2013 Iowa Tour

Essay – May 2013 Iowa, Wild and Wooly

Not to be confused with fast and furious but maybe....so after some delays and whatnot, Bridge and I convened at the Des Moines airport (which despite Hansi's careful coaching is NOT pronounced "dew muah"...nice try Hansi).  We head over to Perry and we manage to get a wee bit lost and stop at a lovely car parts place where the gents are more than willing to help us get to our hotel.  B and I made a note...just in case.  Anyway, the hotel in Perry called the Hotel Pattee was a beautifully appointed hotel with mission style furniture but remarkably clueless staff.  We found the bar (and can you expect anything less?) and had a great time with the three people in it including the wait staff from El Salvador.  Ended up having a nice meal and going to bed shamefully early. 

Next day, lovely b' fast which cost all of three bucks and we went walking around Perry to find St. Patrick's church (home of the St. Patrick's Church cookbook which I have), and just sort of noodled around town which was spookily uninhabited.  Friday a.m. and absolutely no one on the street.  In fact most of the place was boarded up.

I  went to the library, got some material for what I plan to be a donation on behalf of Mama to the library and the above pix describe pretty much what was going on.  Went to Violet Hill cemetery and despite having the site map from the internet, had quite a bit of trouble finding Grace until we threw caution to the wind and just prowled the graveyard until we found the catholic section, then the "old" section and then looked for O’Malley.  And you may know that there are a boatload of them.

So after a nice visit we headed over to Cedar Rapids, found Barry, Janet, and Kim at home and had a lovely catch up including a dutiful recitation of all of our illnesses. And telling fanciful stories about all of you…

Had a lovely dinner with Barry and Janet (the cod was on special….) and then Bridge and I went looking for a corkscrew (you may not be surprised that there was no such thing at the house). Manchester is not lousy with corkscrew places. But we did find one and spent the evening quietly getting sozzled.

Next day, up at at’em. First stop, a visit to Mama and Papa who were looking quite pulled together, courtesy of Barry and Kim who had thoughtfully put a planter next to their graves.  Flowers in bloom!

 Next a trip to Manchester to find an old flame of Bridget’s (no names, please). This pix tells the story

Then on to Ryan, where we took the obligatory picture next to Ryan’s claim to fame, the World’s Largest Umpire. Again, a day of spooky quiet, with very empty streets and the occasional sound of a lawnmower.

.. A favorite moment is my taking a pix of Bridge outside a local bar (there were two on Main Street, along with the post office and bank) which advertised itself as the best pub in Ryan. It was closed, however, at 11 a.m. but the one across the street wasn’t and the helpful proprietor threw open his door and asked if we girls were thirsty. I like that open Iowa manner.

We decline, uncharacteristically. After a tour around town, we headed back to Rancho Relaxo where Barry and Janet were already setting up for the party. Lots of pop in the fridge. In fact, nothing but pop in the fridge. (Recall now the old saw from Papa about “We don’t know where Ma is, but we’ve got Pop on ice.)

The gang arrived and if memory serves we had Kim and her daughter Melissa and grandson Colin and granddaughter Jayden. We had Barry Jr., his wife Toni, and their daughter Alexis. We had Shelly and her husband Jeff and their son Cole. And there are a lot more grandkids and great grandkids but we took notes and can, if pressed, come up with a credible accounting.

A quick trip to Manchester ensued to find the library and print out our boarding passes. Right behind the library is Papa’s old house on Howard Street. Who knew?  Barry owns it and has been renting it out for years.

Back at the ranch, boarding passes in hand, Barry and Janet took us to the Sand Creek Cemetery to find our great grandfather, John, and his various wives and relatives. I remember that cemetery and I can only guess I went there when Mama died for some reason. But of the three of them, I have to say that this one was the loveliest.

Had the rest of the wine that night, ate some leftovers and watched Ron White from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour (and damn is he funny). Well, we was in the country, so why not?

Off to the airport the next morning with one slight hitch. We followed the directions to the letter, but blew by the Eastern Iowa Airport because, of course, it didn’t say Cedar Rapids Airport. How the hell would we know that? So by the time we were seeing signs for Des Moines, we thought, uhhh maybe that WAS the Cedar Rapids Airport. Which of course it was and we dashed through the place to our gate and realized that the dash was not all that necessary as there really wasn’t much going on in the airport on Sunday morning. Got on our planes and got home.

And that, as they say is that.

Hannah at the Casino

November 29, 2007.  Arrived at Port Authority on Sunday afternoon after a fairly uneventful bus trip.  Most people on the bus respected the notion that we are all on this little boat called Planet Earth and kept the racket to a minimum with the exception of the extremely hip young man sitting next to me who plugged his I-phone into his ears and played his annoying music at such a level that I could hear every tedious beat.  I just buried myself in work and tried to count my blessings.

