My kids and I were all born in the same place: Mercy Hospital on the corner of Market and Van Buren in Iowa City, Iowa. The hospital is across the street from where I went to junior high, the sadly defunct Central Junior High. In the corridor of that old building was where I had my first kiss, an especially bad kiss, jammed between the soda and candy machines. Down the block is the corner grocery in which I bought my first legal six-pack and where I go regularly these days for wine. Around the corner is the church where my parents were married as young college students, my mother in a robin’s egg blue mini dress, and my father in a skinny tie.
This walk could continue, block-by-block, filled with memories. It’s one of my favorite things of living in the town where I grew up. Even though I sometimes feel provincial and old fashioned and can be perhaps too quick to point out that I spent nearly a decade on the west coast, I’m mainly very glad for the deep roots I have here. They’re rare these days and keep some of the anxieties of modern life at bay.
Iowa City is a college town with all of its perks and minuses. The perks are a strong arts scene, liberal thinkers (I’ve been in Democratic caucuses that went for Jesse Jackson and Bill Bradley), and a major university hospital packed with the kinds of experts and technology that you don’t really want to know about but are rather glad to have close by. The downside? You get older while every year there’s a slew of fresh eighteen year olds walking the streets (and sometimes barfing on your lawn after a Friday night bender).
Iowa is fly-over country, which means that you have to do a lot of explaining when you travel. Ohio? Idaho? You grow potatoes, right? I drove through it once. Flat. Actually, not, it’s rather hilly and intensely green in the summer. Winters are cold but not much different than the eastern seaboard variety. I mean we’re not talking tundra.
