(Editor’s Note: I’m working on a longer, autobiographical piece this winter. From time to time I’ll post findings from our family archives. The following was dated Dec. 11, 2010).
If I get this one chance to remember my maternal grandmother, what would I say?
That she was part of our family since my earliest remembrances.
That she encouraged me as her aunt had not encouraged her, that horrible instance when playing the piano would never be possible.
That she worked as a seamstress into her 80s and worked hard in what we would call menial positions.
That she reaped the benefits of the social programs of FDR and because of them, was able to live on her own until finally she had to go to the Kahl home, a place she had worked earlier in her life, to be tended by the Catholic charities for whom she had also worked.
That she had suggestions for how to life my life, but they were neither mandates, nor things I would not do willingly.
That she had become a part of my life, incorporated into my being like mixing pancake batter.
That she would come to adore her great granddaughter and be the first to offer her a piece of meat at a family meal.
That she would be sorely missed when she died while we lived in the Calumet.
Thanksgiving was a quiet day at our house. Neighbors were off with their parents, and the two of us prepared a simple meal of holiday fare.
We made some of our favorite dishes — home made baked beans and wild rice. Both of these have complicated recipes so they are relegated to days that can be devoted to cooking.
I worked the phone in the morning, but after that, could be found in the kitchen. I left the house one time — to empty the compost bucket.
The meal was a success, although the baked bean recipe requires some tweaking. I wrote it in my red book of recurring recipes with a note for next time.
The surprise was that seeing the pie pumpkin on the counter I decided to cook it, even though it wasn’t on the menu. I made a loaf of pumpkin bread and roasted the seeds. I made two cups of cooked pumpkin into one-cup balls and froze them for later. I served sliced pumpkin bread with home made apple butter on top at the meal.
Today I return to the home, farm and auto supply store where it is the eight-hour Black Friday sale. I have to be there when the doors open at 6 a.m. I also work on Saturday and there are plenty of uses for the extra money. For now, it’s my main source of socialization outside of home.
I placed a couple of on line orders this week. One for the bulk of my garden seeds for 2020 and another for a sweatshirt a size smaller than I have been wearing. I’ve maintained the 14 percent weight loss created by my anti-diabetes regimen and the current size is too bulky. We’ll see how that goes.
Our daughter had a twelve hour shift working for the mouse yesterday. At a thousand miles away it’s too far away and too busy there for a visit. Thanksgiving was the two of us sustaining a life in a turbulent world.
It’s no surprise someone like me would choose blogging as a form of political and social engagement.
During the 2004 primary and general elections, with an accompanying increase in the importance of the internet, short-piece writing was a way to combat the effectiveness of conservative media while providing an outlet for creative impulses.
I wrote letters to the editors of newspapers and in 2007 started a blog.
In their book Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, authors Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer wrote:
Seeing the success conservatives had had in the 1990s using innovative media forms like talk radio, the internet, and cable to challenge a Democratic administration, liberals tried to form the same sort of media resistance now that there was a Republican in the White House.
Among other things, the 2004 presidential election campaign gave rise to Air America Radio, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Daily Kos, and Talking Points Memo. During the second term of the Bush administration, localized, self-financed blogs began to appear in many states, such as Iowa’s John Deeth Blog, Blog for Iowa, and Bleeding Heartland.
Caucusing for John Kerry was the beginning of my return to politics after a long hiatus to pursue career-minded support for our family. My first blog posts were the text of a letter to the editor about John Edwards, a piece on Norman Mailer, a report on the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner, and a report on a fund raiser for county sheriff and board of supervisor candidates. My readership has been small but the creative outlet was important.
Posts on the Blogger platform served as an experiment in using the new format. I decided it would be viable and wrote on May 31, 2009:
During the last 560 posts on Big Grove News I have reflected what is going on in our world from the perspective of a small property in Big Grove Township. I was encouraged to write this blog by our daughter to bridge the distance between Iowa and the then far away Walt Disney World. It was never meant to be anything but a way to communicate with those closest to me. It is rooted in that English literature history of text and diary, and I attempted to make the language my own. It is that, rough and fractured at times, and in my view, a few times pretty good. I am glad for this gift of the internet and the way it has brought our family closer together.
