SMALL IOWA TOWNS TRY TO COEXIST WITH WALMART

 

I've a good feel now for Iowa towns of around 10,000 population, having spent considerable time in three or four of them recently.

The downtown areas of these small towns reminds me of Brownsville's with older buildings with unique architecture from 100-150 years ago, but little real commerce.  

Most of the sales are wrung up on the outskirts of the towns, usually near a four lane highway, at Walmart.

The retailer becomes a small city in itself, with most everyone in town getting their groceries and "stuff" there, meeting neighbors and chatting.  

Very old people with the symptoms of osteoporosis, somewhat bent over, as well as young women with multi-colored hair, work at the Walmarts of Iowa, more than a few morbidly obese, barely squeezing into their work smocks.

The residential neighborhoods of these small towns are much the same; 80-100 year old houses, mostly two story with finished basements and yards neat as a pin.

Today is May 1 and the temperature is in the 50's with a very brisk wind.  Pickup trucks are scurrying around the city, carrying lumber and bags of cement for projects the weather prohibited just a month ago.

Street and sewer repairs are also getting done with a certain urgency.  

I just came back from the store.  Ana had sent me to get just two things; rice vinegar and corn starch for wings she was making.

First I went to Hyvee, a local supermarket.

A tall, blonde young man, possibly a freshman at the University of Iowa, tried to find rice vinegar with other vinegars, but without success.

"Is this an ethnic item?" he asked.

He couldn't locate rice vinegar among the Hispanic or asian items either, so he approached a middle-aged female supervisor.

"If it's not with the other vinegars, we don't have it," was her response.

No problem.  I went to Walmart.