A vast amount of nonsense has been written about the Black Angel. Unless you are very credulous, best not to believe any of it. Did you know there is another Black Angel in Iowa? Read about it in Haunted Iowa right here on your own computer.
When I was a kid growing up in My home town it was safe to just take your bike downtown for the Saturday double feature, maybe see "The Thing" at the Rialto or Randolph Scott at the Dodge. This was a day that you would meet other kids from exotic parts of town. There were lots of kids everywhere this was the 50's and the baby boomers were all around. Rich kids from Round Praire or Snell place, Poor kids from the Flats or black kids from Plesant valley. There were kids from Bobtown and Swedetown and Exposition Park. Kids from the Southside, Northside, Eastlawn Arces or West Fort Dodge. Some kids just said they were from Corpis Christy, Holy Rosary maybe Sacred Heart. Just the name of your school was enough sometimes. The point is that everybody is from someplace and even little kids, with two or three words and the 80% of comunication that is non-verbal tell you who they are, well off or poor, tough or wimpy, smart or dumb and where they live within a couple of blocks.
That was then, this is now and far away in time and space. The parents of Iowa City do not even seem to want their kids to walk to school on account of a minor legion of predators that we are all too aware are out there. This explains the long line of cars outside the schools every day. I hear people say that kids are smarter today, that they have to deal with so much more, bullroar! I see the parents of Iowa City as over protecting the little no necks, encouraging them to stay home and go online leaving them less able in the social skills to know their place in the world. This may account for the constant fighting in the high schools that you will not read about in the local paper, just kids with no social skills attempting to grasp who and where they are after years of over protection from anxious parents who themselves have little sense of place in the world.
Iowa City people do not seem to want to name their niegborhoods or even get to know their nieghbors, except for a couple of exceptions. The pitiful fact is that most folks in Iowa City are transient and won't be around long. I think they do not give much of a damn about what to call where they live.
That is why I have a special place in my heart for Goosetown, people who live there seem genuinely proud to be from Goosetown. They even get territorial about what exactly are the borders of Goosetown. Most people in Iowa City do not give a figg about what is true Goosetown and what is not. I find this pride in place refreshing and elicits in me memories of growing up long ago and far away in a happier time and place where I could know who I was and where I lived. This is something kids do not have today and they are none the smarter for it.
Folk in Goosetown cultivate lots of little gardens and are not afraid to grow tomatos on the side of the house. They put their wash on the line. I would not live in a place where some covenent would deny me the right to sun dried clothing. I would quickly tell folks who tried to stop me to go to Hell or Iowa City, and for their sake I hope it's the former.
