The intent of Iowa life is to capture the ideas and images that make up the experience of living in Iowa. From whatever source possible. From whatever angle necessary. With a definite slant towards observational posting, as opposed to opinion driven posting.
Is it living in the city? Small towns? The countryside? Yes. Although each experience is different, there is a bond. What makes one life different from another? What about locations? Is growing up in Belmond even comparable to growing up in Bettendorf?
The demographics have changed radically in the last 50 years. So have the jobs. The standard of living. The tabs at the top of the page capture the categories of life.
Iowa life 
I enjoy reading your blog. You write on a variety of topics.
I believe I read someplace that you are retired. What kind of work were you doing before you retired?
Thanks! I like to think I write about things men think about. Women, cars, guns, politics, movies, religion, art, music…
Same here as far as reading about your adventures. They are very interesting. Especially that you’ve stayed safe/alive all this time!
I run 2 of my blogs anonymously, so I’ll just say outdoor work, manual labor.
If you did outdoor work, maybe our paths had crossed years ago. I worked at Hanson Lumber Company off and on back in 1977-79. I did a lot of work in the saw shop, so most of the guys called me “Sawman”. I went to school at DMACC in Boone and later at Iowa State. I came back to Ames in 1987 and got my job back at Hanson Lumber. I started school again at Iowa State in 1989 and finished with a BA in English Literature in 1995.
I quit working at Hanson Lumber in 1996 (Hanson Lumber went out of business in 2001) and started hitchhiking around the United States. From 1996 through 2001, I worked at Harold Pike Construction Company off and on (they hired me 10 times; I would work for a while and then I would hit the road and hitchhike). One time I was gone for about a month and got dropped off on U.S. 30 outside of Boone and Dave, the mechanic at Pike Construction, picked me up and drove to Ames. He started laughing and said that the guys at Pike Construction had a pool going on when I would make it back to work. Technically, I got back to Ames on a Saturday, but I went back to work on a Monday, so two guys won the pool.
While I was staying at the Emergency Residence Project (The Bridge Home) back in 2001, this young lady, Bethany Kohoutek, a student at Iowa State, interviewed some of the guys (including myself) at the shelter. The article was titled “The Poor in Ames”. It was published by ETHOS Magazine, February 2001, Iowa State University. ETHOS is published by the Journalism Department at Iowa State. The article is on both of my blogs.
So that’s my history of living in Ames.
I remember I was hitchhiking in Wyoming years ago and got dropped in Buffalo. I went to the library and noticed a book titled THE GIRLS FROM AMES by Jeffrey Zaslow; it was a nonfiction bestseller back in 2009. My guess is that they had a big write-up about the book in the Ames newspaper.