Living in Iowa can be the gift

If you look under the tree, the gift of being plopped down in Storm Lake, Iowa, is readily apparent.

Bear with me here, it’s Christmas you old grouch.

It’s cold. For sure. It’s boring. That’s the age-old rap. The property taxes are pretty steep for what you get, and I am afraid that the legislature will attempt to address it and make things even worse. See, I’m already backsliding from a holiday point of view.

The church bells ring us home. Our reporter who moved here from the Twin Cities said the Methodist bells woke her up and she wondered what’s up with the ringing. Welcome to Storm Lake, where the noise of bells and leaf blowers reminds you that you are alive.

Catfish bigger than a tall tale. A college and a meatpacking plant west side and east. Old Swedes and young Latinos. A Catholic school and a public school. Two parties: Republican or Republican.

A lack of pretense, priceless.

We were born into the baby boom when the town was maybe half this size in 1957 just up Geneseo Street from the old water plant and bathhouse. The municipal band still plays on Sunday in the Sunset Park Bandshell. A rural county seat with flags on the courthouse square come Memorial Day. Paint it quaint.

How lucky can a person get?

Bloom with it.

Everything you need is within a two-mile stretch of Lake Avenue. People are genuinely thrilled when a KwikStar opens before Christmas featuring several different makes on the doughnut and free coffee until Dec. 22 (you snooze on the specials, you lose). Milk was $2.79 per gallon, without the bird flu, so what do I have to complain about?

The weather. And the government taking money under false pretenses. And the stench of manure everywhere.

Is this Heaven? No, it’s a protein factory that exploits Mexicans who move from town to town trying to take care of their families, like the Holy Family in the Bible. We are lucky to be among the chosen to walk with them if only in sympathy. They are persecuted for being poor.

People earn what they get here. It’s honest work. The pay does not reflect the value, never has. We do well enough. What more could you ask?

Well, that our health care could be better. Think if the profit off illness were dedicated to curing illness in Storm Lake, so you didn’t have to seek out a half-hearted system in Sioux City.

Our schools could improve. We used to have an orchestra. It used to be that we did not ban books. Iowa used to be Number One. We are allowing our heritage to wither. We are getting stupid enough not to recognize the gifts of freedom and democracy and rule of law and transparent markets.

It could be better. We could be smarter and not so … Iowish. Morally righteous to the point of offensive, socialist for me but not thee, and inherently stand-offish. Iowa remains not too bad, good enough for a town this size, better than a sharp stick in the eye.

We know each other. What value can you place on that? We are secure in our place, for now, among people we have known for so long, for generations, really. We are familiar. There is comfort in knowing who your people are.

They are an honest lot, without airs, willing to flip cartwheels for you if you show some respect and don’t ask them outright to flip cartwheels, most just looking for a fair deal. A lot of us have seen the worst, a lot of us are blissfully unaware. Old people here can tell you about swimming the Mekong River in dark of night, which isn’t a whole lot different than the Rio Grande. To those who made it, this seems like a promised land.

Which is a great thing, if you can keep it running like the electric train at Santa’s Castle.

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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