Growing up near a rural town in Iowa, one discovers the only other things more than a couple of stories tall besides the water tower are church steeples and grain elevator legs. When I was married in one of the former, I was working in one of the latter. The elevator is called BB&P, and sits on the north side of Winterset. In planning the slide show for the wedding, my wife to be came across a picture of me at the age of three, donning a seed cap and a bright red jacket, both with a checkerboard logo and the embroidered name of the elevator I would come to work for. “That’s so going in,” she said.

It was at this time that I began to wonder if I had been indoctrinated at an early age into a church of sorts with a grain leg for a bell tower. While some may think that sacrilege, my intent is not to offend.  I can only say upon reflection several similarities have emerged.

My earliest memory of the place was my sisters and I filing in the door to be greeted by one of the owners, Dean Molln. “You guys look thirsty,” he astutely observed and began to fish into his pocket to find the quarter the pop machine required. I might have been five or six at the time, and over the coming years this scene would be played out repeatedly. One would hear the click of the button, then the subsequent hum of the machine, and finally the loud “clunk” as the bottle came home.  Dean would pop the top off, give it to my youngest sister, and we would all pass it around.

The taste was wonderful; the bottle ice cold and dripping in what I now recognize as nostalgia itself. That, I suppose, was my baptism. Not by Holy Water, but instead by an ice cold Coca-Cola from a blue and white Pepsi baptismal font. All of it was much to the pleasure of our smiling parish priest of sorts, a priest could have taught the rest of them a thing or two about telling good jokes and cussing properly.

Inside the door today, as has been for decades, a long countertop nearly spans the length of the room. Across that countertop homilies are frequently offered on our current state of affairs, from political candidates and pending legislation to anything of note form the newspaper, TV, or radio. (Quieter ones are sometimes offered by patrons on more local affairs.) A solution to many of the world’s problems has likely been stumbled upon several times, but seeing how no one is in a position to implement it, it is left to be stumbled upon again.  The dead are eulogized, often more candidly than during the service. The crop is declared damned, then saved, and then damned and saved again, and rain is asked to come or go.

My first communion took place across this counter, just after I had pulled my shaky leg off the clutch pedal, having brought my first load of grain successfully into town. In doing so I crossed the scale, which leveled me with all others.  A couple of years later, at my confirmation, I was able to sell grain and make purchases on my own accord.

Incense was often part of the daily service here, before state law forbid it. On special occasions, like at the end of a long day, the completion of a hard job, or just before the undertaking of something no one wanted to do, it wasn’t uncommon to come in the back door and find Bob Rhodes with his pipe, and Jim Cook, Nick Beck, and Larry Molln (another owner) with their cigarettes. There was so much smoke in the air, it was impossible not to feel a sense of reverence as they were lost deep in the midst of their meditations.

Now off to the right of the main office, across the red and white checkerboard floor, is the mill room. In there one can find Mike Corkrean or Gary Dudney spinning the wheels, pushing the pedals, pulling the cables and turning the chains necessary to bring the hammer mill and mixer whirring to life. Many a boy has stood in there, as much in awe of the factory of motion and sound as though it were a grand pipe organ. I would suppose there are organists to which the whirr of the hammer mill is preferable, but none were ever coated in the residue their notes left behind.

In the back right corner is Paul Bruett’s office, the elevator’s agronomist. He handles seed sales, and does his best to exorcize any blight, deficiency, or petulance that afflicts the crop.

In the back left corner, down the hall, first door on you right is the accountant’s office. In it Pam McCullough sends out the monthly tithing request and takes in whatever offerings the congregation has for the moment.

The first door on your left is Bob and Peggy Casper’s office, also owners. While it is very much the working office, with mail coming in or going out, records kept on file, and situations being handled as they arise, it also has a secondary purpose. It’s where you come to confess your best laid plans did in fact go a rye. Your penance is nearly always another year of trying it again.

Finally, on the left of the counter is a small shop of sorts. There everything broken is mended. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lazarus himself steps out of it someday.

Marriages? Oh there are marriages. Some employees have never known another job, others had, but after finding this one have stuck with it for decades, Yes, over the years there have been a few divorces. Some were amicable, some not. Some quiet, and others filled with all sorts of fireworks.

All that is missing, I suppose, is the altar boys. I’m afraid even I can’t compare the guys at the shop to altar boys. I would admit, though, they could give them one hell of an education.

The door is nearly always open. The families of the men that work here sometime have Thanksgiving in the evening because the day was spent hauling anhydrous to the customers, or unloading grain. Employees work those days because the owners work those days, and you forget about what you’re sacrificing when you see the sacrifice of another. It’s not done to make every last dollar, but in order that customers may not know need. That has allowed the business to know a lot of customers.

One day I was getting lunch in town. The woman ahead of me, with her young son, turned and asked, “You work at BB&P, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

She continued, “This one’s first word was tractor,” pointing towards her son, “and his second word was BB&P. None of my family knew what the hell he was talking about, but my husband’s sure did.”

I smiled and thought of how another one had been brought into the fold.

So is it a religion then? Of course not. But it is something, I suppose.