Growing Up

Jane Ann and Mary Pat Peasley 1944

When I was visiting my mother over Thanksgiving, I left Creston with a zip lock bag full of photos.  My mother wanted us to go through an enormous box and take the photos we wanted (she is trying to get rid of things), but my brother Larry pointed out that many of them might be of interest to more than one sibling. Instead he suggested the photos be scanned and shared, and I volunteered to make a start on the project.

At the Knudson House 1949

I began scanning the photos last week and, to my surprise, became fascinated with them.  Some were pictures of us kids when were small, but the most interesting pictures were those of my mother from the 1940s when she was a girl on the farm in LaHarpe through her high  school and college years, her marriage to my dad and ending with her life as a young wife and mother. Somewhere along the way she stopped being Mary Pat and became Pat (doubtless more fashionable).

The photos chart her evolution from a plain teenager squinting awkwardly into

Pat Peasley and Don Hall 1950

the sun, trombone in hand, next to her pretty younger sister, through her first two years of college at a girls' school through a summer job at the Knudson House, a resort in Wisconsin, through library school at the University of Illinois where she met my father. A photo booth picture shows a young couple radiant with glasses glare and happiness. By her account, she loved library school and enjoyed some extracurricular activities -- there is a wonderful

Pat Peasley at the U of I 1951

picture of her as Bing Crosby with three male library students in drag.

Some people (not very many) are born lovely and stay that way (Angelina Jolie and Ron's sister Susan come to mind), but most people grow into their looks and, like my mom, are most attractive in their 20s, when, often, they marry.

There is at least one benefit to middle age though -- I'm past my peak attractive stage and am not too worried about how I look. Frankly I like it -- feeling this way frees up a lot of time and money.

I sure wish that I had taken more pictures from my mom's house though -- I'm already done with the batch I took!  I need to get back soon.

Fairfield and Revelations

Growing up in Creston, Iowa, I made many, many trips in the family station wagon down Highway 34 to Illinois to visit my grandparents in LaHarpe. It was a boring drive and we got to know the order of the towns along the way -- Osceola, Chariton, Ottumwa, Fairfield, Mount Pleasant, Burlington.  We seldom stopped -- there was nothing to stop for.

After I married and moved to Illinois, I traveled often to Creston to see my parents, usually taking the Illinois back roads up through LaHarpe, crossing the Mississippi at Burlington then taking Highway 34. I don't know how I discovered Revelations  off the Fairfield square, maybe 15 years ago, but I knew when I walked in that it was a gem. Here were well-marked used books lining every room and, toward the back, a counter selling coffee and food.  As I sat munching my organic sandwich, I noticed something else -- Revelations customers weren't the usual Iowa Walmart clientele -- instead they were a fascinating mix of small town moms and kids and some very nontypical hippie-types wearing bandannas and sandals sporting backpacks and body piercings.

It turned out that these unusual customers were students and faculty at Maharishi University of Management, which had bought the Fairfield campus of the now defunct Parsons College in 1973, creating a media bonanza at the time for the Des Moines Register and massive interest among us bored small-towners. For a while we speculated that a bunch of crazies wearing robes and beads were going to take over Fairfield, but that didn't happen. Instead Fairfield morphed into an interesting and progressive town, with a large population of artists and an active cultural life.

Revelations grew as well, and now occupies two buildings, including upstairs and basements.  The food is interesting with selections like an avocado and feta sandwich with fresh tomatoes, mayonnaise, and baby spinach on toasted local wheat bread.  Because the building used to be a pizzeria, it boasts an Italian wood-fired oven and the pizzas are incomparable. Selections (which are also mostly organic) include the Revelations pizza with local organic mozzarella, grilled onions, greek olives, garlic, fresh mushrooms, roasted red peppers and basil pesto (local when available).   And of course you can still buy books or Iowa memorabilia.

Highway 34 has been rerouted around the town, and it is harder to get to Revelations, but we always make a side trip. It's definitely worth it.

Games

Games were a part of Hall family gatherings when I was growing up. I guess it was a way to involve five kids, but also I think both my parents enjoyed them. We played games like Masterpiece, Monopoly, Yahtzee and Scrabble, as well as card games like Spoons and Crazy Eights. I remember my dad trying to teach us kids Pinochle and making an elaborate series of charts showing card values and scoring.

One of my favorite games was Charades and since many of my family members were dramatically inclined, this was quite enjoyable. One memorable charade had one of my brothers swimming on the floor, while another gazed up at the sky. The song -- "By the Light of the Silvery Moon."

