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Many have asked about Debbie’s third book, “Attempting Redemption,” in the Hope Series. Well, it’s here and Debbie (along with me) are hosting a book signing event at Star Lanes in Montezuma from 5 – 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 3.
We both appreciate Jake and Alicia Thompson for opening the bowling alley for the event. We hope to see you there. I believe the grill will be open for food and drinks. We will have all of our books there for sale and look forward to visiting with all who stop by to check out or purchase a book or books. I remember when we set out to do our first book, “Family Tradition – An ABC Photo Album of the Iowa State Fair,” published in 2006. Neither of us had published a book, so it was a learning experience. It was 2005 and our first goal was to get permission to do the book. We set up an appointment with the former state fair director, Gary Slater, to share our idea. Slater, a University of Missouri-Columbia graduate, the same college I attended, listened to our idea. His word of caution was that many have tried to do books on the fair and never got them off the ground. He had to talk with the fair board and later got us in touch with the director of the marketing department to get us set up with what we needed to do the book. The idea to do an ABC book was born out of a similar book I had from a photojournalist friend in South Dakota. Trying to find photos for every letter of the alphabet was a challenging undertaking. There is so much that goes on at the fair and sometimes being at the right place at the right time was key to getting a story-telling photo. The fair itself is a public event, but some things on the fairgrounds are private. The two Blue Ribbon characters that roam the fairgrounds and the state fair logo are owned by the fair. So, you can’t take a photos of them and publish them without the fair’s permission. We spent the next year putting the book together and having it printed at Sutherland Printing in Montezuma. We didn’t have a home computer, so Debbie and I would take the book and photos on a disk to the Montezuma Republican and work on it at night. When word spread about the book, Barnes and Noble in West Des Moines called us and we hand delivered a box of 50 books days before the fair started. We later had a book signing at the same Barnes and Noble. We went on to do our second book, “Family Reunion – Midwest Old Threshers,” in 2008. We worked with the folks at the Old Threshers and they partnered with us on the project, making it possible to publish the book. In exchange, they received a thousand books. I took the photos and Debbie did all the interviews in 2007. As with our state fair book, we spent a year putting it together. The OT book was three times as big as our state fair book. Again, Sutherland Printing in Montezuma printed the book for us and did a great job. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun! Our family has attended the Old Threshers every year since 2007 and enjoy it. Maybe someday, we can do another book on the Old Threshers. Down the road, Debbie has a novella called “Mister Christmas,” slated for release in October this year and she is working to also published book four in the Hope Series, “Accidental Reveal,” this fall. My future goal is to do a book on riverboat life on the Mississippi River. I hope to spend some time going down the river on a barge and taking photos and doing interviews. My now late grandparents on my mom’s side of the family worked on the river boats in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They would take a bus from Tulsa to St. Louis, where someone would pick them up and take them to the river boat. They spent one month on and one month off. Another project, probably for when I retire, is writing a fictional book on what life was like on a threshing crew in the early 1900s. It is good to dream and keep them on the bulletin board of your heart and mind. Take a step and keep trying. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.
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I just wrapped up covering the 2023 Poweshiek County Fair, July 8 and July 11 – 16, in Grinnell. This is my 24th year to cover the Poweshiek County Fair and 27th county fair overall since moving to Iowa in December 1997.
I take great pride in knowing that my streak of covering swine shows continues onward. I have photographed a lot of hogs, pigs or swine, as they are called, having never missed a year. Even during the three-year stretch that I wasn’t working for a newspaper, I still attended and covered the Poweshiek County 4-H and FFA Swine Show and the rest of the fair. I have also enjoyed a lot of pork chops, ham sandwiches and bacon and probably have eaten some of the pigs I have taken photos of through the years. I have attended the Poweshiek County Fair long enough that I am now taking photos of kids of kids I photographed when I first arrived at the Montezuma Republican on July 20, 2000. I had just covered the Iowa County Fair the previous week and two days after arriving in Montezuma, I found myself covering the Poweshiek County Fair. I didn’t know a soul. Had it not been for a Montezuma family, I would have been totally lost. I take great pride in covering and supporting the 4-H and FFA programs in Poweshiek County. This includes covering the county fair and various events at area schools throughout the school year. Anything I can do to support these local youth programs is time well spent. It has led to me receiving the FFA Blue and Gold Award and the Friend of 4-H Award some years ago. I also have great respect for 4-H leaders and FFA advisors who spend hours helping young people get ready to show an animal, create a project or participate in a state or national contest. Thanks also goes to all the parents and family members who spend hours helping their children with their projects. Seeing them shine, no matter how they placed, is something to celebrate. Having grown up in the big city, I wasn’t involved in agriculture. My grandparents on my mom’s side of the family had an old milk cow. My mom loved the opportunity to bring home a gallon or two of fresh cow milk when visiting. She had a churn and sometimes would make fresh butter. I wouldn’t drink raw milk if I had to. I have always preferred milk from the store. I remember having the opportunity, if you call it that, of plucking chickens. My