They are stark naked. Yup, not a speck of clothes. The eight old men have the volleyball net pulled tight in the sand and are shuffling to new positions as I come over the dune. The server makes some comment that tickles everyone’s fancy and then hits the ball underhanded to a loud cheer. A flurry of naked men descend on the net. Point to server.

Trust me, this began innocently enough. I was curious about the bunkers that line the beaches at Scheveningen in The Hague, Netherlands. They are leftovers from World War II and were part of Hitler’s plan to defend the coast. The “North Atlantic Wall” that ran all the way from Norway to France.

And it just happens that in Scheveningen the bunkers sit directly above a nude beach. No kidding.

The North Atlantic Wall was not Hitler’s best plan, by the way.

Jaques Hogendoorn and his brother Piet have been studying and teaching and collecting paraphernalia on German bunkers along the Atlantic Coast for years. Jaques gave my wife and I a tour at a command bunker safely tucked into a dune some distance from the sea.

“Total of German bunkers in Scheveningen (the port area of The Hague) is 900 bunkers. The estimated total of bunkers that made up the North Sea Wall were 90,000 bunkers.”

Okay, that seems like a lot of bunkers.

“Not enough,” Jaques states emphatically, “it is impossible to defend the coast in the way they tried. You have to have a normal airforce and you have to have a navy to support that defense. They didn’t have a sufficient airforce and the navy was not effective.”

So there you have it. 90,000 bunkers — totally useless. A cement contractor’s nightmare. Or dream.

And, of course, there was the small problem of all the people who lived by the sea at that time.

“Over 100,000 people were displaced from their homes in Scheveningen and The Hague so that the Germans could build their Atlantic wall,” according to Piet Hogendoorn, a museum-grade collector of World War II paraphernalia.

And, as is the way of dictators, starvation was close on the heels of this displacement. Thus the stories of the Dutch folks in Scheveningen eating tulips during the hard winter of 1944-1945.

Today, the empty bunkers stick out like broken teeth on this vibrant Scheveningen beach scene. Wind surfing and Ferris wheels and bungee jumping are the order of the day. War and death? Not so much.

Back home in Des Moines, we really have nothing so physically in your face as a bunker. In fact, memories are growing dim as the last of that generation is slipping away. Sure, we have our World War II memorials in most towns.  And we have the stories of the five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo killed in the sinking of the USS Juneau, and of the women recruits who trained at Fort Des Moines for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and the stories from David and Jennie Wolnerman of Des Moines and of their survival in the concentration camps of Poland. And don’t forget the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge with all its exhibits and stories.

But there is just something about a large, concrete bunker that causes a sharp intake of breath. And not in a good-surprise way.

Back on the dunes, the old men are still playing even though it’s late in the afternoon. A corner shot is missed and everyone tumbles into the sand, where they lay on their backs laughing at each other and at their old-man knees. A good time had by all.

Who would have guessed?

Naked as jaybirds . . . in the shadow of a bunker.

Joe

“Protected bike lanes are different from conventional bike lanes where the bike lanes are placed along the curb and protected from vehicle traffic. [East Grand] is the first of its kind in the City of Des Moines.” City of Des Moines Construction Projects.

Being on a bike has nearly killed me five times. No kidding. My favorite? Riding down a hill in Dubuque on a homemade bicycle built for three, flipping off the back and landing on the top of a fire hydrant. On my head. The fire hydrant walked away unscathed. Me? Not so much.

True.

And then, of course, there’s the one where I was hit in the throat by a van in Urbandale (figure that one out), was paralyzed for a while, and ended up with a new, sexier voice. That certainly had a few twists I don’t want to repeat too often.

But here I am in the Netherlands at the ripe old age of 64 on a one-thousand-pound Dutch bike with coaster brakes.

How is that possible?

Because if you want to go to the baker or the butcher or the hardware store in the Netherlands, you take a bike. If you want to pick up lumber from the lumberyard, you take a bike. If you’re hauling kids from school to daycare to soccer practice to the park, you take a bike. If you have an important meeting at the law firm, you take a bike. If you’re going dancing at the downtown clubs, you take a bike.

For example, here’s my wife going to work at a UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Dressed for work and wearing platform shoes. And it is about to rain. Go figure.

Is she wearing biking shorts? No! Is she going to stay home because it’s going to rain? No! Will everyone show up at work with wet hair and wind-tossed clothes? Of course. But you just wear your suit and you wear your dress and you wear your work clothes and you carry your cello and you toss in your briefcase and you hold tight your surfboard. This is not complicated.

