Back to the future (again)

5-19-09 Iowa brain

“Back to the future” is what I call my 3 hour drive home from Kansas City to Des Moines. KC appears to be almost 2 weeks ahead of Des Moines as far as spring goes and I get to relive a little more spring. I started noticing the difference in southern Iowa. The trees were less full and there was still the light yellow green hues of spring in the leaves and grass. Southern Iowa is really beautiful. I’m really noticing it more with my new 20/20 vision. The rolling hills and woods are nothing like the flat northern Iowa farm land where I grew up.

All in all, I had a pleasant late afternoon drive on Sunday. The most interesting thing I saw in northern Missouri was a wild turkey running in the grassy median of the interstate. I saw no sign of a chase, so I only hoped that this silly bird would find its way to one side or the other without being hit by a car.

I did get a bit of shock arriving back in Des Moines about 7:30PM with the temperature change; KC was 72 degrees and DM was only 55 degrees. The radio weather report was predicting a low in the 40’s, so I came inside the cold house and turned the furnaces on first thing. Another shock was seeing all the whirly-bird seeds that had fallen off the Maple trees. They covered the ground and are thick in the grass and unfortunately the trees still contain tons more yet to come down. I believe I will be cleaning out the front rain gutters this week.

This trip my brain was fairly quiet, unlike my last trip back in April. I mostly listened to music on the radio and enjoyed the country scenery. Thank goodness there was no talk radio on Sunday afternoon to be heard. However, I did have one political conversation with myself…. Pondering why “socialism” is the new thing to fear?

I’m no expert of course, but if the human race started with an existence of living in caves or grass huts or whatever and having to defend, forage, and feed oneself….. I guess you could call it a life full of freedom, since you alone would be calling all the shots, but that sounds like a hard life too- a “dog eat dog” world, survival of the fittest.

Slowly, I suppose a different way of life evolved when a few people decided to work together and form groups to help each other survive by sharing, cooperating, taking care of each other. Isn’t that basically a family? When you expand your family out to a larger community, then rules are set in place and you have a civilized society. The purpose seems simple- to help ensure survival of the many. Maybe some freedom has to be given up to live this coexistent type of life….. but I think this is where I’d rather live.

Didn’t the Pilgrims live like this and the groups of people who came to American together to live in the first colonies? Isn’t a civilized society the way America started? Others I suppose would argue that the “wild west” mentality is the true America. Carry your gun, take whatever you want and keep your eyes out for the Indians (or whoever is declared the “bad guys” of the day)…. Today, some people think the bad guys are the gays and the socialists.

I could throw my hands up and say “when will we ever learn?”…. but you know what?…. I think we are starting to learn…. I see progress and I still see hope. The world is becoming smaller as our “family” becomes larger. So I ended that conversation with myself on a positive note as I ended my 3 hour drive to Iowa….. IOWA is an Indian word that means “the beautiful land”. We aren’t just all pigs and corn (and whirly-birds) here!