Bob Schildgen Q & A with Eastern Iowa Review
Chila: There's a Pikes Peak in the Colorado Rockies and a Pikes Peak in Iowa, a fact which some may not have known before now. Why did you choose to write about the Iowan version?
Bob: I’ve always been proud of growing up in the area near Pikes Peak in Iowa, and when we visited Pikes Peak my father explained that this was the original Pikes Peak. After moving to California, I found it rather annoying that people out here dismiss everything between the two coasts as a mere homogeneous, flat, treeless flyover. So I think I was motivated to stand up for my roots, and celebrate the immense but often neglected beauty of the region. Of course I was infatuated with Mark Twain and Life on the Mississippi and Huckleberry Finn. He actually said the Upper Mississippi was the most beautiful stretch of the river. For me there’s no vista that can compare with the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers seen from the Pikes Peak side.
Chila: In comparing the two, I especially like the lines: "Can the slopes of Pike's western peak match those of the first? Green with corn, gold with oats, fat with melons? Does milk pour down out of their crevices and valleys? Can the coyote find her way home?" What inspires you to write like this, asking these questions and seeing these visions in your mind?
Bob: A childhood on a Wisconsin farm immersed in nature is what gives rise to this imagery. We spent most of our days in the fields and woods, and even as a little kid, after church on Sunday in a river village on the Wisconsin side, we’d beg our parents to take us down just to gawk at the river. When I was 15 or so, my friends and I bought a boat and cruised all over the river in the summer. (I dread to think how much pollution we spewed into the water with that 25-horsepower, 2-cycle engine. I have a recurring nightmare where Dick Cheney is waltzing on an oil slick we created.) And in winter we drove across the ice. It’ s a miracle we survived, considering how reckless we were.
Chila: You're an environmental journalist, well-qualified to address nature topics. You also write for Sierra Club's magazine. Tell us about that.
Bob: I was on the staff of Sierra magazine from 1993 to 2005, and was managing editor for much of that time. For a farm boy who grew up close to the land, it was easy to deal the kind of topics the Sierra Club addresses, whether celebrating nature—or criticizing those who despoil it. For example, I never could stand the sickening odor of the clouds of pesticides sprayed everywhere. I had a gut feeling that they were dangerous, and even nagged my father to convert to organic farming. And sometimes those chemicals seemed downright absurd. For example, I worked for one farmer who drove his tractor through the pasture and doused each individual bull thistle with a weed killer. I convinced him it would be cheaper if he just turned me loose with a shovel and let me slice the thistles off at the roots. Everybody should have such a wonderful experience! When you’re wandering around a pasture, you’re immersed in nature: You hear the birds, you sing back to them, you observe gazillions of insects and butterflies up close, you see the rabbits and gophers scurrying, and you are at one with the landscape. So maybe I was fated to write about the environment.
Chila: As a journalist, what's the most interesting story you've covered, or the most fascinating region you've visited?
Bob: Wow. That’s a tough one. Maybe a story about floods on the Mississippi and the power of the river. Then again, maybe a story about experiences riding buses in the San Francisco and vicinity, and how this does the environment a big favor.
Chila: What's next on the writing agenda for you? Will you write a book? And for the future, down the road -- what's ahead?
Bob: Well, I’ve written a fair amount of poetry, but have been kind of lazy about getting it published. Now I’m focusing more on, well, marketing poems. I’m hoping a book will emerge from this effort. I’d also like to do an updated edition of my book, Hey Mr. Green, a collection of my columns for Sierra published in 2008. My big fantasy is to write a historical novel based on my ancestors’ lives. The first one arrived in 1832 to mine lead in southwest Wisconsin. He enlisted to fight in the Blackhawk War, the genocidal excursion in which both Abe Lincoln and Jefferson Davis’ troops were involved. Another ancestor was killed in the Civil War, in an ambush by Stonewall Jackson in the second battle of Bull Run. Another was an abolitionist whose house was burned down by Confederate sympathizers in Ohio, forcing him to flee to Guttenberg, Iowa. The misery of their wives and daughters was unrelenting. All kinds of other historical dignitaries passed through earlier, including William Clark, of the famed Lewis and Clark duo. My father grew up right next to one of Wisconsin’s rural black communities whose residents were descended from freed or escaped slaves. It’ll be a daunting task to weave all this together, which no doubt explains why the project has not even started.
Chila: There's a Pikes Peak in the Colorado Rockies and a Pikes Peak in Iowa, a fact which some may not have known before now. Why did you choose to write about the Iowan version?
