“I try to show flaws because flaws are human.” Tom Sachs, press release 2008, concerning the Miffy Fountain.

Henriette Priester is helping me learn Dutch during my stay in the Netherlands. Not such a big deal, one would think. I figured that with the right motivation and a little time I could learn just about any language. French in a weekend? C’est moi, mon cher. German before noon? Hah! Before you can say Ich bin ein Berliner. Learn Dutch over a couple of months? Please. I go Dutch all the time.

Henriette is the wife of a husband/wife team that runs the gym, Absolutely Fit, in The Hague. She is a mother to many of us in the gym, she has her own adult children, and now has three grandchildren.

Henriette knows how to teach. She began my informal Dutch lessons by only speaking Dutch to me.

“Hoe gaat het?” Henriette says very slowly with a lot of hand gestures.

Cleverly, and after much thought, I respond:

“What?” — which I say way too loudly because I’m an American.

Sure, I have had my struggles. Last week, when I was in the checkout line at Albert Heijn, the Dutch Hy Vee, there were about 30 Dutch folks behind me, harried and rushing to get home for dinner. A check-out clerk about three cash registers over began yelling at me. At least I thought she was yelling at me because she and everyone else waiting in line were looking directly at me while she was talking.

I couldn’t understand a word.

So, I defaulted to smiling. Very broadly.

Several people immediately backed away.

But one kind Dutch woman leaned over and said in English: “She is wondering if you would like to go over to her line and check out.”

Hah! I hurried over to her line and began to unload my groceries.

The check-out woman nodded at me and said something more in Dutch. Nope, zero understanding. She tried again. Not helpful. Mercifully, she indicated where my debit card should go. I put my tram card in the slot. Oops. Okay, here’s the debit card. She then ended with a final flurry of words.

Is she speaking Swahili?

Thirty tired shoppers watched this transaction with fascination. As did I, because I was apparently having an out-of-body experience somewhere in Australia.

Finally, red-faced and embarrassed, I quickly packed up my groceries and raced for the exit.

“Meneer, meneer,” the cashier said loudly, and pointed to my toilet paper left at the cash register. Everyone looked at the toilet paper and then at me.

Whose toilet paper is that? I wondered aloud.

Not one of my best moments.

I grabbed my toilet paper and fled the store.

As you can see, Dutch lessons were going quite well when Henriette introduced me to books that have been used for over sixty years to teach Dutch kids to read — Dick Bruna’s “Nijntje,” which I promptly translated incorrectly as “Fluffy.” “Fluffy goes to the sea.” “Fluffy flies.” “Fluffy goes on a walk.” These books are not only great for Dutch lessons, but are made out of such heavy paper that you can gnaw on the edges if you’re still teething or, as I discovered, if you are slightly anxious.

“I used the Nijntje books for my children and the children of my children,” Henriette says.

Really?

If children learn Dutch from these books, why can’t I?

So Henriette sent me home with half a dozen Nijntje books. And I tried to read them.

Mmm . . . harder than they look. I turn the page. Yup, there’s Nijntje doing something. Is that Nijntje on a boat or is she bathing? Okay, I think Nijntje is going on a walk. With a large cheese? Lord help me, for a rabbit without a nose Nijntje seems to have quite the vocabulary.

And it only gets worse.

I pick up book after book after book. A total disaster. I can’t translate one word.

I hate Nijntje.

And then I read about the new art sculpture back home in Des Moines, Iowa. The Miffy Fountain. A wonderful sculpture by Tom Sachs that is located in Des Moines Western Gateway Park. The Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundations wrote about the Miffy Fountain with understandable pride:

“Miffy is a character recognized globally as a symbol of childhood. . . The American artist Tom Sachs uses the image of the little bunny to comment on the commercialization of every human experience, no matter how innocent or traumatic, to sell these products.”

The little bunny? Oh my lord, Miffy is Nijntje, which I incorrectly translated as Fluffy. Tom Sachs made a sculpture from Dick Bruna’s Nijntje. My worst nightmare — Nijntje has come to Des Moines. I can never return home!

So I asked my son, Emmett, to scout out the new Miffy Fountain for me in Des Moines.

“Dad, I can’t see a thing. She’s coated in plastic. I think for the winter.”

Hah, I knew it. Miffy is trying to go undercover. Why? Well that’s a no-brainer. She can’t speak English. She’s Dutch. I’d like to see how she fares at Hy Vee.

Don’t worry, folks, I have a solution for all of us.

And it’s not learning a new language. Too hard. Instead, we just need Dutch letters. No, not letters in Dutch, but “Dutch letters” — the almond-paste pastry. The next time you walk past the Miffy Fountain, or, for that matter, walk past me, offer us a Dutch letter.

Why?

Duh. Pastry is the world’s language. Natuurlijk.

Joe

The three houseboats float low on the canal near Veenkade street in The Hague. You have to look close because they blend in with the moored sailing boats and covered speed boats and the old fishing boats that barely float with their hulls half-full of rain water. And it doesn’t help that the shadows reaching out from the left bank swallow most of the canal. But there they are. Three houseboats in a row. Catnip for my river-loving soul.

I sit at the table of Sylvia Satter, grandmother to Sharona Verhagen, and aunt to Sylvia Boutier. Three generations of Dutch women who invite an absolute stranger inside their houseboat and offer me tea and snacks.

“We are coming from a family that lives everywhere. They travel in a caravan. They were gypsies.” Sylvia Boutier, 47 years old, has dancing eyes and a face that switches from high comedy to dire tragedy in a glance.

“After a time, they tried to go into a house because my grandma was tired of it — all the traveling, and the kids were growing up. They tried to go into a house but it was not very her thing so she decided to go back in a caravan. But the place they were staying didn’t work. So they went into a houseboat.”

