Hy*Vee Part Seven: Oats

In Cedar Rapids, about 30 min. north of the very desk where I sit and type, there's a Quaker Oats plant. It's massive, bleak, and squats right on the switchgrass banks of the Cedar River (a tributary of the Mighty Miss). It's a full-on Upton Sinclair thing, this factory - an unholy bargain between steel and concrete. And it grinds out oats by the truckload. For some strange reason I never see any bright-faced Quakers around. I reckon they're all inside the factory, singing their finest worksongs.