Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Living in Society

Reunion Conversations

Restaurant where we held our 55th year high school class reunion on Sept. 25, 2025.

The combination of a punk reaction to my influenza shot and massive intake of information at our high school class reunion led to Saturday being a challenging day. I made it through the fog and by 4:30 p.m., felt like doing stuff. In quick succession, I finished yesterday’s post, canned a batch of applesauce and apple juice, and worked on laundry I started in the morning. In retirement, that makes a busy day.

Our time together at our high school class reunion Thursday night was precious. I don’t want to let go of the conversations. There are only so many of the 8.2 billion people on this jumping green sphere with whom an individual shares a life’s experience. Grade school and high school mates are unique in that regard, in my stable culture, anyway. Through conversation I became aware of developing a tunnel vision of my own history by focusing on a subset of experiences to produce an autobiography. The reunion opened my eyes to a broader experience that exists, of who I was and who I have become.

When we dig ourselves into a tunnel of memory, it seems useful and important to find our way out into our broader experience. I believe the brain captures our experiences yet some of them get relegated to places where they don’t get our attention. Too, our way of seeing filters out parts of our experience so we remember only the filtered events. John Berger said what I am trying to say more directly in his book Ways of Seeing:

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. (Ways of Seeing, John Berger).

Our class reunion helped me be more aware of the surrounding world, one that is specifically relevant to me and my classmates.

In addition to memory, my writing focuses on journals, letters, photographs, and blog posts created over a period of fifty years. For every detail captured, there are multiple that exist elsewhere if I can summon them. Talking to people with shared experiences is one way to do that.

A five minute conversation listening to a classmate that worked for an insurance company for 40 years, or another who lived in California for a similar amount of time then returned to Iowa and married a classmate, are ways to do that. Reading an email about how one classmate recruited the widow of another to attend is the same. The easy familiarity of one with whom I played basketball in the grade school playground is another. Spending time with someone who was a neighbor to a close friend I lost in an auto accident shortly after graduation is another. All of these remind me of the broader, yet common world we inhabited, at least for a while. We now inhabit the present together, at least on Thursday night we did.

I don’t seek to wax nostalgic about my high school experiences. The recent conversations remind me of who I once was and help to become a better me in the present. It’s no wonder I don’t want to let go.

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Living in Society Writing

In the Shadow of Hotel Blackhawk

Hotel Blackhawk on Sept. 25, 2025.

Three things of note in my life happened in the Hotel Blackhawk in Davenport. My father met John F. Kennedy in this building. When I was coming of age, I had dinner here with Father and a union organizer named Clarence Skinner. My spouse and I spent our wedding night here. All were memorable events. At one time, my maternal grandmother worked as live-in household help for the then owner of this hotel, doing cooking and cleaning.

In the shadow of this building our high school class celebrated our 55th year reunion. As the sun set I stood at the entryway to a restaurant across the street to greet classmates and direct them to our area inside. It seemed a good time was had by all.

I had conversations with classmates, many of whom I have known since grade school. Some remembered a version of myself I’d forgotten. Here are some snippets. First names only.

John left our high school and finished at Davenport Central. He told me he thought I was the smartest person in our class. I replied the girls were smarter. In high school I went to John’s family home and got my best exposure to folk music. They had a record player and played Peter, Paul and Mary and others. These visits were part of the nascence of my interest in playing music. John worked a full career as a surveyor.

Tony and I reminisced about how he would walk out of his way to our family home to walk with me to grade school. I don’t recall how we started, but it was a dependable part of my young life. We were good friends, although we fell out when I left Davenport in 1970. Tony retired and is now a part time, self-employed photographer.

Tom and I spent a lot of time together. We hung out at the Cue and Cushion, which was a pool hall located in Northwest Davenport. I was not an alcohol drinker in high school but Tom was. He swiped booze from his father who had taken to marking the level in each bottle kept at home. Tom would take some and refill it with water to the line. He recalled how my mother would drive us to Credit Island and drop us off to play golf. We played round after round until Mother returned to pick us up. Every time I encounter Tom these days it is a positive experience. He retired at least ten years ago.

Barb called me aside to talk about politics. Her question, which she asked in an agitated manner, was “What are the Democrats doing?” I offered an answer but it was not a very good one. Everyone in our cohort is political to an extent. They do a good job, unlike me, of keeping it hidden. Barb and I have always gotten along well. She was our homecoming queen and recently lost her husband.

