FIRST BLOCK in on Lafond

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2006-04-25T22:48:00.000-05:00

First Block in on Lafond (aka Lafondblog) has moved to a new location. Go to http://lafond.patricksheehy.com

The Train

2006-04-16T14:47:00.000-05:00

APRIL 1, 2006 -- I CAN ONLY SPEAK FOR MYSELF. TRAINS ARE SPECIAL. They been featured at various places throughout my life and sometimes long stretches in between. When I take the train I connect these dots and the memories that go with them. Yesterday I
disembarked from a train -- Amtrak’s westbound Train number 7 -- as it was just getting warmed up for the long climb across the Rocky Mountain west on its way to Seattle. I was returning from Milwaukee. The merest distance for the Empire Builder. When the attendants are still fresh. Still to be found. Having a more ready smile. Looking crisp. Talkative. Going east TO Milwaukee, which is only 80 miles from the terminus of eastbound Train 8, the smiles are shopworn from sleep deprivation. A warm, cozy bed, that does not rumble. The sound of the train whistle, distant. Not just a dozen yards forward of their dormitory car.

New York; Washington, DC; Pleasantville, Iowa; Boston; Sanford, Florida.

WE CLIMB ONTO the Reading line train in Norristown, Pennsylvania. The end of electrified service. Beyond this point a diesel engine is backed up for the trip to Reading with so few passengers on board it would be cheaper to buy each of them a new VW Beetle than continue running the service. Three little kids. Holding onto their mother’s hand. Riding the train to Philadelphia. The Reading Terminal. Built over of the storied Reading Terminal Market because the farmers were there first. We are going to Wannamaker’s to hear John Facenda narrate the annual Christmas show in the great hall in the middle of the store’s first floor. We are so tiny we are dwarfed by the jewelry display case let alone the high ceiling and booming voice of WCAU TV’s news anchor. The annual trip to The Big City. Riding the remnants of a once great passenger rail system. A tree trimmed to the very base of its branches.

Glacier Park; Havre, Montana; Bismarck, North Dakota; Chicago.

WE ARRIVE AT THE TRAIN platform in Havre. Our newborn daughter in our arms. To meet the train. Train Number 7. Lumbering into the station on time. Ready for a break; refueling; and take on water.

An aging couple steps out of the new two story tall sleeper car. The biggest smiles on their faces that I have ever seen. They are here to lay their eyes upon their first grandchild. Oh they have waited too long for this day. To see the beginning of the next generation. As I write this I see them walking toward me. Waving. My mother's arms outstretched. I can play this image back in full color. Slow motion. Fast motion. Reverse. I have never seen my mother so happy. I have never seen my father so happy given that I don’t remember his face the first time I was presented to him on April 2, 1951.

THERE AREN'T A WHOLE LOT OF PLACES you can go on a train in these United States. In the UK maybe no one would write nostalgically about their trips on the train. Just as I do not write nostalgically about my trips on airplanes. They are just too numerous to connect to anything. Oh, there is drama from time to time. Racing back east to see a dying relative. Heading to the west coast to see a friend marry, now his sons are grown. But these times are drown out by the tedium of trip, after trip, after trip to do things I can barely remember. In my life, the train goes places I cannot go any other way and brings memories I will always carry with me. The land washes dreamily by at, what, 65 miles an hour? I think about all of the things I will accomplish during this quiet trip. Beautiful scenery slipping by. My laptop hums but I keep looking up. What do I see out there in the dark waters of the Mississippi River?

I AM SITTING IN THE DINING CAR talking with a young man who is traveling from Miami to Seattle via Amtrak. I look around for the videographers documenting this great journey which he tells me will take five days. Over 3,000 miles. But there are none. He is quiet. Understated. Afraid to fly because of a freak inner ear condition that kept him down for three months. The doctor says now it is safe but he prefers not to chance another airtrip just yet. An older couple is seated across from us, on their way to the Twin Cities to celebrate their son’s engagement. She orders chicken but quickly asks the server to box it up because it is too much and she has so recently had a meal. Her spouse finishes off his steak. He looks across at my temporary associate and advises enjoying his health. “Getting old your body begins to give out,” he says just before pulling his cane from behind him and slowly lifting himself out of his seat for the short trek back to the Coach car.

My dining partner declines the rich dessert but chooses to sit patiently while I enjoy mine. He is in no hurry. Neither am I and eat the dessert so slowly that the server has to gently encourage us to depart so that she can bring in the 7 p.m. seating. After six hours, with night all around us, we pass through downtown St. Paul and slowly drift into Midway Station. I cannot believe the time has passed by so quickly.

THE TRAIN CROSSES INTO OUR LIVES. It recedes, beat back by noisy archaic modern conveyances. The trolley tracks disappearing in favor of fume belching GM buses. And then, as though someone has had a capital new idea, the tracks return. Light rail they call it, not trolleys. And build new tracks in the exact same place as the old ones 50 years before. Another great new idea: Commuter rail from the northeastern suburbs to downtown Minneapolis. Virtually the same as the one I rode with my siblings and mother in 1959. I am reminded by a business associate that after Sept. 11 the only practical public conveyance for a surprisingly long time was the inter-city passenger train. With the ozone hole repairing itself in the absence of jet contrails and the sky around my house deafeningly silent with activity at the airport halted, trains step into the breach as they have done in my private life so, so few very important times.

What's happening to me

2006-04-15T22:52:00.000-05:00

One day I wake up. I walk to the window. Open it and allow the outside air to enter my bedroom. I put on shorts. I walk outside. Birds are chirping more loudly than usual. A pair of cardinals are scouting real estate. We keep our dog out of the front yard in the hope they will choose our giant pine tree. My son starts riding his bicycle. My daughter wants to know where she can find her special electric razor so she can shave her legs. And the city has posted our street no parking. The semi-annual curb-to-curb street cleaning. Oh, yeah, and did I mention Daylight Savings Time? The 15 inches of snow that was on the ground yesterday has disappeared into greening grass. But trees and shrubs. No signs yet. This is Minnesota. They're expecting snow in International Falls. For sure everyone in the state has removed their ice houses from the lakes. And so I ask. What happened to winter? How can it go away so suddenly. So completely. I'm having trouble adjusting to all of this. I worry that winter is cued up waiting to leap upon us like a hungry tiger. It's a plot. The City of St. Paul is trying to lull us into believing the worst is over. That tanker in the photo might as well be a Zamboni machine. WINTER WILL RETURN! I can stop it only by moving to Florida or Arizona.

