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What will you do when you hear the screams?

9/20/2018

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Charles City Press, 9-20-18

I remember one time when the screams changed everything.

It was about 30 years ago, in Iowa City. A female college student was walking home from an evening of studying at the library, right down busy Burlington Street.

Out of nowhere, she was grabbed. She was pulled. Along the street, there was a small parking lot with U-Haul trailers, and a man — bigger and stronger than she was — was violently, forcefully trying to drag her into one of the open trailers. His intent, we can only assume, was to sexually abuse her.

She fought back, but he was too strong, and much more forceful than she was. There wasn’t much she could do, except to scream.

And boy, did she ever scream. She gave it everything she had. If sound could light up a town, Iowa City would have burned to the ground that night.

I was a college student, sitting in my apartment about a block away, drinking beers with three of my friends, watching a Chuck Norris movie, our windows open because there was a nice breeze. And those screams immediately brought us all to our feet.

Those were real screams, we were hearing. In a college town at night, you hear lots of screams — screams of delight, playful screams, screams of entertainment — you can tell they aren’t real screams. These screams — these were real. Someone was in trouble.

One beat of listening, looking at each other. Then we all rushed out the door, down the stairs and outside toward the direction of the screams. A couple of other people had heard the screams as well, and were running toward them from the opposite direction.

As we arrived, the assailant decided to abandon the girl. He jumped into his minivan. Two of my friends actually jumped on the van as it was speeding off, and yelled for him to stop, pounding their fists on the hood. He didn’t stop, and they fell off.

All four of us got a good look at the assailant, as did the other two people who had come to help. We all also got the plate numbers.

A cop arrived quickly. The girl was a little bruised, a little bloody, a lot shaken.

I don’t know why my friends and I reacted the way we did. We were not the type of witnesses the cops expected. Maybe it was the Chuck Norris movie, inspiring us to try to be heroic. Or maybe we were just four guys who, at that moment, knew what was right.

Every one of us was able to identify the assailant from a photo. Every one of us remembered the plate numbers, which belonged to the assailant’s vehicle. The assailant, by the way, was the chief of police in a small town near Iowa City, a well-respected family man. But that didn’t matter to us. It took two trials, but we all testified as witnesses, and eventually the guy went to prison.
It wasn’t easy. Even with all the physical evidence and seven eyewitnesses, it took a lot to convince a jury that a wonderful family man could do such a horrible thing.

All of us were attacked personally, our credibility questioned, but none of us got it as bad as the victim did. She was shamed and vilified. She was accused of being confused, of just seeking attention, of having a bone to pick.

She was just walking home from the library, after studying. She didn’t ask to be dragged into the life of this “family man.”

So it didn’t surprise me, last weekend, to hear that an adult, professional woman is claiming that something like that happened to her, long ago. And it didn’t surprise me that this woman is claiming that a U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee, and respected family man, was the culprit. In fact, none of the accusations made over the last year as a part of the whole “me too” movement have surprised me.

I’ve heard those stories. Through college and even in high school, I was surrounded by that culture. I heard men in their late teens and early 20s boast about doing exactly what this woman has described.

In fraternities, in dorm rooms, at parties — I heard them explain how they had a system, a way to get girls alone. Methods to get them slightly intoxicated, and separated from their friends, and all alone with one guy in a room. They were coached, to get young girls into a situation where it was only her word against his, a situation where his version of events would seem rational and her version would seem irrational. It was planned that way.

I heard women tell those same stories from their point of view, harrowing stories exactly like her story, more than a dozen times. They were sometimes told they were confused, mixed up, exaggerating. They were told they had the wrong guy, that they had a bone to pick, that they were just seeking attention.

And honestly, I have no way of ever knowing if the story she tells is completely true. And if it is, I have no way of knowing for certain if her assailant was who she believes it was, and neither do any of you.

And there is no doubt, there are politicians on both sides of the aisle using this situation for their own political purposes. That’s what politicians do, that’s what they’ve always done. But not one of them knows the truth, either.

All I do know is that her story is all too familiar. She claims he forcibly held her down, and handled her, and when she tried to scream for help, he covered her mouth so roughly that she feared it would kill her. And so, she couldn’t scream.

Somewhere out there at that party, there was someone who would have heard that scream, someone who would have been sober and morally balanced enough to recognize that her scream was a real scream. That someone would have come to her aid. Because there are always people out there — people you don’t expect — who will help. People who will do what’s right, if they hear the call, even at a drunken high school party.

