Category Archives: Memories

Anoka County, Family, Garden, Great Work, Memories, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Retirement, Sierra Club, The Move, Third Phase, Writing

A House With A History

June 23, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Summer Moon

Why not write a history of this spot, this hectare? An ecological history. It can start with the glaciations, consider the flora and fauna since then, focusing in more tightly once the first nations began to arrive, then even more tightly as Minnesota began to emerge.

Another starting spot would be today, or from Kate and mine’s presence here. How we decided to be here, why. Go over decisions we made early on like hiring a landscape designer at the beginning. Recount our twenty years, the good decisions and the bad ones, the easy ones and the hard ones. The other historical and geological material could be worked in as backstory.

It would be good for people to view an average approach to the land, one which changed over time (though its roots were indeed in the back to the land movement) and which took advantage not of a particular approach, but of many. An approach that is dynamic, changing with new knowledge, the seasons, aging, new plants and new desire.

The flavor of “Return of the Secaucus 7” with some Scott and Helen Nearing, Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry thrown in, too. Ah, perhaps it could be a sort of third phase update of the movement years, an upper middle class idyll moving against the grain of upper middle class lifestyles.

Not sure whether to pursue this or not, but it could be interesting. Might even help sell the house. A house with a history.

A structure based on the Great Wheel might be interesting.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Family, Feelings, Memories

A Hole

June 19, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Summer Moon

Sometimes these moments reach out, grab a part of you unexpectedly. Evoke a feeling long forgotten. In unusual places. Kate and I went to see How to Train Your Dragon 2, better than the first installment and worth seeing for any proud Scandinavian. It’s a touching story, dramatic and funny by turns with a quality of animation that shows how far we’ve come since Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker. If you have a kid in your life, see it. If you have a kid left in your heart, see it.

Here’s what got me. Spoiler alert. Hiccup, the lead character, a boy just grown into young manhood (since his youth in the first picture) meets a mystery figure who loves and helps dragons, just like he does. The surprise is that she’s his mother, thought dead. There was a scene where this animated mother reached out and hugged her 20 year old boy for the first time since he was in the cradle.

A sudden wave of longing swept over me. For a second it was my mother, met again, reaching her hand out, a hug, the smell of her hair. The feeling rose from somewhere long forgotten. To be hugged by my mother. I miss it. Still. At 67 and her having been dead for 50 years this October. It reminded me of the hole I’ve lived around, never filled since her death and of the simple joys not possible for all those years.

It’s not regret nor nostalgia nor something I even wish for, just a hole, the hole that death leaves. And yet in its own way it was affirming. I loved my mother and I know she loved me. I know, if we found ourselves together, even over this long span of years, that she would hug me and caress my cheek. Kiss me. Tell me she was proud of me. That was her way. And, thankfully, I’m sure she would be proud of me.

Colorado, Dogs, Memories, The Move

Boards Darkened With Soil and Sand and Oil

May 27, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane New (Summer) Moon

Continued the deconstruction of the dog feeding stalls. Jon’s design was elegant and well executed. He put love into it for those dogs. That was in the time of the Irish Wolfhounds Morgana, Tira, Tully and for a brief while Scot (who died too young of hemangiosarcoma). It was also while the whippets Iris and Buck were still alive. (I think, my memory of the exact co-residence of our dogs is a bit fuzzy.)

As I removed the bones of the stalls and the doors into them, I stood inside the wooden structures, each about two and a half feet wide. It was then that memories began to surf my mood. The wood inside these crates has darkened, oil and sand and soil rubbed off on them while an eager animal ate their breakfast or their supper. There were, too, tooth marks on some of them, probably a dog frustrated with waiting for food or to be released back into the yard.

Their big furry heads would stick out of the sliding feeding doors, looking up with that quizzical where’s my food look that dogs have perfected through long years of living with humans. Those days the panting of the Wolfhounds filled the air with a sweet odor and the sound of them eating gladdened my heart. That time is long past, but the boards in the stalls look like stalls in barns, places where animals have been, pressing up against them and leaving the permanent record of their existence.

Commentary on Religion, Family, Memories, Sport

A Secular Sabbath

April 6, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Bee Hiving Moon

Sundays have a certain slowness to them, as if time itself moves languidly, the urgency of the workweek drained out. Of course, that’s an inversion of the real phenomena which happens not on Sunday but in the mind when it finds itself in a Sunday way.

Back when I was a small town boy, Sunday meant shining my father’s shoes in the morning before church. While complaining about it. I mean, thirty-five cents for dipping my hands in black shoe polish? Then, off to Sunday School with one teacher or another followed by the Sunday service sitting in the family pew (not reserved, but held for us anyhow by long tradition) under the watchful eye of Jesus praying, his hands on a large boulder, in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was stage right from the pulpit on the west side of the sanctuary.