It always takes awhile for these fears to abate. For me to forget what it's like to be watching the sun set in the southwest instead of the northwest. Spring is here to sucker us in yet again. And we will buy the whole tamale. Summer is coming. Warm days. Swimming pools. Walks in mosquito infested forests. Camping. For awhile I resist the notion of giving into it all. After all, the idea of warm weather. Summer breezes. This is Minnesota! It's just unnatural.

It's time to get a new stove

2006-03-26T09:29:00.000-06:00

SPRING IS HERE. The birds are singing, the snow is melting, and the stove is dying. It is my sad duty to report that our stove is no longer with us. No more Christmas honey cookies; the smell of banana bread will fill the house no more. We may never again know the taste of fresh roasted chicken. The stove’s death has left a great power vacuum in this household. Come, we must journey to Sears to begin our search for the One True Stove who will take its place in that vacant corner in the kitchen. Many tears will be shed for the loss of our great appliance, but fear not, for our new oven will bring forth the dawn of a new era of cooking and baking! Yea, our new master shall heat and cool faster than elements of old; it will bring forth dishes evenly cooked! This is not a time of mourning, it is a time of celebration! Long live the stove! Long live the stove! And if it doesn’t, may it be covered in the warranty! -- by Dylan.

no Title

2006-03-23T20:27:00.000-06:00

Bobby McFerrin. Dark sunny circles. Bent sky leaning deep over the ocean. Music. The beat drives my typewriter. Smiling. Raining. Sunshine. In the lake. The trees. Parched, dry, death valley days. Ronald Reagan smiles down upon us all. Knowingly. Remembering all.

We wait for the door to open. The phone to ring. The alarm to beep, peep, beep. Awake to what is before us. Behind us. We wave as we climb our mountain and stop short of heaven. Bearing the moment. Grabbing the moment to run. The crowd screaming. In the end zone we look around.

Prairie sunset

2006-02-05T17:50:00.000-06:00

FROM MY SECOND FLOOR OFFICE on the back of my home in St. Paul I can see most of the sun's trajectory from shortly after sunrise until the last glow in the west that I can see as I am writing here at 5:54 p.m. on a winter's day. The green sky yields to shades of tan and red and slowly the shadows beneath the horizon rise up to claim my Sunday afternoon. I have started writing this post forgetting that my most recent contribution had to do with the movements of the sun and the earth as well. But that earlier described sunset was in September. We are at this moment at the height of a Minnesota winter. In this quiet time I have more appreciation for the sunsets. I can see them better because I can see through the trees that crowd around my perch, the view likened to that enjoyed from a very sophisticated tree house.

Here in the city the golden light from an alley streetlight introduces itself as a new focal point. The sky fades in response to an invisible cue from an invisible stage manager. But no drama issues forth. The bell on the Lutheran Church behind me a long block tolls the dinner hour. The green sky turns a deep blue and the tan a dull red on its way to brown and darkness.

There is nothing like a winter sunset. The cold forces open the sky and allows us to see crystal clear. The city has temporarily lowered its usual lumber and din. No sound of jet planes approaching the airport southwest of here. A muffled, tentative, automobile passes below but it is not followed by another. The night falls but leaves a trace of the day that has passed us. Done with us and now on to Montana, California and Hawaii.

At the Continential Divide, seeing a sunset and a total eclipse of the sun

2006-01-20T21:49:00.000-06:00

Just as the used pickup I'm driving from Billings crosses the Continental Divide outside Butte the sun reappears as it sets in blazing orange, yellow, green and purple over the jagged new mountains I am seeing for the first time. Not knowing how to express the emotion I am feeling I pound the ceiling of the pickup and whoop as my descent to "the flats" hastens the sun's disappearance. What remains is a radiant glow setting the mountains before me in relief against the sky. Darkness descends and we pass down the narrow hallway that follows the river to Missoula without knowing the mountains and forest service roads go on and on and on beyond sight.

Now I am standing on a hillside just north of Butte with my new spouse and my new reporting partner staring westward down the same valley. Waiting. It is the middle of a cloudless day. We can see for 50 miles at least. And then the wall of darkness approaches us at the same speed as the rotation of the earth. In seconds the wall darts across the valley and quickly engulfs us. All around us, street lights pop on and dogs are barking furiously. It is as dark as night. We have with us some exposed film. We double it over and watch the progress of the eclipse. A total eclipse of the sun. Then we look to the west and we see racing toward us the end of darkness. A line of light careens silently through the valley until it passes through us and to the Rocky Mountain wall at our backs. We can see it touch the top, the Continental Divide. Daylight. The dogs remain traumatized, barking their heads off. And we walk down the hillside to our homes in town.

Crash

2006-01-03T22:55:00.000-06:00

The screen says that I have to place my Windows XP CD in the CD ROM drive because there are some older files on my computer that don't belong there. So I dutifully place the CD in the the CD-ROM Drive. The next morning I am trying to figure out how to help my daughter download some i-Tunes and, by gosh, one of my hard drives is, well, NOT there. I stare at the little screen in disbelief. Yep. Not there. The drive that has a bunch of my business-related files on it. Of course, I haven't backed it up in ... awhile. So, the day after New Year's I get the computer box wrapped up in clear plastic and take it out in the rain to General Nanosystems.

I've recently had a strange fantasy that someday General Nanosystems is going to be standing there behind the counter and will say ... "Yes, in what way can I and my troops assist you today?" I think, maybe General Nanosystems could be the next Geek Squad, and we'd all have to salute.

General Nanosystems wasn't in but the place was filled, as always, with guys ... only a few women wander into the place. It's one of those stores that reminds me of the Chicago commodities trading floor. They have a giant white board on one end of the room that shows the prices of all of the stuff they have there. GNS doesn't necessarily have the best prices ... but only because you never have to pay too much and then send in a coupon and wait for 18 weeks to get your check from those rebates.