Michel Vissers has worked for over a decade at a bike shop in Scheveningen. Like most Dutch, he uses his bike more than his car.

“It is easier to get where you want to go by bike. It is more friendly. All Netherlands is bike friendly. You have to have a bike in the Netherlands or else you are immobile.”

When do kids start riding bikes?

“With peddles? Three plus. I stopped using my training wheels at four. And people ride bikes until they are physically unable. ”

What about those bikes that look like they have the prow of a boat on the front?

“Ah, I have the Urban Arrow. It is a monster. When you have two kids and third on its way, you buy this instead of a car. You don’t want a car.”

Okay, how did this happen in the Netherlands?

Depending on the history you read, most say that the Dutch were enamored with the bicycle as early as the late 1800’s. The restrictions of the World Wars merely made this attachment stronger. But when the last post-war boom hit, there was a push away from bikes to cars. Unfortunately, as Dutch cities became more and more congested, The number of accidents went through the roof. According to the BBC, 3000 people died in car accidents in 1971 in the Netherlands, and 450 of them were children.

People were in an uproar. Protests sprang up. One group was even called “Stop de Kindermoord” (Stop the Child Murder). On top of all this, the oil crisis hit in 1973. The Dutch government had enough. They invested in bicycle infrastructure and moved away from planning cities around cars. The bike became a center-stage performer. And Dutch culture went along for the ride.

What did this mean in reality? Check out this roundabout with a designated bike lane not far from our apartment.

As a result of all the protected bikeways and the omnipresent bike signs and stand-alone bike stoplights and legal liability in favor of the biker, 70 percent of all journeys in Amsterdam and The Hague are made by bike. And, of course, there are more bikes than residents in the Netherlands. Everyone bikes.

“I am 75 years old and have ridden a bike since I was 6.”

Jaap Bal is retired after years of work as a sailor and then an investigator at a laboratory.

His arms are as big as my waist. His heart is a young man’s. And he smiles with a gracious ease.

“I will bike until I am not able.”

I’m not holding my breath for that to occur.

W.P. Kinsella, of Field of Dreams fame, coined the phrase, “If you build it, he will come.”

It’s been reported in the Des Moines Register that in the first year of the pilot program, the East Grand project has slashed injury accidents by 58%. I’d like to think that the East Grand project may be the baseball diamond in our Iowa corn field.

All we have to do is build it . . . and the bikers will come.

Joe

“My motto is to buy from people you know and as close to home as you can get.” Lisa Bean.

Nearly 45 years ago, the Iowa City Coop was on the second floor of an old building on Gilbert Street. A sanctuary of organic foods and small producers. Back in those days, membership was by dues or work. I chose work. It was a big open space with barrels and bins spread throughout the upstairs of the red-brick warehouse. The overpowering smell of open spice containers and overflowing barrels of grain and baked breads and funky foods was a heady delight when I’d show up to do my hour or so of work. One would have almost believed I was there because I cared about the environment, or I cared about where my food came from, or I cared about small farmers.

I could have cared less.

I saw the Coop as an expressway to meeting women. Unfortunately, I didn’t bank on my personality accompanying me to this new environment. It did. But a byproduct of my failed efforts? A love of food coops and all they stand for. 

Naturally, I had to go in the doors of the Iowa Food Cooperative (“IFC”) at 4944 Franklin Avenue.

Lord, this is not the spilled grain of the old days. Giant refrigerators and freezers and shelves full of items carefully marked and catalogued and bar-coded. You can hear the hum of efficiency as products from more than 90 small producers and farmers are matched to members’ orders posted online. The requested items are then carefully sorted and boxed and delivered to a pickup site to be collected by you.

Lisa Bean is a tall, slender woman with gentle eyes and an accent reflecting her long-ago origins in New York City.

“This all started for me when I began to think a lot more about where my food was coming from and I wanted to know more about it.”

Lisa pauses, gives a slight smile.

“Then I started volunteering at IFC. Then I got on the board, then I became the board president, and then I went off the board, and then I went back on the board. Now I’m the volunteer coordinator.”

All spoken in a tone of “can you believe I’m still doing this.”

I can.

Lisa walks down the rows of refrigerated and frozen items and stacked shelves and starts telling me stories about each farmer and small producer.

“Well, this is Radiance Dairy owned by Francis Thicke. He has a wonderful organic dairy.”

And what is so special about him?

Well, Lisa explains, once the cows are done as milking cows at Radiance Dairy, they are not slaughtered, but are literally put out to pasture. Or, as Norma Ames, the computer whiz at IFC puts it, “cow retirement.”

Lisa continues walking and talking.

