(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

There was a time when I didn’t think I’d ever forget milking cows, feeding cows, giving medicine to sick cows and cleaning up after messy cows.

But apparently I’ve been away from home long enough for those things to slip my mind.  It’s probably been five or six years now since I milked a cow.  My hair no longer bears the familiar “Hat head” ring from wearing a feed cap.  And my indoor job perched in front of a computer has caused my calluses to soften and all but disappear.

Life in suburbia, if there is such a thing in Iowa, is good.

During our short Christmas vacation we were back on the farm.  Our visit was brief and I never make it as far as the barn.

I visited with my mom and dad about how things were going in Iowa. We were lamenting our Christmas expenditures and the bills that would arrive in January.

That’s when I mentioned how expensive milk has gotten lately.  Instead of joining my complaints, Dad leaned back, smiled broadly and said, “I know.”

I had forgotten that the family depends on those twice-a month milk checks as much as I depend on my monthly check

It just goes to prove there’s two ways of looking at everything- including the high price of milk.

I suspect that most people are mildly annoyed now that milk has climbed to the $2-per-gallon range in the local grocery stores.  But if you’re like my wife and I, the increase really hasn’t boosted your monthly food bill all that much.

If you haven’t cut your milk consumption because of the price increases, you’re not alone.  Untied States Department of Agriculture and university studies indicate milk-buying habits aren’t affected much by price.  Prices would have to increase by quite a jump before we would put our complaints into action and quit buying milk.  So go ahead, have another glass.

I wonder if Dad knows about those studies?  I’ll tell him the next time he needs cheering up.

With April 15 coming up there’s another way of looking at this milk situation.  Dad gets paid for his milk by weight.  Right now he’s receiving about $13 for every 100 pounds of milk that he sells.  That’s more than $1.50 than the government support price.  The price supports are there to make sure America’s dairy farmers can stay in the business even if prices drop dramatically.

Dairy farming isn’t something you can get into at the drop of a hat, and our government has decided that it wants to make sure there’s enough milk to go around once all of the baby boomers start raising babies of their own.

When prices drop below the support price, the government buys dairy products for distribution to school lunch programs, low-income families, disaster relief efforts and other programs.

Right now, all Uncle Sam is buying is butter.  Cheese and whole milk are selling like gangbusters, but there’s a surplus of butter.  (The price is low now so you may want to stock up on a couple of hundred pounds if you have the freezer space.  It would make Willard Scott awfully happy.)

What all this means that less of our taxes are needed for those support programs.  When you fill out your tax forms this year and you get down the final line - the one that tells you how much you owe-go ahead and knock a couple of percent off the top depending on how much your family drinks.  Send a note along with your return explaining how you arrived at this deduction.

But if you get audited, I don’t know you and neither does my dad.

 I can deny it.  I can fight it.  But it is still there.  It remains a part of me. Polka music is in my blood.

My grandfather on Dad’s side played in several bands.  All of them polka bands.  The Wild Rice Tulak band, the Jirik band, the Rollag Band.  It was all polka and waltzes, all the time.

Some of my great uncles on my mother side, played “Old Time” music - which translated into polka and waltzes, they too had the music in their blood.

They were similar, but different. 

My grandfather on Dad’s side was 100% Bohemian, of Czech for those of you geographically challenged.  They were people of the fields and valleys.  It was the heavenly music as my father refers to it.  Sung in Bohemian, my grandfather’s polka was heavy on the bass, but nearly always telling a story and most of the time referring to drinking.

My mother’s side of the family was a mixture of Swiss, Austrian, and a little bit of German.  They were mountain people.  Just as hardy of stock.  Their music, while containing some of the same elements, also contained the classic yodels of the mountains.  Enchanting, but also a bit surreal.  Sung in German, my mother’s family’s polka was heavy on the bass, but nearly always telling a story and most of the time referring to drinking.

My parents caught the love of this music from their families, and they co-existed.  I don’t believe that Mom ever fully loved the Bohemian music of my father as much as the music of her roots.  Dad never fully loved the Swiss mountain music of as much as the Bohemian music of his roots.

And here I am.  Stuck.

Stuck in a world that doesn’t love or respect either the Swiss polka’s or the Bohemian.  Stuck in a world that shuns the accordion, the baritone, and the tuba.  Stuck in a world that fails to realize the beauty of the Barnswallow Polka, the Prague Polka, the Dakota Waltz, Three Bells, the Happy Wanderer.  They fail to see the fun in the Beer Barrel Polka, or No Beer Today, or Echo-Jodler vom Konigssee.

