As summer arrives on June 20th, I think about beverages I seek at least once each year. I hope to change all that and pick something as my standard beverage. That’s what I say at the beginning of each summer.
Diet Coke When I’m at the convenience store playing Powerball, once a summer I pick up a Coke or Diet Coke and drink it. This year it was Diet Coke because I am watching my caloric intake. It will be a cold day in hell when I try another of those. It has no flavor. Coke is not it. If Diet Coke was invented “just for the taste of it,” I don’t know what taste they are marketing. I won’t be yearning for another one of these.
Yoo-hoo A couple times a year I pick up a Yoo-Hoo chocolate flavored beverage at the convenience store. I probably should not. The beverage is made mostly from water, high-fructose corn syrup, and whey. I associate drinking Yoo-hoo with living in the south, yet that makes no sense. It was invented in Garfield, New Jersey in 1928 and has been owned by multiple international conglomerates. In a moment of weakness, I’ll likely have another. It fills a certain niche.
Iced Tea I buy the cheapest black pekoe tea bags and brew a pot of tea in an old Brown Betty. The first glass is poured hot, directly from the pot over ice. By far, this is the most refreshing beverage of summer. I make it a couple of times per summer for the refreshment and the remembrance of summers past.
Lemonade When I volunteered with the home owners association I bought a large container of lemonade mix for our annual meeting and potluck. I never used much of the container and from time to time I make some for myself. It is basically a sugar fix, something I need to watch. I may try making lemonade with Italian Volcano lemon juice. The flavor is great and I can control the amount of sugar.
Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey I had a finger of this whiskey in a bottle I bought maybe ten years ago. I finished it off and decided it’s time to eschew distilled spirits unless I am celebrating with friends. It’s intoxicating effect is too much for this aging frame. The other thing is distilled spirits can be very expensive, even at the wholesale club.
Mass Produced Beer I used to buy a case of beer from the wholesale club each summer. I iced the bottles down in a cooler we got for a wedding present, and enjoyed one or two after a hot sweaty day of working outside. They are wanting $30 or more for the brands I like, so that one is getting sanded off in the woodshed. If I have a beer this summer, it will likely be with friends at the site in town where it was brewed.
Iced Water There is still nothing like a glass of water poured over ice. After all the trips down memory lane with the other beverages, I expect this will be the standby. It should be. Filtered water straight from the refrigerator is simply the best.
Editor’s Note: This post is one in a series of quick, short, fill-in posts while I spend most of my time and energy planting the garden. Things are looking good, yet I’m not there yet.
I was sidetracked by being a grease monkey for 90 minutes at the beginning of my outdoors shift. When I removed the wheel to replace the tractor tire, I did not realize the role the key plays. It uses friction to to keep the wheel turning as gears engage and turn the axle. No key, no movement.
I started the tractor and put it in reverse: nothing. A couple of YouTube videos later I understood what was wrong, retrieved the key I discarded from the trash and reassembled everything. The grease on my hands won’t come out using special soap, so I will have to wear it off. I drove the tractor to mow a patch in the garden… good as new.
My father eschewed being a grease monkey and encouraged me to find a different way to make a living. Toward the end of his life he was assigned duties as a forklift operator in the meat packing plant. He made a point of wearing decent clothing as he hauled pallets of meat around the warehouse. Decent meant a minimum of homemade repairs. His message was we could rise above the quotidian circumstances in which we came up and found ourselves. He graduated from college at age 40 as an example.
I was glad to resolve the issue created by mounting the wheel improperly. I resisted an urge to call the repair shop and ask them. I just solved the problem using tools available. Self reliance is essential if we will survive the authoritarian regime in Washington, D.C. We need to save our money for more important things like taxes, food, shelter, clothing, and healthcare. Today’s political trends have me living closer to the means of production. That’s a good thing.
Editor’s Note: I finished planting most of plot #3 on Wednesday. I’m waiting for the hot peppers to mature before transplanting them into the final row. Next step is preparing a tomato patch. In the meanwhile, my posts here will be shorter than normal. I do plan to return to “normal” at some point after the garden is in.
Editor’s Note: This post from 2011 expresses my feelings about Memorial Day better than anything I could write today.
A soldier feels a sense of connection to his country that is like few other things. That connection is to current events, but to the lives of past soldiers as well. Being a soldier can be a form of living history.