“Pickle Creek, they do herbs and garlic and infused oils. And now she is making some pesto. They grow such quality plants, and they love their plants.

Really? Love their plants? Come on.

“They play music to their plants in the green houses. And he always delivers with a smile on his face. They are both retired chemists from Chicago.”

Retired chemists from Chicago with musically appreciative herb gardens — I hear that all the time. Who’s next?

“We have Agri-Cultured foods which makes fermented kombucha. We sell like 25 gallons of kombucha.”

You’re making this up.

“No, they are based in Waukee. They bought the old St. Boniface Hall. And do all their stuff there. They make kimchee, sauerkraut, pickles, hummus, and kombucha. And really good breads too.”

Sauerkraut from the suburbs?

“Pete Waltz is a founding member of IFC. His pork is all flax fed. He’s a pretty cool guy. He has a small store in Osceola that sells all Iowa products.”

Of course he does.

“Lucky George. He’s interesting. He’s a retired cellphone salesman. He and his wife are running a multiple animal farm with heritage pork.” 

And on and on goes Lisa, speaking of the farmers as if they were her family relatives — the kind you would actually enjoy sitting next to while eating potato salad.

Coming from the Big City, Lisa, how does this all work for you?    

“I love it. We actually have a farm that was corn and soybeans, 30 acres. We converted that to natural prairie. We now have a really good stand of short and tall grass prairie. We have chickens and goats and alpacas for fun. The goats are for grazing. I’m trying to restore our timber to the way it used to be.”

It all seems like a lot of work. Why volunteer at IFC?

“I love all the people. We get to know each other, and we have  30-35 volunteers come every time.”

Are you serious?

“I think people like the community of it.”

Lisa pauses, thinking.

“At least for me, it feels like things are a little bit out of control in the world.”

A slightly embarrassed smile appears, afraid of sounding pretentious.

“Here, I feel like I’m doing a small part to make the world feel like a friendly, honest place.”

Okay, I can buy that . . . and maybe some kombucha, if you have any left.

Joe

Paul VanCleave of JP Party Rentals is standing next to his pickup truck early the next morning.

Beaming.

“We specialize in unique and exciting inflatables and concession items. We’ve been in business about three years.”

Great. Good to know. But here you are in Urbandale in the early morning with a pickup full of candy and water. Are you a crazy man?

“This year we wanted to be part of the Urbandale Fourth of July parade. We wanted to be a part of the community.”

VanCleve gives me an even wider smile. ”We’re just excited to be a part of the celebration.”

And I am excited to see him.

I walk further up the street.

This next trailer full of candy is obviously a parade-induced hallucination.

Larry Rogers and Chris Good are with Iowa Auto Repair, the business responsible for the screams of delight from the million kids lining the Urbandale parade route.

“We’ve been in business 36 years and we’ve been doing the parade for 30 odd years. This year we are pushing almost a half million pieces of candy.” Rogers says this with barely suppressed glee.

“Bigger every year,” chimes in Chris Good.

They are both so enthusiastic that I wonder if these two mature men got permission from their parents to be here.

“This trailer was built by my business partner 24 years ago,” Rogers says. “It gets used only for the parade. After 24 years it has only about 200 miles on it.”

No kidding? But really, do you enjoy this year after year with the heat and the yelling and the glare of newly-polished concrete streets?

“Nothing like it,” says a proud Chris Good.  “This is like our Christmas,” echoes Larry Rogers.

Larry and Chris. Chris and Larry.

And off they march, trailing candidates running for various offices, young dancers with spider-like balloons hooked to their backs, and a truck that pulls portable toilets.

As I stand on the sidelines, I notice three women cheering next to me. Well, two women cheer. The third woman-to-be sits in her mom’s arms . . . with a fistful of candy.

 “We’ve been coming for 35 years. Three generations are here today.” Kristin Howard says proudly.

Have either of you ever marched in the parade?

Laughter — apparently that is a silly question.

Mallory, Kristin’s daughter fills me in. “We’re laughing because we’ve actually been in the parade for years with the Urbandale High School swim team and then with the Urbandale High School Band for my brother.”

“And you marched with baton and gymnastics,” adds Kristin.

“About 10 years worth of marching,” Mallory sums up.

And given the smallest member of this group, who refuses to release her candy while in her mother’s arms, I don’t believe their marching days are near done.

Ah, there’s the red-nosed clown and the ringing of church bells.The parade comes to an end.

Everyone packs up their blankets and lawn chairs and coolers of water. Small children carry full bags of candy that drag behind them on the ground. Neighbors laugh and talk and wave goodbye.

