The Native Iowan

It’s a Friday, the last Friday in September. The calendar and the seasons turning a page. Here, we are heading to summer. Up North its the reverse, winter on it’s way. The leaves are turning, the days shortening. Sunrise for me is now about 6am. Within a month or so it’ll be 4am. I’m preparing for the 4am sunrise and the cacophony of birdlife waking me up too, too early.

My valley is happy. A light rainfall started very early and lasted all morning. Only now, 1030am, the sun peeping from behind the clouds. The dogs have been sedate. Happy to lie in their beds and enjoy the cool, slow morning. Just like me… Ive been sitting, wrapped up in my granny-blanket since about 5am.

A slow, soft quiet day…

My big old house is empty. Gracie has gone to the city for a weekend with friends. Gigi and Nova were picked up by their parents yesterday. After almost 2weeks of noise and confusion and mess, I get to sit quiet, soft and quiet.

The girls had 2weeks off from school and came out to enjoy the freedom of both the farm, and the old folks. Nova is 6/7, Gigi is 9/18. Both are way too smart and way too quick to show you how smart they are. I do raise good, smart pups… here we have Nia with Gigi…

On days like this I spend a lot of time watching and listening and reading and writing…

I see a big-arsed Cat4 storm running through the Gulf and onto the Florida panhandle… my old bud, Dr RW, I do hope you keep your head down. A Cat4 weather event is no joke… winds over 130mph, pushing a huge storm surge and carrying heaps of rain… the little dot, the eye of the storm, tells us how tight and heavy this system is. Hang on… Pucker Time!!!

I see that the mental illness of the USofA is alive and well… I think back to the 1970s when I was a key-carrying strong-arm at the Mental Institute outside of Independence, Iowa… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_State_Hospital

The Independence State Hospital was built in 1873 as the second asylum in the state of Iowa. It is located in Independence, Iowa. The original plan for patients was to relieve crowding from the hospital at Mount Pleasant and to hold alcoholics, geriatrics, drug addicts, mentally ill, and the criminally insane. It was built under the Kirkbride Plan. The hospital’s many names have included: The Independence Lunatic Asylum, The Independence State Asylum, The Independence Asylum for the Insane, The Iowa State Hospital for the Insane, and The Independence Mental Health Institute. There is also a labyrinth of tunnels which connect every building. Like most asylums of its time, it has had a gruesome and dark history. Remnants of this are the graveyard, hydrotherapy tubs, and lobotomy equipment.

I know the place well, having spent many hours prowling the dark, sometimes abandoned rooms and suites in the huge, sprawling facility, with its labyrinth tunnels. You talk about scary-shit… I’ve got some great stories. I worked there in 1976. My father worked there as a Therapist. I spent much of my young life hanging with my dad at the MHI, Mental Health Institute. I knew it quite well.

Most of the facility had been shut down by my time. I think there were upwards to a thousand patients, in the day. When I was there I dont think there were more than 200. The hallways and tunnels were filled with energies.

I worked 2nd-shift, 4-12. I was in high school and would get out early so I could go to work. Many of my hours at work were spent watching the patients sleep, and writing nurses notes. And… prowling the huge facility.

My job was as a “Psych-Aid”, meant I was there to assist the Psych-Nurses and Doctors.

It was a cool place to work, spend time. One key opened every door in the facility. I had 2keys… one to open and close doors, 1 to use on the “humane-restraints” that were used to tie folks down. It was an interesting job, an interesting place.

As an Aid I would get sent to different wards and on various errands where Id be free to dawdle and treasure hunt… I’d dig through closed wings and wards, searching for cool stuff… a set of great old apothecary scales… an amazing old clock… a surgical suite with cool, cool old tools and such… An amazing place. I wish I could get the keys and go back for another look.

On a good day it was an easy job. Mainly just keeping the patients calm and quiet. Only a couple wards were operating in my day… The geriatric ward was male and female. The intake wards, male and female, the chronic wards, male and female, the juvenile wards male and female. There was a seperate Childs facility but I never work there. Mostly it was a job of maintaining a copacetic quiet (not always easy) and herding the patients to the cafeteria, or to some activity.

On a bad day there would be fights and drama and trouble. I eventually got injured retraining a guy who had slit his wrists in the parking lot. I couldn’t “hurt” the patient, hit him or fight back, so as the guy was bleeding all over and kicking the shit out of me, I had to get my belt off and hog-tie his legs, and eventually get a choke hold on him. He was an ex-Nam vet with an “AirBorne” tattoo, and was a tough cookie.

One time I was taken by surprise… walked onto the admissions ward just as a guy went off… We (Hal Rowe and I) got him restrained and the nurse had us put him on a trolley and we were told to take him to the ECT theatre… Electro Convulsive Therapy…. it’s scary shit to be involved in… wrapping the guy in sheets and holding him down, careful not to touch the metal table, as the Dr pushed a million volts through his cranium. He bucked a foot or more off the table. I struggled not to puke and cry and run away. Disturbing shit.

And the work carried out at the facility for these past 150years has done little to alleviate the mass mental malfunctions I see in the US society… its sad, stupid, silly…

I think of the Phillipines… every election cycle there is mass hysteria. Folks working in Manila usually leave during election season. Like locals in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, you leave to avoid the insanity…

Time to be active.

More later