I digress. Sorry. I'm lucky and get the young technical support guy ... the one who doesn't act like the the Help Desk Guy on Saturday Night Live. Doesn't sneer at me for doing something really stupid forcing me to come to the General, hat in hand, to ask for forgiveness. So the nice technical support guy looks at my Hard Disk Manager and points to this thing that says Logical Disk 3 is, like, unreadable. He notes it is set as a "Dynamic Disk" and there is no good reason for this and all kinds of bad things ... my current dilemma as example ... can happen. So the problem has something to do with partitions (can you believe I actually know what that is?). He says the data is lost and suggests we go ahead and make it a "Basic Disk" with the consequence of losing all of the data that isn't there. I resist the idea and he uses the opportunity to excuse himself. He needs to go into the back to consult a higher technical support authority. Maybe he is going to see General Nanosystems. I wait and try to not make eye contact with the tech support guy who sneers at dumb customers.

Nice Technical Support guy returns looking solemn. "I'm sorry," is all he says as though he were walking in from an operating room pulling off bloody gloves.

I've learned to not panic in such situations. I knew the drive was still working. I could hear the thing whirring in there. So I return to the Internet looking for magic software that can peer into the hard drive and see my files. And I find it. Written by some guys for whom English is not their first language. I'm pulling my data off of the drive and onto a backup disk. Some files don't make it. Others are unscathed. Hey ... anybody reading this remember CP/M? No? It pre-dates DOS. Yeah. Hey ... this is naaaahthing. Nahthing. Piece of cake.

New Year's Day

2006-01-01T00:35:00.000-06:00

ST. PAUL -- It is one minute after midnight and I can barely keep my eyes open. We have celebrated the turning of the year with sparkling pear juice, hot chocolate and cookies my sister sent to us for Christmas. Through the window of my second floor office it is obvious to me that it is very dark outside. If there is a moon it is hidden behind the grey sky that has hung over us for days now, occasionally bringing a bit of weather (snow). I am sleepy. Can't think. Don't knoooooooow hooooooooooooooooooow I'mmmmmmmm goinggggggggggggggggggg to finish this posttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

A dispatch from Harry on New Orleans

2005-12-29T11:20:00.000-06:00

Patrick, Great to hear from you. I am now in Gulf Shores playing hooky with Mary. We embrace any chance to get out of New Orleans. Indeed the damage is staggering-and depressing. One report estimates that over 50% of local residents have clinically significant depression. Every day brings news of businesses failing or moving away. Even in the French Quarter many shops have shut down. It is a real Catch 22. With so many homes and apartments destroyed or unoccupiable, businesses cannot find workers or customers. Workers cannot return because there is no place to live. It is numbing to drive through New Orleans and see mile after mile of severely damaged homes. Even when utilities are restored many will not be able to build. They may not be eligible for insurance and without that they cannot qualify for a mortgage. Most did not have flood insurance, so they do not have enough equity to obtain a loan. Without employment, a loan is a pipe dream. I think you get the picture. Gotta run. I'll write more later today. Harry

Response to NYT article on Louisiana's governor

2005-12-29T10:51:00.000-06:00

From Harry ...

Thanks for the article. We call her "Meemaw". There have been some wild editorials in the local paper saying "Meemaw's tranq'd" . One writer wanted to send the national guard in to free Edwin Edwards from the federal pen so he could be brought back to save La. We know he will steal so we just factor in a percentage for graft! Meemaw had difficulty making deciisons even before the hurricane. This is the 5th governor I have wowrked for and this has been the most unproductive, unchartered time even pre-Katrina. There are Meemaw recall petitions circulating now. Hopefully she will be able to be a help in rebuilding, but so far she has done nothing.

New Orleans ...

2005-12-28T15:49:00.000-06:00

My correspondence with my cousin and his spouse continues. They live in Metarie, Louisiana, and both are attorneys. Following is most of an e-mail from Mary written in her usual rapid style, typos and all. Of course this is just how she writes e-mails.

GULF SHORES, MISS. -- Hey Patrick! It's Mary-Hope ya'll had a great Christmas. We're still alive and fighting to get back to normal. I am in Gulf SHores. I ran away the day after Christmas. I got up, made my specail andouille sausage, left over turkey gumbo and headed to the beach. It is nice to get away from N.O. Harry has finally moved his files, copy/fax machine, computers, secretary, and paralegal out of our house and back to his office. There is still plywood on his office windows etc but the new carpett and wallpaper went in. We need to get him new office furniture, but they will start working there after New Year's Day. We didn't decorate much for Christmas because it still rains in our great room downstairs where we put up the tree. We have had 4 patch jobs done to our roof but are still waiting on a full new roof. Then I can hang paintings back up etc. Harry and I run to the attic each time it rains-we have tarps inside the attic as well as out. We bail out the rain and hope no more comes through the ceiling! But we are very fortunate compared to so many. There are now a lot of FEMA trailers on our block. Our neighbors that are back all have 2 story homes. The bottoms are gutted out and they loive upstairs. They have to wash their dishes in the bath tubs and set up temporary kitchens. The FEMA trailers make things easier for them. There were some very creative Christmas decorations on FEMA trailers. It wil be years before the city gets fixed up, but some areas are showing improvement. Our oldest daughter Shelly got to come home for 48 hours! She is in D.C. and has a job and has no vacation time, but it was great to have her home for the 2 days. She is working as the an admin. assistant/office manager for the campaign of the democratic candidate, Doug Duncan, who is running for governor of Maryland. She really likes the job, is making contacts and getting her foot in the door. Her boss is the campaign manager/consultant-he is from La. She is working hard and loves it. It will be interesting to see where she goes after the campaign is over. I think she would eventually like to "work on the Hill". Julie did not like St Louis. It snowed and she was cold. So she is back to start classes at Loyola on Jan. 9th. Right now she is living at home and is not too pleased. The area around the universities had minor to moderate damage so there are not a lot of apartments available. Tulane is bringing in a cruise ship for some of their students to live on this semester. Julie is very resourceful so I imagine she wil find some aptmt or empty dorm room. I am still not in my office but we hope to get back in by the end of January. I lost half of my attorneys so we should not have to lose anyone in layoffs. We still are missing one or 2 foster children. It is sad but many of our teenage foster children have already been arrested or hospitalized in other states or cities. I guess we will eventually close a lot of cases. Most foster parents want to return to N.O. but many lived in n.O. East which had 10 feet of water. What scares me the most is that no one has a plan for how we should rebuild=which areas, what new code requirements etc. Harry has enough cases to last at least 5-6 years. Since our house is paid for and our kids are out of high school we can just wait and see what happens, but I am glad that I can run away to Gulf Shores! The majority of N.O. still does not have power, water, gas, stop lights etc. Since nothing is being done and hurricane season is just 6 months away, hopefully the levees will hold this next storm season til repairs are made. Have a safe and Happy New Year.

