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© 2004 Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press Introduction Essay for Iowa 24/7 A Simple Rhythm By John Gaps III I want you to know my Iowa in the spring, in mid-May, when promises made in earlier months become real. The fields are planted, evening clouds begin piling up on the horizon, far off purple lightning threatens rain, and the wind picks up just before dark. Spring comes gradually; winter's snows reappear as recharged ponds and lakes. The withering heat of summer is still three months away-or six feet of cornstalk growth. In Iowa, nothing, not the land, the weather or season, will be bent to anyone's will. Accommodation will have to do-at best, there is negotiation. Some states boast of wild rivers tamed by steam engines and concrete and of mountains defeated by hard men, but Iowa is practically a parable of simple folk-patient people wait for spring to turn the topsoil and burn the prairie grass, knowing full well that both earth and undergrowth will revert, in the cycle to their prior toughness. Likewise, every four years, presidential candidates bring their hopes to Iowa to test their mettle with Iowans who look them in the eye and offer their hand and, eventually, their judgment. Warm autumnal rallies can turn icy cold by caucus time; the seemingly simple people consign most of the presidential hopefuls back to their someplaces, other than Iowa. Here and there, Iowa reeks of the past. Nostalgia comes in old farmhouses sheltered under big oaks, where supper is still lunch, and dinner is, well the last meal of the day; where the reliable farmer still works the fields astride his well-oiled John Deere; where windmills, rusty and tottering, creak in the wind, whirring water out of century-old wells. But the field is planted just a few miles from a university campus and its large research lab. In the lab, scientists busily work on biotechnology to make the rich dark Iowa soils even richer and the corncobs more rot-resistant. The old oily John Deere has been replaced by the behemoth John Deere combine, complete with air conditioning and crop reports beamed onto the on-board television monitor. Business, technology, and agriculture combine through the corn. Standing atop the dirt-wise past and the chemical present of American food production are the Iowans themselves, with little time for subtexts or irony, much less the brusque pace of Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles. Civility is still the coin of the realm in a place where the people must negotiate with nature in good faith. We take it for granted that a neighbor will throw sand bags during a flood or open up their house in a blizzard. Yeah, Iowans hang onto their civility, their sense of civic engagement; they value the education of their children, a fresh ear of corn, the simple rhythm of life, land, and season-all harmonious in the mild days of May. Iowa native JOHN GAPS III was the Iowa photography coordinator for the America 24-7 project. He is director of community publications for the Des Moines Register. Browse    View All    A Symple Rhythm    Hearth & Home    Hard at Work    Iowa at Play    Reason to Believe    Our Town Photos: 126 Photographers: 29 Towns: 56

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