“It’s somewhere in here,” says my friend as she turns her car into the small cemetery, “but I’m not sure where.”

No one is around. The smell of aspen trees is tangy and sharp. The surrounding mountains deceptively invite an easy afternoon walk. The clouds roll in and roll out. All is quiet but for the squawk of a black-billed magpie jumping from branch to tombstone and back again.

Ketchum, Idaho is a million miles from Des Moines, Iowa. 

My friend and I circle a little further back through the headstones looking for Ernest Hemingway’s last resting place. I am expecting some kind of larger-than-life human statue or a giant bull of granite or at least a gargantuan fish in concrete. Hemingway, on all accounts, was a larger-than-life man. He should have a larger-than-life grave. I mean, really, he wrote of war and romance and bull fighting and Paris and hunting and an old man catching a giant fish. Hemingway, in my mind’s eye, is a man weathered by life and drink, not necessarily good company, but still shaking his fist at the heavens. And, by the way, not a bad writer. 

“Fish,” he said softly, aloud, “I’ll stay with you until I’m dead.”

Hemingway’s old man in Old Man and the Sea is not a wilting flower. He is a bruiser. And when I first read that story as a late teenager, I was empowered. If the old man could have honor and grace and courage in the face of certain defeat, darn it all, I could ask a girl to prom. And I did. Hemingway was my cheerleader. 

So where is that grave?

My friend leaves word up at the local bar that I’m interested in Hemingway. It’s the Pioneer Saloon in Ketchum, Idaho. The saloon displays a trove of Hemingway memorabilia. After we finish a beer, the owner, Duffy Witmer, appears at our table and tells us tales, tall or not, and “certainly not to be printed,” about Hemingway, his kids, his guns, his legacy, and “never before told facts.” Duffy, not a young man, is a winking leprechaun and we are charmed. Another beer please. 

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.” Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me. “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

The Sun also Rises was Hemingway’s debut novel in 1926, portraying the “lost generation” that survived the horror of World War I. The story revolved around Brett and Jake who loved each other but could never consummate that love because of Jake’s war injury. The story hit a nerve later in college when I felt lonely and deformed by cystic acne and self-consciousness. “Me too, Jake, me too” was my conceit, as the car drove off with me squeezed in-between Jake and Brett. 

“I see something over there.” And we circle around to a flat grave between two aspen trees. 

Later in life I would travel to Paris with my wife and Hemingway’s posthumous book, A Moveable Feast — about Hemingway’s experiences with his first wife in Paris and with the painters and artists and writers that were working in Paris during that time. I traipsed around the west bank of the Seine pretending that I too was a young writer in the 1920’s. I ignored all of Hemingway’s catty criticisms of fellow writers and instead focused on the places he mentioned, the food he ate, and the wine he drank. I wanted to live in a garret. I was thrilled.

Hemingway committed suicide at his Ketchum home on July 2, 1961. He was 61 years old and was in physical and mental pain from a lifetime of injuries . . . shrapnel wounds driving an ambulance in Italy, broken bones from various car accidents, crushed vertebra and ruptured liver, spleen and kidney and first degree burns from two plane crashes, and at least nine concussions . . . and from life. 

In Lillian Ross’s  article in 1950 (how-do-you-like-it-now-gentlemen) in The New Yorker, 11 years before his death, Hemingway says to her:

“Only suckers worry about saving their souls. Who the hell should care about saving his soul when it is a man’s duty to lose it intelligently, the way you would sell a position you were defending, if you could not hold it, as expensively as possible, trying to make it the most expensive position that was ever sold. It isn’t hard to die.”

Without a doubt, the criticism of the man and his writing was there from the beginning. “Toxic masculinity” is the typical critique. More recently, in The Daily Beast in 2018, Allen Barra wrote “Why the Hell are we Still Reading Ernest Hemingway?“(why-the-hell-are-we-still-reading-ernest-hemingway). Barra reviews biographies and articles and Hemingway’s letters and concludes: “Long before a subdural hematoma suffered in a 1944 auto accident, after which his alcohol-fueled behavior became increasingly irrational, Hemingway was a bully, braggart, and myth-monger.” Ouch! Barra also finds that most of Hemingway’s writing is not very good — with the exception of his short stories.

