Houses

When I moved to Fairfield Iowa, a town of 10,000 people, I knew very few people there. I would go on walks or bike rides past houses and hope that after a while I would be invited into some of them. This did happen. Today on my bike ride, as an exercise for writing this post, I remembered the some of the people who invited me into their houses as I passed their houses.

Joyce invited me to her 90th birthday party. Up to that point my interactions with her were limited to waving and saying hello as I walked by her house. She is a very young 90. I often see her mowing her lawn on her tractor. It was nice to meet her extended family all of whom carry her influence with them.

Like me, Chett did not grow up here. He bought a farmhouse near Joyce and lived there for a couple of years. He is a retired English professor and a skilled carpenter. He has invited me to help him on some carpentry projects where I mainly try not to injure myself or anybody else. He has land outside of town and one day I helped him plant 100 walnut trees which unfortunately did not come up because deer got to them first. Next time he put fences around the area where the tree will sprout. It is amazing to me that flora survive fauna in the wild. Nature when left alone has an amazing ability to create a balanced ecosystem.

Ayala grew up in Israel and, until she married Dave, would house sit for people. I got into a couple of houses because she invited Jill and me over for a meal.

I knew John and Carole when I lived in DC. They bought their house from Martha who I used to see practicing a unicycle on the loop trail. I learned how to unicycle in my twenties. Influenced by Martha, I got my unicycle out and tried it again but my initial attempts to get on it and start riding were not successful. I stopped because my bones are 50 years older than when I first learned and I did not want to risk breaking one while I regained my former ability. The secret of unicycling is falling but moving the wheel back under you just in time to stop the fall.

Bobbi is a square dancing buddy. She definitely accelerated my learning to dance because she encouraged me to dance in situations where I did not feel competent. In square dancing, eight people have to get it right or the square breaks down. She was not worried about breaking down a square. When our local caller did not think that the dancers in his club were ready to learn the next level of square dancing, she went to Texas to learn it.

Those were the houses I passed today. Although I have been in many others I still don't feel like a Fairfield native and probably never will. For one thing, my Rhode Island accent gives me away every time. Also, growing up on a tiny patch of land with no animals in attendance does not help either.