Bob: I’ve always been proud of growing up in the area near Pikes Peak in Iowa, and when we visited Pikes Peak my father explained that this was the original Pikes Peak. After moving to California, I found it rather annoying that people out here dismiss everything between the two coasts as a mere homogeneous, flat, treeless flyover. So I think I was motivated to stand up for my roots, and celebrate the immense but often neglected beauty of the region. Of course I was infatuated with Mark Twain and Life on the Mississippi and Huckleberry Finn. He actually said the Upper Mississippi was the most beautiful stretch of the river. For me there’s no vista that can compare with the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers seen from the Pikes Peak side.
Chila: In comparing the two, I especially like the lines: "Can the slopes of Pike's western peak match those of the first? Green with corn, gold with oats, fat with melons? Does milk pour down out of their crevices and valleys? Can the coyote find her way home?" What inspires you to write like this, asking these questions and seeing these visions in your mind?
Bob: A childhood on a Wisconsin farm immersed in nature is what gives rise to this imagery. We spent most of our days in the fields and woods, and even as a little kid, after church on Sunday in a river village on the Wisconsin side, we’d beg our parents to take us down just to gawk at the river. When I was 15 or so, my friends and I bought a boat and cruised all over the river in the summer. (I dread to think how much pollution we spewed into the water with that 25-horsepower, 2-cycle engine. I have a recurring nightmare where Dick Cheney is waltzing on an oil slick we created.) And in winter we drove across the ice. It’ s a miracle we survived, considering how reckless we were.
Chila: You're an environmental journalist, well-qualified to address nature topics. You also write for Sierra Club's magazine. Tell us about that.
Bob: I was on the staff of Sierra magazine from 1993 to 2005, and was managing editor for much of that time. For a farm boy who grew up close to the land, it was easy to deal the kind of topics the Sierra Club addresses, whether celebrating nature—or criticizing those who despoil it. For example, I never could stand the sickening odor of the clouds of pesticides sprayed everywhere. I had a gut feeling that they were dangerous, and even nagged my father to convert to organic farming. And sometimes those chemicals seemed downright absurd. For example, I worked for one farmer who drove his tractor through the pasture and doused each individual bull thistle with a weed killer. I convinced him it would be cheaper if he just turned me loose with a shovel and let me slice the thistles off at the roots. Everybody should have such a wonderful experience! When you’re wandering around a pasture, you’re immersed in nature: You hear the birds, you sing back to them, you observe gazillions of insects and butterflies up close, you see the rabbits and gophers scurrying, and you are at one with the landscape. So maybe I was fated to write about the environment.
Chila: As a journalist, what's the most interesting story you've covered, or the most fascinating region you've visited?
Bob: Wow. That’s a tough one. Maybe a story about floods on the Mississippi and the power of the river. Then again, maybe a story about experiences riding buses in the San Francisco and vicinity, and how this does the environment a big favor.
Chila: What's next on the writing agenda for you? Will you write a book? And for the future, down the road -- what's ahead?
Bob: Well, I’ve written a fair amount of poetry, but have been kind of lazy about getting it published. Now I’m focusing more on, well, marketing poems. I’m hoping a book will emerge from this effort. I’d also like to do an updated edition of my book, Hey Mr. Green, a collection of my columns for Sierra published in 2008. My big fantasy is to write a historical novel based on my ancestors’ lives. The first one arrived in 1832 to mine lead in southwest Wisconsin. He enlisted to fight in the Blackhawk War, the genocidal excursion in which both Abe Lincoln and Jefferson Davis’ troops were involved. Another ancestor was killed in the Civil War, in an ambush by Stonewall Jackson in the second battle of Bull Run. Another was an abolitionist whose house was burned down by Confederate sympathizers in Ohio, forcing him to flee to Guttenberg, Iowa. The misery of their wives and daughters was unrelenting. All kinds of other historical dignitaries passed through earlier, including William Clark, of the famed Lewis and Clark duo. My father grew up right next to one of Wisconsin’s rural black communities whose residents were descended from freed or escaped slaves. It’ll be a daunting task to weave all this together, which no doubt explains why the project has not even started.
I appreciate these fascinating facts and wish Bob, aka Sierra Magazine's Mr. Green, only the very best. Hoping for those books to happen soon. - Chila
Bob Schildgen was the managing editor and book review editor of Sierra magazine for many years, and continues to write Sierra’s popular “Hey Mr. Green” environmental advice column. A native of rural Wisconsin, where he grew up on a farm, Bob now resides in Berkeley, California, where he indulges his passions for gardening and thrift by growing two dozen types of vegetables in his backyard.
Bob Schildgen was the managing editor and book review editor of Sierra magazine for many years, and continues to write Sierra’s popular “Hey Mr. Green” environmental advice column. A native of rural Wisconsin, where he grew up on a farm, Bob now resides in Berkeley, California, where he indulges his passions for gardening and thrift by growing two dozen types of vegetables in his backyard.
