Children of the City of Certainties, part 1: in 1954
source: http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2011/01/13/children-of-the-city-of-certainties-part-1-in-1954/
In 1954, Des Moines, Iowa was a city in the way Midwestern cities were cities: 177,000 people working in manufacturing and insurance, gaining on urban renewal, its red light district breathing its last. There was a little of everything and a lot of some things, and downtown was downtown, with bars and restaurants for blocks with names like the New Nook, the Mainliner, Chicken in Flight, and Johnny’s Vets Club. You could not buy beer on Sunday in Des Moines even into my lifetime, and I remember when the beer cooler at Hinky Dinky was draped in black on Sundays until noon, while my mother busied herself at the meat counter, leaving me to run and fetch her when the veil was removed, we could get the six pack, and go home.
...
In 1954, my mother had been out of the nuthouse for about three years. That is how she described it, and she never did not describe it: I don’t remember ever not knowing that my mother had been in the nuthouse. She pretended to be well to get out of the nuthouse, though she told me she felt nuts for another good six months before she went back to American Republic Insurance and into the normal life she’d vacated a year before. In 1954 she was 25 years old and had been sane, or some version of it, for nearly three years and divorced for just under two. She had pinned her hopes for normal on an attorney named Jimmy Daily who had recently gone back to his girlfriend Lois and after a three day drunk, she was single, owned a car, and had her own apartment and a closetful of tailored suits and tasteful pumps. She went forward relentlessly.
...
In 1954, my mother had been out of the nuthouse for about three years. That is how she described it, and she never did not describe it: I don’t remember ever not knowing that my mother had been in the nuthouse. She pretended to be well to get out of the nuthouse, though she told me she felt nuts for another good six months before she went back to American Republic Insurance and into the normal life she’d vacated a year before. In 1954 she was 25 years old and had been sane, or some version of it, for nearly three years and divorced for just under two. She had pinned her hopes for normal on an attorney named Jimmy Daily who had recently gone back to his girlfriend Lois and after a three day drunk, she was single, owned a car, and had her own apartment and a closetful of tailored suits and tasteful pumps. She went forward relentlessly.
