I never tire of returning to Decorah, Iowa. It is a part of my soul and being like no other place. It’s partly because I spent two different and equally significant phases of my life there: kindergarten thru eighth grade ….. and then my four years of college. And in most of the years since my graduation from Luther in 1982, someone from my family has lived there. Both Steve and Randi followed me at Luther, so there was pretty much a Berg studying at Luther through 1987; my dad actually relocated there for several years during his retirement; and Randi, Matt and their children have made Decorah their home for many years now. Stir in all of the college reunions (I’ve been to all of my significant reunions through the years), various special events and plain old vacation visits over the years, and you can see how Decorah has continued to be a really important part of my life – and although it’s not where I was born (Sioux Falls, SD) or where I learned to walk and talk and first played the piano (Colton, SD) or where I really found my musical voice and soul as a high schooler (Atlantic, IA), Decorah feels like my hometown.
Of course, the place is not exactly sealed in amber, preserved as I remember it. The grocery stores I remember from childhood (Jack n Jill, K & S, Fareway, and cute little Phelp’s Market) have all either closed or moved to completely different locations. My most favorite downtown haunts (Ben Franklin, where I would buy ten candy bars- always the same kind- and eat them all on the way home from school … Hart’s Bakery, where I would buy six white cupcakes and eat them all on the way home from school …. The Saving Center, my favorite place to buy games and toys …. The Hobby Hut, an amazing office supply store, which was paradise for a nerd like me …. The Sugar Bowl, where we always bought our Sunday newspaper and which had a really cool rack of comic books …. ) are all gone. But at least it’s a downtown where those places I remember from my childhood aren’t just standing empty and forlorn (as, for instance, the sad and shriveled downtown of Colton, South Dakota) but instead have been replaced by other interesting and thriving stores and restaurants. And a few familiar places are still there, after all these years: Kephart’s Music, Woolworth’s, Mabe’s Pizza, Donlon Drugs, Amundson’s Men’s Clothing Store, Vamberia Scandinavian Gifts, Versterheim Norwegian-American Museum, and even Smock’s Barbershop, with the same barber after all these years (who is soon to retire.) Our church is still there, but now sports a large addition which includes a brand new sanctuary, so it’s not much like I remember it. West Side Elementary School, where I went kindergarten through third grade, is still there and appears to be pretty the same as it was back in the 60’s – but East Side, where I was in fourth through sixth grade, is completely gone. And Luther College, is still there, of course, but boasts a host of brand new buildings … while many of the old buildings have undergone radical changes and/or expansions.
As I’m writing about this and thinking about the uneasy mix of Old and New that I encounter when I return to my hometown, I’m beginning to understand why my best friend Marshall and I spend so much of our time reminiscing about the Decorah of our past. . . posing and answering countless questions that nobody else on earth seems interested in, like “what kind of gas station used to be located downtown?” (answer: DX) or “what was the Whippy Dip originally called?” (answer: Creamy Freeze) or “whose classrooms were the first four outside of the principal’s office?” (answer: Mrs. Behm, Mrs. Peck, Mrs. Akre, and Mrs. Hansen.) I think that Marshall and I ponder the past in the same way that a baker thoroughly kneads his dough. There’s something about doing so that helps us sort out and feel more secure with the countless changes which have occurred in our hometown. Do other people do this? Probably. I know that Kathy, Polly and their dad do this from time to time about Racine- but they don’t seem quite as driven to do so as Marshall and I are. We find some sort of comfort in it, I suppose, and we always have. I can remember Marshall and I as junior high students sitting around with a classmate of ours named Jackie Bahr, reminiscing for hours on end about our days back at West Side Elementary School. As 13 year olds, we already enjoyed looking back as though we were 3 senior citizens relaxing in our favorite rocking chairs. Strange but true.
Only recently have I begun to figure out what a gift it is when one’s hometown grows and changes. If it didn’t – if it were somehow preserved in a sort of perfect and eternal stasis, never changing in any way – then every return visit would be a debilitating, agonizing reminder of one’s own aging. Instead, it’s as though we’re growing old together- whether it’s a community like Decorah that almost seems to be getting younger with each passing year . . . or a tiny town like Colton, SD which is but a shell of what it once was. The point is that the typical community thrives and declines, depending on where it is in its own life arc, and on some level it helps make it okay for us to travel that same arc ourselves. The week I just spent with the Weston Noble Alumni Choir was a wonderful reminder to me that it’s not just communities that teach us lessons about aging well . . . but also extraordinary people. Again and again I found myself looking at people in that choir who are ten, twenty and even thirty years older than I am, who are every bit as vibrant and full of life as when they walked the sidewalks of this campus as students.
“I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. . .”
pictured above: this photo is from October 2012, when Marshall and I were back in Decorah for our 30th college reunion.