Coralville Iowa – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Because I Wanted a Hurts Donut…

I got an urge for a Hurts Donut so I walked on the Clear Creek Trail to Coralville get to the little hole in the wall shop. You can easily walk to several places in Coralville on the trail. Actually, I wanted to also check out the Coralville Public Library and see S.T. Morrison Park. I’ve never been to that park so it was a novelty all by itself.

It took about 45 minutes to walk to that part of town. It’s great exercise and beats the traffic. You have to walk under some railroad tracks and there’s a sign warning you not to stand in the culvert below while the train is passing over the top. I can see why.

There are funny signs in the rustic Hurts Donut shop. You can see the corny “Wanna hurts donut?” jokes on the walls. There’s another sign saying “School is important but donuts are importanter,” which reminds me of my coffee mug which says sort of the same thing about cribbage: “Education is important but cribbage is importanter.”

The Old-Fashioned donuts there are so good, but so bad for you. I had two.

The Coralville Public Library has a beautiful skylight. I haven’t been in a public library for ages and so it was fascinating to see that libraries haven’t changed much.

In fact, after I found one of Dave Barry’s books, “Dave Barry Book of Bad Songs,” (published in 1997; I had a copy but it got lost in a move) I asked one of the librarians about the old rule I learned as a kid. You might remember it too if you’re old enough. When you pick a book off the shelf and go to a reading room to look it over—can you just put it back on the shelf where you found it or do you have to give it the librarian who will reshelve it?

If you guessed that you have to give it to a librarian, you’re right and you’ve probably dated yourself. The librarian joked that some things never change. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Among the things that never change are the difficult to understand lyrics in some songs. Dave Barry wrote a whole chapter about it in the Book of Bad Songs, “Songs People Get Wrong.” He mentions one of them, which I always got wrong but never told anyone about it because it was embarrassing. It’s a lyric in the song “Blinded by the Light” that Barry said was done by Bruce Springsteen, but which I didn’t hear until Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covered it.

So, here’s my deal with that lyric. I always heard “wrapped up like a douche” instead of “revved up like a deuce.” Barry notes that many people made the same mistake. Funny thing, Barry never mentions what that common mistake is called and it’s a mondegreen (a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from mishearing the lyrics of a song). Music is important but mondegreens are importanter.

I finally saw Morrison Park and it’s a very restful place. You can contemplate the sculpture which is placed in the center of a pond. Ducks paddle around it. It’s called “Silver Lilly” and it was made by Professor Hu Hung-shu. Art is important.

An Unexpected Encounter with Bigfoot on the Clear Creek Trail

The other day we put in about a 2.5 mile walk on the Clear Creek Trail in Coralville. We haven’t been there in a long while. It gets really quiet along the wooded trail. Sometimes even the birds don’t sing.

It was pretty quiet except for some strange knocking noises. You know, Sena has taken the lead in spotting Bigfoot in our walks in three parks, counting our latest trek. She saw Bigfoot in Hickory Hill Park, Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, and now again on the Clear Creek Trail.

She’s a Bigfoot hunter, there’s no doubt. This Bigfoot we saw a couple days ago was different. It obviously was interested in helping the Hawkeye football team with their offense. It eats plant-based cheese for some reason. I always thought it preferred beef jerky.

Did you know Bigfoot plays guitar?

150 Years of Coralville and Iowa River Flathead Catfish as Big as Your Leg!

We found out we missed the wheat paste murals posted on various buildings in Coralville this past summer. It’s the 150^th anniversary of the city of Coralville in Iowa this year. You can find out more about it on the Coralville Public Library web site.

We drove around and found some of the murals were still up. They generally last about 2-3 months. There were murals on West Music and the Coralville Recreation Center, but they were gone.

In our YouTube, the murals we found are in order of appearance on the video:

The ice block mural is on Randy’s Flooring on 2^nd Street. It’s a picture of the Jacob C. Hotz Ice Company Employees circa 1900s-1910s. They’re on the Iowa River. Workers were paid 10 cents an hour. Talk about your minimum wage.

The mural of 3 ladies who we don’t know anything about and the “Watch It Grow” image are on the Coralville Public Library in the 5^th St. Plaza.

The long timeline mural is on the Coralville Community Food Pantry on 13^th Avenue.

The Blue Top Motel mural is on Chong’s Supermarket on 2^nd Street. According to the Coralville Public Library, the Blue Top motor court was built in the 1940s. No mention whether lodgers were abducted by extraterrestrials.

The mural of two fishermen with the two huge flathead catfish as big as a man’s leg they landed in the 1920s in the Iowa River is on the Iowa River Power Restaurant on 1^st Avenue. This is my personal favorite. All I ever caught in my wasted childhood were bullhead as big as my fist.

You can see fishline and bobbers floating in the Iowa River. You can even see a handsome sculpture of a dragonfly sitting on a bobber on one side of the river. We saw one guy with at least three fishing poles rushing around to different spots next to the Iowa River Power Restaurant. I think he was hoping to land a big flathead—but all we saw him catch was a snag.

Happy 150^th birthday, Coralville!

Walking the Clear Creek Trail—Looking for a Hamburger

Recently, we took a walk on the Clear Creek Trail in Coralville. There are always a lot of birds out and they all have different songs. We hear more birds than we see because the trail is crowded with trees.

On the other hand, the highlight of the afternoon was stopping for lunch at the Wendy’s drive-thru. They’re selling that $5 Biggie Bag. We ordered a couple of those and the cashier who took the order asked what we kind of burgers we wanted. She rattled off the choices so fast.

I guess we weren’t listening. I think you get 3 choices for burgers (although I cheated for this post by googling it): junior bacon cheeseburger, crispy chicken BLT, or a double stack. You also get chicken nuggets, fries, and a drink.

Sena said, “I want a vegetable hamburger, two of them.” I had to laugh when the clerk was silent for a long moment—and repeated “vegetable hamburger” in a puzzled-sounding voice. But I give her credit; she made a quick recovery and said “Oh, do you mean you want the junior bacon cheeseburger?”

Sena just said, “Oh yeah!”

I’m pretty sure the cashier was having a moment about the “vegetable hamburger” bit. It’s likely a dated term and many younger people might think it means a meatless sandwich.

In fact, when I did a quick internet search asking “does anybody know what a vegetable hamburger is these days?” I got all kind of hits for plant-based burgers. No hits for a real meat hamburger with tomatoes, lettuce, onion, and pickles. A veggie burger nowadays is defined as a “burger patty that does not contain meat.”

And that reminded me of the Wendy’s 1980s ad campaign with the “Where’s the beef!” lady starring in the commercials, which I’m pretty sure nobody but baby boomers remember either.

And then there’s the Wendy’s new Biggie Bag commercial. It’s the one where a bunch of Wendy’s workers are singing about the Biggie Bag and a customer asks, “Is that a real song?”