Take a Deep Breath and Smell the…crap

Well, the snow has finally melted, and the farm equipment is once again on the road. This is one aspect of rural Iowa living that always seems to get overshadowed. As you drive along these nice straight roads, suddenly you’ll spot a tractor that would be more at home in the world of Mad Max, tooling along at around 25 miles per hour, sporting a clearance of six feet or looking like a futuristic command center. These machines are huge, and they need to be too. Farms out here span hundreds, if not thousands of acres. Any farmer that has less than a hundred acres of farmland out here is thought of as a hobby farmer. I remember when I was growing up, and the couple of years when I lived with my parents, and they decided to plant a garden. Tilling the ground was a couple hours’ worth of work that meant pushing an archaic rototiller with an engine that looked more at home mounted on a car, occasionally stopping when the blades tried to cut through rocks and roots, which had to be manually removed. My mom usually wondered just how hard this could be, and really did it need to take a couple hours? There’s no really good way to answer that without seriously dishonoring the fifth commandment.

So modern farming, at least modern farming done by actual families and individuals, requires a lot of machinery. And with any business, there’s a lot of overhead costs to consider. One of the drivers at my company owns tens of thousands of acres, which he farms. According to him, he makes around $100,000 a year.  I was thinking that was pretty good for a farmer—heck, it’s pretty good for anyone!  I’ll take it! However, the combine that he uses to harvest his crops? $100,000. And that’s just one of the vehicles he has to buy. To give you some sense of comparison, that’s the price of a small cottage, even without factoring in the cost of maintenance, fuel, and the occasional repair.

Another aspect of farming, one which I’m sure no books on the subject have covered, is the ever-present smell of manure, which is a fancy word for saying crap. When I was growing up in the rural areas of northern Michigan, I was occasionally exposed to the smell. There were a lot of farmers and Amish around, and occasionally in a parking lot there would be what are poetically called “road apples.”  I have no idea who came up with this nickname, but I’m willing to bet he had a sick sense of humor. If you’ve never smelled horse or cow manure, it’s not as bad as, say, the restrooms at a New York bus terminal. It still smells like crap, though, and it permeates the air of Cresco. Currently, when I walk out the door to my apartment, the first breath I take smells like cow manure. Or horse manure. I’m not entirely sure which it is, and I have no great desire to find out.

You get used to the smell, which is a small blessing, and it’s not exactly overpowering, but I will say that living in an area where you live in a sub-zero arctic hell for six months and the other six months you start your day by smelling cow crap really kind of puts the rest of your problems into perspective. The northeastern Iowans may be some of the most stoic people I know. They’re affected by tragedy the same as anyone else, but other things, like injury up to the point of losing a limb, don’t really get under their skin.

However, the smell of pig crap is an injury which no one can really ignore. There are a couple pig farms around here, and both of them smell like a sewage plant. Actually, that’s an unfair comparison—sewage plants smell a lot better. Still, I defy anyone to drive by a pig farm one day and eat pork within the same 24-hour period. I mentioned there are two pig farms—one just outside of town and the other about eight miles away. I pass them both on my way to and from work, and it’s amazing how they’ve managed to position themselves so that as the odor of one pig farm fades, the other picks it up like a baton in a relay. The only conclusion I can come to is that pig farmers are jerks. There may be another explanation, but that’s the only one that crosses my mind right now.  In fact, true story, one of the people my company employs has his house across from one of the pig farms. This wasn’t on purpose—the guy built his house first, and then a few years later the pig farmers came in and built a huge barn, and as it turns out living next door to a pig farm seriously lowers the property value.  Personally, if I were in that situation I’d be thinking of several hundred pounds of barbecued pork, but that’s just me.

Just Keep Swimming...

Today, I reached an entirely new level of workout intensity. Blame it on the Decorah swim team. Now that the snow has all but vanished, people are starting to leave the Cresco Fitness Center in order to go work and play outside. Everyone, that is, except for the Cresco and Decorah swim team. On some level, this shouldn’t be too surprising—there’s a fitness center with a nice pool, it would only make sense to have a swim team that uses it.

I’m not too sure about high schools today, but when I was sent through high school our choice of sports was confined to the basics—basketball, football, baseball, track & field and cheerleading. Then again, I knew other schools that had a pool, along with other amenities, so I can’t be too surprised that Cresco and Decorah have swim teams.

What does surprise me, though, is that the Decorah team is good. Very good. As in, state-level good. Olympic-level good has been tossed around occasionally, too, although not officially. Apparently the Cresco swim team is no slouch, either, which is probably what happens when you have a really good swim team in the next town over. The only downside to having two great swim teams from two towns using one pool is that sometimes the swimming civilians get nudged out in the summertime, what with practices and weekly swim meets. This is probably the single greatest reason I can give for people who exercise by swimming to also learn how to lift weights.