And now we come to what modern social networking has become. Not only do we meet and discuss ideas with people. We engage in exposition with these same friends, acquaintances and strangers through social media on the internet. As I went through the time since my Nov. 10, 2007 post in Big Grove News, I have learned how to use the internet as a way to connect with people. Looking back on the Big Grove News posts, I can see that I began a journey out of the English literature tradition of text and diary into something else.
My friend Aletia Morgan encouraged me to join Facebook and it opened up a new world of communication that has replaced the printed newspaper that used to find its way to our mailbox. On Facebook I can publish links, photographs, notes and video clips and circulate them in a way that seemed impossible before. I can read about what my “friends” have posted and what ideas they are considering. When we get together in person, I find it has enriched our relationship. They say it is hard to manage more than 150 relationships with people in life and there is likely a limit to how many Facebook friends we can find meaningful. The thing is, we have to tend to these relationships by thinking before posting and making sure we purge inactive relationships and replace them with ones that have more hope. We are still exploring the world of Facebook and other social networking media.
There are other social media and they are each equally important. LinkedIn brings people into the network who do not want to use Facebook. Twitter is another blog feed that is better than conventional news media in keeping us informed about what’s going on. Flickr is a way to post photographs and make them visible to a wider audience. Figuring out how to use all of this has been a process, one that will continue as the social networking media develops. It is so much easier to stay in touch with people using these tools.
After that, I moved to WordPress.
Fast-forward to 2019 and I’ve been able to develop a readership based partly on this blog, but also on other social media. I continue to write posts because they are being read by a broader audience. Last Thursday at a political fund raiser, several people remarked about my writing and that type of recognition also keeps me going.
I’m also getting better at writing posts that get broader circulation. This year the number of views on this site hit a new record high. This is attributable to posting about things few others are covering.
My coverage of the November Solon School Board election drove new records. No one in other media was covering the race and there was a significant interest in selecting two of six candidates running for election. While people were posting comments about the race in other social media, no one was writing stories analyzing the race. The combination of unique content and ability to post in social media brought a record number of viewers to my site.
My posts about Democratic presidential candidates were also top viewed posts, including those about Julián Castro, Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigieg. At the time, few were covering these candidates and my succinct and timely reports from local events drove viewership.
There was also the news that Congressman Dave Loebsack was retiring. My history with Dave began with a 2005 email after he announced his exploratory committee. When he took the step from considering to announcing retirement, I had enough background with his campaigns and career in the Congress to understand what happened and quickly posted about it in a meaningful way.
I like being read. If I weren’t, I would stop writing. What matters more is making a difference in society and to the extent I can keep mining contemporary experience for events and phenomena that merit wider consideration, I expect to continue to gain wider readership. That makes writing in this format something I value.
Like a coat rack in the back hallway of our childhood home I hang memories on each of the American presidents who held office since graduating from high school.
The worn hooks are Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.
The memories are personal and integrated into who I am as an American living in Iowa. To the degree I’m American, these memories are sharable.
Book ended by the most reviled, Reagan and George W. Bush also deserve their own special place in hell. I worked to find some redeeming qualities about each of them. It was hardest with the current president.
I looked up President Trump’s inaugural address and listened to it again. My memory was turning off the video on inauguration day after the sentence, “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” The speech came from left field, from a country I did not know.
Watching the entire speech for the first time yesterday I can see why his core supporters like him. I can also see truth in the Politifact fact-checking of the speech. Trump referred to “all Americans.” Since day one of his administration I haven’t felt included in this group. That feeling has been stoked ever since with little hope of resolution. For Trump, “all Americans” includes only his supporters.
The other memory of Trump is how outside interests funded by dark money have run the administration. It began when the Heritage Foundation sent out swat teams to investigate each aspect of the executive branch shortly after the inauguration. It continued with the Federalist Society proposing judges to fill the many vacancies held open by Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley while Barack Obama was in office. Grassley recently pointed to Trump’s policy regarding the appointment of judges as a key reason for Republicans to hold their nose and support the president’s re-election effort. My memory is Trump as the disengaged, self-centered billionaire in an office he recognizes he has no capacity to manage.
