I was born and educated in “The Corn Patch,” as we Iowans fondly call our state, in a small town just outside of Des Moines, the capital city. Like most small towns in Iowa, massive cornfields surrounded us. If I wanted to visit Abigail house, a lifelong friend since childhood, I could walk 200 yards thru a cornfield, or walk four blocks to circumvent the field. Our neighborhood ball field, built on a back lot when we were mere youngsters by our fathers, was surrounded by cornfields as far as you could possibly see. Cornfields were part of everyday life, they are the backdrop to everything Iowan. In Iowa, cornfields rule.
About my freshman year in high school is when I really started to appreciate cornfields. My friends and I were getting our permits, eventually our driver’s licenses, resulting in a degree of independence from home and parents.
Cornfields are where we went to meet our friends. It was a place we laughed, we chatted, we danced, and sometimes parked with our girlfriends. Cornfields were our meeting halls, our offices, our get-silly-place. It was a place to assemble after high school games and events. We’d meet friends there and have a beer. Yes, we had beer in high school. Kavanaugh-style, lots of beer, nothing else, just beer, beer and good times. Back in the day, someone always had a cousin, an uncle, a friend, or even a stranger willing to buy a high school student a 6-pack. By the time I was a junior, I do not remember buying beer in the farmland being a problem. It was almost a rite-of-passage.
In those days, there were no computers, no cell phones. If you wanted to talk to someone you stepped into a phone booth and deposited a dime, or you walked, biked, or drove for a face to face. We spent a lot of time in cars cruising. We were young with big dreams, innocent, playful, happy; it was a unique time in history.
After graduating high school, wanting to learn more, I took off to the University of Iowa, about a two hour drive east. At the end of my freshman year, the summer of 1970, I returned to the Des Moines area to work and live for the summer. Former high school friends had rented a house in Des Moines and said I could rent the extra bedroom for the summer. The place I had worked for the past two summers had welcomed me back for another 3-month, summer stint. It was a huge kiln, or oven, where they fired and cured clay pipes for drainage and sewers. In other words it was a hot, sweltering, somewhat miserable place to work. During my three summers there, I received 12 stitches, one smashed toe, and one very-near-death experience. Five of us owe much to an errant, meandering forklift driver.
Soon after I moved into my new temporary living quarters, I met a wonderful young lady named Sue. We hit it off, started dating and had a memorable summer. On my last day of work at that stifling kiln, I said my good-byes, praying, hoping, and swearing I would never be back. I had one weekend remaining before returning to college, where I imagined a new chapter in my life would soon begin.
It was a beautiful day that last Saturday in Des Moines. I deservedly slept in and by late morning I was packed. It didn’t take long, I did not have much to pack in those days, my rag-tag clothes, my cheap ass stereo and a few albums. Most everything fit into the trunk of my car. After lunch I was getting antsy and suggested we get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. Sue warmly embraced the suggestion and we jumped into my car to go for what my father would call a “Sunday drive.” We had no real purpose, no schedule, just cruising the countryside, no hurry. It didn’t matter that it was a Saturday, it was still a “Sunday drive.”
We were nineteen that summer, just kids, young lovers, naive, embracing our new freedom away from home. We were having too much fun, and neither one of us were looking forward to the inevitable separation. In truth, we’d only be separated by a two-hour drive, not too bad really.
As we headed out of Des Moines, I took a familiar gravel road toward Dallas Center, my old high school. The majestic cornfields were soon to be picked; interspersed were the soybean and alfalfa fields. It was a leisurely, scenic cruise. We were not in a hurry. We were on our last hours together and wanted to enjoy the moment.
We made it to DC and I proudly showed Sue my old high school. I probably bragged about some past high school feat or adventure. We drove down the 2-block main street, it had an insurance company on one side and the local bar on the other. We made it past the old bowling alley. I pointed out a few friends’ houses and then we came across some old high school friends at the city park, where we played Frisbee and fetch with their energetic dogs. With the sun setting, we politely excused ourselves. I don’t remember exactly where, or who, but I secured a 6-pack of beer on our way out of town.
We headed back toward Des Moines, by way of Grimes, taking a different gravel road. It was well past sunset, yet because of the full moon, everything seemed shrouded in a certain illuminating glow. A few miles outside of Grimes, I pulled into my favorite old hangout, a beautiful, all-encompassing cornfield. Think of a grid, where two lines, or in this case, 2 gravel roads, intersect at 90 degrees. We were at the opposite point of that intersection, deep inside a huge cornfield. From that intersecting point, it was a good mile along each side of the massive fields until you would find small, unassuming dirt roads leading inward. It had 2-ways in and 2-ways out, opposite of each other, and where they met, deep inside those fields, was a very low key, wonderful, hidden world. We were immersed far into the field, shielded by Iowa’s dominant crop, and on that bright, moon lit night you could see nearly-clearly.
Sue came from upper northwest Iowa, so she knew all about cornfields and agreed that the place was near perfect. The space was large enough to park 10-15 cars and still have plenty of room to dance, socialize, or to just, as we used to say, let it-all-hang-out. Buried inside that mammoth cornfield, you had a great view of the distant gravel roads where you could see if anyone was coming your way. You could readily see the signal, the signal that told if the approaching car was just a passing farmer, or someone “coming in.”
I could not have imagined better weather that night. As we got out of my car, I cranked up the 8-track and we jumped on the hood, leaned back into the windshield and stared out into the vastness. It was late in the growing season and the corn was tall, green and swaying rhythmically in the breeze. I would describe it as enchantingly pleasant. We popped our first beer and a few minutes later, barely having time to get off a sentence or two, we saw headlights in the distance coming down the road. It was a good ways off, but then it gave the signal. It was clearly the signal. It flashed its headlights off and on 3 times. That was the old signal. They were coming in.