When I left the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, and the Robert E. Lee Barracks in Mainz-Gonsenheim, Germany, I returned my service revolver to the arms room and never looked back. It was with a sense of duty, family tradition, and adventure that I had entered the post-Vietnam Army. My enlistment was finished, I resigned my commission, and like many soldiers turned civilian, my main interest was in getting back to “normal,” whatever that was.
A soldier’s connection to country includes being a part of living history. For example, many of us are familiar with Lieutenant General George Patton from the movie starring George C. Scott. When I stood at Patton’s grave in the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial there was a personal connection. I learned a history I had not known. He died in a car accident after the war and his life seemed visceral, real…he was one of us. His actual life story, considered among the American soldiers laid to rest in Luxembourg, was real in a way no movie ever could be.
Words seem inadequate to describe the feeling I had when visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer in France. I was traveling with some friends from Iowa and we went to Omaha Beach and the Pointe-du-Hoc, where the United States Army Ranger Assault Group scaled the 100 foot cliff under enemy fire. It is hard to believe the courage it took for these men to make the assault that was D-Day. The remains of 9,287 Americans are buried at Normandy. What moved me was that so many grave markers indicated deaths within such a short period, buried at the site of the battle. The lives of these men embody the notion of devotion to country.
The Andersonville, Georgia National Cemetery is where some Civil War dead are buried. This cemetery is active with veterans and their dependents continuing to be interred there. Andersonville is a part of our history that is often forgotten. Some 45,000 Union soldiers were confined at Camp Sumter during its 14 month existence. More than 13,000 of them died “from disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding, and exposure to the elements.” It was an ignoble death for a soldier and emblematic is the large number of graves marked “unknown” at Andersonville. It saddens us that citizens activated to serve the cause of preserving the union ended up this way. It seems like such a waste in an era when we have knowledge that proper public health procedures and basic sanitation could have prevented many of these deaths.
A friend of mine in Davenport kept the bullet that killed a relative during the Civil War on a “whatnot” in her living room. It was a constant reminder of the sacrifices servicemen and women make when they put on a uniform. It is also a reminder that defense of the common good is no abstraction.
On this Memorial Day, it is worth the effort to consider those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and pay them respect. People and organizations are decorating cemeteries with American flags, reminding us that military service is not about images and speeches. It is about the decision individuals make that there is something more important than themselves and that from time to time it is worth giving one’s life to defend the common good.
~ First published on May 29, 2011 on Blog for Iowa.
Some years the garden has been in by now. Not this year. Weather is the main culprit causing delay. When it does clear up, there will be some long days of digging, tilling, planting, and mulching. I’m ready, more or less. The greenhouse is full, and supplies are on hand. Once I get going, my experience will help it go quickly. With four weeks of spring remaining, there is plenty of time.
One of my daily reads is Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American.” I usually read it within a few minutes of it hitting my inbox. She wrote:
I have not been able to stop thinking today of the significance of the timing of the Republicans’ push for this bill, and what it says about how dramatically the U.S. has changed in the past 60 years. (Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson, May 21, 2025).
Those 60 years are the main part of my life. I’m old enough to remember the 1950s, and the changes made in the country by Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. During the postwar industrial boom we lived a life close to the means of production yet never considered ourselves to be poor. That all the public parts of my life seem now to be changing is unsettling. I haven’t been sleeping through the night for a long time. The last two days, House Republicans have been debating and passing the budget, giving me something in which to engage in the wee hours. I streamed it before I got out of bed.
The reconciliation is not over by any means. It has to clear the U.S. Senate and then the two chambers must reach agreed language before a final vote and sending it to the president. If today is any indication, Republicans are willing to jack up the debt and deficit to a level that will invoke their Paygo Rule. That means forced cuts in Medicare of up to $500 billion, among other things. For those of us on Medicare it could get rough. The cuts in Medicaid and nutrition programs are directly part of the bill.
My position on this budget reconciliation is if we can’t afford tax cuts, they should not be part of it. Republicans have a history, going back to Ronald Reagan, of increasing our national debt and the budget deficit. By any measure, they are out of control with the budget that passed the House this morning.
I woke up to Cousin Al on the radio when I lived at Fort Benning, Georgia. Each day, across the line in Alabama, he played Christy Lane’s hit song, “One Day at a Time.” Good advice in 1976. Good advice today.
