Begin My Iowa

Iowa is a state bordered by two rivers--the Missouri on the west and the Mississippi on the east. Iowa's nickname is The Hawkeye State, but most people think it's The Corn State. They think this because Iowa grows a lot of corn. Iowa is an Indian word, and I once read that it means "beautiful land." I hope that is true because it captures what Iowa is to me: beautiful land. I drove Interstate 80 last weekend as the corn dried out under the September sun. The beans were turning yellow and swelled like the ocean as the wind swept them. I turned off 80 onto a two-lane country highway that twisted around s-curves and plunged down hills. Red and green tractors appeared in the fields like enormous Christmas ornaments, and I knew that it would soon turn cold.

Fuzzy caterpillars crawled across the road in front of me. When I could, I tried not to smash them under my tires. I like fuzzy caterpillars, but I abhor any other kind. As a kid, I'd walk around the house looking for fuzzy caterpillars since they always crawled up the paneling. Most of them are brown with a black stripe down the center, but some are blond or black. They all have a round ball of a nose, and if you pick them up they will pee in your hand.

Iowa is my home. That's a fact not a choice. The place is in my blood, and no matter where I travel or live I'll always be an Iowan. My Iowa is a land crammed with beauty. On Friday nights in autumn listen for the sound of loudspeakers projecting over the local football game. Follow the noise to the emerald gleam of the field under lights. Beyond the stadium, the humid night pulses with the buzzing of cicadas. The next day, meander down a tree-lined street and watch the leaves fall. Pick up an orange one, tinted in red, and twirl the stem between your fingers. Smell it. It smells like earth and life and death. Yes, I sometimes run my car heater in the morning and the air conditioner by afternoon. I've hidden in the basement in tornado season and slid across the road after an ice storm. I've broken a sweat getting the mail on a 95 degree day when the humidity was 85 percent. The snot in my nose has frozen in February. But that first April day when the temperature breaks 45--that's a day of rejoicing. It's jackets instead of parkas for kids at recess. One thought beats in the minds of college students--soon we can wear flip-flops. And on that day, everyone's glad to be an Iowan.