and besides the two flat panel televisions, custom happy birthday songs and festive decorations, the star is the food. Our family is a repeat customer and that means they serve a selection of vegetarian fare on their full menu, the food is good, and the prices are reasonable. The menu is posted on line, so check it out. El Sol also serves a variety of bottled Mexican beers.
El Sol opened in March 2010, and has proven its staying power in a small town. We ordered two combination meals from the menu and an appetizer for a total of $20.50 (less gratuity). If you feel like Mexican food, and a good time, this is it. Try it once, and I predict you will want to return.
Open Monday through Saturday. Business hours are posted here.
LAKE MACBRIDE— On Dec. 15, 2013 the person from the health insurance exchange with whom I spoke on Nov. 20 called back to say the website was fixed so that I could modify the income on our application. I deleted my old application, refiled, and we were qualified for a family policy on the exchange, with 30 different offerings to consider. We picked one, and are waiting for the payment to clear the bank to be assured that we are signed up. We canceled our current policy in anticipation of the new one. What changed? We can’t afford to turn down the tax credit which makes the policy affordable.
That is not to say the change was a perfect deal. The new policy cost is 28.5 percent more expensive than our current one would have been, and the coverage is less, with a higher deductible and maximum out of pocket. Without the government tax credit, we would have kept our current coverage for another year until Wellmark recalculated the cost of full compliance with the Affordable Care Act and raised their premium accordingly. Then we would participate in open enrollment to weigh our options.
In addition, the tax credit is based upon our projected income. If we generate more income than planned, we are required to report it, and that could trigger a change in our tax credit eligibility. Let’s say we are super successful and generate a lot of income in 2014. We will be stuck with a policy not as good as what we had, and paying more. Is it possible one of us could secure employment for a company with health insurance benefits? It is possible, but unlikely in the current low wage-no benefit job environment.
The saving grace is there is open enrollment each year in the health insurance exchange. I don’t like the idea of switching insurance companies every year, but at our age, we are filling the gap before Medicare kicks in at age 65. When one has lived as many years as we have, taking a one-year chance on a policy compliant with the Affordable Care Act is a controlled experiment in managing our health care costs, one with little downside if we pay attention to our income vis á vis the tax credit. The policy we picked includes our current doctors and health care providers, so operationally there is no change in care.
What bothers me about the situation is the benefit is more to the insurance providers than to citizens. We will pay more to an insurance company we would not normally have picked, with most of the money coming from the U.S. government.
This is the first time in my life outside the military to have participated in a government program, and I don’t like it. Why? It is a first step toward an inevitable dependency on government programs like Social Security and Medicare, and I have always tried to make my own way. When considering the points of entry I’ve had into the workplace— after military service, after graduate school, after a long career in transportation— there has never been an opportunity for a job that would have led to a different result. In the post-Reagan era the perquisites of working for a company have one-by-one been eliminated or diminished.
With the decision about health care made, this will be the last in the series of posts. It’s time to go on living, reminded again of how much we are on our own in a turbulent world. At least we have the quiet of winter and the solace it can provide to comfort us.
LAKE MACBRIDE— A story that asks the question “who will be the next statesman after Nelson Mandela” is circulating on the Internet, and there is no credible answer. The conditions that raised Mandela to prominence on the world stage may have been unique. The better answer is that someone like him is no longer possible on our connected globe with more than seven billion people. None of the current generation of political, religious or institutional leaders is a candidate for an appellation like global statesman. Suffice it to say Mandela was unique to his time.
Some of the best people in our federal government are making their exits. The departures continued yesterday with the announcement that Rep. Tom Latham of Iowa’s third congressional district was calling it quits at the end of his term. Following on the heels of Senator Tom Harkin’s similar announcement, the two couldn’t be more different from each other. But there is a common thread: Washington has changed.
When President Barack Obama was inaugurated, there was hope for getting things done. In the 111th Congress, Democrats had increased their majorities in both legislative chambers, presumably setting the stage for positive accomplishments with a Democratic president. That hope was dashed almost immediately. Hope was most certainly gone when I visited Washington in September 2009.
I made the rounds to Senators Harkin and Grassley’s offices to advocate for ratification of the New START Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The former was perceived to be a slam dunk, and prospects for the latter were hopeful, and the reason for my engagement. In retrospect, ratification of the New START Treaty proved to be a Herculean struggle, and CTBT had no legitimate chances. I recall a conference call in 2010 with then Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher where when asked about next steps after ratification of New START, her answer was hesitant. She demurred, indicating we were at the end of the line even if she hadn’t said it in so many words.
One knows there are lobbyists in Washington. Being from Iowa, we are used to lobbyists occupying every square inch of the capitol from the bathrooms to the law library to committee meeting rooms. In 2009, the number of Washington lobbyists was between 12 and 13 thousand people, and they descended upon the capitol in droves each day. I saw them, they can’t be missed. At the same time, lobbyists with substantial ability to influence is a much lower number, in the dozens. When I was walking through the senate office buildings, the presence of lobbyists was akin to what goes on with termites when they find a moist chunk of wood to gain entry into the foundations of a house: our government has been hollowed out.
Yesterday’s Iowa political story was not the announcement that Tyler Olson (Democratic gubernatorial candidate) and Tom Latham are exiting politics. The story being missed is that Tom Harkin and Tom Latham are exiting politics, and what that says about what’s going on in our federal government.
We are in a time when “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” In high school I knew that verse by W.B. Yeats referred to World War I, but this old poem resonates as clearly as a bell in today’s political environment. Begging the question, what rough beast is slouching toward Washington to be born?
LAKE MACBRIDE— One definition of politics is it’s the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level. To be sure, politics is about persuading people to do one thing or another, and in the end, it means exerting power over others. Sometimes this is positive, and others less so— and politics is not necessarily a choice between good and evil.
