(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 in September, 1988)

We were in northern Minnesota a while ago.  The farmers there have finished harvesting their wheat and barley.  Much of the ground has blackened by plowing-like a blanket turned back in preparation for the cold days of winter.

The leaves there were just starting to show their golds and yellows.  It was windy and rainy while we were there.  In the drizzle and mist our little car hissed past empty beaches and resorts.  The lakes were steel-gray and choppy.  Except for whitecaps, the lakes were empty where only a few short weeks earlier sportsmen and vacationers frolicked in their calm blue depths.

Many of the small communities we visited were already showing their winter personalities.  Some of the frantic gaiety was gone.  The towns were quieter, perhaps muffled by the rain, but more likely resuming the stately pace of winter living without vacationers and tourists.

It’s fascinating to watch the seasons change in lake country. When we lived there we frequented a resort bar and grill just across the road from the sandy shore of Detroit Lake in northwestern Minnesota.  The Lakeside Lodge was an ancient building dating back to the 1880’s.  Heavy beams and joists supported the old building through generations of summer revelers and long winters of cold emptiness.  Its plank floor was scarred by many seasons’ worth of cigarettes, spilled beer and damp feet fresh from Detroit Lake.

In the spring as we munched fried appetizers, we watched as the proprietors frantically readied the lodge for the season, laying in supplies and painting murals on the walls and installing a volleyball court outside.  Spring sunshine reflected off the lake and through the door.  The door stood open as if beckoning to the summer crowds that had not yet arrived.

In July, we sipped cool glasses of beer as the old jukebox boomed out tunes by the Beachboys and Bruce Springsteen.  We had been swept inside the open door by a tide of vacationers who had come for the fun and sun of summer in Minnesota.  Our words were swept away in the buzz of the crowd and the jukebox throb.  We could only smile at one another as we stood shoulder to shoulder with vacationers from Canada, Fargo, California and New York City.

Then in the fall as the leaves fell and the lake turned cold and choppy, we watched quietly through the lodge’s big windows as a fall thunderstorm slowly moved across the lake, drawing a curtain of gray between us and the opposite shore.  The door still stood open.  Through it wafted the cool smell of rain mingled with the odor of burning leaves.

As the only customers there, we enjoyed the baskets of free appetizers as the employees attempted to empty the freezers before the old lodge was closed for another winter.

On Christmas Eve we drove the curving road that follows the beach of Detroit Lake.  Lighted Christmas trees and decorations glinted windows tucked back amid the trees.  The lake was frozen, a barren white plain.  In the darkness and falling snow, we could make out the shadowy forms of a few isolated ice-fishing houses out on the lake.

The Lakeside Lodge was dark, its black windows staring like empty eyes across the white lake.  The door was closed and locked and the new snow joined what was already on the doorstep.

(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 in September, 1987)

 All that rainy weather last week was sure starting to get to everybody.  Quite a few folks were getting just a little bit cranky over all the cloudy rainy days, but I kind of like it.

That cool weather reminded me of fall and I love fall.  It’s my favorite season.  I am looking forward to it here in Boone.  I’ll bet the colors on the trees in the valley are fantastic.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that quite a few Boone County farmers say they aren’t looking forward to harvest, but they’ve been checking out their combines since the 4^th of July.

That’s how it was at home.  At the Red Apple Café in Mahnomen, Minn., early in the morning all the farmers in their seed caps sit in booth along the wall or at the counter with a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

“You ready for harvest?” Joe would say to Bud.  “Naw.  And I ain’t looking forward to it either.,”  Bud would reply.  At this point Bud would also add, “But I was out checking the crop the other day…”

You knew Bud was looking forward to harvest just like everyone else.  You also knew that Bud wouldn’t admit it if his life depended upon it.

Checking the crops is another ritual performed by farmers.  A farmer will walk out into his field of wheat, barley, or oats.  He will occasionally stop to inspect the base of a plant for insect damage.

