2011: A Medium Good Year
Even though it was a year of many losses my immediate family is well—and that is reason enough for declaring my glass more than half full this New Year’s Eve.
To 2012
I have already written in “Time and Place” about most of the year’s events and passages, travels and trauma. Now, with a slightly new and improved blog format I will attempt to offer a year-in-review, mostly photos and a few words, including extras for the months since my August adventures in the Balkans (which I am sorry to say were never wrapped up properly).
BUT FIRST… 2012 RESOLUTIONS
In 2012 I will be a wiser and more thoughtful person and lose the same five pounds that have been on the resolutions list for the last 20 years or so.
In 2012, I will post to my blog twice a week, write the first draft of a whole book called “Neighborhoods” and go to 12-15 more countries.
In 2012, I will reach Harrison in my reading of presidential biographies.
In 2012, I will decide whether to get a facelift or a new car in 2013.
NOW FOR 2011
BAD PEOPLE: One chilly night while I was in the gym making good on my 2010 New Year’s resolutions, a bad guy smashed out my car window and took my bag and backpack with all the usual stuff plus my passport full of stamps and my calendar and cell phone (containing pretty much the sum total of my knowledge). I would have taken photos of smashed glass, all sparkly and beautiful, scattered throughout and around my car but my camera was among the stolen things.
FAMILY EVENTS: Teresa completed her junior year at UCLA and is maybe headed for summa cum laude.
Teresa...study study study...Engineering no less!
Majoring in frosting
Patricia entered her senior year at La Cueva High School and Sara started her first year at Desert Ridge Middle School. They both remain cheerleaders extraordinaire.
Patricia--at the game
Sara...
A big deal for me. Eldest son Scott came out for a weekend and, with Steven, we toured all of the neighborhoods, streets and apartments where we lived between 1972 and the early 80s—the good, the bad and the ugly.
My boys
Sara and I went on our first big trip together, the first half which I describe in a previous post, “Go East Young Sara—Go East!” Extra photos here for DC half.
Sara tours White House with Udall interns
A very demanding card player
TRAVELS: First, in early January, to NYC to a meeting hosted by the organization formerly known as DTW; stayed at the Hotel Chelsea of Patti Smith/Robert Mapplethorpe/many other talented crazy original artists’ fame. Old gas stove in the room’s shabby little kitchenette provided the only warmth for the day the heat went out. Hey, it was under $200 a night in Manhattan…you get what you pay for…history not comfort.
I stayed at the Hotel Chelsea. Therefore I am a writer
Next to Beirut to the Arab Dance Platform. Can’t find my photos but saw several interesting pieces, went on a winery trip to the Bekaa Valley and ate a lot of doughnuts from the Dunkin Donuts next door to my hotel.
Then a summer trip home to Minnesota which I wrote about in the post, “You can go home again…you just can’t live there because it’s all fallen down.”
This is how my dad, Sven the lumberjack, made his living
- If there were only more teachers like these two, we’d all be smart
He got bigger but not smarter than me!
And finally my travel year ended on a high note with a long rambling bus, train and plane trip through the ten countries that comprise the Balkans plus Ukraine and Turkey. Unfortunately I did not post from the last three countries so here are extra photos of Sofia, Istanbul and Athens.
A Bulgarian goddess or liberty or peace or something like that
SO just an Istanbul photo I like
I was very tired by the time I reached Athens so I just sat in the park and looked at creatures for the first afternoon.
Athenian wild life
WORK: All went well considering cuts in Medicaid and VSA National Dept. of Education funding. We dropped the AmeriCorps program in which the burden of red tape finally outweighed the enthusiasm of the talented young people who came to work for us for a year or two.
Art continued to happen with paintings, pottery, quilts, books, music, dance and drama the happy result.
VSA performing artists made a piece with Desire Davids from South Africa.
After the dance party
The stars relaxing
Global DanceFest presented old friends including the brilliant and buoyant Stephen Petronio Company; Eiko and Koma with their completely unique brand of Butoh, slow, sensual, mesmerizing; Panaibra Gabriel danced the Marrabenta Solos to the traditional Mozambican music of his father and Faustin Linyekula, two dancers and three musicians offered very big Congolese sound and gorgeous slinky dancing.
POLITICS: Killed some seriously bad guys, Bin Laden and Gaddafi; were subjected to some second-rate comedians also known as the Republican candidates and then there was humiliation of having to acknowledge that fine old American institution called Congress belonged to us. Suffered some Obama disappointment until the alternatives were considered. It is the year I gave up any interest in political involvement beyond voting. Better to send your money to Doctors without Borders or go to the casino!
FAREWELLS: Finally, just like all of the TV news shows, I want to say good-bye to some fine people who left my circle of extended family and friends this year.
My cousin’s husband and my friend, Otis, lumberjack, gold miner, rancher and storyteller…who always swore he was going to find me an old Minnesota lumberjack for a husband every time I came home.
Otis
My hero Grace, political activist and head of ACLU for many years—who who was liable to raise her voice in any setting to proclaim what idiots we were for having elected that “goddamn George Bush.”
