It was a beautiful day for a picnic at Iowa City Park on Labor Day, Sept. 2, 2013. The bands were a step up, more current and more fun to listen to. Before the picnic Jim and I did a musical warm-up with some old-time folk music at home, but at the picnic we heard new voices. He was a University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics orderly with a GPS monitor tracking him at work and wrote a song about that.
He said a couple of college students "ruined it for everybody," and a supervisor put GPS trackers on him and all of his coworkers. I think the singer was an orderly. Maybe he was a hospital ambassador helping people get from one place to another. In any case, he had some freedom of movement but few if any secrets.
Certainly the theme of being underpaid and under surveillance is a timely one for Labor Day 2013.
We didn't ban the politicos this year. In fact, they were welcome on the theory that, I don't know, anybody but the people currently in office now in many elected positions would be an improvement.
Let's take Gov.-for-Life Terry Branstad, for example. My husband, Jim, asked me after we met and heard both Sen. Jack Hatch (D) and Rep. Tyler Olson (D) speak, whether I understood why the Democrats don't have a chance.
I asked him if he really thought it took fire and brimstone to be a better candidate than Gov. Branstad. Almost anyone who doesn't have a "for sale" sign around his or her neck would be a better candidate than Branstad. I can think of at least one honest Republican who would be a better candidate than our current governor. Branstad should be primaried. He's been in office so long he's developed quite an odor to him, especially after putting himself above the law in a speeding case. He fired Larry Hedlund, the DCI supervisor who reported Gov. Branstad's trooper for speeding. Then Branstad denied that he had anything to do with firing Mr. Hedlund. As if.
I was glad to see Sen. Joe Bolkcom (D-Iowa City) there. He was earnestly listening to a constituent. He's my favorite Iowa legislator from our area. I just wish he'd have his fundraisers somewhere where the poor and middle class can afford to eat. The Trumpet Blossom is way over priced for the quality of the meals. I've eaten vegetarian food that tastes good, and you can't find it there.
The only City of Iowa City Councilor with a moral compass who is also respectful of the Sensitive Areas Ordinance was there, Jim Throgmorton. He doesn't want to develop every inch of a steep hillside on North First Avenue just above Hickory Hill Park and cut down the trees holding the hillside up with deep tap roots. He's against giving current hillside tenants as well as future residents a nice view of a retaining wall and a building to look at instead of the trees in the current vacant lot owned by the Regina School Foundation and the trees of Hickory Hill Park.
Throgmorton also isn't interested in turning over transitional areas between downtown and residential areas of Iowa City to wealthy skyscraper builders like Marc Moen and give them Tax Increment Financing (TIF)s they don't need like most of the rest of the council is willing to do.
Phil and wife Anita Hemingway were there, and I think Phil made some more inroads among the electorate while he was there.
My husband Jim talked to Karen Kubby, formerly on the city councilor, and she said she likes Phil Hemingway and thinks he'd be "a good watchdog" for the school district. I agree. I can see others running for the school board as a little mushy, not well enough informed, or potentially vulnerable to being bulldozed by district administrators, charmed by district administrators, flattered by the attentions of district administrators, or bullied by their fellow board members. Not Phil Hemingway, and not Gregg Geerdes either, which is why I'm supporting them. They are honest, clear, consistent, and open about what they would support and what they would not support.
Randy Brown, one of my kids' favorite teachers at City High, was there with his walker recovering from knee replacement surgery. He's not too many days out of surgery, so it's marvelous that he's up and around already. He's the one who figuratively twisted our son's arm and made him sign up for honors English.
Mr. Brown saved Sarah even in her dreams. He was her hero, even on a subconscious level. There's got to be a special place in Heaven for superlative teachers, and our kids are very discerning. Most kids are. I wish when administrators are deciding who to give a raise to, they'd ask the kids. The kids know who the good teachers are. The good teachers are the ones who have a talent for teaching. They're the ones who care, who aren't mean, and who aren't racist or sexist.
Jim and his union buddies sat in Rod Sullivan's camp chairs and didn't know whose chairs they were sitting in. They were just sitting there empty, so we filled them. Eventually, I sat down in one of them too. When Rod was ready to leave, he very politely asked us to vacate the chairs he was taking home with him. We did, of course.
I was impressed with Rod's good manners. If I'd known he was going to be so polite, I would have tried again to talk to him about county matters, like I tried to at Janelle Rettig's gathering Aug. 12th, but Jim did for me. He told Rod about all the properties on Sand Road that I photographed on Sand Road that have mowed around signs that say "Prairie Restoration Areas: Do not mow or spray in these areas."
One of the property owners who has mowed around one of those signs owns the prettiest farm around: 4881 Sand Road. Another is 4993 Sand Road.
The picnic food was great. Everyone ate my brownies with walnuts and chocolate chips. Only a few crumbs were left, so I was happy. The year I didn't bring them, people complained, so I brought them again. I was able to eat healthy from all the wholesome foods people brought, including Terrence Neuzil's tomato, cucumber, and onion salad. He had an Italian name for it which I can't remember. What a guy. I bet he grew all the ingredients, too! Yum.
The yellow squash was to die for, whoever brought that.
Kingsley Botchway is running for city council and he's done his homework. He knows Chris O'Brien, the Parking & Transit director, and Tom Markus, the City of Iowa City manager. We were impressed with him, because he knew all about the many temporary positions the city has posted, temporary positions to be replaced with more temporary positions, though I'm not sure he knew that Markus advertised for an unpaid intern. Unfortunately, Royceann Porter, another city council candidate, has not done her homework and didn't know what we were talking about. She asked us to fill her in, and we did, but we were dismayed that she knows so little about what's going on at city hall.
Jim was kind enough to tell Rockne Cole, another city council candidate at the picnic, that he's made some people, women like Mary Gravitt in particular, feel like his campaign committee or Committee Against the Shadow, is an exclusive club and he only listens to certain people and gives others short shrift, and I'm glad. We don't need any more elitists on the city council. There are elitists enough on the city council already. We need sensitive populists and environmentalists like Jim Throgmorton who care about things like the city's own Sensitive Areas Ordinance.
If the city is going to ignore the Sensitive Areas Ordinance, why don't they just repeal it and be done with it? It shouldn't just be window dressing for the "progressives" in name only in a "progressive" town like Iowa City!