Neil Hamilton zoom link, Marilyn Maye podcast conversation, and women's potluck revival
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Breaking news: Six spots left for the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat: https://okobojiwritersretreat.com September 17-20.
Join the call with author Neil Hamilton today!
Author Neil Hamilton is our Monday Zoom Lunch guest today, July 31. His new book, The River Knows: How Water Will Shape Our Future, was released this month. It is a culmination of wisdom Hamilton has gained from his farm roots in Adams County, as director of Drake University Agricultural Law Center, and as professor emeritus. He is also a long-time board member of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. Here is the link to join our conversation, starting at noon central time:
Neil Hamilton Zoom Call
EAVESDROP ON THE CALL WITH THE MARVELOUS MARILYN MAYE
HERE IS the one-hour conversation held last Monday with cabaret singer Marilyn Maye, who has been wowing Okoboji audiences since the 1960s (not a typo - 1960s). New York music reviewers, long-time fans from coast to coast, and friends and groupies from Iowa joined us for the call. Listen to this fun peek behind the curtain of a star who not only ‘still has it’ but is proving the adage: The best is yet to come. She’s been called New York’s new ‘it girl’ after a solo performance in Carnegie Hall in March. Maye appears in Iowa on August 1 and 2nd. Seats are remaining for the August 2nd show: MARILYN MAYE TICKETS.
May I present to you the one and only….Marilyn Maye!
There’s something about the women in my life….
Here’s a refrain from a Holly Near song I used to play repeatedly back in more turbulent personal times. Let it help set the table for today’s Potluck column, which will explain the backstory as to why I have a thing about potlucks. This is a report on the one I held last week in a quasi-torch-passing ceremony.
Take a listen…
Last week, I revived a women’s potluck tradition, which started in 1981 when I became a talk radio host and had no idea what I was doing (and was terrified). The potlucks had been dormant for most of the 20 years I lived away from Iowa, but with book banning, and assaults on women’s productive freedoms, it seems time to round folks up again.
In 1981, after landing the job on WHO-AM radio - a 50,000-watt, clear channel station -, I decided to hold a potluck of women I saw as powerful and hoped it would rub off on me. The first person I called was Roxanne Conlin, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa at the time, followed by Evelyn Davis, a fierce advocate for children in Des Moines’ inner city and a handful of others.
I’m embarrassed to say this was an era when some of us wore bow ties and jackets in a flailing effort to fit into male-dominated careers.
Opinion columnist Rekha Basu came to Iowa ten years later and didn’t miss a potluck from that point on.
So many issues had seemed handled - reproductive freedom, certainly, we thought. During the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2008, it seemed possible we were in a ‘post-racial’ society. Blah, blah, blah.
Fast forward to the 2016 inauguration, and some of us were back on the Washington Mall wearing different hats.
Women’s March sign: I can’t believe we still have to protest this shit.
POTLUCK
Roxanne, Rekha, and I gathered a new crop of leaders together last week, and the table was laden with a fabulous torte, salads, hot dishes (thanks, Julie Klein), and at least one tub of Hy Vee macaroni salad.
It was time to kick some aspirations into gear.
In our introductory remarks, we reinforced that we saw our guests as leaders and cautioned that the path ahead would not be easy. From our perspective of age, we can attest that risk-taking doesn’t always work out, and we spoke of some of our failures, because we wanted our younger colleagues to understand obstacles are inevitable and unpredictable.
Bravery and persistence are required.
Why not host a potluck for women? The key ingredients include a range of demographics, politics, and leadership abilities in the arts, business, healthcare journalism, and education. Everyone brings something to the table, literally and figuratively.
It is magical to see how even those who disagree on some issues can find common ground elsewhere.
Mary Louise Smith had been the chair of the National Republican Party. She met feminist Louise Noun at a potluck, and together they created the Women’s Archives Project at the University of Iowa.
Everything begins in a conversation.
THE IOWA WRITERS’ COLLABORATIVE…
Hey, if you don’t already subscribe, I promise that if you care about what is going on around this state and want to be in the know, you will want to receive the weekly roundup of columns from some of the best professionals in the state.
We started the IWC one year ago and now have 35 writers posting commentary and essays on Iowa life, politics, sports, dining, the arts, and more. These columns gather as many page views as a daily newspaper, and it is a growing movement.
Check it out! The roundup from this past week includes reports about the 13 presidential candidates who came to Iowa, lovely essays told by master storytellers about pickup trucks, life in an Amish community, cinnamon rolls, and The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). Barbie and Tik Tok make an appearance, too. No FOMO (fear of missing out) for you:
ONLY FOUR SPOTS REMAINING FOR THE OKOBOJI WRITERS’ RETREAT, SEPTEMBER 17-20. LEARN MORE:
https://okobojiwritersretreat.com
Thank you Julie, wonderful interview with Marilyn May. Brings back wonderful memories. Spent my 70th birthday at the Embassy Club downtown with the Rays and 4 other couples followed by a concert with Marilyn May. She just lifts one’s spirits.