Grace
My daughter-in-law’s mom, Sofia, a schoolteacher in the Philippines and a loving mom and grandmother during her years in the U.S. who worked so hard to see that all of her children had a chance for a more secure life than her beloved home could offer.
Sandra's mom, Sofia, dad Joe, Cynthia and Sandra--2009
My brother and sister-in-law lost their dog Buddy from brutal disease. If you are not a dog person it might seem wrong to lump the loss of a pet in with the loss of people. If you are a dog person you know exactly why Buddy is listed here among the year’s lost loved ones—because to Marsha and Robert he was family.
Buddy
DON
And finally, my sons’ father, Don. I met him in 1958 on McCoy AFB in Pinecastle, Florida. I was newly arrived from Minnesota with a job as the morning coffee girl at the NCO Club. He was an extraordinarily handsome young guy who responded to my “it’s really rainy out today” with “yeah, just like London.” I was 19 and immediately smitten—a cute guy who had traveled. (Well, actually he hadn’t but I did not know that until later!)
About the time we met
Back in the day...
We were married and had two healthy beautiful sons, moved from Florida to the Philippines and back to North Carolina. Don was sent to Vietnam before the war was really underway where he became a base/village sheriff. We were next stationed at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo where our two towheaded sons ran wild around the base and I commuted to NMSU.
The marriage ended soon after that. We have been divorced almost 40 years so I did not really know him anymore but he remained my brother’s best friend all these years.
Don wrote poems, built a catamaran by himself, was a great cook and passed on a playful spirit to his sons.
Don loved motorcycles. Suffering from advanced emphysema, he nevertheless decided to take his Harley and oxygen tank and make a 75th birthday trip to visit his son in New Mexico and then go on the his son’s in California. He left Albuquerque early, heading down I-25 on his treasured bike and made it as far as Hatch where he apparently experienced a massive heart attack or stroke; he died almost instantly.
Maybe this last act was foolhardy, but it was wonderfully audacious thing to do—a legacy of not giving in to circumstances he passed on to his boys.
Toward the end I suppose
Happy New Year everyone! Obama in 2012 and world peace…yeah, right!
Women Who Matter
Lydia Jackson (my sister-in-law’s mom) and Grace Williams (my friend since 1972) died this week. Strong, important women who influenced generations of students and community activists. Lydia and Grace were both in their 80s with too many friends to count and daughters who do them honor by being the kind of brave and smart women—and loyal and attentive daughters—of which any moms would be proud.
Marsha and her mom, Lydia
Lydia was born and raised in Minnesota and never left except for a brief sojourn in Florida with family. She taught school for something like 50 of her 80+ years on earth. Her ex-students populate a big slice of northern Minnesota life and would all say they are better for having been taught by Lydia Jackson.
Grace, Christmas 2010
Grace came here from Oklahoma by way of some other temporary locations but New Mexico was completely home for her and the politics of New Mexico her life passion. Her commitments to the ACLU (which she directed for a number of years) and the Democratic Party were well known and widely admired, certainly by her fellow Democrats and maybe by more than a few Republicans.
Both of these women were dedicated family and community members but they lived life on their own terms as well. If anyone had tried to take Lydia out of the classroom or Grace out of party politics they would have had an unwinnable fight on their hands. These were opinionated women—about education and human rights and, it would probably be safe to say, Lydia could be a trifle stubborn on occasion and Grace more than a little outspoken…especially if George Bush’s name came up!
Here’s to Lydia and Grace then. Two of my heroes. To lives well lived.
Sara, my 12-year-old granddaughter, was with me in Washington DC when Lydia and Grace passed away. While she is an excellent student (Lydia would be proud) she has only the normal amount of kid interest in history museums and political institutions—that would be little to none. Sara has a long life ahead and whatever her interests and passions turn out to be, I hope she lives it as well as Lydia and Grace lived theirs.
Go East Young Sara—Go East!
My fortunate grandchildren have first-rate parents and just the right mix of grandparents. The one with the pool, the one with the lake, the one who made all of the special party decorations and the one who especially encouraged sports and studies. And then there’s me. Trying desperately to infect them with the dreaded ‘travel bug.’
Boston Harbor summer 2011
This is my first big trip with Sara, 12-year-old honor roll cheerleader tumbler tweenie. The trip began with a meeting in Boston and a few hours to get a bit of a feel for one of the places where it all STARTED—the United States of America that is—on to NYC for a day and a half of where it all IS and finally here in DC for a Capitol Fourth—just Sara and me and half the rest of the world celebrating where we WERE.
BOSTON: We left Albuquerque a week ago today—Sunday. Some brief airline rerouting…but into Boston in time for a walk down to the Harbor and a very nice little pizza of flat bread, arugula, grilled smoked chicken, goat cheese, fresh tomatoes and caramelized onions—Sara’s first venture into gourmet pizza!
The next two days were occupied for me by meetings at the NEFA/NDP headquarters in Boston while Sara set herself up with books, itouch and drawing materials in a cozy little spare office—only coming upstairs for food to take back down to her lair.
