WE live in a fly over state. NO one comes to Iowa unless he or she is a politician or a poet. You can go down to the local café and find Mike Huckabee eating eggs over easy. You can go to the pub and find a poet from Ireland or Iceland or Chicago. But otherwise this is a closed state. Relatives don’t come here for the holidays.
Iowa is Irkutsk. It’s the prairie. There’s wind out here and then it starts snowing as it did last night. We’re now off limits until late March. It’s time to break out the macaroni and cheese. Time to bring the fire wood into the house. Maybe bring the pigs into the house. Hell, bring everything inside. It’s time for Noah’s Ark. Time to hunker down and read conspiracy theories for the rest of the winter. It’s time to “go gruesome” as the sleet strikes the windows. While the tuna casserole bakes at 375 degrees we shall consider the Kennedy assassination. If Oswald acted alone I’m Donald Trump. Time to read dark novels. The Brothers Karamazov for the 17 time. Snow hits the roof and we’re thankful for the five pages of human mercy in the Brothers K. We would read Dickens but he’s too cheerful. Next to Dostoevsky even Bleak House is cheerful. Isn’t that damned casserole done yet?
ON channel 57 they’re showing Hannibal Lector for the millionth time. He’s about to eat someone. Now there’s a commercial for a new kind of mop. We might as well mop the kitchen while we’re waiting for old Hannibal to eat a man alive. When will the casserole be done? Did we get the grit out of the corner by the door? Did I just hear the first snow plough of the season? Are we ready for this? We’re crazy already and it’s just the first day of snow. Thank God! Here comes Hannibal Lector with a spoon.
The local TV station talks about the snowfall county by county. Iowa
has more counties than Irelandand the weather girl visits every one of them. No one can pronounce these counties. Each time it snows one discovers new and hitherto unknown places. They got four inches in ParacelsusCounty. The sun will never shine there again we’re told.
We would like to go to the movies but all the flicks are Disney or they’re about vomiting teenagers and we conclude it’s better to stay home. We think about ordering Netflix but instead we just go to bed. Wind buffets the north side of the house. The dogs snore companionably.
It’s only 120 days until the thaw. Where’s Dostoevsky? How did my book get in the refrigerator? Is it really only day one?
SK
Planet of the Blind 
Iowa weather is not for sissies. I recall being in Iowa a few years ago at the Iowa Museum of Aviation. It must have been well over 100 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Yikes, talk about searing heat. But what I remember the most from my limited experience in Iowa was the people. People are simply nice for no reason, a hard thing to cope with as a New Yorker.
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Iowa winters are certainly not for sissies. I lived there for two winters in the mid 90’s, in a wonderful little town called St. Ansgar, about ten miles from the Minnesota line. My kinfolks griped about it being cold in JUNE.
For a girl from coastal Texas, that was a shock. I walked into the front door of work one day and said to the receptionist, “I must be @#$%ing nuts to have moved up here.” I think I was wearing every piece of clothing I owned. She never let me live that down.
As much as I loved the town and the people in Iowa, I was glad to trade it for somewhat warmer weather in Arkansas.
Put another log on the fire, Steve.
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Where would you rather be, Steve?
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