Tim was class president. We have done things together over the years, although I resist his invitations to play golf with a group of classmates. Despite childhood interest, I really can’t play. When he arrived, I told him about my father meeting JFK at the hotel. He replied with a story of how he inherited the tools of a grand parent and inside the tool box he found a personal note from Ted Kennedy thanking his grandfather for a political donation. He and his family are political. Joe Biden wrote about his sister in one of his books. Tim is an attorney, supposedly retired.

Therese and I haven’t seen each other for a long time. She wanted to talk about a trip we made from the University of Iowa to Terre Haute, Indiana to visit friends from high school. Her friend Renee worked at a K-Mart there and my friend Sara was attending Saint Mary of the Woods College. I don’t recall details of the trip in my Volkswagen beetle, but Therese said she slept most of the way down. She remembers me as an aspiring artist. I did ceramics and sold my wares at the Thieves Market on the bank of the Iowa River. She bought a vase I made for her mother. When her mother died, she got it back and noted my initials fired into the bottom of it. Being remembered as a creative at university was unexpected. I explained the artist thing didn’t really work out. She’s living in Connecticut and came back just for the reunion.

Mike was on stage crew with me and retired from being a pharmacist a number of years ago. His company offered early retirement and he took it without hesitation. I couldn’t do that job yet he made a career of it. He volunteers with a local food pantry, so we compared notes. They offer food once per month, and when they do they select items and put them in a box before clients arrive. It is different from the supermarket-style shopping we offer at our food pantry. He and his spouse stayed at the Hotel Blackhawk, redeeming some points he accumulated from frequent travel. He was the first person to RSVP he was coming to this reunion.

Kirby was wearing a knee brace that night. When we got into a conversation, I asked, “Weren’t you wearing a knee brace in high school?” He replied yes, but it was the other knee and he showed me his scar from surgery to fix it.

When you know people since childhood, it is easy to start a conversation. That’s what I did for four golden hours. I feel a better person for it. Interaction like this has more meaning as we age. I feel lucky to have been able to attend.

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Living in Society

Solon Elections in 2025

Polling Place

One of the items on my list to cover in politics is our local elections. This November, three Solon City Council positions and three Solon Community School District Board positions will be on the ballot. This article by Chris Umscheid in the Solon Economist summarizes the ballot:

Greg Morris seems likely to win one council seat. Through his work with the volunteer fire department he is well known in the community and a constant, positive presence. Incumbents for council have an advantage, but it could be a jump ball for their seats. Will see if any issues arise that make this a race.

I note the Cedar Rapids Gazette posted an article today saying 34 candidates in six cities and three school districts failed to meet the filing deadline with the Iowa Secretary of State. Let me guess: They are all counties with a Republican county auditor.

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Living in Society

No, We’re Not In An ‘Ideological War’

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There is little to say about the death by gun violence of Charlie Kirk. Too many U.S. citizens die of gun violence and the Congress can, and should do something to prevent more death and destruction. On the other hand, Republicans, including gubernatorial candidate Brad Sherman, find things to say,

In a Sept. 16, “Letter to the People of Iowa,” published at The Iowa Standard, Sherman wrote in response to the shooting, “…many are waking up to the uncomfortable reality that the United States of America has been and is engaged in a long ideological war that is threatening to break out into all-out chaos.”

I’m calling malarkey.

There will only be chaos for as long as conservatives like Sherman persist in framing our lives in society that way.

When I go to the grocer, the convenience store, the hair stylist, or the hardware store there is no war going on. People are trying to live their complicated lives. For war to exist, there have to be at least two sides, and I just don’t see it in the people among whom I live. We don’t need Republican agitators like Sherman. We are better without them.

Kirk is dead. We should pay appropriate respects. Put down your inflammatory words Mr. Sherman. Any ideological war, if there ever was one, is over.

Let’s get on with making Iowa a better place to live.

~ First published as a letter to the editor on Sept. 18, 2025 at Little Village Magazine

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Living in Society

Food Without SNAP

SNAP cuts: how will they impact eastern Iowa? How can our community respond?