I walk home on the now-quiet street, bending now and then to retrieve a forgotten piece of candy, and smiling for no reason at all.

Joe

“The guys running this restaurant are from Hyderabad, India.”

Now you just have to wait for it, folks. There’s always more. His mind is sparking and firing and making connections. Wait, wait, wait . . .

“Hyderabad is to India, food-wise, what Parma is to Italy and Lyon is to France and Barcelona is to Spain. It’s where it happens. Osaka to Japan is probably the best example of all. Osaka — you were forbidden royal pleasures or military pleasures, so the only thing to spend money on was food and entertainment. And therefore that’s where it happened.”

What just happened?

Jim Duncan happened.

As I sit with him eating Indian food, I am not surprised that the conversation, in just a few sentences, travels from Des Moines to India to France to Spain to Italy, and then somehow ends up in Japan. This is just Duncan’s mind at work. Connections teased together over a life of travel and stories and writing.

And if you wait a bit, his sly humor will sneak in the door.

So, you graduated from Roosevelt High School?

“I never got anything but A’s at Roosevelt. I got screwed. I had a perfect grade point. I took the toughest courses, and yet I ended up seventh in my class. Tied for first, but they rated me seventh.”

And . . . ?

“They justified it as a character issue,” he says with just the ghost of a smile.

Of course he has character issues! Duh. It’s why I’m sitting there with him.

And if you look closely, usually on the edges of his columns, this same understated, self-deprecating humor eventually appears.

“Growing up in Des Moines during the 1950s and ’60s, I graduated from college before I knew what an avocado tasted like. Ashamed that I did not know what this fruit was when first offered one, I bit into it as if it were an apple, skin and all. I then claimed I was ‘into whole foods.’ Des Moines has changed a lot since then.” Duncan, Cityview, 2015.

Ba da bing!

A grizzled man of 71. Hat pulled down over his long hair. Glasses slightly ruffled. Gentle eyes that have no room for cynicism or negativism or pre-conceived labels. He scans past me taking in the bustling restaurant . . . my guess, he’s looking for hooks to piece together a story. A smile blossoms. Ah, he must have found someone with a story that needs telling.

Duncan has been doing this for 30 years. No kidding. Of course, in that same amount of time the Thirty Years’ War began and ended, Saturn went once around the sun, and maybe, with some luck, you paid off your 30-year mortgage.

“Twenty-five years ago, this publication began subjecting readers to the reflections of an alcoholic who had recently quit drinking. I thought that gave me an alternative point of view, and editors agreed. At that time, this paper was named Skywalker.” Jim Duncan, Cityview, 2013.

That piece of writing from five years ago was not hyperbole. He pitched Connie Wimer on a column that looked with fresh eyes at a world that was quickly changing.

“I always thought I’d be a writer. It took me a long time to actually become a writer. After high school, I only applied to one college, Harvard. And I did not get accepted, which was inconceivable. I had no plan B.”

Duncan laughs softly at his naiveté.

He ended up graduating from the University of Wisconsin. Due to the nature of his major in South Asian Studies, he spent a semester each at five different universities, and then a year in India — where he did a thesis on, of all things, variations in curry found in Indian villages separated by mere miles.

It is no surprise that after graduating he began to seriously write about food . . . and art and sports and sustainable agriculture and anything else.

“I’ve always had an interest in food. I started cooking my own meals when I was ten. I said something critical to my mom, and she said, why don’t you just do it yourself. And I did. We were both happy.”

And now you’re a food critic among other things.

“True, but I am not a traditional food critic. I have way too much sympathy for restaurant owners. It’s a brutal business without big margins. I know how hard everyone works. I don’t want to cut people down that don’t deserve it. Sometimes the kindest thing I can do is to not review a place. I want to tell our readers where they can find great food or unique food or something special.”

So, you’re a happy man, living the life you want to live?

“Well, I really wanted to be a basketball player.”

What?

“Listen, I’m always just trying to tell a good story. And I like people. What can I say? If I didn’t have stories to write, I’d know fewer people and I’d have a less rich life.”

And so would we all.

Joe

I’m all about giving lawyers a hard time. Why not? They are inherently unlikable as a group. Duh. They only appear in a crisis or to prevent a crisis or to help you cause a crisis for others.

Clearly, they are the cause of most problems and the proof is in the pudding. Whenever you are picked up for drunk driving, who’s always there? Lawyers. Whenever you want to cut your good-for-nothing son out of your will, to whom do you turn? Lawyers. When an unconstitutional law against women is passed by the Iowa legislature, who is it that sticks their noses into our business to stand up for women’s rights? Yup, you guessed it, lawyers. They must be the CAUSE of us being drunk drivers and miserly parents and for writing unconstitutional laws against women. Obviously.

