Coffee Talk

This morning's walk started in a coffee shop.  I was joined by two other people, and I had to leave Buc behind.  We met for coffee and tea at Coffe Cat, a locally owned business.  The proprietor, is a warm, bubbly person and is always game to connect people to events and organizations in Mason City.   She features local art, artisans, and hosts a Thursday night music jam.

It was rather difficult to decide to get moving after about 45 minutes of conversation and catch-up, but we finally decided to get going.  We headed to Mason City Public Library, and started down a walking trail behind the library.  The trail takes you down to what I believe is Willow Creek.  We walked along that trail there, talking about the floods of 2008 when the water had flooded out that particular trail, and the homes of many people here in Mason City.

Along Willow Creak

Back of Macnider Art Museum

Mansion on a Hill?

Walking West on the trail, we talked a little about people living down here, under the Pennsylvania Ave. bridge.  When we passed that area, there was only graffiti and a fire ring to indicate that people have spent a great deal of time there.  The following pictures are from under the bridge.

   

Our next steps took us across Willow Creek on a footbridge.  We then walked along River Heights Drive and remarked on the beautiful homes here, including a "castle," some large Victorians and some houses that were inspired by the Prairie School of architecture.

 

I learned that the hill on South Carolina down to E. State St. is a Driver's Education Hill; that to get your license here in Mason City, you have to know how to drive up and down steep hills, especially in icy conditions.  We turned West again along E. State St. and walked back through Rock Glen.  Foundational families of Mason City have lived in these homes, the people whose names are honored in parks, in streets and even in art museums.  We saw the home of the man that stored the Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass which was just recently re-installed in the Park Inn Hotel.

Walking allows time for transitions to sink in.  We started in a young, new public place in Mason City, then walked beneath a bridge to see evidence of human life lived underneath and back behind the faces of the city, set into a beautiful natural landscape, overhung by edifices of wood and stone.  We crossed a bridge and entered the established "Old World" of Mason City and finished the last leg of our trip among the fading and falling façades of the homes that used to shape the politics, economy and infrastructure of this town.  I was struck by the fact that both the rootless lifestyle lived under a bridge and the established lifestyle lived in a mansion are well beyond my own scope.  I was struck by how closely intertwined those lifestyles can be.  I was also intrigued by how hidden all these stories are.  They go on over the edge of the creek, behind the shade of the trees, and through the shadowed boxes of architecturally designed garages.