But I’m working to change that.

I am spreading the joy of polka.

The first people to be helped was my old friend and landlord for his Oktoberfest Party - he was going to buy the generic polka CD off the rack.  Hogwash.  He received a mix of Bohemian and Swiss music that made his party the hit of the neighborhood.

The next people that received the gift of polka were some friends in North Carolina.  German by birth, they couldn’t find any good music for their Oktoberfest party.  A CD was delivered thanks to the United States Postal Service. 

A last minute dash to Fargo saved an Oktoberfest party this last fall.  A complete lack of polka almost made their party a polkaless event.  But with the help of my trusty computer, they too soon experienced the joy of polka.

So regardless where people are, regardless where they may be - if they need heavenly music, music to push back the darkness and bring a little joy, they can always call on me, Johnny Polkaseed, sowing the seeds of polka since 2002.

Truth be told, I blame Shannon.

My friend Shannon was the one that made the choice to leave me and her husband (and my good friend) Jed and I alone babysitting while she took some time to go shopping with her mother.

She really should have known better.

Individually, Jed and I are mature, reasonable, intelligent people.

Individually, you might hear the following statement:

“The current economic situation could be solved with a simple revising of our progressive tax system combined with adequate economic stimuli that would render the state of the credit market to resume its normal state of equilibrium.”

Put us together and the conversation may sound like this:

“Did you hear the one about Jesus, Moses, and this old guy out golfing?” I’ll ask.

Jed will reply, already trying to suppress his laughter: “Is this the one with water hazard, the hole in one, the gopher, and the lightening?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”  I’ll reply.

“Go ahead and tell it, I forgot a lot of the details” Jed will reply now laughing so hard he is wiping a tear from his eye.

On this fateful day that Shannon left us alone with her two first born children, Jed and I had each other in stitches within the first hour.  The kids were rambunctious, and the fun was infectious.

All morning, we would alternate between playing with the kids, bathroom humor and innuendos that luckily went right over the youngster’s heads.

Then came dinner.

Shannon had left instructions for a good, solid noon time favorite, spaghetti.

Jed was telling me about when his folks were building their house on wide open spaces of North Dakota, they lived for a time in the basement as they finished the rest of the house and his folks use to find out if the spaghetti was done by throwing it against the concrete block wall.

That sounded like fun.

Soon, noodles were flying about every thirty seconds and smacking the walls. Each carefully plucked and eaten.  When the last noodle flew and the spaghetti was declared done, the last noodle still hung on the wall. It kind of blended it.  It was right above a very nice wall hanging, just out of normal eye sight on the wall next to the door leading to pantry.

“How long would it take Shannon to see that noodle on the wall?” I asked.

“Within 24 hours.” Jed said.

“I bet it could be up to a week.” I replied.

Soon, we had a plan in place - when Shannon noticed the noodle on the wall…regardless if it was days, weeks, or months.  Jed was to calmly call me and simply say, “The noodle has landed.”

Let me explain something real quick.  There are times when guys can fail to be properly observant.  A wife can walk into the kitchen and shout out to her husband into the other room, “Didn’t you just leave the kitchen?”

“Yes honey, I’ve been in and out of the kitchen all morning.” The husband will reply.

“And you didn’t see the 20 foot python eating the dog!”  The wife will exclaim.

“We had a dog?” The husband might respond.

I left Jed and Shannon’s place about an hour before Shannon made it home.  How do I know it was an hour?  Because I got a phone call from Jed the minute she walked in the door….and instead of the agreed upon, “The noodle has landed,” he said in a slightly excited voice, “It takes the paint off the wall!”

“That isn’t the code word” I said.

“You don’t understand.  We are both getting the evil eye from Shannon - it really does take the paint off the wall.” Jed replied.

“Huh.” I replied.

The next time I went to visit, sure enough, their was a curved mark on the wall from when the paint had clearly come off as a result of this infamous spaghetti noodle.

This actually all happened years ago…and when I go down to visit, that mark is still there…and it is always the first topic of conversation when I walk in.

“I don’t know why you don’t paint over that” Shannon will ask.

“I can’t,” Jed will reply, “That is Mark’s mark.  By the way Mark, what was that joke about Jesus, Moses, and that old guy out golfing go again?”

 My wife doesn’t make animal sounds very often, so I sat up and took notice when I heard her growling.

“What seems to be the problem,” asked from my end of the couch.  “This is all wrong,” she said, dropping her cross-stitch in her lap.  ” See these stitches.  There’s supposed to be 14 across this way and 26 across that way.  But there’s 13 and 27 instead,” she moaned in frustration.