But her assailant knew that, too. He was coached, he was well aware that if the sound waves of her scream escaped that room, his fun would be over. He knew exactly how to cover a mouth to stifle a scream, how to cover a mouth so roughly that the mouth’s owner would fear for her life, and stop trying to scream.

He covered her mouth so forcefully that she couldn’t scream out for more than 35 years. But she’s screaming now, screaming for her life. And we’re being told that she’s confused, mixed up, exaggerating; that she has the wrong guy, that she has a political agenda, a bone to pick; she’s just seeking attention.

But listen to the screams. They could be your daughter’s screams. They could be your sister’s screams. Those are the screams of a helpless 15-year-old girl in trouble, a girl who was forced to be silent before, a girl who is screaming for us to help her now.

The question is not whether her screams are real. We know they are.
​

The question is, are we finally going to help?

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Welcome to the world, Addison

9/13/2018

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Charles City Press, 9-13-18
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Welcome to the world, Addison

She’s only about seven pounds and about 19 inches long, but she’s a pretty big deal.

Her name is Addison, and I’m told she’ll answer to “Addie.” She made her world premiere debut last Thursday. It was very exciting.

I haven’t gotten the opportunity to meet her yet, but I’m sure I will in the coming weeks. My wife — her gramma — spent a fair amount of time with her this weekend. She came home exhausted and a little sick, but she sported a sweet, shining smile the size of sunny Alabama, with more teeth.

Addie has doting parents and a big brother and big sister, lots of aunts, uncles and cousins, and a thundering herd of grandparents.

And way more hair than anyone expected.

Most of it’s on the back of her head, instead of on top. Maybe she’ll do commercials for baby shampoo.

The grandpa role is kind of new to me, but I’m figuring it out. My marriage to my wife is the second for both of us, and when it happened, we inherited each other’s kids. Both of us have two, and both were already adults when we were married. So technically, my kids are her stepkids and her kids are mine, but it’s never seemed like that, because neither of us had a direct part in raising the other’s kin when they were still children.

When the oldest grandchild was born, I wondered aloud about the title of my relationship with her. Was she my step-granddaughter, or what?

A friend of mine, who is a grandmother to many, admonished me for even thinking of that.

“There’s no such thing as a step-grandpa. You’re just Grandpa,” she told me. “Or Papa, or Paw-paw, or Opa, or Gramps, or Poppy, or G-pa, or whatever the kid wants to call you.”

She said that with stepchildren, you probably weren’t around when the child was a baby, so that’s why you’re a stepfather and not just Dad. But with grandkids, you’ve been there from the start. There’s no need for clarification, and any attempts to clarify by adding an extra syllable would just confuse the child — and it would probably confuse Grandpa, too.

That theory makes sense to me.

It can be argued that a child can have too many parents, too many guardians, each pulling them in different directions, attempting to love them from so many angles that it makes the child smothered and miserable, which in turn makes all the parents even more miserable. A child can sometimes lose his or her own identity in an attempt to be someone or something different to each parent.

But, I was told, it isn’t possible for a baby to have too many grandparents, and it isn’t possible for a grandparent to have too many grandbabies — or too many great-grandbabies. That’s a different connection and a different dynamic altogether.

And, folks, you don’t mess with the grandkids, because you’ll lose. I was here long before you were, and my grandkid is going to be here long after you’re gone. Mess with that equation and you’re going to be stuck in the middle of an ocean of perpetual sorrow, with sharks of misery circling and snarling.

Unlike a parent, a grandparent has nothing to lose and nothing better to do. Don’t think you’ll outlast us, because even if you do, you’ll turn around and find out that we’ve taught the kid everything we know. No one has the time or the willpower to contend with that.

And Addie has a whole lot of people who are proud to claim her as a grandkid, and a whole lot of people who love her.

We haven’t even met, and I’m already crazy about her.

So welcome to the world, Addison Gail.

​For such a little thing, you’re a pretty big deal.
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Charles City Press: ‘Dream a Little Dream’ achieving tremendous success for Grob

9/7/2018

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James Grob, a news reporter at the Charles City Press, will have his play “Dream a Little Dream,” produced on Friday at the Minnesota Shorts Play Festival in Mankato, Minnesota. Press photo by Kelly Terpstra
Charles City Press, 9-7-18


http://www.charlescitypress.com/site/front/2018/09/06/dream-a-little-dream-achieving-tremendous-success-for-grob/




‘DREAM A LITTLE DREAM’ ACHIEVING TREMENDOUS SUCCESS FOR GROB

​By KELLY TERPSTRA
Charles City Press

Anyone can put pen to paper and write.