When we were in Iowa over Thanksgiving, I took my latest obsession, a game called Blokus. This is a deceptively simple game that involves putting squares down on a board to try to get the most squares down while blocking opponents. I bought it originally to take to the girl that I mentor, but when I played it I realized that it was beyond her capabilities. However, Blokus is addictive and the more you play it, the better you get. I am hooked, and occasionally Ron even consents to play with me,

Lately I discovered that games are available in the App Store on my iPAD. I started with Solitaire, which I have played endlessly, but unfortunately not won endlessly. I then got a gift card for iTunes and promptly bought the full version of Scrabble. Usually I play against the computer and I thought I was pretty good until I hit the "Hard" level and discovered that most of the words that the computer comes up with are words that are totally unknown to me.

A limited version of Blokus is also available as a free app, but I have to pay about five dollars to buy the full version of the game.  I know that's not a lot, but I am cheap and it seems frivolous to spend money on a game. I'll probably get it though. What can I say -- I love my iPAD!

Nests in winter

Except for the evergreens and the pin oaks, the trees in this part of the world are all bare now. It was a beautiful fall, and the trees were ablaze with yellow and red leaves, but within a few November days the weather turned cold and the trees dropped their leaves.

The tree branches are bare now, exposing what the leaves were hiding.  Secluded houses, obscured by a wall of greenery in the summer, are now visible along with junked cars, piles of trash, and cloudy sky.

You can also spot nests in the bare branches. The small, neat nests belonged to birds, most of which have left this area for the winter while the bigger, messier nests belong to squirrels who  are having a heyday in our backyard. In the summer you could hear them running across the roof, but now that the leaves are gone, you can also see them running around through the trees, jumping from branch to branch, chasing each other.

Seeing the nests in the bare branches made me think that people are like trees.  When we are young, we are beautiful, or at least as good-looking as we are going to get. But we don't realize this, and instead we spend an inordinate amount of time picking out clothes and makeup will enhance our attractiveness.

Luckily, when we reach middle age, we lose our fascination with outward appearances (or at least most of us do). We have dropped our leaves, so to speak, baring the nests in our branches. Whatever it is that makes us who we are is exposed. Some have no nests in our branches, but many of us do. The nests can be old wounds or insecurities or an inability to forgive ourselves. The nests can also positive, like a great relationship between spouses or a strong belief in God.

In this part of the world, spring eventually comes and trees sprout pale green leaves. Soon the branches are again covered, and we forget about the nests, but they are still there, under the leaves. The nests in the trees don't disappear, and neither do ours, but we can decide to acknowledge them during the chill of winter or sigh and wish that spring would come soon.

Iowa, the Knotty Pine and Thanksgiving

 We drove to Iowa last Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and siblings. Going over, we took a route through that crossed the Mississippi at Hannibal, then headed up through up through northern Missouri into southern Iowa. The land is hilly and not good for crops -- mostly pastures. Abandoned houses in various states of decay litter the landscape --rather than than tear down a farmhouse when they moved, the inhabitants just left.

After about six hours of driving, we arrived in Creston, a town of roughly 8,000 people. Dinner was at the Knotty Pine, on a hill outside of Afton, where we ate some wonderfully complex steaks and enjoyed the hunting lodge decor -- deer heads and pheasant festooning the walls while a stuffed wildcat perched on the bar.

While the turkey was cooking the next day, we went to Creston's deserted downtown. Bernings Café, once a local hot spot where all five of us Hall kids worked, is no longer in business. Even on a regular day, there isn't much going on downtown. Most of the stores are closed -- run out of business by Wal-Mart. I remember walking downtown on Saturday 40 years ago for a lemon Coke at Hansen's Drug Store after sighing over Bobby Sherman in 16 Magazine, shopping for bell bottoms at JCPenney's, and checking out books at the Matilda J. Gibson Library.

On the way home on Friday, we stopped in Eldon, the location of the house that was used in Grant Wood's famous painting American Gothic.We had our picture taken in front of the house in American Gothic garb -- fun (even though the picture didn't turn out very well).

Back home on Friday, we introduced Chelsea's boyfriend Chris, who had brought her down from Elgin, to the Springfield horseshoe. The horseshoe is a real gut-bomb, invented right here in Springfield. In a horseshoe, toast, some kind of meat, and fries are covered in cheese sauce. Sounds gross but it tastes great.Chris pronounced it "fantastic." Saturday was Chelsea's 22nd birthday, which we celebrated in style at a local restaurant with Emily and Jake (note -- no horseshoes were consumed).

Today after church we went over to Ron's folks for dinner and afterwords Chelsea and Chris checked out his dad's 3-D TV with dark glasses.  All in all-- a great holiday!