Surely it was some old high school classmates stopping by to drink some beers, or a young couple stopping for a few minutes of smooching and such. I had no doubt that I knew the people, underclassman, old high school friends. We probably played football or wrestled together.
“Come on Sue, let’s get out of here,” I told her. “ I’ve graduated. This place is for high school students.”
I had a bright yellow 55 Chevy, 8 cylinder, 283, 4 barrel, 3 speed Hurst. Not necessarily fast, but it wasn’t exactly a sled-on-mud either. We climbed in, not necessarily hurrying. We had plenty of time. They were big fields. I fired her up and she purred. We were soon heading out the other entrance, the entrance opposite where the encroaching vehicle was soon to enter. We were shielded by the tall, dense greenery; and with the assistance of the moon-bright night, I was able to keep the lights off, and my foot off the brake.
I exited the dirt entrance to the cornfield and turned onto the gravel. I got about 100 yards down the road when I flipped on my lights. Time to head back to Des Moines and enjoy the young evening, I thought.
I looked in my rear view mirror and all was dark. Then I saw headlights. They popped-on where we’d been, deep inside the field. Then, suddenly the lights started to move. Odd, I thought, they just got there, aren’t they going to park and drink or chat for a while? It was clear that the lights were accelerating rapidly down the rows of corn toward where we had just exited. In the moonlight I could see a huge cloud of dust forming behind the hastening lights.
My back began to tingle and I stepped on it. I opened the 4-barrel and powered thru the gears as fast as possible on loose gravel. I fish tailed toward the stop sign with my eyes nearly-glued to the rear view mirror. It was clear this guy was screaming on me. My heart was pounding. I wasn’t worried about being out in my friend’s uncle’s cornfield, but I was very worried about the remaining 4 cans of beer being held by two under-age teenagers.
I slid to a quick-rolling-stop, dropped it in first, turned onto the pavement, caught some traction, and powered thru the gears, heading toward my hometown. The speed limit was 65 with the city coming up fast, and whoever was behind me was also coming up fast.
“Sue,” I screamed, “You gotta throw the beer out, but not until I tell you!” We were a short distance from a small ridge, a little hump in the road, about a mile from hometown Grimes. The person pursuing me had already squealed thru the stop sign and was about on me. I had one chance… looking, looking, praying that those headlights would disappear behind the ridge for just a instant. Please Lord. “Now!” I squealed, and with a beautiful, 2-handed-push, Sue jettisoned the contraband. I had just reach 65 mph and started to de-accelerate. 45 mph was coming up quick. I down shifted and she quickly settled in at 45. When the sign instructed me at the city limits, I reached 30. At that point the chasing car was right on my ass, and that’s when the lights and siren came on. I was now on the edge of Grimes. I turned right at the first street, at the old water tower, and stopped.
I’m not sure if it’s an old wives’ tale or not, but I had always heard Iowa State Troopers had to be at least six-and-half-feet tall and nothing less than 250 pounds of sculptured rock. This Trooper surpassed those requirements. He pulled his large frame out of the patrol car and walked over and hovered above my car. His moon-shadow encompassed my entire vehicle. He leaned down toward me, face to face. He did not beat around the bush. “I think that was you out in that cornfield,” he whispered softly, menacingly.
I was certainly nervous, but I took pause and then replied truthfully, “I’m just out for a drive with my girlfriend. I was showing her my old stomping ground.” His steel hardened grimace convinced me that keeping my mouth shut was probably in my best interest. He asked for my drivers license and ordered us out of the car. He bent down, got up close to both of our faces, and sniffed. He then snooped under the seats and in the glove box. He grabbed the key out of the ignition and opened the trunk. He walked around the car several times. He then commanded we get back in the car. He went back and sat in his patrol car for what seemed an eternity.
Finally, he came back and handed me a ticket. “Your license-plate-light is out. I want it fixed within 48 hours!” he stated loudly. I assured him “no problem.” I’m not sure I even realized I had a license-plate-light. He turned and took a couple steps toward his patrol car, then paused, whirled back around and gave me one last stare “I know that was you out in that cornfield.” Again, silence seemed to be my best defense, yet, for some reason unknown, I felt obligated to answer, “I was just out showing my….” at that point my mind screamed “shut-up idiot!” I listened, obeyed, and did not mumble another word.
He left. I only got a fix it ticket. I had a deceased light. I exhaled a huge SIGH of relief. We both knew it could have been SO MUCH worse.
I drove around Grimes for a few minutes, not saying much, letting ourselves calm, knowing how lucky we were. I showed Sue my old house and elementary school. I jokingly instructed her to not to blink when we drove down our one block main street.
Eventually, that youthful nerve crept back in. That rebellious spirit of the 60’s and early 70’s, the disobedience and defiance that marked those tumultuous times had not escaped me and I headed back out to the ditch to retrieve my 4 cans of beer. I was strapped and saving all my hard earned money for tuition. Beer wasn’t free, and the night was still young. I pulled over where Sue had launched our prohibited beverage, found it quickly, and headed toward Des Moines, the big city, to blend in with the crowds.
It was a lucky night for us. Sunday morning I woke early and loaded my car. Sue’s brother, the mechanic, came over and fixed my license plate light and signed off on it. I kissed Sue good-bye and drove by a post office to drop off the signed ticket as I headed out of town. I hopped on the interstate, cranked up the tunes and settled in for the 2 hour drive back to college, a day ahead of my original plan. It seemed an appropriate time to bury my head in some books, far, far away from cornfields and state troopers.
o