This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
The Mississippi River Valley in which Rock Island nestles is lovely, but there is a lonely beauty, too, above the bluffs. Where the tallgrass prairies once stretched out for more than two hundred miles in every direction, now lies a checkerboard of corn, soybeans, and pasture, with small towns scattered far apart on this flat board like checkers in a game almost over.
Driving across the country on any of the Midwest's blue highways, one first sees the prairie town on the far horizon as a mirage of water tower and grain elevators above a fuzz of trees. Two miles from the first trees, the highway and tracks wing in a curve as if one were coming in for a landing. Speed limit signs drop from 55 miles an hour to 45, then to 35.
Here at the city limits the towns work hard to announce their differences: Monona, the only town in two counties; Lake City, birthplace of water skiing; Readlyn, Iowa, home of 836 friendly people and one old grouch.
But the towns are remarkably alike: at the edge a Git 'N Go, selling gas, groceries, beer, and cigarettes. Then rows of homes with enormous front yards as the highway becomes Main Street, then churches: a white clapboard Methodist church, a stone Lutheran church, and an old high-steepled red brick Catholic church. Then, a consolidated school, a small monument-like library, and then the town square with its bandshell at the center, and the hardware store, a drugstore, and a cafe where one can count on the hot beef sandwich or the meat loaf.
Small changes visit these small towns: hard times close a few stores; better times bring new ones. Old timers die; new families move in. There are rumors of gangs from cities coming closer. But for the most part, Miss Jungas will be back in her 8th grade English classroom next September, the high school band will play in the bandshell on July 4th, and the aging members of the American Legion will put the flags out without help from the VFW. Prairie roots go deep. Behind the windows of the houses, widows and families keep the faith. "Nine o-clock," cries the town policeman, "and all is well."
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
