Reading obituaries feels a little like reading the daily racing form at Prairie Meadows.  You quickly scan the page to see how many of the departed are your age or younger.  If that number is fifty percent or greater, you realize it may not be a good time to double down on the chance you will be enjoying a foot-long hot dog at the State Fair in August.  Heck, you might as well even skip that dental appointment later today and just go to the afternoon matinée.  What’s the point of clean teeth when your generation is dropping like flies?

And then there is the disturbing habit of leaving out the cause of death in the obit.  You are deprived of the comforting notion that the cause is some obscure disease only contracted between two and three in the morning on Tuesdays while eating broccoli.   Instead, you’re fairly certain the cause was death by donut.  Why else would that pertinent information be left out of the obituary?  And here you are staring at the donut bin in Donut Hut.  You are not a good bet.

Fortunately, there is a way to hedge your death with just the right planning.  Similar to the idea of Pascal’s Wager.  You remember Pascal, that crazy French philosopher and mathematician?   Well, he developed a theory based on his concern that you might not believe in a Christian God.  Okay.  He claimed, why not act as if you do believe in a Christian God, even if you don’t.  If you’re wrong, no big deal.  You’re dead.  If you’re right?  Everlasting life in heaven.   Win-win, according to Pascal’s Wager.

So, the obvious hedge to your death, using Pascal’s Wager — DON’T BELIEVE IN DEATH.  Period.  If you don’t believe in death, and you actually die, so what?  You’re dead.  But if you don’t believe in death and you live?   Wow, no wasted time reading obits and more time at Dairy Queen.  Win-win.

To scientifically critique this theory using the most stringent guidelines, I consulted with the only population that clearly does not believe in death — and, as a result, they live a wonderful life.  You could almost say a dog’s life.  How do I know this population doesn’t believe in death?  Well, they never complain that life is too short.  Ever.  There is not one peep from them about the fears and concerns of illness or disease — no matter how bunged up they are.  Finally, there is not even a belly-ache that all their old friends have dropped off the radar.  They’ll gladly fly solo.  They just flat-out don’t believe in death.

The first consultee is Lilly.  She’s helping me write today.  But really, she’s trying to catch the sun coming in the window and maybe entice a belly rub.

Whatever she’s doing, you can bank on this — she does not believe in death.  Cat treats?  Absolutely, she believes.  But even agnostics believe in cat treats.

The star of the death-denial group is Mickey.  He’s a thousand years old, and a gambler from way back.  You’ve seen his like before.  He’s the guy at Prairie Meadows who arrives at seven in the morning with an oxygen tank rolling on two wheels behind him like carry-on luggage with the tubbing from the oxygen tank threaded around his walker which has a handy cup holder and a bell.  And, yes, he has a perfectly balanced unlit cigarette between his lips as he leans over his beer to play the slots.  Forecast to die long ago, he just keeps on playing.  And Mickey?  Same same.  He was supposed to die three winters ago.  Bad liver.   But he just wags his tail and continues to eat bunny poop on his walks.  How can he do this?  Duh, he doesn’t believe in death.

There you have it.  Pascal’s Wager with a twist.  Simple.  Either you believe in death or you don’t.  I can guarantee that whatever you choose will result in the same end.  Trust me.

By the way, today only, you can now order this very program in the all-inclusive “Defeat Death Today” kit.  Three easy payments.  Offer available exclusively to readers of Cityview.  For the rock-bottom price of a latte — a large.

WARNING: Do not operate heavy machinery while participating in this program!  Preliminary studies have shown that mixing cars with people who think they will never die can reverse the effects of the Defeat-Death-Today program.

Joe

When the pain is too great, when it all is just too much, the doctors prescribe morphine.  It is an interesting substance — this derivative from opium.  In the early eighteen hundreds, a German pharmacist named the drug morphine after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.  No doubt, dreams are what morphine brings.  Dreams of a better time.  But, in the here and now, morphine cuts the pain down a notch.  It pushes on the hurt just enough that there is a small gap to take a ragged breath.  It allows an eye to open, look warily around, and see that you are not alone.

In the bowels of Broadlawns Medical Center, tucked away from everyone but the curious, sits the small institutional office of the Polk County Medical Examiner, Doctor Gregory Schmunk.  Elfish in appearance, with kind eyes, shaved head, and a white goatee that blends into his pale face, he smiles warmly in greeting.  As you sit with him, he appears to be searching for the humor that lies hidden in the conversation.  You know he has found it when his mouth broadens up and the outside corner of his eyes drop.  Something has tickled his fancy.  You don’t know what exactly, but he’s found it.  Yikes, he seems inordinately chipper for a man elbow-deep in the dead.

