By Eric Gilmore
For The Gazette

OAKLAND, Calif. – Center fielder Ryan Sweeney had to have a sense of deja vu May 20 when he made a spectacular, diving catch to seal the Oakland Athletics’ 7-6 victory against Tampa Bay.

After all, he’d made that catch as a kid in Cedar Rapids.

Oakland Athletics center fielder Ryan Sweeney reacts after making a catch on the wall to rob the Texas Rangers’ Ian Kinsler of a three-run homer April 30 in Arlington, Texas. (AP photo)

“When I was like 12 or 13 years old, we had a game somewhere, I don’t even remember,” Sweeney said last week before the Athletics played the Arizona Diamondbacks. “But I dove and made a catch exactly like that playing center field.

“Somebody hit it in the left-field gap, and it ended the game like that. The only reason I remember that was the grass was wet and I slid really far.”

Defense has always been a huge part of Sweeney’s game, first as a young boy, then as a star at Xavier High School and now as a starter in the major leagues. In the early part of the 2009 season, Sweeney has been putting on a Gold Glove-caliber show in center field.

Sweeney’s spectacular catches have been showing up on “Sportscenter’s” top 10 plays of the day as often as LeBron James’ dunks. It’s been another day, another web gem for this 24-year-old, one year removed from his rookie season.

“He’s pretty amazing out there,” A’s first baseman Jason Giambi said. “He’s as good as anybody I’ve seen play outfield defense in a long time.”

Sweeney has made only two errors in a major-league career that has spanned more than 220 games and more than 400 chances. Oakland Manager Bob Geren said what he values most about Sweeney’s defense is that he’s “fundamentally sound” and consistently makes the routine plays.

This year, though, Sweeney has added a series of jaw-dropping, you-cannot-be-serious catches to his repertoire of rock-solid defense.

His string of spectacular catches began April 30 at Arlington, Texas, with the A’s clinging to a 3-1 lead over the Rangers in the bottom of the eighth. With two runners on and two outs, Ian Kinsler sent a high, deep drive to center field off A’s reliever Russ Springer.

The 6-foot-4, 221-pound Sweeney made a leaping catch, grabbing the ball on the other side of the wall and bringing it back. The A’s won, 4-2.

“That one was more of a timing thing,” Sweeney said. “You’ve got to look at the ball and feel for the wall kind of at the same time. Just jumped up at the wall.”

Oakland Athletics center fielder and Cedar Rapids native Ryan Sweeney (left) and Matt Holliday react after Sweeney robbed Tampa Bay Rays’ B.J. Upton of an exta-base hit to end a game May 20 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP photo)

Athletics left fielder Matt Holliday has had a front-row seat of sorts for Sweeney’s highlight-reel show.

“It’s been impressive,” Holliday said. “He’s obviously saved us in two games, and he’s made tons of other good catches. He’s an excellent, excellent defensive player. He’s got a great arm. For a kid that’s as big as he is, he moves well. He covers a lot of ground.”

One night after robbing Kinsler of a home run, Sweeney stole an extra-base hit from Seattle’s Kenji Johjima. He went back-back-back in center field and made a sliding basket catch, a la Willie Mays in Seattle. Then the next night he raced in and made a diving catch in right field to rob Ken Griffey Jr. of a hit.

Sweeney’s defensive gems have helped him stay positive while he tries to get untracked at the plate. After hitting .286 last season, his batting average is hovering around .250 with two home runs, both long blasts to right.

“He’s got a lot of power,” Athletics right fielder Jack Cust said. “It’s learning how to use it in the game. That could come. At the least, he’s going to be a guy that hits for a high average and plays great defense and probably runs into 10 homes runs, maybe 15. I think he has the potential to hit 20. Maybe more.”

Sweeney said he sees himself “ultimately” hitting between .280 and .300 with 15 to 20 home runs and plenty of doubles.

“Hopefully, the home runs will come,” Sweeney said. “But it’s always been a thing for me that if I’m not going to hit a home run that game, if I can stop a run from scoring or throw somebody out or make a good catch, I think that’s just as important.”

Mark Wyatt (from left), Gina Weaver and Nikki Davidson ride down 42nd Street NE at the start of a six-mile group ride near Twin Pines Golf Course earlier this month. Riders from the city's traffic engineering division, the Bicycle Advisory Committee and police braved chilly and wet conditions to educate themselves about how to make Cedar Rapids more bicycle friendly / Jeff Raasch, The Gazette.

