 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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 Imagine this: It turns out the coolest people By CHUCK OFFENBURGER April 23, 2009 COOPER, IOWA It was a grand time that Carla and I had on an 11-day vacation trip to and from Arizona. It was especially good spending six days with our step-daughter Janae Jaynes Learned, her husband Chris Learned and our 15-year-old grandson Connor Jaynes.  What was it? “This is Janae,” I heard her say over her cell phone, while she was multi-tasking around the kitchen and family room. “I’m a Notre Dame mom, and I’m rounding up kids who need community service hours to do some volunteer work tomorrow at the Boys & Girls Club. Can you get him (or her) there?” You love looking at your 39-year-old kid, seeing her or him doing something like that, and suddenly realizing you’ve helped raise a good parent. There is a moment of satisfaction right then that goes right to the heart. My heart, not hers, at least at this particular moment, because she was furious when she hung up the phone. “What is the deal with these parents?” she snapped. “Once their kid commits to something, don’t they write it down? What are they thinking? Like, have they heard of calendars?” The Notre Dame mom was on a roll. I quietly advised my grandson that this would not be a good time to challenge his mother – about anything. “Just say yes,” I said.
She was three years old when I first met her, at the time her mother Jeffrie Jaynes and I started dating, later marrying. I was Janae’s active step-dad for about 10 years, until her mother and I divorced. In those 10 years, I saw her, at about 6, learn to do a full, glaring, dancing pantomime of Helen Reddy’s old rouser, “I Am Woman.” (You remember it: “I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore…”) When she was 7, she came up with the name I used for my Des Moines Register column for the next 21 years: “Iowa Boy.” (A couple years later, she thought that column name was just the dorkiest.) When she was 10-to-12, she was a star pitcher in the Johnston Little League baseball program, one of two girls playing. Once when she was 11, I saw her strike out some big hitter on another team at a crucial moment in a game; as the boy tried to control tears that were welling up, she turned her back to him on the mound, stuck her arms in the arm, and wiggled her rear end. I could go on, but you get the point – strong girl becomes strong woman, one who has lived through a lot of heartbreak and big challenges, along with a lot of fun and accomplishments. And you probably will not be surprised to have me tell you that Janae has produced this son, Connor, who is now perfectly capable of leading his parents, step-dad, grandparents and others of us around like he’s got rings in all our snouts. Here’s the best example of that. Janae, who grew up through high school in the Des Moines and Omaha areas, and Chris, who was raised in Boston and did college in Miami, were both cradle Catholics. Like a lot of young Kneebenders, they had strayed from the church as young adults. Connor didn’t get a lot of religious experience as a young boy. But, proving God moves in mysterious ways, or perhaps that He has a sense of humor, Connor decided at about 12 years old that he’d had enough of public school, and he wanted to do his high school years at Notre Dame Prep in Scottsdale, where some of his good buddies were heading. What he, Janae and Chris were told, when they inquired, was that Connor not only had to meet the school’s rigorous academic qualifications, but that he also had to be in good standing with the church. If he had to crank up his Catholicism to be in good standing, well then he and his parents would have to attend nearly a year of classes. Seriously. The Jaynes-Learned family did just that, and on Easter weekend two years ago, I flew to Phoenix for one of the proudest moments of my life. Connor had asked me to be his Godfather and sponsor when he was baptized, confirmed and received his first communion. That all occurred during one very long but glorious Easter Vigil service at St. Patrick’s. They do full-dunking baptisms at St. Patrick’s, and that was particularly appropriate for Connor on this night when he became about as fully immersed in Catholicism as a young guy could get. So now, in this spring of 2009, he’s finishing up his sophomore year at Notre Dame Prep, where he wears a traditional Catholic school “uniform” (actually one-color polo shirts, or on “Mass Days” white shirts & neckties, with khaki trousers). He has learned that the expectations, challenges and benefits are high. Being a “Notre Dame mom” or dad when called is part of the deal. Janae is also a Realtor. She’s sold a bunch of houses through the years in the Phoenix metro market, which can