 |
| The Good Shepherd, Wesley UMC, Muscatine, Iowa |
Jesse and I got off the train in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, to be greeted by my cousins Don and Gary Mohler, and Don's daughter Karen--a moment of unexpected joy rising in my heart.
We had dinner together. Karen said, "I have a letter to show you but you can't have it." It was an aerogramme with photos of Costa Rica, a letter I had written her from San Jose when she was 10 years old, and I was 20. She has saved it all these years. Now she is a grandmother, and I met her son and grandson for the first time.
 |
| Aunt Mary & Jesse |
On Friday morning Don took us to rent a car, and Jesse and I drove to Muscatine. There was a work day going on at the church I grew up in, and as we walked around I felt my father was in the hall way just around the corner, so vivid. The stained glass windows were made by Tiffany and I adored them, tracing the outlines and colors every Sunday of my life until I left for college. One of the women in the kitchen told me she was married to Paul Sywasink, the son of one of my mother's close WSCS friends, Ruth.
 |
| Former Muscatine High School |
We drove around Muscatine, the high school, my old neighborhood on Sycamore Street, Riverside Park by the Mississippi and the new high bridge. Weed Park seemed shrunken, the lagoon only half its size, the stone bridge truncated. I don't think this was all my imagination, there seemed new houses built up, encroaching. The Musser Library where I spent many summer days was torn down and rebuilt shortly after I left home, so was not a shock. I used to take my books down by the river to read. Jesse's cousin Helen and husband Jerry drove up from Missouri to welcome me into the Zuniga family, quite the drive for a lunch, albeit a long one.
 |
| Don "Moose" & Laima Mohler |
We drove back to Cedar Rapids in time to have lunch with my mother's sister Mary Mohler and the family at the Manor. Don's wife Laima lives there, too. Don has lunch with them most days. Karen's brother Kevin joined us, and he has turned into a handsome, kind man, that little blonde boy I remember.
On our way to the train in Mt. Pleasant Don drove us through Mt. Vernon where I attended Cornell College, and I could remember myself and friends and our passions and shenanigans during the Viet Nam War. In Iowa City little was familiar, new buildings crowded together. The University of Iowa has been flooded several times since I lived there, and some of the buildings, including the new Hancher Fine Arts building where I took art classes, have been abandoned.
 |
| The Lagoon at Weed Park |