Pedestrian View

I nearly forgot this one.  We passed a lot of livestock on the way to Hinkley - mostly aromatic hogs.  However, my favorite were the aromatic goats.  Here, Andy holds one in the palm of his hand.

Sing with me.  “And holds goats in the palm…of his hand…”

Note:  Done completely without Photoshop.

Yes, my sabbatical was over in May, but parts of it straggle on.

Included in my sabbatical plan was a poorly conceived goal of taking a bicycle tour of northern Minnesota. It was my dream to bike up the North Shore, circle west through International Falls to Warroad to visit my brother, head southwest to TRF to visit my parents and my other brother, and then head back home. I thought maybe I could do this in the late spring in about two weeks. What was I thinking?

Between the weather and Kylie’s graduation, there was just no way such a thing could ever happen. I did, however, put in 160 miles last Sunday and Monday taking the Willard Munger Trail from Duluth to Hinkley and back. It was my friend Andy’s idea.

Andy is a long time family friend, soon to be a junior at Denfeld High, and he’s caught the cycling craze. He scored a free room coupon at the Casino hotel in Hinkley somewhere and asked me if I’d bike along with he and four friends. I said, “Sure,” but called my friend Tanner for backup. Then, as things go, all of Andy’s posse dropped out one by one, leaving only Andy, Tanner, and I Sunday morning heading down the trail in the dust of some spandex clad bullet heads.

The Munger Trail is an old rail bed, one of many Minnesota bike trails developed over the last twenty years. I think I can safely say I now know every inch of it. Most of it looks like this.

I shot this from the hip on the fly. I like the Batmanesque tilt to the photo. Here’s the only picture of Tanner, for you Tanner groupies.

The sad news was that Tanner woke up Monday morning and puked his guts out. This, however, didn’t bother Andy and I. We abandoned T-Money at the Grand Northern Inn and headed north, taking an alternate route (six unexpected and character building miles of loose gravel) to Banning State Park.

Banning’s claim to fame is it’s rapids on the Kettle River. Our alternate route also revisited highway 61, which should please Andy’s dad, Big G, the biggest Dylan aficionado north of Antarctica (don’t worry, Greg, about any messages from God regarding your son).

Some other notable stops along the way were the Moose Lake City Park beach, where I won the cannon ball contest (Andy Silver, Tanner Bronze), Peggy Sue’s Cafe in Willow River…

…where Andy’s rear tire went flat and he fixed it in 15 minutes flat. Andy also handily devoured Peggy Sue’s double California Burger…

…TJ’s Country Store in Mahtowa (thanks for the strawberry rhubarb jam from the flea market, Mrs. Oberg)…

…some great bridges over the Kettle River, which kept reappearing…

…some woods (did I mention woods?)…

…and, naturally, The Ponderosa. Who knew?

Finally, this narrative wouldn’t be complete without mention of the Oregon Emergency Weather Radio I won at the Casino. To reserve our motel room, I had to become a Grand Rewards member, and my signing bonus was a chance at this lovely instrument. It’s still only partially out of the box, but I think it will easily make me the weather czar of my neighborhood.

Also, let the record reflect that we were buffeted by headwinds all the way to Hinkley and averaged 11.9 mph. In the night, the wind shifted, naturally, to buffet us all the way home; however, being it’s all down hill, we averaged 12.7 mph (thanks to our nifty odometers).

For those who doubt that I actually completed this journey, submit this final photo as exhibit A.

Who knew my blogging hiatus would be noticed? Life got really wild in June and I got complacent living the unexamined life. Luckily, gentle bloggers Sarah and David have coaxed me back. I’ll begin with something simple.

I just returned from the Swenson family reunion in Willmar, Minnesota. I know you all want to hear about the relatives, but the most exhilarating thing about it was witnessing a tornado. I took pictures on my cellphone, but I’m just luddite enough that I haven’t figured out how to send them to myself. Lucky for you, gentle reader, there’s a ton of footage on YouTube already. I chose one here that’s both terrifying and brief.

There you have it. I wasn’t quite as close as this video, but my guess is it was about a mile south of our motel. A large crowd of Swensons were yacking in the motel lobby when a wet woman stormed into the lobby seeking shelter from the funnel cloud. I calmly announced that we should all seek shelter in the center hallway, at which point Swensons young and old grabbed their cameras and headed for the parking lot. A good time was had by all.