“What if you take one out here and put another one over there?” I naively suggested.  She looked at me with the look she normally reserves for moldy food.  “That,” she said emphatically, “will never work because then everything will be off center.”

Cross-stitch is supposed to be Mary’s answer to stress.  She finds stress in her work, in our family finances, in the weather and in a host of other situations.  So, she made New Year’s resolution to reduce the stress in her life.  “I’ll do it by cross-stitching,” she announced.  “By taking some time every day to cross-stitch, I’ll be able to relax and take life a little easier.”

She did some cross-stitch a few years ago, completing some beautiful projects.  Now with her interest renewed, she started work on a pair of baby blankets.  She planned to do a set of alphabet blocks on each of the special cross-stitch blankets.

“Look at this,” she huffed as we browsed through the craft section of a local store.  “This blanket only has 24 squares.  How am I going to cross-stitch an alphabet with only 24 blocks?”  She demanded.  “And this one only has 25 blocks,” she said, thrusting another blanket my way. ” When I learned the alphabet, there were 26 letters.  Who designs these things?”

I could hear her voice echoing across the store.  I spotted a sales clerk eying us warily from far down the rack of craft supplies.  She was probably thinking she had found a pair of real-troublemakers.

Mary had since gone through the stressful process of redesigning her baby blankets.  The alphabet is out and polka-dots are in.  After much deliberations she has chosen the colors,  “Look at all these colors.  How am I supposed to choose from all of these colors?  What if the polka-dots clash?”

I think the first blanket is progressing nicely.

That’s not Mary’s opinion though.

She growls every now and then and I hear her sigh often.  Periodically she throws blanket, needle and floss to the couch in frustration.  “Oh, this is all wrong,” she’ll blurt.  “Now I have to rip it out and do it all over again!  I just spent an hour stitching in the wrong place!”

The blankets are gifts for two friends who get more pregnant every day.  Yesterday Mary looked up their expected delivery dates on her calendar.  “I’m going to have to stitch like crazy to get these done in time,’ she moaned.  “Why didn’t I start earlier?  You know, things would be a lot easier if they were pregnant for 10 or 11 months instead of nine.”

I knew better than to comment on that. But it’s nice to see her handling her stress so constructively.

Some days, it is hard to focus on the task at hand.  Often times, it seems like the same old problems, just a different day.  Part of life, and part of growing up, is learning as you go - building up knowledge, building up experience, building up a life.  Too often, we expect to walk in and be a manager or a leader.  Those titles, and those skills, come with time and toil.Job seems to share those thoughts when he asks, “Is not man’s life a on earth a drudgery?  Are not his days those of hirelings?”  Like many of us, he struggles with his life’s work, “When I lie down I say, `When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.” And like many of us, he knows that his days on earth are short, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and come to their end without hope.”

It seems like we as humans are always questioning.  “What is my purpose?  Is this all there is?  Will I ever know happiness again?”

Life can be filled with drudgery.

It is interesting reading the Gospel of Mark.  While his life probably seems much more fulfilling then ones that we lead, I’m sure the thought of wandering from town to town, preaching in the synagogues, healing the sick and driving out demons did get to feel fairly tiring.  Every day a new town.  Every day a new place to lay His head.  Not knowing when you would meet your critics, not knowing where or what you would eat, not knowing if and when the Father would call Him home.

He shared in our humanity, and though he trusted His Father completely, as he showed at Calvary, there too had to be some human emotion.  Fear, apprehension, a desire to live a “normal” life - these are only a few of the emotions that our Lord had to be feeling.

If there is anything that Jesus taught us, and it comes out in the Gospel of Mark, it is that His life was a long journey.  It too was filled with the pains and joys of childhood.  It too was filled with doubt and questioning (remember the agony in the garden?), it too was filled with a fair amount of drudgery.

But it is in this drudgery, this constant state of being, growing, and living, constantly striving to be better men and women that we too come to our state of holiness.  How often in our lives do we look back and say, “I can’t believe how much things have changed.  How much I’ve changed.  How much our lives have accomplished with slow and steady work.”

Some change, some revelations, come at us suddenly.  But most of them happen gradually over time.

We must take a lesson from the Lord today - as he moved forward with his work, he took a little time for Himself in the desert, to think and pray.  As we go through our daily toil, working slowly, steadily, hope filled and eyes on the future, we too should follow His example of a little prayer and a little reflection.

 (Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today)

Everybody’s going on vacation.  

