Fairfield is an unusual town. As a traditional Midwest rural community it has a long and historically significant legacy. But as an oasis of progressive-thought and green design, the town has risen to be one of the most exciting, noteworthy cities in Iowa – if not America. As you can imagine, the clash of these two things can give rise to troubles.

As the creator of the Fairfield, Iowa Fanpage on Facebook, I’ve been blessed with a certain insight into the structures and communication problems of the town. It’s become apparent to me that the town these days no longer divides along the traditional “’roo (meditators) vs. townie” lines it once did (or even “town” and “gown” as it had during the Parson’s College era). Rather, you could say the town now splits between what I’d call traditionalists and progressives. The overlap between roos/progressives and traditionalists/townies is certainly large, but no longer accurate – there are now quite a few people in Fairfield who have no interest in meditation, but do want to see the town progress and change.

The traditionalists believe that Fairfield is – or more accurately was – a fine town, the pride of Iowa, and is being degraded by the restless, crazy influence of the progressives.

The progressives believe that Fairfield was some small, unremarkable town, but can be made into a utopia, a green mecca for social and environment causes, a future slowed or outright opposed by the traditionalists.

I believe that, for the most part, what causes friction between these two groups is a lack of understanding and communication skills. I’ll show you what I mean by the debate over the Quiet Zone.

Train traffic has increased significantly over the past few years (on average, 15 trains a day in 2001 to 58 in 2006). In addition to this, train whistle technology has made it more effective (louder). More trains, each one being louder than the ones of ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Some progressives got quite fed up with it, and checked into things. As it turns out, you can make the train whistles stop – by making train track crossings safer than they are now.

I want to stress this point: If we upgrade the safety of track crossings, then whistles are no longer necessary. If you approached the traditionalists and said: Will you donate to increase safety at railroad crossings? I feel very certain they would donate and/or pass along that information to everyone they knew. Who would be opposed to increasing safety? A minor point (less train noise) would have been virtually unopposed.

But progressives think like progressives, and the increased safety was good bonus, but not the point. The point was being able to sleep at night, to rid the community of the annoyance. The sale of this idea to the community, then, was in a progressive vocabulary of increasing quality of life (putting the safety issue as a side point) – even to the extent of the project being named the Quiet Zone (as opposed to “The Safety Zone” or other titles).

This was a failure to understand traditionalists. They tend to be older, having lived here longer, and some of them know someone who was killed on the tracks, or was almost hit when the guards did not drop before the train came through, but was saved due to the horn.

On the posters promoting the Quiet Zone initiative, it reads “STOP THE TRAIN WHISTLE!”

To the surprise of progressives, quite a lot of people did not want to see a vital safety measure disappear, and certainly not to accommodate relative newcomers who just don’t like noise.  The issue quickly boiled down to a perception that progressives are trying to warp the town to their bizarre needs, to the detriment of everyone else.  The progressives are left repeating themselves over and over – things would be safer, the whistles are louder and more frequent than before, other towns are doing it, etc – but the damage is done.

I’m writing this post in hopes of bringing these two groups together in a mutual understanding of the key point: Both groups want what is best for the town. Both groups want this town to be the best around, to have everyone be happy and healthy.

We may disagree on how to do that, but the desire is the same. Traditionalists may want to bring in another factory like Dexter to increase employment and support the local economy. Progressives may want to create an edible forest/orchard for the community to use. Rather than dismiss one group or the other as unrealistic or ignorant, we should take the time to understand how the other side thinks and sees the world, and speak to them in that language.

Progressives respond well to words like: sustainable, green, off-grid, spiritual, giving, Earth, heart, body, soul, growing, intensive, intuitive, love, holy, saints, new, human, gardens, environment, peace, and so on.

Traditionalists respond well to words like: safety, tax-breaks/incentives, local government, democracy, industry, employment, maintenance, historical, trade, rural, agriculture, traditional values, religion, and so on.

As a progressive, it’s my duty to re-define what I see in terms that the entire community – including traditionalists – can understand.

An example: Let’s say I want to start a program that takes food wastes from restaurants and grocery stores and brings it to a city-run central composting area.

For progressives, I should talk about reduced landfill wastes, the increased abundance of local compost, and how it is a step towards self-sufficiency (now all we need is to grow the food locally, and we’ll be set!)

For traditionalists, I should talk about increased revenue for the city via sale of compost, the creation of new jobs, increased tourism (helping local businesses) and possible grant money coming in.

