{missed} fields of opportunity

When I drive home to Iowa from Glen Ellyn, I always listen to "Iowa Stubborn" from The Music Man when I cross over the bridge at Burlington. It's my little Iowa ritual as I zoom over the Mississippi and under the sign that reads:

THE PEOPLE OF IOWA WELCOME YOU

Boy, when you type it all in caps like that, it looks scary, like we're part of Soviet Russia and have been told to be hospitable.

Today, we crossed the Iowa border from the west—from Nebraska, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. {I told a friend that, and she said that should be the state motto for Nebraska: Not as Bad as You Feared. She and I probably shouldn't be in charge of PR for a state we aren't from.}

In fact, the windy {very windy} plains of Nebraska made me want to read O Pioneers! again, and I haven't mentioned this yet, but I made reading selections for most of the states we're driving through on this trip.

For example: an excerpt from The Monkey Wrench Gang for Utah,

a poem about bronc busting for Colorado

and a selection from O Pioneers! for Nebraska.

This will come as little surprise to you, but Sid was not enthused by this idea of mine—this reading of literary excerpts and then discussing our interpretations and feelings over a cup of tea at a rest area.

However, I was driving Sid's car today and I didn't even bother to ask him if he would read Willa Cather to me. I knew that answer would involve words I don't like to type, much less say.

This brings me to my original point about Iowa: today, I also couldn't listen to "Iowa Stubborn" as we crossed the border because of Sid. He has a strict no musicals policy; just in case that had changed, I asked him about it when I got in the car this morning.

"Really, I promise you, this CD has just two songs from musicals on it. Can we listen to that?" I held out the CD I'd made for the road trip, the one called "On the Road Again" that features songs from every state we're driving through. I held it boldly, so as to better demonstrate that I wasn't lying about the musicals.

"No."

"Then can we listen to the Broadway station on your XM radio?"

"It's the craziest thing, but that station has been blocked. So has the 60s on 6 and the 50s on 5," he added quickly.

"I know you're lying to me, but I'm going to pretend like you aren't. You should probably call XM radio and let them know that you're missing those vital stations."

And to that, Sid harrumphed, sounding much older than a thirty something.

As I drove under the Iowa sign on the bridge between Omaha and Council Bluffs, I sang my Iowa song in my head and breathed in that fresh, farm-filled Ioway air.

And then briefly considered asking Sid if he would read the "Farmhouses, Iowa" poem I'd selected for the Great State.