Iowa…I wonder too

I have a lot of really great friends. I never want for someone to meet for a beer of cup of coffee, for someone to share in the joy of my children’s exploits or even for the feeling that someone is there for me when things turn for the worse. I am happy that they are all interesting, nice people with varied outlooks and experiential bases and it makes my enjoyment of them more complete. The amazing thing about their unique and broad spectrum of personalities is that they all share one common question to me…”What the hell is this Iowa thing?” Sometimes it is a query of intrigue, sometimes of sarcasm but almost always has an undertone of sheer bafflement. I don’t know that I have ever been able to answer it to anyone’s (or even my own) satisfaction. I believe this because of the lack of commonality in their replies – “You mean like in Green Acres”, “I had a friend who lived in Nebraska”, “I’ve driven through there” and maybe the most honest…”Yikes!”

Like Claire (“Answer the question, Claire”) I want to answer the question but I don’t know a way to answer it that will be satisfying to my inquisitors and keep my social standing in place. So I guess the best way to proceed is to spew forth a series on unrelated images and thoughts that have somehow gelled in the fuzziness of my brain to make Iowa into a Garden of Eden for me.

1. Pie. Anything truly great starts with pie. Even drug store snack bars and gas stations there sell homemade pie. 
2. Beauty is simple. Rolling hills unfold in corn and barns and trees, unadorned and breathing. 
3. You can live the American Dream. You can buy a house with even an average job. 
4. They have parades and people go. It may not be Gary, Indiana. Heck, there might not be 101 coronets in the entire state, but they can celebrate with friends and not riot. 
5. My son will have similar chicken-freaks to cluck with. 
6. I saw an autumn changed oak that was so amazingly ablaze I know God created it. 
7. Cities and towns start and end. You live in town or out of town. 
8. They build new schools to better educate their kids. 
9. The weather is bad. I feel like we’ve gotten very soft and don’t respect nature the way we should. I can be hot or cold for awhile. 
10. It is really quiet. Not less noise quiet. Not the-construction-has-stopped quiet, but “make a noise so I can hear something” quiet. 
11. Barns are the coolest structures on earth. Born of necessity and seldom developed beyond utility….And red is pretty. 
12. Things are still grown and built and manufactured there. 
13. I don’t know that Iowa ever had a heyday (or if it did it was so long ago that it has left the common psyche). There is no sense of “The next big thing” coming to the rescue or grab hold of before it’s gone just a thankfulness for what you have and a pride in how you care for it. 
14. People can smile about the “Hokie” parts of their town. Tell you the things they don’t have with love in their voice. 
15. It’s not Nebraska. 

There probably isn’t anything that will make my friends feel I’m any less crazy for considering Iowa. For vacationing in the corn when I could afford the beach. For selling my house in the most killer location in Denver. For leaving family and friends collected over a lifetime. But I look forward to seeing them after awhile and telling them what my new home doesn’t have…And smiling.

NOW SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR PIE.

~Jeff