2. "The corn and soybean crops looked really good. I didn't see any poor crops at all." So says Meade when I ask him about the highlights of the drive. Some people driving from Nebraska to Madison might say "Ugh, corn. Too much corn. When will we get past all this corn?" But Meade is not one of those people. His father was in the popcorn seed business.
3. Mostly looking for coffee, we got off the interstate in Williamsburg, Iowa, where there's a big outlet store shopping center. Meade wanted to go into Lids to get some baseball hats, so I went into the Coach store and was checking out with a book bag and at the next cash register, there was a woman who was quickly replaced by a man who said she didn't speak English. The older woman behind the counter plied him with cheerful questions including "Where are you from?" He said "Iraq," but he said it in his Iraqi accent, which is nothing like eye-RACK or even eee-ROCK. It was more eee-RAHqqq. The woman said she wasn't familiar with that country, and the man repeated the name, perhaps wondering whether this woman had not heard of the events of the last 10 years. I didn't want to intrude. I cast a glance at her and then at him, as they kept going back and forth, and it was obvious she was never going to hear the word he was saying as "Iraq." Finally, I said to her, "He's saying eee-ROCK," and of course, she knew Iraq. To him, I said, sympathetically, "It was the way you said it."
4. Meade's team the Cincinnati Reds were playing the Milwaukee Brewers, so Meade listened to the whole game on the satellite radio as he drove, and Meade didn't see that I'd put in the earbuds and was listening to an audiobook (which happened to be "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim"). I laughed and he said "I wonder if they cooked up sushi?" because he thought I'd laughed at the baseball announcer who'd just said that the people coming to the Miller Park were tailgating and "cooking up every kind of food imaginable." Apparently, my laugh was perfectly synchronized. Meade's reference to sushi harked back to lunch, wherein I ate this:
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More people probably saw those references to Benghazi, IRS, Fast & Furious today on those couple of bridges than heard about them in the last two months on MSNBC, CNN and ABC.
Yummy! Lunch was Kung Pow Kitten - or at least it could be since I don't recognize the dish.
My son rolled out I-80 last weekend on his way from visiting us in Fort Wayne to his newly rented place in Copper Mountain, CO. (obviously, he is a ski nut.) He lost some time because of bridge construction on I-80 at the Mississippi River.
Ann, this is not sushi. If you come to Japan I will show you the real thing
"Ann, this is not sushi. If you come to Japan I will show you the real thing."
Thanks. I deliberately avoided ordering the raw things on the menu. In fact, this "specialty roll" was called "The Italian Stallion Roll." Why, I don't know. It contained shrimp tempura. It had crunchy rice on top too.
The place was Wasabi Tao. (Note the 5 stars from 12 reviews at the link to Yelp.)
Meade's father = Orville Redenbacher. Who knew!
Oh, BTW--- On the way to the state fair, there were some people on a highway bridge near Whiteland, IN with American flags and 'Impeach Obama' signs.
Did someone organize a national day of highway bridge protests?
"Meade's father = Orville Redenbacher. Who knew!"
What I've heard is that Meade's father's popcorn was designed for more corny flavor, while Orville Redenbacher went for large size -- fluffiness -- at the expense of flavor. America chose fluffy with less flavor, and that says something about America.
This reminds me of my family's old story about Pop -- my paternal grandfather -- who starting a business servicing cars had to choose between Chevrolet and Pierce Arrow and chose Pierce Arrow.
There are many stories about businesses that lost precisely because of choices for better quality that the people did not appreciate. We, the "later men," are deprived of many products that earlier people did not choose when they were in the marketplace.
It would be interesting to collect these stories.
It's all over the country. overpasses for Obama's Impeachment -- on facebook and at overpasses.org
The movement is all over the country -- on Facebook at Overpasses for Obama's Impeachment and at overpasses.org.
I wonder if now there WOULD be a market for Meade's Father's popcorn?
I mean, it would have to be a niche product, but with the internet, it would be a lot easier to find its niche...
And the cornier flavor would be a better compliment to flavorings, I think. And there are stores that sell specialty popcorn.....
Did anyone save some of the seed?
I wonder how the recent spate of very dry weather has affected the corn in Dane Co. It's quite cool, too, which can't be helping the maturity. But it was so wet beforehand.
Dining with the in-laws later today, so I'll learn about the state of corn in central Illinois. Better than the drought last year, I'm sure.
My family corn news -- have I said this before? -- is that Wallace walked around my grandfather's corn fields, pondering, after FDR offered him the Vice Presidency.
When we lived in St. Paul we drove to Denver a few times each year. I loved the drive across Iowa and Nebraska, seeing all the fields and livestock. What a beautiful and wealthy land we live in.
No trip through Iowa is complete until you've belted out a round of Heywood Banks' "Interstate 80, Iowa"
If you drive through Iowa on US 20, you'll go slower but you'll see more. US 20 parallels the railroad, and every 10-15 miles there's another small town, and the inevitable grain elevator by the tracks.
Somewhere on the periphery there's usually a high school and some sort of senior center. Some of these towns have seen better days, but quite a few still look surprisingly prosperous.
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