Don’t get me wrong, a serious man, for sure.  Forensic pathologist.  Board-certified in anatomic pathology.  President of the National Association of Medical Examiners.   He’s performed a gazillion autopsies over his long career and testified in a multitude of high-flying criminal cases.  He has seen controversy and relative calm — with himself at the center of both.  Oh, and by the way, he looks death in the eye daily.

“I started out as a pediatrician.  I wanted to take care of kids.”  No kidding.  But Dr. Schmunk loved the lab and loved the science.   He was soon courted away by the University of California at San Diego to do edgy research.  Pathology appeared to be a perfect fit.  Before long, he was doing a fellowship in the Seattle Medical Examiner’s Office.  And the future Polk County Medical Examiner was off and running.

With his love of science, numbers, and puzzle solving, it is easy to stereotype Dr. Schmunk as a man who exists only in his head.  Come on, it’s hard not to notice the items hanging from around his neck — yes, those appear to be pens-on-a-chain.   What more need be said.

But make no mistake, Dr. Schmunk is not solely about the science and mystery of the dead body on the table.  Early in his career he was brought in as the medical examiner in a high-profile multiple hostage/murder case.  After the autopsy of one of the bad guys, he went to the area reserved for family and loved ones.  The bad guy, by no means a respectable man, had about 30 family members waiting to hear from the doctor.  Dr. Schmunk was shocked.  “Even though there are bad people, there’s probably going to be someone who loves them.  My job at a minimum is to offer the family closure.  I can do that.”  And he does.

But what about the sadness?  Isn’t it overwhelming?  “I have a hard time with children and young women. Recently I had to autopsy two young women.  Both were pregnant.  That’s bad.”  However, Dr. Schmunk, a deeply religious man, has a simple philosophy about the dead bodies on the table: “They’re no longer home.”  And, to correct any misunderstanding, he adds, “Listen, this is not about the people on my table . . . this is about the survivors.”

The autopsy room is “very much a respectful place.”  Dr. Schmunk frequently plays music while he works.  And, not infrequently, he is asked by the family of the loved one to play special songs during the autopsy.  Songs of significance to the dead.  He gladly does.

Which gets us to the morphine.  A baby died.  A great tragedy by any measure.  Dr. Schmunk needed to perform the autopsy.  The young mother was afraid that the procedure would cause pain to her dead baby.   “Pain to her dead baby”?  Crazy, right?  But who are we to question the logic of a grieving mother.  The solution was obvious to Dr. Schmunk.  He obtained a prescription of morphine.  Before the autopsy, he administered morphine to the dead baby.   “And what did this do for anyone?” you might ask.  Well, nothing for the dead baby.  Remember, no one is home.  But the young mom . . . ?  The young mom was able to push the hurt aside just long enough to take a ragged breath, to open an eye, and see Dr. Schmunk by her side.   She felt less pain.  Morphine dreams.

Joe

Food courts are not the place where most folks go for spiritual renewal.   Heck, food courts don’t even count as a location for a date with your special someone — unless, of course, you’re 12.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that caramel popcorn purchased at a food court is not a religious experience.  It is.  But a food court feels a bit like a rest stop on Interstate 80 — I’m here for the moment, I’m heading elsewhere, and I’m stopping because of forces I can’t control.

On the other hand, isn’t there something about colored neon lights, the smell of fast food, and the murmur of shoppers that beckons?  It’s the State Fair without the Butter Cow.

Valley West Mall’s food court is a fine example of the genre: bright lights, garish signs, and lots of conversation (frustratingly spoken just below the level for adequate eavesdropping).   You can vaguely hear the piano player at Van Maur doing a jazzy version of Over the Rainbow.  You are easily swept up in the ebb and flow of the diners.  No squatters in this group.  People are here to do their business and move on.  If you want to hang out, go with the other cranky husbands and sit in the soft chairs in the center of the concourse.  There’s your peer group.  This spot is for moms and dads hauling their little ones, or the mall hipsters sporting funky hats, or young teenagers untethered from their parents and experiencing the wonders of fast food.

However, if you’re lucky, and you look closely, you might see Marie.

