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| 1. |  | Peter Feldstein 2008 Book cover for Peter Feldstein "the Oxford Project" (Welcome Books, 2008) [The Oxford Project] Book cover Welcome Books |
| 2. |  | Peter Feldstein 2008 Title page for Peter Feldstein "the Oxford Project" (Welcome Books, 2008) [The Oxford Project] Title page Welcome Books |
| 3. |  | n.d. Oxford, Iowa [The Oxford Project] Map Welcome Books |
| 4. |  | n.d. Oxford, Iowa [The Oxford Project] Map Welcome Books |
| 5. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Barbara Boyle [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books Sage and Zeus are Great Pyrenees. They'd been abused and dumped. It took four weeks to catch them. I used another Great Pyrenees as bait. I laid flat on my back with treats in both hands. To this day, I can't get them into a pickup truck. If I try, they go crazy. They're terrified of men, especially men in seed caps. Reggie is the alpha dog. He'll back Sage and Zeus into a corner. I'm not a little dog person, but Reggie is the funniest dog I know. He makes me laugh every day. My mother was sixteen when I was born. She hid her pregnancy by wearing baggy clothes. One night under a full blue moon, she went to a park and delivered me by herself. Fifteen months later, my grandfather tricked her into signing adoption papers. When my adoptive family took me away, my aunts told me they remember me screaming. The family that adopted me was wonderful, but I always had questions. Forever I wanted to know where my red curly hair came from. When I was fifty, I met an adoption searcher, and with her help, I found my family. A couple of years ago, I got to meet all my relatives. I was so scared, I brought Reggie with me. But it turned out wonderfully and still feels like a miracle. My half-brother Billy was there. He and I both have red curly hair. We look like twins! Barbara Boyle From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 6. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Bob Stopko [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I enlisted when I was seventeen. I served twenty-two years, ten days, eight hours, and ten minutes. I was a Pennsylvania coal miner's son. What did I have to look forward to? I was stationed at Cu Chi. When the rockets came, if you weren't scared you'd be crazy. Some of my buddies got killed. One was a Jewish kid. He forgot something and went back to the barracks when the Vietcong started lobbing mortars. The Vietnamese didn't give a shit who won the war. They had nothing before and they had nothing after. I was sprayed with Agent Orange. They sprayed all around the bases. It took me twenty-five years to know. I got cancer, teeth removed, diabetes, heart trouble, high blood pressure, my feet ache, the corneas in my eyes have been replaced. They tell us the bad things about Iraq. They don't tell us the good things. He made a mistake by going in there, but if we pull out, we're gonna have more terrorists. You get into some of these places and the people aren't civilized. They'd kill their own mothers. I think everyone should spend one tour in the military. They'd see what's going on, they'd grow up, and they'd get some discipline. I can still fit into my uniform. My daughter Holly says that if anything happens to me, she wants it. Bob Stopko From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 7. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Bud Miller [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I stayed on the farm for a year, then I enlisted in the Army. They sent me to Arlington National Cemetery. It was a lot of spit 'n polish, and I wanted to go someplace else. So they sent me to Wheeler Air Force Base in Hawaii, where I was a clerk-typist. When I got back, I farmed for five years. But I didn't like it. I ended up selling life insurance for Western Bohemian Fraternal Association. I stayed on for twenty-six years, the last twelve as president. You're selling an intangible. You have to be persistent. It's harder today than it used to be. People don't plan as much for the future. If someone says no, you move on, but you never sever ties. You want to stay active in community affairs. I was on the school board for six years. And I helped with girls' softball and Little League. I'm a tree hugger. I've planted five to six thousand trees on my property pines, ash, and oaks. I also have a two-acre pond. My only regret is that I would have went to college. Maybe I'd have had more confidence. Bud Miller From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 8. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Darrell Lindley [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I shoot 'em, bleed 'em, then skin 'em. I do hogs, cattle, goats, buffalo, and sheep. I use a .22 Magnum. After I shoot 'em, I cut their throats. Hogs, I stick 'em underneath in their brisket. Tomorrow I'm going to do four hogs. That'll take me four hours. Hogs I get twenty-four dollars apiece. Cattle is fifty dollars, plus the hide. There was a time when I'd work five or six days a week. I had customers in seven counties. I used to do five to six thousand head a year. One thing I do, if there are kids around, is I cut out the eye (it's a little smaller than a golf ball), and I swish it around my mouth. The kids can't believe that. Then I give the eyeballs to the health teacher at the school so the kids can dissect it. We lost one of our daughters to cancer two years ago. I still talk to Darnell every day. She had a great sense of humor. Always did, even as a little girl. The loss of a child is about as bad as it gets. The last thing Darnell said before she died was, "I love you, Dad." The invasion of Iraq was very foolish. We never should've gone there. A just war is one thing, but this war isn't just. Bush isn't honest. He's an idiot and a coward. I don't have a lot of disappointments. I wish I had charged people more, maybe then I'd have more money now. Darrell Lindley From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 9. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Ed Cox [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I used to like to go coon hunting. My dad started me out when I was four. I taught my own boys how to coon hunt, too. Farmers used to hire me to run their balers. I've hauled lime, rock, and sand. I also farmed. I grew corn, oats, and beans. I've done mechanic work, too. I once drove a semi. Nowadays, all I do is mow, rake, and bale hay. But I keep busy. I work my son's farm. He's got sixty-five head of sheep. The wife and I have been married for sixty-one years. We argue once in a while, but you've got to have 'em every now and then. We go to church every Sunday. We have six kids, and no one has left the church. I'm on oxygen now. I think it has something to do with all the bean and hog dust. They say it's bad on your lungs. Sometimes I go down to the Sale Barn and have a cup of coffee with some of the guys. I also like to have a beer at Old Roy's. I guess I've done everything I've wanted to do. Ed Cox From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 10. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2005 Erin Strait [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I'm a Buddhist. Every morning I do my prayers. I've just finished one hundred thousand prostrations, which is a requirement for ngondro. I'm about to do mandala, where I'll do another one hundred thousand offerings. I live with my folks in Oxford. They're Buddhists, too. We have three horses and a pony. I'm not a party person. If I want to see the stars at night, I go to the forest behind our house. I can sing there. I'm a senior at the University of Iowa, majoring in International Studies. Sometimes when I tell people I'm a Buddhist, they'll say, "Oh cool!" They think it's a fad or a fashion, not a religion. In Buddhism, once you pass on, you're in limbo, or bardo, for forty-nine days. Depending on your karma, that's when you'd have a rebirth. You could turn into a dog, a bird, a human. There are six realms: hell, ghosts, animal, human, demigod, and god. The best way to get to nirvana is to accumulate merit, take vows from a qualified Lama, and study hard. There's not a second in my life when I don't live as a Buddhist. Erin Strait From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 11. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2005 Joe Booth [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books When I was thirteen, my mom, dad, and me drove to a rodeo on Highway 151. It cost me six dollars to ride, and I was hooked. Hooter Brown, Joe Marvel, Marty Wood (an Indian from Utah), Money Hawkeye Henson, Red Lemmel these guys were the guys I wanted to be when I grew up. In 1984, I was in the top ten in the United Rodeo Association in the Bareback Riding category. Jo-Jo Booth was what they called me. I had a horse kick me in the face. I had my front tooth knocked out. I broke my nose, busted my sternum, and had knee surgery. Once I got bucked right out of the arena. You gotta have a strong right arm and a sense of balance. And you gotta want to do it. You gotta be rodeo-smart, too. I seen guys spend all their money on pints of whiskey, steaks every night, craps and poker. If you're worried about gettin' hurt, then you better stay home. If it was easy, then girls and young children would do it. It's like a chicken riding a windmill. You just let her go and hang on for dear life. I never liked riding bulls. I've been run over by 'em and I've been hit by 'em. With bulls you have less of a distance to fall, but with horses, they don't come back looking for you. Dick Moore said it best: Bulls are meant to be eaten, not ridden. In 2001, I made $22,000, but I was paying for my own gas, food, motels, entry fees. There wasn't much left over. I was good enough to win around here, but not in Cheyenne or Calgary. In 2002, it was time to call it quits. I was thirty-eight, and I was tired. It got to be sorta like jump-starting a car in the morning. These days, I deliver doors and windows for a lumberyard. I'm a delivery-truck driver. Joe Booth From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 12. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2005 Joe Prymek [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I came up here from Washington, Iowa, when I was eight or nine. My father sold the farm, but I wished he would've kept it for me. I played football at City High, then I worked roofing and construction. I met my wife at a roller-skate rink. I do a lot of bow hunting. I take a shower, a bath, then I use human-scent neutralizer. I wash my clothes in stuff that makes them smell like dirt. Then I douse myself with buck urine. I've got four-hundred-and-fifty dollars worth of camouflage clothing. I go up twenty feet in a tree. You sit there for four or five hours. Hell, sometimes it's longer. I start in the morning when it's dark. I take pop and coffee, maybe a few pieces of candy, sometimes a turkey or ham sandwich. If you gotta pee, you do it in a milk bottle. Deer are real smart, and the bigger they are, the smarter they get. I'm accurate up to forty yards. I butcher them myself, but I give most of it away to my kids. I don't have any heads, just two or three racks. In the winter, I go ice fishing. If it's real cold, I bring a tent. I get up early. That's when it's the best crappies, bluegills, walleyes, northerners. I use wax worms with red or white hooks. I know how to get me some fish. Joe Prymek From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 13. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2005 John Honn [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I used to be a buckskinner, shooting muzzle-loaded rifles, throwing knives and tomahawks. I was obsessed with coon hunting. It wasn't about the kill. It was the chase. I first heard the Lord speak to me when I was sixteen. I took four years of correspondence Bible college and from then on I've given myself to the Lord. He told me to start a gospel church and call it Anchored in Faith. In our church we have a horse tank with a heater in it to do baptisms. We've done more than a hundred. We had a lady from Malaysia who was cured of a heart condition with one of our prayer cloths. We've had three people with epilepsy healed. We prayed with a lady who had a brain tumor and she was cured. We've had several people healed from total insanity. I once saw a blind man whose sight was restored. I've spoken in tongues on three occasions. It happens when you allow God to speak through you. God is more than we can comprehend. He can do anything. He's everywhere. Jesus Christ was God wrapped in flesh. I believe in Adam and Eve. I don't believe we came from monkeys. I've seen devils, demons, and angels. I once had a demon come to my bedroom. He was tall, almost touching the ceiling, and cold like a cold-blooded animal. He was dark and drapey, like Darth Vader without the helmet. I rassled with him on the bed. Another time, a three-foot-tall demon came at me carrying a piece of roasted meat in one hand, and a cup of blood in the other. He told me, "Drink the Devil's Communion and you will be well!" Angels are like florescent light. They're radiant. You can almost see through them. The year 2028 will be when Jesus returns. I may be off by a year or two, but I believe it'll be around then when the Resurrection will take place. John Honn From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 14. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2005 Kevin Somerville [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I had the perfect childhood, growing up in Wyoming, Iowa. I used to cruise out on my bicycle to my grandmother's house all the time. One day my mom tied me to the clothesline because I was always wandering around town. When I was twenty-nine, I moved to Iowa City with seven buddies. We were all bachelors. We had a good time. There was a lot of partying, but I never stuck anything in my arm. One day, I was drinking boilermakers at Solon Beef Days, and went up to Mary and we struck up a conversation. We took it from there. I used to hitch out to Mary's with my chainsaw and cut wood for her. I ran a bar, then worked as a garbage truck driver. I'd pick Mary up in the garbage truck and she'd ride with me to finish my run. I figured, "Hey, this is a good woman!" I'm getting into organic farming. We're trying to make herbal organic compost. I'm working with five Amish men on it. The stuff's made from thistles, sorghum, hay, and prairie flowers. I like the term "Old Hippie." That's who I am. Material things aren't real important to me. I follow the Golden Rule. I party, just not as much. I work hard and I play hard. I feel like I'm still twenty-one years old. Kevin Somerville From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 15. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2006 Kiva Shogren [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books My mom says she got my name from a movie, but she can't remember which one. Kiva's a Hopi Indian name, but it's also the name of a crater on the moon. I found Goldie one day in Colorado. I was driving on a bridge and she was trying to get across. I hollered at her and she jumped right in my car and gave me a big slobbering kiss. I moved to Oxford when I was twenty-three, and lived above the hardware store with Goldie and two cats (Bear and Stormy). No one warmed up to me. I think they thought I was a little strange. I was always on display and I felt vulnerable. People spread rumors about me. I wouldn't say they opened their arms to welcome me. Then I got a job at Blooming Prairie, a natural food distributor that's run as a collective. There were hippies, gay people, lesbians, all selling organic food. I'm still there. I met my husband at a bar in Iowa City. He was Catholic and I started going to church. I got baptized, ?which was important to me. We had two children. But his routine was more important than mine, and he left after eight years. I was lonely, and one day I was walking my dog in town and I met Tim. He was working on his car. We got married and have another daughter. Kiva Shogren From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 16. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2005 Mindy Portwood [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books My family is my world. My brothers, my sister, my parents are my best friends. Growing up, I was a 4-H farm kid. We didn't have a lot of money, but we sure were happy. I still live at home. I get up at six in the morning, shower, eat Frosted Mini-Wheats or Cheerios. Then I'm off to teach preschool. By the time I get home, I try to catch the last fifteeen minutes of Days of Our Lives. I like to read cheesy romance novels at night. One of my great successes is graduating from college with a teaching degree. My dream job is to teach third-graders, but those jobs are hard to come by. I believe I was put here to be a wife and a mom. I totally believe my soulmate is out there, but he's hiding. If I hit thirty-five and I'm not married, I'm still going to be a mom. I've had a great life, and the rest of it ought to be just as good. Mindy Portwood From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 17. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Ralph Neuzil [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I was elected County Attorney in 1958 when I was twenty-six. I was the youngest county attorney in the state of Iowa. April 30, 1959, sticks in my mind. Full moon. The police told me to get to Mercy Hospital. A three-year-old child had been slapped by his mother, got a blood clot, and died. Then a man was pulled off the road with a blood-alcohol level of .50. By all accounts, he should have been dead. At eleven-thirty, a guy shot his girlfriend at the Airliner Bar and then put the gun in his mouth and blew out his brains. Later the same night, I got a call to go to the Park Motel, where a barn had gone up in flames. It was arson, plain and simple, and we had the plaster-cast footprints to prove it. At the trial, the jury stayed out twenty-four hours. The foreman said he knew the man had set the fire, but the jury felt the fellow had a nice wife, two nice children, and what would be the point of sending him to jail? I started my law practice in the old meat locker, then I moved to a room above the old bank. On Thursday afternoons, I'd go to the LP Club around the corner. I'd have a bottle of pop and watch the guys play cards, mostly euchre, but sometimes gin rummy. LP stands for either "limp prick" or "limber prick." I'm not sure which, but considering the old geezers there fellows like Brownie Welch, Carl Dalton, Ross Beard I have a pretty good idea. My hobby from the time I got married till I had heart problems was coon hunting. I've traveled all over the county coon hunting. Every man is entitled to a good coonhound, a Cadillac, and a wife not necessarily in that order. Ralph Neuzil From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |
| 18. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Ray Grabin [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books |
| 19. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Ted Carter [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books |
| 20. |  | Peter Feldstein 1984 / 2007 Peter Feldstein [The Oxford Project] Inkjet print Welcome Books I came to Iowa in 1960 as a student. After I got my degree in art, I taught in St. Louis, New York, and Boston. Five years later, I came back to teach at the University of Iowa. I needed a studio where I could do my artwork and found two dilapidated storefronts sixteen miles away in a town I had never heard of Oxford. For me, Oxford was exotic, mysterious, and strange. It was the first time I had ever lived in a rural community. Even though I was an artist, college professor, and a New York Jew, almost everyone in town welcomed me. As I started fixing up the storefronts, people would poke their heads in and introduce themselves. The buildings had a lot of bats. Bats have this habit of swooping down on people in the middle of the night, and they used to scare my wife and me to death. I asked Clarence and Margaret Schropp (both in their seventies) for help and they chased the bats out with a tennis racket and a broom. When word got around town, people started calling me Batman. My neighbors are hard-working people without pretense. They don't put on airs. What you see is what you get. I've always had this habit of counting things. I've been doing it my whole life. When I was six, my younger brother Don got polio. My parents would leave me with my grandparents on the weekends while they visited Don in the hospital. I slept on the daybed in their bedroom. I remember lying there, watching my grandfather in his long johns smoking his pipe as my grandmother changed into her nightgown. In the glow of his pipe I would count the parts of the furniture that touched the floor. My daybed, my grandmother's dresser, the door, a night table, a floor lamp, the bed, a window, my grandfather's chair. I continued around and around until I fell asleep. I still count as I have every day since I was a kid. No matter where I am, counting grounds me. It's part of the reason I started taking photographs of everyone in Oxford. A psychologist once told me there are ways to stop. But after thinking about it, I said, "I don't know what I'd do without it." Peter Feldstein From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com |