Really?

George Plimpton interviewed Hemingway for the Paris Review in 1958 (the-art-of-fiction-no-21-ernest-hemingway). Hemingway talked about his writing and concluded:

“Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.”

And isn’t that the message? All the judgment of the man and his life is certainly interesting, but at the end of the day aren’t we left with the written word? And, like Barra, you can certainly find that lacking. But if his words change how you think about things, isn’t that marvelous?  

At last we find his grave. An unpretentious and dignified resting place. Bottles of liquor and pens and notes and pencils and coins litter the top of the flat tomb. Either an honor or a desecration. Hard to fathom. Like the man himself.

We are silent. The air is still. The sun comes out from the clouds. And the magpie jumps between branches and tombstones. My friend turns and suggests that we get a strawberry shake. So we do. 

Joe

“Life expectancy at birth for women in the United States dropped 0.8 years from 79.9 years in 2020 to 79.1 in 2021, while life expectancy for men dropped one full year, from 74.2 years in 2020 to 73.2 in 2021.” CDC, August 23, 2022 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm)

73.2 years???! Really? I might as well eat that big bowl of whip cream and lie belly up in the blue plastic wadding pool for the afternoon. So much for 30 Days to Better Spelling. Why make the effort? 73.2 years! Lord, I hear the clock ticking over my right shoulder like some type of Disney-created crocodile and I’m Captain Hook. I don’t have 10 years. I don’t even have five. Oh me oh my.

Okay, I tell myself, numbers don’t have to be scary. In fact, I’ve always loved numbers. In college, I majored briefly in Mathematics because of a strange attachment to high-waisted pants and practical shoes. And even when I switched to a major in Religion, math courses were an escape from struggling with questions like why is there suffering, and what happens after death, and why don’t I have a girlfriend.

On the other hand, these recent numbers ARE scary. And it’s even worse for a male American Indian or a male Alaska Native — you only get a life expectancy of 61.5 from birth. And if you are male and Black, your life expectancy from birth is 66.7. These numbers are HORRIBLE! 

Don’t get me wrong, there are serious problems in the world and serious people are needed to keep us from killing ourselves and killing each other and to make sure we add baking powder to the cake batter. That tablespoon of baking powder is the difference between a cake that is light and fluffy and a cake that looks like a hubcap. I know. So bring on the serious folks to save the planet and our cakes. 

But is there a role for whimsy in all this? Do we need things that are nothing but fanciful with a dash of humor? You know, things that when you see them your pursed lips involuntarily turn up and your eyes uncharacteristically crinkle. I’m not asking for outright guffaws, heaven help us, but maybe something where you nudge the person next to you and say with a grin, “Look at that!”

But where to find this whimsical fantasy?

I’m with my wife in Cologne, Germany, mildly lost as we generally are in our travels — and in life, for that matter. We walk up from the river and away from the famous cathedral toward a less touristy area. The buildings are grittier and the people we pass are clearly workers either coming or going. 

My wife and I are having our traditional travel conflict. This is a fun fight where my wife bemoans the inability to use our smart phones for directions because I have failed as a husband. This failure can arise in various technical ways dealing primarily with SIM cards, whatever they are, but suffice it to say that I am truly guilty, and if my wife’s phone did work, she’d certainly be contacting her college sweetheart, Chuck, the true love of her life, and get the heck out of Dodge. Or Cologne. 

As we both simmer, we see in the distance an office building. Nothing special, . . . but is that an ice cream cone on the roof? Whaaaat? A DRIPPING ICE CREAM CONE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN IS ON THE ROOF!!! 

Not only did this sight save our marriage, but it made us smile. It brought us outside of ourselves. It brought us into a land of curiosity and wonder. It was whimsical. 

“Look at that,” I say with a grin.

Claes Oldenburg created this ice cream cone in 2001 along with his wife Coosje van Bruggen, who died of breast cancer in 2009. 

Of course, Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s work was not foreign to me. When we arrived in Des Moines in 1981, we would bike from the Attorney General’s Office up near the capitol to our apartment in the Drake neighborhood. This meant going through downtown. 