Waiting to go...
We did manage an evening walking about the Commons and Boston Gardens with spaghetti and risotto at a hip little Beacon Street restaurant. Sara thought the spaghetti was ALMOST as good as her dad’s.
The not-quite-as-good-as-dad's-spaghetti spaghetti
Flowers by Sara
BAD New York: Tuesday evening at 6+ PM, we left Boston on the train for Grand Central Station where we were scheduled to arrive around 10 PM. All went well until around the half way point when we lost power and came to an abrupt halt. An engine problem, the announcer said, to be fixed by trusty Amtrak mechanics shortly or we would be pushed into the next station by a substitute engine from somewhere up or down the line. It was dark by now but the only panic came from the loss of power for all of the iphones, ipads, itouches and other istuff. The book-worms on board crouched at the end of the cars where emergency lights made reading barely possible. While the power lasted Sara played games on her itouch angled in such a way that light was cast on my book page—hence we survived the emergency.
The train to NYC
Into Grand Central station about 1pm. Fortunately we have hotel reservations I say to Sara. The Milford Plaza near Times Square. Sounded okay on Expedia and only about $200 a night. If it sounds too good to be true…..
IT IS…this was bad. Remember it is 2AM. Sara lives in Albuquerque, has traveled to smaller cities and to her cousins in San Diego but this is her first moment in THE CITY. It’s supposed to be exciting…not traumatic! The cab drops us off and right away we both know…this lobby does not portend good things…you know that sort of tawdry look…like something shiny covering something dirty. But we still have hope. Down the long dirty hallway. Losing hope. Open the door. Hope is gone. We sit on the bed…our last tiny tiny bit of hope is that nothing will bite us while we contemplate our situation.
The BAD hotel...what to do?
Once, when my sons were small and we were returning to New Mexico from a trip to Minnesota in one of my string of miserable cars and, as usual, quite broke we stopped at a cheap motel in northern New Mexico—just too late and tired to drive on into Albuquerque—and entered a room somewhat like this. In all fairness to the Milford Plaza, the New Mexico room had an actual hole in the wall while here in midtown NYC, only the plaster was peeling off. But the level of cleanliness was approximate and that smell of haphazard cleanings with cheap and nasty cleaning fluids was the same.
In New Mexico all those years ago we took our suitcases and the family dog, which was of course along, and moved up the street to a brand new motel I really couldn’t afford (probably cost $30 or even $35!).
NOW I did the latter-day version of the same move. Called my American Express concierge and I finally feel justified in letting an AmEx rep talk me into the platinum card some months ago; now he lines up something for early check in the next morning, Ritz Carlton in Battery Park. That cannot be bad can it? Except for my budget. Then I called Expedia who immediately cancelled our second night in the Hotel from Hell. Phew! The worst is over and we managed to sleep fitfully for about four hours. Left the hotel without even showering before 8am and checked in to our new life—for 24 hours!
GOOD New York: Obviously the AmEx concierge wasn’t going to find a cheap hotel for us! But we do not care—for only $425 for the night we can take a shower without worrying about odd things pouring forth from the tap. Two BIG beds, a bathroom the size of my apartment, view of the Statue of Liberty…and a $100 credit for room service or meal. Of course I cannot afford this; on the other hand I certainly do not want to turn Sara away from a life of exploration in strange places. Since room service was part of the deal we had to try to use up our $100 voucher for a lunch…..turns out we are just not $100 lunch girls…much as we tried we only got to about $75. And this time Sara said her dad’s pasta was definitely BETTER.
The view from the Ritz!
A DAY IN THE CITY: Freedom Tower/911 Exhibit: Sara, let’s go here to see the 911 exhibit. What is 911? WHAT? I am stunned. How could she not know about the EVENT that so effects our communal psyche and military policy and foreign policy and ‘who we hate’ policy? She’s an A student in a good Albuquerque school. But then I thought…okay a generation is growing up NOT consumed by 911—it’s good I think.
Freedom Tower rising...
BY SARA
The Met and the Alexander McQueen Exhibit: The Alexander McQueen exhibit was amazing!!!! It had so many weird outfits, but the outfits were beautiful! They had the stuff you would never think of! Many of the dresses he made Lady Gaga had! I bet she loves the stuff too! I hope Alexander McQueen had a great life, to me he had a wonderful life with his designs and money!!! This one dress was my favorite it was a gold dress/jacket and it was feathers! In the inside was a silk white dress! Another one of my favorites was a dress made out of real and fake flowers!!!! There were all different colors so it made it as pretty as can be!!
No photos in McQueen Exhibit...next best thing...magazine on the train
LION KING: OMZ!!!!!! The lion king was the best play of my life!!!!!!! I thought they wouldn’t tell the story just dance. But they actually did tell it! And in a beautiful way!! My favorite characters were the bird and Simba’s friends!!!!! I loved it and if I could I would see it 10 more times…haha!!! The lion king story was about a lion being born and sooner or later him becoming a king!! But when his dad dies his uncle tells Simba to run away why he did that was so he can control the kingdom! Later Simba has to find his true destiny to become king and to talk to his dad again!
