All weekend in the tiny Southwest Iowa farm town of Imogene, throughout its annual Shamrock Days celebration — at the Emerald Isle, at St. Patrick’s Church, at the softball field — there were no signs of the pandemic. Not a single mask hid the face of any of the hundreds of revelers. Almost nobody shared vaccine stories. And most importantly, life was back.

Eliud Mwenda, a visiting priest from Kenya, said Mass at St. Patrick’s on Saturday night and afterward went to dinner at the home of George and Laurie McGargill. After that dinner, Fr. Mwenda joined the McGargills to watch the fireworks on the softball field situated at the top of the town. He looked around at the families of all ages that came for the weekend-long festival. “All of these people come together,” he said, struggling with his English, “because they want to make it so that Imogene is not going to die.”