The word from New Orleans

2005-09-14T19:21:00.000-05:00

Flooding in a neighborhood in New Orleans

Patrick,

Thanks for your messages. Sorry to be so slow getting back to you.

Sometimes I feel like I'm at the helm of a rudderless boat caught in a whirlpool.
Speaking of the legal system shutting down, tomorrow will be the 1st time I will have a chance to get into my office since the storm. Despite repeated efforts on my part, I have been unable to get any word from my landlord about the condition of my office. From standing on the levee yesterday I saw that the construction crew was using my space to bring out plywood to close window gaps on other floors. Their efforts may have done more harm than the storm. For over two weeks I have had no access to my files, computer data and calendar. I cannot reach my clients and they cannot reach me. The last couple evenings we have had internet access at Mary's sister's house in Madisonville, north of Lake Pontchartrain. Before that we had to use the public library in Gulf Shores, Al. Hopefully tomorrow Shelly will get us DSL service in Gulf Shores. We have been getting by on cell phone service and even that did not work for the 1st few days and has been overloaded since then.

It is possible we will have power restored by Friday to our home in Metairie. As great as it will be to get back into our bed, it will be heartbreaking. Our house is on a raised slab and did not flood. All of our neighbors flooded. Many have one story homes and thus lost even their bedroom. Our only flooding was a foot of water in our cabana and water in Shelly's car. She doesn't mind because she would like to take the insurance money and apply it to a new car.
Julie was able to transfer for at least one semester to St. Louis Univ. She has been gone 10 days already. Shelly is postponing graduate school for one year and looking for a job in D.C. She and a classmate have already lined up an apartment. Since the rebuilding of New Orleans will take years, and success is hardly preordained, I hope they both seek opportunities elsewhere. It will take the equivalent of the Marshall plan to get this region on its feet again and I doubt that our government will have the resolve to see it through. The workers and customers are all gone and many have no homes to return to; the businesses are shut down with heavy damage; and, the cleanup necessary for any commerce or repopulation to occur will take many months. What a gargantuan task!

Best wishes, Harry

[NOTE: See “comments” for a copy of an article from the NYT on the collapse of the legal system in New Orleans]

Waiting for word from the Gulf Coast

2005-09-03T01:43:00.000-05:00

WE ARE AWAITING WORD from our cousin, an attorney, whose family evacuated from New Orleans (both daughters are in University there). He and his spouse (also an attorney) were in Philadelphia on business when the storm hit. His sister reported that he is heading to Texas to pick up one daughter, a generator, and emergency supplies while his wife is headed to Florida to meet up with the other daughter. Their home is in Metairie, near a place called Bucktown (not far from the now infamous I-10 and the Causeway interchange), and is almost certainly under water. They have a place in Gulf Shores they had only recently repaired due to earlier hurricane damage. Located on the western edge of Katrina they are hoping, hoping, there is something there so they will have temporary housing while things sort out in New Orleans. Our only visit to New Orleans was a quarter century ago to attend this cousin's wedding. He had almost 100 percent participation from his extended family, a success he dryly attributed to the wedding's location. We all stayed in a hotel on Bourbon Street that was holding a block of rooms for us. I distinctly remember two things about New Orleans. Jackson Square, the French Quarter; and downtown (we were advised to “stay away” from other neighborhoods).

We walked to downtown to buy some shoes needed for the wedding and had the very interesting experience away from the tourist area of being virtually the only non-black people in the teeming shopping district. We were served, very politely, in a shoe store and later remarked about the difference in the role reversal. We were curiosities, yes, but experienced no icy treatment sometimes afforded blacks living as minorities almost everywhere else in America. My family are Philadelphians. My cousin went to New Orleans to study law at Tulane, discovered he was trained in a legal system based in French Colonial law found in no other state but Louisiana; married a local girl and; anyway, was swallowed whole by New Orleans culture. He was adopted by a city with a spirit and style that even this disaster will not quell.

WHERE WAS THE CAVALRY? My hope is that the news media will somehow break out of its pack mentality and actually find out WHY it took so long for the federal government to reach the city in force large enough to make a difference, save lives and restore order. I am not proud of my country right now. I would like to understand the things that stood in the way of a more comprehensive, timely, response. As I finished writing this my wife, who is from the Pacific Northwest, said she had just received word from her brother in Eugene that he may be sent to the Gulf Coast to help with disaster relief coordination. Her brother, a retired Seattle fire captain, is a forest fire dispatcher for the U.S. Forest Service. I will agree with Mr. Bush on one thing he says. Katrina is a national disaster. Here we are in St. Paul, Minnesota, and can easily describe ways in which this momentous calamity is touching our lives besides forcing up the price of a gallon gasoline to $3.

A sense of place

2005-06-25T21:25:00.000-05:00

A quiet street darkened in the darkening day by a heavy canopy of urban forest. The first cool evening in a week. Neighbors talking baseball or walking their dogs. A mom instructs her little children from her duplex doorway. And they pull at her arm reaching for the out of doors. Summer Solstice. An orchestra is playing The Four Seasons at the Lake Como Pavillion. These sights and sounds as we weave our bicycles past the old trolley station; across the railroad tracks in search of the Griggs Recreation Center. We can't find it but find instead our neighborhood basking in a rare perfect Minnesota day.

All of this seems wonderful and mundane. But for me it is something I have not really understood for 40 years. A sense of place. Being somewhere and belonging there. Having ties to it. Knowing people in it. Having something to lose if it loses. Having something to gain if it gains. A man who has had seven driver's licenses; who has lived in eight different United states. Whose career has, always, a new horizon that seems, always, to be somewhere else besides where we are.