But can one author a majestic masterpiece that entices and enthralls millions?
That is the question.

James Grob isn’t there yet, but one should never doubt a talented scribe such as he.

Grob, a news reporter at the Charles City Press, has been writing plays for years now when he can find the time.

One such short play by Grob, “Dream a Little Dream,” has reached some lofty heights and achieved substantial recognition since he first wrote the 8–minute play 10 years ago and produced it a year later.

“It’s the little play that could,” said Grob, who has written more than 50 plays.

“Dream a Little Dream” will be appearing at 7:30 tonight (Friday) at the Minnesota Shorts Play Festival in Mankato, about a 2–hour drive north of Charles City.

Grob couldn’t be any happier that the play has been picked up and will appear in the festival’s “Best of the First 9 Years” – essentially a greatest hits collection of short plays no longer than 10 minutes long that have been performed since Minnesota Shorts first opened its doors a decade ago.

In its initial run at Mankato in 2013, Grob’s play took home “Best in Fest.” It was one of eight plays selected out of 400 entrants and was a national winner.

“The reception it’s gotten at different festivals it’s been at and what not, has just been outstanding. It’s been amazing to me,” said Grob.

“Dream a Little Dream” is one of 14 plays to be presented at the two-day festival that started Thursday.

Grob said his play is done in a memorized reader’s theater style. He also said it is like choral reading, or reading aloud in unison.

The short focuses on four women characters who are describing erotic dreams they had. One dreamed about musicians, another about athletes. The third woman fantasized about movie stars, and the last woman had a dream concerning washing clothes.

How long did it take for Grob to write his most successful play to date?

“I actually wrote it in a very short period of time,” said Grob. “It usually takes hours, days, weeks, to write a play.”

Grob said the Minnesota Shorts Festival has become a pretty prestigious event because entries come nationwide. He said most festivals produce local or statewide plays.  

“It has some very, very well–established writers submit plays to it and have their plays show at it,” said Grob. “It’s really kind of remarkable that this little play is going up against people that are very well–known playwrights.”

Grob’s play called “Sleeper Cell” recently received all-state status at the Iowa High School group speech contests.

He has also had two plays published — ”Crimes and Rhymes” and “The Goodcheer Home for Broken Hearts.” Both are available for production from YOUTHPlays.

“Dream a Little Dream” was first produced in March of 2009 by the Davis County Players as part of Voices Carry, a production of one-act plays by the Davis County Fine Arts Council in Bloomfield, Iowa. Since then it has been shown and produced at Discovery Coast Theatre Group in Agnes Water, Australia. The play has also run in Lodi, Wisconsin, and Ocala, Florida, among other venues.

Grob’s’ wife, Michelle, teaches the talented and gifted program at Charles City High School. He has two daughters, Megan and Katherine, who both live in Colorado.

Grob grew up in Oelwein and has worked for several newspapers and other media throughout Iowa and Minnesota.

He started writing plays while in college at the University of Iowa, but then stopped for a while after graduation.

“It took like 15 to 20 years for me to get back into doing it again,” said Grob.

Once he started back up it was like riding a bike.

“Once I did, it came natural,” he said.

Not everyone can write plays, but Grob said the skill can be learned.

“It’s a different thing. You kind of have to get in the minds of different characters and stuff like that,” he said.

“Dream a Little Dream” is the only short at Mankato out of the 14 that has maintained the same cast since its previous appearance.

The author of plays, poems, short stories and essays, there’s one thing missing from Grob’s writing accomplishments.

“That’s one thing I’ve never done is write a novel. The thing with that would be I don’t know if I have the attention span to write a whole novel,” said Grob. “But it’s something I would like to do at some point in my life. Hopefully I have a few more years left.”
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Cy-Hawk rivalry? Not in my house

9/6/2018

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Charles City Press, 9-6-18

I’m in a mixed marriage.

I’m an Iowa Hawkeye alumnus. My wife is an Iowa State Cyclone alumnus.

Wait, there’s more. I’m in an Iowa Hawkeye family, she’s in an Iowa State Cyclone family. It’s the second marriage for both of us, and both of her kids are Iowa State grads while both of my kids are Iowa grads. My sister and brother-in-law are also Hawkeyes, and many members of my wife’s family are Cyclones.

