The remarkable nature of Walnut

The Walnut Creek Historical Museum is housed in the former Masonic building at the north end of Walnut's business district. The bank building next door is the only Walnut building to date on the National Register of Historic Places.

The thing about Walnut that intrigues me is the fact it makes me happy just to drive through it, something I’ve done several times over the years. A small town of roughly 900 people just south of Interstate 80 in far northeast Pottawattamie County, if Walnut did not exist it would be necessary to create it just to evoke the spirit of the hundreds of similar small Iowa towns that once rose from the prairie undimmed by the economic and social revolutions that have since battered most into shadows of their former selves.

Some of that is an illusion, of course, but much of it isn’t. Tree-lined main street, now styled Antique City Drive, runs north to south between for the most part ranks of immaculately maintained homes and lawns, many of the old-fashioned small-town front-porch variety, past a fully intact K-12 school to the brick-paved business district where every storefront is occupied and there are no gaping holes. There are five churches (Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist), four of them newer buildings but all beautifully maintained and apparently active.

This is a town settled and still occupied for the most part by people of German descent (or as one guy I visited with Tuesday put it, “ the Germans and the Drakes”; he was a Drake, descendent of perhaps the most prominent English family to become part of the community’s fabric). But everyone, someone else told me, is at least partly German --- and that may help to explain the immaculate nature of things.

Some of the effect is illusion, however. Although the business district appears intact, there is no grocery store, hardware store or general mercantile establishment. For items once available in a viable small-town retail setting, Walnut residents have to drive elsewhere as do most of their counterparts in other towns of similar size.

The business district is filled instead with antique shops, at least 25 of them, some spilling into the residential neighborhood, and restaurants (at least three). The bank, a real estate office, a financial services center, a communications company and other service-oriented firms remain, however, and I’m really pleased to report that the hometown newspaper continues to publish. I knew the name of this newspaper, established at a time when newspaper editors and publishers still had senses of humor, long before I knew anything else about Walnut. It is called the “Walnut Bureau.”

The secret to Walnut’s continuing viability --- and actually it’s a fairly obvious secret with all those antique shops scattered around --- is that it recreated itself beginning in the 1980s as Iowa’s Antique City, a designation given official status in 1985 by then-Gov. Terry Branstad. Although other events are held during the year, the annual centerpiece is the Antique Walk sponsored every Fathers Day weekend for nearly 30 years by the local AMVETS post. That event draws approximately 300 antiques dealers from across the country to Walnut and crowds estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000 follow. How’s that for abruptly increasing the population of a small Iowa farm town?

Marilyn, Betty and I left Chariton before dawn Tuesday for the drive to Walnut for a meeting of the Small Museums Group of the Iowa Museum Association. Our destination was the museum of the Walnut Creek Historical Society, housed in a fascinating old building at the north end of Walnut’s business district that once was home to the community’s Masonic Lodge and its auxiliary organizations.

Jeane Burk and Sheri Sloan of the Greene County Historical Society report on progress at the society's museum in Jefferson.

The Small Museums Group holds two meetings a year, one in western Iowa and the other in eastern Iowa. Since the Lucas County Historical Society is located squarely in the middle, we feel free to attend both as bi-regional participants. There’s no elaborate agenda during these meetings --- the principal purpose is just to get together and share ideas, woes and strategies for meeting common challenges.

The most exciting and inspiring input this year came from David McFarland, director of the Montgomery County History Center at Red Oak. This center has quite recently just taken off and from the sound of things amazing things are being accomplished over there in far southwest Iowa. I’m anxious now to get there in person.

We gathered in a lovely meeting room, more like a living room, that once was the principal room of a small apartment created by a major benefactor of the Walnut Creek Museum as headquarters for herself during the months she spent in Walnut. It is now the principal gathering place in the museum. At the end of the morning session, we toured the three floors of the museum --- smaller displays in the foyer, a comprehensive photo gallery and, upstairs, the former lodge room filled with artifacts related to Walnut’s history. This interesting room is complete with a “golden dome” still equipped with its original lighting system that once was a part of Masonic rites.