Rick Smith
The Gazette

The Cedar Rapids City Council will submit an application on Aug. 7 to the League of American Bicyclists in hopes of becoming Iowa’s second bicycle-friendly community.

Cedar Falls secured the distinction this year, according to the certifying organization’s Web site. 

In total, 102 communities in the United States have the bicycle-friendly status, with three, Davis, Calif., Boulder, Colo., and Portland, Ore., having the top platinum rating. Nine cities have a gold rating, 23, a silver rating, and 67, including Cedar Falls, a bronze rating.

The pursuit of the bicycle distinction is something that the council and local bicycle and trail enthusiasts have been working on for months.

Ron Griffith, a traffic engineer with the city, is heading up the city’s effort along with a new Bicycle Advisory Committee.

The city must take steps to promote bicycling by focusing on what Griffith last night called the five Es: engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation and planning.

In tandem, as the city prepares to sell itself as worthy of bicycle-friendly status, it is in the midst of a process to create a Trails Development and Management Plan.

A special task force comprised of city and community representatives met the entire week of March 30 to begin the planning process. A key finding: The city needs to look at trails both as recreational venues and transportation assets that connect the neighborhoods and streets to parks, schools and jobs.

Griffith reported that city staff and local planners and others the last two Fridays have been out riding city streets with an eye to how they work with bicyclists.

Griffith said the city is looking to create “sharrow” lanes as part of four streets projects now under construction, 33rd Avenue SW, Council Street NE, C Avenue NE and Kirkwood Boulevard SW. The outside shared lane or sharrow might be 14 feet wide while other lanes that might typically be 12 feet wide will be 11 feet wide, he said.

Council member Justin Shields said he hoped no money would be directed away from flood relief for the bicycle initiative. Griffith noted that trails and connecting neighborhoods to them was a major focus on the city’s just completed planning process for its flood-damaged neighborhoods.

Among the lingering questions: Is a 10 foot-wide sidewalk, which is intended for pedestrians and bicycle use, a sidewalk or a trail?

2009 Gazette Communications

By Dave DeWitte
The Gazette

Photovoltaic cells collect solar energy at the Indian Creek Nature Center in southeast Cedar Rapids. The current system was installed in July 2003. The nature center collects solar energy using photovoltaic cells on the roof, which is converted to usable electricity to power fans, computers, lights and freezers. The center sells some of its electricity back to Alliant Energy. Photo by Jim Slosiarek.

Reporting a company’s carbon footprint, Eric Woodroof says, is a lot like reporting your company’s taxes.

“How many of you enjoy reporting your taxes?” asked Woodroof, chairman of the carbon reduction manager program at the Association of Energy Engineers.

Nobody at Alliant Energy’s 2009 Energy Summit raised a hand at the Kirkwood Community College Continuing Education Center.

Enjoyable? Definitely not. But a growing number of companies are calculating and reporting their carbon footprint in a trend linked to concern over climate change. There are several reasons to be first in your industry to report the data, Woodroof said.

“Marketing is the biggest one,” said Woodroof, who is based in Atlanta. “Companies want to be first to use it in their marketing. If you’re first, you will always be able to say you were first.”

Carbon trading opportunities are another reason. In some industries, such as cement manufacturing, early reporters may qualify for “early action credits” that have significant economic value.

Alliant Energy strategic account manager Laurie Appleget (left) and Scott Reid, Harper Brush vice president of manufacturing, tour an energy-efficient lighting retrofit at Harper Brush in Fairfield in 2007. The project reduced energy consumption by 20 percent while yielding 20 percent more light. Photo courtesy of Alliant Energy.

Customers are demanding that suppliers become carbon-conscious, Woodroof said. “Wal-Mart is asking all of their Chinese suppliers to begin doing it,” said Woodroof, who has been to Taiwan and mainland China five times in less than a year.

To calculate its carbon footprint, Woodroof said a company must complete two of the three potential inventories of its greenhouse gas emissions.

SCOPE I consists of direct emissions from assets that a company owns or operates, such as its manufacturing plants, office buildings, trucks, cars and forklifts.

SCOPE II consists of indirect emissions from purchases of electricity, steam, heating and cooling.

The SCOPE III category, which is not essential, consists of all other indirect emissions from upstream and downstream sources. It could include such things as the carbon emissions generated by the companies that dispose of your company’s solid waste, and the carbon emissions of the companies that deliver the raw materials your company turns into its products.