But even I am a little taken back by Civic Skinny when it made fun of wannabe lawyers for not passing the Iowa bar exam. To become a lawyer in Iowa, besides going to law school and being a descent sort, you have to pass an exam.

THIS EXAM IS HORRIBLE!

It lasts days, is full of anxiety and worry, and is the culmination of studying 24-hours-a-day for two months. Not only did I take this nightmare of an exam and unbelievably pass, but for nearly 20 years I taught the sections on Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in preparation for students to take this exam. Trust me, good students take this exam and sometimes fail. Good students take this exam and sometimes panic. Good students take this exam and sometimes just get unlucky.

FAILING THIS EXAM DOES NOT MEAN THE PERSON WILL BE A BAD LAWYER. Sorry.

My wife and I took the exam together many years ago. We were leaving after the first day and my wife asked how I did on the Contracts question.

“What Contracts question?” I said stunned. “Do you mean the Constitutional Law question?”

Yikes! Were we lucky or unlucky? We both passed. Lucky it was.

The statistics for the February exam were harsh. Of the 18 folks who took the exam for the second time,10 failed. Of the six folks who took the exam for the third time, five failed. Of the three folks who took the exam for the fourth and fifth time, all three failed. And the person who took the exam for the sixth time? Lo and behold, magic, they passed.

What does this mean?

Contrary to Civic Skinny’s observation, absolutely nothing about the lawyering skills of those that failed.

During my many years as a prosecutor, the best trial lawyer in the state of Iowa failed the bar two times. Yup.

And what does it mean to take this exam two or three or four or twenty times?

It shows dogged determination and character.

I’ll settle for that in a lawyer — even though lawyers are clearly responsible for climate change.

Joe

Dear Readers:

In case you wanted to know why I’m writing another article about Colorado . . . .

As you may know, most of my columns that you receive on my blog are published in Cityview — a great alternative newspaper in the Des Moines area that really doesn’t know what to do with me, so they just keep publishing my column under “Joe’s Neighborhood” at dmcityview.com. I also submit some of these columns to Cityview’s sister publication, Iowa Living Magazines (iowalivingmagazines.com), when an article has a particularly local emphasis. More recently, because I have a son and daughter-in-law living in Denver, Colorado, and I have to do something when I visit, I have been submitting articles to a fun Denver alternative newspaper called Westword (westword.com). This article is the most recent column that will appear in Westword this upcoming weekend.

Joe 

I do love lips. Who doesn’t? Lips can say hello or whisper goodbye. Lips can pout provocatively, turn up in derision, or whistle while you work. Lips can spit and curse and bellow with rage. Or lips can blow a kiss.

As I sit outside the Ritchie Center at the University of Denver, I think of lips. Not my own, of course, weathered by decades of self-importance and buffoonery, but the lip sculpture upon which I sit.

It turns out that an artist and faculty member at the University of Denver created the multiple sculptures that make up this exhibit. It’s described in notes from the Vicki Myhren Gallery.

“Faculty member Lawrence Argent (b.1957) completed the limestone, bronze and sound sculpture Whispers in 1999. Based on 3D digital scans of the faces of several students in Argent’s classes, its over-sized limestone and bronze lips appear closed and mute. As one approaches the sculpture, however, voices of actual lectures and public events on campus emerge softly from concealed audio speakers nearby.”

Really?

I first sat on one of these sculptures when I was lost while looking for a gym. By the way, the gym was about 10 steps away (the story of my life). However, the search for a workout was forgotten when it dawned on my razor-sharp intellect that these were lips. Sculptured. And more than one set. And I was sitting on them.

I jumped up in excitement.

And look, even smaller lips made out of black blocks sitting on top of poles.

Amazing.

And the lips are modeled from students in the artist’s class nearly 20 years ago. Wow. A student from University of Denver today could be sitting on the lips that belonged to her own mom or dad. It gives a whole new dimension to the traditional family squabble where the student is able to say to a parent, “You can kiss my $&*.” I’ve always liked a visual.

But hold on for just a second. What makes you lick your lips in anticipation?

A line snakes out to the street from where I think someone must be giving away free lottery tickets.

Nope.

Ice cream for sale. The elixir of the gods.

Little Man Ice Cream, in fact. Besides being amazing ice cream, Little Man goes a step further, according to their web page.