I collect churches, so ran a couple of times a block north to try to separate the lovely old Presbyterian Church from the foliage surrounding it.

And how about this little house two doors north of the church? What an intriguing original expression in a tiny dwelling.

Here are a couple of other older homes along my route, evoking a time when far more time was spent on front porches in small towns than nowadays.

When all was said and done in Walnut, we headed home across country in the late afternoon of a beautiful fall day, making another stop along the way. But that’s a story for another day.

Daily dose of (Pottawattamie) County

Or old brick at high noon on main street in Iowa's Antique City: Sunny, clear and mild all across the state; harvest just beginning. Great day for a road trip.

We headed west out of Chariton well before sunrise Tuesday for the two-hour-plus trek north and west to Walnut in Pottawattamie County --- just northeast of Council Bluffs and Omaha --- for a meeting of the Small Museums Group of the Iowa Museum Association. Got back 12 or so hours later after a full day of beautiful early-fall scenery, great conversation and good food.

Walnut's an interesting immaculate little town, also known as Iowa's Antique City. More about that another time. For now, here's a shot taken about 12:30 p.m. today while standing smack in the middle of Walnut's antique-shop-lined main street and looking south. One of the wonderful things about Walnut is that it doesn't straggle, it just ends. Drive down to the bottom of the hill here and across the bridge and you're in the country.

Chasing sunrise

Daily dose of Lucas County: 7:30 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 27. 2010, at the marsh again. Clear skies obscured down here near the water by fog, chilly, a few geese flying noisily over, crows speaking in the woods along the river.

Sunrise came here officially at 7:06 a.m. today now that we are past the autumn equinox and light begins to diminish in proportion to darkness. Did you miss the equinox? It came officially at 10:13 p.m. (central time) last Wednesday, accompanied by the rising of a full harvest moon. I got here at 6:45 today for this post-equinox spectacle.

But the rise came a little later down here by the water, where cool overnight air met water warmed by yesterday's sunshine to create fog. First a pool of glowing light above the treeline ever so slightly south of due east that edged clouds in pink, then finally about 7:30 the sun itself --- first in dazzling increments mediated by limbs and leaves, then explosive light. No wonder our ancestors worshipped it. Try to look old Sol in the eye and he'll blind you.

All is in harmony down here this morning and so am I --- momentarily. The central stalk of life for traditional Navajo is expressed in a term anglicized as "hozho." Living hozho involves recognizing the harmony of creation, nurturing it, being attentive to it and working to restore it when disharmony creeps in. We all need to do more of that --- personally and collectively.

Turning to face the sun

Daily dose of Lucas County: 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010, at the marsh. Sunny, cool, white clouds in full sail --- so beautiful it almost hurts.

Sunflowers really do that, you know --- but it would require more patience than either you or I have to watch the process. September is sunflower month here --- and I can’t get enough. Just want to walk and look then sit and look some more. And that’s what I did this late this afternoon after, of all things, a nap.

Up before 5 fussing --- about the surprise reception we were planning after church for our resident seminarian, fussing about the fact it had been too wet Saturday to do what I wanted to do about the altar flowers, fussing about the fact I’d picked up a computer virus while Google Imaging something silly Saturday evening, “plain,” I think --- just to see what turned up. Fussing, fussing, fussing.

Went to church and kept fussing about the same stuff, plus this was a Sunday we did not have an organist, so the vicar did double duty on opening and closing hymns and I trotted back to the organ to help out with a few pitches and chords on other stuff (E. Power Biggs I’m not, so I fussed about that, too). Sermon was great (Lazarus and the rich man), but it took the closing hymn, “God of grace and God of glory,” words by Harry Emerson Fosdick set to that wonderful Welsh tune “Cwm Rhondda,” by John Hughes, to shake all that fussing out.

The reception was wonderful, the flowers looked fine, my friends at SecureIT disposed of the virus in no time flat --- and then the nap. But things still weren’t quite right.

It took the walk and the sunflowers to get me back on track, turned to face the sun again.

