DEAR Wang Yong,

I enjoyed your column (“Search for Neighborhood Smells Shows Selflessness Can Bring Joy,” last Friday) for a number of reasons. I also applaud your initiative and courage in acting when our common human instinct is often, “I don’t want to become involved,” or, “well, it is someone else’s responsibility, not mine.”

When I was a member of Davenport’s City Council in the long ago days of 1970-73, one of the most persistent, annoying, and, indeed, noxious problems of the part of the city I represented was the ongoing underground fires at Davenport’s open garbage dump in the southernmost part of my ward. The fires originated from both spontaneous combustion and from occasional acts of vandalism. As you might imagine, the resulting smoke and fumes were often dense and always offensively noxious.

One of the few homes at that time dedicated to housing elderly people who had little money was located relatively nearby the dump and, given the usual direction of the prevailing winds, often found itself blanketed in those fumes.

Even though a young man then (26 in 1970), for some reason I really found myself taking a shine to the folks in that home, as well as to other elderly constituents in my ward.

One of the persons living in that home was an elderly gentleman whose kindly face I can still recall, even though his name has long since faded away. He had a serious case of emphysema that was gravely aggravated by emissions from the dump. He continuously complained about that fact, asking me to “do something” to help him. Partly because of my urging, but also because many other persons found the situation intolerable, the city began to investigate options for creating a closed landfill away from population clusters.

In my second year on the Council I learned this gentleman had died of his disease, shortly after days of particularly heavy smoke from that dump. His death felt like a personal burden as the landfill option was still undeveloped. So I filed a legal suit against the city!

The mayor and other councilmen were angered by this, but I had had enough of delays — in my mind, they had cost at least one life and that was just one too many. This greatly hastened the process and, later that year, the offensive dump was filled in, the fires extinguished, and a new, more environmentally compliant landfill opened. Your article brought memories of those times — and that gentleman’s wonderful, smiling face — back to me.

‘A great crime’

On a lighter note, I remember a time just a few years later when, at the house in Des Moines that I shared with a couple of other younger legislators, one of my colleagues — a member of the State Senate — came home one evening outraged at the great stink enveloping quite a large section of the east side of Des Moines because of a nearby packing plant’s emissions (this was a place where dead horses and other animals were “rendered”).

As I stood nearby, he called the Des Moines police station and angrily complained that “a great crime was being committed right now.” I could tell the police at first thought he was complaining about a robbery or beating taking place, for he had to reiterate the problem. I must say that before he had completed this call, I was shaking with laughter, just imagining how the police officers must have received news of this “crime.”

Of course, he had a good point, but this was in the early days of environmental regulation, especially by cities.

Not so coincidentally, this packing plant — like the dump in Davenport — was located in the poorer parts of town. In all countries, it seems, while the rich have the influence to quell such obnoxious matters so that they never begin to bother them, poorer folk have a lessened voice.

Both that Senate colleague of mine and I were privileged to represent portions of Davenport in the State Legislature which consisted of both many poor people and lower to middle class folks, so we were attuned to things that would probably not have occurred to others. That gentleman, still my friend, is now in his second term as mayor of Davenport.

Fine folks

Back to your article. After relating your adventures in identifying the probable cause of those irritating odors, and your efforts to find a responsive official who could effectively act to deal with the situation, you wrote: “In this episode, I realized two things: First, the government was imperfect in many areas, but good-will communication could solve many problems. It served no good just to complain. Second, volunteering to do something for the benefit of our whole neighborhood really made me happy.”

Precisely! My experience, both as a member of government and as a citizen, is that most folks serving in government are really fine people (they are, after all, fellow citizens and even our neighbors) and, all too often, lack the knowledge of certain situations that certain citizens can provide and assist them with.

Far better to attempt to work with such officials, taking time to put ourselves in their shoes first, than to stand aside and just cast stones. Furthermore, many of us have a very diminished idea of our responsibility as citizens, to each other and to our society. Voting, after all, is the minimal obligation of a citizen. It doesn’t begin or stop there.

I remember being frustrated as a city councilman when citizens would either confront me on the street or call me on the phone to demand that I “do something,” even when the issue involved an immediate neighbor of theirs! So I quickly, in such circumstances, did act, but not necessarily as the person had asked. I called many neighborhood meetings as an alderman (a German word meaning “the other’s man”).

Faced with complaints I asked all who might be interested, involved, or able to address the problem to come, sit down with all the rest of us, and work out an acceptable solution. I acted as the convener, moderator and, sometimes, referee.

But what was truly amazing was that after some initial stiffness, and the first harsher statements by the angry ones about what was happening and “who” was at fault, most people quickly began to really listen to one another.

Thank you for your article, and for bringing back such memories. Truly, I was happiest when I was serving others.

In friendship,

Greg

The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science, the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference; he served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.