The ensuing damage tour revealed that damage was spectacular, but limited to things like trees, sheet metal roofs, and a few farm implements. The most interesting damage we saw was the roof of the turkey quonset. The turkeys, largely unscathed, remained looking up in wonder far into the evening.

Maia and Maritha were sufficient schooled in the terrible power of nature and the nature of our own fragile mortality. They also learned to remember their cameras for the next weather event.

I hope to be posting more regularly in the next two months, so I figure I’d wet your appetite. A preview of future entries looks like this:

• A father examines the milestone of a first daughter’s high school graduation
• Fishing on Lake of the Woods
• John Kelly: Man or Myth?
• Sasquach: Man or Myth?
• Yeti: Man or Myth?
• 50 years of my parents marriage celebrated
• Does a newspaper contain news? And is it made of paper?
• Some book reviews

That should keep you coming back.

P.S. I almost forgot. A young girl is reported to have been knocked unconscious during said twister, and upon awakening, claims to have traveled with her dog via twister to the Mall of America, where she purchased sweet shoes and learned that “There’s nothing like credit.” Her family and the hired men rejoice in her recovery.

My brother Karl sent me this interview with Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota about redesigning our cities, and therefore our cultures.

Check it out.

While visiting with Rachel and Abram of the Neighborhood Story Project in New Orleans Saturday (April 5), Sherry and I found out that there would be a Second Line Parade noon the next day starting at some obscure street intersection that meant nothing to us touristas. I had a slight notion what this meant because my daughter’s school Jazz Band had played a Second Line piece at a concert last year.

It was an all brass (tuba playing bass) with percussion (snare and bass drum) mobile procession. It was loose, fun, everyone got a solo, and I got to play long comping on a banjo (I’m a third rate banjo player, but I’ve learned to fake playing most stringed instruments). We were a bunch of white kids (grant me this one exaggeration) trying on our “soul.”

Turns out that Second Line parades happen nearly every Sunday in New Orleans. They’re local events sponsored by Social and Pleasure Clubs from around the city where a brass band and costumed dancers lead neighborhood people winding through their own streets. No one watches a Second Line parade because everyone’s in it. As it winds its way, it grows as people come out of their houses and join the parade. Since Katrina, these parades have taken on an even more symbolic role of hope, unity, and community than they already had.

Our particular Second Line Parade was sponsored by the Bayou Steppers, (advertised on their banner as the first integrated social and pleasure club in NO). The picture here I stole from NOLA Entertainment, but we were at this very parade. It started at the very humble intersection of 2nd and Dryades where people were milling around while the band got organized. Sherry and I had a quick lunch of some great Cajun shrimp soup with a boiled egg in it sold from the back of a rusty pickup. Then the band started up and we headed out.

It was an amazingly beautiful day, which my pathetic photos don’t do justice to, but suffice it to say that the music was amazing and I’d have missed my flight home to be there if I’d have needed to.

It was a great party - sunny and 80 degrees while at home Duluth was in a sleet storm. It wasn’t all happy, though. At one point, the whole parade stopped while the brass band played a dirge (Just a Closer Walk) to honor someone who had recently died (we never found out who, but it’s a frequent Second Line phenomenon). Also, we wound through a neighborhood that was probably only about 1/3 occupied. Below is an upper level apartment that appeared occupied, but still in shambles.

The parade wound toward downtown and pretty near our hotel, so we eventually abandoned it to catch our flight home.

Interestingly enough, when I was asking hotel staff about Second Line parades, one woman directed me to Harrah’s Casino, where a Second Line band parades around 24/7 while people pump cash into slot machines. The average tourist doesn’t get out of the Quarter/Hotel/Casino district of New Orleans, so she was just responding to what’s normally expected, I guess. I’m glad we didn’t take her advice.

First, an apology. My photography here is pathetic. My kids (on a school trip) had the digital camera, and in an effort to travel light, neither Sherry nor I brought our good 35mm with us to New Orleans, so I ended up buying a disposable camera. Ugh! I’ve never been so sorry I was cheap. I’ve done some terrible digital “enhansing,” but is green sky really better? I’m going to cheat and include a few pertinent pirated internet photos.

But first, a map. Later I’ll refer to the the Lower Ninth Ward (east of shipping canal, right edge of map about half way down), lake Pontchartrain (top), and the drainage canals (running north into Pontchartrain). Study this. Quiz later.

