2,500 sailors fought for Iowa values and won

Brother John and I decided to see the USA in our Chevrolet, so we hopped in our Equinox EV and buzzed through the Great Plains and the Rockies and the Mojave Desert to Long Beach like generations of Iowans before us.

They used to call Long Beach “Iowa By The Sea” for the legions who fled the farm and snow to build ships and tend the port. The Great Depression swelled their numbers. Starting at the turn of the 20th Century they organized an annual picnic that drew over 100,000 Tall Corn State expats where they congratulated themselves for escaping while longing for Muscatine. Herbert Hoover was the featured guest in 1928.

The picnic is still held each year, if far smaller, at the USS Iowa moored in the harbor. This year’s event is July 19. We got there too early. We had to get there anyway to take our picture with the legendary WWII and Korean War battleship.

A tour of the USS Iowa Museum costs $26 but Iowans get in free. A host told us that the ship was overwhelmed when Hawkeye fans at the Rose Bowl heard there was something free in California.

God bless the 2,500 sailors who won the war operating on that huge hulk. I would have jumped overboard with a severe case of claustrophobia. They slept in cots hung four high sweltering. Those who couldn’t stand it slept on the deck. I would have been much better serving as a propagandist in San Francisco running a typewriter. I thank the Lord that I was born in 1957.

Those boys fought for freedom that we are flushing out to sea.

If you can get to see the Iowa, it is worth the price of admission even if you are from Minnesota. It makes me think that we should stand up and fight for the Bill of Rights right here at home in honor of those who went through hell in the Pacific Theatre and beyond.

Getting to the USS Iowa or anyplace else in LA is not easy because there are too many people drawn to those golden shores. Way too many cars. It cannot go on like this. Those cars are driving us to the brink.

Since I fancy myself filled with virtue I would like to think our electric car did not contribute to the smog but it helped stoke the freeway madness where it takes an hour and a half to creep 20 miles on eight lanes.

It’s the desert. People don’t belong there unless they are swabbing a battleship or they are surfing. They belong in Fargo or Sioux City, where it may be cold but there is water and work to be done. Despite the mudslides followed by wildfires, few leave LA because it is 72 degrees and you are free to be whatever your income allows. Greater LA is one of a half dozen places in the nation where capital gathers to create tremendous creativity, from Hollywood to computer engineering. LA has its own groove that may or may not survive, depending on the water.

The people who provide the underpinnings of the economy speak Spanish and are hunted by ICE agents. Ship out the immigrants and LA falls apart. Maybe that is the whole point.

Our friend from Orange County asked if we could imagine ourselves living there. We’re too stodgy and set in our ways. We can’t afford it. Plus, there is business to attend to in the Midwest, which should be richer than Orange County if we quit giving it away to the consolidators.

Even if you are uncomfortable you can’t just run away from the battle. Iowa should be Shangri-La. If we had clean air and water, a fair tax system and the opportunity to get ahead. If we could embrace the ingenuity and ambition of an immigrant, instead of trying to chase them off.

There was something that brought those Iowans together in a place far away. It was that sense that we are neighbors with common values of decency, fairness and hard work. The captain goes down with the ship. And you bring your own food to the potluck. Now they cater it. People can go squishy out there in that sunshine on the shore once you make a few bucks.