At precise intervals he will snap a head of grain off a stalk.  The next step is to crush the head in his hands and let the wind blow away the hulls and chaff, leaving only the g

scent rain.   An experienced farmer can detect the maturity and moisture content of the kernels by biting into them, at least in theory.

This will be my second harvest season in Iowa.  If last year’s harvest is any indication it is somewhat different than harvest up north where wheat and barley are more typical crops.

The hum of combines last late into the night and a pall of grain dust hangs over the countryside.  Even in the early morning, the smell of grain dust will tickle your nostrils.  Some days this farm-boy-turned-reporter sure misses harvest at home.

(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 on September 16, 1987)
Old barns should be preserved forever.

My wife and I visited my parent’s farm in northern Minnesota over the Labor Day holiday.  While we were there I came to this conclusion.

The barn on my parents’ farm is one of those giant, old, hip-roofed barns.  It was built during World War II.  The top third of the back of the barn has six-inch siding instead of eight-inch siding.  “They ran out and the eight-inch was hard to come by during the war,” my Uncle Charley told me once.  He owned the barn before my father purchased the farm.

The barn has always been a safe haven for me.  It is easy to look up into the shadowy gloom of the rafters in the hay-loft and just become lost in marvelous thought and childhood fantasies.  No matter what happened, I always knew that barn would be there.

The “personality” of the barn varies from winter to summer.  During the winter the barn is sealed tight to keep the precious heat generated by 28 or more Holstein cows.  Despite windchills that exceed –100 degrees, the interior of the barn is usually above freezing.  At night the barn is quiet and the only sounds to be heard are the shuffling of hooves in the straw and the gentle rattling of stanchions.

If you look at the very peak of the barn during the sharp cold of a winter night you can often see steam rolling out from under the roof. 

Inside the massive hay-loft the humidity and hot air that seaps up from the warm barn below forms lacy icicles of frost that hang down from the rafters.

A whack to a rafter with a pitch-fork-handle can create a mini-blizzard or bury and unsuspecting brother with falling frost.

 During the summer, the barn is quiet except during milking time.  Kittens frolic where the sun beams through window or knot-holes in the old wood.

I love to savor the smells of an old barn too.  The mixed odors of silage, hay and grain mingle with the sour smell of manure to make a fragrance no woman would wear, but every farm boy loves.

The barn may have been built to raise animals, but it is an ideal place to raise children.  The building is filled with shadowy recesses to explore and tons of hay to clamber over.  Both make wonderful places to play childhood games.

Maybe I’m biased, but I think all children deserve barns while they are growing up.

(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 in the fall of 1988)

I just finished eating a thick gooey pizza.

It sure brought back some fond memories of my days in the service.  Just the smell of a pizza brings me back to those days of uniforms, orders, assignments and maneuvers.

I was a private, first class, back the.  No, not in the Army- in the pizza delivery business.

Marvin Schwann, the same fine gentleman from Marshall, Minn., who brings Iowans those big yellow Schwann’s delivery trucks started a pizza delivery business in the Dakotas and Minnesota.

Marvin apparently thought he needed a gimmick to distinguish his pizza delivery business from the thousand or so other pizza delivery businesses out there.  So Marvin named his pizza delivery business “Pizza Patrol,” outfitted all of his managers, cooks, and drivers in paramilitary uniforms and had them deliver his Pizza in used U.S. Postal Service Jeeps.

By the way, on the corporate organization chart, Marvin is listed as Brigadier General Schwann.

Less than a month after Pizza Patrol franchise opened in the Fargo-Moorhead area, I joined up and received my uniform and little peaked cap.  I went to one of those little photo booths and took a picture of myself in uniform and sent it to my mother.  “Your father and I are so proud of you,” her next tear-stained letter said.

Anyway, soon I was dashing around Fargo and Moorhead in my little Jeep keeping the world safe for pizza.

