 What’s the deal with the black & white saddle shoes?  Click here for the story of our farm in Greene County, Iowa. Here's looking at life at Simple Serenity Farm  Carla’s sister & brother-in-law Chris and Tony Woods, of Des Moines, were at the farm on Sunday, August 22, helping Carla do the lawn mowing and other yard work that we’ve struggled to keep up with lately, with all our medical appointments. The Woodses brought along their 18-month-old granddaughter Ari, who was a delight watching all the action from the porch with Chuck, catching up on her reading and then getting a moment on the lawn tractor seat! Click here for larger format Earlier photos in this series Iowa Hall of Pride netINS, Inc. Butler House on Grand B&B Sam's Barber Shop Douglas T. Bates III, Attorney KMA Radio's ''Chuck & Don Show'' Barack Obama story & coloring book The Monks of New Melleray Abbey RELATED LINKS About Offenburger.com Biographies Want to Reprint? Want Updates? ARCHIVES Chuck Offenburger's columns Christie Vilsack's columns Carla Offenburger's columns Carla's book reviews Jared Strong's columns Guest Columns The Simple Serenity Farm columns Farm Photos, 2006 - 2008 Our Iowa News Digest Along Our Way 
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 Jefferson’s Mayor Craig Berry is showing our community how to get ready for RAGBRAI By CHUCK OFFENBURGER May 19, 2008 JEFFERSON, IOWA We have some unexpected fun happening around us as we continue our planning and preparations for the overnight stay in Jefferson this summer of RAGBRAI – that’s the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.  “Last year, I was riding my 20-year-old Huffy mountain bike, that only had four of its gears working,” Berry said. “This spring, I bought this new Trek, and riding it is so much easier, it’s like a dream.” He’s learning fast. He has needed some instruction on the importance of always wearing a helmet when you are on a bicycle. In fact, I’ve been rather blunt with him about that. Over the years, I have chewed out higher-ranking officials than the mayor of Jefferson when I saw them not wearing helmets while riding, so it hasn’t bothered me a bit barking at Berry. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is a bicyclist, and for a couple of years back in the early 1990s, I’d see him pedaling his bicycle along the trails in the Des Moines area, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap instead of a helmet. I sent him notes about it, and he ignored them. I yelled at him out on the trails, and that didn’t work, either. So I started writing about him going helmet-less in my Des Moines Register columns, and that seemed to make the difference. He began wearing a helmet. What I wrote, as I recall, is that anybody looks stupid wearing a St. Louis Cardinals ball cap anytime, but especially so when you are riding a bicycle. And if you are wearing a Cardinals cap instead of a helmet when you are on a bike, why, that transcends stupidity and goes right to imbecility.
Mayor Berry is also learning about how wind can make or ruin a bike ride. In the early afternoon of Saturday, May 17, when a huge wind was blowing out of the north-northwest, Berry went on a comfy 11-mile cruise south out of Jefferson down the Raccoon River Valley Trail. The wind was at his back, he was enjoying the beauty and fragrance of the wildflowers, he may have even been whistling along with the birds, tra-la, tra-la. Then he turned around to start his 11-mile ride back to Jefferson. It was suddenly like he was trying to ride through a wall. He made it three miles to Cooper, where I saw him sitting in the shade of the shelterhouse, drinking water and catching some rest. Then he got back on his bike and did eight more character-building miles into the wind to get back to Jefferson. “I was pedaling my ass off,” he told me later, “and never went faster than five miles per hour. I was pretty stiff and sore on Sunday.” Berry, a wiry fellow, is actually in good physical condition despite continuing to smoke cigarettes. “About five years ago, after I went through a divorce, I went to the doctor and my blood pressure and cholesterol were both up,” he said. “So I started walking then. In the wintertime, I go to the community center six mornings a week and walk about 40 miles a week indoors. In the summertime, I’d walk outdoors. And then last summer, once I got the Huffy out, I’d ride 65 to 70 miles a week. I had to do something to off-set all that nicotine I’m taking in. I need to quit smoking, and really should quit, but it’s one of those things that I haven’t got myself there mentally yet. I’ll get there.” He said what he prefers about bicycling, over walking, “is that I can go longer distances, see different scenery and just be outdoors when the weather is nice.”  He said he has never been on RAGBRAI, or any other organized bicycle tour, yet. But he learned in a hurry just how popular RAGBRAI is. Last January, within a day of the announcement by the Des Moines Register that RAGBRAI would be overnighting in Jefferson, Berry received a call from Bob Butin, one of his co-workers at the Iowa Department of Transportation, asking if he and his friends in the Tall Dog Bicycle Club could camp around Berry’s house. They work together in materials inspection across central Iowa. “I told Bob,‘Yeah, sure, I’ll be glad to host your group,’” Berry said. “Then he told me there’d be 85 people! I said, ‘Well, we’ll make it work!’ ” He said since then, he’s had calls from “five other RAGBRAI groups, asking if they can stay at my place, and I’ve had to turn them down. I have promised a room indoors to a couple of other people who are riding, and then I’ve told another group of 23 that if it turns out to be raining, they can come in and sleep on my floors.” Now there’s a mayor who is answering RAGBRAI’s call! You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
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