Afterward, at least for a long time, we would often get in the family sedan, Mary and I in the back, mom and dad up front, and drive over to Elwood (our most bitter athletic rivals, but that didn’t matter to mom and dad) and go to Mangas’ cafeteria. It had those tubular rails with an upraised one at the back to hold your formica tray as you passed by the offerings in small dishes. I remember most the swiss steak, which I loved, and mashed potatoes with butter pooling yellow in the middle.

We would eat, then go home where the rest of the day disappears from memory.

Later, as a city rat, church was a work related experience since my city time is almost exactly coterminous with seminary and my career as a minister. So, I would head off to work on Sunday morning, usually in this church or that since I worked for the Presbytery (a geographical jurisdiction) and when I finished, again Sunday afternoon sort of disappears from memory.

As an exurbanite, I fell into the Sunday afternoon NFL maw for several years, but as of late the Viking’s have cured me of that experience. That means now Sundays have neither church nor the cafeteria nor football and what is left is the residue of passivity Sunday represented in its small town and football eras. No wonder my inner world moves more slowly on Sundays.

It’s my secular sabbath. And I think that’s a good thing.

Commentary on the news, Memories, Minnesota, Politics, Third Phase

20-20-20

April 5, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Bee Hiving Moon

Continuing the city theme from the post below. I live in the exurbs now, just two or three miles or so north of us corn fields begin and our development is a small cul de sac of homes that jut out into a working truck garden. The MUSA line, the intended sprawl container of the Met Council, runs a mile south of us. Beyond it a city cannot extend sewer connections. That’s why we have a septic system and our own well.

But before I lived in the city. First Minneapolis, then St. Paul. In fact, over dinner with Kate, I realized I spent roughly 20 years in a small town, 20 years in the city and now have spent 20 years in the exurbs. Those 20 years in the city were where I found my milieux. The mix it up, bare knuckle politics of neighborhood economic development, labor organizing and straight political work appealed to my middle adult need for agency.

The varieties of problems, the mix of people, the different communities, the history rushing into the present all exhilarated me. In the city years I wanted, needed to make change, get things done, improve life. And through fortunate relationships with many active folks I had a chance to participate in some interesting and worthwhile projects.

In the exurban years I’ve retreated, pulled back into my own work, writing, learning, gardening, sharing life with Kate and the dogs. It was time to do that, to pull back. That’s even more clear these days.

Here’s an example. A number of young activists, the age of my city years, especially environmentally focused activists lobby for urban density. They want to tear down parts of old neighborhoods and build apartment buildings. These are the same folks who advocate for bicyclists, mass transit and against urban sprawl. They look at the city and say the way to stop sprawl is to keep people in the center city. How do you do that? Build up.

In my years in the city we stopped apartment buildings, advocated neighborhood level decision making and tried to make communities stronger through increasing economic development. These are different times and I understand the arguments of those who want denser urban areas. Not only do I understand them, but I agree with them. But fulfilling those policies often means riding over the protests of folks in the neighborhood.

This is one of those instances where momentum and the needs of the time have shifted thinking. I can approve from afar, but I wouldn’t be able to wade into the politics. I’d be too conflicted. In that situation it’s best I’m removed from the scene. Out here tending our garden.

Family, Feelings, Memories

24 Years and Still in Love

March 10, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Hare Moon

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes an event matches its purpose. Tonight’s anniversary dinner was such an event. We arrived at the Nicollet Island Inn at 6 pm, the same place where, 24 years ago, we spent the night before boarding a PanAm (yes, PanAm, can you imagine?) flight for Rome.

The host knew it was our anniversary, took us to our table after complimenting us on our glasses and our colorful garments and pointed to the bouquet on the table. “You are loved,” he said to Kate. “24 years and still in love?” Yes, we nodded. “Wonderful. Have a great evening.” We did.

We thanked our taste in classical music, our seats at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for bringing us together. We looked at the things that could have gone badly like Kate earning a lot and me earning much less, then nothing. I said, “I think the thing we’ve done, all along, is nurture the best in each other. I don’t see how you can ask for more in a relationship.” Kate agreed. Somehow we have seen the highest and best in each other, staying out of each other’s way in some instances, stepping in with a helping hand at others.

(in Pizarro’s dining room, Lima, Peru)

Kate ordered the scallops; I went for the tenderloin. We both ate less than half, saving some for tomorrow. I set aside my low carb focus to have a chocolate tart for dessert. We finished smiling. Kate slid over and put her arm through mine.

Added to the bill were two Nicollet Island Inn mugs, memories of the evening of our 24th.

Next year in Hawai’i!

Memories, Music

Yeah

February 25, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

Then again, there’s jazz. Not sure how it made its way into my soul. Sometime in my teens. Might have been that see-it tour I took with the Methodist Church to New York and Washington, D.C. Gene Krupa at the Metropole stands out as a memory, though just what I would have been doing there I have no idea.