Marie is quietly and thoroughly cleaning up after you.  You will barely notice her as she keeps her head down and wipes your table.  At 51 years old, and with eight years under her belt, she knows this job.  She sweeps, wipes, and mops, all in the same conservative sequence of movements.  She has a full day to get through.  Flamboyance is not rewarded.

Marie’s English is not the best.  But she listens with tolerant amusement to my excellent Spanish, which involves pronouncing English words loudly and with clown-like facial movements.

She comes from Guatemala.  Four sons.  Three married and one still in high school.  Husband?  “It’s broken,” she says.  She works hard as a single mom.  Every day.  The mall ladies — “muchas ladies in mall” — stop her to thank her for how clean everything is.  “You happy, you good, you clean,” is how she sums up her duties.  And she doesn’t lie.  Everything is spotless.

And what about fun?  “Dance,” she says with a twinkle.  “Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, everything . . . .”

And that’s enough talk.  Marie has no more time for idleness.  She is off to clean another table and leaves me standing alone amongst the neon.

Joe

Sometimes something is just missing.  It’s weird.  You walk into a beautiful building, you are a guest in someone’s gorgeous home, or you meet an interesting person for the first time.  All good.  But some ingredient is missing between you and the architecture, between you and the warmth of the home, and between you and the potential friend.  You can’t quite put your finger on it — perhaps a touch of salt, a pinch of oregano, a teaspoon of cream — but something is not right.    Maybe you forgot the sugar.

You can spend much of your life trying to figure out who to blame for this missing ingredient.  Certainly you can blame yourself for being inherently unlikable.  Who isn’t?  This self-flagellation is well worth the time and usually leads to fruitful insights.  Or you can adopt my favorite lawyer technique of blaming anyone or everyone else for the lack.  Again, this is also tremendously helpful in addressing almost any problem and a surefire path to winning lifelong friends.  Or . . .  you can just set these concerns to one side and celebrate those times that the cake actually does rise.

In the very heart of the Des Moines Art Center, at the very confluence of the work of the three Art Center architects, Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Richard Meier, sits a small unobtrusive restaurant.   Walk in the door.   Sure, some restaurants are decorated with flowers or pictures or statues.  Look closely.  Light is the ornament that dresses this interior.

Quietly sit.  Feel the sun.  See the flowers in the center of each table.  Smile at the wonderful waitresses.  And if your lucky, the manager/chef will glide into the room.  Lisa LaValle moves with grace.  Not a ballerina’s grace, but the calm grace of a patient mother.  Don’t expect a pirouette and a dancer’s lift, but her reassuringly firm hands may pick you up off the restaurant floor, dust you off, and put a red tabbouli salad in front of your place — all with only a few stands of white-blonde hair coming loose.   You might be home.

Lisa has a Ph.D. in mothering, by the way.  Born in Pella, her own mother died way too young.  By the age of seven, Lisa was cooking and shopping for her widowed dad and two brothers.  “Dad — now 90-years-old — was such a lousy cook.  And my Dad and two brothers will eat anything.”  Necessity and an appreciative audience.   The perfect recipe for a burgeoning chef.

Take your time to poke your head into the kitchen.  It’s small and tight and light.  Lisa stumbled onto the Art Center Restaurant years ago by “coming down to just help out.”  She was not looking for another job.  “With my first child only one year old, I finally had a good job, being a mom.”  But when you see her staff spread out around the big kitchen prep table, you’re also going to want to stir something and stay awhile.  And who does test the desserts anyway?

Three kids of her own, and a few years down the road, Lisa is soon to celebrate a trifecta of events: 20 years at the Art Center Restaurant, her last child leaving home, and a significant birthday.  It is a time of pause and reflection.

So, reflect on this.  The Dutch — you know, the rascals who live in a land of grey skies, windswept beaches, and non-stop rain — have a word for when it all comes together, for when a cosy, comfortable environment is created, for when you walk away from a person feeling warm and toasty: gezellig.   It is not all that common to find.  Think about it in your own life.  But when you do find it, mark it down in your planner — today the cake did correctly rise.

Joe

Long before you catch sight of the diminutive Thai woman, you’ll hear her voice — loud, strong, a touch of carny barker in the undertones, and leavened with laughter.  “Come in, come in, come in — please, sit anywhere,” is heard from the depths of the kitchen.  And you obey.  The smell of curry makes your nose prickle as you look over the spotlessly ordered dining area.  Even the sides of the condiments are sparkling clean.  Really.