Wednesday morning brought more rain. The good news is we need rain, and it is forecast to end by early morning. I hope to try out the new mower in the garden if it’s dry enough. I’m way behind in the garden now, so we’ll plant what we can.
I went trail walking in the early morning mist for my health. If I can get my heart beating fast enough, for long enough, it is adequate exercise for a person like me. I don’t tire of photographing what I see, so this familiar part of the trail stood out today.
Editor’s Note: Another short post so I can spend time elsewhere. Thanks for reading.
Zestar! apples forming. This variety will be first to ripen.
At the bottom of our public library home page it says, “This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of Iowa.”
I wrote my Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks on March 31 after the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services was put on leave, in part,
I’m writing to express my disappointment that the president intends to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) “to the maximum extent of the law,” via executive order. As you know, the Congress created IMLS and, by law, only the Congress can dissolve this federal agency. As a resident of your district, I don’t understand how the executive branch can intervene in a congressionally created agency, cancel grants, and in effect put it out of business. Please explain.
She responded today, in part:
As you may know, on March 14th, 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14217, which closed 7 agencies, including IMLS, to the maximum extent applicable by law. The staff of IMLS were put on leave on March 31st, 2025. As always, my office and I are in constant contact with officials in the administration to see how any changes to federal agencies affect Iowans.
Bad date format aside, she stated what I stated in my original letter, declining to explain a dang thing. It seems pretty clear to people like me who use our public library that if funding from IMLS goes away, we will have to find another way to provide the important services for which federal money pays.
Another day in the dumbing down of America.
Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of short posts to enable me to get the garden planted in May. Despite the setbacks described yesterday, gardening goes on.
The U.S. House Budget Committee announced all the pieces of the budget reconciliation bill passed out of their respective committees. They will combine them and hold a single markup session on Friday, May 16.
Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson said he is working to ensure the demise of the final bill in the Senate. His beef is not mine. He believes the bill does not do enough to cut spending.
Here is what I sent to Rep. Miller-Meeks:
I object to extending the 2017 tax cuts. Estimates are it would increase the federal deficit by trillions of dollars, requiring raising the debt ceiling. It makes no sense to do this. I urge you to vote no on the reconciliation bill. Regards, Paul Deaton
Editor’s Note: On Saturday, May 10, 2025 I was inducted into the Johnson County Democrats Hall of Fame. These are my remarks, prepared for delivery.
Thank you for the warm welcome into the Johnson County Democrats Hall of Fame. This recognition means a lot.
I queried myself using artificial intelligence and the result came back: “Paul Deaton is a long-time Democratic activist and commentator based in Johnson County, Iowa.” I do comment on things. People take issue with some of my comments. In particular, Jeff Kaufmann used to contact me when I wrote about him on Blog for Iowa. After a couple of times, I explained to the Cedar County Republican he was a public figure now and subject to criticism. That was the end of that.
For the rest of my time, I have a few stories.
My father got me interested in politics. During the 1960 election, his union asked him to organize our neighborhood for John F. Kennedy. We moved there the previous year, and didn’t know many people. He did what he knew best and went to his basement workshop to get out his drafting tools. He drew a prototype city block. When he was satisfied with it, he took it to the union hall where they mimeographed copies using that stinky purple ink that was common back in the day. He introduced himself to every person on our block and continued until he had everyone’s information handwritten on his map. While Richard Nixon won Iowa that year, JFK won the general that was enough for our family to celebrate.
During the 1964 election I had a newspaper route. Each week I took the city bus to downtown Davenport to pay my bill. Our family was for Lyndon Johnson. I noticed there were campaign buttons that said “LBJ for the USA” on them. One Saturday after paying my bill, I went to the Democratic Headquarters and asked for one. They said no, you must do something to get one of those. Undeterred, we negotiated and agreed I would stuff envelopes, then they would give me a button. Thusly, I worked on my first political campaign. When LBJ won in a landslide, I just figured Democrats would prevail the same way in every election thereafter.
I was not a fan of Jim Leach. After his House Banking Committee convened Whitewater Hearings in 1995, I was outraged after watching the proceedings on television. The more I watched, the madder I got. Leach was the worst for overseeing that sham inquiry.
When I reactivated in politics during the 2004 election, I felt Leach had to go. In 2006, Dave Loebsack announced for Congress and I wanted to help. One night a week I drove from work in Cedar Rapids to Iowa City to do whatever was needed to help Dave win. Typically, Tyler Wilson was there alone when I arrived in the dimly lit office.