Sara on Broadway
The next morning was a bit anti-climatic. Sara was not actually so impressed by the Empire State Building. Too many people she said…boring she said. NYC was crowded and noisy and a little scary to an Albuquerque kid. Grand Central Station and a quick train ride to DC—SARA’S FAVORITE!
On the road again...With GM......
You can go home again…..you just can’t live there because it’s all fallen down…
Front yard of the place formerly known as Neset's
There is a trip to be made when I come home to northern Minnesota. It is about who I was and am, made to remind myself how important this place is to me. It is HOME.
What we lack in sophistication, we make up for in our love of butter and tolerance of mosquitoes
Today’s journey: Grand Rapids on 2 and 46 to Northome, 71 out to the Old Place, then Blackduck (where I was born) for a hot pork sandwich for lunch!, back to Louie and Helen’s/Helen and Barb’s for cake and coffee, retracing 71 to Northome and to the Forest Hill Cemetery, and finally home to Grand Rapids. Now drinking Baileys and checking in on MSNBC and the Wiener.
A Minnesota forest tribute to Anthony Weiner
A photo-journal (although I am having trouble with wordpress and photos—mom ALWAYS said ‘try try again’ and I am back home so, mom, I will do just that).
Grand Rapids is a pleasant little town on the banks of the Mississippi, which flows to Grand Rapids from its headwaters in Itasca State Park about ____ miles from here, and on south to the Gulf of Mexico. We drive west and then south through a pine forest to Northome, the non-descript village, 7 miles from which I grew up. We go west again on Highway 71 to the Dead End sign that marks the gravel road down to the end of the road—formerly known as the Neset’s.
Windows on a small woodsy world
Without waxing TOO sentimental, let me say that it was great growing up here because my brother and I were much loved children and, while we were country poor, we had of simple meat-and-potatoes-and-apple-pie kind of food, a comfortable if very basic little house, friends/neighbors, special occasions—the stuff of which good lives are built for kids. Had my mother written her story there would have been disappointment about not being able to achieve a more traditionally prosperous farm life for her kids and about the sort of lumber-camp values of the northwoods, but also a good measure of pleasure over the natural environment, her reasonably good children and a husband who, while not exactly a go-getter, was dear and gentle and did love his family.
Always up here, a mixture of pleasure in the past and great loneliness for it as well
Mom's old chore jacket, hanging there for 20 years or so
The ‘old place’ as everyone in the family calls it…sinking into the ground. Hey, the voices of the family and the smells of the roasts and pies and the sounds of the animals and the anticipation of the approaching rain or snow or hailstorm are all there. OKAY, so I am getting quite sentimental…always happens.
Another MInnesota lunch...that 5 lbs I wanted to lose is just melting away
Lunch in Blackduck. Another small town of absolutely no distinction except that I was born there. We had hot pork sandwiches in honor of mom and pop because they always ordered them on the very rare occasion of ‘eating out.’
Helen, one of mom and dad's very best friends and an amazing lady
Barb...also a pretty amazing and special friend
Helen and Barb Weeks. Dear dear old family friends. We’ve known each other since we were born. Back in the day—when people went visiting. Meaning you collected the kids and went to your friends where you talked and talked and the kids played and the women sat in the kitchen while the hostess stuck a cake in the oven and laid out sandwich meat and homemade bread and jam and sweet pickles and butter and Kool Aid and coffee.
We often went to Louie and Helen’s. Louie may have been my dad’s best buddy. He was a natural-born humorist and often dad was his straight man. Now Louie is gone but Helen is as sharp and funny as ever (at 89) and daughter Barb who takes after her mom—sharp, funny and maybe a little sarcastic about life in general—lives next door and is her mom’s best friend in many ways. We enjoyed some talk of the old days, current ailments, evil Republicans, and the antics of the three dogs while we ate banana cake and drank coffee.
The new Weeks' puppy
Back down 71 to Northome and the Forest Hill Cemetery. Hi Mom, Hi Dad, Hi Uncle Ike, Aunt Sally. Grandma Asborg, Grandpa Torgus. It’s all green, mosquitoey, and fake-flower filled. It’s somehow reassuring to come here. My sons must dig a handful of my ashes down between my mom and my dad.
Grandma, lived to 96
Tomorrow we change holiday mode and Marsha and I go shopping at the Duluth mall and sip some nice wine with a little salad for lunch. Pretending we’re sophisticated city ladies ‘who lunch.’
MINNESOTA…where the deer run free…until they don’t
Summer poppiesBuddy the sickly puppy dog
One Minnesota story per day…maybe. Today is about the wild dead deer of Minnesota and a sick dog! Buddy, Robert and Marsha’s dog has IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, for which there seems to be no cure. He has been to regular vets, specialist vets and holistic vets. Nothing so far has worked; the only thing they all agree on seems to be a high-protein diet that cannot include any easily available meat products. So the dog must have venison (occasionally turkey can substitute)…and one vet suggested kangaroo if the first two didn’t work! Robert and Marsha’s acquaintances have been pretty much tapped of any freezer stock of venison (leftover from last hunting season) at this point and Buddy is easily tired of turkey. What to do?
