For those considering Southern Iowa....

[maousn75]

I always laugh when someone judges an entire population of people and then claims to be intelligent.

[Northern Traveler]

Originally Posted by maousn75

I always laugh when someone judges an entire population of people and then claims to be intelligent.

SHHHH it was a joke.

BTW, it's not judging, I lived there over a decade as previously posted - I know the area.

[weewik]

Next time you are through our fair city, stop in and say hello. We won't bite.

[majorcyfan]

Originally Posted by duster1979

I grew up in Illinois and spent some time in Colorado and Des Moines before landing so far south in Iowa that, to paraphrase Tina Fey, "I can see Missouri from my house." I can't see where Missouri would be gaining much in the way of IQ if they absorbed this area. It would definitely be an intellectual boost for Iowa, though, to cut it loose.

Having travelled this southern area for business, Promise City is an shining example of growth in Southern Iowa, a part of Iowa that for the most part, is very economically depressed, always has been. Nice people but poor. With poverty, comes ignorance. that's how it is in Southern Iowa.

[Mercruiserdr]

A true story.

I quite often have to deal with the alleged people of higher intelligence from the states metroplexes , I happen to be one of the few certified water toy techs in the Rathbun area.

A couple of years ago in preperation for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend one of Des Moines characters of superior intelligence dropped off his brand new $60,000.00 plus Baja to make sure it was water ready for the big holiday.

I went over the craft and made sure everything was operating properly and all fluids were topped off , as expected everything was ship shape.

The owner and his lovely wife picked up their pricey watertoy friday afternoon and headed for the lake.

I rarely work saturdays , however due to the heavy traffic we were having for that weekend I was asked if I would work till noon , so I found myself in the shop when the phone call came in around 10:45.

The receptionist came to the shop and said it was a man asking to speak to the "mechanic" who had worked on his Baja earlier that week.
She told me he sounded upset.

I answered the phone and was instantly assaulted with the accusation that I did not perform the task he had requested and had payed good money for !

I finally got the genius to calm down and explain to me what his problem was.

He went on to say that the craft had operated just fine friday evening , however that saturday morning as he and his friends were making a run across the lake they discovered that the tilt & trim was not operating !

I then began asking a series of questions in hope of eliminating any simple problems or oversites which may be causing the problem , for every question I was given the answer of, "I dont know".

I was then informed that he had no mechanical knowledge, however his friend did.
So he was put on the cell phone , and we started with the same questions to try and eliminate a simple cause for the problem.

I will admit I faired slightly better with the mechanically inclined friend,, the emphasis being on slightly.

I was then asked if I could drive out there and try to fix it,,, which I never do.

So they then asked if there was anyway to release and raise the drive unit so they could at least put it on the trailer and bring it in to me ?

I informed them all they had to do was turn the manual bypass screw on the T&T pump and the unit could then be lifted by hand and secured by tightening the screw back up.

When asked to explain how this very simple procedure was accomplished the long blank silence from their end upon finishing informed me this simple task was way beyond their mechanical abilities !

The "mechanically inclined" friend then asked if pulling the rod out of the end of the tilt cylinders would allow them to move the drive unit ?
I said yep, it would,, and left it at that,,, if they wanted to go through that much effort I wasnt going to stop em.

With that they then informed me they would bring the boat to the shop as soon as they were done.

I waited around till 1:30 after noon then said to hell with em and went home , they were on their own.

Upon arriving back at work on tuesday morning my boss started telling me about the visit from hell.

It seems the Baja's proud owner and his very irate lovely wife made a huge scene when they finally got to the shop around four and discovered the mechanic was gone for the day !

She then informed anyone and everyone that her husband was a lawyer and he would be suing for their huge plans being ruined due to "our ignorance" in not performing the simple task of making sure their new boat didnt have any problems !

It seems they finally realised all the hollering and screaming they could possibly ever muster was not going to drag me away from whatever it was I was undertaking by that time.

So in a big huff they begrudgingly left their pride and joy for me to figure out just what went wrong on tuesday morning.

Thus informed I began the task of reversing the damage the brainiacs from up north had done.

First I had to unwrap what seemed like a miles worth of ski and tow ropes they had holding the drive unit up so it wouldnt drag on the ground.

I then had to find the T&T pin and insert it back into the lift cylinders and its associated hardware.

Then I climbed into the hapless muscleboat and raised the electric engine hatch.
Before it was fully up I spotted one huge glaring empty spot that was likely the cause for all the trouble !

Upon closer inspection my suspicion was verified.
This craft has two batteries, the main battery and the auxillary , and in this case the latter was missing.

I glanced over at the tilt & trim pump , then followed its power cables , which ended right where the missing battery should have been.
I then took those cables and hooked them to the main battery , then triggered the T&T switch, yep,, it worked just fine.

I then covered the craft back up and returned to me scheduled tasks.

Around 2:00 that afternoon I was informed the Baja owner was on the phone wanting to talk to me.

As expected he was rather rude and demanding to know what I had found wrong with his boat !

I then asked him if he had any idea what happened to the aux. battery ?

Without missing a beat he told me that his buddy had brought his boat down , which was a good thing otherwise their weekend would have been a total disaster , but they discovered his battery was dead so they simply used his aux. battery to get his going.

I then asked him if by any chance had they noticed that around that same time the T&T on his Baja had ceased working ?

There was a loooonnnggg silence ,,, then he calmly said, " I will give you fifty bucks not to tell my wife what caused this."

To this day his wife probably still thinks a bad fuse ruined her big weekend plans.

If it wasnt for all those geniuses up north I dont know what id do to make ends meet.

[IowaTexasDC Guy]

I grew up in Southern Ia....It does have a different culture, that is for sure. More "country" I guess, less row crops than N IA, more livestock, less industry. I don't think people are dumber, they just value different things. Btw, I went on, from a So. Iowa school, to the the U of I and have a masters from the U of Texas. Go figure. I grew up 10 miles from Missouri and can tell you there is a much more pronounced difference once you cross the border than there is when you enter the Southern 2 tiers.