Essay from Iowa City: Listening when no one talks to you

UPDATE Monday, Aug. 2.

Wow. Write a column about how much you enjoy a region and personal arrows fly. (See comments below).

So here's the deal. I'm all for free flow of ideas but I see a lot of personal attacks, individual-to-individual, in some of these comments. I'm not interested in them. I've deleted these attacks from responses, leaving what I deem to be comment on the content of the column. I've been fairly liberal with what I've left on the site.

I'm sure this will be criticized by the posters as "censorship." It isn't censorship. It is placing your personal argument where it should be -- between you.

I'd be glad to hear from other folks on how interested they are in a verbal fight between individuals instead of comment on the content of the column.

... Lyle

This is my Sunday, Aug. 1, column in The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA)

I am sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Iowa City on a recent July Saturday morning writing notes for this column. The previous Saturday the spot where I read my morning paper was a coffee shop in North Liberty. The previous week it was at a sidewalk table outside a coffee shop in downtown Cedar Rapids.

I have a bad habit related to a good latte, and I'll travel the Corridor to satisfy it.

Enough about the habit. The point of this column is the people, the setting and experience of this region dubbed as the Technology Corridor for the time being until a better, more marketable name can be determined for the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City region.

On this particular Saturday morning it is sunny and dry. Amazing blue sky. Iowa City retailers have put goods on racks on the sidewalk to draw customers. The Farmers Market at Chauncey Swan Park is teeming. Families are out on the Pedestrian Mall, with kids playing in the fountain or on the jungle gym and sending the message that downtown Iowa City is more than just bars, but a gathering place for people of all ages and backgrounds.

Inside this particular coffee shop families with small children are having breakfast. At one table, a man is studying chess figures stationed on a checkered board. In the corner, a woman is poring through papers – a common site in a town where academic grades are a commodity. Gentle jazz is playing over the speaker system.

Several laptop computers are open; I hardly am conspicuous with mine. One man loading up his bag and ready to leave asks the fellow on the table next to him about the computer the fellow is using. They don't appear to know each other. Their connection is their interest in the experience with the newest technology, and interesting conversation.

Really. The technology conversation is interesting.

So much has been written about Iowa City in idyllic terms, a natural byproduct of a city producing so many writers who become enamored with the college town and then go to places around the world, spreading the word. It probably is enough to make people in the rest of Iowa – Ames, for example – gag at times. But it also is enough to make those who miss the place after spending college years in the city feel like they've touched a fond memory or two.

Iowa City takes its annual August breather for a few weeks. Summer classes wrapped up Friday and the schedule leads to Aug. 23, when classes open for the fall semester at the University of Iowa. Iowa City will be swarming with new students and the town will be busy once again.

The simple sights on this quiet day in July become relevant because business and civic leaders stretching from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids have been trying for several decades to define what this region is. The Technology Corridor moniker may not be catching on as well as envisioned a little more than a decade, they say, and a consultant may be able to help with that.

A slice of Iowa City does not come close to providing the big picture. But something can be gained spending time experiencing the people who make up this Corridor, in full immersion wherever they are, with no distractions and an open mind. The people are interesting, their interests are eclectic and their towns are vibrant, and they can tell you that without uttering a word, just by how they act.