The first are the casuals. People like me who only really know the surface of Ames. I know where Wal-Mart is, the Iowa State Conference Center, and a lot of grocery stores and restaurants. We have Sam's Club and Best Buy and Perfect Games.
Then, there are the students. The students pretty much have their own parts of Ames that they use, such as student housing areas like down on Coconino and the Grove, and then Welch Avenue, the Greek houses, campus, and a large amount of Lincoln Way. There's obviously some overlap with the casusals as students will go to Wal-Mart and so on, but I think a large amount of the casuals won't use some of the more student specific stuff, like going to gigs at the M-Shop, eating at the Student Union (parking), and probably won't be in the know for a lot of the student events. After I got out of college, I stopped keeping track of the various talks, games, celebrations, classes, and other things that cater to students and happen on or around campus. Student Ames can be more in depth that casual Ames, but is still far separate from what I consider to be Ames proper, the part of Ames that exists when the students all leave for the summer.
Townies/locals are the third catagory. Under the surface, Ames has a strong Buy Local, Main Street, organic/hippie population. This is Ames for the involved. The Main Street committee likes promoting local things and will do summer events like art walks, bands at the half-shell, farmer's market, and so on. This is the part of Ames that has the city government (which sometimes overlaps onto the student part) and establishes things like the aquatic center. There's the whole Main Street area which includes Main Street itself, but I stretch to involve the city government, post office, old library building, and so on. Main Street of course has charming little shops and awesome hole-in-the-wall places like Downtown Deli, my favorite sandwich shop in town. Better than Jimmy Johns or Subway in my opinion. And when you start delving into one of those, you find the Buy Local people, like spidery lines between many of the small businesses. Go in to get a sandwich from Downtown Deli and you'll see flyers for other services in Ames, bands at some local bars, and other events. Ask them where you can get a watch fixed and they can direct you. And related to them are the hippie/organic people, the ones who are targeted with events like the Eco Fair, who shop at the Farmer's Market and Wheatsfield co-op, the ones who seem to know what's going on locally and ride their bikes around to get to it.
And so, I want to delve into the deeper part of Ames this summer. And I already missed my first event.
Last year I went to the Eco Fair. Because I have hippie aspirations (which probably means I'll never be a real hippie if I have to aspire to it) and because it's FREE.
I biked there to lend me a little hippie cred and it was a whole bunch of booths in the back of City Hall representing local environment-related things. Like people willing to lend you goats to trim your back yard, Ames energy producers, and people who like LED lightbulbs.
The City of Ames has a section on their website for this event. It says
The City of Ames is excited to once again hold the annual Eco Fair. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 30, the Community Center Gymnasium, 515 Clark Ave., will be filled with educational booths and vendors. Ames residents can find the answers to energy-efficiency, conservation and sustainability questions.
The Eco Fair featrues City displays, community organizations, and vendors who offer energy-efficient products, programs or services. In addition to showcasing electric conservation, Eco Fair has expanded to include water conservation and watershed protection, landscaping, and transportation efficiency. Get useful information on products and services from vendors, see interesting displays, register for door prizes, play games, and join us for free food.
And so, I should have gone. Because swag.
(Notice: Swag means free stuff you get a trade shows, like lanyards and pens with logos. It does not mean bling and stuff rappers talk about)
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