I sometimes wonder if my house is haunted. This is the first house we’ve owned that has such a long history. It was built almost 35 years ago, changing hands several times over the years. But the abstract covers the history of the land, and it covers every legal transaction to do with this land since the turn of the last century.
I hear bumps and thumps in the walls and floors. I heard a bang on the roof one night and looked out the window to see my dog staring intently at the roof. She didn’t move, even when I went outside to look up at the roof. I didn’t see anything, but I was creeped out.
Last night, I went to bed about 12:30 a.m., even though I wasn’t terribly sleepy. I saw lights move across my window, which was odd because we don’t usually see headlights from cars going by on the highway. Then I heard several loud bangs that sounded like they were right outside my house. I got up, turned on the outside lights and looked out all the windows. I didn’t see a thing.
I knew I wasn’t going to sleep after that. I took a book into the living room and read. An hour later, I heard the same banging again. This time I put on my coat and shoes and walked around outside the house. I still didn’t see a thing.
Until today when I got to the end of the driveway on my way to town. This is what I saw.
Not as otherworldly as it seemed.
So, instead of going to the Y (now that I’m healthy again after getting whipped by the flu), I went to the police station, the sheriff’s office, the newspaper and the post office. After I got home, I turned right around to take my 6-year-old back to the doctor with another ear infection.
All the while, I was working on a conversation I planned to have with the sheriff … about community service and restitution … and how we want money to replace the mailbox but also the time and effort to help put it back up … and how apparently these little scoundrels don’t have enough cow-milking or shit-scooping or tractor-driving to keep them busy and out of trouble … and how they should have to come look us in the eye and apologize … and … and …
I saw a blue pickup in front of my house. I walked around to the driver’s side. It was a boy who told me he’s one of the kids who ruined my mailbox last night.
[knock me over with a feather]
I took his name and number. We’ll be calling him to help put up the new mailbox.
Headline: “Capitol Hill goes gaga over Brad Pitt.” Read the breathless AP copy and you might think the press went a little gaga too. I mean, dig the photos. One mug shot isn’t enough. Here’s an entire montage, showing Pitt looking left, then looking right, then raising his eyebrows … you know, in case you want to rip it out of the pages of Tiger Beat and tape it to your bedroom wall.
What was Pitt doing in Washington, D.C., other than getting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to congratulate him publicly for being in Washington, D.C.?
Pelosi mentioned Pitt’s work in New Orleans and how he “serves as a model for the rest of the country.” Model … how? What exactly has he done? What does he plan to do? How does it all work? What does this have to do with what’s happening in Washington, D.C., today?
Pelosi didn’t explain any of those things. Neither did anyone else.
I got lost once and drove past this. When I wanted to show it to someone, I couldn’t find it again. (No, my GPS apparently isn’t programmed to find Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues.) I had an errand to run this morning, and I drove past it again.
I just finished reading Duma Key by Stephen King. Anyone else read it? (Besides my brother. I read his copy.)
Yeah, probably not the best thing to read in the middle of your first brutal Iowa winter when you’re missing the comfort of Tampa. Either that or the perfect thing to read. Maybe si maybe no.
In any case, it made me miss Tampa, The Bone and trying to run into Stephen King at Skipper’s. Sigh. Thanks, Steve.
That’s what you get for writing a song about Leland, Iowa, and not, say … Palm Springs.
The thing about living “in the middle of nowhere” is that not all celebrities fly over. Some drive through on a tour bus. Some actually stop.
That’s exactly what Kevin Costner and his band, Modern West, did. They’re on tour up this way (and they’ll be in Tampa on Jan. 31, my Florida friends), and they stopped in Leland on their way from Minneapolis to Omaha.
Why?
Band member John Coinman has relatives in the area, and he wrote the song Leland, Iowa, for the band’s album Untold Truths released in November 2008. Besides, the local radio station called and asked them to come.
So … who knew I’d be living 10 minutes from where Kevin Costner would sing? For free. In a barn. (Yes. A barn. This is Iowa.)
:::Go to the diner, and they will come:::
The barn could only hold 200 or so people, and Leland residents with tickets got first dibs. The rest of us froze outside for 45 minutes (which is about the time it takes for frostbite to set in), waiting to see him maybe walk from his warm bus to the warm barn. Even better. He stopped and thanked us for waiting so long in the cold. (Everyone was quiet because, well, our lips were numb. I couldn’t feel my toes anymore.)
Then he said he felt bad that there wasn’t room for us in the barn. So he said, “Go to the diner, and we’ll play some songs for you there.” So we did. So did he.
He sat on the bar and sang three songs, the last of which was Leland, Iowa.
He said a few words and kissed a few girls.
He signed a few hockey sticks, shook a few hands and took some pictures.