Under the spreading chestnut, uh, sprig

Daily dose of Lucas County: 2.5 miles down the Cinder Path in Barber Woods at 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 24, 2010 --- cool, sunny, cloudless blue sky, early fall perfect after heavy rain overnight.

Back in Barber Woods this afternoon, spotting a chestnut sprig dropping its "buckeyes" on the trail made my day. These are kind of rare around here. I'm calling it Ohio buckeye, but it easily could be horse chestnut. You tell me. It would be a real stretch to call it a tree as it struggles for light among oaks and hickories, so sprig it is.

Also scored a pocketful of shellbark hickory nuts (I called these Chariton River hickory nuts earlier this week because I couldn't remember "shellbark"). Visiting with Meg Monday, she said conservation personnel are worried that persistent high water in the Rathbun Reservoir backwater will kill off a good share of the shellbarks farther downstream. I sure hope not.

All my pockets would hold is below. I'm just going to look at the buckeyes, but will eat the hickories after a while (already cracked one, sweet and tasty, but thought for a while I was going to have to get out the sledgehammer. These are tough nuts to crack).

DADT fun and games

The political fun and games surrounding this week’s filibuster of the Defense Authorization Bill because of a Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell (DADT) amendment kind of put a burr under my saddle, probably under the saddles of most gay military veterans. And it certainly was a kick in the teeth for the thousands of gay men and lesbians currently serving.

The filibuster was led by Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), openly heterosexual and a Vietnam War hero, who in order to win re-election in his home state recently has traded his “maverick” status for something resembling that of right-wing ideologue.

The amendment would not have repealed DADT, as some GOP senators alleged when justifying the filibuster, but instead would have authorized its repeal if --- after examining results of a study now in progress --- the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and president decided repeal would not hamper military effectiveness.

The current policy, since amended to strengthen it, was introduced in 1993 as a compromise by President Bill Clinton, who had campaigned on a promise to allow all Americans to serve without regard to sexual orientation. Since it went into effect, about 13,400 military personnel have been discharged under its provisions. Although well-intentioned in a way, the policy just doesn’t work very well.

Although public opinion polling results always are open to challenge, the tide appears to have shifted broadly against restrictions on gays in the military and suggest that a substantial majority of Americans of all political varieties, Democrat, Republican and Independent, would favor DADT’s repeal.

In the end this week, the vote to end McCain’s filibuster and allow the defense bill (and the DADT amendment) to be voted upon, failed to achieve the needed two-thirds majority needed for cloture as two Arkansas Democrats joined the Republican caucus, as did Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) as a procedural move.

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Now it’s fairly easy to get mad at Republicans about this --- and I’m generally mad at Republicans, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. The Democrat decision to attach the DADT amendment to the defense bill (and Republicans are enthusiastic users of this tactic, too) was a mistake --- if the goal was to repeal DADT and not score political points. So was Reid’s reluctance to allow GOP amendments. That pushed two more liberal Republican senators, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who most likely would have voted for repeal, into voting against cloture.

The only real winners here I suppose were the politicians. Republicans now can claim to be standing firm before their conservative constituents on the principle that us dirty queers should be kept in our place and away from the table; Democrats can claim to be standing firm as shining lights in the fight for human rights.

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Of course DADT should be repealed. It institutionalizes in public law hypocrisy and lies. It pours contempt on the honorable intent and honorable service of gays who always have served and continue to serve in the military (the same contempt was poured out on black military personnel until President Truman ordered that the armed forces be integrated in 1948). It pours contempt on heterosexual men and women of the military, implying that they are not intelligent and sensible people. It is a morally bankrupt policy.

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Comedian and commentator Jon Stewart asks occasionally, “Are we run by assholes?” You bet we are.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Solitude

So you want to be alone? Well, this is one of many places in Lucas County where you can manage that much of the time --- the most remote public access area of the Whitebreast Unit of Stephens State Forest southwest of Lucas at 12:30 p.m. on a gray to hazy Thursday with rain threatening to move in by mid-afternoon. There are thousands of acres of state forest in Lucas County. Those to the southwest are the most accessible. Units in the northeast tend to be less developed and in wet weather accessible only on foot.

