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.