My sister-in-law and her husband just returned for a vacation in Florida.  A co-worker recently spent several days in San Antonia.  A cousin is off skiing in the Colorado Rockies.

Common sentiment is that anywhere if better than the Midwest, especially in the winter.

Mary and I took a trip up to Windom, Minn., last weekend.  Windom is about 60 miles north of Spencer, so our trip took us through north-central and north-western Iowa.  It’s not what you’d call a winter get-away, or a vacation of a lifetime.  On a cold winter’s day, that part of the state can be ranked among the bleakest places on earth.

But only if you choose to see it that way.

On Saturday we chased a brilliant sunset across the state.  The sky flashed red and orange as we cruised up through Dayton, Harcourt and Fort Dodge.  Dusk settled in as we passed through Humbolt and Pocahontas.  We marveled at the light marking houses and farms all along the horizon as we passed through Emmetsburg and Esterville and crossed the state line.  It seemed as if the land stretched forever on those north Iowa flatlands.  The night was bright as moonlight reflected off the snow.  In that dim light you could easily note the furrows in the fields, the huddled trees of distant windbreaks and the bulk of farm buildings bunched against the cold

Monday’s return trip was no less spectacular.

The day’s brilliant sum made it easier for us to admire the contours of the land and the neat farmsteads along the road.  The northwest corner of Iowa has few skyscrapers or other buildings that bear noting in architectural guides.  But the corncribs, granaries, barns, farmhouses and elevators there give that region its own unique architectural identity.

Unlike larger cities, small towns have not abandoned downtown for the suburbs.  Unique brick and wood-frame buildings, some that are 75 years old or more, still serve as stores and offices in those towns.  The houses there also show their historical character.

Some say the Des Moines River Valley near Boone and the Ledges State Park are among the most beautiful areas of Iowa.  Civic pride compels me to agree.  But you don’t need bluffs, streams, rives and wooded hills to have a beautiful landscape.  And Florida, Texas and the Rocky Mountains haven’t cornered the market on natural wonders and beauty.

If you look for it, there is plenty of natural beauty where ever you go.  And there are plenty of places to go and look for it right here in Boone County and in the rest of Iowa.

 Over time, I’ve gotten a reputation for being, well, cheap.I’m not sure how I’ve gotten this reputation, but it seems one that I just can’t live down.  I try to tell people, I’m not cheap, I’m just not wanting for waste.

No one buys it.

At one point, I was still driving my 1998 Pontiac Sunfire, the one with the side view mirror broken off, an intermittent air conditioner, and the big dent in the side.

I actually had a manager pull me aside and tell me I should really buy a Lexus, or an Audi, because managers liked to know that you appreciated the money you were paid.  My co-workers frequently asked when I was going to part with my aging vehicle.  My employees would constantly turn down my requests when I volunteered to drive to an offsite meeting or lunch.

But I just couldn’t.  My saving nature said no (money in hand is better then money in a car), the practical side of me said no (the car still worked!), and there were other priorities in my life then a nice vehicle.

But people persisted in harassing me about my vehicle.

To combat the backseat drivers (pun intended), I laid out my position, like Luther nailing them on the door of the cathedral for all to see, I responded to my critics….via Top Ten list.  So here they are, slightly edited, but for the most part, unadultered, the Top Ten Reasons I did not buy a new car:

10. Waiting for that lump of coal to turn into diamond.

9. Is he Frugal? Heck no, CHEAP.

8. After 120,000 miles in 3.5 years, just breaking the current one in.

7. Nostalgic for the 1975 Ford 150 of his youth - the one that the topper rotted off, sides rusted out, and had carpet squares over the floor to block the holes.

6. Farm kids don’t like new trucks.

5. Can’t decide between the 1947 Willis Jeep and the 2003 Beemer.

4. Talking his boss into going short 500 contracts before a 30c rally - don’t know if I can afford a new car for much longer…

3. My 98 Pontiac Sunfire is all the babe magnet I need!

2. Will wait to buy a new car until my 10^th anniversary in this insufferable job.

And the #1 reason:

1. You think that a guy who has had the same wallet for 18 years is going to splurge on a new car?

And what was the result?  I did get rid of that car…four years later.  The critics backed off about the car.  Rarely did I hear about the state of my car.  Rarely did I hear that it was a blight on our company’s parking lot. 

But then they couldn’t let up on the fact that I had the same billfold for 18 years….

 ”I don’t know who would wear them,” So declared one of my friends over a beer one evening.

“Yeah, they seem itchy and scratchy,” stated another friend.

