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15Mar 2015 by Lynda Waddington

All about that race (no trouble)

Gazette Column

Decades ago, when our family came to Iowa, I found the Hawkeye State uncomfortable. Not only did our oldest daughter and I have twangy southern accents that had people asking us to repeat slowly drawled words and phrases — “High-Ah-Wah-Tha, Eye-Oh-Wah” was, in retrospect, one of the more accent-challenged place names for our first home — but it was strange to suddenly be surrounded mostly by people who outwardly looked a great deal like me. Growing up, I don’t remember any calls for diversity. But that’s probably because my hometown was an imperfect mix of cultures and skin tones. The situation was, of course, not to everyone’s liking. There were residents there, just as there are here, who chose to judge others on appearance. Fortunately, my family, led by my…

15Feb 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Love on display at basketball game

Gazette Column

Valentine’s Day is upon us again. It is what I consider a fairly useless holiday, filled as it often is with the vestiges of naive love. Enduring love has little to do with heart-shaped candies and red-inked greeting cards. The type of love that lasts, that matters, doesn’t lend itself well to poetry or song lyrics. Love, at least by my way of thinking, is understanding faults and working to better them. Love is seeing and knowing it all — moments of selfishness, flashes of insecurity, flights of boastfulness — and believing life would be less without the shortcomings. Such thoughts have been on my mind throughout the week as I considered what might fill this column. But on Tuesday, a particularly frustrating day, I set them aside. My daughter…

22Dec 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Let Santa bring the small stuff

Gazette Column

What are your favorite childhood memories of Christmas? I remember getting up early and pouncing on my stocking, which was always filled with a few pieces of candy, a few small toys or trinkets and a lot of fresh fruit and nuts. Santa would also leave one or two gifts, often with a bow on top but seldom fully wrapped. The ongoing joke in my parents’ home was that Santa was a health nut. This is why he always delivered fresh fruits and nuts — he wanted us to be healthy. The truth about the fruit, however, dated back to the years before I was born, when our large family had many children living at home and few resources. Placing fruit in the stocking was a way for my cash-strapped…

03Nov 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Looking ahead as election craziness nears end

Gazette Column

Rejoice, fellow Iowans. We’ve outlived the seemingly never-ending stream of political nastiness that attempted to hijack our lives — not to mention our mailboxes, streetscapes, televisions, Web browsers and radios. If you, like me, have found shelter from the murky deluge in books and podcasts, now is the time to roll back the rock and re-enter the world anew. Fair warning: We’ve missed the best of the fall colors, and it’s quite a bit colder out there. No matter who garners the most votes on Tuesday, the candidate signs will soon come down or be covered by snow. And, much to the abject joy of our Opinion Team, letter writers will consider fresh topics. Television ads will once again offer clear pictures of people’s faces and soundtracks less suited to…

12Oct 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Be the mirror they need to see

Gazette Column

We aren’t doing right by our young adults. Perched on the edge of a large pink bubble — part sofa, part catchall — I waited for my teenage daughter to model one of the homecoming dresses she had in the changing room. I chit-chatted with other moms-in-waiting, but mostly indulged in the usually enjoyable experience of people watching. This time what I heard and saw hurt. “I hate my shoulders.” • “My thighs are so fat.” • “I don’t have the boobs to carry this off.” Shopping for prom and homecoming dresses is a coming-of-age rite of passage for most teen girls and their mothers. I engaged in it with my own mom, although she could go home and sew a dress based on what we liked. I also wonder…

14Sep 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Another year, hole remains

Gazette Column

He should have turned sweet 16 today. It’s kind of funny, or maybe just sad, that even today, 16 years after our son was stillborn, I still pause and wonder what he’d be doing if he had lived. Maybe he’d be running football two-a-days. Or maybe, like our younger son, he’d require crowbar extraction from his computer. So many possibilities — all of them shattered. Despite the emotional pain, I can’t stop pulling each one out, dusting it off and taking a test drive. It took me a long time to realize that death, in and of itself, isn’t what tugs at the heart year after year and plays on the emotions. It is the promises death steals and opportunities it obstructs that haunt you, nudging toward what-ifs and the…

17Aug 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Bittersweet balancing act of life

Gazette Column

In the summer of 1988, I was 20-years-old. had two years of college under my belt, and sneaked out of my parents’ house for the first time. The overstuffed car had 4-60 air conditioning — four windows down, traveling at 60 miles per hour. From the radio and years before a Rick-rolled meme, Astley pledged he was “never gonna give us up.” Laughter shot around like a pinball, lighting up faces in the darkness, and no one wanted to let it to fall through the flippers. Earlier that day, thinking how I was now a college woman and all, I informed my mother I’d be heading off to watch a movie. Unfortunately, I also arrogantly named the film: Good Morning, Vietnam. Only two subjects of discussion were prohibited in my…

13Apr 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Drop the labels and hop in

Gazette Column

You think you know me. Even if you’ve never read a single word I’ve ever written, there’s no doubt you’ve already glanced at the photo on this page and perceived what would follow. My guess is that you are skimming, searching for those key words or phrases that will make it easier for you to attach any number of labels to me. Liberal. Conservative. Flyover country, breadbasket white. Blonde. Materialistic. Granola. After all, choosing a few labels — or, for my fellow bibliophiles, “people-genres” — provides the illusion of order. The known, however predictable and stale, is often preferred to the unknown. It’s a lot safer, we believe, to pull into an already known franchise restaurant than risk our hunger on a local, mom-and-pop diner in a strange geography. Given…

17Dec 2011 by Lynda Waddington

What Stephen Bloom is missing about Iowa

Various

A Southern transplant to the Hawkeye State explains the fuss over his article, and the Iowa rules he broke. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Last week, as I was entering a strip-mall clothing boutique, I held the door for a woman I didn't know. She did a little trot to arrive at the door a fraction of a second earlier, expressed her thanks and then erupted in laughter. In answer to my raised eyebrows she explained: "We had family from Florida for the Thanksgiving holidays and they kept asking us, 'Why does everyone here hold the door for everyone else?' I told them that holding doors was just nice and a part of who we are. We like to do little things like that for each other. It's just respectful." I…