To get here, drive through the Whitebreast equestrian unit to the main encampment area then take a right down a one-lane road the meanders up and down hills through the woods. The roads are in good shape right now, but the hundreds of miles of equestrian trails in this unit are temporarily closed because of all the rain.

The timber here is mixed oak and shagbark hickory (that's a hickory turning its autumn color in the distance up top). And the ground is covered with acorns and hickory nuts --- I'd have picked up a few if I'd brought a container. And how about that snazzy new top on the picnic table. I believe this is part of an Eagle Scout project.

The area is a dead-end right now, although an unimproved road continues to the west. The last time I was down it, however, beaver had dammed a creek and I couldn't get through so had to turn around and come back out. That's another road I'll have to head down again if it ever dries out.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Nuts to you

Or blue sky, black walnuts; 4 p.m. Wednesday, my back yard after a mostly overcast day. Black walnuts are native Lucas Countyans, native to much of the Midwest for that matter. And are the first in the fall to drop their leaves. The nuts themselves come down, thunk, thunk, thunk, for weeks thereafter.

Walnut is highly prized as a wood for furniture, but was so prevalent in some areas that it is not unusual to find an ancient building framed, trimmed --- even sided --- in walnut. The nutmeats are highly prized, too, but the nuts are challenging to hull and crack and the meats, a challenge to extract (therefore expensive unless you do it yourself). My mother was extremely good at it. The flavor is far richer than that of those insipid "English" walnuts.

There are challenges if you decide to landscape with walnuts, however. The trees precipitate (try parking your car under one at the wrong time of year) and damage other plantings. The shells are notoriously hard to remove (we used to spread bushels of them in the driveway and drive heavy vehicles over and over them, then finish the job with an old-fashioned corn sheller). Generally it's a good idea in the fall to gather them before mowing the lawn.

Around here, the Department of Natural Resources will buy walnuts for roughly $2 a bushel for use in tree-planting projects elsewhere. I've never sold them, but my neighbor does --- and that's where the nuts from this tree will go --- although I believe Oct. 1 is the cutoff date and it looks like plenty will be left.

Some have thought to grow rich by planting walnut trees. Rarely happens because they're slow-growing. There are even walnut rustlers --- slipping into woods unauthorized to cut mature trees because of premium prices paid for the lumber that can be sawn from their trunks. Like nearly everything else alive, they can be a mixed blessing.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Bouquet

A mix of asters and goldenrod along the Pin Oak trail at 11 a.m. Our mild, dry, hazy-sun interlude lasted until about 2 p.m. when the downpour started and a good deal of rain is predicted for the remainder of the week.

Too bad about the grass. Knew I should have started mowing at 10:30 when I got home from the first meeting, but since the second meeting was at 12:30, decided on a quick walk and lunch instead. Now I'm the shaggy hyphen between two perfectly manicured lawns.

This was the day of the groundhog --- discovered burrowing under the bay window of the Stephens House back parlor by the alternate Frank (Frank Mitchell) while doing a little groundskeeping at the museum. With stunning efficiency, he borrowed a live trap from county conservation headquarters, baited it with a carrot and shortly after lunch, the guilty (and greedy) party was in captivity.

A quick trip about two miles out into the country and our unwelcome attempted houseguest was last seen harrumphing off into a grove just before the rain began. Hopefully he won't be able to find the way home. Had it not been for that other meeting, I'd have had a photo.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Fry Hill

Sunday's fog burned away Monday on an uncharacteristically --- for mid-September --- hot (high temperature of 90 degrees), humid, sunny, hazy and windy day. But the breeze atop Fry Hill was cool at 3 p.m. This is a cold, cold place for a winter burial (a great-aunt and great-uncle of mine are buried here, so I've done that), but height has its advantages --- including the view --- during other seasons.

This is the cemetery that serves the town of Lucas and the area round it in western Lucas County, perched high on the northern ridge of the White Breast Creek valley. Although Lucas was founded in 1867, when the Burlington & Missouri River railroad was built along the valley floor, it seems not to have had a cemetery of its own during the early years when it served as a regional market town.