“I can’t even imagine!” exclaimed a third, “They are far from anything that resembles fashionable.  I mean come on, long underwear?  Long johns?  In this day and age?”

“Hmmm,” I said, taking a well timed swig of my beer.

What I didn’t have the heart, the courage to say to these fashionable friends of mine, was that at that very moment, keeping my legs warm and dry were a pair of long johns.

Sure I had some darn good excuses.  It was remarkably cold outside.  I had been recovering from a long illness.  I had planned to shovel snow that night after getting home.  But instead, I failed to defend my close knit friend.

Wearing long johns is not a habit for me.  They had caught me on one of those unusual days when I had.   But growing up, you needed that extra layer of protection.  If you were working outside for hours on end, feeding and watering cattle, pushing snow, hauling manure, grinding feed, hauling grain, you were darn glad to have that extra layer of protection.  Regardless if the temperature outside was thirty above Fahrenheit or thirty below Fahrenheit, those jobs and chores needed to get done.

Sometimes too, the need to alleviate cabin fever and get outside and play in the snow, building a snow fort, a snow cave, a snowman, or ride in the sled was made all the more comfortable by our long john’s warm.

Sure we had insulated coveralls, wool socks, and jeans on, but that extra layer of comfort and warmth was a blessing.  Some days, that wind could just bite right through and that extra layer of clothing made all the difference.

They might be far from fashionable, but they were the shinning example of functional.

Even to this day, I keep a few handy, just in case.  Blowing snow, visiting plants, going home to Dads, traveling on icy roads in the country, you just never know when you might be facing the worse that mother nature can throw at you.  And like a knight wearing a suit of armor for protection, those long johns are there…just in case.

It was the very next day after the derisive conversation with my fashionable friends that I was touring a plant in Iowa in the middle of a snow storm.

The conversation with the plant staff turned to strategies to fight the cold and snow of winter.

“I don’t know why someone wouldn’t wear them,” stated the plant manager.

“Yeah, they are comfortable, and they just make all the difference when you are out there fighting the cold,” stated a crew leader.

“I can’t even imagine!” exclaimed another manager, “They are so darn functional!  I mean, come on, long underwear, who wouldn’t wear it in weather like this?”

“Hmmm,” I said, stuck in the middle of fashionable and functional…but basking in the warmth of my long underwear.

 (Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today)

Some people really know how to get their money’s worth.

Take my brother, for example, John spent $150 on a pickup truck about a year ago.  The truck had been parked in the weeds on a farm for months, maybe years.  That didn’t seem to matter to John.  He shelled out eh $150 and took possession.  With an additional investment of $20 for a fuel pump, he managed to get the engine running and the truck moving under its own power.  John spent another $100 for a slightly used set of tires and his truck was road-worthy.

It may be road-worthy, but it’s not pretty.  It looks like you’d expect a $150 truck to look like.  It smokes more than the Marlboro man.  There is some debate about whether the burns or leaks more oil,  “I never have to change the oil,” John pointed out.  “I just add a couple of quarts every week.”

For the time, it seemed as if the truck was on the verge of mechanical death.  It coughed regularly.  It stalled.  It slurped gasoline like a thirsty camel at an oasis.  Even John suspected major problems.  Then he discovered a sticking choke control.  “I tied it open with a shoestring, cleaned the spark plug and its been running great ever since.”

Despite those minor defects, the little four-cylinder, four -wheel drive has been hauling him the eight miles to work and back for several months.

Not bad for a $150 pickup.

In fact, there’s a lot to be said for $150 pickups trucks.  If you slide off an ice-covered road and crumple the fender against a tree, there’s not much need to get upset.  In fact, if the fender isn’t interfering with any moving parts, there’s probably no need to even get out and survey the damage.  Just shift into four-wheel-drive and drive away.

If you feel like bouncing across plowed fields, spinning cookies in the back yard or wallowing through mud holes just for the heck of it, you can go right ahead.  If you do, you don’t have to worry abut dents, dirt or wrecking an expensive, indispensable vehicle.  If you knew John, you’d know he’s found his dream machine.  Bouncing, spinning and wallowing are some of his favorite pastimes.  “You haven’t been really stuck, unless you’ve had to climb out the windows,” he says.

For $150 you can buy your way into Disney World for a day or two.  For the same price you can fly to Chicago and back.  For $150 you can spend a weekend in most of the nice hotels in Des Moines.  That many dollars will also buy you a cheap suit at most local department stores.  A shirt and socks will cost you extra.

Or you can shop the local weed patches until you’ve found yourself a rusty old truck.  Who knows?  It could be the best investment you’ll ever make.