I would stride boldly from Jeep to each house, hat at a natty angle, the crisp crease of my khaki pants snapping in the wind, With military precision I would ring the doorbell.  Pizza carefully balanced in one hand, I would salute smartly with the other.  “Pizza Patrol with your fresh, hot pizza, “I’d say with my best smile.  An official Pizza patrol bomber jacket and a pair of dark aviator-style glasses only served to complete “the look.”

Those college girls didn’t have a chance.  They were swooning all over the place.  The pay wasn’t much, but boy did we have respect.

The delivery personnel from those other pizza joints (designated as “enemy encampments”) used to give us a little trouble.  They would heckle us during deliveries at the college dorms and on the street.  The other drivers and I just accepted it with sad understanding-jealousy is never pretty.

The Jeeps added to the mystique.  The steering wheel was on the right side which made driving seem pretty odd the first couple of times around.  And since the Post Office had used them for numerous years first, there wasn’t a whole lot of damage we could do to them.

With their relatively large engines, the lightweight Jeeps could roar away from a stoplight as fast as a jackrabbit.  My favorite stunt was to pull alongside a competing pizza delivery driver at a stoplight.  I’d rev my engine while we were waiting for the light to change.   As soon as it flashed green I’d snap the other driver a crisp salute and zoom away, leavening him a cloud of blue smoke.

They always looked a little irritated as they shrunk out of sight in my rearview mirror.

The job was never dull.  Besides, it was more of an adventure than a job.

We delivered to poor college students.  “The pizza was $6.98?  Here’s seven, keep the change.”

We delivered to wealthy professionals.  “The pizza was $5.99?  Here’s six, keep the change.

We delivered to big keg parties.  “Shut off your Jeep and have a beer, man.”

We delivered to church gatherings.”Thank you for the pizza, brother.  We will pray for a safe journey for you.”

And we even delivered to mcdonalds once.  “Can we trade you even-up for a couple of Big Macs?”

Whenever and wherever we were called, we answered- all in 30 minutes or less with a crisp salute and a smile.

Pizza Patrol – I never knew capitalism could be so good.

(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 in the spring of 1989)

Of course I should have known better, but still you’d think a responsible guy could get away with an honest mistake once in awhile.  This story is circulating all over town, so I may as well tell you before you hear an exaggerated version from someone else.

To start, I’ll note that i’ve been washing my own clothes since 1982.  At first, I didn’t do them all the time.  I still relied on mom quite a little, but I gradually washed more and more often.  Toward the end of our college years, I started washing clothes for my wife-to-be, too.

She took a turn once in a while, but the responsibility fell primarily to me.  Once we were married, washing became “my job.”  She still helps out with the folding and sorting, but it’s more than a year since she’s gone to the laundromat and washed the clothes from start to finish.

Don’t interpret this as complaining.  I don’t mind washing clothes.  Mary hated it, so I do it.  It’s a compromise that works for us.

But washing clothes isn’t always an easy job.  It requires decision making ability. 

“Permanent press cycle or color cycle?”

The job also requires attention to detail.

“Where did those little pieces of wet tissue come from?”

And the ability to work fast.

“Get those shirts out of the dryer before they get wrinkled!”

So, you can see how a guy could make a mistake once in a while, right?  And I don’t make many when it comes to washing clothes.  I’m good at it and I take pride in my work.  But I slipped.  I should have know better, but I did it anyway.

I was down.  It was, as far as clothes go, my darkest hour.  You’d think Mary would comfort me and offer me support in my time of need.  Think again.

She came strolling into the laundromat, took one look at my shirts, and in a voice that echoed across the room, asked,” Where did you get those pink shirts?”  Then she laughed and laughed and laughed.

I’d been trying to hide the shirts behind my other, darker hanging clothes.  I like white shirts, but even I know you don’t keep white shirts white by washing them with new red slacks.

“How many did you dye like this?  You can buy pink shirts in the store, you know?” She boomed, holding a shirt up to the light.  Then she laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Be quiet!” I hissed.

