READER REACTIONS

I like to share the reactions, spoken and written, I’ve received from readers since I started writing Common Ground. I think the responses add context and nuance to my stories. I really need to know how what I write has affected people intellectually and emotionally. I need to know if what I write has spurred them to action in some way. I try to respond to readers who take the time to write to me, but I know I’m probably missing a few, partly because I’m still navigating the Substack system. I hope this column sends you back to a column you missed or convinces you to move from a follower to a subscriber. Even better, I hope you’ll suggest my column to people you think might be interested in finding Common Ground.

DOLLY AND THE POPE

I could never have guessed, for instance, that reading Dolly and the Pope would inspire Arnold Garson, also a member of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative, to write about his interfaith marriage. If you haven’t read An Interfaith Marriage of 60 Years Ago, I hope you will.

I also heard from sportswriter Jane Burns, who said: “I remember when my cousin married a LUTHERAN and what a scandal that was for my Catholic family. I think my mom even pondered if indeed I should be the junior bride as my cousin had asked. But my mom’s love for her niece and goddaughter certainly won out over any thoughts she might have had about that. It, too, was a good long happy marriage that lasted just a few months under 50 years…”

Most special was hearing from our niece Alysa Hansen who lives in Pennsylvania. My mother-in-law, who overcame her alcoholism and taught me the Serenity Prayer, was her grandmother. “I didn’t realize till after reading this how much I have inherited my grandmother’s DNA. She was a fearless survivor, and I clearly know now why my mom wanted me to cherish my Catholic faith,” writes Alysa.

WE CAN’T LOSE ONE MORE THING

A reader, Carmazon, responded to We Can’t Lose One More Thing about the Fenton, Iowa Library. She reminded me that city libraries create community as well. I loved her response about my DC neighborhood, Cleveland Park. The library was two blocks from the house we rented, and I watched the community come together to build a new library there. She said, “This piece reminded me that in urban areas libraries can serve the purpose of turning neighborhoods into small towns. The Cleveland Park Library in DC increasingly is a community center as much as its traditional library role. Good to hear that there were some library victories,” she writes.

And hometown girl, Theresa Bomhoff, who now lives in Des Moines, gave a shout-out to Fenton saying how proud she is of what this “organized” group of people has accomplished.

I certainly would never have guessed that Gordon Schenck of Kansas City, formerly of Algona, would be moved to write a poem about small places after reading We Just Can’t Lose One More Thing.

people in small places 2025.06.04

the people in small places

and the graces it affords them

and the terror that comes for them

and how they face the

turbulent rivers before them

and ford them

the people in small places

in the desert spaces

under an arid sky

knowing they will die

if they cross it

or those that deny

that they exist

and still try

the people in small places

walking the railways

on the way

through hate

having left their homes

because they couldn’t wait

for their god to love them

and change their fate

the people in small places

will not be denied

the people in small places

are welcome in mine.

AMY’S NAILS

Gordon could just as easily have been responding to Amy’s Nails about a friend of mine whose citizenship ceremony I attended. Now Amy is doing business in the rural community of Winterset where she had many friends. This story got more views that anything I’ve written so far. Long time friend from Southeast Iowa, Cheri McKee responded, “We so desperately need to tout the positive aspects of immigration. My mother helped a young Korean bride of a local serviceman earn her GED back in the 70’s. She went on to become a successful hair salon owner.”

And from Jan Lange from Mt. Pleasant, “It was 35 years ago when our church sponsored a family from Laos. I would teach new words to my two-year-old and their four-year-old at the same time. I have wonderful memories of the family’s journey to citizenship. I wish there was an easy answer to the immigrant situation in our country today. “

I’m honored that the Winterset Madisonian is going to publish Amy’s story in this week’s edition. Our friend Darrell Limkemin from Bloomfield sent me a clipping from the Bloomfield Democrat, which published Dolly and the Pope. As a proponent of small-town dailies and weeklies, this made me proud. I’m also honored that the Daily Dispatch online picked up the Dolly and the Pope story.

ORACLE OF OMAHA

I heard from John Christy after I wrote the Oracle of Omaha, who said, “Warren Buffett has included so many ‘pearls of wisdom’ over the years through his letters to shareholders. A recent letter clearly rises to the top for me. In the letter he shows, repeatedly, genuine humility…And he offers parental advice. A very heartwarming letter!”

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE

I met Sue Denny at a Wallace House Lunch earlier this year. It was great to hear from her in response to I Pledge Allegiance about learning over time what it means to say the pledge to our flag. “Standing on a U.S. Army reviewing stand is when everything I’d learned in school truly became mine. Ten years as a military wife, with certain requirements, never felt a chore. It was always a way to show respect, love of country and often heart-stopping and always with tears.”

Thanks for the memory, Matt Russell, farmer, activist and former USDA State Executive Director for Iowa. He wrote, “I played Taps and read poems and speeches at the cemetery in Anita on Memorial Days throughout junior high and high school. Lots of my fellow Spartans volunteered for this community event. The American Legion in Anita puts out a huge number of flags throughout the cemetery every Memorial Day weekend. For me that sense of community, history, remembering those who have died and leaning into the future grounded in our values is what the American Flag means to me.”

USAID

Kathy Zimpleman, a friend, activist and supporter of small towns, had this to say about my USAID column: “To me the most striking thing about Christie’s column is that government employees are not allowed to use government money to tell people what they do. So much of the important work done by career employees goes unnoticed until there is no one and no money to continue the work. Michael Lewis has a very good book titled WHO IS GOVERNMENT? In it he tells that same story. They do not get, nor do they seek, credit for their lifetime of work because it is hidden behind a wall…A functioning government is essential to a civil society.”

In the past few weeks, I have heard back from several colleagues at USAID. I’d reached out to find how they’re holding up and how they’re thinking about next steps. When I first met these young women 12 years ago, they were young Foreign Service Officers moving up in the agency. One of them had just assumed leadership of Education at the DC office. She had grown up in a USAID family and had spent most of her life living in developing countries. She understood part of her obligation was to spend a few years in DC developing strategy and overseeing 30 plus employees working in the office and around the world to assure that the priorities of the administration were carried out.

When my email reached her, she was sitting at her desk finishing the paperwork to finalize leaving a job she loves at the pinnacle of her career. And yet, her first worry was for a colleague, a single mom with a child with a disability, who is being forced to move back to the U.S. from her new post, jobless. Like all Foreign Service Officers, these women are resilient. They are used to working with governments in new democracies or in countries that have never been democracies. They will all be in demand even in a crowded field of talented people uprooted from their professions mid-career. But cutting programs and people should be justifiable, should not be random and should not be purposefully cruel. This isn’t how a democracy is supposed to work.

On a lighter note, life-long friend, Edie Dickenson, wrote in response to The Nanny Met Dustin Hoffman. She reminded me that in grade school we cried over “The King and I”. And I reminded her back that I didn’t understand her fascination with Elvis Presley. I do recommend a movie we missed when it came out in 2000, Finding Forrester, which parallels the life of J.D. Salinger. Sean Connery stars as the writer and Rob Brown as his protégé. If you need a lift in these turbulent times, try it. I’m open to suggestions for favorite movies since 1950.