Regardless, some members of the Decorah swim team were practicing during the open swim time. They’d cordoned off a lane and five teenagers were busy swimming fast. One of the Fitness Center owners informed me that I could use the lane after they were finished in the immediate future, but until then I could lounge in the hot tub and “be amazed.” I distinctly remember her saying that. Not being one to sit high up in the bleachers if I could get a close-up view of how competitive swimmers swam, I dived in the open section of the pool, and loosened up a bit as I watched. My initial thought was, “Wow, these kids are fast,” followed by my second thought of “Holy smoke, these kids are fast!” Their arms cut through the water like air, and unlike the times I swim freestyle, they were fast without flailing, totally in control of their movements. A girl swam a half-lap using some form I couldn’t begin to guess at that involved her lunging from the water like a large white fish. She made really good time, too.

I was impressed with their speed and their stamina, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to follow the lead of more experienced swimmers. After all, when I go to work out I do want to be pushing myself, and when I swim I don’t want to think that I’m not giving my all. Which is why I tried to swim as fast as the members of the swim team. For 18 laps.

To make a long story short, I did it but it took a lot out of me.  I swung my arms through the water as hard as I could as fast as I could, and kicked up a storm without splashing everyone else in the pool, in the pool area, and let’s face it, the rest of the fitness center.  After six laps I wondered what I was going to do for the other twelve, but I did manage to do it, albeit feeling less like a sleek dolphin, or at least Aquaman, and more like  a dying mackerel, floundering from shore to shore.  I type these words with arms that feel like Jell-o, and legs that feel like the bones were removed somehow. Darned things just don’t want to work. They are impressive, these swimmers. I would like to get to their level someday.

The Nobel Prize-winning Farmer

Quick—name someone who has saved lives. I’ll give you a minute or two to come up with a name. Now, how many lives has that person saved? One? Two? Ten? A hundred? Cresco is home to someone who has saved at least a billion lives, and that’s a conservative estimate. 

Meet Norman Borlaug, who is the agricultural scientist who ended world hunger. If you grew up in the 1980s, you may have heard about the world hunger problem, and how places like India and Africa were going to be coping (poorly) with massive famines and the resulting shortage of food was going to claim millions of lives. Plenty of people talked about it, plenty of people in the United States government held several meetings where they discussed what could be done about it, and made grave remarks, which is after all why we elected them.

Then there was Norman Borlaug, who got his start in 1944 with the Cooperative Wheat Research Production Program, which was supposed to boost wheat production in Mexico. Norman Borlaug got the Mexican farmers to quadruple their output of wheat, both through implementing advanced farming methods and by developing hardier strains of wheat that were more resistant to changes in temperature and didn’t need as much water to survive. Think about that for a second—by the time Norman Borlaug was done, which took about 16 years to do, Mexico was generating four times the wheat they had originally. Which means four times the people could eat.

Afterwards, Borlaug went to work kickstarting something called “The Green Revolution,” which is an ad-executive created slogan for the fact that Borlaug started developing rice and wheat that could withstand the climates of India and Africa, not to mention be more resistant to disease. Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968, India became self-sufficient in wheat and rice production in 1974, and Africa…well, it’s getting there.

For anyone who thinks Norman Borlaug introduced “Frankenstein Foods” into the world, I should point out—he did genetically modify the crops, but he DIDN’T go in and tinker with their DNA directly. He got started back in 1945, remember? What he did instead took a lot longer and required a lot more patience—he bred strains of wheat that had the characteristics he wanted until he got a strain that had all of them. Think about how patient he must have been, especially since he and his team had to pollinate entire wheat fields by hand to make sure the breeding was successful. On a related note, there are times I get frustrated when a webpage won’t open after five or ten seconds, and I realize that perhaps I need to relearn the virtue of patience.

Norman Borlaug also has his critics. One of the big criticisms is that since he helped introduce these new strains of wheat and rice and introduced new agricultural methods to third-world and second-world countries, then he is responsible for the massive deforestation that has resulted as humankind has raced to create new large farms that utilize these strains of crops. This is like blaming automobile accidents on Henry Ford, or pornography on George Kodak. The bottom line is that these critics are nitwits.

Besides, Norman Borlaug thought that increased crop production was a wonderful way to cut down on deforestation, no pun intended. The Borlaug Hypothesis states that “Increasing the productivity of agriculture on the best farmland can help control deforestation by reducing the demand for new farmland.” So Borlaug critics can suck it.

