I'm back from the Holy Land, aka Iowa, where I did some very important and meaningful mulling and observing. Returning home is always a melancholy experience for me - I find meaning and memory at every turn and in the simplest of places. The public swimming pool where I worked for four summers teaching tiny tot swimming lessons and selling Laffey Taffey; the park behind my house where I spent countless hours playing with my brothers and my beloved dog Flanders; the middle school where I made lifelong friends; the cemetary where my maternal and paternal grandparents rest. It is the place and the people who shaped me more than any other place I have lived or will ever live. I know this to be absolutely true.
Needing to purchase a few more presents, I borrowed my parents mini van and dashed out to the Crossroads Mall to see what Younkers department store had to offer. As I was about to leave, I glanced across the store and saw a man standing alone by a display of scarves. I stopped. He looked up at me. "Mr. Lee?" It was my high school calculus teacher. His eyes brightened with recognition.
Now I was a
terrible math student, so all I could think was, "Ugh. I bet he's thinking, 'It's that Hawkeyegirl. Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.'" We shook hands. He seemed genuinely happy to see me. We briefly chatted about our families and all the wonderful trips he's taken since retiring. But the 'dim light bulb' thought kept nagging at me, so I said jokingly, "Well, I'm still really bad at math!" He chuckled, then said with such sincerity that I felt my throat tighten with emotion, "You know what I always admired about you? You struggled with math, but you persevered because you told me you wanted a well-rounded education. Yes, I found that very admirable."
I graduated from high school nearly 17 years ago and this wonderful man remembered something personal about
me - one student among thousands in his career. Thanks, Mr. Lee. I was such a lucky girl to have a teacher like you.
Besides seeing my family and old friends, one of the best things about going home to Fort Dodge (The Phat Dawg, Ft. Lauderdodge or Ft. Fun to the uneducated) is reading the
Fort Dodge Messenger.
Fort Dodge is the county seat of Webster County, a navy blue county in a sea of red and pink. Webster County lies the farthest west in Iowa of any blue county. On the
Communist News Network map it looks white because Kerry won the county by slightly more than 500 votes (don't ask me for the exact number - I'm bad at math, remember?). That in and of itself speaks to his weakness as a candidate. No respectable Democrat should win Webster County by such a paltry margin. But he's old news and so is Iowa as a red state, so let's move on.
I love The Messenger because it is what it is - a hometown newspaper. World and National news often take a back seat to the heroics of local high school football and basketball teams or the generosity of locals to their less fortunate neighbors. I don't say this to belittle the paper's relevance, but rather to compare the focus to what Tip O'Neil said of politics - it's all local. Report on what you know best, focus on what matters most to your readers and do it well. If you do, they'll stick with you. Again, I'm not saying that folks back home don't care or pay attention to world or national news - quite the contrary - but they can get that from the television, radio, magazines and The Daily Worker (aka the Des Moines Register).
By now The Faithful Three are wondering, "Where is she going with this?" Hold yer horses, friends, I'm getting there.
So here I've described a simple, locally-focused hometown paper in a deep blue town. But here's the oddity: the editorial page. The editorial page - that delicious page in every paper where opinion has a proper place - a home. The Messenger editorial page holds a dear place in my heart because as often as I read it, I never cease to be surprised. Such objectivity! Let me share one:
‘Blind sheik’ does well in prisonAmericans sometimes are told that our government’s policies are to blame, in part, for terrorist attacks. But a warning issued by the FBI puts the difference between U.S. government policies and those of Islamic extremists in perspective.Terrorist leader Omar Abdel-Rahman has been imprisoned in the United States since he was found guilty in a trial of being involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Six people were killed; more than 1,000 were injured.But Rahman, familiar to many as the “blind sheik,” suffers from severe health problems.His ailments were the subject of a recent FBI warning, reminding national security officials that the al-Qaida organization has called for terrorist attacks if Rahman dies while in U.S. custody. The “blind sheik’s” last will and testament in fact demands that terrorists “extract the most violent revenge” if he dies in prison. But that may not happen as soon as al-Qaida leaders would like — simply because Americans treat prisoners much differently than do many Islamic terrorist organizations. Their captives often are beheaded.Rahman, in contrast, has received excellent medical care, most recently for a tumor on his liver. According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, “his condition has improved.”Yes, there indeed is a difference between policies followed by Islamic extremists and those supported by Americans. Sometimes it really does pay to be aware of them.Now that's an editorial. All those folks slummin' it at the Washington Post could learn a lesson or two from the Fort Dodge Messenger.
Since Christmas Eve landed on a Sunday this year, I attended regular Sunday mass with my family at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Moorland, a tiny farming community about 15 minutes outside of Fort Dodge. Because I'm easily distracted, I didn't notice that I'd left my purse behind at the church until we'd already pulled into my folks' driveway.
Mom and I turned around and drove back to the church, but it was already locked. Knowing our good family friends have a key to the church, we drove the short gravel road to their home to pick it up. My purse was right where I left it under the pew. We dropped the key back with our friends and were given a lovely loaf of homemade pumpkin bread in return. "In case you run short with all your family home," they said as my mom protested the gift.
The next morning - a bright, crisp, sunny Christmas morning - I read the following editorial in The Messenger. I was reminded of the blessing of good friends, simple kindnesses and the importance of staying close and true to those that have helped you along your journey.
Christmas cheer to one and allIn these days of affluence, enlightenment and rising expectations, has our supply of good cheer been diminished? That is a concern that comes to mind as we ponder the observance of another Christmas. In at least some sophisticated circles today, even the cheer of Christmas is said to be unfashionable. It is considered square or naive to be caught up in the joy and happiness of the season. It is true that for many — those brave men and women in our nation’s uniform and their concerned families — there could be reason to ask what there is to celebrate in a world where peace remains elusive and repressive regimes make a mockery of human rights. And we know that in all too many parts of our world, poverty and hunger grip millions of people. There has never been a perfect time for Christmas. But there certainly have been worse times to observe the birthday of Christ than this year of 2006. We have made enormous social and technical advances over the past several decades. The world is appreciably better than most of us knew in our childhood. If it is good cheer that one seeks, you had better seek it in yourself, for you will never find it in progress — neither in laws and movements which invariably stop short of achieving the miracles hoped for, nor in new political heroes whose feet invariably turn out to be made of clay. The good cheer of Christmas is extremely personal, a flickering but ancient hope in the heart of man that has nothing to do with commerce or social progress or politics. There are so many cheap curtain-raisers, but they cannot compare with this season of love, goodness and holiness. Christmas Day evokes — as does no other time — the memory of simpler days, when it was easy to believe what one was told — when the people in the beautiful old Christmas story seemed as real as the children next door, and no wide-eyed youngster could doubt that some day a star of wonder would come to lead him to a perfect light. No Christmas is ever passed without making this a better universe, at least for a time. So cheer up this day when Christendom pauses to celebrate the birth of Christ — God’s gift to men and the cause for all of today’s giving. A very Merry Christmas to all.Indeed.
