Rob Borsellino was a firebrand columnist for the Des Moines Register. He was a champion of the little guy; pointing out social injustices, and skilled at showing the fallacies, fallibilities and contradictions in us all. He took a magnifying glass to those he felt needed to be exposed, and a mirror to those who needed to see their true reflection.

He also was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans on a 80 degree day. I recognized him immediately from his thumbnail in the Register, his black and grey hair and eyebrows working like trademarks. He'd have fit in perfectly in Jersey, and his slightly-aging hipster demeanor made me look like an Iowan lifer.

He saw me looking around, and since tourists in Iowa are as rare as Republicans at a Pride Rally, he asked if he could help me find something. I said that I was new in town and was looking for something that would remind me of home. To this day, I'm not sure why, but I told him that I had no idea I would be so homesick.

He asked where I was from, and why I moved to Des Moines. Next thing you know, we talked for 30 minutes, and shared our lives' stories. He was a New Yorker (I was close on my initial guess) and said that he stayed in Des Moines because it was full of real people - you just have to find them. The Iowan - even those absorbed in their career, trying to get ahead in any of the big firms in DM, like Principal Finacial, the publishing houses, the law firms, even the Register itself - was a sincere American who cared; they just didn't always know who to care for or about. But they felt the need to care, to give a rat's *** outside of the rat race.

Something about the simple elegance of that philosophy let him stay in Iowa, despite countless and repeated opportunities for him to flee to the hipper, happening coasts, no doubt for better exposure and bigger paychecks.

I never missed a Borsellino column after that, and was saddened to learn of his passing in 2006, like a true Yankee fan, from Lou Gehrig's Disease.

One thing I learned from reading his columns - he could be painfully liberal, sometimes to the point of madness, but he cared. He gave a crap about who he wrote about, and why.

He was gentle towards those who needed coddling, and vicious to those who needed scolding. And he'd NEVER make somebody out to be banal or a little sad if they truly weren't.

He was, for a New Yorker, a great Iowan.

He'd never throw somebody under a bus for a poorly-written lede, allowing snark to get in the way of a proper description.

Funny...he taught me how to be a better writer, and his tuition cost me 25 cents a day.

May all feature writers learn this lesson.

For now, Dave and I will knock back a couple of dark, unpronouncable beers, and ponder subscriptions to the Times (in jest, of course). Maybe we'll start a club for those who have been embarassed in the Post. Dave, me, and Marion Berry.

Sweet. At least we'll get the good drugs.

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