While Ronald Reagan ranks among the worst presidents, his administration was buffered by his affable manner and effective use of media to convey a sense of warmth as him minions stripped away a society risen from the ashes of the second world war. His work was intentional and directed, like all of the Republicans who held this office. Reagan must be given credit for the intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement (INF) with the Soviet Union. It was a big deal then and gave those of us in the nuclear freeze movement hope. Trump, with the counsel of John Bolton, threw the INF into the trash heap.
My memory of George W. Bush is from Philadelphia, shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. I was on Interstate 95 heading into the Bartram Gardens area where I managed a trucking fleet. Bush’s motorcade was on the other side of the interstate heading back to the airport to return to Washington. In that moment, whatever hope I had Bush would pull the country together after the terrorist attacks was dashed. He made the trip early in the morning and finished by 10 a.m. It was a publicity event that had little impact on the national interest. It was unclear to me why he would spend so much money for what must have been a one to two hour publicity event. I remember other things didn’t make sense during the Bush administration. More than this, his invasion of Iraq made the least sense and proved to be a costly error. That is, unless one was a contractor who profited from the debacle.
Richard Nixon was proof there would be consequences for lying liars who held the office of president. He did form the Environmental Protection Agency but that was only a calculation that doing nothing to protect the environment would hurt him politically.
Gerald Ford was a non-entity who was not Nixon and that is my memory of him. Instead of seeing his failure to get a grip on the economy, I entered military service and spent most of my time in a confined silo that interacted with the presidency in a much different way. I accepted the premise of his presidency, that it was a time to heal after the disaster that was Nixon.
Conservatives who gave us Reagan ultimately didn’t care for George H.W. Bush. Bush’s foreign affairs experience helped his administration deal with the breakup of the Soviet Union without going to war. The United States became the only super power under his leadership. In domestic affairs, Bush was a supporter of the Americans with Disabilities Act. While he had some redeeming qualities, conservatives continued to have too much sway in his administration. I was satisfied when Bill Clinton defeated him in the 1992 general election.
I also have memories to hang on Democratic presidents. None of them were saints. All of them did things I didn’t care for. They were welcome respite from a conservative movement that continues to gain strength long after the coalition that elected Ronald Reagan was formed. My story about Democratic presidents is for another day.
I didn’t know where bartering labor for local food would lead. In retrospect, it was not about economics, but learning, access to a greenhouse and participating in farm life.
This Feb. 1, 2013 email to Susan Jutz, one of the first organic farmers and community supported agriculture farm operators in the state got things going.
Susan:
Hope you are staying warm. I have an interest in developing a deeper relationship with producing local foods. While our kitchen garden is doing well, I want to explore the possibility of doing more with local foods to provide a source of income. This is a long range project, and if you offer it, I would like to exchange my labor for a share of your CSA this season.
I think you would find this a cheap and reliable source of farm labor, and what I would get out of it would be a deeper knowledge of how you do your work.
What do you think?
Regards, Paul
She accepted my offer and I’ve been working at Local Harvest ever since. When Carmen Black bought the farm and CSA operation from Susan, I stayed on. I plan to return next year.
In seven seasons I’ve learned a lot about food production. This year’s garden was the best ever, and if I had more time it could be better still. The education I gained has been valuable and I’m ready for next steps.
I engaged with three farms in 2019: Sundog Farm where Carmen lives, Wild Woods Farm where Kate Edwards leases land, and at Wilson’s Orchard owned by Sara Goering and Paul Rasch. Before tax income was $2,423.08 in cash with another $861.75 in bartered goods comprised of vegetables, greenhouse space, and soil mix for home use. I scheduled my work to do soil-blocking at Sundog Farm and Wild Woods Farm beginning in March, finishing in June. That gave me a month off before working at the orchard sales barn where the season runs from Aug. 1 through Oct. 31. I plan leave work at Wild Woods Farm in 2020 which frees up a day a week for gardening.
What else can I learn? Having a place to ask questions about vegetable and fruit growing is important to a gardener. The greenhouse space remains important, although eventually I’ll want to do this at home. Perhaps most valuable is participating in farm life, getting to know young farmers, workers and volunteers and the challenges they face in farming and in life generally.
Our home freezer and pantry are loaded with produce and that’s one measure of success of what began as a barter arrangement. As winter approaches there is a lot to consider for 2020.
Incumbent Adam Haluska and newcomer Jami Wolf bested the field of six candidates for director of the Solon School Board.