“For every scoop of ice cream purchased, Little Man matches that scoop with a donated scoop of rice, beans, or other essentials to a community in need anywhere around the world. To date, Little Man has delivered to communities in 9 countries spread across 4 different continents.”

Ah hah! “We are actually taking food from communities in need if we don’t order a second scoop of salted maple pecan,” I argue to my wife. She is not impressed with my sweet lawyer skills.

In any case, ice cream is something to lick with those lips.

Which brings me to my proposal for the University of Denver. They need to contact Claes Oldenburg for a small work of art. This should be quite easy. Denver already has Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Big Sweep — the gigantic broom and dustpan just outside the entrance to the art museum. So, why not order the perfect mate for Argent’s oversized lips — Oldenburg’s and Van Bruggen’s giant ice cream cone.

Take their Dropped Cone in Cologne, Germany. When my wife and I turned the corner and saw this upside-down cone, we thought we might have inhaled too deeply when we visited Amsterdam. Nope, it is not a hallucination. A masterpiece right there on the building.

Clearly, a newly created relative of the Dropped Cone needs to be on Ritchie Center. It’s a no-brainer.

But the University needs to act fast. Sadly, Coosje van Bruggen has died. The Whispers creator, Lawrence Argent, has died. And Oldenburg is not a young man.

Perhaps Oldenburg and Little Man could collaborate. Why not? And every tenth scoop could go to those in ice cream need. Like myself.

Mmmm, let’s see, Raspberry Love or Chocolate Whopper?

Joe

Brad Dotson, a fellow spectator at the Roosevelt Sharks Dance The Night Away, and father of one of the Sharks, gives me a wry smile as he adds:

“This routine doesn’t always work.”

Of course it doesn’t always work. Duh. They are in a perpetual state of drowning. Please get real. This is insane.

And there it is: circle upon circle upon circle of Roosevelt High School girls with legs extended, somehow treading water, begin to collapse in the middle. And, like the name says, their bodies seem to magically all rush toward the center where they are sucked down in a splash. The Drain in action. A grand success!

The crowd erupts. They did it! The alumni women in the front lean over the railing cheering and shouting and pumping their fists in the air. Parents and students scream with delight over the loud music. And the girls? To my surprise and relief, they resurface, smile widely, and move onto the next routine.

You might know the Sharks’ performance as water ballet. Although synchronized swimming seems to be the common term. And now the 2017 governing body of FINA calls it artistic swimming.

I call it a miracle no one drowned.

FINA artistic swimming rules. From a Back Layout Position the knees are drawn toward the chest, with toes at the surface to assume a Tub Position. The knees are straightened to assume a Surface Ballet Leg Double Position. 

Listen, I can’t swim. Sorry. Three thousand lessons. Wonderful instructors. Pressure from my very buoyant children and wife to become an adult swimmer. It doesn’t matter. I just have a certain affinity for the bottom of a pool. I jump in, sink to the bottom, and feel right at home.

But not these girls.

According to the brochure, the Roosevelt Sharks are “the oldest high school synchronized swimming club in the nation.” Founded in 1926, they are swimming toward their first 100 years. Amazing.

Olivia Dotson, a junior at Roosevelt High School, survives the performance and meets up with me at a coffee shop.

“Okay, if your hands are in the air and you’re not moving and you’re in deep water, why doesn’t anyone call 911?”

Olivia smiles graciously.

“So, when you’re arms are in the air there’s this thing called the Eggbeater. It’s kind of like treading water 2.0. You have to get this circular movement with your legs down very precisely. Our team is made up of a lot of swimmers and we do a lot of practicing. After you go over it again and again and again, you get it.”

I’m not fooled. I suspect 10 girls go into the pool to practice the Eggbeater and only five walk out.

FINA artistic swimming rules. A Thrust is executed to a Vertical Position. Maintaining maximum height the legs are split rapidly to assume an Airborne Split Position and rejoin to a Vertical Position, followed by a Vertical Descent. 

Olivia tells me that the Sharks are not just about doing swimming routines.

“When we come in as freshman, we get a Big Sis. The Big Sis are the seniors. That bond is formed. And once they graduate they have someone to come back and watch. You know, there are graduates from three years out watching. And part of it is they know how hard it is. And they know how much work goes into it. And they just go crazy. At intermission, they even come in with flowers.”

It turns out that Olivia and three other performers choreographed a portion of the program. A dozen other young women choreographed other portions. Then there is the music and the design and all the incidentals of a top-notch spectacle. All done by these girls. Oh, yeah, and they perform over 240 hours of community service on top of all this.

Not bad.

So, Olivia, is this competitive?