Unanticipated freedom and Lincoln Memorial Gardens

Intrepid photographer

It was very liberating to me when, last week, during the unseasonably warm weather we were having, Ron and I went to Lincoln Memorial Gardens. We live close to the Gardens and went there a lot when the girls were little, but we haven't been there lately. Now that Ron is interested in photography, we decided to visit again.

I took my scooter, assuming I could only access the paved trails, but when we started exploring I discovered, to my delight, that the scooter could go "off-road," handling the unpaved trails with no problem. This gave me a feeling of unexpected freedom and Ron took a number of pictures (see below).

Jens Jensen

This morning, a fog enveloped the yard and Ron decided to go to the Gardens again. I stayed home and found the following article in today's paper -- "Celebrating Jens Jensen, preserver of Midwest landscapes" -- interesting timing. Jensen designed the Gardens!

We are so fortunate to live near such a beautiful place, and I feel like it was an unexpected gift to be able to go on the trails. Life is full of surprises!

Lincoln Memorial Gardens Bay by Ron McDonald

Changes

As the parent of a 26-year-old daughter who is scheduled to marry an extremely nice young man in October,  I suffered a rude awakening when I began to help Emily plan the happy event.
 

1979 --Lena Hall, me and Julie Nelson

In 1979, when I married Emily's father we had a very modest wedding, even by Iowa standards. As the daughter of a frugal man, I wasn't interested in spending a lot of money on this event and besides this was still the era of hippies. Weddings were considered "establishment" and really cool people just lived in communes. My only sister was my (one) attendant and Bob asked a friend of his to stand up with him. The reception consisted of cake and punch in the church hall, followed by games and conversation on my parents' front porch. It actually was pretty fun.

Emily gets a kiss

In 1987, Emily was flower girl in October my brother Larry's wedding.  Was she ever cute!  She was an adorable flower girl, but shy -- halfway down the aisle, she broke away, ran over to my pew and buried her head in my lap.  Just too much for a 3-year-old.
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Fast forward to 2010. My first clue that things had changed was when Chelsea and I were watching a reality show called "Say Yes to the Dress." During the show, willing salespeople bring young women mountains of wedding dresses, which are then modeled by the girls for their mothers and friends. The show's drama comes from the angst that these young women experience as they try to figure out what dress to purchase. Invariably, the dress they love the most costs more than what they have intended to spend. I would not be saying yes to any of these dresses -- they're way too expensive to be to be worn once, regardless of the significance of the occasion!

Emily and Jake have selected a venue for their October wedding/reception and I am attempting to adjust my expectations to present day when six attendants are the norm and the reception could be a sit-down dinner for 150. It's a far cry from cake and punch in the church, but times have changed and I need to change too. They are a lovely couple and the wedding will be beautiful!

Jake and Emily

Tennis and heaven

Last weekend, Radio Lab featured a segment called When Am I Dead? containing a story called "Anyone for Tennis?" that particularly intrigued me.  In the story, British neuroscientist Adrian Owen talked about his research with patients in a vegetative state.

Dr. Owen said that when a healthy patient is given a verbal command to imagine that he or she is playing tennis, there is immediate activity in the brain. To see if patients in a vegetative state had similar brain activity, Dr. Owen tested a group of 20 patients who had been totally vegetative for several months.  When the first patient was put into an MRI and told to imagine that she was on the tennis court, there was activity in her brain. When she was told to relax, the activity stopped. Deep within her brain, the woman was "playing tennis."

Amazed, Dr. Owen concluded that at some level, the woman must still be "there." Only 2 additional patients out of the 20 showed similar activity, but Dr. Owen hastened to add that this did not necessarily mean the unresponsive patients were"dead"; instead, they might be deaf and unable to hear the cues.

The story made me wonder about quality of life for the first woman. What part of her brain was still functioning? What was her life like? What part of her was still residing in her body? No one really knows what it's like to be in a vegetative state. We don't know what kind of consciousness that person has or if they are still "there."

I believe that each person has a soul and, at some point, that soul departs from the body. But now, with the advances in modern medicine, the answer to the question about when a person actually dies has become murky. We don't know, because the definition of death keeps changing.

