It's been a "Quiet week in Lake Wobegon" because we weren't here. No blogging. We headed down the road to Texas and spent almost a week with my sister and brother in-law in Fredericksburg. We left frigid Minnesota and spent a week in Texas sunshine with + 70 degree temps. We were again greeted by frigid temps when we returned but had good travel weather coming and going. It didn't take long to miss Texas.
We made a few stops to see roadside distractions on the way south. In Winterset, Iowa, we saw the little white house that is John Wayne's birthplace. The area is also famous for the "bridges of Madison County". Eight old covered bridges are scattered countryside close to the town. A movie, "The Bridges of Madison County" with Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep was filmed in Winterset. The town itself is typical of small Iowa county seats with a distinctive courthouse in the town square circled by small businesses. It's a lovely little town that attracts tourists coming to see the old bridges set in a beautiful landscape of rolling hills.
The play/movie "The Music Man" is also set in Iowa. Marion is the local straight-laced librarian courted by the newcomer. In Winterset, Iowa, Marion Morrison is the local celebrity. That is John Wayne's real name. They did not paint "Home of Marion Morrison" on the water tower. His mother could never have guessed her baby boy would be the archtypical manly man, or she probably wouldn't have named him Marion. Recently, I have been sorting through old family photos from the early 1900's. It wasn't unusual to see the baby boy in the family dressed in a long dress. Maybe naming them Marion wasn't so strange in those times. Or did his dad think like the dad in the Johnny Cash song, "A Boy Named Sue" and know that name would teach him to be tough by having to duke it out to defend his honor.
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