Writers do, I think, try and describe what it is to have a sense of place. A friend tells me you know it when you visit Ireland. I have always struggled to understand this. We lived close to my father's job. My grandmother has never lived down the way. My aunt has never been across town. I began life helping to create my own sense of place out of a postwar slab house baby boom ghetto built on top of an apple orchard. Then we left there. Moved one lousy mile away. And it was gone. Poof. Forever. Vaporized by the driver's license bureau, 26-cent gas, and the Vietnam War.

Did I capture that ethereal sense of being today on the prowl around these Hamline Midway curbless banking streets with my son? Oh something familiar seemed to flash by. And I imagined how my wife must feel when I wonder out loud. Where is life taking us to.

Doom

2005-05-15T13:12:00.000-05:00

WE GO OVER TO the Midway YMCA today for about a 30-minute workout on the stationary bicycles. We are facing some people using those machines that have the big arms that look as though they belong on either side of a steam locomotive. As they "run" on these things they look to me like African Gazelles bounding along in slow motion. Very graceful.

I choose the "personal trainer" option on my stationery bicycle. Wendy selects what she calls is the "Iowa Option." In other words, it replicates the experience of riding across Iowa without the Mississippi River breaks part. She doesn't like the "personal trainer" because it reminds her too much of gym class. The best part, at the end, when the machine is convinced she isn't going to pedal anymore, it flashes "GREAT WORKOUT." She looks forward to that part asking: "Has a gym teacher ever said anything nice to you at the end of class." I think about it for a moment. Then say that because I never qualified for the Summer Olympics while I was in junior or senior high school, I could not recall ever hearing any such affirmation from my gym teacher.

However, she is being way too harsh on the "personal trainer" in my stationary bicycle. He (or she) is making very reasonable demands on me. Steady resistance. Heart rate rising to 123. Calaries burned about 315 per hour. Seeing as I'm doing this for 30 minutes I estimate I'll burn the equivalent calories to one of the two pieces of cinnamon raisin toast I had eaten for breakfast. I've ridden 6.5 miles. See? Not so bad. Now I'm finally figuring out where I got the title for this post ... "Doom." It was the feeling I had each time in junior or senior high gym class when, having donned the white shorts and white T shirt, I headed out the gym door into the cold. There I was greeted by the stern visiage of the school's head football coach who was moonlighting (or rather daylighting) as a physical education teacher. Nope I wasn't going to qualify for the Olympics ... or anything else for that matter.

A letter to my mother

2005-05-08T00:59:00.000-05:00

DEAR MOM ... Later today we are going to have a little luncheon celebration for Enid. The Northfield gang are going to be here and it will all be very jolly. I would have liked to do something like this for you but you are too far away. Maybe you can read this and feel that at least I am thinking of you on a day on which we are all reminded of our good fortune to have mothers. If I could talk with you right now I would say first "I love you" and I would say second "thank you." There are so many things you did for me and for my siblings that of course I cannot count them. All of these things were important. You were with us all the years we were growing up. Raising us three children was your aspiration. You were never sorry about it even though it wasn't always very easy.

You were one of the most courageous people I've ever met. And you had instincts about doing the right thing about which I continue to marvel. I can remember a couple of things in particular. You convinced me to try out for acapella choir in high school even though I couldn't read music. You supported a decision I made that must have been very difficult for you ... to leave the East Coast and go west. Next September it will have been 30 years since I left. Other than that one summer we stayed with you after the marriage I have not lived there since.

There are joyous moments. When you and Dad climbed off of that train in Havre, Montana, us waiting for you on the platform ... holding in our arms your first grandchild. The look on your faces at that moment I will always cherish. But you did more. You talked your younger son into joining a hiking club and there he met his future bride. You gave every kind of support you could to your daughter in pursuing her career as an actress -- even though that meant she would move 500 miles to another country. But there she is succeding miraculously through no small effort. You must be very proud of her.

One year after losing your spouse I received a call from you and you informed me you were moving to Florida. I was the first one you called because you knew I would support your decision unequivacally. We all supported it but maybe you were giving me a chance to do for you what you had done for me when I decided to journey west. Leaving behind the cold and lonely northern winter you joined two of your siblings with whom you had not been as well acquainted in adult life. And you learned new things about them and they about you. You had 10 good years there.

So, there it is. I could write more but this is a Blog post, not a short story. So I will end this simply and say Happy Mother's Day. I hope it will be a very nice day indeed where you are. It will be for me.

Red State

2005-05-01T21:24:00.000-05:00

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I've visited a Red State since the election. It's not that I haven't traveled. Just that my travels have not taken me to Red State USA. I've been to Boston and New York City. Those are both Blue Cities in Blue States. I've been to Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario. One might consider all of Canada to be Blue. I don't think even Alberta would go Red if given the chance. This Red State is Indiana. It's not Texas but it's still pretty Red. The city is Indianapolis which, despite Richard Lugar's tenure many years earlier, currently is led by a Democrat. Both Houses of the Legislature are Republican. The governor is Republican. I think a lot of the Democrats are Republican judging by my reading of the newspaper today.

Remember Potterville? My spouse and I sometimes jest that it is the ideal Republican City. This alternate reality from It's a Wonderful Life. Indianapolis has some elements of that. It is one part antebellum southern city. One part city of Oz. One part Omaha with taller buildings ... at least five of them. One part European sophisticate. The Simon Companies that helped develop the Mall of America has established itself like an octopus in the sky in downtown Indianapolis. A brand new mall leaps across streets at the skyway level. Luxury condominiums under construction sour skyward and connect directly with the mall. Downtown manages to look both tattered and renewed at the same time. Civil War era behomeths such as Union Station have been beautifully preserved or restored and converted, of course, to a use other than transportation. One can find a huge Irish Pub in one of these old buildings. Theater. Restaurants. Starbucks. Plenty of chain stores. It's no downtown Minneapolis. It's bigger but not quite as together as downtown St. Paul. Neither of these just mentioned cities has as many homeless people. Rattling change in cups. Bumming cigarettes. I was approached for change about five times over the course of a late afternoon and evening of wandering around. Never aggressively so. I have a lot of trouble giving these guys money -- and they were almost exclusively men -- because I know it will go toward drink before it goes toward food.