A good place to find a protocol for carbon modeling is on the Web site of the California Climate Action Registry, www.climateregistry.org/

“It’s a great teaching tool and gives a lot of examples,” Woodroof said.

One of the most important concepts is the Global Warming Potential Factor. It works like a multiplier to calculate the climate change potential of different kinds of greenhouse gases. A pound of carbon dioxide, by far the most common greenhouse gas, has a Global Warming Potential Factor of one. The global warming potency of other gases differ tremendously. A pound of methane has a factor of 21, while a pound of the refrigerant HFC-23 has a factor of a whopping 11,700.

By comparing the Global Warming Potential Factors of various greenhouse gases, Woodroof says it’s easy to see that a company might be able to make a greater dent in the greenhouse gas problem by tacking one relatively small refrigerant leak, for instance, than switching an entire building to high-efficiency light fixtures.

Conversion tables also can be used to calculate the carbon impact of the electricity a company uses. The amount of carbon emitted in generating electricity varies in different regions by the kind of fuel and equipment used to generate power. In California, the carbon impact of generating a megawatt hour of electricity is 878.71 pounds. The impact is almost twice that amount in Iowa because most of the electricity is generated here from coal-burning power plants.

Woodroof says numbers such as megawatt hours and carbon pounds mean very little to the public or even most corporate executives. To make a persuasive case that greenhouse gas reduction projects be undertaken, he recommends translating them into functional equivalents.

He personally has sold projects by putting benefits in terms like “taking 240 cars off the road for a year,” or “the equivalent of planting 940 acres of trees.”

“Put what it’s worth in terms they can visualize,” he said.

Woodroof said the “240 cars off the road” comparison went over like a lead balloon with one company, which happened to be in the oil business. The 940 acres of trees comparison went over much better.

Alliant Energy gave 16 Excellent in Energy Efficiency awards at the summit to schools, businesses and other organizations.

“Climate change is at the forefront of everyone’s minds right now, and energy efficiency is one of the best ways to preserve the environment,” Senior Vice President of Energy Delivery Dundeana Doyle said.

Actions taken by the 16 organizations save enough energy consumption to reduce carbon emissions by 35,000 tons per year, Doyle said.

Recipients included Kirkwood Community College, General Mills, Nordstrom Direct and Rockwell Collins.

Roosevelt has new song for a new day

By Phil Harvey
The Gazette

Austin Mann, Eighth-grader at Roosevelt Middle School, plays the wind chime during band practice in Cedar Rapids. The Roosevelt Middle School Eighth-Grade Band was rehearsing "On the Edge of Tomorrow," a piece written by student band members on the trauma some of the students experienced as a result of the flood. The performance will premiere on May 21 /Chris Mackler, The Gazette.

Last June’s flood has inspired a musical composition, as well as the Roosevelt Middle School eighth-graders who will premiere it this week.

It’s usually a challenge to get middle schoolers to play with emotion because they lack life experience, says band director Kristin Beatty.

“But it’s really different for them because (now) they know trauma, they know stress,” Beatty says.

The composition, by composer Michael Sweeney of Milwaukee, was commissioned by Roosevelt, which has a number of flood victims among its students.

Sweeney says his piece moves from a tone of anger to calm, ending with a note of hope.

The composer invited the band’s 125 students to name the piece.

One student suggested “Forgiving the River.” Another one came up with “Fish in the Basement.”

Ultimately, the students decided on the composer’s suggestion, “On the Edge of Tomorrow.”

“I think this particular group,” Beatty says, “has come together even more (than usual), partly because of the experience they’ve been through, and partly because of this piece.”

The concert - 7 p.m. Thursday, Roosevelt Middle School auditorium, 300 13th St. NW. Admission: free.

KCRG TV-9 video

Cedar Rapids seeks biggest trees

Americorps workers Cyndi (cq) O'Hern (left) of Ankeny and Ken Holland of Cedar Rapids stretch a measuring tape to measure the girth of a tree in Ellis Park as they gather data for the Trees Forever Champion tree competition Monday in northwest Cedar Rapids. The pair had to switch to a longer tape measure/ Jim Slosiarek, The Gazette

By Rick Smith
The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS — Sharon Carmody-Holmes still recalls the yard tour she got in 1985 before she and husband Bob decided to buy the house at 2127 Greenwood Dr. SE.

One of two giant ginkgo trees in the backyard, the owner reported, ranked as the largest tree of its kind in the city, if not beyond.

