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More in common than I thought

My father and I didn’t have a lot in common and that fact began to show up in our relationship when I was about 12 years old. The age labeled “pre-teen” is difficult for the pre-teen and his/her parent. In my case, it began a time of being many things my father wasn’t. Please don’t misunderstand; my father was a good, hard-working, God-fearing man. He worked hard, brought home his paycheck every week and loved our mother. What I was becoming, however, was something Dad wasn’t. Being the oldest of his six children, I came to realize those differences created some ...

Growing up fast

Several years ago the Des Moines Register published a photo of a young guy skating at a skateboard park in the metro. The cutline identified the young man as a 25-year-old. My first thought was, “When I was 25 I was so busy working I couldn’t have gone skateboarding even if I could skateboard.” Back in the 1960s some of us grew up quickly. By the time I was 22 I had a good (albeit low-paying) job, was married and my wife and I had purchased our first house. By the time I was 24, I was a father. From the time I was a late teen I ran with an older crowd. Most of my friends ...

A strange sense of humor is better than no sense at all

Do you remember the first time you told a joke and no one laughed? I don’t. It’s happened to me so many times I can’t remember the first. I grew up in a home with lots of jokes, teasing and laughter. Our mother’s family was full of jokesters and Mom kept us laughing, too. Our family’s sense of humor was earthy. Dirty jokes were strictly forbidden (when Mom and Dad were home) but we siblings joked about most anything else — a baby sister sneezing milk through her nose, accidental flatulence, even a father who stalked an annoying box elder bug on the kitchen floor to bring ...

Treating others with respect

I have always liked older people. My parents were close to many of their aunts and uncles so I got to know and appreciate that generation when I was a kid. I especially appreciate how many of those folks treated me as a kid. One afternoon when I was 13 years old, my Great Uncle Bill and Great Aunt Lena drove up our long farm lane. Lena wanted to visit with my mother in the house; Uncle Bill stayed outside and struck up a conversation with me. Uncle Bill was driving a late model General Motors automobile; I think it was a Buick. At 13, I was enamored with cars and I remember ...

Let’s take a train to Chicago

If you ask me, Webster City needs a passenger train to Chicago. The last train, Illinois Central's Hawkeye,* left Webster City for Chicago the night of April 30,1971. The next day, 182 passenger trains across America were discontinued, half of all trains remaining in service at that time. Amtrak, the new national passenger train operator ran only one train across Iowa — The California Zephyr. It was, and is, a perfectly good train with everything you could want: coaches, sleeping cars, a dining car and a glass-topped lounge car. It runs daily between Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Salt ...

He seldom met a meal he didn’t like

One word you won’t read in my obituary is “gourmet.” Not that I have anything against fine foods and good wines; it’s just that I’m content with meat and potatoes. Or casseroles. Or pizza. Or cheeseburgers. I wasn’t aware that people ate fancier foods until I was a teenager. By then I was hooked on Mom’s meat and potatoes home cooking which, by the way, I’ll put up against any other in the Midwest. Shortly before I left home, I foolishly began to tire of Mom’s cooking. Restaurant menus seemed more exciting. I’ll never forget the first time I visited my parents ...