“What in the heck is that?” I said to my wife, as we pedaled through the heart of the city with our backpacks full of our work clothes and lunch pails and anything else a young lawyer was supposed to carry. 

There in the middle of Des Moines was a gigantic umbrella. No kidding. An umbrella. It appeared to have no purpose, no hidden meaning, no artistic subtext. It was just a giant umbrella. 

We got off our bikes and smiled. Of course we didn’t laugh out loud, not in the land of Grant Wood’s grim-faced, pitch-forked farmer and his scary sister, but our eyes did crinkle and our lips went up. 

“Will you look at that.”

Yup, Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s Crusoe Umbrella, commissioned by the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines in 1978.

Then there is the giant trowel created in 2001 and purchased by Meredith Corporation. It’s hard to take yourself too seriously in the presence of a garden trowel bigger than your car. 

And the very first public Oldenburg in Des Moines can be found at the Des Moines Art Center, commissioned in 1971, way early in his career — talk about an art center out in front of the crowd. And, yup, it’s a ginormous three-way plug. Whimsy anyone?

Photo used with permission of the Des Moines Art Center, Photo Credit: Rich Sanders

As Laura Burkhalter, the friendly and helpful Curatorial Manager at the Des Moines Art Center, told me about the three-way plug:

“Our philosophy at the Art Center has been that when we go after an artist, we go after THE work — the one that shows that artist. This is an Oldenburg. It’s big. It’s blue. It’s soft. It’s humanistic. It is a quintessential Oldenburg.”

Amen to that. 

Listen, I am not an artist and my knowledge of art could fit on the tip of a paint brush, but what is a bit of whimsy worth? What is the value of an unbidden smile that exists for no reason but fun? How often do you see something that gives you a heartwarming surprise after your friend has elbowed you in the ribs and said, “Will you look at that.”

Claes Oldenburg died the other day. I didn’t know him. I don’t know how to label his art. I know nothing of his vision. But I do know this, thanks to the Des Moines Art Center and Meredith and the Civic Center, Oldenburg gave Des Moines a great public gift. He gave us the gift of whimsy.

May he rest in peace.

Joe

Here are a few other pictures of Oldenburg’s work we have come across in our travels:

Museum Bowmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Embarcadero, San Fransisco, California.

Minneapolis Sculpture Gardens, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Lee King is loud and fierce and sassy. Her braided hair sits long on her shoulders. Her smile wide and open. Her eyes clearly say she’s up to no good and, if you’re lucky, you might be invited along.

Lee laughs heartily as she steers the car through the construction on Fleur Drive.

“I’ve been driving a cab for eight months. I was just looking for a side job, but then I started meeting good people. I want people to laugh, to have fun while they’re in a cab. That’s my goal.”

Are you kidding? What about all the angry people out there? They don’t seem up for a fun conversation. 

“Hah! Listen, I was driving this guy who was handicapped to the homeless shelter. We talked the whole way. When we got to the shelter his cab fare was $30. He tipped me $50. I was shocked. You’re at a homeless shelter? Why would a person do that?”

Lee pauses and laughs to herself.

“He said I made his day by just talking to him.”

I believe it. Lee could charm a rock. But enough of that, what about cinnamon rolls?

“Well, over two years ago, Cinnabon in Jordan Creek, where we used to go, closed down. So, Ty, my wife, decided to make cinnamon rolls one night with my daughter. Later, she woke me up and said I had to try one.”

And?

“I said, ‘Whoa, that is good!'”

And that was it?

“Well, we tested them on various folks, they loved them. So we just started going around to local barbershops and selling them. And again people loved them.” 

Local barbershops? What about bald people? As I wiped the shine off my bald head. 

What happened next?

“We called ourselves ‘LeeTy Delights,’ and my cousin came up with the slogan, ‘Love At First Bite.’ Can you believe it? We stumbled upon a business and it blew up. It just blew up. And we’ve been rolling ever since.”

Lee sits back and shakes her head. 

“Then Ty decided to try different flavors. Our first different roll was pecan. Everybody loves those. We then went wild with flavors.”

What do you mean?

“Well, the banana one. We started doing a crust on the bottom. It is almost like a pie. It’s a banana pudding in our dough with a crust. It is our most popular flavor. We invented the cinnamon roll with a crust.” 