In the 1870s, however, exploitation of vast coal reserves began and Lucas boomed. A twin town, Cleveland, was founded in the hills just to the east of the east city limits of Lucas, and it boomed, too. Cleveland was the "good" town --- deed covenants prevented the sale of liquor within it. There were however plenty of saloons in adjoining Lucas, the "bad" town. The good die young they say, and Cleveland did --- vanishing almost without a trace. Lucas continues to prosper modestly. The late great labor leader John L. Lewis was a native of Lucas and the John L. Lewis Memorial Museum of Mining and Labor, in Lucas, memorializes him and an industry that has vanished from Lucas County.

Fry Hill Cemetery was platted about 1880 on hilltops above Cleveland owned by the White Breast Coal & Mining Co. The story goes that it is called Fry Hill in honor of Shadrack Hill, a young Welsh miner who died on Nov. 30, 1880, at the age of 24 and was the first to be buried here. It is a very large cemetery, but burials are widely spaced --- as if those interred here wanted plenty of elbow room.

Many of the miners who lived and worked in Lucas and Cleveland were English and Welsh, and descendants of those old families still are here.

Leaving Fry Hill, I took the back roads north and east to Poverty Ridge, then turned down it to head back into Chariton. One of these days when the roads are good and dry, if they ever are, I want to head down into Swede Holler --- in the same neighborhood --- and see what's going on there.

Big yeller spider ...

For two days straight now, I've crawled into the truck and not had to clear cobwebs in order to drive away. This causes me to believe that the big yellow spider I've been sharing the cab with for a week either has passed to its reward or accepted the invitation of an open window and departed, most likely the former.

I don't know what sort of spider it was, but the undercarriage (all I really saw clearly of it) was as bright as the sunflowers up top upon which it was lunching when I disturbed it in the first place.

I'd gone out to the farm a week ago Saturday, assigned to assemble Sunday altar flowers, and walked back to the old pond and cane shed to cut sunflowers and goldenrod. Back at the house with my haul, I put the flowers behind the pickup seat and thought nothing more about it --- until.

Turning out of the drive onto the main road, big yeller crawled up my neck and down my arm. In the interests of not driving into the ditch while trying to swat it, I swept it off to tumble head-over-heels (do spiders have heels?) to the floor and then it vanished --- not to be seen again (although I've been imagining something crawling on the back of my neck or up my pantleg all week).

I left the pickup window down both outside and in during the course of the last week, hoping it would just leave, but persistent cobwebs suggested that it didn't. I feel badly about the spider --- perhaps I was a Jain in a previous incarnation. But what can you do? 

Daily dose of Lucas County: Sept. 19

Fog (now where did this come from?). Or Gimme Shelter (roll them Stones). The old stone shelter at Red Haw State Park: 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010.

This is the second of two consecutive days of gray skies here, but the fog is new --- settling down after church and lunch like the proverbial blanket. What could be seen in other circumstances would be the lake surrounding the bluff upon which this souvenir of the 1930s and the WPA stands.

The little white paper dangling from the door stated that the shelter was reserved today, but no sign of the reservers. Perhaps the weather discouraged them; perhaps they're coming later. Even on a day like today, neither hot nor cold, the shelter is a good place to gather --- especially if there's a roaring fire in that wonderful fireplace in the north wall. Over the years every type of occasion under the sun has been observed here: Family reunions, picnics, business meetings, church services, wiccan gatherings, funerals. You name it, those old stone walls have seen it.

Orbs? Oh come now. I'm not sure what the flash was bouncing off of in the rafters. There are fanciful folks out there who would call them "orbs," souvenirs of a previous life form. Don't buy into that. Sorry. But if you want to, feel free.

 

Daily dose of Lucas County: Sept. 17

The front entrance of Lucas County Health Center (aka just plain old hospital) from the east end of the big back yard at St. Andrew's Church on a beautiful cool sunny morning: 9:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 17, 2010. We were here first, then along came the hospital to sprawl all over the neighborhood (it is a BIG hospital; this is only the tip of the iceberg) behind us.

