The Natural, Indeed!
Part of the Family dept.
Living in Marin County, as I did from 1987 until 2014 was an experience I’ll always treasure. If you found yourself in the trendy, hip-but-humble environs of Mill Valley, San Rafael, or Fairfax though, you learned to stifle your star-struck giddiness when you’d inevitably run into some ridiculously famous person on the street.
After almost three years as primarily a musician in Marin, I began my classroom teaching career in 1993 as the ‘computer guy’ at San Rafael High School. I moved from public- to the college prep world in 1996 where I parlayed my great Iowa Public School education into a position as Director of Technology at The Branson School and later at Marin Academy (ma.org)
It was at that time that I began teaching the children of some of those ridiculously famous people.
James Redford, was the son of Robert Redford and Lola Van Wagenen. James tragically passed away in 2009, but in 2004 James and his wife Kyle hired me to teach their son Dylan bass guitar lessons in their Fairfax CA. home.
James, in addition to his roles as an environmental activist and as an executive with The Redford Center, was a pretty rockin’ guitar player too. In talking about education we found that we shared a passion for finding ways to motivate kids that the system often found hard to reach.
He turned his passionate concern into a moving documentary entitled Paper Tigers which opened a lot of eyes to the effects of trauma on the resilience on young learners.
The documentary, directed by Redford and Executive Producer Karen Pritzker follows James Sporleder a Washington State teacher in his attempts to help a then-increasing number of students who’ve suffered deeper-than-normal challenges as they work their way back to a place where they can transcend their problems and transform their lives for the better.
I met Sporleder in Des Moines as he was a guest of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) promoting his book (The Trauma Informed School) detailing his successful method of dealing with students, families and even schools suffering with aspects of deep trauma that too-often are a part of our ‘modern living.’



The Redfords were gracious, generous and down-to-earth in a way that I still deeply appreciate to this day.
Count me as just one more person who will miss both Robert and James Redford.
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.
My Integrated Life Begins Here; Episode One
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.





Dart,
Thank you for sharing, and for returning from the Iowa diaspora.
They broke the mold. . . . .
RIP, Jamey. Good guy.