Norman Borlaug is also famous, or at least he should be, for getting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for agriculture. Seriously. Agriculture. It sounds funny to award someone for being a good farmer until you realize how many lives being a good farmer saved. But that’s the way farming goes—it’s a quiet little industry, and most farmers aren’t exactly the loud, boisterous types. It seems only fitting somehow that someone who researched agriculture should save the world by being quiet and meticulous.

As an added bonus, Norman Borlaug is also a member of the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame. Seriously. They have a picture of him as a middle-aged man, then a picture of him apparently in high school or college, dressed in headgear and a singlet, posed in the standard wrestling position with the “I’m gonna rip off one of your arms” look on his face that the other members of the wrestling hall of fame have. He also made it into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and let’s face it, he deserves it. I’m trying to think of any other wrestler that can say he also won the Nobel Prize, and I can barely get through the sentence with a straight face. Call me cynical, but I think Norman Borlaug’s induction was more for being a Nobel Prize winner than for any significant contributions to the sport of wrestling itself. Personally, I think a good inscription for his entry should be “Norman Borlaug, first wrestler to win the Nobel Prize…we’re waiting for the second one.”

Regardless, Norman Borlaug died in 2009. He died without the fanfare of other notable 2009 deaths, such as Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, or Patrick Swayze. In fact, he died silently, like a thief in the night. No outcry, no mourning masses…he did get a nice editoral cartoon from Chip Bok though (http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=38741), which doesn’t seem nearly enough.

I just want to point out that we give a lot of attention to celebrities. We pay pro athletes millions of dollars each year, we tune in to the endless stream of talk shows where hosts schmooze with movie stars and musicians, and I do think there is a lot of value in making people happy. But I think that Norman Borlaug day should be more than just a weekend of activities in Cresco, Iowa. I don’t think I’m out of line in thinking a national holiday would be a good start. I think a billion lives the world over is worth that.

What Exactly is “Driftless”?

I was at loose ends on Sunday, which is not a fun place to be. If you’ve never been at loose ends, consider yourself lucky. If you have, then you know that you need to do something, want to do something, but also suffer from a distinct lack of energy that makes you not want to do anything.  Finally, in the late afternoon, I finally hit on what I was going to do—drive to Decorah. Yeah, it’s not particularly exciting but there was more going on there than there would be in Cresco.

I got in my car, started driving down highway 9, and since I wanted to “do something,” I decided instead to take the back road to Decorah. This is not difficult to do, and in fact I have done it at least once without realizing it. This is because just outside of Cresco to the east is an intersection. To take Highway 9 to Decorah, you must turn right on the intersection. Despite this vitally important fact, the Iowa Department of Transportation has seen fit to put up a casual marker at best. First-timers can miss that Highway 9 takes a sudden shift right, and may make the more logical conclusion that there is another paved road that looks exactly the same as Highway 9 ON THE OTHER SIDE. This conclusion is totally wrong.  I’m not sure of the reasoning behind this—maybe the Department of Transportation wants to discourage visitors. Or maybe they figured, “Eh, they’ll get it eventually.”

Another theory is that they wanted people to get a good look at the scenery northeastern Iowa has to offer. If you miss the turn to Decorah on Highway 9, you will go down a back road that takes a little longer to get you there, but the view is a lot prettier.

The area is called the “Driftless Area,” because when the Ice Age ended and the glaciers began melting, they did not leave behind “drift,” or in layman’s terms, “a whole mess of dirt and rocks.” Geologists still don’t completely understand what caused this lack of glacial deposit, but the important point to take away is that the Driftless region is essentially one big plateau, which the Mississippi river cuts through like…okay, like a river cuts through rock. The Driftless area features caves, streams that disappear into the earth, and springs (where the disappearing streams come out of the ground again, one supposes).

What really separates the Driftless region apart from other areas is the landscape. When you take the back roads, you drive away from the plains of Iowa and into a region with large forested hills, small rivers that snake through valleys and even cliff faces. As an added bonus, the curves in the road require the drivers to slow down to 25 or 35 miles per hour, allowing you some additional time to take in the beauty of the area.

One of the most notable sections of the back road is a curve that took me past two farms, with large fields in front of the farmhouse. As I passed, one of the farms was doing a burn, to get rid of the debris, dead grass and other detritus in the field. This occupied my attention a bit more than the road at first, because the fire was sending up smoke like a Chicago factory, and the flames were clearly visible. I thought about how all it would take for the fire to get out of control was a rogue spark, carried by a sudden gust of wind, and immediately felt a sense of fragility. I also wondered where the people were who had started this fire, and just how close of an eye they were keeping on it. As I rounded the curve in the road, though, the field began to rise until it was slightly higher than my car’s window, but of course the road was going down a hill, showcasing the bedrock on which the farm was built in the process. It was an extraordinary feeling, as though I were driving into the earth itself. It also explained why the farmers felt so safe. If a spark were to escape, it would have to travel pretty far in order to light something else on fire. The only thing that seemed remotely in danger of being set on fire was the farmhouse, and I suspected that the farmers would be very interested in preventing that outcome.