Ormsin Heineman, nicknamed Mao by her family (a Thai variation of the sound made by a cat), is barely visible on the other side of the pass-through as she cooks in the kitchen.

She quickly finishes the dish she is preparing and looks at you beaming with a smile that stretches wide enough to make her eyes disappear.   Ah, but you take a second look.  Her solid no-nonsense stance makes you hesitate.  Without her saying a word, you know she will not brook any sass, you know you’d better sit up straight, and you hope you cleaned behind your ears.   This is June Cleaver mixed with a bit of Athena the Goddess of War.  Tough love.

Raised in rural Thailand, Mao came from a family of 11 that was “dirt poor.”  Every morning she would push a cart to market to sell items made and raised in the home.  She started cooking to have more items to sell from the cart.  A hard life.  After she finished all the schooling she could in her small town, she headed off to college in Bangkok, where she obtained a degree in cooking and other home arts.  This led to teaching home economics.  It was not enough.  Mao had bigger plans.  So off she went to America.

For the next several years, there were few jobs that she didn’t do — restaurants, grocery stores, fast-food joints.  She cooked, she cleaned, she cooked some more.  Whatever it took.  Language, however, was still a problem.  In one restaurant she worked at in Seattle, she wasn’t allowed to wait on customers because she couldn’t say the words on the menu.   Undaunted, the menu came home and she worked endlessly to try to make sounds that were non-existent in her native language.  Apparently, her hard work paid off.   She ended up cooking for and running three restaurants in Seattle.  Not bad.

On September 3rd, 2004, Mao became a U.S. citizen.  “I never missed a question on the test,” she says proudly.  And four days later, she opened the King & I in West Des Moines — a highly respected Thai restaurant with amazing food.   She summarizes her management style: “I talk loud.  My mouth order-order, but my hand work-work, too.”  As for the customer, “I know exactly what they want when they come in the door and that is treating them right.”  Given her past, it is not a stretch to believe her when she leans in to say, “I can do anything; I’m not scared.”  No kidding.

But perhaps she is referring to something else . . . .

Many years ago while living on the east coast she met Fred.  A Vietnam Vet.  Wounded in the war.  Purple Heart.  A man by any measure of manhood.  There was just a small problem.  Fred had MS.  It didn’t matter to Mao at the time.  She was in love and soon married.  Twenty-one years quickly passed.

Fred became sicker and sicker.  That also didn’t matter.  Mao’s belief about marriage isn’t complicated: “One gets sick, one holds the other’s hands.”  Period.  Fred is now totally bedridden and needs basic care.   “He’s a happy guy; he’s at home,” Mao says in explaining his life.  She takes care of him and comes and goes frequently from the restaurant making sure he is all right.  “I watch him on a webcam now too.”

Really?  It’s all a cake walk?  This is the good life?

“I’m so tired. . . .  Sometimes I cry at night and talk to my dead father.  Then it is over. . . .   I cannot just stand back and watch him die.  I love him. . . .   And if you love somebody, you can love everybody. . . .  I try to help many people — too much pain for many.  If you don’t expect it back, you happy. . . .  If you do good, tomorrow is better.”

Emma Lazarus wrote a poem that is enshrined at the Statute of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Perhaps this immigrant is the one lifting the lamp.

Joe

Have you noticed that the topic of weather is the great equalizer that turns us all into Iowa farmers this time of year? You can be the librarian at the Downtown Library, a CEO at Nationwide, or a checker at Hy Vee, and out of your mouth will come these words: “What do you think of this weather?”  And before you know it, even if you live in an East Village loft, you’ll soon drop into farmer-weather lingo: “Can you believe that wind chill?” or “Do you think we got much moisture out of that storm?” or “Was that an Arctic blast that blew in last night?”  Honestly, you’re just a hair’s breadth away from asking if the cattle trough has frozen over.  Trust me — YOU DON’T HAVE A CATTLE TROUGH!  YOU DON’T HAVE A COW!  You have a cat.  Sorry.

Of course, you aren’t really an Iowa farmer, but you can be an Iowa Farmer.  If you’re an Iowa Farmer, when it is snowing or raining you head out the door, and if it doesn’t snow or rain, you also head out the door.  Period.  Unfortunately, if you fail to make this sharp turn towards being a bit tougher during this month of February, the consequences can be dire.  This isn’t just a vitamin D problem for those that stay inside.   This is a question of orientation: if you refuse to let this weather control your life, if you put your face into the wind, if you put on these gigantic lugged boots to walk on the river trails, who or what can possibly stop you?  Right?

