Past Opinion Articles

Article for the week of 8/21/05

Home Sweet Iowa?

By, Erin Allen.

If someone had told me a few years ago that I would move to Iowa one day, I believe my response would be, “Why?” Well, for the last two weeks my husband and I have made Iowa our address. My first reaction on driving into the state was favorable. It reminded me a lot of my hometown in Texas. There were rolling hills and small wooded areas and rivers and corn fields – LOTS of cornfields. Having lived in Lubbock, Texas, easily the flattest place on earth, for the last 3 years, the hills were a welcome change. Then disaster struck. We had a craving for Mexican food our first week, and headed out for a nearby restaurant advertising “authentic Mexican food.” In keeping with the example set by The Mouse that Roared, the Mexicans should declare war on the US for daring to insult their cultural cuisine in such a vile manner. I began to lose hope when we ordered drinks. “Dr. Pepper,” I said. “Sorry, we only have Pepsi products,” she responded. What kind of backwater uncultured place have I moved to? NO Dr. Pepper? Then came the food. I smiled and held my tongue for fear of being overheard, but as soon as we cleared the front doors I began to lament the loss of one of my favorite food genres. I’ve since recovered, though my husband and I are frequently disturbed by the inability to obtain Dr. Pepper in most dining establishments.
By far the most bizarre aspect of life in Iowa though, is the poor transmission of television broadcasts through hills. We got our television set up, complete with rabbit ears and discovered that we could pick up PBS and umm nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, I like PBS, but I keep getting the theme song to the kid show Zoobamafoo stuck in my head, over and over again! The Iowa PBS is pretty good though. They show plenty of goofy BBC shows and for the moment, lots of coverage of the State Fair. Yep, these people are obsessed with their fair. Thanks to the coverage of the fair, I now know that the largest sheep in Iowa weighs 456.5 lbs and the largest boar 1,080 lbs. Oooh, the excitement!
Don’t get me wrong, I rather like it here. I mean how many places can you buy corn in the grocery store with a sign over it explaining that it was picked today by Sam Greene at the Aw Shucks Corn Field. I might change my opinion come winter, but for now it’s OK.