And that was good?

“I have been on the boat 47 years. We still have the gypsy feeling. We are proud of it. Still you are more free here than in a home.”

And how were your treated growing up living in this different way?

“I remember my school they were calling us ‘gypsy, gypsy, gypsy,’ in a bad way. There are some people who don’t accept it. It was not nice. It stopped because there was one guy always bothering me and I hit him. Then it stopped.” Sylvia Boutier says with a shrug.

But her niece, Sharona Verhagen, nearly 25 years younger, had a different experience.

“I don’t have that feeling. I was special in a good way. All the kids in my school wanted to be here. It was a different generation.”

And now?

“I’m a teacher at a preschool and when I tell the kids who are 4-6 years that I’m living on a boat they are like ‘I want to look at that.’ They really want to see it. They think I’m living on a little boat, a little thing.” Sharona Verhagen says this with a warm, kind smile — confirming her choice as a preschool teacher.

They both assured my seasick suspiciousness that there is very little movement on the boat except when there is a large wake from a tourist boat. That the boats are easy to maintain. That the City is a pain and constantly trying to push them out, but they get by. That they feel free and not bothered by people on the land. And that they support and love each other.

Not a bad life.

“We are part of the water.” Sylvia Boutier adds. “When you are on false land, it angers you, because you are on false land, It doesn’t feel so nice as the water.”

Grandma Sylvia Satter joins the conversation.

“I couldn’t breath in a house. I go mad, really. You don’t know how much of richdom that you have living here on a houseboat.”

Richdom? Really? Such as?

She pauses for a moment, laughter in her eyes, then says, “Every year we have a couple of little swans. They knock on the glass. They are telling us: ‘Look I’ve got babies.’”

And all three women smile with delight at the memories.

Where does this all end?

“I will live here until I die,” says Grandma without hesitation.

“But they must live long,” Sylvia Boutier quickly adds, to stop any bad thoughts from my question.

And what do you call houseboats in Dutch?

“Woonark.”

Mmmm . . . literally that means?

“Living on an ark.”

I eventually leave and walk up the dark canal to my landlocked apartment, missing already the up-close smell of the water and the warmth of the three women. Two white swans float quietly past in the shadows. Not a sound as they drift on the canal. Two by two. Looking for an ark made of gopher wood.

Joe

“I want it now.”

I’m sure those words first came to our minds while still in the womb — demanding even more from our poor, bedraggled mothers. And the words remained true as we matured and expected to receive that plum job with the six-month vacation and a company car after graduating from high school with a degree in the correct application of Goth makeup. “I want it now.” Of course, who doesn’t? Instant gratification. I’ll take two helpings, please.

And today, amazingly enough, we can get anything imaginable almost upon the mere thought.

I want those pants. They’ll arrive tomorrow. I want that book. Great, press the button. Oh, you want a new lawnmower? Easy-peasy, there it is at the front door.

I love it! Not a human in sight. We have hooked ourselves up to the Matrix pods and it feels good.

But, of course, there is a human in sight. Some man or woman is lugging your lawnmower or your pants or your Hy Vee groceries to your mailbox or door or into your kitchen. As shocking as it seems, your ease in ordering milk does not make the milk easier to carry.

The Netherlands is no different. You think it, you got it. However, the modes of delivery aren’t quite the same.

Take for example the mail. In this neck of the woods, it’s by bike. Yup, a bike loaded with mail. Delivered in rain or shine (well, “shine” is a little strong since the sun’s rays never exceed their allotted five minutes per week). The mail delivery person uses the back of the bike, the front of the bike, and even a bag on the shoulder. It doesn’t matter to them. Here’s your mail. Instant gratification for you; back-breaking work for Rashid, the smiling, friendly, mail guy.

And your kids? Hah, they are also delivered for you by bike. This isn’t that strange. Transportation is still transportation whether the kids are in a school bus, a van from a carpool, or packed like small wedges of Dutch cheese in the front wooden basket of a heavy Dutch bike. A bucket of kids to go, please.

But what about instant gratification on a Dutch canal?

Let’s say some day you’re floating down a canal and feel a sudden urge for French fries. What do you do? Well . . . .

“My name is Pema Zangyetsang.”

Dark eyebrows, dark eyes, big smile.

Pema is the owner of Mister Snack.

“I’ve had this two years ago.”

His shop is sparkling clean with displays of snack foods and drinks and, yes, French fries. It sits directly over the intersection of two canals.

“In summertime, it is good to deliver to boats. People call the phone or some people just ring the bell.”

What Pema is talking about is this wonderful system of pulleys he has set up to deliver his snacks to boats on the canal.

See, you never have to leave your boat as you eat fries slathered in the traditional Dutch style, with more mayonnaise than fried potato.

Instant gratification. Awesome.

Is this your life dream, Pema, to own a snack business in the Netherlands?

“I want to own more shops. Actually, I’m planning for sushi, but this place is too small.”

And your home?

“I’m from Tibet. It is very far from here. I came in 2004 to The Hague. I learned Dutch . . .  I very much miss home.”

Why?

“This last January, my father back in Tibet is very sick.”

And this is why you miss home?

“Yes.”

Ahhhhhh . . . what happened to my instant gratification? Everything was whimsical, light, mildly funny. And now? A sharp left turn into the hard life of an immigrant, who has done everything right (learned Dutch, operates a successful business, pays taxes), but who can’t be home with his ill father.

Only one solution — I pull out my iPhone, hit my automatic contact number, and order some ice cream. Whew. Close call. Instant gratification wins the day.

Joe

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