indeed be a lucrative one. It can also be a tough one, as it is right now in this hunkering economy. The last couple of years, she started thinking a little differently about her career, deciding she wanted to steer it toward “for-profit philanthropy,” in order to “do two things that I enjoy – real estate and helping others.” She became a broker herself, then founded and won regulatory approval for a new company called “Brokers for Charity,” and now has it ready to operate nationwide, in both residential and commercial real estate transactions. There’s an interesting story on how the idea occurred to her. ”My concept for Brokers for Charity began at the grocery store, with Paul Newman and ‘Newman’s Own’ products,” she has written. “I wished that I had more choices in products and services that gave back to a greater good. It is so easy to get caught up in our everyday routine and feel badly about how much more we could be doing for others if we just had the time, resources, etc. There are many people who would make that choice to give back, if it were right in front of them. For me, the conclusion became simple after grabbing that Newman’s Own salad dressing. That day, that moment, was when the concept for Brokers for Charity took hold of me. I didn’t know salad dressing, but I did know real estate.” Brokers for Charity, she explains, is now giving individuals and businesses that same choice with residential and commercial real estate transactions. Customers can tell Janae that they want a percentage of the profits from the sale of their property to go to their favorite non-profit, tax-exempt charity. She will find brokers to commit to that agreement, and the next thing you know, those charities are receiving a check for a few thousand dollars when there’s a property sale. You can read much more about it at the Internet site www.brokersforcharity.com. This has provided me more of those moments when, as a parent, I look at my kid doing something like this, take a deep breath and savor the idea of how she is living a commitment – in this case, to help others. The anchor in all this is Chris Learned. My 45-year-old son-in-law has such diverse talents that I was telling the family we should start a new show on the Discovery Channel, which Carla and I discovered on this trip since we don’t watch TV at home. We will call the show “Bliss with Chris,” and there would be two or three segments in each episode, showcasing his various talents one at a time. I mentioned earlier he’s quite a chef. He’s also a mechanic, carpenter and mason. He’s as good a computer fixer-upper as any professional geek. And he is an incurable fan, sometimes a raving fan, of the Boston Red Sox.   What really helps pay the bills is that Chris does big time business across the nation for major clients of his own company, Mediawise, Inc. For 25 years, he has been planning, staging and producing concerts, conventions, trade shows, sports events – or some aspect of those – and has worked with a lot of major musical individual artists, symphonies, large corporations and organizations. “What I do most of now is what we in the business call the ‘Bill Gates moment,’ ” he said. “You’ve seen it, like when Microsoft and other big companies will have a big trade show. Sometime during the meeting, they stop everything and have a big presentation by a keynoter. That’s the ‘Bill Gates moment,’ and that’s what I put together and make happen.” He does it with different mixes of audio, video and other technologies, generally with equipment that he leases, operated by technicians and artisans he contracts – whatever “the gig” requires. He’s been at it long enough that his reputation is well-established, and many of his clients have him back year after year. You can read more about his company at www.mediawise.tv. Meanwhile, the Notre Dame mom was on a roll again. This time, she was on the phone, persuading a young customer service representative of the local cable TV provider that he should authorize a special rate for the family’s impending purchase of the Major League Baseball all-games video package. There was some arguing. I wanted to get on the phone and tell the fellow he might as well stick his hands in the air, wave a white flag and say “yes” now, because it would save him time. Soon enough, he did just that. “Oh, thank you,” I heard Janae telling him. “You da bomb, man!” What? WHAT? “Oh, the guy’s probably 22 years old,” Chris Learned said of the cable TV rep. “Janae had to get into his language, schmooze him a little.” But I know who da real bomb is. I’ve known it since I watched her mercilessly mow down those Little League baseball batters 30 years ago. My kid, she can get it done. You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.    
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