If something is a benefit to the community, it can definitely be shown as a boon in all different lights – a tight-rope to walk, perhaps in this community more than others, but well worth the effort up front. Without due consideration for both sides, it seems inevitable that tempers will flare and misunderstanding will occur… and that bickering helps no one.

So please remember, Fairfielders: when you present an idea for the benefit of the community (and you want it to succeed), be sure to take the balanced approach and include benefits to both progressives and traditionalists.

[Note: this article was originally posted in July 2009.  It is now updated with the complete recipe - include at the end of the article - for making the Artisan Free-Form Loaf.]

My bread habits have come a long way in the past forty years. I started with Wonder Bread. In the 80s I moved on to a Whole Wheat bread which was basically the brown version of Wonder Bread from a nutritional standpoint. In the 90s I discovered real Whole Wheat breads (thanks to local co-op grocery stores) and explored the tastes of fresh baked artisan breads. And now, thanks to my wife, my family is learning that sliced bread isn’t the greatest invention after all. Instead, our family is now baking all of our bread ourselves, and what may surprise most people is that it’s relatively easy to bake enough healthy, great tasting bread to feed your family.

Over the past several months we’ve been buying fewer and fewer loaves of sliced bread, and baking more and more bread at home. Two weeks ago we decided to stop buying bread at all, and switch entirely to baking our own bread. So far it’s going well and I don’t miss store bought sliced loaves. Our routine is to prepare a high moisture no knead dough once a week, store that dough in the fridge, and use portions of it to bake bread (or pizzas) as needed throughout the week.

Baking all of your own bread may sound like a lot of work, and while it is more work than putting a loaf of bread in your cart at the grocery store, it isn’t as labor intensive as you might imagine (as I thought until recently).  Of course we were helped greatly by a book that was featured on The Splendid Table titled Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  The book provides detailed instructions and techniques on how to bake an Artisan Free-Form Loaf.  It’s what they call their “master recipe”, which once mastered contains all the skills required to bake the dozens of other recipes in the book.

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Photo by Greg Wood

Greg Brown Performing at the Arts and Convention Center July 31st at 7:30pm.

Since 2004, the Fairfield Live on the Square Concert Series has brought free, family-oriented concerts to the town square in Fairfield, IA. This month features the incomparable, Iowa born and raised Greg Brown, and the Jefferson County Greenband. And although this one isn’t free, the artists have graciously agreed to donate the proceeds to Live on the Square so that we can continue to bring free music to Fairfield for the rest of this year and beyond. In addition to thanking the artists, we’d like to thank Classic 96 for securing the artists for this show as well as the rest of our sponsors for their generous support.

Greg Brown’s songwriting has been lauded by many, and his songs have been performed by Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Michael Johnson, Shawn Colvin, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. He has also recorded more than a dozen albums, including his 1986 release, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, when he put aside his own songwriting to set poems of William Blake to music. One Big Town, recorded in 1989, earned Brown three and a half stars in Rolling Stone, chart-topping status in AAA and The Gavin Report’s Americana rankings and Brown’s first Indie Award from NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Distributors). The Poet Game, his 1994 CD, received another Indie award from NAIRD. His critically acclaimed 1996 release, Further In, was a finalist for the same award. Rolling Stone’s four-star review of Further In called Brown “a wickedly sharp observer of the human condition.” 1997’s Slant 6 Mind (Red House Records) earned Brown his second Grammy nomination. His latest CD, One Night (Red House), is a re-release of a 1983 live performance originally on Minneapolis’ Coffeehouse Extemporé Records.

Tickets are only $17 and are available at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center website or at the box office. More information about Greg Brown, The Jefferson County Greenband, and the 2009 Classic 96 Live on the Square Concert Series can be found at our fan page on Facebook. You can also follow us onTwitter for additional facts about the artists we’re presenting.

Please support free music in Fairfield by attending the Greg Brown benefit for Live on the Square on July 31^st at 7:30pm at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center. Hope to see you there!

Burlington re-surfacing project nears completion.  If you’ve driven near the Square this week then you’re well aware that the final layer of asphalt is being laid on Burlington Ave from 2nd St. to the far east of town.  Road crews caught a break this week with cooler weather.  They’re doing a nice job too – I rode down the newly laid North lane of Burlington Ave. on my bike and it’s a joy to ride on fresh, smooth asphalt with just the right amount of grip on your tires.

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This short documentary film follows two extremely lively and enthusiastic pre-med students at Maharishi University, Antwan and Yahya, though a month of their experiment eating a 100% raw food vegan diet. The story of their experiences, both challenges and benefits, on the raw food diet shows if and how it is possible for a college student to survive going raw.

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