In our country, we have a long history of persuasion and influence that includes popular figures, celebrities, charlatans, politicians, hustlers, hucksters, thieves, businessmen and women, dilettantes, and persons of varying credentials, some spurious and others genuine. Most of all this is widely accepted. A simpler definition of politics is it is life in society, and a motley amalgamation of ingredients for making a life.
Our lives are separate from politics. During a typical day, if such a thing exists, there may be few discussions about partisan politics while at the same time everyone is trying to persuade everyone else of something. The topic of whether Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016 simply does not come up when I’m with most other people. Nor should it almost three years before the next presidential election. Politics is a lot more than the endless cycles of partisan politics.
The power of politics influences my behavior, but not so much. Sure, I’ll exercise diligence filing my tax return, comply as best I can with traffic laws, and try to be a good neighbor. Beyond that, it is easy to break away from the body politic to live a life, especially as the year-end holidays approach. Yet politics takes no holiday. If anything the entreating parties increase the din of their pleas as one year ends and another lays in waiting.
In this quiet home place, the tax collector, the insurance companies, the lenders and retailers clamor for attention, and can be turned off, at least for a while. We are left with the pinkish sunrise of a new day and hope for a tomorrow where politics takes a long holiday. Something that by its nature seems impossible, but nonetheless, is the stuff of dreams.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Vague recollection of Saturday morning trips to downtown Davenport have been haunting me of late. It’s the holiday season, and the stillness of the house leaves a perfect canvas against which memory paints images of days gone by. Trips to the newspaper to pay my paper route bill, a stop at Parker’s Department store to dine on automat food heated under a reddish light bulb, to Petersen’s, Woolworth, W.T. Grant, Hanssen’s Hardware, and a stop at the Source Book Store. The latter being the only business still there, now run by the son of the founder.
There were places to eat. A lunch counter at Woolworth, the Griddle where my grandmother cooked and served lunch, Bishop’s Buffet, The Tea Room, and others, I suppose. Over the course of youth, I tried them all.
There were three movie theaters, the RKO Orpheum, the Capitol and the State. My classmates would go shoplifting in the downtown and then meet up for a $0.35 movie and swap stories, men’s cologne and other plunder. They didn’t view themselves as criminals, and with time, they grew out of it. I didn’t join them for fear I would get caught.
Now my Saturdays are much different. The day began with work proofreading the newspaper, followed by a series of errands. A drive to Oxford to meet up with a farmer, a trip to the orchard to pickup some apples and chat with the staff one last time this year, and a trip to the farm where I worked for news and another chat. It was not retail outlets I sought, but people I knew or wanted to get to know. And that’s the difference in my life today.
After the farm I went to the public library and brought home an armload of books, and a jelly jar full of hot chocolate mix. I cooked a dinner of stir-fried tofu and vegetables served over rice for the two of us. I opened a bottle of wine and had enough to taste it. The beer from summer is all gone.
What if memories of youth had been something other than shopping and going downtown on Saturdays? Why do those memories play now? What I’d rather do is live now, in the world constructed from my new life with practical farmers. In a society where government seems corrupt and bankrupt of morals, and shopping for necessities is all we can afford. Where splurging means buying a new book on Amazon.com, getting a slice of pizza at the gas station, or making holiday cookies at home. The commerce of life seems least interesting to me now.
Yet these memories of Davenport play. I can’t escape them, they are part of me. I’ll let them play against the screen a while more, until leaving the house for a round of Sunday morning work and what new adventures might be found outside of memory.
LAKE MACBRIDE— A friend forwarded a link to an article titled, “The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing,” that reported more than three million books were published in 2010 yet sales were down. Stephen Piersanti, president of Berrett-Koehler Publishers wrote, “there is no general audience for most nonfiction books, and chasing after such a mirage is usually far less effective than connecting with one’s communities.” In other words, unless you have kismet, keep writing, and building relationships to develop your own market for your writing. I came to a similar conclusion, and a number of area authors seem to be pursuing this approach as well. What gives?
Part of my writing efforts have been figuring out what role words on a page or screen would play in life. Where it ended was “as a self-employed writer, the challenges are to find venues for writing, and to improve one’s skills. For most of us, writing is seldom paid work in the era of social media. My current writing can be viewed on my website pauldeaton.com.” This statement, posted on my LinkedIn profile, has been a sanity keeper and set my expectations about publishing low, while maintaining a reason to write. Sure, I would like to make a living from writing, but the simple truth is not many people do, and the number who sell more than 250 copies of their book once published is miniscule. The endgame is if a viable book idea was forthcoming, the work will be self-published and marketed.
Discarded Books
There is a lesson to be learned from the prairie troubadour, Vachel Lindsay. Lindsay was one of the best known poets in the United States during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity after his death by suicide. He bartered poetry for food and lodging, and self-published works like, “Rhymes To Be Traded For Bread” toward that end. History has been unkind to Vachel Lindsay, and today his poetry is a difficult read.
Iowa History Books
The lesson to be learned is that we all live a life of struggle and desire. It is possible to self-publish a book, but the idea of written pieces as currency, or making a living solely from publishing and selling books is not realistic for most of us, and may never have been. It certainly didn’t work out for Vachel Lindsay, who had the fame that would presumably enable sales. Maybe he didn’t understand how to do it, struggling with in person sales negotiations to secure a bed and meal for the night, such bartering consuming a disproportionate amount of his time and energy. He worked hard, but maybe didn’t work smart enough.
The challenge isn’t the writing, it’s finding the reason to write and the opportunity to do so. For now that means sitting in front of a screen most mornings trying to figure out the meaning of a life. Hopefully readers will find some resonance with theirs. This may be as published as one person’s writing gets.
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