Iowa Essays
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December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
When Fred MacVaugh was given a class assignment to explore Iowa State University's new nature preserve -- a 76-acre plot of largely underdeveloped land near Don Williams Park outside of Boone -- he couldn't wait to literally get his feet wet. MORE
In my entire 62 years, I had only been on my own 15 months. Now the doctor said to my husband, "Albert I'm sorry, I found a growth, you have colon cancer."
I wrote this, at age 66, so my grandchildren and great grandchildren would know I, too, was once a teenager with raging hormones.
For as long as I could remember, I had lived across the alley from Aunt Fannie, Uncle Joe, Aunt Mae and my favorite cousin, Margaret. Now, all a sudden, at age 3, I lived on the other side of town; 17 blocks away. I was used to seeing them everyday and I missed them terribly.
Just yesterday I received my latest cat text. This time, it was a picture of our orange cat, Boy Wonder, with his paw over his face.
Winter is coming, sure, but none of us are dwelling on it yet. We promptly forget the term for this season “fall” and instead get overtaken by excitement about the new possibilities and new beginnings it brings.
August 2009
“And I wonder, if we had another story, one based not on sacrifice but on reciprocity, could we endure the extinction of so many other species?” Brenda Peterson
May 2009
I forget that my father had a life before this one. That he is the winsome young man in an Air Force uniform smiling from a remote corner of my mother’s sock drawer.
April 2009
We’ve gathered around a screen not to watch a wall fall down or towers collapse into rubble, but to listen to hope in the form of a song rise out the mouth of a most unlikely source. Listening to Susan Boyle somehow feels like coming home.
Quietly, we trudge the trail, moving quickly enough to keep the blood flowing on a thirty or so degree morning but not so quickly as to accidentally disturb what we seek.