“For the Sharks, the end game is just to perform it. You’re not doing it to compete with anyone else. It is a performance. It is creative. You channel it. You’re trying to work with the person next to you, not beat them.”

Is that because the person next to you is drowning?

Olivia smiles again, dark eyebrows raised, chin out, eyes sparkling, . . . and ignores my question.

“Being part of the Sharks is so worth it. It’s a real special thing.”

Joy-filled, laughing, she leaves to go pick up trash as part of another school project.

As for me, I do a Vertical Descent with a Ballet Leg into a stuffed chair with my latte tipped into a Vertical Position ready for the big Drain. Trust me, no one ever drowns in a coffee shop.

Joe

“There’s a reason for everything, but there is no excuse if the cornbread is burnt.”

The old Southern gentleman looks at me with his right eye nearly closed and his left eye so wide he might be peering through a jeweler’s eyepiece. Yup, I am under scrutiny. Did I even know what cornbread was? Am I worthy of his story?

Clearly not.

“Well,” he patiently begins again after seeing my bemused look, “a million dollars was gone and the room full of people wanted to know why. But these folks didn’t want to hear me tell of all the reasons that money was gone. They just wanted the money back. With interest. So I told them, ‘There’s a reason for everything, but there is no excuse if the cornbread is burnt. And the cornbread is burnt.’ Do you see?”

These few sentences are spoken with a drawl so long and drawn that it is possible to eat a sandwich in-between them. But the elongated vowels also lend delightful musicality. Will the old man start tap-dancing next?

Charleston, South Carolina. I’m here for a wedding. I am caught by surprise at the graciousness of the people. When the clerk at the coffee shop tells you to have a good day, she may be just as willing to stop and talk about how you like Charleston, and, by the way, how many children do you have? And what are their ages? My goodness.

And the beauty of Charleston. Wow!

As I wander around, I end up down by the harbor on a quiet Friday morning. There I find Kasmere Sutter. She’s 18 years old and selling roses made from palm leaves.

“I’ve been doing this for like a year and a half. I get the palms from the trees nearby.”

No kidding.

“There is a lot of people doing them, like sweet-grass baskets on the market. They teach people how to make the roses and make sure you have a license and stuff like that.”

It must be a lot of work to make a living.

“I kinda live out on the streets. It’s not fun living on the street, but then again it’s fun. You get to do whatever you want to do. I think it’s fun because I’ve been in so many group homes and foster homes this is different. I left those places when I turned 18.”

And how is it not fun?

“This is also not fun because you have to look for food and it’s kind of embarrassing to ask people for food. You don’t want people to know the situation you’re in. I have pride.”

Do you feel safe?

“No, not really. I just keep myself safe. I have like a friend, not a boyfriend, but he’s male. He keeps me safe and I keep him safe.”

Really? Keep yourself safe?

Back when I was in my 20’s, I hitchhiked around the United States. It was the waning days of hitchhiking as a relatively normal mode of transport. Cities and states and the federal government were starting to pass restrictions on where folks could legally hitchhike because of all the danger posed by hitchhikers and the people who picked them up.

But, of course, I was invincible.

Across Iowa. Across Nebraska. Into Wyoming. Carving my way up into Canada and then circling back across the Trans-Canadian Highway and dropping into New York City.

It seemed like a romantic adventure. You know, on the road (boring). Hopping trains (not really). Cooking in tin cans around a campfire with poet hobos (never).

Yup. Delusional at best.

I spent one night in a ditch somewhere outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming. About 20 yards away from my sleeping bag there was rustling in the tall grass. I was not alone on this early morning. Three teenagers. Bedded down like young deer. Skittish. Wary. Coughing softly in the morning dew. Their thin bodies and hollow looks seemed an advertisement for despair. They glanced away from me in fear that I would harm them. Quickly, they packed their few belongings, watching me over their shoulders, and moved on into town, looking for food.

They are what it means to live on the street — hunger, constant movement, and danger. This is not romantic.

But today the sun is shining in Charleston. The stately and colorful mansions line the harbor with their three-layer porches. And Spanish moss hangs from the trees as if placed there by the rowdy antics of high school kids before the Friday night game.

I turn back to Kasmere Sutter and her open-air market.

How much for a rose made from palm leaves?

“Five dollars . . . but three will do.”

I pay the 18-year-old kid and walk back to my lovely life and ruminate about all the reasons Sutter is living on the street. Meanwhile, the smell of burnt cornbread floats on the breeze.