“Why?” She asked.  Oh look!  This one matches the color of your ears,” she squealed.  “You ‘re not embarrassed, are you?”

“No, not in the least,” I said as she laughed and laughed and laughed.

We went out with friends the other night.  “Is that a pink shirt you’re wearing?” Someone yelled when I walked in.  Then everybody laughed and laughed and laughed.

From now on, I’m dry-cleaning only kinda guy.

(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 in the fall of 1988)

“Maestro! Music please.

Ladies and gentlemen, coming down the aisle are the finest and most up-to-date fashions in the world.  Note that gigi is wearing the knatty dekalb seed corn cap designed Cal’s Cap-O-Rama in Webster City.  The cap is inspiringly complemented by the finely tailored, but functional, John Deere Jacket from Jimmy-Joe’s Jacket Emporium in Jefferson.  Under the jacket is the elegant, yet earthy T-shirt by Sally’s Shirts, Gas ‘N’ Beer just off the highway in Mount Ayr.  The silk-screened, “Proud of Pork” message lends just the right touch.  Gi Gi was pitching hay bales today so you can see her simple but stylish jeans are artistically stained and torn.  The entire ensemble is tied nicely together by the delicate but durable steel-toed boots from Bob’s Boots in Burt.”
–fashion show of the future.

Paris. London. New York. 

They’ve long been considered the fashion centers of the world.  But no more!

Have you taken a look in your local department store lately?  I think these high class fashion centers are losing ground in rural America.

Down on the farm, when winter’s winds begin to blow, we’ve always known it’s best to wear layers of clothing.  So what did we do?  We donned a well-worn jacket over a hooded sweatshirt.

It was practical and cheap.  Usually the two garments were never apart except for washing.  While the body of the sweatshirt retained its original color, the hood became faded and tattered.  Unfortunately, the hood also served as a collector of silage, dust, grain and snow.  Flipping the hood up without cleaning it first was likely to net you a hoodful of garbage down your neck and back.  But it was a small price to pay for warmth, comfort and durability.

Recently at a department store I saw a worn and faded denim jacket with a sweatshirt hood sewn in just below the collar.  It was brand new, but it looked just like the real thing.  The cost: $85!  Why didn’t I patent it when I had the chance?

Have you seen what teenagers are wearing lately?  Stonewashed jeans with gaping rips and tears in them are all the rage.  Apparently these are not defective garments.  You can actually BUY THEM AT A PREMIUM PRICE. I wonder where you go to learn how to artfully wear out jeans to sell for $35 a pair?

“No sense paying somebody to do something you can do yourself,” my dad used to say.  My new jeans were stiff like cardboard and were as blue as blue could be.  Before long, every pair acquired substantial wear and tear.  I didn’t pay extra to have my jeans worn out before I bought them.  No, I did it myself.  No training required- I was a natural.

Pick rocks for an afternoon.  Stack hay bales for a couple of days.  Wade around in manure for an hour or so each day.  Spill a little oil, diesel fuel and battery acid on them.  Before long you have jeans that any suburban teenager would kill for.
 
Unfortunately, all those jeans are gone now- thrown away or cut up for patches.  They weren’t wearing out, they were gaining in value like fine art.  If only my mother had known.  She could have saved me a few pairs so I could sell them now and but a new car.

Now I notice some of the more radical member of society are wearing big leather boots.  Telephone lineman, lumberjacks and farmers have been “in step” with fashion for years.  I wore them every day all over the farm. In the fields.  In the barn.  To the co-op.  Everywhere.  Now they’re a fashion statement.

So what’s next? Who can predict the fickle winds of the fashion industry.  New York, London and Paris must be reeling after these recent developments.  They will probably be fighting back for their share of the world fashion market

As for me, I’m holding on to all those corn seed caps in my closet.  They just buy me my first house.
 

