August 1, 2004

I’m partial to corn. Yes, to eat, crisp and sweet, loaded with butter and salt—but also to look at, as well as walk and drive through. This being the Midwest—corn capital of the world—that’s an adventure not hard to accomplish.

There’s more to it than that. I guess I’d better explain.

For the “wallpaper”—the background—on my home computer screen I use a family photograph I took a few years ago. It’s a much-cherished photo and I take pains to point it out to people at every opportunity. My wife, on the other hand, has been known to grimace and growl whenever she sees it.

I never did understand that, because the photo shows her, smiling and happy, peering out from the tall corn stalks that surround—and indeed define—that legendary place in Iowa called the Field of Dreams.

Yes, I know the Dyersville site commemorates the now-classic baseball film by that same name, and that thousands of visitors like us flock there each year to play among the tall stalks. But this column isn’t about baseball; it’s about corn, and the link is for me much more special even than baseball.

You see, it was in a small New Jersey cornfield more than 40 years ago that I met my wife. Of course, she wasn’t my wife then; we were all of 17 and 18. Moving to REAL corn country—the Midwest—more than 30 years ago gave us a seasonal reminder of the beginning of our relationship.

On a recent summer weekend, we took a long drive to visit friends in rural west central Illinois. You can’t get there from here without experiencing corn—lots of it.

I had been looking forward to the drive, and even took a couple of slightly out-of-the-way detours to get a little deeper into the fields. I was in my glory as we drove along country roads, straight as arrows, carved through canyons of corn. Sure, there was the occasional plot of soybeans sharing the landscape, but where’s the romance there? Corn has character; corn has a connection. Beans, frankly, are dull. I never met anyone I love in a soybean field.

Cornfields, very much like people, have their individual personalities. Tall stalks, shorter ones; already ripening and those slow to mature; fields with narrow corridors slicing through them where the corn would tower over an intruder. It was beautiful when the afternoon sun turned the brown tassels golden as they shifted in the breeze.

I do go on, don’t I?

Corn reminds me of relationship. That’s because there’s always more to it than it seems. Maybe that’s why I like the photo of my wife at the Field of Dreams so much. So before you write off this column as contrived, think about that.

I’m really a city boy who’s spent enough time in the country to get excited over a field full of corn. And not enough time to really appreciate the work that goes into planting, tending and harvesting it.

Perhaps that’s why I like to think that there’s more than a little of God in those nice, neat rows.

Husk the corn; strip off that green protective shield. See all those kernels all in a row, bright and golden? There’s something special at work here.

Why doesn’t my wife like the photo? It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate the thought. It’s that she thinks it’s not a very attractive picture of her. I, however, beg to differ. I think it’s great. It reminds me of love and relationship and God and connection.

And it reminds me, of course, of corn. Pass the butter and salt, please.