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I grew up with much the same freedom: in small town Iowa, the school bus was for kids 20 miles away. My street would join the larger neighborhood's kids for the

I grew up with much the same freedom: in small town Iowa, the school bus was for kids 20 miles away. My street would join the larger neighborhood's kids for the 5 mile walk to and from everyday, rain, thunderstorms, winter snow storm or not. If snow was really bad, dads with snowmobiles would ferry the kids, pulling trains of sleds. Rain was okay, no matter how hard. After school, the "bike gangs" of kids would be roaming free, stop in for dinner, and then back out till dark. Everyone had this freedom. As the kids became teens, this being the late 70's, a tax law created incentive for publishing and insurance corporations to move to Iowa. Their families brought major city / coastal teen attitudes, including appetites for a drug culture that Iowa was not sophisticated enough to manage. That Iowa Innocence seems to have been lost. Now it is just another generica in the US corporate sameland, with the original Iowa Natives unable to understand what happened to their culture.

tomjakubowski 8y ago
> Now it is just another generica in the US corporate sameland, with the original Iowa Natives unable to understand what happened to their culture. Is this a very cleverly disguised allegory for the loss of indigenous culture by invading hordes, descended from Europeans who settled the coast of what is now the United States? Do you actually consider small town mid-20th century midwestern US culture to be the culture of the "original Iowa Natives"?
- bsenftner 8y ago
  I am referring to the fact that all the States had unique cultures, transplants from their original countries, many idealist moved to the middle states and tried to create utopias in the New World. None of that worked, but there was unique culture, distinct in different parts of many states. Many of these people never move, so they are the original descendants from some religious idealism that fizzled. I course I recognize these are not the original Iowa Natives. I am referring to the ideal of small towns and their community culture. Which was very real not that long ago.

tomjakubowski 8y ago

> Now it is just another generica in the US corporate sameland, with the original Iowa Natives unable to understand what happened to their culture. Is this a very cleverly disguised allegory for the loss of indigenous culture by invading hordes, descended from Europeans who settled the coast of what is now the United States? Do you actually consider small town mid-20th century midwestern US culture to be the culture of the "original Iowa Natives"?

bsenftner 8y ago
I am referring to the fact that all the States had unique cultures, transplants from their original countries, many idealist moved to the middle states and tried to create utopias in the New World. None of that worked, but there was unique culture, distinct in different parts of many states. Many of these people never move, so they are the original descendants from some religious idealism that fizzled. I course I recognize these are not the original Iowa Natives. I am referring to the ideal of small towns and their community culture. Which was very real not that long ago.