George Nopoulos began working at his father's small-town soda fountain in 1928. He's still there, but now George is semi-retired - he works just 70 hours a week.
 George & Thelma stand behind a traditional soda fountain as owners of the Wilton Candy Kitchen in Wilton, Iowa. George has worked there since he was six years old and he still works there today at age 84.
In the old days, George and his dad each put in 18-hours, seven days a week. The store never closed for holidays, vacations, births, deaths or illness.
Perhaps that's why the Candy Kitchen in Wilton, Iowa is a great soda fountain.
George puts together a darned good ice cream soda. He makes the ice cream himself and creates the syrup from formula the family perfected over the years.
But that's only part of what makes the Candy Kitchen so special.
Just walk inside and you'll see the kind of soda fountain that old folks remember from their childhood. And it's the real thing, not a theme park recreation. Some of the fixtures have been there longer than George - honest.
The six red fountain stools, the pink Tennessee marble counter, the small booths (where Gregory Peck and Brooke Shields sipped sodas) all came to the shop in 1922. The tin ceiling looks even older.
At the fountain George will mix up just about any kind of soda you'd want. (That's one of the things that makes a real soda fountain so wonderful. You can get the soda that suits your taste. You want a cherry soda with lemon? Fine. Or a with just a little chocolate? Sure. Is that Coke is a too sweet? Just tell the soda jerk to ease up on the syrup.)
Some of the concoctions have names. Order a Red River and George will make mix strawberry and cherry. A Pink Lady will get you a strawberry, cherry and vanilla soda. There's even a soda with a little of all of the flavors at the fountain.
"The kids think up the drinks. When they get popular enough we name them," said George's wife, Thelma. She began working at the soda fountain when she was 10. Their parents arranged their traditional Greek marriage, she said.
The best part of the fountain is the people behind it. George has a quick wit and a quip ready for almost any situation.
"George is a true soda jerk - he serves happiness," Thelma said. "He likes it when someone comes in gloomy and leaves with a smile."
Now the bad news. When George dies - the soda fountain will likely close forever. The Nopoulos' children all have their own lives.
"I told him we have to think about selling this," Thelma said, "But he said no way. You'll sell this after I'm gone."
But at least George and Thelma now take a vacation once in a while. They actually close the shop (gasp!) and head off to see their grand children.
George humbly calls himself "just the owner of a small store" without mentioning that the building is on the national Register of Historic Places. A sign in the store says it's the oldest ongoing soda fountain in the nation.
Thelma has a little museum in the rear of the shop with family pictures, newspaper articles and memorabilia. She's also compiling a book of their secret syrup recipes.
"We have to do that. Otherwise, after we're gone it will be lost forever," she said.
Oh, about movie star Gregory Peck. His dad owned Peck's drug store in California, so Gregory made the 150-mile trip to Wilton when he was on stage in Joliet, Ill.
"He wanted to relive his roots," Thelma said. In one of rear booths there's an arrow with a sign that says Gregory Peck sat here. In the booth behind that is a sign that says Brooke Shields sat here.
Perhaps someday there'll be a sign that says Joe Hurley sat here.
Actually there already is one - in the rest room.
AND ALL THAT JAZZ
Think of river music - and names like New Orleans, St. Louis and Memphis come to mind. But when showboats traveled up and down the Mississippi a century ago, musicians brought their new sounds as far north as St. Paul.
They say jazz springs from New Orleans where piano players in bordellos began mixing the slower blues tunes with ragtime.
Or perhaps jazz comes from New Orleans funerals processions, where bands played festive songs on the way back from the cemetery. Behind the band, relatives clapped the beat and added improvised lyrics.
Or was jazz born when showboat band members began slipping in improvised solos to liven up slow songs?
 W.C. Clark and band performs at the Mississippi Blues Festival in Davenport, Iowa, during the Fourth of July weekend. Originally an Austin, Texas native the master guitarist/vocalist has been performing the blues worldwide for 40 years.
Well, don't ask me, I'm still trying to absorb all of the fascinating tidbits I learned at the "Music Wall" at the River Music Experience, a new museum about a block from the Mississippi in Davenport, Iowa, which is also called Rhythm City.
You could spend all day at the 80-foot-long wall, tracing the music up and down the river with a click of a wand or listening to artists from the thirties to 21st Century. Or finding out what puts the jazz in jazz, the rag in ragtime, or the rock in rock and roll.
You can listen to dozens of singers, horn players and piano players. Elvis is there along with B. B. King, Fats Domino, Miles Davis, Roosevelt Skyes and WC Handy.
Julie Charkov of Des Moines took three teens to the River Experience because they're all interested in music. When we met them, they were having a ball playing a bunch of hands-on instruments.
"This would be a great place to take a school group, we learned a lot about where the blues originated," she said.
But, for me, there was nothing like listening to Louis Armstrong, toward the end of his career in 1970, explaining why he continued to sing "What a Wonderful World" in a time of turmoil. Here's how he said it:
"Some of you, young folks, been saying to me: "Hey Pops! What you mean `What a wonderful world?'