The deer and the car
This morning, driving home from the vet’s where Buddy had a weekly blood test, Robert spotted some very fresh road kill, a recently dead (within the 15 minutes they were in the vet’s office) young deer. Dead deer are sprawled all about the highways of the north woods, victims of semi’s, pickups, old cars, and even new cars on the first trip off the lot. Deer are suicidal creatures that wait along roadsides for the sole purpose of leaping in front of unsuspecting vehicles. But in this case, it is all for the good of Buddy the dog.
Road kill up close and sad
Robert brought the deer home in the back of the truck, backed into the garage, laid the still-warm limp young body on the big blue tarp and started hacking and slicing. My brother used to be a hunter before enlightenment so he knows how to do this gory business. The sight is not so bad, no worse than NCIS for example, but the smell is horrendous, rank offal odors, bloodied hairy hide, warm flesh—like an African market.
Becoming dog food
Saw cattle butchered when I was a kid, forgotten how gory
The deer’s good parts have been cut up and are slow-cooking on a grill in the garage. I am drinking a beer called Nordeast, “Named after the hardworking neighborhood where the original Grain Belt Brewery established its roots back in 1893. ‘Nordeast’ is an endearing term which comes from the Northern and Eastern European immigrants and their language which helped shape Northeast Minneapolis. This amber American Lager is our way of honoring the storied past of Grain Belt and the people who helped to make it legendary! Cheers!” (from Nordeast’s website)
Low-cal Minnesota lunch
Lunch is served—hot dish, cold cream cheese-based pizza, sandwiches, sour cream raisin bars and ice cream…just a little something.
We're just a bit cynical up here
Tuesday’s tale from the banks of the Mississippi in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
By the Time I Get to Rancho Peñasquitos …
on the road again...
first pee!
- the 25 south
Road Mode: Up and out in the thick black of February pre-dawn. Fuel 26 miles to the gallon, Gaddafi clings to power and gas will be $4 somewhere along the way. Food Two venti non-fat lattes, two berry coffeecakes, one Green Machine, a bag of cherry tomatoes in the glove compartment. And eventually the guilty pleasure of a bag of Cheetos to go with the second fill-up. Peeing Preemptive peeing is best to avoid that edge of stress that comes with a nagging bladder. Also rest stops are sometimes closed at inopportune times on lonely stretches of high desert freeway. 
It is about 870 miles or 13 hours on the 25 to Hatch cut-off to the 10 to the 8 to the 15 to Mennonite Drive in Rancho Peñasquitos. The first hours fly by in a contemplative but productive state of mind; the non-descript but supremely drivable road south to Hatch lending itself to early morning musings. This glorious space is really what New Mexico has going for it above all. And the idiosyncratic outposts like Hatch, the epicenter of chili (red and green?) where they still have tie-dyed t-shirts in neon pink and yellow with peace signs on the front and green chilies on the back.
Once Upon a Time: Deming to Tucson to the 8 to Yuma. Midway solitary thinking exhausts its potential and it’s time to switch to the slapdash collection of DVDs collected over the years for just these road trip moments. Kenny Rogers sings of youth and idealism… “Look at that photograph…is that really me/you?” The best soundtrack of all times, Oh brother, where art thou? Then there’s Lucinda Williams and The Dixie Chicks and Sarkozy’s wife and Judy Collins. An old Simon and Garfunkel album has practically turned to dust in the years since it’s been played. Therein lays a travel story of sorts:
blah blah blah
Once upon a time there were young lovers and it didn’t work out and he moved away—and 30 years later they connected and she thought those passions were still alive—and she was so sad and flew across many states to a Simon and Garfunkel concert because “bridge over troubled waters” reminded her of those long ago days and she wanted to revel in her melancholic funk and some months went by when listening to S & G was just too painful and then she went walking on the beach in Oceanside and realized it wasn’t the old lover at the root of this depression it was the loss of youth and desirability—and she drove back to Penasquitos from the beach and somewhere around Escondido realized all the sadness was GONE but she never dared listen to Simon and Garfunkel AGAIN in case it came back but NOW that’s been several years ago and today is the day to reevaluate the emotional hangover of sentimental pop music from one’s past and it seems there is none. PHEW!
Over the mountain...
The 8 comes over one of the many small ranges that together form Peninsular Ranges of southern California and make up most of San Diego County. It’s a windy rocky drive that transports one from the western desert and Imperial Valley farmland straight up and over into ocean air and California freeway traffic.
Imperial Valley farmland
Over the mountain...
California Dreaming: Scott and Sandra live in a big house on top of a hill in Rancho Peñasquitos a far-north suburb of San Diego offering perfect California views of misty green hills and valleys and, if you stand at just the right corner of Teresa’s small balcony and it is a perfectly clear day, you can catch a glimpse of the Pacific. Now they’re anxious to sell and move to a condo in yuppie Hillcrest and become foodies and almost empty-nesters. Although with several engineering and business degrees on their children’s’ horizons that could be some years!
