So, DOES everybody know this is nowhere, like Neil Young said? Maybe not, although I’ve always thought so. Today I think I see a glimmer of hope. I “slept in” after a late night. We had a little celebration.
When I was a teen-age kid and into my twenties, yes this was nowhere even if you lived in the county seat where all the money changed hands. There was nothing for us kids to do. At the time I didn’t realize there was nothing to do for the adults either. Adults were, of course, irrelevant. Now, I am them.
As I remember it, several local churches figured out how to make a coffee shop for us kids so we might not spend all our time drinking beer or worse out at the sand pit or in some barn. It was below the street, long and skinny and boring. But I went there because so did Doris, and I kind of liked Doris. There was a record player of some kind and I heard some Steppenwolf album. I had never heard them before. I thought, yeah, this is something to do-drive Mom’s car downtown, listen to music and lust after Doris.
Some fifty years later I’m still doing that. Well, it has been MY car, that has changed, and for five years or more it wasn’t downtown-it was sixty-five miles away, and Doris unfriended me on Facebook some time in the past when I wasn’t looking. I probably said something.
Even though I have proved otherwise in the past for a little stretch there, I am really not much of a party boy. I’ve had two long sustained relationships over time, which should be about enough for anybody, and I don’t really lust after Doris any more, like I might let on.
There’s this place in Pomeroy…. correct that, there WAS this place in Pomeroy. It was a bar in a building that was something like a hundred and thirty years old. From what I can tell, it was a perfectly adequate little place and functioned like a bar, except nothing weird ever happened there like happens in bars. I no longer use alcohol which may impair my assessment of that.
But Byron had (has, he’s not gone) this music. I thought I knew something about music, having come from a background of formerly owning a music store (or two) for fourteen years, but it has turned out that I certainly did not. I won’t describe what I learned but it was profound, mostly in terms of community.
At the top of the year, the place got a poison pen letter from the city-the building was condemned because of safety concerns and there was a “drop dead date” which eventually was extended slightly.
I know something about little bars in little towns around here. Very few could sustain a blow like that and continue. It looked grim.
I would have to comb through all of my communication to pinpoint the reaction time, but I’m going to say it was almost instantaneous when the patrons heard the news.
That led to an intriguing coalition of people which lasted nine months and resulted in a solution yesterday when the city council of Pomeroy voted to sell Byron a building over some objections from a few locals. [slight correction 11/27/24]: The sale was not to Friends Of Byron’s as originally posted and subsequently edited; it was to Byron. FOB was an ad-hoc committee originally of around 22 people who tasked themselves with taking on the funding of the rescue effort.
Pomeroy, not unlike a tourist destination, has a large temporary population, probably larger than the population of permanent residents. That population is largely invisible, since they descend upon the town for maybe three hours a week, sometimes six. And then we scatter, to points all over the state and beyond. It’s a fellowship, we’re close.
As one might predict, the dilemma quickly became about the money. There were residents of the town who were concerned about how all this affected their tax dollars. But we had already raised a large sum of money, enough to change the playing field, and in the end, found a solution. People seemed to like the temporary building we found and we bought it.
During that nine months I had the opportunity to explore other parts of the state. That by itself is another story but four of those exploratory trips were to Iowa City, which might as well be another country, because it is different there. It isn’t difficult for me to meet people in music-related settings, because I have a bag of recording stuff and that sparks conversations (it doesn’t hurt to wear a colorful shirt).
Without exception, every conversation I had was about Byron’s, especially when somebody learned that I was the secretary of the committee (and had the notes to share when questions came up). Two of the conversations were with people who were deeply interested in revitalizing Iowa small towns, and those people had been at it for a while. One very large donation came in as a result of a short conversation outside of Byron’s while two performers and I were waiting for Byron to open. After one tiny text to a former northwest Iowan now residing in California, we hit a third of our requirement from someone interested in keeping the arts alive in culturally deprived rural Iowa.
I lived in a town the size of Pomeroy for twenty-two years. I know how it can go-keep the weeds down, have a pancake breakfast sometimes, but just listen to this guy’s vision: this is Matt Fockler at a recent Byron’s performance:
I agree with Matt; a town has to look at itself with a wider lens if it wants to grow.
So I said that when it was my turn to speak. The town had already banded together and created a bar and grill which their Facebook page proclaims to be “A community project with 69 owners!” The cooperative elevator there has to be a significant contributor to their tax base. And now, an iconic music venue has pulled itself out of the ashes and due to the nine months’ worth of publicity that our project brought, has attracted new music lovers. The town has an infusion of cash that could help on their way to building a new fire station, which has been under discussion for some time.
Depending upon what they plan for the Main Street block that will be demolished, there’s a sweet little stretch there that could be home to a couple of boutique retail shops. I can think of one immediately (smile) and people who know me can guess what it might be.
I think Pomeroy should look forward to their next exciting chapter.