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  Following is one of his early writings from September or October 1986)

Editors and reporters grind their teeth when they hear that phrase or one of its many variations.  I’ve only been involved in newspapering for 6 months and I’ve heard that theme repeated more times than I care to count.

Today, I’d like to use this space to emphasize some good news that I’ve been hearing lately.

Iowa Department of Agriculture Marketing director Ed Lowe was in Corwith recently promoting his department’s plans for an Iowa Export trading company.  Mr. Lowe has traveled extensively around the world and he shared some of his observations with the crowd in Corwith that evening.

The marketing director said that to people around the world, Iowa is synonymous with agriculture.  He also noted that the people in those countries respect Iowans because of that agricultural connotation.

“In foreign countries, agriculture enjoys a respect and prestige that it does not have here.  Maybe that is something we need to look at in this country,” he said.

He pointed out that Iowa’s economy is rooted in agricultural industry and the state’s vast agricultural resources will continue to support its growth and development.  “We can try to produce computer chips here all we want, but if we ignore agriculture, I’m afraid we would be making a big mistake,” he said.

It is evident simply from observing events here in Kossuth County, that farmers have not given up and America’s heartland will never be a barren desert.

Farmers are branching out, spreading their risk and trying new ideas.  Growing up on my dad’s farm I soon realized that ingenuity was second nature to farmers.  If you couldn’t find or afford the equipment you needed- you built your own.  If something didn’t work right- you fixed it and improved it with your own hands and tools.

It appears farmers have started to ignore the “experts” who have predicted the demise of agriculture.  They are using their “tools,” calculators, computers and some innovative ideas to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and put some profit back into agriculture.

The Algona Newspapers have covered the bad news in agriculture, but that’s important too and we haven’t seen the end of it.

Agriculture has just started on a long hard road of transition.  People have gotten hurt and people will continue to get hurt by that transition.  It’s sad, but unavoidable.

In a recent ag-policy debate among agricultural debate among agricultural leaders from across America, those leaders argued and disagreed about what to do about the farm problem-just like they’ve been doing for years.

While they argued they’ve argued, I’ve covered Mr. Lowe’s speech and talked to farmers who are trying new crops and farming methods to cut costs and cater to new markets.

I listened to National FFA President Kevin Eblen tell local students that agriculture is wide open.  He said innovative, positive-thinking, young entrepreneurs are starting their own businesses and enterprises in agriculture and doing well.

He said the future of American agricultural industry is in the hands of those go-getters,

That, readers, is what I call good news.
 

(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 in August, 1988)

It’s harvest time at home.

Last week the combine started rolling across the barley fields.  The oats crop is safely in the bin now.  The wheat fields will be cut soon.

Harvest time is exciting.  Life seems much more fast-paced and work suddenly more important and meaningful.  Beating the weather becomes a fixation.

Things get a little tense too.  Heat and humidity makes a tough job even more difficult for men and machines.  Stressed metal gives way.  Engines, bearings and tempers take turns overheating.  Noise, heat and long hours take their toll.

My college-age brother operates the combine.  His temper is never what anybody would call amiable, but with temperatures wavering at the 100-degree mark, I’ll bet his sweaty face was twisted into a scowl for most of the week.

His favorite word in times of stress is a muttered, “Cripes.”  He packs that single work with so much meaning and emotion it’s unbelievable.

The car is out of gas.

”Cripes.”

Somebody else ate the last cookie.

“Cripes.”

He has to stack a load of hay.

“Cripes.”

This week it was a biggie.  The air conditioner on the combine went on the fritz.  It was so hot that it just refused to work.  With a final gasp it just quit.

John’s had experience with that air conditioner before.  The combine is designed in such a way that the engine blows heat from the overworked engine toward the cab.  The hot airs blasts from the engine compartment into the cab through the control panel.  Last year when the air conditioner quit. John received second-degree burns on his arm when it slipped from the armrest onto the control panel.

“Cripes.”