Please join Fairness for Iowa for a Town Hall event that discusses how the $1 billion of cuts to SNAP in Iowa will impact our communities in eastern Iowa. These cuts are a direct result of the recent Trump tax bill that was voted for by all our federal representatives including Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Senator Joni Ernst, who prioritized tax cuts for billionaires over feeding hungry kids and community members.

At the event, attendees can hear from panelists across the local food system including Hai Huynh, Associate Director, Coralville Community Food Pantry, Sandra Komuhiimbo, Coralville Community Leader, and Nicki Ross, Executive Director, Table to Table. Learn more about local food insecurity issues and how our local food bank and pantry system is responding to the increased needs of our community as a result of the SNAP cuts.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to take further actions to push back on SNAP cuts at the federal and state level, and call out Congresswoman Miller-Meeks and Senator Joni Ernst for their votes and actions to not stand up for their constituents, and instead increase food insecurity in our communities.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a goods donation for the Coralville Food Pantry to the event. The greatest need is for:

  • baby food
  • diapers (adult and children, all sizes)
  • period products (tampons, menstrual cups, panty liners, etc.)
  • personal care products (toilet paper, shampoo, soap, etc.)
  • pet food (dog & cat)

Where: Meeting Room A, Coralville Public Library

When: Thursday Sept. 11, 5 until 6:30 p.m.

This is a chance to hear directly from community leaders and food security advocates about how this legislation could impact access to food for thousands of Iowans. Bring your questions, bring your voice, and bring a donation to help area food pantries. 

Let them know you are coming at this link: https://www.mobilize.us/progressiowa/event/832997/

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Living in Society

Winning Elections

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How does a person win an election? By getting 50 percent of the votes cast plus one. Some say there is more to it than that, but in the end, a candidate has to track his/her votes before the election, make sure there are enough of them, and then turn out those votes before or on election day. In politics there is nothing more elemental than this.

Last Thursday, while debating one of two resolutions (see below), a friend stood and addressed the county Democratic Central Committee, saying instead of this debate, we should spend more of our time working to win elections. The debate we engaged in did not win elections and took time away from that, he asserted.

It is ironic that when State Senator Janice Weiner arrived, she was praised by the committee for her leadership in winning two special elections to the state senate this year. One of those elections gained national attention. A number of people in our county helped win those elections yet Senator Weiner’s leadership contributed undeniably. While we may debate issues, she was busy winning elections.

The main reason I stayed until the end of the meeting was to hear the debate and vote on the two resolutions.

During the first presidential election after my wedding, I attended the Iowa Caucus where I was elected to the county convention as a George McGovern delegate on the platform committee. At caucus we had a discussion of political issues and made some decisions about what should and should not be on the county platform. At the county convention some of the decisions we made were overturned. I noted some delegates came to the county convention with the explicit intent to reintroduce platform planks that were voted down at the precinct. My initial experience with the county Democratic Party was soured by this experience.

In my political work in this county, I never again joined the platform committee. Most years, I don’t even read the platform. I’m not sure it is even necessary. At the same time, I see the two issues in the proposed resolutions are important and relevant to what we do as Democrats. The DEI resolution is a result of the impact of the president’s policy on the University of Iowa, which is a major regional employer. U.S. support for the Israeli government during the Hamas-Israel War was clearly divisive among Democratic voters and likely contributed to Democratic voter suppression in the 2024 general election. Talking about these two issues as a central committee won’t change the world, yet it moves the group toward alignment in our politics. Having clear positions on DEI and the Palestinian genocide is important to winning elections. After taking time to amend the language, these two resolutions were approved by the body.

Iowa Democrats stand at a distance from winning statewide elections. First, we have to know who we are. This debate helped. As one speaker said during the debate, if we are not going to stand for our values now, then when? Here is the result of our debate:

Johnson County Democrats Statement in Support of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI):

The Johnson County Democrats support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in all walks of life and as policy at the public universities of our amazing state to help foster an open and welcoming environment for all people.

We condemn in the strongest sense President Trump’s bigoted attacks on DEI policies, diversity in our state and country, and Governor Kim Reynolds’ blatant waste of Iowa taxpayers’ resources and money by having state Attorney General Bird investigate a victimless incident at a time when Iowans are struggling with rising cancer rates, undrinkable water, and untenable increases in the cost of living.

The “Freedom to Flourish” in our great state is a freedom ALL people should enjoy regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, creed, or sexual orientation. We stand for an Iowa for ALL people and ALL Iowans.

“Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”

Resolution for an Embargo on Military Aid and Weapons Transfers to Israel

RESOLVED, That the Johnson Country Democrats support an immediate embargo on all military aid, weapons shipments and military logistical support to the Israeli government; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the embargo on military aid, weapons shipments and logistical support continue until Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’tselem certify that the Israeli government is no longer engaged in apartheid rule.

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Living in Society

We’re Going Home – Walgreens

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The deal for private equity firm Sycamore Partners to buy Walgreens closed on Aug. 28. We know what that means.

Private equity will restructure the company, sell off what parts it can, restructure real estate holdings, close stores, layoff employees, and increase company debt, while making their executives an obscene amount of money. Walgreens bankruptcy seems likely in the near-term future based on what happened with companies like Toys R Us. Sycamore Partners’ deal is leveraged with “more than double the average debt level used by private equity firms to acquire companies last year,” said U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren in a letter to them. All of this is what private equity does in the United States. It does not contribute one whit to improving the consumer economy. Importantly, some consumers will lose access to pharmacy services when stores close.

On my way to the wholesale club I pass two Walgreens stores, which seems like a lot. I notice neither of them is within walking distance of residential housing. In other words, they depend upon our automobile culture. A person doesn’t go to Walgreens except to get something specific. This kind of shopping faces competition from online retailer Amazon where we can point, search and click to have a product Walgreens may or may not carry delivered to our home within a day or two. Amazon trucks are ubiquitous in our rural neighborhood. We see them more often than we think of going to Walgreens, whether or not we buy from them.

I have a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan and the company that administers it dictates which pharmacies are available to me. I wanted to use the nearest pharmacy to support their small business but they weren’t on the list. I picked the warehouse club because I go there twice a month for groceries anyway and getting my prescription would save a trip. The last time I went inside a Walgreens, it was because they are a UPS drop off point. I have also shopped there to review their large inventory of over the counter medications to find a specific dosage of vitamin B-12. They did not have it, so I got it by mail order from the manufacturer.

When I was a grader we had a locally owned drugstore with a pharmacy a block and a half from our home. In the mid-1960s, whenever I had extra money from my newspaper route, I would go in there to see what they had. Mainly, I looked for reading material (comic books or paperback novels) and candy. I was infatuated by baseball cards sold with a stick of bubble gum. Over the years, the drug store disappeared as automobile culture and larger scale retailers influenced our shopping. During the ten years I lived there, they were a part of the cultural landscape. In part, discounters like Walgreens contributed to their demise.

The only person I knew who depended upon Walgreens was my maternal grandmother who lived in downtown Davenport. There were no grocery stores there — today we would call it a food desert — but Walgreens sold a few grocery items like milk, butter, eggs, bread, and selected canned goods, all of which she bought. Without an automobile, it was a big production for her to visit a supermarket, involving a bus ride or having a relative pick her up and take her there. She got her prescriptions from Walgreens which was within walking distance.

Access to Walgreens is not important to me. I buy all of my bandages, ointments and sundry health items at the pharmacy in our nearby city. We went without a pharmacy for a while, and I’d like to see them be successful. Thing is, I don’t buy $100 of sundry items from them in a year, so Walgreens or no, it has been a struggle for them to survive.

The world we knew continues to change. Some parts of the future are hopeful and some definitely are not. Big Pharma will figure out how to sell us their medicines. As Walgreens begins the slow dance toward going out of business, I accept it as the failure of large retail franchises that can’t compete with Walmart or Amazon. It is a condition of modern society, and retail in particular. I hope they make it yet doubt they will. There are other causes than saving Walgreens that deserve my attention more.

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Living in Society

Taking Stock of Summer

Tomatoes, fresh from the garden.

I’m getting to a place where I wrote the best of what I will about Labor Day. In 2022 I wrote this post, which covers the bases. No need to re-write it this Labor Day weekend. There is more to life than annual traditions.

It is no secret unions are in decline. In his new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert Reich points to the problem. The post-World War II economy was so affluent that unions did not seem necessary to most people in the wake of reforms that happened during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration. As a result, there was less impetus to form unions, and in right to work states like Iowa, a union could represent a workplace but workers were not required to join. The latest from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024) is, “The union membership rate of public-sector workers (32.2 percent) continued to be more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (5.9 percent).” As we know from the administration’s move to invalidate union contracts among Veterans Affairs workers, the pressure will be on to diminish union strength among public-sector workers.

