Chris Jepson: City Upon a Hill

My hometown, Sioux City, is a city of hills. I’ve a theory that if you live where the horizon is distant, your life view is one of wonder as to what lies just beyond. Sioux City’s most noticeable geographic feature is its proximity to the Missouri River. But if what most people associate as Iowa is its rolling hills, well Iowa then really starts at my hometown.

For tens upon tens of thousands of years the winds blew across the North American continent carrying loess soil, dirt that was deposited in huge bluffs beginning in western Iowa. These bluffs can be 200 feet above the Missouri River. Looking west out of Sioux City gives you unobstructed views for miles and miles into South Dakota and Nebraska.

One particular avenue, 18th Street, crested near, appropriately enough, Summit Street. Gazing west from the top of nearby Gilman Terrace you looked down upon the west side of Sioux City. I distinctly remember once pausing on my bicycle with several friends and someone pointing downward and casually noting that (down there) “negroes” lived. You might as well have said Martians resided there as little contact as I had with black Sioux Citians. There were, maybe, 50 black families in Sioux City.

Hamilton Boulevard separated the north side of Sioux City from the west side. I delivered (up at 4:45 a.m. six days a week) the Des Moines Register newspaper for five years from age 12 to 17. Arguably it was the most enriching job in my life. I loved the Iowa mornings and my time alone. In 1964 or 1965, the first black family (that I know of) crossed Hamilton Boulevard and moved into a modest north side home on the farthest reach of my paper route: Terrace Place. They subscribed to the paper and I started collecting from them once a week.

I recollect some initial trepidation over what to expect in my dealings with this family. But over a couple of months any reservations that I might have had about black family life were dispelled by my interactions with this household. I have no idea, cannot remember, what the young father did, but he had a professional demeanor, was easily conversational and was always wearing a tie. The food invariably smelled good, tastier, I suspected, than anything I was going to experience that evening. Regarding my subscriber, I cannot say I ever became unaware of his blackness but his money sure spent green.

I became friends — and for the life of me I cannot recall how this friendship developed — with a black lad my senior year in high school in 1967. His name was Phil Fields. I remember him as easy going, mellow talking and non-confrontational. Phil was smooth.

Fields was the antithesis of the black men I would soon encounter and befriend over the next five tumultuous years of college. Oh, they were smooth, but the days of non-confrontation were over, and justifiably so.

The best man at my wedding in 1969 was a black man. He’s dead. Racism ultimately crushed his spirit. He was the gentlest soul I ever encountered. And he couldn’t dance.

I am extremely grateful for having come of age in Sioux City. It nurtured me, shaped my experiences (and beliefs) and offered horizons that were boundless yet, ultimately, inclusive. It will be forever my city upon a hill.

Jepson is a 27-year resident of Central Florida. He’s fiscally conservative, socially liberal, likes art and embraces diversity of opinion. Reach him at [email protected]