Joe

Grease the bottom of your pans. Combine all the dry ingredients including the cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Have you noticed that whenever you’re feeling just a little too smart, too strong, too handsome, too successful, too whatever . . . the bottom drops out! I remember finishing a long series of lectures for wannabe lawyers, making sure my kids had all made it to their summer jobs, and hopping on my bike on a beautiful warm day in Iowa, peddling down the road with hard work at my back and the sun of success in my face.

And then a van smacked me unconscious on the side of the road, temporarily paralyzed my body, and crushed my voice box.

Go figure.

Now combine eggs, bananas, sugar, and oil.

Theresa Greenfield was on top of the world. She had just turned in all the signatures she needed from eligible voters to formally launch her candidacy for the United States House of Representatives. She had raised more money than any of her fellow Democratic candidates. She had been campaigning hard for a year. And gosh darn, everything was jelling. She was on the road to success.

“I was so excited. I was thrilled.” She tells me, her brow furrowing, still in disbelief.

And then Greenfield got hit by the proverbial van.

“On Thursday night, my campaign manager walked into my office and told me that he had forged signatures on our petition.”

Catastrophic.

Greenfield didn’t even quibble about what was forged and what was not. She fired her manager and went down to withdraw her papers to run as a candidate. She was not going to run a campaign based on tainted signatures. Her candidacy was essentially over. She was toast.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients.

“And then I got to work,” she says with a steely look.

One option was to start all over and collect new signatures by 5 p.m. One work day. The clock was ticking.

Yikes.

“About 8 in the morning people began to deploy and collect for the 8 counties required. We needed 1790 signatures. Our supporters called their supporters who called their friends. People called me I didn’t know and said, ‘Hi, I just heard. I’m in Adel, I can get 20 signatures.’ ‘Hi, I’m in Creston with 50 signatures.’”

Greenfield turned to all the Democratic candidates running for Iowa governor. And they didn’t disappoint.

“All the gubernatorial campaigns helped me out. They released their staff. They provided advice. Their campaign managers were all at the Capitol when I was filing. They were strong for me. They stepped up to be my campaign manager for the day.”

“Someone shouldn’t lose based on a technicality,” says John Norris, one of the gubernatorial candidates.

So he acted.

“We shut down our office for six hours and pulled people off to help her get names. We just sent people out on the streets. At one point we had a meeting point between people collecting signatures at highways 34 and highway 148 for three vehicles and a hand-off.”

Norris smiles at the craziness of it all.

“It’s just like when a farmer gets injured. You all come together and get them through the crisis. You’re always stronger for that.” He pauses. “All of us are stronger.”

And Greenfield kept hustling and calling and collecting and cheerleading as the day slipped away.

“We had people running to the Secretary of State Office with one minute to 5 p.m. with sheets of signatures. There were a lot of cheers.”

It was done.

Fold in nuts.

But it was not to be.

Not enough signatures. Just 200 short.

Disaster.

Ah, but Greenfield, still dumbfounded from the evolving news, reminds me of real disaster.

“I lost my first husband to a work accident when I was 24 and pregnant.”

Greenfield looks me in the eye with her jaw set.

“What I learned at the young age of 24 was how important social security and hard-earned union benefits are. I would have gone to poverty without them. I had one child and was expecting number two. And came from a poor farm family. When the union leaders came to my home after the funeral, they said, here’s how we’re going to take care of you. They explained social security and the union benefits. They couldn’t bring my husband back, but they wanted to make sure that I knew I could pay the rent.”

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 55 minutes.

As I sit with Greenfield in the ashes of her former manager’s mess, she has no room for self-pity.

“When I’d go to church on Sundays after my husband died, two union members would meet me at my car. One would grab one baby and one the other. I’d sit at church and they’d sit right next to me. There were times at Mass that I’d just cry the whole time. And they just sat next to me and said, this is okay. It’s okay to cry. They would hold my babies.”

Greenfield looks away and then looks back.

“People are good. And we saw this again on Friday.”

So, what is Greenfield’s response?

“I know we aren’t stopping. We are going forward with this race for the House. There are other ways.”

And for yourself?

“I had a meet and greet last night. I really spent a long time thinking about gratitude after that event. There are just times you have to stand up and be strong. And when the door is closed, and no one can see, like with my former manager’s bad choices, I still choose what is right. And that’s important.”

So what did you do after the meeting last night?

“My twin sister and I baked banana bread until 12:30 at night. When you’re in a crisis people bring you food. I did the exact opposite. I was in a crisis and I needed to bring people food.”

Really?

“I decided the campaigns for governor needed a special thank you. So this morning we delivered banana bread from my kitchen to their campaigns.”

No kidding.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then eat.

Joe