Perhaps the most interesting part of taking the back road is when the road, tired of meandering through the valley, decides to go back up the hill so it can finally start connecting one town to the other. It starts by going up a hill, then making a sharp 25 mile per hour curve that still seems too fast somehow, and then you’re driving up a hill, on the edge, with a vertical cliff face to the east. The speed limit is technically 55, but given that one side features solid rock and the other features a drop into space with very little in the way of a guard rail, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take that stretch of the road at the recommended speed.

In fact, the back road to Decorah needs to be handled with a certain amount of caution. Last year a teenager missed a curve, flew off the road and died. As I drove the road, I could see how it would happen. It doesn’t help that the road is fun to drive. Anyone who has this road as even a semi-regular part of his or her commute would have to possess the willpower of the Dalai Lama not to get a sports car or a motorcycle.

It also doesn’t help that Iowa highways are considered de facto expressways. When you go through an Iowa town, speed limits are strictly observed, as they should be. Outside of the city limits, though, the speed limit of 55 miles per hour seems like a polite suggestion at best. Please. If you don’t have anywhere you’d rather be instead of driving. Speeding on Iowa’s highways is easy—most of them are the opposite of the back road to Decorah. Iowa country highways are flat and straight, with gentle curves that don’t require slowing down. I’ve had people pass me when I drive at 60 miles per hour. I’ve had people pass me when I drove at 65 miles per hour. Some of them were semis, and I can tell you first-hand to be passed by a semi going over 65 miles per hour on a two-lane highway is quite the experience. One can fall into the habit of treating Iowa’s roads outside the towns like an expressway, and in the case of the back road to Decorah, that habit can get you into a lot of trouble. It’s excellent for police, though—the stretch of road that leads from my employer’s office to Cresco is an excellent spot for state police to set up speed traps. They have their choice of perpetrators, provided they can keep up with how fast the perpetrators are driving to get them to pull over.

Lewis Black in Concert

As an aficionado of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I’ve seen Lewis Black’s material a few times. I’ve also seen clips of him on Comedy Central, and I’ve enjoyed it, so when I heard he was going to be performing at the University of Northern Iowa , I jumped at the chance to go. Granted, I heard he was going to be at the University of Northern Iowa roughly one day before he performed, so it’s not like there was a lot of thought involved. The most consideration I gave to the event was a.) how much are the tickets, b.) can I get a good seat, and c.) seriously, the tickets are that much? Good thing I’m only buying one…

One of the nice bits about being single is that you can get good seats a lot more easily than if you’re going as a group. Even going as a pair is almost a guarantee of getting nosebleed seats when you purchase tickets over an hour after the tickets go on sale these days, but going stag (or doe, as it were) you can slide in pretty much anywhere. Like, say, the last seat in a row fairly close to the stage, which was the seat I bought.

Cedar Falls, UNI’s home, is a decent little city, located about an hour and a half away from Cresco. It’s the small neighboring city of Waterloo, Iowa. It’s hard to say where Waterloo ends and Cedar Falls begins, much like how various suburbs and their core cities grow together. Cedar Falls, though, is much nicer than Waterloo. Highway 63 is a pretty straight trip down to Waterloo, and the first indication you have that the city might not be the nicest is the Motel 6 on the outskirts. The exterior looks nice, but the room rate is constantly blank, with two cut-out spaces showing fluorescent lights where the dollar amount would be. I have driven by that motel for two years now, and at no point has the ownership seen fit to rectify this.

The problem is that “falling into disrepair” seems to be the de facto state of affairs for the town. As you drive down Highway 63, you see several homes that could really use some repair, whether it’s just a layer of paint, a new pane of glass for their bay window or taking a lawn mower to their small patch of grass. The businesses aren’t much better. There are a few decent chain stores on the northern outskirts, but driving through the downtown district you get the sense that most people have closed up shop and are trying their hand somewhere else. Those that are left are either those who are too poor to move or those who really love their city.