I’d ask, “What can I do to help?” Wilson would point at a tall stack of paperwork and say, “These people need to be called.” I called until it became too late to call any longer. I learned from these phone calls the worm was turning on Leach. I didn’t need to do any convincing. Most people to whom I spoke felt like I did and some were switching their vote from Leach to Loebsack. As we all know, Dave won the election. It was a big deal.
During Loebsack’s first campaign I got involved with something called “Rapid Response.” Trish Nelson and Ellen Ballas recruited me to join them. They are here tonight. Coming out of the Howard Dean campaign, the idea was to read the news and quickly respond to Republicans using letters to the editor as our medium. We latched onto an issue which Ellen dubbed “faux headbands.” These were made of a single feather and a headband, what white people conjured as representing “Indian.” We wrote letter after letter about Jim Leach’s use of faux headbands in district parades. Clearly, we embarrassed Leach into stopping his racist practice and that was our goal all along. His campaign responded to our relentless barrage of letters: “In respect to your concerns, we decided not to distribute them in the future.” Can you trust Republicans? Our friend Dave Bradley recounted a story about the 2006 Wilton parade at the end of summer.
Leach had said they would no longer hand them out, but they did. They were behind us in the parade, so we had no idea what they were doing. When we got back to the staging area, I walked a block or two to see if there were any headbands. I found three right away, picked them up, and returned to help take our float down.
Just then the Republican float rolled into the staging area. They saw me with my feathers and scattered like chickens in a thunderstorm. Leach, State Senator Jim Hahn, Jeff Kaufmann and all the others running like they had seen a ghost. One guy saying he was going to beat the hell out of me, but he was running away. What a memory.
One last story.
The town of Stanwood, population 673, was in our district in 2012. If you’ve never been there, it has a post office, a library, a school, a manufactured home transporter, a pallet supply company, and Ditto’s Family Restaurant. If you are a doomsday prepper you would fit right in as some houses had firewood stacked to the second story. If you are into the Confederate flag, one was displayed in Stanwood, which no one seemed to mind. It was a picture of a newly emerging America. It was and likely still is a rough place like so many small Iowa cities.
When the next person on my walk list was an octogenarian Democrat I felt we would have a good conversation. I knocked on the door and the voter rushed out on the porch and without acknowledging me said, “Did you see what Obama just did?” No, I hadn’t. He told a lengthy tale of woe before I determined he must have been watching FOX News or listening to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t recall what upset him, yet I assured him what he heard was not true. The moral of the story is right wing media was affecting voters in a way I couldn’t counter at the door. I realized then how important media reform was to our political movement. Much more important than door knocking friendly neighborhoods.
Thanks again for the recognition. I am slowing down a bit these days yet will always be looking for something useful to do.
Nate Willems announces campaign for Iowa attorney general
Willems, who has spent his career fighting for working families, pledges to protect community safety and hold corporations that rip off working families accountable
MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – Nate Willems, a lifelong Iowan and attorney who has delivered wins for tens of thousands of Iowa workers, released the following statement announcing his campaign for Iowa attorney general:
“Iowans deserve an attorney general focused on protecting Iowans and standing up for our fundamental rights and freedoms. As attorney general, I’ll work to keep communities safe by holding violent criminals accountable and I’ll take on corporations who try to rip off Iowans by price gouging or stealing their hard-earned wages.
“I’ve spent my career representing tens of thousands of Iowans who have had crimes committed against them. I’ve successfully taken on corporations who think they’re above the law and steal wages, require off-the-clock-work, hurt their employees, or violate the rights of working men and women in our state. As attorney general, I’ll fight to make sure every Iowan gets the justice they deserve. I’ll work with law enforcement and local prosecutors to secure convictions for violent criminals, restore consumer protections, and give working families the voice they deserve.”
Representing working families, Nate has witnessed firsthand how some corporations steal Iowans’ wages, force overtime work without pay, misclassify their work to cheat them out of benefits, and make it tougher for Iowa families to succeed. With prices soaring, Iowans can’t afford to have their hard-earned money stolen by big corporations. That’s why he has taken on greedy corporations for those Iowans and won. He has secured historic victories, including recovering $15 million for 11,000 current and former hospital and clinic workers in Iowa, $1.7 million in backpay for custodians, and won the largest collective bargaining wage increase in Iowa history on behalf of local police officers in Carter Lake, among countless other victories across the state.
