Today is the day Iowa breathes a sigh of relief. The circus of fools are gone. Today is celebration in Iowa. The mother-in-law finally went home. Your husbands stinking best friend is no longer sleeping on the couch. That stray mangy cat finally moved on to another neighbor. That obnoxious smell in the refrigerator has been located and taken out to the garbage.

The Dems are gone.

This really made me smile. These guys know a good thing. Some of Iowa's finest, growing the finest, a half a world away.

In my recent post on Bootlegging, Chelle brought back some memories of a few of the extra perks of being a hick from out in the boondocks. Making love under the stars for one thing.

Country folk are a little different, and a little more free. When the closest neighbor could be two miles away and at any given point you could be surrounded by wide open fields or woods sometimes you feel like you and the one you are with are the only people in the world. If the desire hits you can act on it immediately.

Making love with nature surrounding you is incredible. As Chelle states "how about some nostalgia for a clover field in bloom on a hot, august star-lit night?". Chelle knows, she's from Iowa. I'll about bet most country men and women from Iowa have even done it in the snow. Heh. Even more than once.

When you are from the country any place is fair game. Now you know why all those country men really want those tough Ford trucks. They can and do go anywhere under the stars. Not that you don't stop and do it on the road there.

Charles from Dustbury says his children claim Iowa stands for "Idiots out walking around". Now you know what we are up to when we are out walking around especially with a smile on our face.

When I was in high school and college one my favorite past times and that of my friends was throwing a party. Well in Iowa you never needed a house to have a party you only needed a field. It was common practice to pool our money and con someone into buying a keg. The more beer, the bigger the party. One of those laws of nature.

When I was a sophmore I had a friend named Patty who had an older brother Gary. Who became our main man. Not only did he get the beer but he usually picked some damn fine fields. Patty would organize the group to seek charitable donations for the upcoming kegger, which we would proudly hand over to Gary. Now that I think of it Gary was more like a pimp, he definitely made more than he returned.

Well Gary's little enterprise grew to the point he no longer needed us to bring home the money, he'd just find a field and charge admission. Smart guy. Teens from 3 counties and 2 states would show up.

Well all good things always come to an end, we got raided. Poor Gary was charged with bootlegging. Minor in posession charges were not the thing back then so only poor Gary suffered.

Well in my hometown paper I've been following a story where a teenager died after a similar party. One teenager collected the money for the liquor, although he didn't purchase it. He's been charged with 26 counts of bootlegging.

Well in the paper today it states Iowa's code for bootlegging:

According to Iowa Code 123.59, bootlegging is defined as: "Any person who, acting individually, or through another acting for the person, keeps or carries on the person, or in a vehicle, or leaves in a place for another to secure, any alcoholic liquor, wine, or beer, with intent to sell or dispense the liquor, wine, or beer, by gift or otherwise in violation of law, or who, within this state, in any manner, directly or indirectly, solicits, takes, or accepts an order for the purchase, sale, shipment, or delivery of alcoholic liquor, wine, or beer in violation of law, or aids in the delivery and distribution of alcoholic liquor, wine, or beer so ordered or shipped, or who in any manner procures for, sells, or gives alcoholic liquor, wine, or beer to a person under legal age, for any purpose except as authorized and permitted in this chapter, is a bootlegger and subject to the general penalties provided by (Iowa code)."

Now damn. If I would of known that law, I'm sure I still would of done it anyway.
Now that's one long sentence.

It's a gorgeous day outside. The kind I love. Thirty-one degrees, sun shining brightly and not a cloud in the sky. Too cold for most but I can take any amount of cold if the sun is shining.

If I was home in Iowa I'd be seeing the pheasant hunters off in the fields, driving down the roads scouting out the tree lines. The last of the fields being harvested. The teenagers heading to the city to shop, go to a movie, a restaurant or whatever. Everyone waves as they travel by. The day beautiful, nature beautful, life beautiful.

Detroit is always bustling and loud. Always sirens, always planes. Car alarms, people yelling, doors slamming, cars motoring. There is never silence, the air is never clean and crisp. How the simple thing of going for a walk is not really simple and you never feel safe. Sometimes I wonder if these people know how the other half lives.

