Amsterdam Stories USA · Fragment ‘Midwest’ · 3′49″

Every four years in Iowa, there are caucuses, and those caucuses are much like primaries in other states. So we start out at township levels and we have a caucus. And at the caucus, we decide whether or not we're going to send one, two, or three people on, and those people are appointed to go on and would say, "I am going to support Obama for president." Somebody else says, "I'm going to support Hillary Clinton for president."

Well, in 1980, I was caucusing with the Republicans. I was a George Bush supporter in 1980. As it turns out, it was Ronald Reagan that won the nomination and became President of the United States. Well, I didn't much like Ronald Reagan. I thought he was far too conservative. So I decided I was going to become a Democrat.

I suppose it was a month, maybe a little more, before the caucuses. Someone came to me and said, "We're going to send you the Republican caucus materials." I said, "Don't send them to me. I'm not going to be caucusing with Republicans this year. I've decided to become a Democrat." They said, "You can't do that. You're the chairman. We can't start the caucus unless you're there." So I said, "Well, what are we going to do?" They said, "Well, we'll send you the material, but you have to come to the Republican caucus, and you have to chair it at least until we can elect a permanent chair." So I said, "Okay, I'll do that."

So at 7:00, I went to the Republican caucus and I sat down and I called the meeting to order and threw it open for nominations for permanent chair. They nominated a permanent chair. The permanent chair took over the meeting. I excused myself. I walked 200 feet across the street to City Hall, to the library. Walked in, changed my party affiliation to Democrat. They hadn't yet elected a permanent chair for their caucus. I was nominated to be permanent chair. I won the election.

So as it turns out, I'm the only person I think ever who can say that they chaired a Republican caucus and a Democratic caucus on the same night. That's my story about the curiosity of being a Republican or a Democrat in Hancock County.

When you stand and look at Amsterdam now, it's cornfields, it's a single house, it's a cemetery. And just to the north of it, a few hundred thousand chickens.

Now I live in a small town, not with that gal. But that's their name, they're here and they're there, you see. I got a story to tell. There was a group of folks, been friends for years…