My lord. Do you ever have doubts about a flavor?

“Okay, I was concerned about the white chocolate raspberry. That flavor is just weird. Who will eat this? Ty told me people will love it. And people LOVE IT! Ty is a mastermind. She is a weird genius flavor person. Man, it’s crazy.”

Crazy enough for people to buy them?

“We’ve been to the Downtown Farmer’s Market twice and sold out both times. And we sell at Friedrichs Coffee and at the Slow Down Coffee Company.”

How do you do all this?

“Our schedules are crazy. I don’t know what rest is. We are running our kids to soccer and Isiserettes, baking cinnamon rolls, and driving a cab. I’m exhausted. And I love it.”

Of course you do. Listen, it’s just the two of us here. And I won’t tell anyone. Promise. What’s the secret to your cinnamon rolls?

Lee gives her wide open smile, and in a deep voice says: “Butter and love, baby. Don’t forget that butter. If you don’t have that butter it just isn’t going to be the same.”

Amen to that.

Joe 

The farmhouse sat on one side of the gravel road, surrounded by a large yard with a pump, a vegetable garden, and scattered peony bushes. Chickens worked the ground in a hard-packed section at the back, while cattle lowed with mild dissatisfaction from the barns across the road.

It was another time.

We kids, all cousins, ruled this land and the adjacent back forty with a pirate’s joyful abandon and recklessness. It was our Treasure Island and our Haunted Forest and our Safe House — all in one. 

My grandpa farmed this land until he retired. Then my uncle took over the farm until he moved on. Then his son, Steve Smith, took over the farm for many years, until he retired. And now Steve’s son has taken over the farm.

Steve is my age. We grew up together. I was a city kid, and as a teenager came to the farm to cultivate with an old tractor in late spring, walk beans in mid-summer, and bust open the frozen water trough in the heart of winter.

I did this on holiday — Steve did this everyday.

And in my earlier years, the old farmhouse was not exactly a delightful spa. Water was pumped by hand in the kitchen sink. The bathroom was about twenty feet from the house with a creaky door and two holes opening into my greatest nightmare. And in the winter the heat upstairs was more imagined than felt.

For many years, Steve shoveled corncobs down the coal chute into the boiler room in the basement. From there he would shove the corncobs into the furnace, adding wood once there was a good burn. Then he would head out to the water tank across the road and get the heater going with more corncobs to thaw the frozen tank. 

This was just the start of his work day.

Steve would work all spring, summer, and fall at farming. A more than full-time job. But before long he added other businesses — running concessions and carnivals around the Midwest during the summer months. Why not? Two, maybe three, full-time jobs. It’s what he did.

The last few years if you came to the Iowa State Fair early, you would see him marking the lines where all the rides were to be placed on the midway.

And then he and his wife would make sure it all ran smoothly while the rest of us ate corn dogs and ice cream.

And in winter, he would repair tractors and combines and carnival rides and . . . fill in the blank. If he was sitting in his easy chair, it meant it was dark and nearly bedtime. Such was his life.

Steve Smith thrived in this world. No matter the task, and there was always a task, he was up to it. We would joke about Steve’s father, who would bring his family for a visit and send Steve and his brother out to chop nonexistent ice in the driveway. Everyone needed to keep busy, according to Steve’s father. A lesson learned well by Steve. 

Steve grew into the most responsible person in the room. Seamlessly and without a discussion or vote, he took care of his family and his siblings and his children and his grandchildren and his friends and his customers and on and on. That’s just what he did. 

So it is no surprise that it was while working in his shop repairing a vehicle, he fell off a ladder and injured himself. This led to the discovery of cancer. Treatments and doctors and hospitals and months go by. Eventually, he is back in his shop. Working. Farming. Setting up the midway at the Iowa State Fair. It’s what he does.

But life is never a straight line. “Don’t get too comfortable” may be the appropriate sign above the door.

Steve fell again. In the shop. Just fell.

Back to the hospital.  

“Joe, a wind turbine is going in on one of the farms,” Steve’s wife, Vicki, says while sitting next to Steve in the hospital the other day. 

Wow. It is a new world for sure. Corncobs generating heat to wind turbines generating electricity. Go figure.

