Tales From Exit 22 by Al Batt

It’s difficult to avoid small towns in Iowa.

Only a fool would want to.

Work carried me to Winterset, in central Iowa, where John Wayne was born as Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907. Yes, John Wayne was born in Iowa. He was a 13-pound baby. Is anyone surprised?

His father, Clyde, was a pharmacist.

My father was a farmicist and a huge John Wayne fan.

John Wayne and I have things in common.

John Wayne was a movie star, who specialized in playing the part of a cowboy.

I’ve had my picture taken and once applied for a job as a bareback rider in a flea circus.

He was born in Madison County, famed for its covered bridges.

I was born in Freeborn County, famed for its covered dishes.

He had “True Grit.”

I have a graveled driveway.

John Wayne was a man’s Man.

I’m an adult with a small “a.”

John Wayne punched out bad guys for sport.

I considered tilting pinball machines a sport.

John Wayne’s boyhood home is a four-room clapboard house located at 216 S. Second St. Humble beginnings offering tours and a well-stocked gift shop.

One of the 15 eye patches he donned during the filming of “True Grit “is displayed. There is a hat he wore in “Rio Lobo.”

A John Wayne museum is being constructed. Death is never a great career move, but John’s demise certainly stirred interest in his birthplace. One of the exhibits will be the Duke’s Pontiac station wagon with a raised roof so he could wear a cowboy hat comfortably while driving.

Winterset, population 5,181, is south of Interstate 80 along U.S. Highway 169 and west of Interstate 35 on Iowa Highway 92. George Washington Carver once lived in Winterset.

Madison County is home to the covered bridges of Madison County that led to “The Bridges of Madison County,” a best-selling novel by Robert James Waller and a movie of the same name directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Meryl Streep and Eastwood. Madison County originally boasted 19 covered bridges, but just six remain, all listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The bridges were covered by order of the Madison County Board of Supervisors to help preserve the flooring timbers, which were more expensive to replace than the lumber covering the sides and roof. One is the 97-foot-long Hogback Covered Bridge built in 1884, still in its original location in a valley north of Winterset. Hogback gets its name from the limestone ridge on the west end of that valley.

Winterset is a nice town with a picturesque town square and a handsome stone courthouse. On the north side of the town square is the Northside Café. It’s been operating since 1928 in a building constructed in 1876. The 13-foot-high ceilings look down on some great grub. I wanted to high-five the food. It offers John Wayne’s favorite chili, loaded with beef and without beans. Eastwood’s character had a cup of coffee while sitting on a counter stool in the Northside Café.

The Morrisons left Winterset when Clyde took a job in nearby Earlham. From there, they moved to the Los Angeles area. Marion applied to the U.S. Naval Academy but wasn’t accepted. He lost a football scholarship at Southern Cal due to a bodysurfing accident. That would have been unlikely to have happened had he wisely remained in Iowa. He found work in the film industry and became John Wayne.

Most of my kith and kin would consider a move from Iowa to California unwise, but it worked for John Wayne.

The iconic actor starred in 142 movies, mostly westerns. He became a cowboy because a man becomes the song he sings.

John Wayne portrayed the kind of guy who acted as if the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt you, but it was on his list.

John Wayne said, “I’ve always followed my father’s advice: He told me, first, to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.”

Duke also said, “Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”

There is a 7-foot statue of Duke holding a rifle standing near his childhood home.

I could almost hear him calling me “pilgrim.”

 

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.