I've Seen Some Interesting

stuff. And, strangely enough perhaps, I have seen them in the middle of Iowa, in places you might never hear about, but I have managed to see some of the most awe inspiring events of my relatively short existence in a town east of Indianola (a few thousand, a private college, the Hy-Vee and the Wal-Mart are the places to be any night of the week, and you can probably name the five bars in town and their typical patrons, and it has the old town square still in tact…a lovely place in its way) east of Ackworth (populations runs around eighty-five out here—which is only really five miles outside of Indianola, but what’s a suburb of Indianola going to be like, really) east of Sandyville (running a startling sixty-one—or some such preposterousness—and containing one of the largest dead car lots in all of Iowa—or so they say) and south of Beech (the most impressive point in this town in the church or school or used to be a church or used to be a school and is now a church or used to be a church and is now a school with an impressively blue roof—you can’t really make these things up: a Sandyville-sized town with an impressive building with an impressive roof) is a little nook of heaven that most people don’t have the faintest idea about: Lower Beech.

We’ll get to Lower Beech in a second, but first I want to say that all these other tiny towns along the way ooze beauty in a way that not many other things can. When I stay at my former professors farmhouse in Ackworth, I am adding more than one percent to the population. Furthermore, on the dirt road out to the previously mentioned farmhouse, I saw smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. Let me be clear on how much smoke I saw: I thought a house (the thought crept into mind that perhaps it was the farmhouse itself) was literally engulfed in flames. As I crossed the Middle River Bridge, I began to realize that it was just at the top of the hill and “my” farmhouse was safe, but it still begged the question: What the? Rounding the bend I saw that it was actually three of the most massive piles of branches, brush and wood items that I had ever seen. These things were twenty-five to thirty feet tall and running twenty yards at the base, and they were BLAZING! The flames were probably up fifty or sixty feet in the air, and the smoke billowing off of them could’ve choked God. Driving slowly by to take in this sight that few will ever have the opportunity to see, I see that the fire department is at the house and they are standing with a couple of guys who are standing around having a couple of beers and watching the fire. I’m pretty sure the fire department guys came out just to be sure things didn’t get out of hand, but otherwise a pretty standard burn pile.

I wonder about Sandyville. Where did it come from? Why is there a house on the edge (yes, on the outskirts of Sandyville) that has no basement—and we know because a friend of ours looked into buying it that it has no basement? Why are there so many dead cars in Sandyville? At what point did somebody say, “Yes, bring me your broken down coupes and Caddies and pickup trucks and I’ll lay ‘em to rest for you?” Why is the speed limit going through Sandyville forty miles per hour for less than half a mile when it picks back up to the Iowa highway ninety-two standard speed limit of fifty-five? So many questions, and I think that the existence of a Sandyville makes me one happy fat kid, for reasons I can’t possibly begin to explain or understand.

Beech and it’s blue temple. We have driven through Beech a couple of times. There is a corn silo on the corner to the road that leads to Beech—and, alternatively, Lower Beech—where a right turn (to the East) brings you to a road that makes a square around the town, where you can see the sights (big blue roof, families that love living in Beech, and the banker’s house which is twice as big as everybody else’s house). As you exit you think to yourself, “Having lived in a city and lived in the country, there is only one reason why you would choose to live either place: personal desire. They want to live here about as much as others want to live in a big city. I get it. Sometimes it’s all I want.”

But we’re concerned mostly with south of Beech about a mile and a half to a gate to the east. Don’t drive too fast in the fog, because you’ll miss it. [Funny story actually, it was foggy two mornings ago and I was meeting a co-worker our at Lower Beech, and he’s probably been out there more than I have (which is a lot), and he said he drove right past it. Not as funny as I thought in a haha kind of way, more funny that this Lower Beech veteran could manage to miss the turn he’s practiced for so long].

Anyway, there is a red metal gate across the driveway—classic farm-style—that used to be a metal rod attached to steel cables. Unlock it or remove the bolt with a ratchet if your key is not working properly and drive up the quarter-mile driveway to what we could probably call a small clearing. There are crops on either side of you. Last year it was corn, but they’ve planted soy beans this year to help the soil out—even though corn is a more profitable crop, and these are some kind of hulkified beans because they’re growing like three or four feet tall and it’s kind of incredible.

Let’s pretend for just a second that it is incredibly early. For those of you who are not early risers, let’s say that it’s a quarter to seven and you’ve already had your coffee and you’re doing okay, aware of your surroundings if nothing else. There’s a bend in the freshly mowed path—about four mowers-width—and the sun is just coming up over the horizon and you look up, your hands full of tools and gasoline and a lunch for the day, and you stop. You stop because in a field of grass in front of your eyes are no less than ten thousand spider webs. They stretch on forever. Some are massive and almost hurt your eyes as the sun picks up the morning dew on them. Others are very small and less intricately designed but more like a canopy so nothing can get up from below them and nothing can fall to the ground from above them. In a couple of them sits the proverbial artist waiting for a meal. It always comes. You realize very quickly that there is no way to fully appreciate or describe it without actually seeing it. People that hate spiders would probably be awe-struck at the sheer beauty of the sight—or at least lets hope that their sense of what’s beautiful is finely tuned enough to negate whatever negative feelings they may have toward our arachnid brethren.

I had a pretty long day out there by myself in what we lovingly call The Lake House (a.k.a the pond shack) replacing all the screening. This is no small task and requires ladders, spline, a splining tool, a cordless drill, a hammer, a giant flat-head screwdriver, a box knife, rolls of screening, a hammer and nails. There are twelve separate sections, each requiring various flexibility for nuances introduced by the builder (this was an, ahem, non-contract job, and kind of slapped together so everything is a different size). But it’s been nice, hard work. It feels good working with my hands again. But it’s time to close up shop for the day and after cleaning up as much as possible (knowing that you’re going to be back tomorrow to finish the job), you walk back up the trail, and out of a tree that has been providing shade for a car on what was only a modestly warm day comes a hawk, big as life and screeching to let you know it’s going and hopes you do the same. Startled but amazed at the size of this bird. Eyes wide open, as the saying goes.

You gotta wanna watch, it has been said. Sometimes there are things in this world, beautiful things that slip under the radar because of some kind of preposterous prejudice. I would almost wager that most of the beautiful things in this world are overlooked at one time or another because of some kind of preposterous prejudice. But I guess that amounts to irrational beauty hating, and that thought is kind of a bummer.

“I can’t go out tonight, my girl will kick me out.”
“Kick you out nothing. This is Ireland! Kick her in the teeth.”
--J.P. Donleavy

The sublime is all around me I guess.