This summer he spent two weeks fixing hoses, cleaning air ducts and cooling fins and testing the fan.  He was determined to make sure it worked.

“Cripes.”

I’m sure he spat the word out like some kind of foul tasting bug in his veggies.  For him, being angry is more than just an emotion, it’s an art.  And nobody does it better.

At least this time he was justified.   If the temperature outside was 100 degrees, inside that cab it must have been 120.

So dad and John were getting the combining done.  In between combining and milking sweaty Holsteins, there was straw to bale and stack.  All this going on and I’m stuck here in Iowa with a rotten, air conditioned desk job.

“Cripes.”

That combine is the family’s pride and joy.  It’s the biggest piece of equipment on the place.  The combine, a Massey-Ferguson model 510, is not new, but it has low hours and has always been shedded.

By today’s standards it’s a small combine.  But when that baby rolls snorting and roaring out of the shed in the fall it makes a farm boy feel all funny inside.

About that roar.  According to the owner’s manual, the combine was originally equipped with a muffler.  Since it rolled off the assembly line some 20 years ago somebody’s made some adjustments to the exhaust system.

Now two chrome pipes peek out from the engine compartment.  The combine, not a quiet machine anyway, roars down the filed sounding like Sunday night at the Boone Speedway.  Inside the metal machine shed, the sound is loud enough to shake the bird droppings out of the rafters.

I’d bet dad’s got the nifiest-sounding combine in the country.

 (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 in April, 1988)

Some people have all the luck.

My brother is a pretty luck guy.  Unfortunately for him, his luck is all bad.

Like last Sunday, when he was milking cows.  He bent over to take the milk machine off this cow and POW!

She kicked him.

Cows are supposed to be nice quiet animals with big brown eyes. They’re not supposed to be dangerous, and usually they aren’t.

You or I would have gotten a nice purple bruise on an arm or a leg, but not Jamie.  His face got in the way.

Now he has a broken nose.  “Id doesn’t hurd do mush unlesh you tousyh id,” he said.

A swollen red nose probably doesn’t do much for his looks.  He’s at that terrible, awkward age anyway.  You know the age I mean.  When you’re 14, you have just a few little zits, you are 6’4” tall, wear size 14 shoes, and have a 20” waist.

Cute kid, huh?

Actually it’s pretty surprising that he has lived as long as he has.  We figure if he’s lived to be 14, he’s got a pretty good shot at making it to adulthood now.

You see, this run-in with a cow’s foot isn’t the first…minor, accident he’s had.

About two years ago, he went skiing for the first time.  You see it coming, don’t you?  No, not his leg. His thumb.

He fell down, got his hand tangles in his ski pole and broke his thumb,

It took six weeks to heal.  Two days after the cast was off, he fell on the playground and broke the other thumb.

That’s Jaime’s luck.

That’s not to say that he has never broken his leg.  A few years ago he was complaining of severe pains in his leg, so my mother loaded him up in the car and took him to the clinic for his weekly X-rays.

The doctors said he had a hair-line fracture of the leg caused by. Get this.. Growing too fast.  Only Jaime could break his leg by growing too fast.  That’s sort of like tripping over the seam in the linoleum.  He’s done that on occasion too, I think.

He dislocated his shoulder by falling off a haystack, and he broke his wrist when a cow butted him with a horn.  Or maybe the cow dislocated his shoulder.  It’s so hard to keep his injuries straight.  There was also a problem with his ankle that I don’t remember much about.

Eating a meal with Jamie is usually a catastrophe rivaling the Jamestown flood or the San Francisco earthquake.  Every time he moves his long legs, he kicks a table-leg, shaking the whole table, spilling peas and corn and gravy.

When he unfolds his long arms to reach for something, he invariably tips over glasses of milk and water and upsets bowls of potatoes and meat.  This is not to say that eating is a problem foe him.

