My Home-town Report

Last night at chorus rehearsal, I had to say something about my hometown, since I missed the retreat due to COVID. He called on me last, so I had some time to figure out what I was going to say. What I said was, “I’m from Urbandale, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines.”

Soprano Rebecca cheered from the other side of the room, because she is from West Des Moines. What are the odds of a 100-person chorus in Northern California, having two of us from Des Moines suburbs? The funny thing is that I probably left there before she was even born. We have a multi-generational singing group.

I went on to say that I grew up 3 blocks from the cornfields and three blocks from the horse pastures, in a two-bedroom house, with seven people and one bathroom.

It wasn’t quite as dire as it sounds. We had a full basement, and my two younger brothers ended up down there when they were old enough. My grandpa built a second bathroom in one corner when I was in high school.

The three sisters shared the half-story attic room with the slanted walls and a stairwell that took up a third of the space. One end of the room had the stairwell with a window looking onto the neighbors’ house on the corner with their three yappy Pomeranians. The other window at the opposite end looked into our huge elm tree. The long skinny ceiling was only three or four feet wide, so once I reached my 9^th grade height of five feet, ten inches, that was the only place I could walk under where I didn’t have to duck. The beds were tucked under the slanted walls, and we had just enough space in the middle of the room to square dance, if we were so inclined (we weren’t).

Lots of stuff happened up there in that skinny room. My younger sister played with her Little Kiddles dolls while my older sister played her Beatles’ 45s on her stereo system, and I sat cross-legged on my bed, doing my homework or trying to read while John, Paul George and Ringo sang about love, romance, and girls gone bad (Day Tripper, Ticket to Ride, You Can’t Do That).

The room had hardwood floors and no insulation, so it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, so cold that I learned to like the weight of multiple blankets. Our mom painted the room peach and put Mod 60s flower wallpaper on the end walls. The curtains on the two windows had black-eyed Susans on them and at night, if I stared at them too long, the eyes turned into real eyes and sometimes winked at me (this was before the marijuana craze of the late 60s).

In high school, after my older sister got her own room downstairs when the brothers went subterranean, I put down my funky golden Indian rug from the local head shop, hung up my chimes and burned my incense. I wore repurposed work jeans that my dad had worn out at work as a printing pressman( faded and ink-stained). I laid out my favorite pair of bell-bottom jeans on top of his and cut out a pair. I sewed them together (thanks, Home Ec). At school, everyone wanted to know where I got them. They were a hit except that the zipper was too long and made sitting down uncomfortable.

But I digress.

I went to college 35 miles away in Ames, mostly because I didn’t have a car. We walked around in our overalls with one buckle unhooked (to look sexy). Those were the Iowa-grown, cornfed days, keggers and pig roasts in the woods or in somebody’s barn, learning how to pee on a log without getting anything wet, dating guys from the Ag fraternity until I figured out that they were all destined to become farmers.

I wanted out of Iowa. I wanted to see the world.