Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | fall 2002

FALL 2002
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Cover Story:
The Knoll

Feature Story:
Two voices

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THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

The first four years I was married, I moved six times.

The reason I’m telling you this is so you’ll know that I understand what it’s like to move into a new place.

When Iowa State’s first families move into the Knoll, it’s probably not much different from when I moved from an efficiency apartment with lime green shag carpet, to a small, white rental house, or when I moved from a roach-infested apartment to a much swankier apartment with a pool. No matter who you are or where you move, you still have more stuff than you have room. You still move boxes that you haven’t unpacked from the last move. You still spend the first six months looking for the garlic press and the guest towels. And you still can’t figure out how that huge sofa ever fit through that tiny door.

I’m sure the Geoffroys, as well as all the other former first families, can relate to my anxiety when the enormous moving van pulled up in front of our house to move us to Ames. It took up an entire block. Oh my, I thought, I must really be moving. Is there time to change my mind?

Lucky for me, there wasn’t time, because I’ve never regretted the move. It’s the actual MOVING that still makes me shudder five years later. When we moved to Ames, our kids were age 6 and 10. I can still remember the poor guy who packed all their stuff. He said he had never seen so many Barbies. He individually wrapped every one of them in white paper and carefully laid them in a moving carton. I hated to tell him that anyone else would have just dumped them in a grocery bag and thrown them in the truck.

During my childhood, my family didn’t move around much. I only lived in two places until I went away to college, and one of those places was only for a short time. It was just as well, because it was on the top floor of a funeral home. I was about 5 years old, and I can remember that my mother told me I couldn’t run in the house when there was a funeral going on downstairs. It’s hard for a 5-year-old to be quiet for very long. I’m sure my mom had to come up with some creative ways to keep me entertained.

I don’t remember ever being traumatized about living in the funeral home, probably because I was so young, but I never remember having friends over. It occurs to me that the children of Iowa State’s presidents probably felt about The Knoll like my sisters and I felt about the funeral home. It’s not exactly private, but it’s sort of a novelty.

We didn’t stay in the funeral home biz for very long. My dad went back to work for someone else, and we moved back into our old house, with its familiar swing set in the backyard and huge blue spruce in the front.

So it wasn’t until I left home for college that I became an expert at moving. College students are the best at this, you know, because they have to fit so much stuff into such a small space. I see moms and dads hauling moving vans into town each fall – filled with big-screen TVs and elaborate computer equipment – and I sort of laugh to myself. How will they ever get all that stuff in a dorm room?

Unfortunately, every place I have lived since 1977 has been progressively larger, so I have accumulated mountains of unnecessary belongings and never have to throw anything away. I still move all my record albums, even though I have no record player.

I move the kids’ outgrown toys and outgrown clothes. It’s just easier to move it than to go through it all. I had a good friend in college who moved even more often in her early career than I did, and she had a lot more stuff. I still tease her about the time we actually moved trash from one house to the next.

My office moved this summer, from the second floor of the Memorial Union to the first floor. This doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but it was a lot like moving into a new house. I had accumulated obscene amounts of stuff in my office, and it was a lot of work to sort through everything. I hate to throw things away. What if I’ll need it someday? I think magazine editors as a species tend to keep things around. We like paper, and we like proof that what we print is accurate. So we collect old tapes of interviews, keep our notes for years, and file page proofs for posterity.

After weeks of cleaning and organizing and agonizing over what to keep and what to toss, I officially moved to the first floor Alumni Suite in July. My new office is nice and cozy. You’ll have to come by and visit sometime. It’s just like home.

About the Writer | Carole Gieseke is the editor of VISIONS magazine.