You can see the positive fallout from such thinking.  Lame boyfriend?  Just walk a block in freezing wind thinking about your rotten relationship.  By the end, the boyfriend may not know it yet, but he’s gone.   Struggling with a problem at work?  Walk west on Grand, circle around the Meredith Gardens, then walk back downtown.  Problem solved.  Not getting along with your Mom?  Fine, bundle up (don’t forget your galoshes), and do a loop together at Gray’s Lake.  Relationship saved.

I guarantee this solution.  So much so that I think it can solve all the acrimony about gun laws, the education budget, immigration, drone warfare, and the interesting worry about who’s piercing what.  What should our legislators do with all these problems?  Duh, get out their sleds and head to Waveland Golf Course.  Snow’s melted, you say?  Are you new to town?  Just wait for the Girl’s Basketball Tournament.  It’ll come.

This south hill at Waveland should fit the House of Representatives just fine.  Just bring the toboggans from Decorah, the snow boards from Iowa City, and the traditional runners from Sioux City.  That should do it.  Discussion of whether we need to carry AK-47’s while shopping at Target will have a different tenor hanging onto the back of a sled while screaming with delight.  I promise.

As for the Senate, I’m thinking the long west hill.

This gives the Senators a chance to not only go a little longer, but to see the cemetery across University out of the corner of their eyes.  Death and the outdoors are generally the perfect ingredients for making good decisions.

To cement this argument about getting outside, I talked to a real Iowa Farmer, Dave Parker, who farms near Mingo.

“Outside?”  Dave asked with a twinkle in his eye.  “The wind blew a tree down yesterday that almost hit my propane tank.  I stayed inside all day.  It felt good.”

Joe

The class is soon to begin.  Chairs shuffle, winter coats are thrown to the side, note pads and laptops are carefully balanced on the 12-inches-of-polished-wood for a desk, and low conversation floats through the room.   Cell phones are turned off or carefully hidden just out of sight.  Murmurs, coughs, and dropped pens are given one last go-around, and then quiet.

He stands at the front of the room in his tight black t-shirt and jeans.  A small smile sits on his spectacled face, taking little away from the sense of energy compressed.  Clearly, he will either begin or explode.   Or, he may begin, and then explode.   But there will be an explosion.  Is it too late to leave?

“I’m about to tell you something important . . . .”  And so the class begins.   Rabbi Jay Holstein talks with a rhythm that locks you in your seat as sentences are broken into pieces as if he is speaking his last words.   And you, a mere student at the University of Iowa, are the only person entrusted with his will and testament.   You’re it.  Then, as if to contradict the need for you to administer the last rites, the words themselves are boomed out or whispered with such dramatic overtones you begin to wonder if you’ve wandered into a Pentecostal revival in Dolby Surround Sound.

“Let’s SAY . . .                                                                                                                             I had a PILL . . .                                                                                                                      That FINALLY . . . tells you the right thing to do.”

“In a short LIFE . . .                                                                                                                FULL of travail . . .                                                                                                                WHY should we be interested?”

And he is off and running. The Epic of Gilgamesh, death, meaning of life, old age, right and wrong, sexual austerity, family values, Jew/Christian, how one should lead their life, Genesis 2, the Book of Ruth, the movie E.T.   That’s about ten minutes in.   This is not for the faint of heart.

“Do you read the Bible like you read Hemingway. . . .  Are there special rules? . . .      The Bible is wonderfully dangerous. . . .   I’m about to turn left, when you think I’m going right. . . .   This is a semi-casual question: Does this learning about us show something? . . .   Is it possible to do what the Bible says about the table, the bedroom, and the grave? . . .  If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck . . . .  I don’t make judgments (laughter).”

Seventy-five years old, this man has taught you, or someone you know, at some time over the last forty years — thousands of Iowans.  He ostensibly teaches courses in the Department of Religion, but everyone knows that is not what he’s teaching.  Sure, he’ll teach the great writers, he’ll teach the Bible, and he’ll teach you Biblical Hebrew.  But, that’s not what he’s teaching.  He is teaching you how to think, how to live, how to grapple with a world that may not have your best interest at heart.  It is intoxicating and terrifying.  After fifty minutes of him, you need a nap.

