Reunions, Rejoicing, Rededication II

Closing the Circle Dept.

From Left: Edna Griffin’s son Stanley Griffin, IWC Founder and Den Mother Julie Gammack with Yours Truly (photo by Paula Egan)

In the middle ages (1964-1967) Des Moines was an extremely cool place to get educated, hear great youth music and be inspired by adults who cared enough to be real mentors to us. Des Moines is where the three amigos pictured above all became deep friends.

I first met Julie in the newsroom of the Des Moines Register and Tribune where we were both “copy kids.” Stanley and I first met on the dance floor where our mutual friend, the late George (GT) Clinton and his band, Captain Beefheart and the Shipwrecks, held forth in a city where rock’n roll was breaking out like an insistent rash.

We were young, bold and very well educated in the new world that promised open vistas of possibility while worrying the hell out of us because “what if Russia bombs us?”

After 60+ years, we were reunited Saturday March 22nd 2025 at Franklin Jr. High (where Stan went to school back in the day) for the Des Moines Book Festival organized by Beaverdale Books and the Beaverdale Neighborhood Association.

Now for the fun part: completely unrelated to the Book Festival, the National Bar Association, founded 100 years ago in Des Moines was having their centennial anniversary conference downtown at the Marriott Hotel. As fate would have it, they were posthumously honoring Stanley’s mother, Iowa civil rights icon Edna Griffin with the Heman Sweatt Award for her pioneering efforts in standing up to racial injustice.

By simply sitting down at the Katz drugstore lunch counter on July 7, 1948 to get a cool drink on a hot summer day, Edna walked into the history books as a Black woman whose act of sitting down was, simultaneously, an act of standing up for justice and equality.

Accepting the award for her was her son Stanley Jr. who flew in from his home in Atlanta, Ga. As I stated previously, Stan and our circle of (White and Black) friends in the 60’s were notorious for being “on the scene.”

Dance halls like Teen Town at the Iowa State Fair, The Place at 2nd and Euclid ave., The Clique in West Des Moines, and the Know Where in a downtown Des Moines church introduced me to the intoxicating brew of 60’s Rock and R&B musicianship. It all seemed a smoldering cauldron of excitement where teen angst and desire met Fender guitars, Vox amplifiers and kids dancing their heads off.

Well, 60 years later, we’re now old(er) but the spirit never seems to die. Stanley Griffin, like his mother and father Dr. Stanley Sr. was always a high energy kinetic machine. He never seemed to get tired always urging us to make the next set.

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Last Saturday after the NBA Awards gala and a jam-packed 3-day conference, I was ready to kick back and relax…but not Stan.

“We gotta see Julie if we can,” said Stan late Saturday morning so we (Stan, Paula and I) headed out to Franklin Middle School to catch the 1:00pm workshop/discussion entitled:

Content that Connects Iowans: Beth Hoffman, Chuck Offenburger, Dave Busiek, Laura Belin, Rachelle Chase, moderated by Julie Gammack, Iowa Writer’s Collective. Sponsored by Bankers Trust.

I wasn’t planning on being a panelist but as soon as I entered the room, Julie asked me to take a place at the front table with the other IWC colleagues listed above.

One never knows when synchronicity will kick in but once Robert Leonard, another IWC stalwart, was introduced to Stan Griffin something rather magic happened:

I wasn’t quite nimble enough to get the beginning few sentences of his youthful remembrance but I got enough to capture the essence of what was a foundational experience for him.

And that, my friends and readers, is the energy that lights up the heart urging us to remember that love and justice are always there deep inside us. If we’re lucky and blessed, we get to know people like Edna Griffin, who sat down, 4 years before Rosa Parks, so that WE COULD STAND UP!!

Thanks Bob for your story. It is this kind of vignette that often represent truth in a way that a big movie, book or other extravaganza could only hint at. Nice goin’.

There are a few more stories to relate from this wonderfully crazy weekend but for now…Hug somebody.

Iowa Writers’ Collaborative

Below is a list of the members of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please support their work by sharing and subscribing. Paid subscribers are invited to attend real-time events and occasional Zoom calls among our writers. Your support keeps this reader-only supported service going.

IOWA WRITERS’ COLLABORATIVE

The Roster of Writers

Nicole Baart: This Stays Here, Sioux Center

Ray Young Bear: From Red Earth Drive, Meskwaki Settlement

Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

Tory Brecht: Brecht’s Beat, Quad Cities

Dartanyan Brown, My Integrated Life, Des Moines

Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll

Jane Burns: The Crossover, Des Moines

Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, Roundup

Steph Copley: It Was Never a Dress, Johnston

Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca: Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Daniel Finney, Paragraph Stacker, Des Moines

Arnold Garson: Second Thoughts, Okoboji and Sioux Falls

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Rob Gray: Rob Gray’s Area, Ankeny

Nik Heftman: The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilia

Iowa Capital Dispatch, an alliance with IWC

Dana James: Black Iowa News, Iowa

Chris Jones, Chris’s Substack, Iowa City

Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo

Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

Letters from Iowans, Iowa

Darcy Maulsby: Keepin’ It Rural, Calhoun County

Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa

Alison McGaughey, The Inquisitive Quad Citizen, Quad Cities

Kurt Meyer: Showing Up, St. Ansgar

Vicki Minor, Relatively Minor, Winterset

Wini Moranville: Wini’s Food Stories, Des Moines

Jeff Morrison: Between Two Rivers, Cedar Rapids

Kyle Munson: Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines

Jane Nguyen: The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines

John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.

Dave Price: Dave Price’s Perspective, Des Moines

Steve Semken, The Pulse of a Heartland Publisher, North Liberty

Macey Shofroth: The Midwest Creative, Norwalk

Larry Stone: Listening to the Land, Elkader

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona

Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Jason Walsmith, The Racontourist, Earlham

Kali White VanBaale, 988: Mental Healthcare in Iowa, Bondurant

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

The Iowa Writers Collaborative is also proud to ally with Iowa Capital Dispatch.