The serious cartographers can find a great series of flood level maps here.

Now I think we’re ready. Here’s the current state of some low income neighborhoods.

This is the rubble of St. Bernard, a low income housing project demolished within the last month (photo taken from the wrong side of a moving bus). All over New Orleans, such projects are being demolished despite protests. Lafitte is another large one we saw that was block after block of rubble. Federally funded, such projects were once updated via a 1 for 1 system. In other words, you tear one down, you build a new one. This kept people in viable housing.

However, recent changes in Federal law have superceded the 1 for 1 system. Federal money is now going toward “mixed income” neighborhoods, where low and middle income family are integrated. The theory is that such neighborhoods will experience fewer of the social problems that have traditionally plagued low income “projects,” such as St. Bernard and Lafitte, or our own Harbor View in Duluth.

The bottom line is that low income housing is being demolished and not replaced. The people who once lived in such places are scattered in a diaspora. Where are they living? No one is sure.

These are pictures from the Lower Ninth Ward, the low income neighborhood that was hit first and hardest by the storm. It’s too complicated to really get into, but the first news out of New Orleans was that it had dodged a bullet; the Lower Ninth Ward had flooded, but the rest of the city was in good shape. Whew! This turned out not to be the case as the rest of the city slowly filled up. Regardless, the Lower Ninth was definitely hit the hardest. About 1 in 3 homes are currently occupied. No one really cares now, just like no one cared when it was first flooded.

Here’s some middle income housing.

These homes are up near Lake Pontchartrain not far from the drainage canals whose levees burst after the storm surge filled the lake. These neighborhoods had a post-war feel to them that’s hard to explain. About half of them seemed to be in a rebuilding phase; the other half were still in shambles. Currently, people living in these neighborhoods battle snakes and rats, in addition to everything else one might imagine.

So what about the afore mentioned drainage canals?

It’s common knowledge now that most of New Orleans (outside the French Quarter, hotel district, and St. Charles Ave.) is below sea level; well here’s visual proof, should you need any. This is the 17th Street Canal just before it meets Lake Pontchartrain, and the water level is clearly higher than the surrounding neighborhood. Every moment of every day, thousands of gallons of water are being pumped out of New Orleans and into these canals, which then drain into Pontchartrain. Most of the stretch of seawall and levee seen here was washed out after Katrina was gone and the skies had cleared. The storm surge had worked its way through the swamps into Pontchartrain, and then up these canals. It didn’t overtop them. It just pushed through them because of faulty construction.

Below is a picture of the solution.

This looks north, the opposite direction from the previous picture. The digitally enhanced sky looks ominous, doesn’t it. Lake Pontchartrain is behind that dam-like structure straight ahead, which is brand new (post-Katrina). The idea is that the next time there’s a hurricane, these dams will close, keeping the lake water from entering the canals. The apparatus on the left is a pumping system which will pump water out of the canal and into the lake. Simple.

That Army Corp of Engineers! What they won’t do for several hundred thousand people who insist onliving below sea level.

I promised a quiz, so here it is. True or false: New Orleans will flood again.

Answer in next post.

Last week I went to the CCCC convention in New Orleans. It was a great conference, but the best part of it happened afterwards when Sherry and I got out of the Quarter and adjacent hotel district and into the real city.

Since my sabbatical focus is Service Learning and Civic Engagement, I went to a conference session about something called the Neighborhood Story Project, where I met Rachel and Abram. NSP is a pre/post-Katrina grass roots, neighborhood based community publishing project whose goal is help New Orleans neighborhoods to tell and publish their stories. On Saturday, Sherry and I were able to join up with their Post-Katrina tour, and see a lot of the rest of the city.

The French Quarter is interesting, but underneath all New Orleans kitsch, it’s your basic tourist trap. It escaped Katrina largely unscathed, and most tourists don’t get beyond it.

Greater New Orleans, however, is a post-war landscape. I’m going to publish pictures later (was used old fashioned film which is not developed yet - such a luddite), but I wanted to throw this up here to let you know that there’s going to be more in the coming weeks.

Because we made a few local connections, we were also able to worship at First African Baptist Church in the 6th district, whose sanctuary had four feet of water after Katrina, and then join a Second Line Parade that started not far away at the intersection of 2nd and Dryades, also in the 6th district. Both of these events would probably rank in my top ten of amazing experiences.

