Posted October 06, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
Waukee was once a “company town.” I have been spending time lately in Bentonville, Arkansas (seven days a month since July to be exact). Many scholars of useless information will tell you about Bentonville being the mecca of the retail universe. I’ll save you the time of Googling and tell
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Posted September 01, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
It was a birthday I will never forget. I woke up on the morning of my 16th birthday like I did any other day and got myself ready for school. But 20 years ago in my hometown of Aurora, Illinois, Sept. 11 was anything but a typical day. My first
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Posted August 04, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
World’s largest man, Bobo the clown, Siamese twins and chameleons To think that it has been two years since the last Iowa State Fair is bonkers to me. I did attend the food truck deal they had last August, which was fun but obviously not the same. I am also
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Posted June 30, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
One of the world’s largest swimming pools operated from 1922 through 2001. My summers as a kid in the Quad Cities were not that much different than most other kids’ during the early 1990s. There was a dirt park a half-mile away from my home where I would ride my
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Posted June 02, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
The origins may be a bit hazy, but the memories are clear. I have been a patron of the Roosevelt Barbershop for nearly 10 years, and I expect to be for years to come. Next to Pope’s off Ingersoll, this may be one of the oldest barbering spots in the
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Posted May 05, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
Des Moines’ forgotten history includes the making of feature-length Christian films in the 1970s. It actually goes back to the late 1960s with a man named Russ Doughten from Carlisle who saw an opportunity to produce evangelical Christian/faith-based films and distribute them through church organizations to be used as learning
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Posted March 31, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
Many most of us take for granted that we can get most anywhere in the metro area in less than 20 minutes. We are all used to waiting until the last minute to go somewhere because we can hop onto I-235 and hustle our way to our pre-determined destinations quickly.
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Posted March 03, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
Millennials can be split into two groups: those of us born in the 1980s and those born in the 1990s. The 1980s-born kids still had a chance to enjoy life before the Internet, which included climbing trees, renting videos from a store, and trying to steal our old man’s Playboy.
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Posted February 03, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
It might be a little out of season to be thinking about summer festivals, but a reader reached out to me with a topic that I have been curious about for several years. The Iowa Renaissance Faire has yet to physically lure me in, but I have a handful of
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Posted January 06, 2021in Des Moines Forgotten
Do you remember when The Doors played Des Moines? No? Well, they did, and it went down in history as the worst show in their entire history of performing. Ouch! Bob Modersohn should be credited as co-author of this piece, as he brought this to our attention. Modersohn was a
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