That's the Life Flight helipad in the foreground on the left. Those helicopters sure make a lot of noise --- but we don't mind. The principal view from a Life Flight helicopter as it takes off is the big red cross on the back of the church. We like that because this way our prayers are carried with the crew and patient as they fly away to either Mercy or Methodist in Des Moines.

South Central Chapter meeting at 3 p.m. today, which is why I was at the church in the first place this morning. Good news: I remembered to set the bags out on "garbage" morning. Second good news: I didn't back over them when exiting the driveway.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Sept. 16

Bridgework. Or the most dangerous bridge in the world. Or gray bridge rail on a gray day when the sun refused to shine: 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010.

This is the old timber bridge across the Union Pacific (originally Rock Island) tracks on what I call the Wolf Creek Road connecting Highway 14 and the New York Road oh maybe 3 miles south of Chariton. It's a killer, but because it is so dangerous so far as I know no one has ever died here.

Arched to give trains headroom, the hump means there is no visibility. This is especially intimidating when approaching up the steep hill from the east (the one you're looking down). The usual approach is to creep to the crest of the bridge, stretch your neck to its limit, peer over and if no one's coming, continue.

The Wolf Creek crossing is at the foot of the hill in the distance; the New York Road, at the top of the hill. All the land to the south was Redlingshafer territory long before there was a railroad. George Redlingshafer owned everything you see here. His land joined that of my great-great-grandfather, his brother John G. Redlingshafer, perhaps a quarter mile west of the bridge.

When I was a real little kid this bridge burned, set afire by sparks from a locomotive (yes, they still had locomotives that threw sparks --- and dinosaurs --- back then). So it's a little younger than I am. When I was a somewhat older kid, an evening's entertainment consisted of filling a car with as many as would fit and driving around --- no booze, no cigarettes, no drugs, no sex --- just driving around. Sometimes, we would drive at this bridge really fast, hit the hump --- and fly. I won't tell you who was driving (Larry Arnold) because his folks still are alive and well and someone might tell.

If you jump onto the top of a boxcar here and stick --- alive --- you'll end up in Kansas City.

It's a test

I’ve been watching again (a borrowed copy of) the 2007 documentary, “for the Bible tells me so,” one of the better presentations from a liberal Christian perspective of the six or seven Biblical passages that refer to same-sex carryings on. I saw it soon after release, but had forgotten some of the details and because we’re talking about screening it during a church gathering later this fall, thought it would be useful to refamiliarize myself with it.

It’s of special interest to Episcopalians because a good deal of attention is devoted to V. Gene Robinson and his delightful parents, Charles and Imogene Robinson, retired Kentucky tenant farmers. Robinson, elected during 2003 as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, became the first honest gay man ordained a bishop in any of those denominations that affirm the historic episcopate.

Also featured are Chrissy Gephardt and her parents, former Speaker of the House and presidential candidate Dick Gephardt and wife, Jane; the Lutheran Reitan family from Minnesota; the black evangelical Christian Poteat family from North Carolina; and Mary Lou Wallner, who launched TEACH (To Educate about the Consequences of Homophobia) Ministries after the lesbian daughter she had rejected committed suicide.

Others heard from extensively include gay-friendly clergy and theologians Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Soulforce Founder the Rev. Mel White, Harvard’s Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and the Rev. Jimmy Creech, a United Methodist minister.

It’s a film I’d recommend to anyone, although it is unlikely to change hearts, minds and convictions at the conservative end of the Christian spectrum. But the surprising thing about Christians and the Bible, including some who reference it to support a particular belief , is that many do not bother to read it. So it never hurts to become familiar with the sources of various perspectives, even without agreement.

The film also has been and continues to be a useful and comforting resource for LGBT people who are working for change within their faith communities, struggling openly or quietly within a non-sympathetic community or thinking of just walking away from the church entirely and declaring the Bible irrelevant, always an option although a heart-breaking one.

And those, including many “liberals,” who find themselves uncomfortable with the fact a child, sibling, other relative or friend is gay and struggle with their own reactions to that fact have benefitted and continue to benefit from it.