Indianapolis has a solution for homelssness. Just across the way from the aforementioned luxury condos I was hearing this horrifically loud noise. It sometimes sounded vaguely like a machine gun firing. Sometimes it sounded vaguely like an angry barking german shepherd. I was puzzled by this for a short while. Then I wasn't. In Northfield, Minnesota, a local grocery store used to have a loud speaker in its parking lot to keep teenagers from hanging out there. But in typical Minnesota fashion the "noise" was not a futuristic barking dog firing a machine gun. Instead: classical music. Beethoven. Bach. Horrors.

I stopped in a very expensive Japanese restaurant and was offered a seat at the sushi bar. After scanning the regular menu and seeing a first course that was upwards of $30 I settled comfortably on the sushi menu. The waitress suggested a soup which I ordered and it occupied me while I waited for the sushi order. When the sushi was placed in front of me I had to take a moment to admire the presentation. I wasn't terribly hungry and this was just right. Plus. Fireworks. This experience served to amplify the starkness of the Potterville experience. Stepping out onto the sidewalk after my meal I shortly came upon firefighter first responders standing on the sidewalk in front of me, doing nothing. Looking down at a slumped figure. I didn't stop walking but it appeared to me that this man was not breathing. After going a few more blocks I looked back. Now there was a police car and an ambulance there in addition to the firefighters. By the time I was coming back that way in my rental car, the police had gone. The apparent death had been noted and it was up to the ambulance crew to bring out the body bag.

Returning to my inexpensive suburban hotel room I followed the signs pointing to I-65|I-70. Look at a map of Indianapolis and you will see it has managed to become the crossroads of nearly every major Interstate highway in the Midwest. The downtown seems to be surrounded on all sides by freeways. My hotel stands next a double freeway -- I-70|I-465. Every one I've seen is at least eight lanes. This, of course, is the regional rail system of Indianapolis. I will note, however, that the very modern buses I saw puttering around downtown all were powered by natural gas.

Indiana is something of a paradox. Republicans control everything. In my reading of one day's newspaper -- the Sunday paper mind you -- it was my observation that Republicans here seem less hysterical. Less reactionary. They still do a lot of the things Republicans keep trying to do in Minnesota. Cut funding to education. Balance the budget by freezing payments to local governments forcing school districts and municipalities to raise property taxes (across the street from the Capitol is parked a stubby white school bus emblazoned with the initials of the Indiana teachers union and a big sign "Save our Schools. The bus is covered by signatures of teachers from across the state). Rejecting the governor's proposal of a one percent income tax surcharge on the wealthiest taxpayers in order to balance the budget within one year. One sees a passing reference to the dispatch with which both houses approved a bill to put the marriage question on a statewide ballot. The Indianapolis Star finds Democratic legislators who sing the praises of the governor. He does not demand anything in return for the crumbs he doles out to legislators in Democratic districts because he knows it's just the right thing to do. Meanwhile on the front page of today's paper, the Olan Mills family picture of a cherubic five-year-old boy who finally succumbed to continual beatings at the hands of his mother's boyfriend with whom they were living. The poor. The people living on the streets. The young poor. Capitalism shall choose who will live and who will die. Red State America.

A remarkably warm day in March in the Midway

2005-03-06T13:00:00.000-06:00

PHOTO Title: Coming ... soon?

PHOTO Title: Delirious about spring

PHOTO Title: Park?

PHOTO Title: Spring sport

Reliving the Bourne Identity in my garage -- stall number three

2005-03-05T19:09:00.000-06:00

WE ARE CAREENING DOWN a long stairway in a Peugot. At bottom we turn left going upstream on a one-way road. To avoid oncoming traffic I bounce onto the sidewalk and pedestrians are diving into the Seine to get out of our way. We're not going fast enough. I tromp my foot into the floor as though I'm operating an electric amusement park bumper car and the Peugot lurches forward. A plume of blue smoke pours out of the exhaust. It looks as though the sidewalk is going to have to keep serving as there is a traffic jam up ahead. I know that on flat open highway I'm toast in this tiny three cylinder two-seater. So long as I stay in congested parts of the old city I can probably keep from losing ground. The "shred" pile in the blue recycling box is full. I grab a cardboard box recently emptied; jam it full closing the flaps in criss cross fashion. Then I turn back to the massive pile of documents that has been collecting in the basement of my College office for at least two years and which has been blocking my station wagon's access to one of my garage's bays since we moved offices back in November. I look over my shoulder and can hear the whine of the motorcycles as they close in. I'm going to have to do something fast. I grab the contents of one of the boxes and shovel papers one way and then the other. Shred. Recycle. Shred. Recycle. Events. Hours working late on draft agendas. Lists. Proposals. Recommendations. Pleadings. Budgets. Revised budgets. Revised revised budgets. Personnel reports. Receive a half second. A full second? No! I'll never get through all of this at this rate.

A chunk of my working life is exploding before me and all I can think about is the convenience of not having to brush snow off of my car before my morning drive to my new office in downtown Minneapolis. If I can't get just a little more speed out of this tiny car or find some new strategy, those guys on the motorcycles are going to run us to ground.

Looking back at you

2005-02-26T23:48:00.000-06:00

PHOTO TITLE: Thin

Understanding a Snow Emergency

2005-02-20T19:12:00.000-06:00

THE PHONE RINGS. Telltale pause. Oh well, let's see what it's about. A clear, pleasant albeit authoritative voice comes on to share the news -- that we have a SNOW EMERGENCY in St Paul. SNOW EMERGENCY! I am trying to comprehend the full meaning of this dispatch. First I imagine fire trucks, police cars, ambulances tearing and slip sliding around the city with no evident destination in mind. They pass each other going north and south on Snelling Avenue and east and west on University Avenue. The high tech Opticam sensors on the stoplights don't know what to do (they are triggered by strobe lights on the roofs of emergency vehicles). The devices do the only thing that makes sense. Turn red for everyone. Traffic on a Sunday is backed up all the way west to the new Menards store that has had a "coming soon" sign sagging across its front for at least eight months; the parking lot jammed with cars of employees working 24-7 to stock the shelves (where will customers park when that store finally opens?).

