Memory Lane: When I Grow Up I Want to Be an Old Woman

They said that time would fly. Before I knew it I’d be an old woman and wonder where the time went. I didn’t believe them. I once imagined how old I’d be when the year 2000 rolled around – 39 – seemed impossible and exceptionally ancient. My 40th class reunion was a couple of years ago and thanks to Facebook, I was able to see how everyone turned out without having to leave my desk chair. I was thinking how I haven’t changed at all, but it appears, like them, I have. My hair is almost all white, I've got extra weight around my middle, and a much wiser, less impetuous outlook. Cedar Falls, Iowa – is the place I call home but hadn't been to but for a handful of times in the 35 years before I moved back permanently in 2013. I think it’s necessary that time clouds perception and leaves with whimsical nostalgic snapshots of a time that for me, was often tumultuous. The place that shaped the original me and laid the groundwork for the evolution of the future me. 

Where I grew up – it was like two sides of a coin. College town next to factory town. Some of my relatives thought we were uppity because my mom insisted on Cedar Falls schools for us. Waterloo was the town of Rath Packing and John Deere. In my area, everyone worked for either the University of Northern Iowa (formerly Iowa Normal School, Iowa Teachers College, etc.), the factories, or one of the businesses who were kept in business by them. My folks’ families weren’t exactly the Montagues and the Capulets, but Mom’s side were Cedar Falls people and Dad’s side were Waterloo people. I just remember a lot of green grass and blue skies. Little snippets of happiness and adventure. Moments of sadness and adjustment.

Great Grandpa Hansen was one of a mess of kids born to a Danish/Swedish couple who emigrated at the end of the 19th century. Not unique in Cedar Falls. Great Grandpa's father owned a restaurant in town, but then went to work for the railroad and would die in a rail construction accident just months later, leaving a bunch of little tow-heads who had to drop out of school and get jobs to support the family. Isn’t America great? It got better and those kids all worked hard. Both of Great Grandpa’s sons grew up to be education leaders. There is a picture somewhere of Great Grandpa sitting on a horse-drawn dray in front of this ice house, circa 1918 or so. He’d go on to own a successful trucking firm that he sold off in the 40s. Way before I could inherit, dammit.

When I was a pre-teen, this guy named Jon Crews, who was recently out of college, ran for mayor of Cedar Falls against a long-time councilman. He won. I think he was the youngest mayor in the US at the time. His mom was my preschool teacher. He stayed around a while, then moved on but somehow got back involved in city politics so he ran again..and again. He was mayor when I moved back in 2013. Then, he got sick and sadly passed away in 2017. No one every did the job as well as he did and pissed off fewer people.

My dad’s dad used to take us to baseball games – double or triple A at the time – at the wooden
stadium built in WWII in Waterloo. There was a train track running behind left field. The old stately cemetery next door was where I taught my sister to drive. Figured she couldn’t kill anyone there.

The biggest thrill shopping was before malls. We’d go to Black’s Department Store in Waterloo. It had several stories and both an elevator and a mezzanine. I just like saying that…mezzanine. There was an actual person who took the elevator up and down. It was the ultimate in elegance to me. I remember when my mom bought a dress there. Once, I got a pair of red sneakers with black rubber and stripes. I loved those sneakers so much! I wore them swimming at a local waterway. My shoes were full of sand, so I took one off to empty it, set it down to do the other (in the water) and off it went downstream. Dumb ass started early.

My sister and I were baptized in this tiny chapel – thought to be the world’s smallest at 6’ x 8’ feet.
Fortunately, we weren’t very big then. That little chapel ended up in Elkhorn, IA, where the cumulative knowledge of Scandinavian immigrants is held.

I used to regularly go visit an old lady who had been introduced to me through my 5th grade teacher, Miss Ford – she was nearly 100 and lived in The Western Home downtown. I was fascinated by her stories which included what it was like to visit the Cotton Theatre in all its glory during vaudeville and then the silent films. In my time, it was called the Regent, and I’d go for the double feature with a coupon from the Cedar Bulletin and get a popcorn and soda all for 35 cents.

This tree (on the corner of Tremont, no less) always fascinated me when I was young. I heard a bad storm got it not too long ago. It has a 50/50 chance of long-term survival, but it hangs on - tough, like the pioneer families who first forged the underpinnings of the town. A few years later, it succumbed to the damage and was torn down. I also used that tree as landmark. Thank goodness for GPS these days, because I am totally a landmark navigator.