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On a related topic, I’ve been watching with some interest the unrest in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that followed a Churchwide Assembly vote a year ago in August that removed barriers that heretofore had forbidden congregations that so wished to call gay clergy in committed same-sex relationships.

Of special interest has been Zion Lutheran Church at Clear Lake, with some 1,400 souls on its rolls (and perhaps 350-450 active members willing to participate in a good old fashioned church fight), which Pastor Dean Hess now has managed, sort of, to lead out of the ELCA. When a vote to leave the ELCA because of the lifting of the gay ban failed by a narrow margin, Hess and the part of the congregation he controlled simply enacted a series of resolutions that set the congregation up to be disfellowshipped. Interesting strategy and an interesting form of spectator sport --- so long as you’re on the outside looking in.

A year ago in July, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church lifted a three-year self-imposed moratorium on elevation of non-celibate gay clergy (like Gene Robinson) to the episcopate and also authorized bishops to allow the blessing of same-sex unions or, as in Iowa where it’s legal, same-sex marriages.

That didn’t have too much effect because most of those Episcopalians who would have gotten their knickers in a serious twist already had departed after Robinson’s ordination, having decided the rest of us were hell-bound sinners and it was time to abandon ship.

Similar fights continue and most likely will come to a head in other major denominations --- the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, Disciples of Christ, etc., etc. --- where gay people are welcomed officially --- but conditionally. If you give us queer folk an inch, we’ll try to take a mile.

Actually, I’d take a Southern Baptist preacher in full cry any day. At least they’re consistent. It’s the sharp tongues of the Lutherans, Episcopalians and others whose oxen have been gored that you’ve got to watch out for.

Now I actually don’t mind all of these divisions. It’s probably healthier in the long run to have the fight, then split, just because Christians who disagree and try to co-exist in the same building (or denomination or synod) have a long history of savaging each other pretty good before marching off to regroup. I do think all Christians should be able to work together on some simple, basic tasks like feeding the hungry, but even here and probably beyond we’re just hopeless.

Being a part of the LGBT tribe portrayed as representatives of the Devil himself in many of these church squabbles also is an interesting experience, but if you’re sturdy, not usually a fatal one (watch out for the kids, though; the relationship between a self-identifying or closeted gay youngster and a non-supportive family is fraught with peril). It does make you think.

And I think much of this latest round of holy war within the Christian church is a test --- having little to do with gay ordination, gay marriage or any other gay-related issue. It’s mostly about how we treat each other when we disagree.

That’s really scary. Lord have mercy.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Sept. 15

Cloudrise among the pin oaks at Pin Oak Marsh: 6:51 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010. Gathering clouds then washed all color from the sky. The Canadas are back! Lone heron standing.

Preservation Sunday

Historic Preservation Commission Chair Alyse Hunter is shown here with American Legion Commander Don Garrett (center) and Ross Browning, instrumental in all phases of restoring and renewing the Legion Club.

Sunday was a wonderful day, but not exactly what I’d call a day of rest and after an equally busy Monday and Tuesday --- I’m ready for a nap. The full and busy Sunday revolved in part around my status as the newest and least effective member of the Chariton Historic Preservation Commission. The commissioners who actually know what they’re doing are Alyse Hunter, chair; Melody Wilson, Martin Buck and Larry Clark.

The Historic Preservation Commission has done and continues to do a variety of great things, but a principal function is to serve as community conscience when architecturally and historically significant buildings are at issue and to push, prod and facilitate nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. All this despite the fact it receives no public funding and depends for income on the kindness of strangers and proceeds from an annual tour of the Chariton Cemetery.

Sunday brought an open house at the American Legion Hall to celebrate restoration and renewal of a very significant part of that building, the type of project that makes preservationists extremely happy, followed by the cemetery tour --- which this year originated at the museum, in which I’m also involved.

So after church Sunday, I headed for the cemetery to figure out where the heck Frank Lunan and Martha Anderson were buried (I’ve always known where Hortense Guernsey Becker and Alma Clay were) and inadvertently rendezvoused there with Larry and his wife who were marking, cleaning and decorating the graves of the four educators featured on this year’s tour.