The end of a time.

Last night the phone rang.  

“Joe, Steve has passed,” said Vicki, who has lovingly and exhaustively taken care of him during this difficult time.

Death is a punch in the gut no matter how much expected. 

So here we are. The responsible guy has left the room. The ice is un-chopped in the driveway. The corncobs will no longer be tossed down the coal chute. Tasks large and small shall go unfinished.

Meanwhile the big turbines slowly turn in the Iowa wind. 

May Steve rest in peace.

Joe 

The rain is gentle in Dublin, Ireland, unlike the hard rain in Iowa this spring. The rain washes down the old slate roofs flowing into gutters and spills into private gardens hidden in the back of buildings. High stone and brick walls keep me from spying on people dallying inside those gardens, as I look out a window high above. But there is nothing to hide today as most take cover from the rain while the gutters fill to the brim and the Irish green turns greener.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

This Oscar Wilde quote, carved in stone near Wilde’s statute in Merrion Square Park, certainly sounds great. Who doesn’t want to see stars? But, trust me, it’s harder to see those stars when blocked by the ever-present clouds of COVID.

Yup, COVID. Even though my wife is fully vaccinated and has two boosters on board, she was just diagnosed with COVID for the second time in the last six months. Really? Can’t she get a break? I suspect the gods are frowning on her ill-advised marriage. But still. Really?

And to make matters even more daunting, my daughter and her partner, both living in Dublin, also tested positive for COVID. Yup, my family is a contagion.

And the cherry on top of this COVID sundae? We can’t fly home to Des Moines. We have to cancel our flight and scramble for housing as my wife sits in lockdown for the next 16 days.

Which leaves me. Unscathed. A thorn in all their COVID-sick sides. Footloose and fancy free in Ireland … as long as I keep testing negative and wear a mask.

Which is why I’m in Merrion Square Park looking for good bread — “the staff of life,” according to another Dublin writer, Jonathon Swift.

This is not a small matter.

Our daughter has already attempted to distract me with early morning Irish scones. Delicious in their own right. But not bread. Then she brought cinnamon rolls and donuts. Certainly a staple of the good life, but, let’s face it, not bread. Then my daughter brought Irish Guinness, purportedly a beer that is the same as eating a loaf of bread. The jury is still out because of the need for multiple-day sampling, but I’m fairly certain it’s not bread.

Where’s the good bread?

Merrion Square park is tucked between massive homes that used to be where Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats and Daniel O’Connell lived and hung out. Of course they were concerned with politics and writing and poetry, not food. Although, it was Oscar Wilde who said, “I can’t stand people who don’t take food seriously.” So I’m looking to see if there might be good bread at the Thursday morning market in Merrion Square.

Leif Jensen hasn’t begun selling yet. But I am drawn to stacks and stacks of heavy, crusty, just-made bread. The smell of sourdough and yeast is swoon-producing. The other stalls are just lifting their awnings. But Leif is ready to go.

“I am here because I was missing a good bread from home.” Leif says in a German accent. “In Germany we have a very high bread culture.”

Leif actually left Germany 12 years ago as a chef.

“I worked in a lot of Michelin star restaurants. But I first left Germany to work as a chef on tall ships sailing around Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, and West Africa. I returned to Hamburg to be the head chef in a French restaurant. After that I was a chef in Normandy, France, and then a chef in London.”

I didn’t tell Leif about my similar experience selling foot long hotdogs around Iowa.

“But I was always traveling between these other countries and Northern Ireland because my wife lived there. Although she is actually from Botswana.”

Of course she is.

“She became pregnant so I moved to Northern Ireland. And then with all the COVID restrictions and my hunger for good bread I decided to open a bakery. Now I am delivering to restaurants and cafes traditionally baked bread. The real bread.”

I buy two loafs. Yup, he’s not lying, it is the real bread.

Leif, what is next for you?

“I am 34. I’m trying to write a good life story. And I love to engage with people. Just yesterday I had 15 young students in my kitchen as I taught them how to make sourdough bread. That is special.”

Yes it is. A good life story. And it is special.

Leif goes back to selling bread, and I head back to our apartment.

