I was born in the 1950’s in Mason City, Iowa… the town that produced Meredith Wilson, the creator of the Broadway Musical, The Music Man. Yes, River City in The Music Man is Mason City. So I was born into a unique Midwestern farm-town heritage where swindlers came to town and saved the day with music and an eleventh-hour change of heart. I was born into the land of Chmielewski Fun Time on the black-and-white TV, Lawrence Welk champagne accordion music, and the Beer-Barrel Polka, courtesy of loads and loads of German ancestry. I am that unique crossbreed of Scandahoovian and sqare-headed Deutschmann known by the only slightly racist term of Iowegian.
Corn Country!

Land of Long Winter and the ice-storm breezin’ down the plains.
And if you ask an Iowegian if he loves Iowa, he will answer, “You bet!”
And if you ask a northern Iowegian the same thing, he will say “You betcha!”
Iowans talk funny, don’t you know…
There are still corner stores and farm supply stores, though they have gone to brand names now, like Casey’s, BP, and Tractor Supply Co. You can still find HyVee and Safeway grocery stores. There are still a precious few family farms that haven’t been swallowed whole by big corporations and agri-businesses. If you go to the county fairs, you will still find kids showing the cattle or pigs that they raised for 4-H projects, and if you go into the barns after the auction, they are still producing tearful kids hugging and kissing that calf that won a red ribbon and now has to be sold… and they will never see poor Barney or Moo-berry again…
It is the land of the lonely gravel road… the back-street cattle pen… the Saturday night tornado (nearly every Saturday in Spring)… The VFW and the Lion’s Club Fish Fry at Lake Cornelia….And it is a place where most everything reeks of the past and old ghosts and times long gone, soon to never be remembered because there’s no longer anybody around who is old enough to tell the stories that grandparents and aunts and uncles used to tell. I not only miss it desperately, but I feel deeply saddened by the loss. Would I like to go home again?
“You betcha!!!”


















Lynn Johnston’s For Better or Worse is also an old friend. I used to read it in the newspaper practically every day. I watched those kids grow up and have adventures almost as if they were members of my own family. So the mashed potatoes part of the meal is easy to digest too.























Messing Up With Mickey
The way I handle the computer tends to be the way I handle life as a whole. Thirteen tabs open at the same time, eleven of them not responding, and me cussing the machine for not working properly.
Spring has come. In fact, Spring Break has come. My daughter the Princess and I were planning to plant flowers in the yard where the pool used to be. We started work yesterday spreading compost on the flower bed and churning the soil. But we should’ve done it sooner. It was too much for tired muscles to finish yesterday. Then the rains came last night. It would’ve been perfect to plant the seeds yesterday, then have God water them naturally at night. But plans don’t go anywhere near perfectly. Thirteen tabs are open and twelve are not responding.
In my novel, The Baby Werewolf, the murderer is now unmasked and he has started on his final killing spree. But as I was supposed to write the next Canto the last two nights, I found myself overwhelmed and overtired. I got no further writing done. I vowed to do it tonight, but the time change has left me no less tired and overwhelmed. Thirteen tabs not responding.
So here I sit, paralyzed by entropy and worriedly contemplating the eventual heat death of the universe. What to do? What to do?
Mickey’s inevitable answer… Mickey opens a new tab and keeps on writing. Did you think he had an actual plan for the rest of his life? Of course not. He planned on retiring from teaching and writing for about three years, and then dropping dead from one of his six incurable diseases. Guess what? This June will be twelve complete years. Who knows how many more?
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