This kind of story makes me glad that I filled out an advance directive when the Terri Schiavo story hit. I do believe that, because of Jesus, I will go to heaven when I die, and it makes the idea of dying almost inviting, especially in the face of a future with a chronic progressive disease like MS. But, all that said, the decision to leave life is a wrenching one and not easily made. Life is God's ultimate gift to us, with all its many pleasures, and it is very difficult to leave.

archy and mehitabel and musings on the role of reporters

archy and mehitabel by Don Marquis was one of my favorite books when I was growing up. Written back in the 1920s, the book is a collection of Marquis' newspaper columns supposedly penned by a cockroach named archy who would creep into the newsroom at night and painstakingly compose poems on Marquis' typewriter. Because archy wasn't strong enough to reach the shift key, the poems were all in lowercase letters. It was an intriguing conceit and archy was one heck of a poet for a cockroach. 

For example, in "the coming of archy"  he wrote:

expression is the need of my soul

i was once a vers libre bard

archy

but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach

it has given me a new outlook upon life

i see things from the under side now

thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket

but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it

there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have

removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she

catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore

there is a rat here she should get without delay

Mehitabel was an extraordinary cat with a checkered past who came to be archy's friend (when he wasn't worried that she would eat him). Here's part of "the song of mehitabel" :

my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret

mehitabel

wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

the things that i had not ought to
i do because I ve gotto
wotthehell wotthehell
and i end with my favorite motto
toujours gai toujours gai

boss sometimes I think
at our friend mehitabel
is a trifle too gay

There are few typewriters today and no place for archy in the newspaper world. Newspaper circulation and advertising are on the decline -- why subscribe or advertise if you can read the news for free on the web? But the web does not discriminate: some content is well researched and well written; other writing is inferior. It is up to the visitor to judge the value of what he or she reads.

Some might say that this is the way it should be -- that even the most impartial writer presents information that has a bias. However, I would prefer to get my information from a source that I knew to be well-educated and ethical. Journalism school teaches good reporting and writing as well as ethics. Some writers on the Internet are not so well credentialed.

Some of archy's observations are as true today as they were in 1927:

if you get gloomy just
take an hour off and sit
and think how
much better this world
is than hell
of course it won t cheer
you up much if
you expect to go there

Twila and the Sangamon Ordnance Plant

Sangamon Ordnance Plant

For several years now I've been thinking about writing a novel centered around a young woman who works at the Sangamon Ordnance Plant. This was a huge facility of more than 1,000 buildings that manufactured ammunition near here during World War II. The idea appealed to me for two reasons: first, I saw the ruins of the plant in the cornfields and they captured my imagination, and second, I found out that a woman I know who worked there more than 65 years ago.

Twila with Ron's grandpa

The woman's name is Twila and I got to know her almost 20 years ago when she married Ron's grandfather after his grandmother passed away. Twila seemed like an interesting woman, but we lost touch after Ron's grandfather died. Two years ago though, after a review of my book appeared in a local publication, she called me. That's like her -- she is very assertive and forthright. She is also 91 years old.

Twila at the plant

After she called, I began to visit her each week on my lunch hour because my office was near her condominium. It was really fun getting to know her and after I began to record her reminiscences, I learned that she had been employed as a young woman at the Sangamon Ordnance Plant. Already interested in the plant, this was fascinating and I began to research the plant. One day, up in the Sangamon Valley Collection at Lincoln Library, I came across a company newsletter that showed the plant's employees. I scanned the faces, then remember that she said she had worked in the timekeeping department. Fortunately that department had few employees and there in the front row was Twila, then in her in her early 20s, just starting out in life. When I showed Twila a copy of the photo she said, "Yes, that's me.  I remember that dress!"

Twila now lives in an independent living facility in Springfield, and I see her less often. She is still very cogent but she doesn't remember many details about the Sangamon Ordnance Plant. After all, it was 65 years ago! She has expanded on  her personal life including a career and three marriages, and I believe there may be a novel in a character loosely based on her. I have a lot of admiration for this woman -- she is one tough cookie.

Dog Show!

Tibetan Mastiff

This weekend, Ron and I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Prairieland Classic Dog Show at the state fairgrounds. It's kind of ironic because we don't have a dog now, but Ron loves animals and I love dogs so we decided to go. It was really fun and a great education. I had no idea there were so many different breeds of dogs. I wish I would've had a dog guidebook to let me know what the different breeds were. A Tibetan mastiff won Best of Show on Saturday: that is one scary big dog.

Hercules

On Sunday, we went out to watch the breeder for Hercules, our dog who died a few years ago, show her Brussels Griffons. Hercules was a Brussels and his gentle nature won me over to dogs. At the show, I got to hold a black and tan Brussels Griffon on who was extremely cute. But the dog we both liked the best was a big dog owned by the son of our breeder, a Belgian Malinois. His dog is adorable --  she can do tricks like walking on her hind legs and jumping into her owner's arms. I was especially endeared to her when she began to nussle up and lick me --very affectionate!
  