Up on the hilltop
Eighteen-year-old Steven and I eat Afghan lamb chops, veggies and Nan and talk upcoming travel to Australia and New Zealand. It’s his graduation gift so surfing the Gold Coast and diving the Great Barrier Reef consume most of the itinerary. Steven has discovered he really likes subjects like accounting and economy. I have asked him swear on the family Lonely Planet that he will never become a Republican and so far he agrees.
the Black Mountain test
Communing with the extraterrestials
Then, for the semi-annual test of whether I am officially old, Scott and I climb Black Mountain. While not exactly Everest it is steep enough and high enough to test that old saying, “you’re only as old as you feel…” Actually you’re only as young as your heart and knees allow you to be. Okay, I do it. Done for a few more months.
Checking out Hillcrest condos and eating chicken livers at City Deli with a banana gelato for follow-up. Nice down here. Will be fun to hang out in the city now that going to visit the family means visiting several interesting individuals instead of simply a trip to adore the grandchildren and appreciate their parents for bringing them to life.
Teresa, Yusuke and Panaibra at Highways
Teresa and Yusuke
Girls Gone Smart: Finally up to LA for performances at Highways with Teresa and her friend Yusuke and two nights and a day with Teresa and fellow UCLA students in their apartment in the Westwood student ghetto. Four great young women, smart, beautiful, working out what they’ll be and do and who they’ll do it with… What a pleasure they are. They are studying to be engineers and biologists and doctors and lawyers. The apartment is full of clothes and books and odd accoutrements like a clothes presser that resembles a large medical device in an accident victim’s hospital room and the biggest microwave I’ve ever seen in one corner. They seem to eat mostly cabbage and beets with an occasional pan of brownies thrown in… And how hopeful it all is—a sense of the future in good hands! (But what if they are in the minority and the forces of ignorance prevail?)
Teresa and GM
What?
Culver City for lunch
- Roomies
Another of the 'girls gone smart' crowd
Teresa studies, I write, we pause for tea, chat, today a drive over to Culver City and a lovely little French café for salmon and shrimp and bacon pasta and cheesecake and apple tart and I can have wine because Teresa is the driver. Back home, girls in and out on errands and gym and lunch with moms and Teresa and I study and write some more. We are so pleasantly compatible. I hope that will always be so.
Running to class.....
Pretty Teresa
COUSINS from NORWAY
To travel widely is to feel at home in the world—at least this is the effect travel is having on me. Growing up in an isolated cabin in the snows of Minnesota apparently instilled in me a deep desire to connect with the rest of the world—to areas as different from Koochiching County as possible such as the African continent—and to places quite similar such as Norway and my heritage—then on to every country in the world…!
- Arne Neset
Aslaug Neset
Cousins
Arne & Aslaug
This summer I reveled in the Scandinavian traditions of family in South Dakota and Minnesota. Now, this fall, a very special treat has come my way—a visit from Norwegian cousins. Arne Neset, my second cousin, and Aslaug Neset, his beautiful wife. Arne is a retired professor and a writer (Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture) and Aslaug is a retired public relations official. They are very smart and funny and well-traveled. How absolutely lovely this visit has been. It is further connecting me to the world, to my heritage and to a warm and interesting and accomplished new family. It is exciting to have African friends and Norwegian family.
New Mexico cell of the Norwegian mafia, guy on right is the son of one of Arne's best friend--met by chance HERE.
North Woods
ROBERT AND MARSHA IN GRAND RAPIDS
The intent was to write a warm and fuzzy profile of my brother and sister-in-law with whom I spent a lovely late August week. Alas…I did not get it done before this very busy time and big travels that begin later this month. Instead…here’s a photo album from my week with Rob and Marsha in green and summer-lush Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Next there will be a visit to the old home and the old neighborhood. The Life with Robert story will be a future blog installment.
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- Strange leaf
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- Rob and Marsha in one of their stranger moments
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- Woods
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- Home Sweet Food
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- Lydia, Marsha’s mom
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- Bro Rob
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- Marsha
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- Buddy…the SPECIAL dog
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- Logs
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- Baby butterfly
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- Gold gold mushroom
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- Troll food
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- Special Minnesota log
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- Street berries
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- The Woods
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- Robert and Marsha
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- The very nice but unappreciated Minnesota house (It’s not in the Florida panhandle)
Summer Vacation–at Audrey’s: Chp. 4
Audrey
This series of blog posts is all about my sentimental summer journey—as you may have noticed. Home and family. Two or so more of these and then I move on to Bamako, Mali and dance and, if I can figure out how to get there, Timbuktu. But for now, back to Summer 2010.
FAMILY HISTORY
I’m on my way to my cousin Audrey’s on dad’s side of the family—Audrey’s mom, Helen, was the youngest sister, born in Minnesota, a few years after the family journey from Norway. Audrey my childhood hero, a teenager when I was only a scrawny 7 year- old. She loved riding horseback and took me with her although I was pretty disappointing as a horsewoman—I really only liked to read about horses, not actually hang around with them. Mom got pretty black Queenie for me when I was 7 or 8 but I just never connected with her. Audrey took me bareback riding with her on her pinto or on Queenie. Apparently I liked to run around the warm summer farm in my faded little hand-sewn dresses without underpants because I have one of those snapshot memories of Audrey refusing to take me riding until I put some pants on!