Preliminary vote totals released by the county auditor show at least 1,174 voters cast a ballot, although the final numbers won’t be available for a few days.
Voter turnout was more than double the last school board election in 2017. With six candidates active, their campaigns boosted turnout by activating networks of friends and family who didn’t vote in 2017. That combined with the aftershock of this year’s contract negotiations with the teacher’s union increased the size of the electorate. That’s good for our governance.
Unofficial Results
It’s about time a woman was part of the school board again. Jami Wolf ran a solid campaign and had a unique personal story and message seeking inclusion of all families and their students in the school. Her hashtag #ForAllFamilies proved to be a winner.
If poorly executed contract negotiations with the teacher’s union drove a high number of candidates, the message from the electorate was that Adam Haluska’s explanations of board missteps were accepted and could be forgiven. That will likely hold true in 2021 for whichever of the three board members whose terms expire run for reelection. In the life of Solon schools, it was a bump in the road, one I believe will fade in memory by the time of the next school board election.
There was no shortage of qualified candidates. I hope Ortega, O’Neil, Stahle and Wear consider running again in 2021 when three board seats will be up. With this election in the books, our attention now turns to the 2020 general election less than a year away.
I congratulate the winners and hope board directors learned a lesson from their mishandling of contract negotiations.
Gold Rush and Snow Sweet apples purchased on the last day of the season, Oct. 31, 2019.
The soybean harvest was disrupted by snowfall.
Several inches fell in the last 48 hours. Farmers came to town, including to the home, farm and auto supply store.
It will be a wet crop, propane prices are already higher. The main worry is when will farmers be able to get soybeans and corn out of the field. There’s no clear answer.
Farmers sought things to help deal with unexpected winter weather: boots, gloves, salt, sand, feed, bedding, shovels, and the like. We do a fair amount of trade during and after snowstorms.
Employees who farm called in asking for an additional shift because they can’t get in the fields. Our pay is meager, but off-farm income is important in the financial calculus of small-scale farming.
In the nearby county seat there is little discussion of the daily lives of row croppers and livestock producers. Those city folk come to our store, but to purchase pet food, shovels for the walk, disposable hand warmers, and ice melting compounds less harmful to pets. We cater to everyone.
After my shift I diverted along the Interstate to visit the orchard sales barn on the last day of the season. While there, I was recruited to work an event in December. Details are sketchy but why wouldn’t I do it?
I picked a dozen Gold Rush apples for storage and another five Snow Sweet for fresh eating. There were still a lot of apple varieties available.
Hurrying home, I made final preparations for Halloween, which included sweeping and salting the front steps, preparing a bowl near the door for treats, and baking pizza for dinner. Our visitors during the two-hour window for trick or treating were neighborhood children, many of whom made a previous costumed appearance on their parents’ social media accounts.
Regarding the Nov. 5 election, I’m settling into choices. I asked around about the election of our trustee on the Kirkwood Community College board and plan to vote for the incumbent, Tracy Pearson. For school board my decision is not final. I’m leaning toward Carlos Ortega and Jami Wolf. I also like Lauren O’Neil. If she doesn’t win this time I hope she runs again in 2021 when three positions are up. I’ve written so much about the school board election I thought it important to communicate where I’m landing. It seems doubtful most of the hundreds of post readers will find this obscure reference to the election. I’m okay with that. It’s not about me.
Today’s edition of the Solon Economist hasn’t been posted on line. The paper copy will arrive with the letter carrier late today, although I may try to find one on the way to my shift at the home, farm and auto supply store.
Once I read the school board candidate questionnaire responses, I will have finished gathering most of the input to determine which two of six candidates for whom I’ll vote on Nov. 5. After determining my votes I’ll begin outreach to friends and neighbors asking them to vote with me. My initial canvass indicated many people don’t plan to vote this election. In a low-information, low-turnout election, that could be the difference in which candidates are the top vote-getters.
When writing about the election there is a line between public and private information. I’ve been diligent about keeping emails, phone calls and meetings private even if they help inform my choice of candidates. It would be unfair and wrong to disclose publicly what someone told me privately. I can see why journalists and responsible bloggers try to keep those separate.
