Baker's heartbeat

Steve and I on the Mississippi riverfront, July 25. Steve, with Hailey Hansen, after her senior dance recital, July 11. We got in our pontoon boat on July 4 and then hosted neighbors in the backyard of our home.. When the City of Davenport cancelled its July 4 fireworks, and our neighborhood association cancelled its annual picnic, I'd had enough. Wasn't there some way to be patriotic and safe at the same time? On Saturday, July 4, the Bakers invited several neighbors over. I cleaned off the patio and added an umbrella, but it was a broiling hot day and night. We ended up on lawn chairs, in the shade by our nearby lake. This was one of those events that was pretty magical; we talked about it weeks later. It was so nice to catch up in a comfortable, safe setting! A week later, I met up with my high school girlfriends, again in the outdoor area of a restaurant/bar in Clarence, Iowa. The next day we attended granddaughter Hailey's senior dance recital with Dav...

  Weather.gov is the best way to learn about the weather, bar none. Most of the storm damage at our home Aug. 10 came from broken branches. We had quite a storm in Scott County, Iowa on Monday, Aug. 10. This storm contained winds of up to 80 miles-per-hour, and a downpour of rain. We live in rural Scott County and our television weather cast was often not available so I used my favorite website: weather.gov. This online approach to weather is second to none. Weather scientists are located in Mount Joy, Iowa, less than 10 miles south of our home and these folks are spot-on when it comes to weather. Oh, we also listen to the television forecasts, and look in the newspaper as well. But the best information comes from scientists, folks who have spent their lives studying weather and ways it can and does change in the Midwest. It is the first thing I check, every day. This is not to diss the television community. Weather is a broadcast station's bread-and-butter topic, ...

Photos: At top, we are alone by the historic Levee Inn, Davenport; middle: dock with boats at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri; above, window coverings, installed carefully amid the COVID crisis. The news of July 30 that the national economy had shrunk at a record-breaking 33 percent rate in the second quarter came as no surprise to the Bakers. The April-June plunge was by far the worst in decades, the Associated Press reported. This news was published after two events in July that to me, illustrate how middle-class Iowa retirees actually behave in current economic times: 1. On July 11, we carefully attended the senior dance recital for Steve's grand-daughter, Hailey. We had gone to this event for many years and had been looking forward to it. The Danceworks event was at the Galvin Fine Arts Center on the St. Ambrose University campus in Davenport. We attended in masks and our temperatures were taken at the entrance. We were seated by people we didn't know, but we kept...