It goes down the line like that. With a few exceptions, there are bunches of Hawkeyes on my side of the aisle and bunches of Cyclones on hers — and the numbers in both bunches continue to multiply.

And yet, we still somehow get along, usually quite well, mostly because my wife doesn’t care all that much about sports.

It’s not that she hates sports. She watches an occasional game, and sometimes she even enjoys it. But when the game is over and done with, she immediately moves on with her life. She doesn’t get overly excited about a win or a loss.

I’m not like that, I’m sorry to say. I let ball games get to me.

I grew up learning about sports rivalries, that had started on the field or the court and had grown to encompass entire communities, long before I was born. I grew up in Oelwein, you see, and back then, if you grew up in Oelwein, you hated Waverly. They were our biggest Northeast Iowa Conference foe, and they usually beat the heck out of us, so we hated everything associated with them. A lot of this was just fun and healthy rivalry stuff, but deep down, there was a grain of truth. If you could beat Waverly at something, whether it’s football or basketball or band or speech or debate, you’d accomplished something important.

I thought that this was just an Oelwein thing, but since moving to Charles City a year ago, I’ve discovered that it was not exclusive to Oelwein. Charles City hates Waverly, too, I’ve found out. So does New Hampton. So do Waukon and Cresco. Waverly people, bless their hearts, don’t even realize how much they are despised by the rest of the conference, because they’re too focused on hating Decorah.

That kind of competitiveness becomes a part of your identity when you grow up with it.

Back in 1998, I was sure my beloved Minnesota Vikings were going to win the Super Bowl. They were the best team in football, why wouldn’t they? I was young and naive. When they lost the NFC Championship in dramatic, heartbreaking fashion, I curled up into the fetal position on the couch and remained catatonic for five days. Friends encouraged me to seek professional help.

This is an extreme example, and I’d like to believe I’ve matured since then, but I probably haven’t. When my team wins, I’m high as a kite for days. When my team loses, I’m a grumbling, ill-tempered ogre.

When my wife’s team wins, she says, “Wow, that was great. Now help me clean the house?”

When my wife’s team loses, she says, “Aw, that’s too bad. Now help me clean the house?”

It always mystifies me, how anyone can even think about cleaning the house, or anything else, at such an emotional, life-changing moment. After a game, I need at least a couple hours, maybe more, to either celebrate or mourn. I need to replay the events in my mind, and decide which players need to be benched, which coaches need to be fired and which referees need to be imprisoned for life. I need to find some fans of the opposing team, and either taunt them, or take the taunting I so richly deserve for cheering for a losing team.

Sometimes my wife finds this cute and silly, sometimes she finds it childish, and sometimes she finds it profoundly annoying. But the thing is, we get along, usually quite well, because we are so different. If she cared about sports as much as I did, there’s no way we could be in the same house on game day when the Cyclones are playing against the Hawkeyes.

The smack talk for the big Iowa State vs. Iowa football game this weekend has been going on for a few days now, but it hasn’t been mentioned in our house. We’ve managed to find other things to talk about, other reasons to get along. For all I know, my wife doesn’t even know there’s a game this weekend. That’s how we live.

We might, once in a while, get into an argument or heated discussion about something — but it won’t be about a football game. It might be about whether or not I’m going to help clean the house after that game, but it won’t be about the Hawkeyes, or the Cyclones, or a ball game.

She respects my passion for sports, even when she finds it annoying. And I respect that she has no passion for sports, even though I can’t understand it.
And although there’s nothing perfect about it, it works. Even though our college affiliations are big parts of our identities, a Hawkeye and a Cyclone can get along in the same house.

I don’t know if that’s a lesson, or an example, or anything like that. It just seems to me, as I look around, there are a lot of people in the world not getting along, for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense. It seems like, whatever happens out there, there’s pressure to take a side. Whether it’s politics, or race, or religion, or something else, we’re told that we have to be on one team or the other. We can’t be on both, we can’t be on neither. There is no compromise.

And sure, each person has to have some ideals in life that are too important to compromise. But to never compromise on anything? For all the good that does you, you might as well curl up in the fetal position and remain catatonic forever.

I bleed Hawkeye black and gold. I’ll never agree to wear an Iowa State shirt.

But I can love someone who does.
​

And that’s a start, I think.

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