grandpa would tie the chickens to a board stretched across the corner of the fence and chop of their heads. It was my job to take a freshly killed chicken and dunk it into a pot of hot water, then pull the feathers off the dead critter. I sure did enjoy that experience – not! In the late 1960s, my folks joined forces with another family from the First Baptist Church in Tulsa and they grew a huge garden on a spot of land in East Tulsa. When I was about age 7, my dad and the other family drove to the Arkansas River to get a load of gypsum mineral to fertilize the garden. I got out of the truck and made a few steps before I started sinking. I thought I was in quicksand as my dad reached out and snatched me to safety. He had to go back and retrieve my shoe that got stuck in the gypsum. My parents bought a rototiller from Montgomery Wards in the late 1960s and would carry it to the farm to plow around the plants. They grew tomatoes, onions, potatoes, okra, corn, green beans, cucumbers, squash, cantaloupes, watermelons and more. In the years that followed, my folks had a garden at my boyhood home in Tulsa. My dad enjoyed eating wilted salads with onions fresh from the garden. After my parents moved to their farm south of Tulsa in the early 1980s, they bought a Jersey cow so they could have fresh milk. That old cow lived for years and produced many gallons of milk and lots of butter. My dad also owned about 40 head of cattle that he ran on their 20-acres and the adjoining 40-acre farm to the west. When people would ask my dad how many cattle he owned, he always said, “Under 100” with a chuckle. After moving to their farm, they grew a number of gardens and my mom did lots of canning. They also had chickens and enjoyed the bounty of eggs that they produced. There are lots of great memories just like the ones I am making at the county fair with my many friends. Thank you to all those who support my work at the county fair and across the county. It is much appreciated. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. I’m so proud of my wife, Debbie, and love her very much.
This year marks 20-years since we first met at the Iowa State Fair. In September, we will celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. And we just learned last week that our “love story” on how we met at the state fair is possibly going to be featured in the Iowa State Fair Museum across the road from Pioneer Hall. It all came about last year while visiting the museum where we saw a poster or display requesting state fair love stories. We filled out a form and left it with the museum curator. We had forgotten about it until the other day when I mentioned it to Debbie, as we had not heard anything. A couple days later, we received an email asking us to send in a short paragraph of how we met along with a photo. We are still in the running to be featured at the fair museum. I remember the first time I attended the Iowa State Fair in 1998. I was fairly new to Iowa and had heard about the great fair. At that time, all the trams met next to the agriculture building. Those who climb that hill these days to hitch a ride to the campground or Pioneer Hall know all too well how nice it was back in the day. I ended up on the wrong tram and landed in the fair campground. I didn’t have my hand stamped (a must anytime you go on the state fairgrounds) as I thought the tram was headed to the parking lot. I was wrong and ended up in the campground and was the last rider on the tram at the gate. I thought I was going to have to pay to get into the fair a second time to get out of the fair to go home. Thankfully the gate keeper let me through. Making my way down the hill, I ended up hitching a ride with two police officers on a golf cart after asking for directions. I was hanging on for dear life as we zoomed through people and cart traffic on the grand concourse headed to one of the gates. And one of the police officers must have been having troubles at home as he was talking awful about his family with the other officer. I don’t remember a thing he said, but can’t forget the experience. Five years later in 2003, I met Debbie in the campground while doing a newspaper photo story on state fair campers. I was walking along one of the camper rows filled with lots of Montezuma families and there she was standing by her family camper. The rest is history. At the time, I was actually thinking about wrapping up my time in Iowa in the newspaper business and heading south to my native Oklahoma for a job. God had something different in mind and all is good 25 plus years later. And thinking about good, Debbie is ready to release her third book, “Attempting Redemption,” in the Hope Series. Unlike her first two books, “The Auctioneer” and “Moving On,” she did all the work on this book, including the cover design. We had two area people help with editing and appreciate their services. We will be making a book order this week and plan to host a book signing sometime later in the month. We will announce it on Facebook and our website at Our Front Porch Books. She also has written a novella entitled, “Mister Christmas,” that she plans to release in the fall. The book is about folks in an Iowa town who almost don’t have a Christmas celebration. And she has written and is editing book four in the Hope Series, (Accidental Reveal), with a goal to release it in the fall. And thinking about books and authors, we are bringing back the All-Iowa Writers’ Conference this year after a three-year hiatus due to Covid. Debbie has been working hard on the line-up of speakers and so far we have four authors booked. The conference is Sept. 16 and is currently slated to be held at the Brooklyn Ruritan Building. And I am hoping to offer a short writing course this fall. I will share more details when possible. It is exciting times in the book and writing world at the Parker house. I can’t forget to mention that it is almost county fair time in Poweshiek County. I will be there the entire fair taking photos of all the award-winning youngsters and their prized animals. It’s a lot of work, but a lot of fun. This is my 24th year to cover the Poweshiek County Fair. I’ve taken a lot of hog and other animal photos through the years and love every minute of it. I hope to see you there. Come on out to the county fair and sit a spell and let’s visit. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. |
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