Friday, March 29, 2024

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Posted April 20, 2021in Joe's Extra

‘Petrichor sighting in Des Moines’

The rain drizzles against my hat in a steady pat-pat-pat. It can’t decide whether to come down in a torrent or to give up and go back home. Perhaps it’s [...]

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Posted March 22, 2021in Joe's Extra

March madness

“Weeg,” my eighth-grade basketball coach yelled, “go in for Brown.” Sure. Behind by 30 points, the coach thinks it’s safe for me to enter the game. But is it really? [...]

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Posted May 06, 2020in Joe's Extra

How I spent my virtual Dutch vacation

Lockdown. It used to be a term that I’d hear back when I was a criminal prosecutor and trying to talk to a witness. “Sorry, sir, you can’t see the [...]

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Posted April 30, 2020in Joe's Extra

2020 Drake Relays — a slight variation

“Drake University has postponed the 2020 Drake Relays.”  The sporting world goes quiet. The blue oval is an empty, wind-swept desert. A hotdog in a steamed bun is a distant [...]

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Posted April 10, 2020in Joe's Extra

Yes, Juliette, there is a Santa Claus

No matter your problems and worries, nature is like a cool cloth against your warm forehead. Yes, Juliette, there is a Santa Claus. Sure, it’s scary times — pestilence, politics [...]

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Posted March 09, 2020in Joe's Extra

Tromping around with a dog

Dogs just aren’t my thing. Sorry all you dog lovers. It’s just the way it is.               Sure, I’ve had more than my share of the mangy critters. Why? Because my wife [...]

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Posted December 24, 2019in Joe's Extra

Fish, speed dating, and Dutch

The tall, strong-looking Dutch woman began her story by telling me about fish. The story suddenly took a right turn into speed dating. And then the darn thing ended up [...]

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Posted December 18, 2019in Joe's Extra

Raining in Dutch

Rain in the Netherlands has a certain texture that doesn’t exist back home in Iowa. Here in the Netherlands the rain rarely rages with such thunder and lightning that you [...]

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Posted December 11, 2019in Joe's Extra

An Iowa boy in the Mauritshuis

She’s definitely looking at me. Of course, it’s just a trick of the eye. A common phenomenon. We’ve all experienced it. But still. After all the adulation, the paparazzi, the [...]

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