This week is going to be short & sweet and if I’m totally honest, it’s a reprise of the Thanksgiving post I wrote last year but guess what?!  It all still rings true, so I figured why not.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that on behalf of everyone at Franklin County, we are thankful for you!  

 There was quite a contrast in my choices of topics for this column. One was about the procession of murderers being invited as honored guests to the White House. The other is the Community Choir concert on Pearl Harbor Day.
 
I’m really concerned about the direction of my country. I see photos of rivers filled with trash and demolished neighborhoods in foreign lands and it makes me so grateful for what we have here.
 

About a month ago, Diwali, the Hindu “Festival of Lights,” was celebrated by over a billion people—not just in India, but worldwide—and this past Saturday, some friends and I, along with a whole community at Grinnell, added our contribution to that number.
 

I’m not going to lie.  The days (and even weeks) after a big county-wide election kind of have the same feeling as the day after Christmas.  There is a let-down for me.  Our office 

spends so much time (months) preparing for the election that when it’s over, it feels like a 

void.   

It was maybe a happy coincidence last week that while I was following the news about Trump’s soybean deal with China that I also happened to tune into the Iowa Farmers Union (IFU) weekly “lunch and learn” on Facebook. Amid so much uncertainty, not just for farmers but all of us in rural America, it came as a breath of fresh air and call to action.

Of the many, many things I’ve come to enjoy about my time here at Grinnell, there is one course, one subject, that truly takes the cake: Arabic. I’ve been learning to read, write, recognize, and understand Arabic for five days a week at the very least, all the while forming a tightly-knit community with the other seven members of my class.

Speaking of extra innings. I was visiting my dad in New York and saw in the paper that “The Seventh Seal” was going to be on TV after a ballgame. It’s a classic Ingmar Bergman movie about a character representing death who plays chess with a soldier who has returned from The Crusades. (Bergman later went on to make boring melodramas like Woody Allen.)

If you’ve known me for any long period of time, you’ll know that I can’t sit still. That’s not just a product of the ever-active mind of minethat refuses to slow down or opt for a rest, and instead applies as well to the manner in which I live my life at large.

I’ve been too busy to be a dedicated baseball fan up until this World Series. I was eight years old when the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. That’s perfect timing being just old enough to appreciate the sport. They brought with them announcer Vin Scully who was my connection to the game.

I’m going to take a moment to pause from the election to talk about something else that has kept me very busy recently.  (Don’t worry, I’ll be back with more election 

information next week).   

You may have noticed that there is some construction going on at the courthouse recently.  We are currently in the process of getting a new roof.  Back on April 18th, we 

On October 16th, I hosted a telephone town hall with more than 7,500 Iowans. I provided an 

update on what’s happening in Congress and answered questions about important issues ranging 

from tax cuts and trade to agriculture and manufacturing. Listening to Iowans and advancing our 

shared values in Congress remains a top priority for me, and these conversations are a great way 

Election Day is almost here.  November 4th is the date for the 2025 City-School Election, and I have some information to share with you to make sure you are ready!  

As luck would have it Barbara Kalbach had her column, “Brass Tacks from Rural Iowa” published on the same page in the Chronicle as my “Thoughts on Healthcare.”

If Democrats had succeeded and President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts were not passed on July 4th this year, families, farmers, and small businesses would have faced the largest tax 

increase in U.S. history. Over 210 million American taxpayers would have seen an average 22% tax hike, and the tax increase on an average family of four would have been the equivalent of 

We rely on hay for the cattle to survive while the grass isn’t growing. It can be stressful seeing dark clouds with drying hay on the ground.
One time our friend who we hire to cut and bale our hay said yes when the fellow in line before us asked him to bale some more that he had not planned on. It rained and rained on our previously dry hay. We raked and raked to try to get some of it put up and edible. It smelled like dirt.