In Iowa: No place like home

I want to tell you some stuff, just you and me.

WRITING IS HARD

One of the things I learned early on in this career - I've come to refer to it as Editor's Rule No. 3 - is that any prospective writer who says that she or he thinks writing is fun generally turns out not to be any good at it.

It is hard labor. Like pushing that boulder up the hill, only to have it roll back down again, most often right over top of you.

I write a column, called 'On Topic,” for the Business 380 Sunday section, and it used to run every week. But then other work duties as well as life intervened, so I cut back to twice a month.

In this Iowa Today Sunday section, which I also edit, I write a column only four times a year - when those quarterly fifth Sundays pop their head up, like so many prairie dogs out of their burrows. (I've offered the gig to other staffers here at The Gazette, but I've been politely turned down each time. I know why - writing, as noted above, is a tough road.)

Our regular 'In Iowa” columnists - Todd Dorman, Alison Gowans, Orlan Love and Lynda Waddington - cover a variety of topics. Todd has written about rearing children and being chased by tornadoes, Ali about caring for her new home and how her time in the Peace Corps has informed her views, Lynda on the rights deserved by all in this state, and Orlan on rock and roll and the majesty of Iowa corn.

The ingredient they all share and I lack is they are Iowans. They've spent their earthly existences as Iowans, and therefore approach their 'In Iowa” topics with that as part of their resumes, their DNA.

I come to Iowa by way of Ohio, Michigan and Chicago. (Not Illinois. As more than one Chicagoan told me solemnly when I worked there, 'We live in Chicago. Illinois is what you fly over to get to Chicago.”)

NATIVES AND CAPTIVES

Here's a working theory: People in Iowa belong to one of two categories. The first is they have been here just about forever - they were born here and never left, they went to school at the University of Iowa or Coe College and decided to take root, they moved away but returned at the urging of family or familiarity, or they came trailing a significant other.

Or they've been here for 20 minutes, relatively speaking. We came for a job we couldn't pass up and, on some days, it's as if we still just got here.

You've seen those snarky T-shirts and bumper stickers sold by Raygun, right? They carry the claim 'Native” or 'Captive” lettered across an outline of the state.

Which is why, while all writing is hard, writing an 'In Iowa” column has been somewhat daunting for me. I've been in Cedar Rapids for a dash more than five years. I'm not an Iowan, this is not where my roots are. Not yet, at least.

Remember, even 'Professor” Harold Hill initially intended to just pass through River City, Iowa, selling as many musical instruments as he could. And, in the end, he decided to stay.

SOPHOCLES SAID SO

This line of work, journalism - much as in life itself - has never been famous for handing out compliments with reckless abandon. Killing the messenger is an expression first heard in a 2,441–year-old Greek play to describe how to handle bearers of news you might not take kindly to hearing.

We in journalism - print, broadcast, online - have internalized that sentiment, over all these many years, to affect a thick professional hide, or try to pretend we have, and often are quick with a self-deprecating joke about our achievements or a clever deflection.

And we absolutely are the first to admit we don't always get things completely right every time. But keep in mind that on our best days, we try, with equal parts accuracy, courage and grace, to push that metaphorical boulder up its steep incline.

Now I admit, sometimes we indeed do say helpful things to each other. The occasional 'Hey, nice column” or the encouraging smile before I need to stand up to speak before 30 or 130 attendees - mostly natives, after all - at a Gazette-sponsored event are definitely welcomed.

The day-of or even later emails or voice-mail calls from you, the reader, when we do manage to tell the story well is appreciated even more. (Trust me, we get plenty of the other kind of messages.)

Those can make this feel a little closer to being like home.

Because I want to tell you this, too: Iowa may not be home yet for all of us. But we're working on it.

' Michael Chevy Castranova is Sunday editor of The Gazette, among other things. (319) 398-5873; michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.com