Cieran met me and we headed to his office where we met his charming co-worker Mical and minutes later met his boss, Chuck Armstrong who pulled up along the curb in his beat up Porsche which we were then instructed to drive up to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.  The Mohegan Sun is apparently quite well known and is a casino on the Indian reservation of same name.  Just for the record, a Porsche doesn’t really have a back seat.  It has two depressions into which a pair of 3 year olds might wedge themselves so your author planted one part of her body in one depression and hooked her legs around in a stunning display of yoga technique.  One never knows when lifelong habits will actually be helpful.  Twisted like a pretzel for 3.5 hours and living through the experience is such a life lesson.

So once at the casino, we were ushered into the VIP lounge and served champagne and sent up to our ridiculously opulent rooms.  Cieran had the pleasure of sharing his room with his mother which kept his opportunity for mischief to a minimum.  The casino might be described as extravagant in its décor but that would be asking a great deal of the word extravagant. Imagine if the biological product of Celine Dion and Cher were to manifest itself as a building.  Yeah, that’s what it looked like.  Then throw a little Native American décor (animatronic wolves, clear acrylic bears lit up like Christmas ornaments, etc.) and casino names like Casino of the Earth and Casino of the Sky and you begin to get the idea. 

Cieran and I being old hands at Vegas were right at home. However we lost Mical after dinner and that just left the two of us to go get ourselves some heap big wampum at the casino (incidentally, you will be pleased to know that despite the multiple opportunities to make tasteless Indian jokes, we did not – that will be the first and last).  Having been thrashed at the slot machines in Vegas last time (I lost $.50, yes the decimal point is in the right place), I was determined to right a wrong.  So with Cieran’s help, I hunted down the three penny slots had had been the seat of my spiritual depantsing – The Munster Family, Larry the Lobster, and Sally the Shrimp.  To make my glorious exploits short, I won $.90 at the Munster slot and flushed with success, headed over to Larry the Lobster where I won another $.04.  Giddy, I took on Sally the Shrimp  and lost $.30.  Despite the wounding, I cashed out (Cieran could not believe that I would actually cash out $.64…) and held my winnings aloft.  It stung the casino, I could tell.

Cieran on the other hand actually played some Blackjack and came away with $45.  Decimal point in the correct place.  He’s pretty good and as has happened in past, the ladies sitting next to him think he’s such a lovely boy that they constantly give him advice.  And good advice it is.

We headed off to bed and the next morning, we went to the Caberet theatre in the Casino where we set up the show, Community Auditions.  A quick background.  This is a regional, New England show along the lines of American Idol which aired in the 50s through the 80s.  Chuck Armstrong is trying to revitalize the show and syndicate it.  So this is the first season of the new show.  We were taping three shows and the final championship show (winner gets a record deal and $15K).  I was there simply to be a stagehand, move stuff around, etc.  Cieran was wrangling the talent and the judges, getting all their paper work pulled together, calming nerves, etc.  Mical was actual doing production with the house team of camera men and the house band (which was pretty spectacular – these guys were real pros and funny to boot). 

Due to circumstance I will never understand, I was tapped to be the tiebreaker judge.  I sat in the audience and took notes and voted on all the contestants, and then Cieran took my votes and tallied them with the celebrity judges on stage and in two cases, I actually broke the tie.  By the end of the show, I became quite attached to the three finalists and it was really tough to make a call.  In some cases, we had junior high school talent show types and in one case we had a flute and guitar duo which recalled MY junior high school talent show..old hippies never die…But in other cases, we had some real talent.

But the finalists were a black man in his mid-30s with a very Luther Van Dross vibe, a young lady of the Katherine MacPhee (American Idol) sultry, fab voice genre, and an unbelievably talented young guitarist with the greatest real name for a rock star yet (Holden Truelove), who played a smokin’ version of Voodoo Chile (your author’s fave Jimi Hendrix tune) and just brought the place down.  Ninja Slap WISHES they had Holden.  This kid had all of it goin’ on, including Tiger Beat looks (I date myself, I know) and hip attitude.  I honestly believe that all of these guys will be heard from again.

So unfortunately my tie breaking vote (for Jen Hirsch the vocalist) was overruled by the “celebrity” tie vote from the head of the Mohegan Indian tribe, Bruce "Two Dogs" Bosum (no joke), so Bryan Whitcom (the soul singer) won.  Not the end of the world but he wasn’t my fave.

Another fascinating aspect of our time at the Mohegan was that we had employee passes so we ate in the canteen and ran around “underground” the casino.  I now know how a Morlock feels.  There is this entire world, or at least a very good sized village, of people who run the upper, glittery, fantasy place.  There must be thousands of employees, most of them Asian, who are the croupiers, bartenders, clean up crew, cashiers, etc.  My guess is that there are probably 15 languages spoken at any given time.  It was a grim reminder of what it takes to make America happy, and it takes a whole lot of people you will never really see…go see the movie “Dirty Pretty Things..”

Anyway, the show ended about 6:30, we cleaned up the place, headed back in the Porsche (me in the back seat again), got a little turned around in New Rochelle looking for gas, and I got to my Pod Hotel in Manhattan  by 10:30. 

A good time was had by all