Six days pass. Every day I have a negative COVID test. I eat Leif’s bread. I walk in the rain. All is good.

On the seventh day, two colored lines appear in my test box. I’m positive for COVID.

Aargh!

So now I stand in a shadowy alley in Dublin, masked and distanced, waiting for the side door to open so I can take a more definitive test as a marker to start the clock for qualifying to fly home. The graffiti-covered walls of the alley drip with the soft rain drizzling between the buildings. The gutters fill. There is not a star in sight.

But when I leave after my test, I take a wrong turn. Wandering around the Temple Bar area in the rain, I come upon a closed bookstore — The Gutter Bookshop. Go figure. Named after that same darn Oscar Wilde quote about gutters and stars. I look inside the window that’s holding in all those stories hidden behind their covers — as many stories as stars in the sky.

I make it back to our apartment — aka, the quarantine apartment — COVID central — the Dublin Annex for the Iowa Maximum Security Prison.

Safe and sound.

I cut a slice of Leif’s bread. I watch the rain through the front window. And I think about Leif trying to live a good life story … and other people I know and their good life stories.

Outside the window the rain continues to softly fall. The streets fill with water. And the lamplights shine … like stars?

At least that’s the view from the gutter.

Joe

The mud-brown leaves, pressed flat and brittle by winter snow, swirl around on my blue tarp looking for a way to escape the mulch pile. A gust blows from the west. I run to the far side of the tarp to push the leaves back. A gust blows from the east. I run back to the other side flailing with my rake against the rising tide.

Help.

But the leaves will do what they want. They hang in balance against the edge of the tarp and then whisk out over the top to scoot across the road and rest in the neighbor’s yard. A flight to freedom.

Let’s face it, the wind is a fickle friend. Sometimes it corrals the leaves into a twirling pile ready to be scooped onto my tarp; other times, it sits up in the tree tops, moaning like spirits at a seance, only to swoop down with a splat, scattering dead leaves and grass.

“Our strongest winds are in the fall and the spring. It’s really about low pressure. Wind moves from high to low pressure. With high pressure, you have descending air and air that kind of spreads out. With low pressure, everything goes toward the area of low pressure and lifts from that. The stronger the low pressure system, the stronger the winds we are going to have.”

Are you sure the wind’s not triggered by me coming outside with a rake?

Rod Donavon gives a slow smile that starts in his eyes long before it makes his mouth. A Senior Meteorologist for the National Weather Service located in Des Moines, Iowa, he has a radio voice that speaks with calm assurance.

At least he is calming to me as he talks over the computer — the only way to communicate because of COVID restrictions at the National Weather Service offices.

“I grew up in Northeast Iowa. Have been at the Des Moines office for the past 18 years. We are open at the National Weather Service 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

Shift work for all the employees. Great for us. Not so easy for Rod and his family with kids and activities.

And while Rod’s working, the wind is blustering.

Winnie the Pooh says when talking about a blustery day in the 100 Acre Wood:

“Oh, then I think I shall wish everyone a Happy Windsday.”

Really? “Windsday”?

So, Rod, why do such a crazy job as predicting the weather?

“The National Weather Service logo is protection of life and property, and that’s really what drew me to the National Weather Service because we are the sole voice for issuing a severe thunderstorm, tornado warning, a winter storm warning, etc.”

Okay.

“I wanted to be part of that process and make a difference.”

Or as our own Herbert Hoover said about this notion:

“Being a politician is a poor profession. Being a public servant is a noble one.”

This spring brought tornadoes that left terrible tragedies and death. Rod was in the middle from the National Weather Service offices.

NBC News — “The tornado may have touched down, skipped and touched down again, with ‘a couple different segments,’ said Rod Donavon, a meteorologist in the NWS Des Moines office.” 

“This last event of March 5th was the biggest event we’ve had with loss of life for a long time,” Rod tells me.

A total of seven dead — including two children. Loss of property. Families devastated.

“You have to remain focused and get the job done. But afterwards it is an emotional roller coaster we go through.”

The wind rattles the window behind my computer screen. I take a slow drink of coffee.

So, what about the weather today?

“We have a severe weather potential tonight. There’s going to be hail. We’re not done with winter weather with the wind and the cold coming in tomorrow, and chance of snowfall coming in. It is complicated and figuring it out will take up most of my day.”