What it feels like to stand in the middle of a field with nothing around for miles but the sound of your footsteps and the birds. What it feels like to be in the middle of dense woods and see where a buck has scraped his antlers on a tree. Or where a doe has lain for the night. To have a pheasant fly out of bush and scare the shit out of you. To watch where you step because there might be a snake or even better an Indian arrowhead. To walk along a stream and see how a busy a beaver was all summer. To sit quietly in the woods and wait to hear those foot steps of a deer.

Damn I'm homesick again.

This supposedly took place not far from where I lived in Iowa:

In 1928, an exorcism was performed in a convent just north of the peaceful hamlet of Earling. It was one of the last exorcisms officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church. The case was reported in several famous pieces of literature. One is a 48-page booklet called "Begone Satan" by the Rev. Carl Vogl, a witness to the event. The second is a book, "The Devil Rocked Her Cradle," by David St. Clair. The third is a novel inspired at least partly by this exorcism and one other in Washington, D.C. The book is called "The Exorcist" by William Peter Blatty and it inspired a film of the same title, which is considered to be one of the most frightening horror films ever made.

Read the rest of the article.

I hope the Daily Nonpareil will proceed to tell some of the many stories the old timers remember of this time. This is the first time I've ever seen anything about it in print. It's only been word of mouth through the hills of Iowa until now.

I've never searched out any of those books...it still gives me goosebumps to write about it now.

When I clicked on my home town newspaper this morning and read this article, I thought "Hah!". That's exactly what I've been saying. All three of these ladies went to school with my mother.

Little Italy

Council Bluffs, Iowa is purportedly the home of the only
squirrel cage jail. The old Pottawattamie County jail. I don't believe it's been in use since the 60's but now is on the National Register for Historic Places.

The jail was designed to provide "maximum security with minimum jailer attention." The jail is essentially a three-story cylinder with each level of the cylinder divided into small, pie-piece-shaped cells.

The jail just sat empty off an on for years. I remember hearing it would be open for tours, then closed again. For a few Halloween's it was dressed up inside for a haunted house. The place was spooky. Dark, way too quiet and just a place you would not want to be stuck in over night.

Past inmates names are still scratched on the wall. I know I seen my brother in law's name there.

It seems they are finally doing some restoration on the old jail and looking for donations.

For video and information on the jail see here and here.

When you live out in the boondocks something like what this man did, is not all that uncommon.

I remember when I first moved out to the boondocks in Iowa I found out about Inez, a little old lady who had to be in her late 60's. Inez lived in a hut about a mile as the crow flies from me. The hut didn't have a door, and actually it was several pieces of sheet metal, some railroad ties and whatever else Inez could find. Her home was actually on the edge of a road ditch, where years ago she claimed squatters rights.

Across the road, her brother Eli did the same thing. His hut was a little bigger, he actually sectioned off rooms being the excellent handyman that he was. His daughter lived with him, who was actually in high school when I first met them.

The county electrical company out of the kindness of their hearts ran them a drop line off a light pole. Inez had one big lightbulb to lighten up her hut. Now Eli had a door on, so I'm not quite sure how he rigged his up.

Inez and Eli always had a huge garden, but other than that, I have no clue what they survived on. Inez was quite chunky, so she obviously had food. Inez lived in her hut for about 3 years after I moved up there until one day her brother found her collapsed. She went to the hospital and straight to the nursing home from there. She didn't survive much longer after that.

As soon as she was admitted to the nursing home, the county came and tore down Inez's hut. Not much longer after that I noticed that Eli had his own light pole with a meter on it. Civilization at it's finest.

Now 20 years later Eli and his daughter still live in that very same hut. Last time I was home I drove by there and they even have a truck and direct TV now. It sits right up on top where the same railroad ties and cement bricks hold the plywood and metal sheeting down for a few decades now. Next time I go back to Iowa I'll take a picture of it.

I never have been able to understand how they survive, Iowa winters are a bitch. People complain about Michigan winters ..hell I'll take them anytime. I remember one winter it was -29 degrees. That's not the windchill. The winds were 40-50 mph that night. Don't believe that BS that when it's that cold it won't snow. Yes it will. We lived in an old farmhouse at that time, and with a wood burner going and a the furnace we couldn't get the temperature above 45 degrees in there.

Inez and Eli survived it in their shacks. Inez was one tough woman.