While summer is not over, the garden is winding down with leafy green vegetables, tomatoes, hot peppers, and apples remaining to be harvested. Instead of time off this weekend, I need to focus on work in my kitchen and garden, then digest what just happened. Short version: I withdrew from in-person society and reduced my contacts with people I know to focus on the immediate place where I live. I strove to make that life better.

Vegetables and fruit grew as well as they have ever done in my garden. The abundance produced from a small number of seeds and minimal cultivation is astounding. In particular, the green beans, cucumbers, and leafy green vegetables have been of good quality and mostly pest free. All five apple trees produced fruit. So did the pear tree. This year has been a bin buster.

As my concept of a kitchen garden matures, I have become a better meal planner and cook. One of the benefits of writing a meal plan has been a reduction in our grocery bill. If we write the meal plan to the garden, and then shop to the meal plan, the tendency is to spend less money, waste less food, and cook better meals. When I go to the grocer, my cart looks a lot different from other shoppers (yes, I look). More fresh fruit and vegetables and a small percentage of branded products. Life around the garden and kitchen makes more sense. I’m thriving in it.

Right now I have three pots going on the stove: two tomatoes and one hot peppers. Learning to process these items took time, but I know where I’m going. I mostly can tomato puree from plum tomatoes. I pickle a couple of quart jars of sliced hot peppers and then make a hot pepper paste to use on tacos. I learned to can only what we need.

This summer I exercised daily, even when the weather kept me indoors part of the day. That, combined with counting calories, led me to lose about a pound of weight per week. I have a way to go to get my BMI below 30. However, I feel healthy and that is important.

It has been a summer of plain folk living our best life. There are challenges, yet it was a decent summer in a turbulent time. For that, I am thankful.

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Living in Society

A New Grassroots Politics

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If I had a nickel for every time someone said today’s Democrats need to get in the game, I’d be rich. The trouble is what do Democrats do differently to overcome the Republican advantage in Iowa?

Democrat Catelin Drey is the case that conventional Iowa political organizing can be effective. On Wednesday, after her 4,208-3,211 victory in Iowa State Senate District 1, that Trump won in 2024 by 11.5 percent, she enumerated what worked for her in an interview with Laura Belin and Zachary Oren Smith. In descending order, she said door-to-door contact, telephone contact, and person to person contact within their existing social networks helped identify her voters and get them to the polls. This is so old school, I remember my father doing it during the 1960 Kennedy campaign.

The special election environment helped. Governor Reynolds set the date for the special election to replace deceased state senator Rocky De Witt on June 30 for Aug. 26, 57 days later. The short duration meant there was no time to wait for anything. The campaign ignited with energy. Volunteers, including multiple state senators and representatives, rallied immediately to help. Importantly, volunteers arrived from all over the state, contributing to knocking some 17,000 doors during the campaign, Drey said. She had plenty of volunteer help. Money wasn’t a problem either, enough so that Republican Party of Iowa chair Jeff Kaufmann complained about it.

Things might be different in a general election when folks can’t travel to the west side of the state because local races depend on their work at home. I expect Kaufmann will add this seat to his target list when it is up again next year. Drey seemed quite talented during the interview. Maybe she can pull off a 2026 re-election in a Trump district without all the statewide help. I hope so. Well done Catelin Drew!

I’m from Iowa so I am used to working hard for a candidate and then losing the election. I can think of some things Democrats need to change to turn the Republican advantage around.

Some history. When the worm started to turn on Republicans after the U.S. Supreme Court gave the 2000 election to George W. Bush, Democrats slowly began to change. When Bush won re-election in 2004, it was game on. In Iowa, we came back in 2006 by electing Democrat Chet Culver as governor and Dave Loebsack defeated long time Republican house member Jim Leach. The 2008 Iowa Democratic Caucuses had the most interest and biggest attendance I’ve seen in 32 years living here. As we all know, and may be weary of hearing, Barack Obama won Iowa and the nation in 2008. In 2012, Obama’s margins deteriorated yet he won Iowa again. In retrospect, 2008 was the high water mark of Democratic political activism in Iowa. Loebsack got elected to seven terms, but Culver turned out to be a one-term wonder and we haven’t had a Democratic governor since.