And the wind?

“We are in the cold side and the warm side. The closer together the pressure lines, the stronger the winds are going to be. Boone, Webster City and Hampton, gusts are at 40 mph right now. So today is a windy day.”

I go back outside. I listen to the trees talking high above as their  branches rock back and forth with the gusts. The dead leaves are still waiting for my rake. But at my feet I see the wind has uncovered a surprise.

Mmmm . . . no one got hurt today, the sun is shining, and here at my feet is the yearly promise of rebirth. Perhaps it is a Happy “Windsday” after all.

Joe

“I actually thought I’d die with the shears in my hands.”

The old man stands behind his barber chair — his podium for an audience of one. He looks at me. He looks down at his notes. He reads carefully.

“But a young barber came to me and said he’d like to start his own business. ‘The best time to sell is when you have a buyer,’ is an old saying in real estate. I have an old clientele because I too am old and with that it made me think maybe it is time.”

We just met, two old men, and I suspect he’s worried that I won’t get his life right. I don’t tell him that no one gets a life right, even the person living it. But he’s come prepared — three small yellow pages, one side only. Fifty-five years as a Des Moines barber distilled into a space small enough to fit on a retirement banner. 

“My wife and I want to travel more to Arizona because I have a daughter there with her family. This shop is ready for some new blood. Ian and Travis will make it happen. I would like to thank Eric Hutchinson, Ian and Travis’ previous boss, for his role in mentoring these young barbers into an entrepreneurial position.”

Lannie Hale’s ironed shirt is tucked tightly into his creased pants. Shoes are polished. Hair and beard recently trimmed. Intent gaze. He wants to exit stage left, but then there’s always the final soliloquy.  

I smile encouragingly as he reads from the prepared text that gives thanks to his clients and explains how he got where he is today.   

He looks down at his last page.  

“The old saying goes, find a job you love and you never have to go to work a day in your life. I will miss all of you a lot.”

I remain quiet as Lannie shuffles the pages into a straight deck and hands them to me.

Fifty-five years of barbering . . . that’s a long time to do any one thing. 

“You just think positive. I’ve been very fortunate to have loyal customers. You can make a living working 40 hours a week, but you can make money working 50 hours a week. I start at 7 a.m. and sometime I don’t end until 6 p.m. As I got older, my legs couldn’t do it. I needed to pace myself.”

But don’t people really just want fast food? Whatever is quick and easy seems to be the first choice. 

“Well, first, people want a good haircut, and they want it repeated — not one out of three. And price is important. And they want to be comfortable.”

Lannie comes around the podium and sits at last. A long sigh. 

“Listen to your clients. Remember what they talked about and bring it up again. It could be a trip, or something the grandkids were involved with. Keep it about them. By doing that you really need to keep your mouth shut and your ears open.”

I nod, but I can never remember what people say about the interesting bits, and I always flunk my wife’s debriefing back home as to any good gossip. 

“I would make notes. You have to. But after awhile, you actually do want to hear the end of the story: How did that granddaughter do in the spelling bee? How was that trip to Florida? How do you like the guy your daughter is dating? You want a client, not a guy coming in the door. You want them to leave believing truly that Lannie wanted to hear their story.” 

And I suspect you’ve outlived a few clients after all these years. 

“I’ve lost clients. I’ve been to too many funerals.” 

Lannie stops. Wipes his eyes. Breathes.

“They’re family.”

We pause.

“I’ve actually given haircuts to people in the casket where the wive has called and said, ‘Lannie we had a viewing and he doesn’t look like my husband. Would you come?’ It’s a little tough, but I do it. He’s part of the family.”

Lannie stops again.

So tell me how a typical haircut goes?

“Being an older barber in an old shop, you want something that the client remembers.”

Of course. 

“So first and most importantly you give a good cut. Then it is important to have a good hot lather shave around your ears when you are done cutting hair. It’s kind of an old fashioned thing. And the bay rum aftershave. I love the smell in the shop and the talcum powder.”

Lannie sprays bay rum in my direction. We both stop, take a deep breath, and smile.  

