wiredfool

I haven’t been in Iowa in the spring in a long time. In fact, it’s probably been since I was 5 or so, when we moved away. What I remember of the countryside is growing fields, corn as tall as me, and rows of soybeans converging on the horizon. This time, we were there in planting season, so everything was brown. Plowed and in the process of planting. And in that process, i realized some of the scale of the place. Three large tractors plowing one field. Looking very small in the process. The pattern of farmland with a corner carved out and surrounded by old oak trees, to provide a little shelter from the heat. A farm house, with an old dilapidated wood barn, and a couple of newer smaller metal buildings. repeated here and there to the horizon, over and over and over.

One thing that I know I don’t remember is the wind farms. Every so often, there would be a cluster of little windmills out in the fields. Then we saw one of the blades being trucked down the road, and realized that they’re probably 75 foot blades on 150 foot towers. And our experience last month is that wind is a really good idea. There’s not a lot to stop it once you’re in the flat lands of northern Iowa.

The most surreal moment was when I needed to get a power adapter replaced at the Apple Store. Mine died in a warm burny smelling way, and I had enough battery power to find out where the apple store was before lights out. They had no problem replacing it under Applecare, I expected to have to argue a little bit, but no, simply no problem at all. Then, as the paperwork was printing out, I recognized the music. The Talking Heads, The Big Country. Not a big hit, sort of an obscure little tune from the end of their second album. All about the fly over country, and how they wouldn’t live there.

Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas.
And I have learned how these things work together.
I see the parkway that passes through them all.
And I have learned how to look at these things and I say,
(chorus)
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
I couldn’t live like that, no siree!
I couldn’t do the things the way those people do.
I couldn’t live there if you paid me to.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard that on the radio. And to hear it in an Apple Store, in Iowa.