Neither of the major newspapers, the Iowa City Press Citizen nor the Cedar Rapids Gazette, has provided much coverage of the election. There was an initial report after the filing deadline, but since then, nary a printed word. Because of that, readership of this blog, where I am covered major aspects of the campaigns, catapulted to new highs. The blog set records for number of page views of single post, daily, weekly and monthly statistics. Because of the school board articles my annual readership is the highest it’s ever been with 10 weeks left in the year. The number of views rivals my best days as a freelancer at the Iowa City Press Citizen.
I shouldn’t have to fill the gap in news coverage but that’s where this lands. I feel a responsibility to get the story right while knowing my point of view is influenced by living in the community since 1993. Because of relationships with friends and neighbors I have a deeper understanding of segments of our community. I work toward unbiased reporting while my academic studies indicated that’s not really possible. Every writer, including me, has some axe to grind.
Writing about the school board election includes fairness and presentation of accurate information. Without that, what’s the point? I’m working without an editor so I had a misstep or two, which were fixed as quickly as feasible. No one is perfect. I feel a responsibility to our community to create a reasonable narrative from diverse and uneven information from and about the candidates. It is not obvious what that narrative should be.
It has been my pleasure to interact with the six candidates during the last week or so. It takes courage to put one’s name in the arena of competitive elections. As I’ve written previously, there are no clinkers this cycle, only the challenge of securing facts upon which to make our decisions. Hopefully these posts contribute to that endeavor.
Thanks for reading. To view the series of posts, click on this link to the tag 2019 SSB Election.
Stage Crew Reunion, Coal Valley, Ill. Oct. 19, 2019
Over the weekend ten former members of our high school stage crew gathered for a reunion at a private home in Coal Valley, Ill.
I made apple crisp from backyard apples, picked up some sweet cider and a host gift of dessert apples at the orchard, and drove into the Mississippi valley.
It’s been decades since conversing with some of my friends. I didn’t know what to expect. The investment of time and energy yielded a positive return.
Spending time with a specific cohort is a little weird from the get-go. Most of my days are now spent either at home, or with a diverse group of peers whose ages range from teenager to octogenarian. All of us at the reunion had birth dates within a small range. I was the oldest.
In four cases attendees resembled other siblings closer to my age. Once I got through the kinship embarrassment we moved on to more positive topics. The afternoon into evening was a series of individual and group conversations set in different parts of the property, culminating in a potluck dinner and photo. There were a couple of takeaways.
As I drove through the Illinois side of the Mississippi toward the reunion I noticed high water from flooding. Some parts of Rock Island County have been flooded for more than 100 days according to one reunion attendee. On Sept. 27, Michelle O’Neil of National Public Radio reported the administration granted Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s request for a federal disaster declaration there. River flooding has been particularly bad in the county this year.
While our conversations were not “political” the way Facebook, Twitter and other social media are, we covered a number of politicians, including Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, and Governor Steve Bullock and Senator Jon Tester from Montana. I was pleased to hear Mike Matson won his Oct. 8 Davenport mayoral primary. The Elizabeth Warren bumper sticker on my vehicle went unmentioned and despite the fact most present live in Iowa, there was no discussion of the February 2020 Iowa caucuses.
A group gathered near the smoker where our host was preparing hot dogs and beans for the potluck. The conversation turned to answering the question “which types of medicine are you or have you taken?” It was a very long conversation, complicated by various maladies and medical conditions of group members. Taking only a lose-dose aspirin and a B-12 vitamin, by the end of the conversation I felt I had escaped something.
As we settled inside for dinner, the soundtrack was music that included drummer Ginger Baker who died Oct. 6. Four of us played together in a band during the early 1970s. Our set list included songs by Cream’s Eric Clapton.
The reunion was a reminder of the mostly male environment in which we attended high school. Only two female spouses were present, our host and another who came so the host wouldn’t be the only female in an otherwise male group. Until senior year our high school segregated men and women in different parts of the building. By being on stage crew and in my case, in chorus, we did see some of the women in our high school. As I went on to military service after college, the mostly male upbringing continued.
Our society doesn’t include many stage crew reunions. A lot of folks don’t attend more inclusive high school reunions. If our host Mike hadn’t been motivated to get the crew together this one wouldn’t have happened either. I’m glad it did.
Journey Home 
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