Jazz, like the Coltrane piece I’m listening to right now, Body and Soul, comes along with big east coast city memories, including the wood paneled corridors of Washington, D.C. It feels like night time and carpeted hallways with people doing significant things, well past working hours. Smoke filled rooms, half-empty glasses with lipstick stains and cigarette butts smoking in ceramic ashtrays.

There’s also the stadium in Cincinnati where Coltrane shared the stage with Monk and Herbie Mann. Where the jazz went on and on and then we returned to the place we were crashing, somewhere on Mount Adams, maybe on Celestial Avenue or Paradise or Monastery Street. It had these kind of street names.

The combination of marijuana, the jazz festival, the late 60’s and Mount Adams makes for a peculiar set of memories, as if for a while I floated along on Celestial Avenue listening to tenor sax riffs, that wonderful complexity of Monk’s piano, the flute, the horn all marking a variation on the theme of heaven. Might have been.

(Cincinnati landmark Immaculata Church on Mt. Adams in the background)

Holidays, Memories, Myth and Story

Heart Shaped Cakes

February 10, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

Back in the far away long ago my mother used to bake heart shaped cakes, devil’s food, for my birthday. This Valentine holiday birthday has always been one of the semi-secret joys of my life. I get to celebrate my annual pilgrimage, my odometer turns over, on a day now celebrated for love; special enough to remember, not so special that it overpowers my birthday, like I always imagine Christmas would or July 4th.

It did make those elementary school rituals, often laden with important messages not quite understood, hoped for, but more often missed than received, even more fraught.

Now that I know it’s the mid-day of the ides of February, 13-15th, and that Lupercalia followed it in Roman times, it makes this whole approaching time more special. February was the Roman December, the last month of the year and the ides, those mid-month days sacred to Jupiter, usually had festivals and celebrations. On this last month of the Roman year the Romans took care to purify themselves and offer sacrifices to absolve themselves of whatever needed to be left behind in the old year.

We could approach Valentine’s Day as a day for clearing up any uncertainties or unpleasantnesses built up over the previous year. Seek a way to resolve them, then go out for a meal to seal them off, leave them behind.

Family, Memories, Politics, Travel, US History

DANK

January 20, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Seed Catalog Moon

Dank. That’s the name of the place. The medical dispensary that now has a retail recreational marijuana cash register, too.

This hidden store is in a setting of low warehouse and light manufacturing type buildings. The brick exterior has no sign and the only evidence of its existence is a black and white piece of 8.5 by 11 taped to the window that says: Dank. Keeping it kind.

Once inside the entry way there is a long hallway with office suites off to both sides. Only at the far end of the hall, maybe 100 feet away is any human being evident.. Sure enough, DANK is the last office suite on the left.

A colorful sign advertising various forms of marijuana: loose, baked, oil and kief (a product unfamiliar to me).

A guy in the required knit hat, ear buds and baggy sweater, a couple of days of growth says, “I have to check your I.D.”

As you might imagine, I gave him a look. The gray-hair and wrinkles? “Sorry, man. The state requires it. I know you’re more than 21. But I have to check the expiration date.” General laughter in the room.

Off to the right is a glass vitrine with three shelves holding hand blown pipes and bowls and bongs, artistic. A roped walkway, ala security lines, held a dozen or so people, mostly young men in their twenties, but there was another older man like me and one woman.

At the end of the line were two cash registers flanking a glass display case with white chocolate with marijuana baked in, chocolate chip cookies, lighters, including a bic lighter, green and with DANK written over a marijuana leaf. The cashiers served as marijuana sommeliers, answering questions about various strains like indica and sativa, prices per ounce.

To an old 60’s guy this was a scene resonant with memories of bags scored from furtive dealers, parties with just a hint of paranoia. And here, in this state where my grandchildren live, and in a store not a mile from their home, people bought and sold grass. Legally.

It was, as we might have said, a trip.

Latin, Memories, Myth and Story, Translating Metamorphoses

Focused

January 15, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Seed Catalog Moon

Made a concerted push and finished Climate Change, Week 2, today. Always surprised at how concentrated mental effort exhausts me.

A bit of Latin today. It was interesting, so I’ll post it here. Ovid describes the state of the countryside in Lycaon’s kingdom after the flood:

This occupies the high ground, a hooked ship sits

294 And draws its oars here, where not long ago a farmer plowed,

295 Above the fields or sails over the top of buried villas,

296 This ship on the surface catches fish in elm-trees.

This apres deluge piece from the Metamorphoses reminded me of a story I followed with fascination as a high school student. The Army Corps of Engineers put a dam on the Salamonie River and submerged Monument City (pic) and two other towns. The Corps bought the towns in 1965 and moved everyone out, including, which intrigued me at the time, all the cemeteries.

In this case you can literally catch fish in the elm-trees. There was a dark glamour to the whole project. These towns flooded regularly and the dam sought to end the problem of rising waters in the area by covering them with water so that hooked ships might draw their oars there.

Kate’s sister Anne has been here the last couple of days sewing. She’s got a couple of days off from the jail in Shakopee.