"How about all the wars all over the places you call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That ain't so wonderful either!"
"How about listening to Old Pops for a minute:
"Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it. And all I'm saying is: See what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance."
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You remember the song by George Weiss and Bob Thiele, of course. It starts out:
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
And it ends:
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"
I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Oh yeah!"
That's a little of the flavor we're trying to capture in our journey across America. Of course, Louis does it much better.
QUAD CITIES
The Quad Cities - Moline and, Rock Island in Illinois, Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa - sit next to each other on the Mississippi like four neighbors rather than one big city.
For the most part, they're old river towns that mix their mid-west farming heritage with their river roots. You can go to the Mississippi Blues Festival in Davenport, or the John Deere Museum in downtown Joliet or visit a Mississippi River lock in Rock Island.
I'm sure there are people who don't like Quad Cities. But I didn't meet any of them on as I walked through the area.
Jim Hanks of Moline moved back to QC after spending several years working for Deere in Atlanta.
"This is a good place for families, the pace of life is a little slower here," said Jim, who now works as a guide in the Deere museum.
"The people are great. They're hard-working, friendly people - and you can drive across town in seven minutes."
Jim is an encyclopedia of Deere information: a four-row cotton harvester can reap 45 acres a day replacing more than 300 field workers.
 The John Deer Pavilion in Moline, Illinois, allows the public to explore the tractors and view interactive displays that explain the history of farming and how John Deere got a name for himself through his innovative farming equipment.
Some of these machines in the pavilion are truly gigantic. Kids (and adults) just love climbing up to the 15-foot high cabs and sitting in the driver's seat. Of course, not many visitors have the $250,000 it would take one home.
But Jim wishes people would spend more time at the exhibits on preserving water and land.
"It's what we have to contend with now," he said.
On the other side of the river, magician Brian Thomas Moore returned home to Davenport after nearly a decade in Las Vegas. He loves Vegas, but his roots are here, Moore said.
"This area has grown, but it hasn't changed. If you actually get to know them, the people here are some of the friendliest you'll ever meet," he said.
 Brian Thomas Moore reveals the mystery card as he demonstrates a card trick to some customers. Mr. Wong's House of Magic in Davenport, IA is said to be the only Magic store in the state.
Now Brian owns the shop where he bought his first trick. At the counter of Mr. Wong's House of Magic, Brian mesmerizes visitors with slight of hand and most of them walk out with a purchase and a smile.
But he won't sell a trick to someone who won't be able to do it. People who don't perform the tricks are the first to tell the secret, he said.
"There are two rules for magicians: never tell the secret and never do a trick twice," he said.
This month, Brian will open a magic theater next to his shop. He'll perform for youngsters, host other magicians and sponsor lectures.
Del-Mar the Magician, who was visiting Mr. Wong's, loves the prospect of a theater.
"It will be a great place for old magicians like me to perform and to help young people learn," said Del-Mar, whose real name is Delmar Keifer.
Del-Mar, who's 76, started performing in a tent show as a youngster and was one of the original McDonald's clowns. He traveled an 80-mile area performing for school children, riding in parades and visiting hospitals.
"It's the look on people's faces that makes it worthwhile," Brian said.
Not everything is wonderful in the Quad Cities. I met Robert Pillado walking along a nasty stretch of Kimberly Road in Davenport. We had the same thought: there should be sidewalks here. The Kimberly Road portion of Route 6 is a four-lane divided road with precious little room for pedestrians. Riding a bicycle there would be suicide.
 A kayaker quickly leaves Lock 15 located within the Quad Cites, on the Mississippi River, as a huge barge awaits its turn. A series of locks and dams, along the Mississippi River control the raise and fall of water levels in order to maintain a sufficient depth for barges to transport goods.
"We're homeless. We've got to take the bus," Pillado said. The bus stops at K-Mart. If you want to go from there to Wal-Mart, you've got to walk on the road, Robert said. Walmart has a sidewalk, but it's like an oasis in an asphalt desert.
This is a heavily developed with shopping centers and stores. Does no one have the foresight to see that some people might choose, or be required, to walk. Perhaps they just don't care.
I encountered the same situation along Route 6 near Scranton, Penn and later in Iowa City, an otherwise very nice town.
MAD MAC
I can't leave Illinois without introducing you to Mad Mac, who walked with me as I crossed Indiana-Illinois line.
For him, that was a short jaunt. Mad Mac (as in McAvoy) walked the entire 173.3 miles of the Lincoln Highway in Illinois on a challenge.
He told people lobbying to recreate the Lincoln Highway that he'd walk the road if they succeeded.
Well, they succeeded and Mac was on the journey of his life: Dogs, trucks, gravel roadsides as well as warm welcomes and happy endings.
Mad Mac me gave water, blister advice and maps for the state. He knows what a walker needs.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we'll be deep in Iowa farm country, where the corn is already over my head. That's a very good sign.
They say knee-high by the Fourth of July, is a good year for corn. "Well, good Lord, now it's ready to tassel," said Phyllis, one of a group of people who met at the Creamery restaurant in Durant after church on Sundays.
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