In the heat and humidity of summer, we'd ride our bikes two miles to Ray Edwards Pool and proudly show the plastic tag as we entered, giving us season pass status. "Ticket," we'd say, as the lifeguard let us pass to the shower that was required prior to entry into the pool area. Getting kicked out for a 15-minute time-out for bad behavior seemed like an eternity. Adults got a break from the throngs of screaming kids each hour with "adult swim." The kids would swarm the snack bar and munch on all kinds of decidedly unhealthy things until it was kid time once more. Everything within a couple acres of the pool shut down back in 2005. The Teen Center, which was next door to the pool and across from Peet Jr. High also closed. I guess all of it was built on an old dump and methane was leaking everywhere. 

There was also this round barn right outside of town. It was pretty cool too. But, that wasn't the only barn with history and was always fun to go see the Fields Barn - a large and beautiful barn of stone. The Fields' were a family from England who raised premium livestock. They also had a bank in town. By reports, they weren't so popular with the townfolks and considered to be pretty uppity. When their bank failed, they hung on for a few years before escaping to Canada. Some of their children married people from town, so descendants still reside in the area. The owner of the barn, got tired of the expense and rate of needed repairs, so despite its historical listing, he tore it down. Can't blame him, but that was a very cool barn.

My dad used to take a trolley like this from Waterloo to Cedar Falls. It stopped on Grand Blvd. in Cedar Falls near where my grandparents lived when he was dating my mom.  

If we were really lucky, we’d get to stop and have a Maid Rite sandwich (loose meat). The joint has a long countertop and red-covered stools and is famous for its loose meat – way before Roseanne Barr’s character bought a place like that in her show (what, 20 years ago?). It's still downtown.

I once rode a Greyhound bus somewhere, I don’t remember where. It took off from the Black Hawk Hotel. It was a dumpy dive full of wanderers and lost souls. In its heyday, it was a true stagecoach hotel. Now, it’s a fancy schmancy boutique hotel.

The biggest treat for me was going to the Dog’n'Suds Drive In restaurant. They had Coney Dogs. Like chili dogs, but better. When I was like 30, my mom gave me the Dog”n’Suds root beer mug that had been inadvertently left on the floor of her car twenty years earlier. I’m thinking she could have taken it back, but I’m glad she didn’t. I’d kill for a Coney Dog about now.

My friend Barb and I would climb to the top of the domed St. Timothy's Methodist church at twilight in the summers and watch the Starlight Drive Inn’s R-rated movies (without sound, obviously). Sure, I felt guilty. All the drive inns are closed now. I blame myself.

We actually had a country club called Porky's Red Carpet Club. It was founded well before movie
Porky’s. It was very swank. My best friend's family belonged and we played 3 holes of golf in our swimming suits and held up real golfers and then went on our merry way to swim. On my 13th birthday, when my mom said I could eat anything I wanted, I went there for dinner (we didn’t belong) and I had escargot and filet mignon for the first time. I had no idea what it was, but I knew it sounded good, and it was.

On cold nights in high school, I’d go with older looking friends and have a beer at places like The Blue Room Tap. It was a cop hangout. They never hassled us – might have been because I was a Police Explorer. What do they call that, The Blue Wall?

I had always wanted to get into The Stein on College Hill, but looked too young. Rumor had it that Harry Chapin ran out of time when he gave a concert at the UNI-Dome and moved the show out to the lawn. I usually had to work during the best shows, but saw a handful of them before I left town. Our high school team played football there – on one of the only Astroturf fields for high school players in the country back then. I hated football. Oh, wait, I still do.

It was a different time and a different place from today. A much simpler time for children. A time when patriotism was more than just a fad and people didn't talk on their cell phones or wear their baseball caps during the National Anthem. One where Blue Star moms answered the door to a kid in distress. Where misbehavior didn't involve the police, but a call home to your parents which assured swift justice. Where a cardboard box fueled the imagination and gave rise to more fun on a rainy winter's day that any X-Box could. And one where neighbors spoke to each other at the edge of their property on warm summer nights as the darkness set in and kids all across the neighborhood would scamper back to their yards as the street lights lit up in unison with the fireflies.

Copyright 2011.Lori Hahn