I love memories of the 2006-2008 campaigns but the electorate has changed. I would argue it changes at least every presidential cycle. Trump successively grew his vote count in Democratic Johnson County, Iowa during each of his three elections here. Recognizing such demographic changes is the first thing Democrats must change. Nothing stays the same. We should be like Catelin Drew and talk to everyone possible.

Marc Elias of Democracy Docket did Iowa Democrats no favors when he prosecuted Rita Hart’s 2020 six-vote house race loss in the Congress. When the Iowa Secretary of State certified the election, Hart should have accepted it, even though the path to appeal was there. Given the political climate at the time, the case was dead on arrival. NBC News reported, “Republicans sought to cast her litigation as Democratic hypocrisy for trying to undo a state certification of an election after Democrats criticized 138 Republicans for objecting to the Electoral College count on Jan. 6.” The place for Democrats to win elections is in voter contacts, not in courtrooms, or in the U.S. House.

Finally, Democrats should talk in terms of the voter’s interests. For Catelin Drew, this came naturally. Because childcare was an issue for her personally, it lent credibility in conversations where childcare was the voter’s concern. We can set aside all the verbiage about the whys and wherefores of needing childcare, like Rita Hart raised in an op-ed in the Solon Economist. Candidates seem better off sharing their authentic selves and empathizing with voters as best they can.

I think we need a better name for it than grassroots politics. The electorate has changed and is changing. Democrats need to find voters where they live: on the grass, on the internet, at work, at the grocer, and at the gym. We have done it before and we should get back to it. We need a change and that could be the change we need.

~Written for Blog for Iowa

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Living in Society

What About Our Stuff?

Detail of the Centennial Building at 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City, Iowa. Photo Credit – The Daily Iowan.

The decision to close the Iowa Historical Society Research Center in Iowa City has been made. On Saturday, Aug. 23, I participated in a rally to reverse the decision in a packed room at the Iowa City Public Library. The main ask from the event organizers and from State Representative Adam Zabner, who represents the district where the building is located, was to sign the online petition to reverse the decision. Click here to sign the petition. There was more.

My takeaway is the decision to close the facility is pure amateurism. Archaeologist and historic preservationist Kathy Gourley questioned whether the dire financial picture the state reported is true. She presented information about negotiations with the state legislature last session to secure an additional $1 million in funding for the center. While the legislature only provided a half million, that is not chump change at the historical society. The main thrust of this decision was that “your history” doesn’t matter.

Jonathan Buffalo, historian and director of the Meskwaki Historical Preservation Department told friends, relatives and neighbors about the proposed closure. They replied, “What about our stuff?” The Meskwaki house a collection of early photographs at the Research Center. We might all ask the same question. Communication about the closure was a surprise to almost everyone who read or heard the news. There appears to be only the vaguest of plans for the move. A lack of transparency runs throughout.

Here’s the rub. The state archivist is not following professional procedures for closing a facility like this. Donors gave consideration to what items they may have donated to the State Historical Society. Part of the deal was the artifacts would be cared for in perpetuity. Instead of assuring the public that any change would meet this obligation, it’s been like, “Let’s go to Walmart and get us some plastic bags to haul what we don’t like to the landfill.” It is amateur hour.

Rebecca Conard, native Iowan and historian at Middle Tennessee University outlined some of those professional procedures during the rally. Things like looking at the Iowa collections as a whole and then making a transparent, public decision on what to do with items that are less relevant today than they were when donated.

What about our stuff? Will it go to a warehouse? Will it be discarded? There have been no good answers. If the state had considered the public impact of closing the Iowa City Research Center, they would have researched and provided some of the answers when they announced the change. They apparently didn’t. This made a difference that, in part, created the social anxiety on display at the Iowa City Public Library on Saturday.

Valued collections live in that building today. What will happen to archives of Meskwaki photographs, the Iowa Musicians Project, pioneer diaries, manuscripts, and the rest of the materials? Let’s hope they are not rendered into oblivion either by tucking them away on a shelf in a Des Moines warehouse or by discarding.

To learn more, read Trish Nelson’s backgrounder on the issue here.

Sign the online petition to reverse the decision to close the Iowa Historical Society Research Center at the Centennial Building click here.

~Written for Blog for Iowa