At 2 p.m. we met at the Legion Hall to tour and present Commander Don Garrett with a small check (seed money for the next phase of restoration) and a framed enlistment poster dating from perhaps 50 years ago that turned up in the walls of the courthouse during a project there and was passed on to the commission.

The American Legion Hall is one of a suite of public buildings designed by Chariton architect William L. Perkins now on the National Register due in part to the efforts of the commission. Other Perkins buildings include City Hall, the spectacular Masonic Temple, the Charitone Hotel and the building that houses the Chariton Newspapers. Of the five, the Legion Hall probably is the one that speaks its history most clearly.

Carl L. Caviness Post No. 102, American Legion, was organized in 1919 and named for the first Lucas Countyan killed in combat during World War I. The post first bought an old house on the current hall site, then tore it down during the early 1920s and made plans to build the main block of the current structure.

Architect Perkins donated his planning services and a good deal of the work on the tiled-roof brick building was done by volunteers, Legionnaires and non-Legionnaires alike.

It is a grand building, but the Legion in Chariton always has been a very important part of the community and always has lived up to its building. One example of that was the Chariton American Legion Junior Band (the musicians were high school students; “junior” just meant the musicians were younger than the Legionnaires). It was the best band of its type in Iowa and one of the best in the nation from 1929 until 1956, when it was retired.

This building served the Legion until after World War II, when a flood of returning veteran  pushed membership to several hundred and led to the addition of a club so that Legionnaires could both meet and socialize.

This was not a fancy building. A Quonset hut, probably military surplus, was moved in west of the Perkins building, given a tile façade and finished simply inside. But it served the Legion well for more than 20 years until it, too, was retired --- perhaps in the early 1970s. After that, it was used primarily for storage and over the years deteriorated.

The exceptional things about the two-part Legion Hall are how eloquently it tells the story of the American Legion in Chariton --- and that both parts have survived intact.

Some years ago, Legionnaires decided to restore and renew the Legion Club addition, in part because it was at ground level and could be made handicap-accessible without too much difficulty. The Quonset was gutted, slightly rearranged inside, insulated, dry-walled, refloored and redecorated. Where the bar once stood, an extremely nice kitchen has been installed behind a serving window. The entrance and the restrooms are handicap-accessible. More than $80,000 was expended in the process.

And that’s what was being celebrated on Sunday.

The next step, restoration of the Perkins building, will be more expensive, more complicated and will take more time. The building is not in disrepair, but is outdated. It’s worked hard for 85 years as needs a major overhaul. There is no timeline on the next phase of the process because of the substantial cost involved. But I certainly hope it goes as well as the first phase.

After Sunday’s open house, commissioners scattered to finalize arrangements for the cemetery tour before regrouping at the museum --- but that’s a story for another day.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Sept. 14



The Marsh Where Wild Birds Sing: Stop here on the plank bridge across a creek feeding into the Chariton River 1.5 miles down the Cinder Path at 3:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010, and just listen. Birds come here from miles around to sing.

The Pond Where Water Lilys Grow: Stop here 2 miles down the trail and just look. This is not The Pond Where Turtles Sun Themselves.

The Timber Where Chariton River Hickory Nuts Grow. We call them that around here because they grow only on the Chariton River bottoms. The nuts are twice the size of standard hickory nuts. They are universally treasured. Hickory nuts of any size are the best-tasting nuts (and among the most difficult to crack) in the whole wide world.

Stand here two and a half miles down the trail and listen to the irregular rhythm of nuts falling on the trail --- a walnut here, a hickory nut there. Coyotes are singing on the other side of the river. Duck! That nut has your name on it.

The Hill Where Nobody Lives. Stop here three miles down the trail and look to the west. Those pine trees mark the site of a farmstead that once overlooked the Chariton River valley. All gone now. It is 4:30 p.m. and time to turn around. It will be after 6 by the time I get back to Chariton. My feet hurt. I don't care.

Daily dose of Lucas County: Sept. 13

Here's the Legion Hall in Chariton about 8:30 a.m. on a beautiful, sunny September Monday. Some cool stuff is going on in this building. More about that later.