 |  R. Wallace |
A WRITER'S WIT
Snow Joke
So now I remember why I like the snow:
after a winter of over one hundred inches
(a record, at least) that threatens to make us go
crazy (or to Florida) with the cranes and finches
and herons and swans and all the rest of those
summer visitors— enters all, no long-term
leases here, no home-owners, no rash purchases
over budget, no mortgages or sub-prime loans--
snow remains the best excuse for sloth,
for staying warm inside and hunkering down,
ambition and commitment heading south.
Spring! The sun and every flower's a clown
noodgying us back to life: Get to work!
On every tree a bud, a leaf, a smirk.
Ronald Wallace
Born Cedar Rapids, Iowa 1945
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the twenty-eighth post of fifty.
Iowa (1976, 2000, 2001)
My more memorable trips to Iowa came in the summers of 2000 and 2001, when I attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. For me those two sessions provided a resuscitation of my writing career. I was in my early fifties, and I felt if I were going to make anything of myself I needed to take the skills I’d acquired in my thirties and hone them further. Exposing my work to many who were younger than myself, I workshopped short stories in both classes and made great connections. Both instructors were fairly recent graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and provided me with meaningful feedback on my writing.
I drove the first time, and I recall the verdant, rolling hills of Iowa farmland, such a contrast to the flat, sometimes desolate landscape of West Texas. In Iowa City, I lodged at a hotel on the edge of the IU campus. I was impressed with the pedestrian mall, where one could purchase almost anything, impressed with a triplex theater, where, one night, I postponed my required reading of manuscripts by attending a showing of The Golden Bowl, a film based on Henry James’s novel, screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I didn’t regret it.
Iowa became the twenty-ninth state in 1846. It celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1996.
I drove the first time, and I recall the verdant, rolling hills of Iowa farmland, such a contrast to the flat, sometimes desolate landscape of West Texas. In Iowa City, I lodged at a hotel on the edge of the IU campus. I was impressed with the pedestrian mall, where one could purchase almost anything, impressed with a triplex theater, where, one night, I postponed my required reading of manuscripts by attending a showing of The Golden Bowl, a film based on Henry James’s novel, screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I didn’t regret it.
Iowa became the twenty-ninth state in 1846. It celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1996.
Historical Postcards
If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas 13. New Jersey 25. Michigan
2-Oklahoma 14. Delaware 26. Wisconsin
3-Texas 15. New York 27. Minnesota
4-Louisiana 16. Connecticut
5-Missouri 17. Colorado
6-Illinois 18. Arkansas
7-Indiana 19. California
8-Ohio 20. Florida
9-Pennsylvania 21. Mississippi
10-West VA 22. New Mexico
11-Maryland 23. Tennessee
12. Virginia 24. Arizona
NEXT TIME: My Book World, What Editors Do by Peter Ginna
RSS Feed