Baker's heartbeat

  The Iowa DOT office in Davenport. This is where you go, in Scott County, Iowa, when you need help with your Iowa Driver's License.     I  often think that my brain works in thirds: One part looks ahead, one part is in the present, and one considers the past, history, etc.     This translates to occasional "dumb" mishaps. The latest was a few  incidents where I managed to lose, not one, not two, but three important cards. This was discovered over a period of days when the many cards I had fell out of a cute  little, old card holder.       I have no idea when, or where.     Disappeared: The Iowa Driver's License, a Citi Visa card and my bank's debit card.     This was a catastrophe of sorts. The cards are more important than you might think, but after a lot of panic, I researched the solutions and now, all is better. ( As one example: When you lose a Driver's License, you can carry a passport around to prove...

Steve Baker looks out over the Mississippi  River on an outing last Sunday        It was warm, sunny and relatively windless last Sunday: In other words, a most perfect day to boat on the Mississippi River.     Luckily, one of our three girls, and her husband, (Jill and Kevin Hansen) invested in buying a cute speed boat recently, and we had the pleasure of spending the day with the family on it.     We have not boated on the Mississippi River in several years. We can boat where we live, but it's not the same as the river community.     We found, with some surprise, the wide interest of the hundreds of folks who hang around the river on the weekend. There was live music at several venues, and several fun boats to look at and admire. Not to mention the friendly folks at the various places we stopped.     Husband Steve had a speed boat some time ago, and he boarded it at a place near Muscatine, Iowa, called Fairport. We ...

  That's my Mom and me, when I was about four years old. We used to check out books at the Edina (Minnesota) public library on a regular basis in those days.      I don't think I'm the only person in the world who has a little trouble with Mother's Day.     I should say I had a great Mother's Day this year. We got out on a pontoon boat, I cleaned up the beach area we oversee, and had a nice float, and then we visited with neighbors we hadn't seen in months.     My kind of day.     It hasn't always been so fun. Years ago, when I was in my late 20's, I wrote a newspaper column with a title like this one "Why I Hate Mother's Day." That was one column I'd like to take back because among other reasons, my future mother-in-law, a saint of a woman, questioned my sanity at the time.     Well.     Sanity aside, it's problematic to those of us who had somewhat dicey childhoods. I had a wonderful mother, by the way, but she beca...