Like fish stories, surely there are tree stories, too.

Now, though, Daniel Gibbins, the city of Cedar Rapids’ arborist, and Trees Forever of Marion have joined forces to create a contest to determine which trees of differing species in Cedar Rapids are, in fact, the city’s champion trees.

Through the end of the month, residents are encouraged to nominate trees in their own yards or those in other spots in the city, whether on public or private property.

Gibbins encourages residents to measure their own trees and then nominate them. Three measurements are needed — height, circumference and crown spread — with height being the trickiest.

Trees Forever also has trained a cadre of volunteers, which include Green Iowa AmeriCorps volunteers in Cedar Rapids, to help with the measuring. The volunteers also are out following leads for possible champion trees.

Upon hearing of the big-tree contest, Carmody-Holmes and her husband, who has been involved with Trees Forever from its founding 20 years ago, didn’t think twice about seeing if there was something to the claim of the prize ginkgo that had come with the purchase of their house.

Their own measurement of their largest ginkgo, at 104 feet tall, appears to place it well above the tallest ginkgo on the current Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ state list.

“It is pretty breathtaking as far as the size,” Carmody-Holmes says. “You look out the kitchen window and all you see is the tree, the sky and the clouds.”

The state big-tree list is a bit of a work in progress, and trees can fall off the list because, as Cedar Rapids arborist Gibbins notes, wind storms, ice storms and drought can take their toll on the oldest, most spectacular trees. Trees fall into decline over time, Gibbins says, and once a tree begins to fail, it’s hard to reverse course.

The DNR promotes its 2003 Big Trees list on its Web site, and the state’s largest red maple on that list was in Cedar Rapids.

A hunt to find it lead to the home at 1254 Elmhurst Dr. NE, adjacent to the Mount Mercy College campus. The front lawn revealed the spot where the tree once stood. The homeowner since has died, too.

A wind storm in recent years blew half the tree down, and the city removed the rest, says Rita Hutchins, neighbor across the street at 1251 Elmhurst Dr. NE. She, too, lost a giant tree in recent years from her front yard.

“It’s kind of like losing an old friend when they have to come down,” Hutchins says.

Once the big-tree contest ends at month’s end, the city’s Gibbins will remeasure tree nominees to determine which are champions. He then will nominate the city champion trees for the state’s list and a national list.

Now scheduled, too, is a June 19 event in which he and Trees Forever will conduct a tour of the city’s champion trees as part of the city’s Freedom Festival.

“We would like to know where these big trees are,” says Gibbins, “and with all that’s gone on, I think this is just a great event, even considering the flooding and the recovery.”

Measure up
Trees are ranked on three measurements: circumference, height and crown spread. Ranking is determined by total points.

• Circumference: Measure around the tree trunk at 4.5 feet above the ground. Each inch is one point.
• Height: An estimated height can be made using a yardstick. First, measure 100 feet from the tree. Next, hold the yardstick vertically, 25 inches from the eye. Align the zero inch mark on the yardstick at the base of the tree and note the inch mark that aligns with the top of the tree. Every inch equals 4 feet of height. Height contributes 1 point for each foot.
• Crown spread: Measure from a point directly below branch tips on one side of the tree to a point directly below branch tips on the other side of the tree. Make a second measurement at right angles to the first. Average the two measurements. Crown spread counts for 1/4 point for each foot.

To compete, contact Trees Forever at (319) 373-0650 or at agreen@treesforever.org

2009 Gazette Communications

By Dave DeWitte
The Gazette

Rick Springsteen, 46, of Lisbon, is one of 257 Sealed Air Cryovac employees who found out at the end of 2008 that the company plans to close its Cedar Rapids packaging material plant in October.

Unemployed veteran worker Rick Springsteen has worked at Sealed Air Cryovac for 23 years. The company has begun a phased shutdown of its Cedar Rapids operation. Photo by Jim Slosiarek.

The news came during a vacation week; a friend called to give him the news. Even though the plant is profitable and has an enviable safety record, Springsteen wasn’t surprised.

“It’s hard to be surprised at anything these days,” said Springsteen, whose job ends in July. “We’re their last union factory. A lot of this stuff is going to Mexico.”

Springsteen has worked at the plant since he left the U.S. Air Force with an honorable discharge as a sergeant almost 24 years ago. He had risen from material handler to a lead person overseeing the plant’s SAP inventory control system. It had been a good ride, he said, a union job with good money and benefits.