ISN'T A SNOW EMERGENCY supposed to mean there is something happening that we have to do something about NOW? But the voice on the phone tries to calm my anxieties. There will be parking restrictions from 6 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. He doesn't go into details. Instead he gives me a telephone number I can call to find out what I am supposed to do. I try to remember. Park my car on the north side of the street overnight while the snowplow clears the west side of the street? Keep my car off of both sides of east-west streets? For how long? Wait a minute, I know! I live on a corner. I'll wait until I see people start parking cars on one side or the other of the two streets by my house. THEY all know what to do.

In a bicycle crazy city, taking human-powered vehicles to new heights

2005-02-17T21:57:00.000-06:00

IF YOU CLICK on the headline above you will learn more about two people's fascination with human powered vehicles. In Minnesota it is none too fun to ride to work on two wheels through the muck and the splash and the cold. To say nothing of the danger of not being noticed. This is not the problem for Mary Arneson and Dale Hammerschmidt as they tool along in their brightly colored Velomobiles. They have theree of the cab versions and travel with winter held at least slightly at bay. Not long ago they took their Velomobiles out onto a frozen Lake Calhoun and created such a sensation that one of the local TV stations shot footage of them for their weather forcast. They also got a bit of ink from the Minneapolis Star Tribune when their "Flintstones cars" arrived. To learn more about traveling without aid of gasoline, contact these folks by clicking here.

Tuning in to A Prairie Home Companion on a Sunday mornng in St. Paul, Minnesota

2005-02-13T11:47:00.000-06:00

We're listening to A Prairie Home Companion on Sunday morning because the weather at 5 p.m. on Saturday was too sunny and too warm to be anywhere but on the narrow seat of a mountain bike riding carefully through giant puddles on the bike path in Como Park. Today is still pretty warm -- 38 degrees -- by Minnesota February standards. But yesterday it was, like, 59 and I swear it was 70 by our south facing back door where I was repairing a crumbling concrete step.

WE'VE BEEN LISTENING to A Prairie Home Companion for a much longer time than we've been living in Minnesota. I recall that my sister told us about it one day we were visiting Philadelphia and about to hop onto the then partially finished I-476 (Blue Route) beltway as we drove toward a bleary orange early spring Eastern sunset. She told us about the tall, thin, handsome cowboy who told folksy stories about life in the west (what Minnesota is to people who live in the shadow of Billy Penn's hat). Thus began a long but intermittant habit of tuning in on Saturday afternoons. Driving from Lewiston up to Spokane. Coming into Missoula from the top of Lolo Pass. Chilling by the pool at our apartment complex in Topeka. A thread tying us to this mysterious, hilarious place called Minnesota populated by humorless Norwegians and Swedes who, suffering the tender mercies of Garrison Keillor, are very funny.

Now we live in St. Paul so close to tiny Exchange Street that it is within the realm of possibility to decide we want see the show in person and be in line for $10 rush tickets 15 minutes later. But there are some disadvantages. We now know things we might wish we did not. Some examples follow: 1) Garrison Keillor is tall but he is not thin and, he would be the first to admit, is not handsome; 2) Sarah Bellum, Sandy Beach, Angio Plasty and Warren Peece do not help to write the show. They're made up names. Keillor writes the whole thing; 3) Yeah, he's a pretty smart guy but not quite so smart as we thought. The things he says about Minnesotans ... are not made up; 4) It really is as cold here as he says it is.

New York from the Staten Island Ferry

2005-02-12T19:48:00.000-06:00

I CAN'T COUNT the number of movies I've seen in which something dramatic occurrs on the Staten Island Ferry. Someone is going home from work. Someone is meeting a spy courier. Someone is going to be exchanged for someone else. But I've not been on the Staten Island Ferry, myself. Not until November of last year.

When I think of Staten Island, somehow I imagine an island city that is so distant out to sea that one cannot hope to reach it by any means other than the ferry. But Staten Island really isn't like that. It is out across a pretty big piece of New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty and past Ellis Island (the trip takes about 25 minutes). The Borough is right there by New Jersey, separated from it by a strait about the size of the Delaware River at the point at which the Benjamin Franklin Bridge crosses it between Philadelphia and Camden.

SETTING SUN. So, anyway, I have finally taken a ride on the Staten Island Ferry on my way to visit clients who live on Staten Island. It is early evening and the sun is setting as we debark. Parenthetically I will offer that I am a huge fan of ferries, and will go out of my way, when traveling, to avail myself of the opportunity to ride one. I've been on some really tiny ferries in Iowa and rural Washington State. And big ones running between Seattle and an archipegalo of Islands arrayed 170 degrees from southwest to northwest. I've been on the coal-steam powered ferry that crosses Lake Michigan in a six-hour voyage; and a ferry that connects Denmark and Sweden (that one carried autos and the train on which I had been traveling). In this case, I've not gone out of my way to ride the Staten Island Ferry. It is there crossing the water between where I was (which happened to be Battery Park) and where I need to be.

FERRY FEVER. I am like a little kid on ferries. I want to get all around the ship and see what's there. But on this trip I am drawn permanently to the stern where the darkening and twinkling Manhattan skyline is receding. After some time passes, a woman about my age standing next to me offers: "Quite a sight isn't it." I heartily agree. Nothing like it. Not in this country, anyway. So we chat. She is a clergywoman who has a church and congregation in Manhattan. She is on her way home from work, as are the vast majority of people on the ship this evening. And she always rides in the stern on her way home favoring the view of Manhattan. She shares that she was on this ship on her way to work on Sept. 11, 2001. She sees the look of awe in my eyes and goes on to describe what could be seen from her terribly good vanage point (there was a ferry on its way to Manhattan when the first plane struck, I have since learned. The captain turned the ferry around and returned his passengers to Staten Island. I guess this woman must have been on that trip because the ferry did not carry passengers to Manhattan after that. The captain was ordered to return empty to the Battery Park terminal and begin evacuating people 6,000 at a time).

She tells her story matter-of-factly but not without affect. Of course she has told it many times before but it is not a story one can stop telling.

Minneapolis under warm and sunny skies

2005-02-07T21:19:00.000-06:00

PHOTO Title: Yeah ... and?