“So when I’m done with the haircut, I warm up the lather, give the shave around the ears, wrap up the conversation, wipe off the lather, then the bay rum, then finish off with an electric massager on the shoulders and neck.” 

I roll my shoulders . . . imagining. 

“Okay, get in the chair,” Lannie says to me.

As the massager shakes my shoulders, Lannie says, “You know, Joe, my only sadness is that I’ll miss everyone.”

I murmur something incoherent hoping he won’t stop the massage.

Lannie quotes from his last line on the last page of his yellow notes: “As Bob Hope would say to the troops, ‘Thanks guys — thanks for the memories — God Bless.'” 

And perhaps God will. But isn’t it too soon? Don’t you just sign up for another production?  Audition for a new role? Become a different super hero?

And, by the way, wouldn’t God want to know what happens in the fourth yellow page? 

I do. 

Joe

“Here, take a look at this.” Raul Lopez the plumber gestures toward the drain. 

I bend over to look at the black hole that extends deep below the tub down to . . . Australia?

“Do you see it?” Raul persists.

Like most things to do with electricity, cars, or marriage, I nod my head knowingly, while trying to hide the not-a-clue neon sign on my forehead. Merely nodding is usually not enough to throw the questioner off, so I quickly follow with an old lawyer dodge.

“Gosh, what do you think?” 

Raul is not so easily fooled. He smiles at my not-a-clue neon sign, and goes back to work. I get it. But I know the real secret — plumbing is magic. Pure and simple. And Raul is a magician.

Raul Lopez is a gregarious, smiling, joking, lively, fit man somewhere on the other side of 40. He spends his life in Denver in small spaces, where he curses, cajoles, and laughs trying to convince toilets, sinks, and tubs to bend to his will.

I know this because I listen to his one-sided discussions from the other room. Does Raul expects the tub faucet to respond to his plaintive request to work correctly? Does the pipe agree that it should turn at a right angle so that the soldering gun can more easily reach it? Does telling a toilet that it is a “son of a biscuit eater” really persuade the toilet to place itself properly? 

Of course, the pipe and the tub and the toilet never answer Raul — at least as far as I can tell. Although somebody must have listened because when I glance into the bathroom everything is in the right place, the job is done, and Raul is smiling.

Magic. 

Nate Staniforth, a professional magician, wrote a book called Here is Real Magic. It is a great book about his search for wonder in a cynical world. 

“Wonder . . . that sense of waking up and seeing things the way you saw them before they became ordinary . . . . This is magic.”

This is also plumbing — the magical land of fittings and gaskets and soil pipes. Oh yes, and people.

“I like the people I meet here in Denver,” Raul says laughing. “If I don’t make money on a job, I’ll still make a friend.” 

Is this guy real? 

And just like Harry Potter goes to the Ollivanders Wand Shop to get his magic wand, Raul goes to the plumbing supply store to get a “shower valve rough-in and trim.”

And I tag along.  

Listen, I know Denver has a gazillion attractions from art to theater to dance to sports, but, trust me, your experience of Denver would be incomplete if you missed perhaps its greatest landmark —  the plumbing supply store.

Rampart Supply is buried among warehouses and concrete in the heart of Denver. Pickup trucks and work vans are the vehicles of choice, while splattered work boots and work pants are the mandatory dress code. The magic occurs in a large showroom that displays wrenches and pipes and fittings. You might have seen a Mona Lisa in your travels, but have you ever seen a wrench bigger than your femur? Well, it’s not too late. 

Logan Phillips takes our order. A no-nonsense, get-it-done, kind of man. He carefully makes sure we have forgotten nothing, and then disappears into the back rooms. A short time later, he returns, smiling, everything Raul ordered in hand. I suspect he is also a magician.

Raul introduces me to everyone — sales people, managers, other customers. They smile. They joke with Raul. And back to work they go. A community of people who move water from one pipe to the next. Denver’s lifeline.  

Raul and I sit high in his truck as we drive away. One working man and one hanger-on. But Raul, like all good magicians, has another trick up his sleeve.

“Joe, have you ever had an empanada from Maria’s?”

Okay, folks, forget plumbing and plumbers and plumbing supply stores in Denver, empanadas are magic . . .

Joe