I wrote down about six places, and about four of them are sort of wild, outdoor places. One of them is a fishing spot up on Spring Branch Creek, which is kind of outside of Manchester, Iowa, but I’m going to mention a place here in town, which would be the Englert Theatre. In 1999, the company that owned the Englert decided to shut it down, and they were going to sell it to a local bar owner here in…
Well, I have a place that, when I was 10, my dad taught me how to cast a rod, and it was off a dock. It was a dock in Minnesota, and when you were talking about thrilling with your motorcycle, that was very thrilling for me because I caught my first fish. But it’s come back to me as a memory of a reminder of how I get hooked in to some things. And the actual hook of a…
Since she mentioned the library in the church, where there were books small and big, apparently, I would have to indicate that one of my favorite places—it still is—I spent more years than I care to admit as a student at the University of Iowa, I think I became very close to being a professional student, undergraduate, graduate school forever. But the place where you spent a lot of time at that time, when you weren’t marching or protesting in…
When I was younger than you, I was the church janitor. Me and my older brothers were at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Illinois. The oldest church in the community. I spent many hours dusting the pews, then later they graduated me to vacuuming the rugs. I got a quarter for it. It has been a sacred place for me forever, and I’m on the board of directors of Old Brick, where I have an office, and also on our…
A meaningful place for me is my church because when we first moved here, my dad was finishing up work, and I needed to stay at the church with my mom because she works there. And I would just stay there, and pretty soon, I had the whole place memorized. I could go anywhere in there and I could find my way back to where I started in like 10 minutes. I was very, very quick when it came to…
So I’ve got a musical instrument as my most treasured thing. When I was 16, I went to Mexico for study, and I was given some cash to spend on souvenirs. I was given about $35 to last me for quite a few weeks. You could buy a lot of souvenirs for $35 in 1964, but I spent all of it on a guitar, a $30 guitar, which I was hypnotized by. I played it every day while I was…
Well, I have so many probably more worthy possessions that are special from my children and wife and friends, but the one that came to mind is my motorcycle. When I was in high school I bought a motorcycle, and it was the most thrilling, wonderful thing in my life at that time; and when I got married and had kids, I stopped riding. My wife had also had a motorcycle when she was young and had been on a…
This is a little bit like that recipe card that you were talking about. It’s a reminder of my mother, who passed away almost 20 years ago. It was a little plaque, a little plaster of Paris plaque with a little saying on it, it said “Learn to do good.” No, no, it said “Learn to do well.” It was something actually I think I received at some sort of a Sunday school Christmas party. But my mother picked this up…
My saxophone is important to me, because I’m not very good at it yet and I haven’t been playing it for over a month yet, but whenever I do play it, I feel really good. I just love it so much. If it got lost, or if someone took it, I would just totally lose it. I would go totally crazy. I also have this stuffed animal that my class gave me when I got a concussion. We had a…
I have a stuffed animal cat that I got when I was a toddler and I had to go to the hospital. My eye might have gotten hurt and there was blood in it. I still have the stuffed cat, and it’s really dirty now. It was one of those things where you go to the hospital and then they give it to you at the hospital. I named it Mittsy because we read a book before I had to get my eye…