Mount Vernon, Home of the Son of Mr. Blowfish

The Midwest is dotted with towns named other towns.  The first residents may have come from there, but most likely someone looked in an atlas and thought the name sounded elegant.  Near my home town of Rock Island, we have Milan (pronounced My-lun), Cordova, Cambridge, Yorktown, and Cleveland, Illinois, and over on the Iowa side, Moscow, Andover, Toronto, Delhi, New Vienna, Luxemburg, Durango, Lisbon, and Mount Vernon, the site of Cornell College.










Mount Vernon, originally "Pinhook," was named after the home of George Washington in Virginia in 1847.    There actually is a "mountain," a 100-foot ridge which allows for some nice views of the surrounding countryside.  It's a college town, with the usual assortment of gyms (with the hot personal trainer in the top photo), used bookstores, brew pubs, and restaurant/taverns:  Chameleon's, the Skillet, and the aptly named Scorz Bar.  There's also a barn painted with an image of Grant Wood's American Gothic, if you're into that.





The high school has a robotics club and a trap shooting club, but no gay group (P.R.I.D.E. is something else).  It is unusual for schools in the Midwest for offering water polo.













It might also offer crew, but that might be the one in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

















Adjacent to Mount Vernon is the town of Lisbon, named after the city in Portugal in 1851, for no apparent reason.  There is no Portuguese heritage.

I think the high school offers wrestling and track, but that might be the Lisbon High in Lisbon Falls, Maine.

You can tell by the mascot, a lion in Iowa, a greyhound in Maine.





Or not.

This was the only male swimmer.



















But the area's main draw is Cornell College, originally the Iowa Conference Seminary  of the United Methodist Church.  The name was changed to Cornell in 1853 in honor of Methodist philanthropist William Wesley Cornell.


 No connection to Cornell University in New York, which was founded by another Cornell, Ezra, in 1865. 




Cornell has recently begun a block system, in which you take one class at a time. For instance, in fall semester 2018 block four (Aug 27 - Sept 19), you could take Medusa's  Gaze:Art in the Age of Galileo, Food and Sex in Evolutionary Perspective, Shakespeare and Freedom, and The Scientific Secrets of Crystals and Gems.

It beats Introduction to Western Civilization I.

I think it offers wrestling, swimming, powerlifting, and track, but that might be the university in New York.








You can tell by the uniforms, red vs. purple.


















Or not.

I dated a Cornell art history professor, the Son of Mr. Blowfish, who kept wanting to do things in public.  The story is on Tales of West Hollywood.