Hope I'm Not....
....Hijacking this thread too much, but I thought I'd fill Roger in on Waterloo:
Waterloo has traditionally existed as a transportation hub for agricultural products grown in the region (primarily corn - c'mon, this is Iowa), as a manufacturing center for agricultural equipment (John Deere is headquartered here) and as a meat-packing center.
The first two raisons d'etre are still very much in evidence, but the third has largely died out since the 1983 demise of the Rath Packing Company, makers of Rath pork products, and once one of the town's two largest employers (the other being John Deere). Rath fell victim to its pig-headed management, who would neither modernize a seriously antiquated plant nor work effectively with a union.
Today, kitchen cabinet manufacturing is a big employer (Bertch and Omega are Waterloo businesses), and agriculture is still king. We've got miles of corn fields all around the town, and a few in town, including some behind our major mall, Crossroads. I'll bet you've never seen a Dillard's with corn growing out back! Eldercare is also a huge industry here, with retirement communities serving the entire spectrum of needs (including "memory care" for dementia and Alzheimer's sufferers) and price points.
Our twin city, Cedar Falls, is home to UNI, the University of Northern Iowa, and like the more famous Twin Cities in Minnesota, is pretty much one contiguous urban area with Waterloo.
If you like small cities, this is The Place. We've got everything larger cities have, except the density and the hectic pace.
