IOWA ON A CHILLY APPROACHING WINTER DAY

IOWA ON A CHILLY APPROACHING WINTER DAY

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© November 5, 2012

REFERENCE:

My readers are used to my serious pontifications on this and that subject, and may have no idea who Rita Waage is, but I guarantee them it will be a respite from my chatter.

I shall admit at the outset that I have never met the dear lady, but have had the enormous pleasure over recent years to read her homespun accounts of nature naturing at her feet from the vantage point of the state of Iowa. She is a writer with no claim to that distinction, but shares a natural tradition with many other Iowans, including yours truly.

Iowa has produced more than its share of writers over the years. Who can forget "The Music Man" or "Bridges of Madison County"?

Meredith Willson (1902-1984) of Mason City, Iowa was a composer, songwriter, conductor and playwright. "The Music Man" was one of many works, but clearly his best known.


Robert James Waller (1939- ) of Rockford, Iowa graduated from Iowa State Teachers College (now versity of Northern Iowa), going on to earn a Ph.D. at Indiana University. He then returned to UNI to be dean of the College of Business. When he retired in the late 1980s, he gave a "seven figure" donation to Indiana University. Notable as well, as an undergraduate at UNI, he was quite an athlete.

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Clinton, Iowa, where Rita Waage resides, has had its share of writers as well. Marquis Childs, celebrated syndicated columnist, author and novelist, came from Clinton's "North End" known as Lyons. He gave the commencement speech at my Clinton High School graduation.

Kathy Flippo, another Clinton author, grew up in "South Clinton," the so-called area "below the tracks" or where immigrant families and working class folks called "home." My people came from that area. It is a place that no longer exists as Archer Daniel Midland (ADM) has obliterated the area, and constructed on its hallowed soil domes and towers, stacks and railroad tracks to process Iowa corn into a cornucopia of products.

Kathy is a "river rat" and knows the Mississippi River better than Mark Twain could ever know it, and has written books about Beaver Island and the many sloughs that make barge traffic hazardous duty. She has also written a definitive history of "South Clinton" that preserves the memory of this blessed place.

There is also Clinton's novelist Dixie Land, who has written several mystery and romantic novels, and heads up her own publishing house. She like Marquis Childs comes from the “North End” of Clinton.

Then there are Clinton’s historians Jeanne and Gary Herrity, who write a weekly column in The Clinton Herald on aspects of Clinton's history from its origin in the early nineteenth century to the present. Gary Herrity was a popular principal of Horace Mann and Elijah Buel Elementary and Lyons Junior High.

There are others authors, but these only now come to mind. Rita Waage differs with them in that she chooses to write in her original and homey style about life around her with no ambitions to publish other than to share her élan with readers on Dr. Donald Farr's network.

Dr. Farr, also a Clintonian from the “North End,” is a former NASA scientist, and now resides in California, but is active in many disciplines and activities. These include but are not limited to creating new universities, coaching, counseling, networking, and giving a platform for the likes of Rita Waage to make our day.

When I read Rita, I can feel the breeze, taste the fruit, touch the flowers, hear the birds, and smell the ambience she illustrates with the whim and rustic truth that would put a smile on the face of James Joyce. This is a sample. This is Iowa, Clinton, Iowa to be exact, on a chilly day approaching winter.

Enjoy!

And always be well,

Jim



CLINTONIAN RITA WAAGE WRITES:












Here and there a flower still blooming but the last week pretty much ended the growing season. Spent yesterday just pulling out annuals and getting the new north garden wall ready to receive the remainders of the perennials bought at 80 % off sales. That left foot has hindered the process.




But a little bit a day, getting it done. Have herbs and other flora hanging up to dry for winter use. Used Mom's old spices up by spraying solid wreaths with adhesive and rolling in the various spices and will finish with the dried sweet Annie, artemisia, and other dried products, then later will finish off as the season demands.




So lucky to have many varieties conifers and lots of holly, the ribbon I buy thru the yr. and can decorate to my hearts content. Grass still green ands only the oaks have a few leaves left. The holly really grew thru the fair weather and complete with red berries finally.