Queenie's Twin
Aunt Helen seemed very glamorous to me as a kid. When I stayed with her I got to read the True Romance magazines of which she had many and eat store-bought breads. While my mother’s breads and cinnamon rolls were suburb still…they were homemade. And while Helen could bake with the best she did keep those Bismarcks around that, for me, had that city-aura attached to them!
Audrey was beautiful. Robert and I thought she was the most beautiful and the most fun person we knew. When at age 17, she married Otis, we were devastated. Felt like an old guy (after all he was all of six or so years older than Audrey) had robbed us of our best friend.
Audrey and Otis have led eventful lives. I have stayed with them many times from early days when Otis worked in the wood and the kids were little and Audrey baked chocolate cakes all dark and moist with strange ingredients like tomato soup and mayonnaise. I think I was supposed to help with the kids but really I just wanted to hang around with my idol. There were years of moving back and forth to Montana, Washington and Alaska with Helen and Lloyd and Delores (also my cousin and Audrey’s big sister) when Audrey was a kid and then years of lumberjacking, ranching, gold-mining, farming in Alaska, Wyoming but mostly Minnesota after she was married.
Audrey and Otis bought the farm at Gemmell where Randy, David, Linda and Terri grew up. Otis had a perfect lawn bordered with the offspring of Mom’s white, burgundy and rose-pink peonies and a glorious raspberry patch. He wrote two books about his Alaska adventures and built all manner of wooden crafts when he retired. Audrey worked with developmentally disabled adults in Northome nursing home’s ICF-MR program before ailments from those camp cooking, horseback riding years forced her to retire.
Physically the farm got to be too much for the two of them and they were forced to move out of their beloved north woods where wolves howled nearby, bears with cubs trailing behind crossed Highway 71 every now and then within sight of the house, and it was easy for Otis to get up to his fishing spot on the Bigfork River and Audrey to go drink coffee with Violet. They wound up in the pleasant little Canadian border town of Roseau where Terri, the youngest, and most settled child lives.
I spent a lot of time with Audrey and Otis over the years, once living in a tiny bedroom in their Gemmell house with my worldly possessions, mostly books, a giant old computer and border collie Max crowded in about me. This was a lost time between my San Francisco, Minneapolis and San Diego lives—all taking place during the ten years between my Albuquerque lives! It was a favorite time; I wrote and wrote and lived on bread and raspberry jam and Otis’ pancakes or, best of all, those deep-fried golden flaky breakfast walleye. Eventually I had to go back to real work and move on but it truly was great while it lasted.
Food of the gods
THE PRESENT
Heading North
August 2010: That was then. This is now. Driving north from Sioux Falls, hugging the Minnesota-Dakota (south and north) border but staying on the Minnesota side. It is pretty much all corn all of the time with soybeans for variety. Nice, neat stereotypical farms. Like farms are intended to be. This is not MY Minnesota of woods and lakes but I am happy just to be here. It is truly a good thing to be a Minnesotan I believe.
Roseau is a fairly typical small town known primarily as the birthplace of the snowmobile and Polaris industries. You can take a tour of the plant responsible for many of the world’s truly obnoxious additions to forest trails, winter or summer, if you so choose. Or you can just appreciate the fact that Polaris may be almost-singlehandedly responsible for the economic well-being of this area and appreciate the process if not necessarily the product.
According to the official City of Roseau website this is called an environmental transitional area where the north woods of poplar and spruce meets the prairies of the Red River Valley and the tamarack bogs which stretch north into Canada.
Audrey lives in a retirement apartment complex; Otis nearby in a nursing home. Years of hard physical work have taken a toll on their bodies and Otis has some form of Alzheimer’s or dementia that is slowly taking him into another fog-filled kind of world. However Terri and her family are always about and the other kids visit when they can.
It’s good to be here. We spend happy hours times talking about the pleasures of aging, about the dastardly deeds of Republicans and about our kids and my brother and her sister.
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- Heading North
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- Food of the gods
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- Queenie’s Twin
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- Audrey
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- Audrey
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- The old goldminer
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- Terri and Brian
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- Terri and her kids
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- Niki and Landon
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- The blondes
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- Clara and Landon
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- Viking princess
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- Clara
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- Clara
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- Clara
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- And even more Clara
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- All the pretty horses
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- Summer evening
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- Trigger’s grandchild perhaps
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- Good dog
A treat that I always hope for on my trips up here is the walleye dinner out at Terri’s. Huge platters of the world’s greatest fish (I may have already said that once or twice in this blog!) and a chance to see the babies and horses that have arrived or grown since my last visit. What a lovely bunch they are. Teri’s kids are well and happy and prospering and daughter, Niki, has her own two babies, Landon and Clara. MANY pictures of Clara are included here because she is a sort of magic child, looking like baby Viking princesses must have looked. Clara does have a healthy dose of Scandinavian blood and her grandma and mom are north-country blondes so she’s obviously following in their footsteps. Terri and husband, Brian, are serious horse people so three sleek steeds in shades of black, red and cream occupy the green pastures surrounding their comfortable ranch home.
