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Happy Birthday Hawkeye State!

  


   Don't ever accuse WannaskaWriter of being from Iowa. He's liable to bite your head off. As was his mother before him, WW is a Palmvillian through and through. It was only by her chance meeting with WW's father while she was cooking for a threshing crew near Osnabrock, North Dakota that fate brought WW into the world in Des Moines, Iowa.
   All through WW's childhood, his parents brought him to Palmville to breathe his true native air. As soon as he was able, he bought a piece of Palmville and, shaking the dust of Iowa from his boots, considered himself home at last.
   But it's not easy to forgot the place that nourished you, and even WW will admit that Iowa played a part of shaping him. Take WW's accent for starters. People who grew up in Des Moines speak the North Midland dialect, while native Minnesotans speak what linguists call North Central American English. There's a subtle but telling difference.
   But enough about WW.  It's Iowa's birthday after all. On this day in 1846, Iowa became the 29th state. The first  Iowans had either arrived by crossing the Bering land bridge 13,000 years ago, or had simply popped out of the earth and had been there forever. It depends on whose story you listen to. No matter, all agree these early natives were hunter-gatherers.
   By the time Jolliet and Marquette arrived in 1673, the inhabitants had settled down and were growing corn and making pottery. The natives were happy to trade with the newcomers, but could not contend with the new diseases and hordes of well-armed settlers. By the 1850s all the Indians had been removed from the state, though a small remnant of Meskwaki were allowed to  return and buy land at Tama northeast of Des Moines.
   With statehood established in 1846, settlers flooded in to farm the prairies.  They came from Ohio and the mid-Atlantic states, mostly of German stock. By the start of the Civil War, Iowa had a large enough population to send 75,000 soldiers to fight for the Union. In fact Iowa sent a greater proportion of its men to the war than any other state, north or south. There were no battles in Iowa, but some of the shells from the battle of Athens, Missouri flew across the Des Moines river and landed in Iowa.
   The Great Depression and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s hit Iowa hard, but by the time of the Great Recession of the 2000s, Iowa had diversified its economy so that it suffered less than the rest of the country. Manufacturing is now a larger part of the state's economy than farming.
   It's a myth that Iowa is flat. It's mostly rolling, and there are areas in the northeast along the Mississippi that appear almost mountainous. The Loess Hills along the Missouri River in the west are considered highly scenic.
   Iowa is said to be one of the best states to do business. On the other hand, pollution from farm runoff and coal burning power plants is a concern, as is the brain drain of educated youth seeking better pay in other climes.
   WW was part of that drain, but it had to be. I have travelled to Iowa several times with him and it was most illuminating to see the scenes of his youth: the houses where he almost blew himself up and the venues where he came close to incarceration.  Despite its calm demeanor, Iowa can be a dangerous place. We are all happy that he has removed to the safety of Palmville Township.

HA (HollywoodActor); another Iowan who left home.





Comments

  1. Well, thanks for that. I was almost completely devoid of any even remote connection to Iowa, but just this morning my friggin' cellphone hasn't pinged me to that information at 5:45 AM! Who put that in there? YOU?. I'm thinkin' of renewing my tri-weekly appointments with my therapist, who, after 48 years, is one of the family by now. We had each begun a new life. She moved to Panama City. Retirement had just begun to bloom for me. My wife and I were making plans to go away for the winter, now anyplace south of here will ultimately remind me of, well, you know where.

    My nasal twang has reappeared. My mother's sister is my 'ant', again--not my 'aunt'. I had progressed so magnificently along that line that most Minnesotans heard a Scandinavian lilt to my voice, not generations of sod-buster slang. My sister, who lives in Metairie, Louisiana, doesn't speak North Midland dialect that I do, steeped as she is in the New Orleans dialects, even possessing the Louisianan le surnom 'Dixie'.

    No, I must accept that Iowa, for all concerned, has tattooed me for life. All those sessions of dermabrasion and laser surgery to remove the state of Iowa birthmark on the back of my neck below my hairline is the single reason I wear my hair long in back. Well that, and being unable to grow enough hair on top of my head ...

    Everywhere I go, everything I read on-line or in print, sooner or later has something about Iowa in it. I can't escape. Even my daughter's cellphone area code is 515 and she lives in Minnesota! How is this happening? Des Moines pops up in news sections on a daily basis. The Hawkeyes or The Cyclones or the other 52 sports teams vie for some regional title or other, all year, each year. I'm even dreading getting 50th high school reunion notices in the mail in 2019, because even though I've changed my addresses many times, even to South Dakota, but Iowa has found me!

    My mailbox is constantly overflowing with copies of Amana Colony Sauerkraut & Wine brochures, advertisement specials from the Grant Wood Gallery, newsprint issues of the Iowa State Fairgoer Weekly newsletter, the Iowa State Dairy Worker Alumni paper, the Des Moines Register Sunday Paper Assemblers Weekend News, a liquor store ad from north of Mercy Hospital, Marion Iowa's Business Weekly, Exira I-80 Truck Stop sales ads, Elkhart Towing Service, Winterset Covered Bridge Tours, Dallas Center Elevator calendars, Granger Gadgets Inventors Journal, Waukee Weekly, West Des Moines Steam Train History, Army Post Road articles from 1969-1971, statements from Iowa State Bank, well, I could go on and on. So I have to admit that even though your story didn't help matters, it's an on-going trauma that I've just learned to live with, and you have no control nor impact on it. Good luck in your writing career.

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    Replies
    1. Squipmaster, thanks for the honorific post for WW. Learned a lot. But did I want to? Hmmm . . . JPS

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  2. Wannaskan Almanac at its best, where the quality of sine comments rival that of the posts.

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  3. By the way, one of Steve's photographs was featured on yesterday's Wiktel home page, position #2.

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