Think of this as sort of a trailer. I can tell y’all are excited.

It’s true. In the winter time, Minnesotans drive out onto lakes, drill holes in the ice, huddle in little houses for hours, and wait. I spent all day last Saturday with my brothers, Dave and Nate, on Upper Red Lake, and then all day Monday with Dave and his friend Bruce on Lake of the Woods. I caught one fish too small to keep, and I caught it about ten minutes before we packed up and left on Monday. I was really pleased.

I’m kicking myself that I didn’t bring a camera to supply more documentation, so you’re looking at some generic internet photos used to promote ice fishing vacations. You’ll never see these getaways given away on The Price is Right, but there are thousands of folks out on the ice each weekend in Minnesota.

What are they doing? This is a good question. I think a Top Ten list is the best way to approach this subject:

1. Drinking lots of cheap beer (Grain Belt is my favorite)

2. Discussing trucks that went through the ice recently, how they got them out, what fines they paid, and what morons they are

3. Eating cheesy sausages boiled to perfection in lake water

4. Grilling venison chops from November’s deer hunt (also done in the cold from small, portable buildings)

5. Eating venison chops from a “plate” made from an over-turned pickle bucket washed with a handful of snow

6. Remembering fish that we’ve caught on other trips (necessary because we aren’t catching any on this trip)

7. Peeing in public under more sky than Montana’s within earshot of the fish house, and commenting on force, volume, velocity, duration, and color.

8. Privately wishing we’d stayed home to watch the cooking channel and help our wives clean the mini-blinds

9. Letting go of every gas formerly withheld in polite company

10. Swearing as if it’s something we do every day without thinking about it

Notice that catching fish isn’t on the list. Dave did haul in a 19 1/2 inch walleye Monday. With that and two smaller ones Bruce brought in, we did feed Dave, Vicki and I Monday night in Warroad. This is about as good as the fishing gets, however. There are other people who do better - who even do well - but these people have never been me or anyone I know. They’re spoken about with reverence and mystery. They’re something akin to Yeti or Sashquach.

Still, it’s a good time. Saturday was a warm day - about 30 degrees. Monday was sub-zero with a wind our of the northwest that made your eyes water after ten seconds.

It was great to be with my brothers and rehash the old days on the farm. What’s more, they provide all the equipment. If you can match their offer, any time you want to go, let me know.

Four days ago - a week after my 44th birthday - I moved back in with my parents.  The basement’s cold, and Mom’s cooking experients are as interesting as ever, but all in all, it’s pretty decent.

It’s not really what it sounds like.  I’m lucky enough to be on sabbatical from my teaching job at LSC this semester, and when my dad - turning 80 this summer - ended up in the ER and overnight in the hospital last week, Sherry suggested that I head home for awhile.  Thankfully my in-laws were in town and shuttle me back to TRF.  Sherry’s been looking for a reason to get rid of me for several weeks anyway(with good reason), and luckily Dad seems to be fine.  The leading theory on why he passed out and was disoriented was a reaction to some 30 year old cologne he found and slapped on in a fit of boyish vanity.  Mom poured it down the toilet, and he’s been fine since.  Though there’s been a follow up MRI to check for a stroke with a neuro-psychologist consult coming up, he hasn’t missed an exercise class, and has delivered all of his meals on wheels to the correct parties.

The highlights so far have been:

• a rousing game of 3 handed Rook, lasting well past 10:00 p.m.
• hob knobbing with old Zion folk at the Wednesday night Lenten supper
• watching the Northland Men’s basketball team win
• devotions every morning
• a night out with Nate, my brother, at the Evergreen
• a day as mule/jungle gym/sled puller with my neices, Marryn and Ani
• Three Amigos and Triple Decker on the sledding hill @ minus 10 degrees, also w/ M and A
• watching my nephew, Alec, get ready to walk
• helping Dad figure out how to use Quicken to keep track of the Pennington County Historical Society’s finances
• working up some piano/guitar duets to play with Mom in church Sunday
• lunch with Diane Drake - my former teacher and mentor - again at the Evergreen
• getting a Valentine in the mail from my wife
• getting another Valentine in the mail from my children
• shoveling the driveway

This is a hopping place.  Am I getting much sabbatical work done?  Nope.  But that hasn’t affect my happiness.

