Page Twelve

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GRlNNELL HAS no delined slum areas, but houses like the
one above attest to the city's tailors to provide adequate

By CYNTHIA BRUST
JOHN WOLF
JEAN VANDERVOORT
' KAREN SUMMERS

JOHN PHILLIPS

A small town has no slums.
Most or the streets are paved, and
lighted, through all or the incor-
porated area. Grinneil's houses
have yards, and lawns, and TV
antennas. Must streets have side-
walks.

There are, however, unpainted,
leaning. broken-windowed houses
and shacks in Grinnell, diiiused
among the small-town cottages
and the older, larger trame hous
est Many oi the houses stand
empty, mute testimony to the tac-
tories that have closed in the last
ten years. and the new ones that

haven’t come. Most of them are
slowly being ruined: some by
time, some by vandals. and some
systematically, board by sal-
vageable board,

Wandering through Grinneii on
a fall atternoon, knocking on doors
of houses you wouldn’t want to
live in for a day, we found some
interesting ideas, and people. Our
first encounter was with 3 char
acter straight out or the dime
novel days. living with a black
dug in a small shack on 2nd Ave-
nue, As we Walked by his house,
cameras, notebooks, beards,
sweatshirts and sweaters. he
smiled at us so eagerly/1mm his
window that we couldn’t resist
stopping.

We talked or many things to this
oldish man who has temporarily

GRINNELL'S roverrr isn't only among the retired, Child-
ren. however. are given a chance by Uncle Sam‘s Club to
get away occaslonally (Loin conditions like this.

 

SCARLET AND BLACK

housing for all its citizens. This house is in the southwest

part of town.

“lolded up, to let the rest of the
world go by,” in Grinnell. He told
us of the days when he, too, wore
a beard, and sailed with the mer-
chant marines, ran a woodwork-
ing shop, collected ,and polished
gemstones and mineral samples
for sale, and prospeeted through
the west tor gold and silver. We
talked of politics. “I’m an inde-
pendent; I vote for the man," and
his first years in Grinnell, when
he was still working as a small
contractor. He assured us several
times, almost wisttutly, that his
health was getting better again.
and soon he would be back at
work. Meanwhile, what does he
live on? “I know the right people;
that's what counts,” was the only
answer he'd give.

Our friend talked to us of col-
lege a lot, that attemoon when
all or us were playing hookey
from Burling. He’d gone to a jun-
ior college in Fort Dodge, until he
“Get smart and left," because,
really, "What counted was the
money." Yet he assured us again
and again as we tool: his picture
and said good-bye that “Knowi-
edge is the biggest power in the
world. . it you have a little get
up and go with it." Then we left,
and he went back inside his little
house, to wait who knows how
long until someone else from the
rest of the world would stop as
they go by.

Atter this auspicious, and time-
consuming beginning, the project
began to get more difficult. We
were ill-ai-ease knocking on pear
ple's tloors, and they were unce
tom of what we wanted and
whether or not they trusted us.
Few were hostile,
them bhvtously felt that they had

luothiiig unusual or interesting to

utter us.

Most of the people we talked to
were old, and usually ill. One man
told us of working in the glove
factory for 40 years, until retiring
seven years ago. He and his with
live on social security; he has no
pension from the factory. His come
merit was a salty, “They wouldn't
send flowers it you diet], not that
Outfit.”

A classic little old lady and her
hen-peeked husband live in a tiny
run-down shack on a corner newA
lyrcreated by the extension or a
city street. After we were able to

hilt most of .

 

make her understand that we
just wanted to talk to her, not to
sell her a subscription to the pa—
per, she shooeo us away because
they were moving, although she
said we could come back some
other day. We did manage to
find .out that she had grown up
in Grinnell, and she volunteered
the tact that her mother had
worked for the college.

A younger woman, whose famir
IV has lived in Grinnell (or several
generations, hesitantly told us

i

 

 

 

Friday, November 5. 1%!

us to thank her and leave rather
hastily, unable to [ind out what
this family in the spreading, sage
giiig house did ior money to live
on.

Nearby, in a frame structure
that looked as it it would take
only one pull and no hufis at all
to blow down, we found our tirst
transient, He‘s been here [or 6
months, but he plans to head back
to Washington state in another
three or four months. He ended up
at Grinnell because he has friends
here. but he doesn’t like lowa—
especially the taxes. He works on
road construction, and is presenb
ly contracted to work on the
bridges of the new highway near
Victor.

Grmnell's Poverty ls Diffuse, But It Isn't Hard To Find

grinning brother and sister whose
mother fumed as they posed for
pictures. They later threw a chunk
of mud at our car as we passed
their house. And the Uncle Sam’s
Club kids, because \Ve'd parked
there, wanted pictures taken. A
quick and arbitrary survey
showed that the kids near us all
had 6 or 7 brothers and sisters,
and several of them Said their
Daddies “stayed home” when we
asked what they (lld during the
day,

As we drove back to the college,
we tried to theorize about our dlS‘
coveries, and our apparent tail.
ure to discover any great degree
of poverty. Maybe a small town
is deceptive, hides its poverty
better than a city is able. We also
worked under the handicap of have
ing nothing to judge by but the

 

external appearance of the house

THE OLD FROSPECTOR in this picture is ashamed of living
in a "shanty," but he holds out hope that he will soon be
able to return to work.

that her husband was ill, and not
working. They have 11 clllldi'en,
many of whom are grown and
live in lieitl‘»by towns, and she
assured me that she “sure did
work,” although she has no in-
come-producing job! she said that
almost all at her Children have
gone or do go to Uncle Sam's
club, but her obvious embarrass»
ment at the whole situation led

~an uncertain criterion at be t.
Perhaps we missed a lot of Gr
nell's poverty-stricken, especially
the old and lonely who live in
rooms rented from the big houses
where you'd never think to 100k
for the poor. We didn’t prove
much ot anything in our explora-
tion, except that small-town povere
ly is a mysterious, elusive, but
very much present force.

We met children, too. A small,‘

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