Nate was born and raised in Iowa, growing up in Anamosa where his father worked as a Main Street attorney and his mother was a public school teacher. Today, he’s proud to call Mount Vernon home where he lives with his wife Maggie, a local public school teacher and state champion-winning volleyball coach, and their three daughters.
Nate has always been driven toward public service and determined to make our state and community stronger. As the state’s largest law firm dedicated to serving the people, the Attorney General’s office has an opportunity to take on and solve serious challenges. As Attorney General, he will work with prosecutors and local law enforcement to secure convictions for violent crimes, improve consumer protections, and hold corporations accountable when they break the law.
Previously serving two terms in the Iowa House of Representatives from 2008 to 2012, Nate fought to ensure every Iowan could access a quality public education, find a good paying job, and passed key legislation to strengthen the rights of Iowa workers. Since 2010, he has been a full-time labor lawyer and partner at Rush & Nicholson, P.L.C., in Cedar Rapids, the state’s largest workers’ compensation firm. (Willems for Iowa press release, May 7, 2025).
Brief CV from Rush & Nicholson website:
“I put on my law school application that I wanted to represent Iowa labor unions and their members. I feel as strongly about that today as I did 14 years ago but have added representing injured Iowans, victims of wage theft and wrongful termination to my practice. I am only a lawyer because it allows me to go to work every day to represent people who genuinely need help.” (Rush & Nicholson Lawyers website).
Career Highlights:
Practicing law since 2007.
Member of the Iowa House of Representatives (2009-2013).
Legal specialties: employment law, labor law, wage and hour, and workers compensation.
Community Involvement:
First Presbyterian Church of Mount Vernon Church (Session Member)
Hawkeye Labor Council Executive Board
Linn County Democrats Central Committee
Professional Associations:
Iowa State Bar Association
Linn County Bar Association
Education:
J.D., University of Iowa College of Law, 2007
B.S.F.S., Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 2001
Saw this family on the trail Tuesday morning. Spring is definitely here!
Our family was discussing whether or not to stock up on things we commonly use like toilet paper, dried pasta, canned beans, rice, tomato sauce, water and coffee. I hear there may be shortages due to the president’s trade policies. The way we provision in normal times is to constantly have a buffer of pantry items on hand in case we can’t get to the store for a couple of weeks. We didn’t go crazy, yet we won’t run out of toilet tissue or pasta any time soon.
The Congress delayed markup of the reconciliation bill until next week. Bits and pieces are becoming known with the biggest question being what they will do with Medicaid. I wrote Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks Tuesday afternoon:
I urge you to avoid changing Medicaid using the reconciliation process. Everyone knows Medicaid reforms are needed. Any changes in Medicaid should be accomplished in regular order in a bipartisan manner. Thank you for reading my email.
At 3:04 p.m. the same day her office responded as follows:
Dear Mr. Deaton, Thank you for contacting me to express your support for Medicaid. Views from fellow Iowans help inform and guide me in Congress, so I greatly appreciate your insight and opinion.
As a physician and former Director of the Iowa Department of Public Health, I understand the crucial role healthcare plays in our lives. I am committed to working with my colleagues in Congress to ensure that state Medicaid programs have the resources they need to help people in need while ensuring the long-term financial viability of this necessary healthcare program.
To that end, I have been working on legislation that will strengthen and streamline Medicaid, such as:
H.R. 1019, the Medicaid Program Improvement Act, which would improve the accuracy and reliability of address information for Medicaid beneficiaries, ensuring seamless access to healthcare services while reducing the chances of people being enrolled in multiple state Medicaid programs.
H.R. 1509, the Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care Act, which would streamline the process for out-of-state pediatric care providers to enroll in another state’s Medicaid program to reduce care delays, while also safeguarding important program integrity measures.
In Congress, I will continue fighting to ensure Iowans have quality access to healthcare.
Thank you again for contacting me. If there is anything I can do to be of assistance, or if you would like to receive my e-newsletter, please visit MillerMeeks.house.gov. You can also follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/RepMMM and on Twitter @RepMMM. Again, I thank you for your opinion and look forward to serving you. Please do not hesitate to contact my office in the future.
She didn’t really address my concern, yet at least someone in their office noted my email. Not holding my breath about “regular order.” Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of partisan cuts Republicans will make when the markup is finished.
I may need another walk along the state park trail.
Journey Home 
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