An offshoot of our Marshallese sojourn last summer was our Hawaiian visit with old friends Dave and Cindy, who we’ve vaguely kept in contact with over the past 15 years. They’re two of the most courageous people that I know.

Dave and Cindy Staley lived kitty corner from us in the old Shiprock High teacher compound back in our Rez days.

From our front yard, we looked over Dave and Cindy’s roof to see Tse’bit’ai (Rock with Wings) itself. Dave and I taught English together, tried (failed) to start a band together, were John Kelly disciples together (see future blog “John Kelly: Man or Myth”), and hiked canyons together. Sherry and Cindy baked bread together, read books together, and had their first babies within a year of each other (Philip is just under a year older than Kylie).

We last saw them in 1992 at the Emmanuel Mission, 14 miles down the roughest dirt road on the Rez (possibly the planet). Rattling our vehicle over those 14 miles, Dave once joked that he and Cindy called it the “road to divorce.” Ironic.

The past fifteen years have seen Dave and Cindy through some rough times. Without going into detail, they’re no longer married and both have new partners. They now live on The Big Island, Hawaii, in the Kona region. To see them, though, they’ve weathered about as much as Shiprock, or Mauna Kea (pick your mountain). They’re great parents to Phil, Ron, and Andy and make a difficult lifestyle look, well, worth living.

Cindy, now Cynthia, lives with her partner, Cindy, north of Kona and works for the TSA at the airport (she knows all of the Homeland Security colors). Off duty, she met us at the airport and took us out to dinner that night with the kids. Though it was clear she had weathered mighty pecular storms, she was the same Cindy we knew fifteen years ago - a person of faith and courage, a mother who knows her children intimately, a person who cuts through the superficial stuff of life. Note how Cindy has acclimatized to Hawaii. She looks cold.

Below, you can see the whole group - from the left, there’s Andy, Kyle (a friend), Phil, Ron, Cindy, and a camera-mugging bunch of weirdos.

One highlight of the evening was Phil’s description of the day’s catch. He’d caught a sea urchin, which he slowly tormented all day by pulling out it’s spines. Upon our return to it, it looked like this.

It once looked something like this.

Dave, something of a sea urchin himself, met us the next day at the hobby store that he runs with his parter, Sara. The store is called Tioli, which is Italian for Take It Or Leave It (OK , it’s an acronym that’s deceptively Italian). Here, Dave showed us all things remote controlled - airplanes, helicopters, cars - and all things craft or art related.

Dave used to be a teacher, then a principal, and then one day he just up and walked away into the world of entrepreneurship. Tioli, he describes, is kind of like Cheers in that every day the store fills up with regulars who hang around, playing the remote control simulators or flying real copters around the store until something gets broken. Around noon, someone inevitably brings in some food. No beer, but life is pretty good.

Sing with me. “Making your way in the world to day takes everything you’ve got. Thank goodness for friends with high-tech toys” (doesn’t really work, does it).

Dave was the same old Dave - a wise, loving father; a quietly wicked sense of humor, still caching me off guard; a knack for finding what’s off the beaten path, even in tourist trampled Hawaii. For example, we tried to get a tour of Goodall Guitars (for you, Buck!) and were asked to leave.

We ate authentic Hawaiian cuisine at the Pine Tree Cafe, where I ate roast pork and cabbage from a styrofoam box (real food, and not a tourist in sight).

After lunch, we headed up the west side of Mauna Kea (the island is one big mountain, after all) for a hike in the jungle in search of feral pigs and mongoose, both non-indigineous and overrunning the islands. Sunny Hawaii was lost from view in the fog, so being from Duluth, we felt right at home. Emerging from the fog up high, we found this sign, a statement of real Hawaiian hospitality.

We also had lots of dicoveries on a jungle path. For example, we found Kurtz’s hut from Heart of Darkness.

Wild ginger.

And a clever hidey spot (yikes, someone needs to work on those eyes!).

No pictures, but I saw a pack of pigs cross the road, and the mongoose were everywhere.

Some of us, at least, will be heading to the Marshall Islands again in the next few years; therefore, there’s a good chance that we’ll be able to see Dave and Cindy and company again. After fifteen years there were some new bends, and water is flowing in unexpected directions, but it’s great to see the same river, and it will be great to see it again.