Iowans need sweet corn relief

The good news is, it won't be long now.

Any day now, Iowa sweet corn finally will arrive. The farmers say we need to be patient. Lousy weather delayed the crop. But a good crop is coming. Better late than never. A few more days. Or a week. Maybe a couple of weeks. Tops.

We can make it, I think. But the wait is clearly taking its toll.

The governor departed Saturday for a “trade mission “ to Europe. Gov. Terry Branstad says he's forging and strengthening Iowa's economic and cultural ties to the Old World. Some also have snarkily speculated that he's actually itching to get out on the autobahn, sans speed limits. Let's see what this SUV can do. Mach schnell!

But I say a savvy politico like Branstad is really sensing rising discontent among Iowans whose faces are still disturbingly butter-free. By the time the governor gets back, some corn stands may be open, and we're all too busy picking our teeth to notice any more curious freeway foibles. Smart.

I, too, fear that the corn delay has raised the general level of surliness. Instead of gnawing on cobs, we're chewing out each other. What you may call malaise, I call a corn-less funk.

Science has shown us that sweet corn carries important enzymes that promote kindness, patience and generosity. It helps us survive and thrive through the small indignities of summer: the sting of mosquitoes, the frustration of road construction, the unpleasantness of finding out you can't sit on a bridge and watch fireworks without a $3 button.

So it's no surprise we're feeling out of sorts. Sweet corn is a salve on the Iowa psyche, after wind chill and thunder snow and twisters and droughts that abruptly turn to floods, we need some sort of climatological payoff. We've got to get occasional proof that we didn't lose some sort of latitudinal lottery. White Christmas, morel mushrooms, homegrown tomatoes, sweet corn, fireflies, vibrant fall leaves, etc.

I will say that if folks worried about “climate change” ever rename the issue “sweet corn delay syndrome,” they might find it a lot easier to build political momentum behind their cause.

We ate sweet corn on the Fourth of July, but it was probably from Missouri. Missouri! I know Stephen Stills might advise us that if we can't be with the corn we love, love the corn we're with. But I couldn't do it. It wasn't the same. It was a dress rehearsal, perhaps, but not the real thing.

But the real thing is coming. Hang on.