Posted December 04, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
P.T. Barnum would have been impressed by the showmanship. The holidays have arrived whether I want them to or not. We have worked all year for this moment when we spend our hard-earned money on the people we care about the most — and those who we can’t get away
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Posted November 06, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
It was my soul food. I am a Chinese food junky, especially old-fashion sit-down places. When I was growing up in the Quad Cities, my dad would take me to a place in Milan, Illinois, called Shanghai. Shanghai was an old-school, sit-down Chinese place. It was also affordable, so it
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Posted October 02, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
Did you ride the “Hydrotube”? The new season of “Stranger Things” has sparked nostalgic interest in shopping malls. The show highlighted an abandoned mall that was brought back to life as a surging metropolis complete with a pretzel shop, a food court and shopping options as far the eye could
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Posted September 04, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
His leadership at the time continues to be impactful today. I often think about the different parts of my life and how social climates are different. I was born Sept. 11, 1985. The Midwest, as a whole, had a strong middle class, and a good union job could feed a
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Posted July 31, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
Betty Lou Varnum’s show was a safe place for many central Iowa kids. I wish I could have experienced television the way children and adults did back in the 1950s. I imagine it was similar to the first time many of us saw what the Internet had to offer in
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Posted July 03, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
Big dreams were behind the Warren County track, as it was to be one of the premiere road-racing tracks in the U.S. In October of 2012, I co-hosted Home Movie Day Des Moines, a film event where people brought in their homemade 8mm and 16mm films. Janet Barcheski Green had
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Posted June 05, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
When America needs a break from the worries of the world… Take me out to the ball game. With summer right around the corner, I felt it was time to come out of the closet and say, “I love baseball.” I don’t follow any teams, nor do I care much
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Posted May 01, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
Artifacts are still buried under the city-built levee including light posts and the tunnel of love. One of the most talked about places in Des Moines lore comes from the north side of town in the Oak Park Neighborhood off of Sixth Avenue on Corning Avenue. A small island that
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Posted April 03, 2019in Des Moines Forgotten
From the 1940s until the late 1980s, major movie studios had offices in Des Moines. Editor’s note: Des Moines Forgotten is a new column by Kristian Day that will focus on the significant works related to the people, places and events of Des Moines that no longer exist. Patty Crouse
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