And a lovely time was had by all—especially me. Tomorrow I will turn south into the woods and lakes leading to Grand Rapids. And brother Robert and sister-in-law, Marsha.
Still on Summer Vacation: Chp. 3
ART DAY
Tiger and Cub
Green Pastures
Reading Magic
MORNING WITH SCULPTURE
Phillips Avenue is busy this morning—what with the kids blocking foot traffic to stroke the tiger and her cub, so deceptively friendly—before she pounces. Funny she’s not interested in the sheep so close by. Probably waiting to attack the kid just lying there in the middle of the street reading, she’ll only have to carry her prey down the block to feed her baby.
Canteen Lady
Historical, whimsical and mysterious characters greet us as we stroll along Sioux Fall’s main street. Canteen Lady only takes us back to WWII but Robert the Bruce recalls times of yore and then Abel offers something for the faithful and Bacchus for wine lovers. Cabin Fever is me as a kid and it’s January in Minnesota.
Bacchus
SculptureWalk is a politically-correct mix of representational and abstract sculpture with many pieces that do not quite fit either category. In the nonfigurative category, I am thrilled to find two pieces by Albuquerque artist Joe Sackett. Joe is an interesting and eclectic guy and his work reflects those qualities: Twenty-Seven (China) is a cube made out of 27 steel handlebars of Chinese made bicycles around a hub of smaller bike parts and Persona offers a personal statement about core personalities constrained by societal expectations and regulations.
Joe Sackett's Twenty-Seven (China)
Forget-Me-Not, an African Elephant
SculptureWalk must be unique in the US; a deliciously diverse collection of sculpture by artists across the country who loan the pieces to the exhibit for one year. Anyone can vote for the “People’s Choice Award” which is then purchased as part of the City’s permanent collection, and a number of the sculptures are purchased by the various sponsoring businesses for display at their sites.
Melt
It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. August; sunny; friendly, admiring and amused pre-lunch strollers in a downtown trying to hang on like so many others all across the country. The stores sell quality-of-life kinds of things such as boutique clothing, antiques, souvenirs and books; the restaurants become jazz bars in the evenings and I’m told there are new apartment buildings as well, all hoping to attract youth and life back to a low-key but potentially lively city center.
Cousins Vivian and Marty (Richard’s wife’s; she was the Register of Deeds in Sioux Falls for many years and one of my mom’s favorite people in the world) and I eat ordinary sandwiches and then go to the sweet shop for extraordinary desserts of caramel and cheesecake and oozing chocolate topped off with giant cups of coffee. Back to the car, stopping to pat one of my favorites, the friendly musk ox, Tundra, patiently waiting to get the year over with and get back to—the tundra. Although the artist is from Maryland so maybe he’s always restricted to city streets. No wonder he appears a little sad.
AFTERNOON WITH CREATURES
Time to leave the heart of artful Sioux Falls and head west on I-90 to Montrose and the Porter Sculpture Park. In an article in the Argus Leader, Peter Harriman describes the park like this: …”dozens of quirky metal sculptures constructed of old farm implements, water tanks and railroad steel plate.” He also says meeting the artist, Wayne Porter, is “…like running across Michelangelo at Wall Drug.” (Wall Drug started out as an ordinary drugstore in a very small South Dakota town and grew into a sort of shopping mall/western heritage museum, etc. about 60 miles from the Black Hills. It is primarily famous for its many billboards throughout South Dakota and beyond which, like Burma Shave signs, became an experience onto themselves.).
The Porter Sculpture Park is on a prairie hilltop so the visitor is always viewing the quirky creatures birthed in Porter’s fertile imagination against the backdrop of grazing lands, fields of corn and the occasional farm—or perhaps that’s the lair to which these strange and engaging beings retire at night. This is one of those magical places, like Christiania in Copenhagen or the Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo where everyday experiences and things aren’t welcome.
There’s a golf cart for transportation or you can walk. Not many people. Wander. Connect with your inner child or inner demon or inner photographer.
Marj and the neighborhood dragon
- Marty, the Prairie Nymph
The signature creature is a Bull Head which Porter says represents “an extinct Egyptian Long Horn…made mostly out of railroad plates welded together.” Bull Head is huge, overseeing the I-90 traffic, sympathizing perhaps with all the beef cattle within his purview that will soon be somebody’s steak, guarding the entrance to this netherworld of odd companions.
Coming down on the train from northern Minnesota when I was a kid, Sioux Falls represented THE CITY and the little house on Van Eps, the cousins, mom and aunt Mabel being sad with each other—unfaithful husband or hard times on the Minnesota farm stories, big meals with jovial uncle George teasing me, the smell of the Morrell meat packing plant where some relatives worked. I had no idea that in the future South Dakota would mean land of George McGovern and Sioux Falls would mean ART.