Belgian Malinoi

Dog shows are interesting events. This poor quality video of an old Saturday Night Live skit is hilarious and really captures it. There are some effeminate men and masculine women who think nothing of putting dog treats in their mouths and brushing their hair with dog brushes.

 

Since we don't have a fenced yard and I am not able to take a dog out to relieve himself, getting a dog has to be something on which Ron buys in and so far he would rather have an African Grey!

African Grey

Now I'm Mad

Mad Men, the AMC show set in the 1960s with action revolving around the antics of employees at an advertising agency on Madison Avenue, aired the last episode of its fourth season last Sunday. I'm mad!  Now I have to wait until July to feed my addiction to this marvelous show.

A coworker of mine got me started watching the series a couple of years ago and it didn't take long to be hooked by the fantastic writing and dead-on attention to detail. In one early scene, two housewives were chatting in the kitchen. One, quite pregnant, was smoking a cigarette and drinking. A child ran in with a dry cleaning bag over her head and said "Don't I look funny Mommy?" The mother jumped her feet and yelled, "There better not be clothes on the floor in the other room!" That's the 60s as I remember them.

Things have definitely gotten better for women in business since the 60s. I remember the feminism of the 70s and when I see how oppressed women were in the 60s, I understand its roots a little better. One character, Peggy Olsen, has gone from a secretary in the first season to an up-and-coming copywriter now, dramatizing  success at rising above the few choices available to women at the time.

Probably my favorite character on the show is Pete Campbell, who started out as a reprehensible young sales rep for the agency and has developed into an interesting, multidimensional and not wholly unsympathetic character this season. You never know what's going to happen -- thus the plethora of blogs and podcasts about the show.  It's great entertainment, in a completely separate category from the glut of 'reality' shows.  Here's to more series like Mad Men!

St. Louis Zoo and the House of the Future

A week ago Friday, we went to St. Louis to the zoo. Last year, Ron began to take an interest in high dynamic range imaging or HDR photography and he wanted to pictures of the animals. He had the day off and I just wanted to get out of the house. It was was a beautiful day and ideal for animal watching.

Antelope?

Gorilla

We didn't get to the zoo until midafternoon, but I had my scooter so we were able to get around comparatively easily. Besides the usual number of mothers with young children, there were several young couples. Despite being pressed for time, Ron got some pretty impressive pictures.

House of the Future

The Twistee Freeze

On the way back we stopped at an antique mall near Highway 55 that has taken over a deserted school.  The mall was closed, but we stopped anyway. To attract the attention of the occupants of cars on the highway, the mall has acquired several large statues, like a giant man and a pink elephant. The most recent acquisition is a house that Ron said he remembered going through at the state fair years ago: the House of the Future. It looks quite dilapidated now, and makes me remember a trip to Seattle years ago where I visited the Space Needle and rode the Monorail. In the 60s, we really thought our lives would be like that: How wrong we were! Anyway Ron got a good picture of the house and we also had ice cream from the place next in school.

For a first outing after the trauma of breaking my hip, it was great! Now for a vacation...

If you copy these images, please credit Ron McDonald and link to this website.

Positive Thinking

"We cannot direct wind but we can adjust the sails" -- Author Unknown.

When I first started at BUNN 13 years ago, I decided to enroll in a Dale Carnegie course that was being held locally. I thought that it might help improve my self-confidence and presentation abilities.

Dale Carnegie

The Dale Carnegie course was extremely peppy. We began our weekly presentations by running to the front of the classroom, accompanied by the cheers of our fellow classmates.  It was kind of fun, and I thought it was beneficial, until toward the end, the course was marred by an ugly incident: the instructor's wife made a presentation that concluded with an inadvertent racial slur. As a result, the sole black member of the class walked out.  The black woman and I met for dinner and talked about what happened. I wasn't sure what to do, so for my next presentation, I gave a illustration from my own life where I had inadvertently offended a disabled person. My point was that even if the offense was inadvertent, an apology needs to be made to person and some sort of 'make good' as well; however, I think this was mostly lost on the class as well as the person who had made the offensive presentation. The woman, who had paid for the class out of her own pocket, never did come back.

I had pretty much forgotten about the course and this year I submitted an essay for one of the Chicken Soup books series, entitled Think Positive. The essay was accepted, the book was published last month, and last week Deborah Norville pitched it on Good Morning America. I got some free books out of the deal, a small payment and in the satisfaction of being published by a "legitimate" publisher. The essay was entitled "Unexpected Rewards" and, although it doesn't address racial problems, I guess I did learn something at that long ago Dale Carnegie course. The book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.