PHOTO Title: 10,001

Hotel Rwanda

2005-02-06T19:02:00.000-06:00

NEVER HAVE I BEEN MORE ASHAMED of my former profession of journalism than I was today. Hotel Rwanda is the starkest, most compelling movie I have ever seen in part because I could not, as with the Holacaust, say that I wasn't born when it happened. These people were abandoned by the "western world" including the very colonial powers -- France and Belgium -- that had created the conditions that led to the Rwandan genocide. There is blood on their hands and all of us citizens of the world's advanced industrialized democracies. Why was there only a token force of United Nations "peacekeepers" in-country to stand by and watch the mass murder of a million people over less than a year's time?

We saw this movie on "Super Bowl Sunday" so the theater was not crowded. For awhile after the credits started rolling no one in the theater moved a muscle. Everyone sat in stunned silence. Maybe it was a shared moment of political awareness or personal responsibility. The murder of innocent people in huge numbers is still happening. They cannot wait for America to have a new president.

Out west

2005-02-06T13:13:00.000-06:00

PHOTO Title: My home on the range

Saturday morning at the post atomic apocalypse neighborhood cafe

2005-02-05T22:02:00.000-06:00

THE SUN IS SHINING and the melting snow is finding its way into my garage. But there is nothing to be done about it right now. We are on our way to Ginkgo to drink coffee, write stuff on our laptops and talk about things. The coffee shop's back door is propped open (40 degrees is not winter in Minnesota). A young woman is guarding it leaning on the remains of a rear garden structure smoking a cigarette. In the post apcalypse, Ginkgo has become smoke free. Inside we choose one of the less wobbly tables near one of the three electrical outlets.

An extended family enjoying a sunny Saturday morning at their local coffee shop.

At the moment the room is modestly crowded with subdued coffee drinkers. I am facing the door and the table there right by the window is occupied all the time we are there. Now an extended family has somehow squeezed around the tiny table. A silent man sitting at a table mounted on the makeshift tiny stage has his elbow in my way as I take their photograph. They are replaced by a couple communicating in sign language. The fellow goes to the counter and orders coffee drinks while the gal sits at the table and sends a text message on her Blackberry. There is an ebb and flow of customers and now, just after noon, one of the staff wearing a post apocalypse hand-knit dress thingie is at the table facing me, eating one of the giant sandwiches they keep in the glass cooler.

ERUDITE SCRAWLINGS. I head for the restroom. I remember when it was pretty new with clean white floor. Now the dirt is so thoroughly ground into the little linoleum sqauares that one might think that is as the designer intended. Except that those squares over in the out of the way spots are still white. The grafitti on the inside of the wooden door is mostly erudite and tilting largely against right wing madness that, the writers believe, has taken hold of our country, our state and, here in St. Paul, our city (at least at the Mayoral level).

Two guys come in loaded down with gear similar to ours and ask whether Ginkgo has internet access. No, they are told and they are directed to a nearby shop that does. "Sorry," one guy says and the two head back the way they came in, past the cigarette sentry in the back.

I'm trying to figure out how to end this post right now. But then I realize ... this is a blog. I don't have to "end" it.

The State of Shame Address

2005-02-02T21:45:00.000-06:00

IN FEWER THAN 30 MINUTES from the time of this post, the latest in highly creative imagineering will, ironically, prevent us from seeing The West Wing. My one evening a week of blissful fantasy is invaded by the very people I am seeking to blot out of my mind, at least for one hour. Now even that refuge is denied us. I thought about stopping at NWA headquarters in Eagan to request a complimentary bushel of those little plastic lined bags one finds in the seat pocket in front of you. But I had to rush home. No time for such things. Now it is exactly 15 minutes until the English Language begins its brutalization and truth parked somewhere in the odd spot (was that P2 or P9?).

From my collection of favorites

2005-02-02T21:34:00.000-06:00

PHOTO Title: Kinzy in the alley

PHOTO Title: On a good day

PHOTO Title: Good cut at the Ambiance Hair Salon

PHOTO Title: Flying a dangerous sky

PHOTO Title: Mall of Amerika

PHOTO Title: Mall of Amerika II

PHOTO Title: Warmer than Yellowstone

PHOTO Title: Yule Log

PHOTO Title: College

PHOTO Title: Seriously now

PHOTO Title: Crossing the Mighty Mississippi at its Ssource

PHOTO Title: Tall

Fascinating

2005-01-24T00:38:00.000-06:00

Kinzy carefully selects her reading

The Christmas Picture

2004-12-25T22:17:00.000-06:00

PHOTO Title: Family

The last time I was at Newark International Airport

2004-11-13T13:40:00.000-06:00

THE LAST TIME I WAS AT NEWARK International Airport it wasn’t much to look at.

Just one main terminal.

I arrived there on a “People Express” Boeing 747. In the first class section. Eating caviar and little sandwiches with no crusts.

On this visit I am arriving on one of those new regional jets and there is definitely no free lunch. Fortunately there is the cheesesteak place located in the Terminal.

Newark International Airport is in New Jersey. It’s raining. It rains a lot in New Jersey so near the Atlantic Ocean. There is a whole lot more airport here than last time I was here nearly 20 years ago. The last time I was here it should have been raining.

To travel between the terminals one must take the “AirTrain.” There is a photo of one just up there. The "AirTrain" is supposed to come every four minutes the sign says. But the train is late. Then a countdown begins. We are told the next AirTrain will be here in 87 seconds. Then it says the next AirTrain will be here in 75 seconds. And so on. Finally it says the next AirTrain is arriving.

No operator. It wobbles along. Like a ride in the kiddie section at the Minnesota State Fair.

I’m supposed to get Off at P-4 at which point the hotel guy will come and collect me. I call the hotel and leave the "AirTrain" station so I can watch the rain from under an outdoor shelter.

This being New Jersey there are a lot of parking lots. Naturally occurring asphalt. The rain is bouncing off of the asphalt.

Is there a reason for all of these parking lots?

2004-08-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

PHOTO Title: A little off the Interstate but a long ways from home

2004-06-02T11:44:00.000-05:00

PHOTO Title: Corner Grocer

2004-05-31T11:45:00.000-05:00

PHOTO Title: Grand March