Ah, but there’s a small catch.  Rabbi Holstein’s heart is not so good.  Yup, he’s been cut from one end to the other to clean things out.  Medications are lined up for their proper dispensation throughout the day.  And he carefully navigates workouts that are a shadow of the 100 mile weeks he used to run.  Now, after one of his classes, a new weariness is evident.  Everything has a price.

But there he is.  Standing at the front of the room.  Another class.  Challenging your morality — challenging your thinking — challenging any mental laziness.   He might explode.  Or he might not.

“Are you tough enough?” he asks the young man in the fourth row.

My money is on the teacher.

Joe

It is a fairly serious time and we are fairly serious folks dealing with fairly serious issues.  Duh!  Guns, mental health, economic disaster, global warming, war, Michelle’s bangs.  It feels a bit like that time when you had to babysit your younger brother and younger sister.  Your folks were gone, you were scared silly, and — listen for it — there’s the dreaded bump from downstairs in the dark.  If you remember, you were pretty sure the noise was the cat knocking over the pizza you had balanced on the TV.  But, there was an outside chance the noise was a mass murderer.  So you sent your younger sister down to check it out.  Today is a similar time.  A time for decisions and responsibility.   A serious time.

But do serious times require only seriousness?   Consider Greg Robinson.

Dr. Robinson’s size is the first noticeable feature.  He is a BIG MAN.  With his shaved head, broad smile, and large body, there is an urge to step back a little while shaking hands.  He’s just too imposing.  Too big.  Too close.  But then he talks.  He speaks of compassion, children, his adult children, other’s children, kindness, and more children.  Really.  It’s amazing.  Soon you realize that conversation is a piece of sparkly yarn that Dr. Robinson swats first one direction and then the next, until he eventually ends up rolling around on the floor.  As a listener, your job is to enjoy and periodically give the yarn a tug.  It is mesmerizing.

“I remember my elementary school principal who wore wingtips with some type of taps.  I could always hear him pacing up and down the halls.  He never came in the classroom. Ever.  I thought if I ran a school, I’d do it differently. . . .   A lot of principals work really hard to learn kids’ names.  I’m sorry to say that as you get older, all you remember are the names of the families.  Come on, what do you expect from me?  I’m a guy who had a stroke. . . .  When I go to Hy Vee and see all my former students working and I can’t find anything on my shopping list, I just cry out: ‘For god sakes help me.’  It works.”

Dr. Robinson began his career in Urbandale as the principal at Jensen Elementary School.   He soon became Superintendent of Urbandale Schools.  Nine years later, a stroke pushed him into an early retirement.  Life.

His message to first graders, teachers, and parents over all those years was simple:  “I want everybody to take a breath, we’re going to do our best.”  This notion of “trying your best” was leavened with more than a sprinkling of pixie dust.  “I dressed up as a clown when I was the principal because it should be fun to come to school.”  And each first grader was sent home with a “we are going to work hard” picture and a “we are going to have fun” picture.

“Expect the Best” was his motto.  Still is.  However, humor softens the edges of his life.  Recently, he fell down the stairs.  Perhaps not the most hilarious event.  As he lay crumpled in the stairway, holding his broken arm, he heard the EMT say, “Dr. Robinson are you okay?”  Of course, the EMT was a former student.  Dr. Robinson was okay as he shouted nonstop questions from the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital: “Can we open the windows back here?”  “Can’t we turn on the siren and race down Aurora?”  “Did you really grow up to be an EMT?”

Dr. Robinson still follows his students.  He still visits them at the hospital.  He still makes calls when families are in trouble.  He shaved his head to show solidarity for an injured friend and pierced an ear to motivate a student struggling with life.  He is concerned about education in the State of Iowa.  He meticulously follows the legislature’s decisions.  And his heart breaks when tragedy strikes the school-age population.  He is a serious man dealing with serious issues.  On the other hand: “I sit with strings of Christmas lights and change the bulbs to Urbandale colors, blue and white.  Am I crazy?”

Well, yes.  But, perhaps a balm for serious times.

Joe

Really?  They tell me that you’re on your high horse about the recent visit of the Monster Trucks to Des Moines.  Your artistic nose is out of joint at all the noise and the dirt and the craziness.  You’re wondering how an over-sized truck can possibly have one admirer let alone a twitter account.  And you’re worried this will give cause for more jokes about Des Moines as a backwater — a good place to fly over on your way to more refined activities.