The closing decision struck Springsteen as a clear case of placing profits over people. He wishes CEOs could be required to spend time in unemployment offices and job-search clinics so they could understand how their decisions affect lives.

“Watching them close all these factories, it’s like watching an autopsy,” Springsteen said. “Piece by piece, one by one, you’re watching something that used to be so strong be disassembled.”

Since the closing announcement, the father of three has divided his time between Sealed Air Cryovac and his job search. Springsteen worries that his lack of a college degree will hurt him in today’s competitive job environment.
“They look at the education before they look at the work ethic,” Springsteen said.

One advantage for Springsteen is Trade Adjustment Act assistance from the federal government. He’s eligible because the work is going to another country. That assistance should allow Springsteen to receive unemployment benefits until he finishes an approved college degree if necessary.

© Gazette Communications 2009

By Dave DeWitte
The Gazette

A doctorate from MIT and a strong background in avionics haven’t meant job security for Ed Wischmeyer of Cedar Rapids, who was laid off unexpectedly from Rockwell Collins in April 2008.

Ed Wischmeyer, who has a Ph.D. from MIT, was unexpectedly terminated from his job at Rockwell Collins in April 2008. Phot by Jim Slosiarek.

Wischmeyer has found that while the overall job market is bad, the job market for a 59-year-old principle systems engineer is even worse. Although it’s hard to prove anything, Wischmeyer suspects that his former employer and other companies are looking to trim payrolls by relying on younger, less experienced and lower-paid workers.

“It’s been frustrating,” Wischmeyer said. “When you’re as experienced and senior as I am, there aren’t as many jobs available at that level.”

A pilot for 35 years, Wischmeyer had worked in a cockpit design group at Boeing for three years and had five years’ experience designing systems to look at data from digital flight data recorders.

Wischmeyer may move back to the Southwest, where he lived before he took the job at Rockwell Collins.

“After the all-time-record low temperatures last winter, the near-all-time-record snowfalls last winter, an F-5 tornado and the all-time-record flood, I feel like I’ve done Iowa,” he said.

© Gazette Communications 2009

By Dave DeWitte
The Gazette

Eric Wolfe had been in the Cedar Rapids directory publishing business that became part of Yellowbook since 1986, the year he graduated from Coe College.

Eric Wolfe was laid off from Yellow Book after 22 years. Photo by Liz Martin.

On Nov. 6, Wolfe and about 25 colleagues were told that their positions would be eliminated to reduce costs. The company was laying off nearly 100 employees in Cedar Rapids.

The job that paid $16.35 an hour with full benefits was gone, leaving Wolfe with six months of severance pay.

“I’ve taken it rather personally, especially when it first happened,” said Wolfe, 47, of Marion.

Through conversations with his father and uncles who’ve endured layoffs, Wolfe eventually accepted that it’s not a reflection on his abilities. He had always gotten good reviews and was so focused on his job that co-workers sometimes thought he was ignoring them.

The layoff was a real shock, Wolfe said. His wife had just gone through back surgery and was scheduled for another. He applied the day of the layoff for unemployment benefits and — just to be careful — food stamps. He received the unemployment but not the food stamps.

Wolfe has cut spending and invested as much as he can from his severance checks.

Over the holidays Wolfe took a retail job at SuperTarget, working checkout and stocking shelves. After that monthlong stint, Wolfe found part-time, minimum-wage employment selling cellular phone service at a kiosk in Sam’s Club.

© Gazette Communications 2009

Hlas: Zach happy his mom got to see victory

By Mike Hlas
The Gazette

Zach Johnson Zach Johnson watches his drive off the first tee on Sunday / AP photo.

After seeing each of her son’s previous five PGA Tour wins on television, Julie Johnson of Cedar Rapids was present for Zach Johnson’s Texas Open win Sunday in San Antonio.

She and her husband, Dave Johnson, originally planned to head back home Sunday afternoon because Dave, a chiropractor, had a lot of patients with appointments to see him this morning.

Dave left La Cantera Golf Club after nine holes to catch his connecting flight to Dallas, but Julie stayed behind and will come home today.

“I’m very happy I stayed,” she said last night. “What a wonderful experience.”

She and Zach’s wife, Kim, followed Zach for the first nine holes, then returned for the final two holes of regulation and the sudden-death playoff hole in which Zach defeated James Driscoll.