It makes me sad to see this, because Waterloo really does have a lot to recommend to it. It’s located on two sides of the Cedar River, a river that seems to be responsible for more than its fair share of names in northern Iowa—Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids (which was recently the subject of an Ed Helms comedy film), the Cedar Valley, Cedar Bluff, Cedar City, Cedar Bend County Park, Cedar plains, Cedar mountain, Cedar canyon, Cedar cottages and Sam Seder.  

The city has plenty of nice waterfront, and it also has some areas of the city that actually look livable, although they’re on the southern outskirts of town. If you use a little imagination, you can see what the city might have once been like.

When you drive along the main road that connects Waterloo to Cedar Falls, you’re driving along a ten-mile patch of strip malls. As you drive, you’ll be aware that suddenly the discount car stereo places, mechanics’ garages and cheap pizza shacks have been replaced with mid-to-high middle class restaurants, sports bars, shopping centers and cheaper pizza shacks. That’s how you know you’re in Cedar Falls.

Before going to the University of Northern Iowa, I stopped by The Core, a comic book store that is apparently one of the best in the state. One would think that’s a big claim to make, and one would be right. Then you walk in and see the life-size statue of Darth Maul staring you in the face, and you start to believe. The Core does an excellent job of carrying not only comic books, but also comic-book related material, including statues, toys and memorabilia. It has a huge wall dedicated to independent comic books and graphic novels, a branch that is often neglected by other comic book stores, and their store is the only one I’ve noticed that carries collected volumes of webcomics on a regular basis. They’ve also got an extensive collection of all-ages (aka “kiddie”) comics, not to mention carrying several sci-fi, fantasy and comic book magazines. Plus, the staff is friendly. What more could you want in a comic book store? Half the fun of going there is moseying along the shelves, seeing what new titles might attract your attention.

Afterwards, I ate at a restaurant that had the popular “throw Americana on the wall” décor, then drove the short distance to the University of Northern Iowa. If I had to describe the campus in a word, it would be cul-de-sac. I was curious about what the campus looked like, so I turned down a side street named “College Road” and drove for about a quarter of a mile before I came to a cul-de-sac with a monument to the college in the middle. I dutifully made my way around it and then turned down a side street where I glimpsed some old college-looking buildings. This time I went less than 200 feet before driving around another cul-de-sac. So chastened, I drove out and back down the road, which forked right and deposited me just inside the gates of the University of Northern Iowa. So much for exploring the campus. I parked my car and made my way to the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center.

The show was good—funny, insightful, and at times shocking.  If you know in advance that Lewis Black is coming to a town near you and you can also be in front of your computer the second tickets go on sale, I highly recommend you see him. Afterwards, he came out and signed autographs for the people who lined up, and there were rather a lot of them. I was impressed. He is technically a big shot in the world of comedy, and yet he stayed around for an hour or so afterwards to autograph things and pose for pictures with the fans.

While this was going on, towards the back of the line a college student had set down his backpack and taken out some plastic rings, which he started juggling. I have seen this happen before, but usually outdoors and in the day time. I suspected that whoever this juggler was, he was looking for a few bucks to help people pass the time while they waited in line, only he didn’t seem that good. He would juggle six plastic rings for a few minutes, then drop one and catch the rest. He would do some more juggling of the plastic rings, then catch most of them on his neck and drop one or two. It was amusing but not really something people would pay money to see. Then I noticed he didn’t have a hat at his feet, nor anything else that people might want to toss dollars and change into. Curious, I struck up a conversation with the college student, who happens to not be a college student but a professional juggler. His name was Doug, and since juggling season was at a low point, he was visiting his girlfriend, who was studying elementary education and sitting reading a textbook a couple feet away. He had won a world-class juggling competition, and spent the time on campus to come to the performing arts center and practice because the roof in the place was so large.  I watched Doug practice for a few more minutes, this time realizing he was practicing, and enjoyed the performance, even as I realized that judging talent can be very situational. If I’d seen Doug at a Renaissance Faire, I would have thought he’s someone who’s decent in the world of juggling, or at least is good enough to earn money for practicing a hobby. If I’d seen him on TV I would think, well there’s a talented sort.

Finally, I drove home. Highway 63 has an odd quirk where some sections have the speed limit set at 65 miles per hour. Then, for no reason, the speed limit gets dropped back to 55. I can almost understand the reason for it, but if there are rules they’re applied seemingly at a whim. So I went from 55 to 65, back to 55 then to 65, feeling somewhat like a test driver in an extremely boring Chevrolet commercial. Along the way I saw several red lights, shining across the darkened plains of Iowa. There were several of them, and I realized I was looking at a wind farm at night. The effect was beautiful in an odd way, and I thought I might be staring at the future of energy production—black plains, punctuated every so often by clusters of red lights shining through the night. It was a good way to end the day.