Cut a tote of ornamental crab apples to use too and it dried very nice. Will harvest the pinecones soon. They also were in abundance. Mark grubbed out the favorite source of native crab apples. They dried on the trees and looked good natural or sprayed to the season. The milkweed pods very big and nice too so having the time of my life playing with them all.




Have three businesses I decorate each year, they like the natural material look. One has a fireplace with a huge primitive mantel and this year want homespun, so bought old flannel shirts at Goodwill and cut up and use with natural yarns and do a north woods theme.




Back to the November day, the flocks of birds passing by have dwindled down, the ducks and geese on the river thinning out, noticed the neighbor across the creek on the other side of the woods, their pond is filling more each day with Canadian geese.




They have given up for the year with the bird cannon. Can see the geese sunning themselves on the top of the dam. The tree frogs and bull frogs silent, the crickets too, but did see butterflies yet yesterday but no woolly caterpillars as yet. The lightening tree has closed her wounds and pray her a good winter as love the life she shelters.




Mark took apart my limestone pile of stone have never used and made a foot bridge across the spring brook to the new lily and iris garden just below the cattail garden. We sprinkled forsythia thru the lily garden so should be pretty in the springtime with the new crab apple and cherry trees behind on the hill slope going to the north side neighbors perennial garden and lilac collection.




The birds cleaned the coneflowers and sunflowers already so will have to buy up a winter supply of bird food next time on sale at Farm and Fleet. Just a seasonal report. Need to get north to Dixie Foster's as we are on a quest for bittersweet vines for Fall wreathes now that Halloween over and have to bring in all the witches and ghouls and put to rest til next year. Mark and I made and dressed our army of ghouls and they still march in the perennial garden, and the black cat collection down from the trees and fence posts.




First year did not do the day of the dead. Didn't bake any of the goodies for day of the dead except did bake the witches fingers for Halloween. Son Ben creates and sells a lot of the day of the dead items as has a ready market down near Grant and Sacramento near the park at a landscaper and nursery business.




I am trying to sell some of the wreathes there this year too. They only take a 10% cut as they like to be known as an artist outlet. The new Ovaltine Chocolate Malt is very good for a light cup of hot chocolate, they went all natural and sure can tell.




Hope all is well and keep saying those prayers for those harmed by Sandy. Our friend, Donna Doyle Ries, fared better this year than last in Delaware. Only out of power until Thursday when last year it was weeks. But staying at her daughter,




Mary's, until furnace, etc. gets a go over. She dearly misses Jim almost a year now he is gone. Bless us all, RW the old gal in the woods, fighting those deer and enjoying the wild turkeys. Deer herd this year is 17 strong.




Hope you are faring well yourself Don, as the world travelers, Sally and her sister, are enjoying their latest travels. Be well. Stay away from those nasty yuccas, what were you doing? after a snake when you injured yourself?



AFTERWORD

If you have ever had occasion to plow through the somewhat fluid but challenging prose of James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake,” you would see why I find Rita Waage’s report of her day so enchanting. 

She has a feel for life that if I ever had it education has ruined.  You cannot teach what she expresses.  There is a rhythm here that comes right out of her soul, and I thank her for sharing

This past year I was asked to be one of the judges in a writing contest of ten and eleven-year-olds on what the Temple Terrace Library (Tampa, Florida) meant to them.  There were some seventy entries in all, but one stood out. 

The words fairly leaped off the page.  You could tell by the joy expressed, often with poor spelling and even poorer punctuation, that the library was a window to a life he might not otherwise know existed much less experience. 

I read his entry several times, and hoped that he would win the contest.  He did.  I was told that he was a little guy with a beaming smile and so overjoyed he could hardly contain himself. 

My hope is that no teacher in his future ruins this gift by making him subscribe to a mechanistic writing discipline as was already apparent in several of the entries, seeing as they used words and expressions that might have their origin in a parent I should think.

As for this young writer, the discipline will come but must follow not lead the passion of expression.  The painting of life’s pictures with words, and telling stories ranks up there with great landscape artists and musical composers.  The inspiration when it is authentic always comes from within, never from without.

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