“It was nerve-racking,” Julie said, “but when (Paul) Goydos bogeyed on 18, I knew Zach would be first or second, and that gave me a sense of calm.”

After Zach won, he was accompanied on the green by his wife, son, Will, and Julie.

“The people who ran the tournament were so gracious,” Julie said. “It was a really positive experience.”

“Unbelievable,” Dave Johnson described Zach’s win as he sat in a plane in Dallas that hadn’t yet left for its trip to Cedar Rapids.

“I told a lot of people that I thought his win here last year (in October) would do as much for his future as anything, including his Masters win in ’07.”

Johnson has won twice and had five more top-10 finishes since that October victory, making Dad look pretty smart.

Zach Johnson spoke of his parents at his press conference after his victory.

“My dad’s seen me win I think three times,” he said. “… My mom has not. She has a little bit of an anxiety streak, if you will. That’s just being a mom. She just worries.

“It took a little convincing just to keep her here, and quite honestly, they’ve seen me play golf a lot,” Johnson continued. “They watched me a little this week. My dad watched every hole with the exception of flying back today.’’

Johnson said he wasn’t the main attraction for his parents this weekend.

“They didn’t come down here to see me. They came to see my son,” he said. “I was chopped liver relative to that.”

School exercise prompts adventurous author

By Dave Rasdal
The Gazette

Anita Barta of Cedar Rapids, who bought her Mustang convertible after renting one to drive along Route 66, has published a fun yet inspirational book, "I Never Thought of That ...," based on how her college students in Wisconsin answered roll call./ Photo by Dave Rasdal

Anita Barta of Cedar Rapids, who bought her Mustang convertible after renting one to drive along Route 66, has published a fun yet inspirational book, “I Never Thought of That …,” based on how her college students in Wisconsin answered roll call.

If turnabout is fair play, Anita Barta, then finish this statement: Everyone gets their kicks on Route 66 because …

“… There’s so much freedom and so much history and so much nostalgia,” replies the retired college professor.

And then she laughs.

As author of “I Never Thought of That …,” she knows that I’ve used her technique to stimulate conversation.

You see, the Cedar Rapids native and former director of therapeutic recreation at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, who retired in Cedar Rapids in 2000, used to greet her students at the beginning of each class with what she calls a “creative prompt.” In other words, a sentence they’d complete on paper and sign to prove they’d been in class that day.

If books were people and people were books …

I would put them in their place.

We’d know not to judge by the cover.

What a library the world would be.

And so, Anita, 64, with encouragement from students who wanted to see other responses, finally assembled her book and self-published it in April (www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/i-never-thought-of-that/4383108), adding to the world’s library. It’s available locally for $14.50 at Mercy Medical Center and The Eastern Iowa Airport gift shop.

“It’s a therapeutic tool,” Anita says. “It can enhance communication. Everything is correct. You can be silly or serious.”

The best way to make someone feel good is to …

Do their laundry.

Sing an impromptu song.

Smile – it’s contagious.

“It’s for someone who is just waiting around and wants a quick read,” Anita adds.

That wouldn’t be her.

My Route 66 prompt came from knowing that Anita drives a silver 2005 Mustang convertible, purchased after she and younger sister, Jeanne Barta Craine, drove the 2,400-mile route in 2004.

“We rented a new red Mustang,” Anita says. “We had the top down all the way. You’re driving on roads, wherever. Grass is growing up through the cracks.”

And memories came flooding back from trips taken on this part and that of the famous highway with late parents Emil and Marian Barta. They farmed south of Cedar Rapids, had some land taken for Interstate 380, in fact, but loved to travel.

Anita figures she’s seen the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments in South Dakota’s Black Hills at least 150 times. And she’ll return again, soon.

Because grass may grow up through pavement, but it doesn’t grow under her feet unless she’s playing golf or hiking or … hey, Anita, here’s another prompt.

Exploring caves is called spelunking because …

“… someone might plunk you out in the dark,” Anita laughs.

She has explored caves from the Black Hills to the foothills along the Huzzah River in the Missouri Ozarks and to the huge Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

Above ground, if Anita isn’t riding her bicycle or one of her two motorcycles, she might be … another prompt:

If humans were not meant to fly, then why …

“… did I learn to fly?” she replies.

Because her father loved soaring with the birds, Anita earned her pilot’s license in 1977 and still loves it, especially landing.

“It’s ahhhh,” she says. “It’s here you are and you’ve been up there and now you bring it down.”

2009 Gazette Communications