04 Ottumwa, Iowa

The bartend in the Riverbend Bar has a snout that reminds me of a
Sockeye Salmon and gives us the quote of the expedition. “Just ‘cause
she’s my cousin don’t mean I kain’t hate her.” I ask for a dark beer.
This is in error. No beer I find in Iowa is dark -- most of it being
iced beer and all of it resembling ambered water. After the bartend
gives me her extra friendly smile she informs me they only have two
types of Busch on tap. I calmly tell her I will have one. To which she
gives me a really sweet look and demands to know which of the two. I
figure if you are not going to be understood you might as well be
misunderstood.

In Farafield, east of Ottumwa, we visit the Maharashi Mishi University,
or whatever the place is properly called. This is where TM people go to
learn to sit in lotus posture and fly along with business management.
The main architectural site on the campus is two flat-domed structures
with teapot urns in the center. My reason for visiting the campus is
that a former employee worked for several years traveling around the
country building yurts and wigwams for the Maharishi’s fellow followers.
Freddie came close one day to jumping off a four-story building in NJ
when a crane happened to fall on the roof where he was working. A
perplexing faith.

Eldon, down river of Ottumwa on the Des Moines is where Grant Wood’s
“American Gothic” was painted, it is also the location of the dirt stock
track we go to on Saturday night. Formerly Eldon is home to the Red
Rooster bar where there is a black and red checkerboard painted out on
plywood and the patrons put a dollar in a large glass jar to bet on
where the Rooster, spiked with a Fizzy, will poop. An early version of
Power Ball it brought in patrons from nearby Missouri.

In Mt. Pleasant we visit the 160-acre site of the Midwest Old Threshers
Reunion. Each year in September 150,000 people show up to play with
their steam tractors. I found a fine exhibit of electrical gear,
including a wall panel of antique residential electric meters. Further
back in the chronology of this excursion, I think while looking at some
tall pine trees, to my great esteem I discover that one of my ancestors
was the first to make a telephone pole in Davis County, Iowa.

To date my favorite historic site in Iowa is Chief Wapello’s Memorial
Park. For convenience the park is located on Chief Wapello Road. The
site occupies a small triangle of land to the east of the road and to
the north of the railroad track. Chief Wapello died in 1842 and is
buried here along with some Methodists inside of a fenced enclosure.
Since the demise of the chief someone built an earthen berm and
installed in three-foot high concrete letters the name “Chief Wapello”
for the purpose of having something to point at when the
Burlington-Northern passenger train goes buy.
--
][<en Follett
SOS Gab & Eti -- http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/5836