Iowa's Warren County experienced the same history as others in the Midwest, making the people in countless communities the only difference between this homeplace and another. These glimpses burrow deep finding lives and living lost to time but worthy of remembering. While noteworthy then, they should be judged extraordinary today. Unearthed and brought into light of today, they include influencers and nay-sayers, believers and non-believers, schemers and saints. None were perfect, yet all made a difference. Finding them, uncovering perspective, attitude, and circumstances, their relevance today enhances the treasures of their discovery. The kinship between then and now, the very presence of history pulling and binding the present into the past, constitutes an awareness that couldn't be ignored. Acknowledged with a subtle sashay of opinion, running alongside is an equally subtle realization today's most fervent hullaballoos can be reconciled. We have done this before.

With Bolded Words ending one title also beginning the next, these glimpses form an unbroken line. Leaping and dancing through times and topics, they touch on early settler times, when surroundings were wild, wooly, and raw, and move among great innovations and steady advancements. Ever present is opinion and controversy, nothing was easy. The old adage of history repeating itself no longer rendering a hopeless chilling landscape but lending comfort to weathering today's difficulties. Originally published as a monthly column for the Indianola Independent-Advocate, gathering them together does more than intended. They now form a more perfect Unbroken Line of Pondering.