my memorial day

what i like about having a day off is not needing to be up as early in the morning as normal. i still had things i needed, or wanted, to do today despite it being a holiday. this included grocery shopping,as well as getting some drain opener later on. after watching the video of 'time to kill' i noticed the bathroom sink water hadn't moved. so i had to go to walgreen to get their store brand, 'compare to liquid plumbr'. it took a little longer than 30 minutes, but the drain works fine now. it's nice when there are simple solutions.
as for the movie, it was a compelling one to say the least. i liked seeing donald sutherland in it as the disbarred mentor of the defense attorney. i've liked movies ever since i was a kid, it lets you travel to so many places without having to leave your home. and i knew it was a rare treat then,being from a working-class family, so that made it even more special.
tonight i was checking messages on my cellphone and it was odd to hear the only voicemail, it was a recording of a few minutes of my date from sunday. reminded me of a joke told often by one of my fellow comics. still wondering and waiting for the verdict, but staying busy for now.
i also finished my research on the national register for schools in iowa. besides emerson hough school, there are 84 other schools i found. i decided to look only at public k-12 schools, so it left out colleges and church schools. might have missed a few, but not too many. i was amazed at my findings. just over half of them are no longer used as schools, but as museums, houses, sport facilities, meeting halls, and city halls. maybe this isn't too big of a deal, when much of the state is small towns and rural areas. many small schools have been forced to merge due to declining enrollment.
some are vacant, which is sad. nice that many of them are still in active use, even if not as a school. came as no surprise that polk county had a high number of listings, i found 7 for them. of course des moines is there, and 3 of the 5 high schools made the list- roosevelt, lincoln, and east. but scott county, where davenport is, had the most-at 12. many of them were named after presidents, a common way of naming schools. 2 of the 5 current elementary schools in newton are named after presidents.
other findings included noticing how it was no big deal to see county courthouses listed, as many counties had them added to the register. even some county jails were listed, though i did not check if any of them are still used for that purpose. most notable to me was seeing the iowa state fairgrounds on the list, a place i have been to often though not as much since leaving iowa. another would be the yale bowl in new haven, conn., a place where i saw a yale football game vs. lehigh in 2004. i wanted to visit the school as i was familiar with how the venue did have a brief run hosting an NFL team, the new york giants, for 2 seasons in the 1970s. and of course walter camp, the father of american football as we know it, was a coach at yale. he devised many of the rules still used today. i had wondered if certain sports venues, especially those i had seen an event in, were on the list. sports is part of our history as well.
in my research on emerson hough i did stumble onto one thing, related to the national register. articles i found online connected the national register to the national park service. both would be under the same cabinet-level agency, the interior dept., along with national cemeteries.
and one of them spoke of the national park service being signed into law by president woodrow wilson in 1916, and made some mention of hough as well. so he must have been an influence in getting this act passed, besides getting credit for the law that protects buffalo in yellowstone park. i had already known about his izaak walton connection, but they are not as well known as the sierra club since sierra has a more national network. though i know sierrans do have meetings at ike's clubhouses from time to time. i should know, as i am a sierran.
i am pleased with what i continue to find here, though some doesn't surprise me much. hough was an outdoorsman, so it would make sense if he fought for conservation that it would include not just resources but also land. too bad how he isn't remembered that much now, despite all he did as a writer. i am trying to correct this by deciding to write about the man and the school. somebody has to document and report what happens, to keep people informed. then it's up to the public as to what they do with the information.