Two Gents' Worth
November 23, 2024
You might have heard about that little college football game they played right here in Ames today. It was the contest pitting our own Iowa State University against the University of Iowa. The Big 12 against the Big 10. Cy against Hawk. The biggest game of the year here. The most “in-demand” game ticket in…
Read More about ‘GameDay’ in Ames
This past Labor Day weekend, we took a brief time-out from our Summer of Love in the Heart of the Great American Heartland to visit Bradley and Nicole in their new home in our nation’s capital. They’re spending at least the next year there while Bradley works in the office of our favorite California congressman,…
Read More about Side Trip to D.C.Pity all those pugnacious political pundits — the ones who recently have been wailing, even louder and more obnoxiously than usual, about Iowa’s outsized-role in the presidential nominating process. They keep complaining that this state is far too small (only 3 million inhabitants) — and far too unrepresentative (they mean it’s too “white”) to have…
Read More about Politics, Iowa-StyleThere were roughly 750,000 weddings in America on that July evening, each special in its own way, but none finer than the one near Sedalia. On the rolling piedmont beneath the Rampart Range a few clicks south of Denver, where Cheyenne and Arapaho once married in much the same way, two souls became one as…
Read More about A Cowboy Wedding
As just about everyone around this part of the Midwest will tell you, the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines is a one-of-its-kind event. It’s been held for nearly 145 years, and these days, about one million Iowans attend each year. If that figure isn’t impressive enough, consider this: The state of Iowa’s population is…
Read More about Iowa’s State Fair
Summertime, summertime, here in the Midwest. Hot. Humid. The weather bureau issued all kinds of excessive-heat warnings. Don’t stay in the sun long. Drink plenty of water. And don’t forget your pets — especially the poor critters some dumb folks like to lock inside cars that are parked in the sun. This heatwave has gone…
Read More about Those Lazy, Hazy…
Here we are again on another Fourth of July in Ames, Iowa — the heart of the Great American Heartland. You have to trust me on this — there’s nothing quite like celebrating a Fourth in a Midwestern small town. For starters, small-town Fourths around these parts somehow seem more authentic — more personal —…
Read More about The Fourth, Midwest-StyleWe have returned, one more time, to this great Heart of the American Heartland — Ames, Iowa. This time, our trek took five days, during which we traveled 2032 miles in mostly good spirits through eight states, had lunch with a former boss who happens to be the best one I ever worked for, ate…
Read More about The Midwest, AgainChevrolet summers, Dairy Queen nights. I can’t think of a better way to describe those glorious days and nights when I was growing up in the Valley – days and nights I’d give anything to be able to re-live. My guess is that you’re like me – that we look back on those “salad days”…
Read More about Summertime MemoriesI don’t know about you, but as I get older and older, I find that more and more things are making me grumpy. My long-suffering wife tells me that I am, in fact, officially becoming a Grumpy Old Man – an assertion I am resisting mightily because, as everyone around these parts surely knows, I…
Read More about Grumpy — Who, Me?