Look.  Have you ever seen a really large vehicle jump over a bus?  Or over four cars?  Or jump across a chasm?  Or do a wheelie?  Aren’t you just a wee bit tantalized by the absurdly large?   If you take the ordinary and present it in an extraordinary fashion, doesn’t it give you pause and maybe even a new perspective?

Hah, you want artistic proof?  Well, how about Claes Oldenburg and the late Coosje van Bruggen.  They made a career of making the ordinary extraordinary.  You know, the spoon and cherry in Minneapolis.

And the Shuttlecocks in Kansas City.

And Cupid’s bow and arrow in San Francisco.

Of course, we have our very own Crusoe’s Umbrella.

And a garden trowel sitting outside of Meredith.

These are amazing outdoor sculptures.  And Des Moines has two of them!  Really three if you count Oldenburg’s giant plug sculpture inside the Art Museum.  And we have even more than mere sculptures by Oldenburg and Van Bruggen — we have Monster Trucks.  Duh, the ordinary presented extraordinarily.

Still not convinced?  Okay, drive down Hickman, and on the south side of the road is the perfect merger of Oldenburg, Van Bruggen, and Frosty the Snowman.  As big as a house.  Check it out.

Of course, you’re speechless.  That’s what the extraordinary does.

Joe

Truth is hard to come by it seems.  What we see is shaped by so many factors that have nothing to do with what is actually in front of us.  The problem ranges from an actual blind spot in our eye to the mind’s technique of filling in what we didn’t see with information as if we really did see.  It’s why that old prosecutor used to tell me he preferred a bloody knife to an eye-witness to the murder.  The bloody knife is the truth.  And the eye-witness?  A little more problematic.

And not only is our perception of events of questionable value, we are fickle in our choices of what is true.  We read in the evening news how assault rifles have no place but in war, and by morning we find a “teacher’s aide,” on sale, today only, with a free ammunition magazine the size of a State-Fair zucchini.  Really?

Okay, where do we find a bedrock in these shifting sands?   On what can we hang our stocking cap?  Where is our Weather Beacon in the storm?

On the northwest side of Des Moines, flush with Douglas Avenue, is a small donut shop.  The smiling man behind the counter is Al.  Al is from New Delhi, India — his full name is Alok.   Al is schooled in irony.  That is not his chosen profession.  He was trained in information technology, for which he came to Chicago in 1989.  After a while, his work could be done more cheaply in India.  And, you guessed it, his job in America was outsourced to his former country.  Al was unemployed.  See, irony.

With a wife and two kids and a mother and father who needed his care, he came to Des Moines looking for opportunity.  Lo and behold, the Donut Hut opened up as a possibility.  And Al hit the ground running.  Before long, his spotless store with amazing donuts was filled with students, parents, teachers, construction workers, truckers, and, most importantly, the Church Ladies from Holy Trinity.  Check it out.  An immigrant’s success story.

Ah, but of course there’s more.

“I treat everyone at the shop as a family member,” Al says in his soft lilt.  Well, you might like to know that Al’s definition of “family”  includes his employees, you, me, and that pierced kid coming in the door.  Don’t believe it?  Ask Al’s dad, who is in Des Moines on a visit.

“My son understands people’s feelings heart to heart.  Customers who get an ‘A’ in their schooling, he gives a free donut — that is a wonderful thing,”  said Roy Oberoi.   Roy is of another time and another place.  Soft-spoken, dapper, with a European twist to his scarf and a stoicism that leaves little room for facial movement.  “I simply watch,” Roy says of his involvement in the business.  But, watch he does.

Donuts for A’s, did he say?  Kitty-corner to the donut shop is an alternative high school.  Al speaks with pride of the students who visit his shop: “The students have been very nice.  Yes, they did mess up, what they did is not right, and they need to change.  I’m proud of how they come to my shop and behave.  They know the value of education.  If they  improve, they should be rewarded.”  See, Al is your guardian angel.

Al’s dad nods with approval, “Perhaps he’s going beyond my expectations because he enjoys very much little ones — small children — he has come to their age.”

Is this all baloney?  Does Al really “come to our age”?  “I actually love this place,” Al says. “I can see satisfaction with customers.  Achieving something, giving them some happiness, some respect.  This is my way to do it.  It comes from my heart.”

“When people leave my shop, no matter how they walk in, they leave happy and with a smile on their face.”

Roy imperceptibly nods in agreement with his son.

A father and his son.   Practicing the moral life.   A bedrock in the shifting sands.

Joe