Early in the morning, he will eat several pieces of toast and a bowl cereal as a snack to hold him until breakfast.  Then at nine or so he will eat more toast, a box of cereal and a gallon of milk.  At 10:30 or so he’s hungry again.  The rest of the day is about the same.

All of this banging around doesn’t seem to have caused him any real problems.  He’s pretty well adjusted kid who watches television and plays junior high basketball just like the other kids his age.

As an athlete, what he lacks in coordination, he makes up for in size and strength.  I think he bench-presses calves.

But he does make these funny noises every once in a while.  For example, we’ll be playing cards and suddenly he will make his lips vibrate as if he is trying to imitate a tractor.  Or he will be working in the barn and he will start screaming, “La, la, la, nala, nala, na.”

‘What,” a bystander will ask, “are you doing?”

Then he will look at you with this incredible blank stare through his nearly opaque glasses and say, “Who, me?”  Then he will think about it a little more and say something like, “good echoes.”

Good echoes?

Good grief, I hope he lives long enough to grow out of this.
?

 (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 February 3, 1988)

Right here, right now, there fashion are trendsetters in Mid-Iowa.

A few years ago, the preppie look blossomed out of the Ivy-League colleges and universities of the East Coast.  Yuppies and preppies thrived on the newest fashions that gave them distinction as part of an elite financially powerful group.

Now Wall Street has crashed.  Cash is short.  Greed is out.  The Land Grant Look is in.

This austere, functional look was fostered in the famous agricultural land-grant universities of the nations such as Iowa State University, North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota.  For 10 years the ag economy has been floundering.  While business colleges have been filled with rich preppies dressed in button-down collars and penny-loafers, financially strapped ag students have developed their own mode of dress.

Now as corporate giants turn to economic and cost cutting measures that farmers adopted years ago students and other fashion conscious folk are looking to see what the best-dressed farmers, agribusinessmen and ag students are wearing.

The basic uniform consists of a good pair of jeans, a button shirt and a pair of cowboy boots.

The jeans must be relatively new, and still bear much of the original blue dye.  Faded or badly worn jeans are O.K. for work in the barn, shop or during finals week, but are never acceptable in a social or formal setting.

A belt is a must.  A woven “cowboy belt “ is common as are wide cowhide belts.  For an added touch of personality have your name stamped on the back of your belt.

Buckles can also add character.  Horses, turquoise, cow, coins and names are popular.   My own favorite features a John Deere combine.

The shirt should have long sleeves.  In casual settings the shirt can be worn open at the collar and the sleeves can be rolled up. For more formal occasions the cuffs should be buttoned and a tie or sweater can be worn.  These accessories add a nice contrast to the jeans.

Silk shirts and shirts with eagles or bulls embroidered on them are no longer acceptable except at rodeos.  Pearl snaps instead of buttons on a shirt are O.K..

The boots are the foundation of the look.  Tony Lama boots are nice and wear well. But are a bit pricey for the frugal aggie.  Dingo and Acme brands are relatively inexpensive and complete the look.
The boots should bear stitching on the foot and on the shank (the part that covers the ankle and lower shin).  Shank stitching is not visible while walking because it is not acceptable to tuck your jeans into your boots.  However, it is important because a counterfeit land grant ensemble becomes painfully evident when the legs are casually crossed and the boot shank is visible.

As with the shirt, colored stitching or colored leather depicting eagles, bulls, or other animals on the boots is passe’.

The boots are equally at home in the office, classroom or barn. Their versatility makes them acceptable in a wide variety of fashion habitats.

A hat can be added to the look.  Here in Iowa, seed corn or herbicide caps are commonly worn.  In other states such as Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana and Texas, a cowboy or “ten-gallon” hat may be worn. Snake-skin hat bands are in.  Indian-bead hat bands are out.

Clip this column out, take to your nearest clothier and outfit yourself in the Land Grant look Further information on the Land Grant Look can be found in fashion magazines such s Farm Journal, Wallace’s Farmer and Successful Farming.