City mice visit country mice

Last week some very dear friends visited us from the Thousand Oaks area in California. When we first met John and Diane D'Agostin, their tiny apartment was literally in the shadow of the Warner Brother's Studio complex in Burbank, around the hill from the Hollywood Bowl and down the street from Disney and NBC. This summer they flew to Minneapolis to see other friends and decided that rather than having us drive up, they wanted to experience what real-life farming and small town life was like.

I'm not sure what was more fun, seeing things through their LA native eyes, or the eyes of four little girls, our 8 month and 3 year-olds and their 2 and 4 year olds.

We actually have a lot in common. Both in LA and Charter Oak, one puts the word "the" before naming a major freeway. In Southern California, they have "the 5, the 405, the 101 and the 210. In Charter Oak we have "the Ricketts Highway, the Dunlap Highway, and the Ute Highway."

What was probably the most foreign to them was listening to public service announcements on the radio warning listeners to be careful where they dig in their back yards so as to avoid power lines. Diane marveled at the lack of concrete and congestion. She thought that it would be unnerving to be isolated on a farm place, at least living in a town, you're around people. She compared it to an island in a sea of rolling prairie.

I was proud to introduce them to some of the greatest joys of late summer; thick Iowa pork chops, home grown tomatoes and cucumbers from the neighbors, Dad's sweet corn, home made ice cream, and of course, Grandma Laura's fresh baked bread and cinnamon rolls.

Devin, our four-year-old goddaughter, was startled by a grasshopper on her car door. Of course as she stood and told her dad about it, she was oblivious to the dozens more bouncing back and forth above her head.

We took them for a field trip to see Uncle Melvin Neddermeyer's hog operation. "Peee-uuuw!" complained little Devin, long before the car door opened. Our friends think that every city-dweller should have to come see how much hard work is put into raising the food they so easily take for granted. They asked us about how many uses there are for corn and soy, like feed, plastics, and ethanol.

The girls all enjoyed a ride on Grandpa Allan's John Deere, but they probably enjoyed the ride in the wagon pulled by the rider mower just as much. They saw goats and ducks and chickens at Dan North's house up the hill. We opted for the Zoo rather than the State Fair, because it was a shorter drive and we thought it would be more child-friendly, but they got a kick out of the nightly fair highlights on IPTV.

As a transplant from the city myself, their visit really reinforced for me how blessed we are to live in a community where people wave when they drive by, as opposed to one where all they'll wave is the finger. Iowa is a great place to visit, but I'd rather live here.