what about the plastic animals?

Octagon House

You learn something new everyday.  All I wanted to write tonight was that I spotted this octagon house in Monroe, on the way from Pella to Newton.  Then I had to go and start wondering about the interior layout of such a house.

Octagon houses were an architectural fad that followed the publication of Orson Squire Fowler's 1848 opus, The Octagon House:  A Home For All.  Fowler was the leading proponent of phrenology, the science that the shape and bumps of your skull influenced your personality, in the mid 19th century.

Branching dangerously away from his expertise in boneheadedness, Fowler came to believe that octagonal houses would be much more cost effective than houses with those pesky right angles.  Eight-sided houses should also let in more light and air.  Fowler's design sense apparently only included the exteriors of the houses.  In the real world it is difficult to fit functional rooms to spaces containing odd angles, so you get closets with windows and kitchens with lots of severe corners where dirt can gather.

A couple thousand octagon houses were built during the 1850s and 1860s, mostly in New York and Massachusetts.  This amazing inventory says there are 404 octagon houses still standing.   The house in Monroe is believed to have been built in the late 1860s.

Dutch Letters

Those S-shaped pastries are delicious Dutch letters -a flaky dough filled with almond paste.  The cookies were traditionally made in Holland only for Sinterklaas Day, December 6th.  In central Iowa they are available year round.

There are two bakeries on Franklin St. in Pella that make Dutch letters.  The lines to get into the bakeries were insane!  Good thing I had the foresight to sample one in Des Moines a few days earlier.

Do you like reading about life in the Midwest?  Of course you do!  In that case you might be interested in Flyover People: The Book by Cheryl Unruh, our favorite commenter from Kansas.  Cheryl's very excited about the book.  Congratulations!

On a completely different note... Stories in The Onion are often an afterthought to the hilarious headlines that precede them.  The story about Martin Scorcese attending a free iMovie class at an Apple store, however, was pitch perfect from start to finish.

Tulip Time

As luck would have it I was in Iowa just in time for the 75th annual Pella Tulip Time Festival.  Pella goes all out for the festival.  There are two parades each day, with the streets being swept clean by the town's wooden-shooed women and children before each parade.  Some of the parade floats were very elaborate.  There were antique tractors and cars on display, people dressed in styles representative of different Dutch regions and eras, lots of local and Dutch food to be eaten (including the delicious stroopwafel above), the old Vermeer Windmill was open for tours, and the Pella Window Co. was giving away free panes of glass to children under three years of age.

It would be interesting to experience Pella on a less hectic day.  Despite all the activities, or maybe because of them, the whole thing struck me as a little creepy.  I can't point to anything specific, just that there seemed to be a bit too much polish, regimentation, and conformity for the sake of conformity feel to he activities.

Anyway, I enjoyed the street cleaning, the parade, the stroopwafels (they were sold in pairs!) and giant pork sandwich, and old tractors.

Vertical Stripes

From my hair to my fingers down to my stylish pants.  I wasn't feeling well earlier in the week, hence the lack of recent activity.  That, and I am paralyzed by having too many photos to choose from for the next Iowa event.

In other news my cast was removed on Monday.  The orthopaedist said the bone was healing well.  My fingers aren't very flexible so I have a few weeks of physical therapy to keep me busy.  After that I expect be able to play violin.

One of These is Not Like the Others

Sigh...

Smiling in Adair

A beacon on the plains!  When I drove from New York to Nebraska the smiley face water tower in Adair was the landmark that said there was only 2-3 more hours to Lincoln.  The face has been on the tower for ages and Adair has not been shy on capitalizing on its looming presence.

Plow In The Oak Park

The title says it all.  There is a park on US 71 just south of Exira.  Inside the park is a big oak tree.  Inside the oak tree is a plow.  Plow In The Oak Park might be a good place for a picnic.  Just make sure there's an east wind.

Openings and Closings on FDB

Atomic Wings, 113th and Frederick Douglass Blvd

Just Wingin' It, 118th and Frederick Douglass Blvd

Chocolat, 120th and Frederick Douglass Blvd

Bier International, 113th and Frederick Douglass Blvd

Eating establishments are coming and going faster on lower Frederick Douglass Blvd. than any one human can comprehend.  Just Wingin' It has joined Atomic Wings in the "Seized by the Marshal" club.  The Man doesn't like it when you don't pay your taxes!

On a more positive note, Chocolat and Bier International both opened last week.  Chocolat doesn't have a liquor license and Bier International is not yet serving food.  Too bad they're seven blocks apart!  Chocolat doesn't look like much from the outside but the interior looks cool.  Bier International calls itself a beer garden even though there's no tables outside.  Nonetheless they do have a good selection of beer.

Farmer's Kitchen Pie

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If you are driving across Iowa and have a hankering for pie, the Farmer's Kitchen in Atlantic is less than seven miles from I-80.  The sour cream raisin pie is well worth the detour.  Heck, if you're in Iowa, or one of the states adjacent to Iowa, the sour cream raisin pie is worth a trip.

Returning to Atlantic

Atlantic, Iowa, a place that brings back memories of a weekend long ago.  Or not.  To conclude the great Ford Escort transmission failure story of 1986 we have to return to Atlantic. 

Not having any confidence that the Ford dealer in Harlan could fix what ailed the Escort I headed east toward Des Moines with an extra quart of transmission fluid as a companion.  The car made it forty miles before it began making sucking sounds and blowing smoke.  I got off I-80 at Anita, emptied the quart of fluid, and took a look at the map.  No way was I going to make Des Moines.  Atlantic wasn't too far away and would be large enough to have a Ford shop.

In Wiota I took a chance and stopped at a repair shop to see if they would take a look at the car.  The guy there only worked on Chevys, but he did have a plan to help me.  He would gladly take me and the car to Lincoln that night at no charge because he was going to pick up his son, who was a student at UNL.  He also decided I could then take a bus from Lincoln to New York and be home in time for Christmas.  I thanked him for the offer, asked him about the Ford dealer in Atlantic, put in another quart of transmission fluid, and drove in what was left of first gear the seven miles to Atlantic.

The shop in Atlantic was well-kept and the head mechanic seemed very competent.  I gave him my sob story, and by this time it was almost literally a sob story, and he checked the car out.  The transmission was gone.  He would have to get a replacement from Omaha.  Because it was now Friday afternoon that wouldn't be until Monday.  Because of my near sob story he let me have a loaner for free and pointed me to a motel down the street.  I suppose I could have driven back to Lincoln with the loaner but it wan't in great shape and I felt the need to stay in Atlantic.

Here's the thing:  I remember almost nothing about Atlantic or the weekend I spent there.  About the only thing I recall is driving to a nearby park where I spent a couple of hours one afternoon.  On this recent visit I walked around downtown and nothing looked remotely familiar.  I saw what I guess was the motel I stayed in, but it seemed too far from downtown.  The Ford dealership had moved to a new building at the edge of town.  It was, I believe, on the north side of the downtown area.

Coke has a bottling plant in Atlantic and the city is host to the "second largest mini-convention of Coca-Cola collectors in the United States".  Bonnesen's Five and Dime is where I first went a bit nuts buying Chase's Cherry Mash candies.

The Escort's transmission was replaced late that Monday afternoon.  A bit paranoid, I bought yet another quart of transmission fluid and headed eastward.