Sacred places, divine faces: A Memorial Day meditation

Minneapolis, Minnesota


I believe in ghosts, and sought their company for two weeks in the waning days of August 2000. In particular, I was seeking my paternal grandfather, Harry Hayden Peterson, whose Kansas origins had been lost in the mists of time and space following his death in Minneapolis in 1937.


While my ultimate destination that summer was Meade County, bordering the Oklahoma panhandle in the southwest corner of Kansas, I first spent three days at the Kansas History Center in Topeka, with a side trip to the Lied Center for the performing arts in Lawrence. Penciled notes made from microfilmed copies of pioneer newspapers and the 1895 agricultural census started my forensic investigation of times and people I had never known.


Heading west from Topeka on Interstate 70, I visited the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan before resting overnight a few miles on, in Junction City. There, I encountered the first ghosts, maintaining their vigil and bearing witness at the entrance of Fort Riley, Home of America's Army.


Fort Riley was established on the Kansas River in 1853, and since has played a role in all of the nation's military undertakings. As I drove onto the grounds, I was attended by the spirits of thousands who reached this crossroads from all walks of life and participated in the great leavening experiences of American democracy. The 1st Infantry Division left Fort Riley in the vanguard of the American Expeditionary Force to France in 1917, led by Gen. John "Blackjack" Pershing. During World War II, the 1st was sent to England, and participated in the D-Day storming of France's Normandy beaches in 1944. In 1965, its people answered the call to duty in Vietnam.


Continuing westward for 25 miles, I arrived in Abilene, site of the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. On the grounds of that complex, a visitor can wander through the house where Dwight David Eisenhower – Ike – grew up, and meditate in the chapel where he and his wife, Mamie, are buried. In between, one can study his career as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point and subsequent rise to the rank of five-star general, Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, director of the invasion of Europe, first Supreme Commander of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and service as the 34th president of the United States.


My own, sole encounter with West Point occurred in 1978, and consisted of lodging for a single night at The Thayer Hotel, a historic, Gothic structure overlooking New York's Hudson River at the south entrance to the Academy.


From Abilene, I continued along I-70 for 93 miles to Russell, Kansas. I wanted to see the community that had shaped the early life of former U.S. senator Bob Dole, a man whose character, and not his politics, had gained him my vote when he stood for the presidency in 1996. Dole was one of many injured during the Allied campaigns in Italy during World War II; his injuries left his right arm paralyzed for life.


Traveling south, by way of Dodge City, I made my first stop in Meade County at the Meade County Historical Museum. Thousands had flocked to that county in 1884-85 from points East, lured by the promise of free land through homesteading. Arriving in Dodge City on trains, they transferred their persons and worldly goods to horse-drawn freight wagons for the 43-mile cross-country trip to Meade.


Centennial books, published in 1985, recorded the stories of many who had made that journey west and created the principal towns of Plains and Meade. Their indices contained the entries that connected with my grandfather and the extended family that had arrived in Kansas before him, by way of Delaware, New Jersey, Ohio, and Illinois. One of the entries noted a contemporary resident, a second cousin once removed, who had been drafted in 1965 to serve in the Vietnam War. My brother, who had joined me for a few days, and I presented ourselves at the cousin's doorstep with the announcement that we were relatives from Minnesota.


From this encounter, we came to know of our grandfather's eight siblings, their parents, our Peterson forebears reaching back to the 1600s, and of the succeeding generations that were scattered further to the four winds. We have become acquainted with many of their ghosts as we have walked the flat, sun-drenched quarter sections that had been the original homesteads in Meade County, and the quiet, hillside cemeteries on the outskirts of Meade, Kansas, and Pineville, Missouri.


During that first Kansas visit, we met a second cousin who had enlisted in the Army Air Corp, was shot down over Germany in November 1944, and was held as a POW. He returned home to pursue his American Dream as a farmer and raise a family with his wife of more than 60 years. I have since met many other Peterson descendants, some of them veterans of military service. In particular, one of my grandfather's sisters, who settled in Washington state, produced several generations of service people. I have met two of them; one lives now in Florida, the other in Colorado.


Closer to my Minnesota roots, my maternal grandfather, Hjalmer Anders Linman, served in the navy as a young man at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, during World War I. He re-enlisted in his 50s and served in New Jersey during World War II. My father, Paul Emmett Peterson, served in the U.S. Army at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the early 1950s. My step-father, Kenneth Jacob Vetsch, served in the U.S. Navy's Signal Service Group, with assignments during and after World War II in the Pacific Theater and at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. These three men, and Harry Peterson, are buried within 500 yards of each other at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Minneapolis.


I set eyes on the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, a few times in 1971 and 1972. After more than 30 years, memory yet lends it a romantic, wind-swept image set on Chesapeake Bay. It was a point of vicarious pride for our family when my second cousin, Jeffrey Tuset, was accepted there as a midshipman. One of my most idyllic memories of summers in Minnesota is of the reunion, picnic, and afternoon of water skiing in Big Lake, Minnesota, before he left to take up his studies.


The ghosts from that afternoon continue to visit me. It may not have been the first time all of us were together, but it was the last. After his graduation, Capt. Tuset died when his helicopter stopped working and crashed in the Sea of Japan, May 6, 1985, an event reported on the front page of the Minneapolis newspaper. Whether he knew it or not, Jeff's service followed, at least indirectly, in the footsteps of his grandfather, John Gunderson Tuset, who served in the U.S. Army during World War I and is also buried at Crystal Lake.


Whatever their particular antecedents, wars confront the generations called to their conduct with the need to make keenly-felt moral judgments. For much of our history, men and women have served in the armed forces of the United States by choice, while for significant periods, conscription has been used to fill the ranks in the numbers needed. Not all agree, however, that every war – or any war – should be fought.


The Vietnam War of ~1964-1975 – a war whose premises the then-Secretary of Defense has since said were wrong – caused much turmoil in hearts and homes throughout the land. Upon receiving his draft notice early in 1971, my partner, James Davies, was resolved to insist on his status as a conscientious objector, even if it meant imprisonment for refusing induction. This caused great distress for his parents who had come of age during World War II. James' father had enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 17, served in North Africa, staffed the first mine-sweeper in the Bay of Naples on the coast of Italy, and had shipped to the Pacific Theater for the invasion of Japan that did not happen.


A dynamic scene of great emotion played out in the courthouse of Rice County, Minnesota. Before a draft board comprised of war veterans, James' father voiced his profound disagreement with James' beliefs, while vouching for James' sincerity in holding them. Consequently, James performed two years of alternative service as a conscientious objector, working in the mental health unit of a hospital in Tucson, Arizona.


For many of us, resolution of the moral issues happened more by chance than choice, which begs the question of whether we ever resolved them.


When I visited in Meade County two years ago with the cousin who had served in Vietnam, he described his efforts to survive in that conflict and the community of people that embraced him warmly upon his return. He then asked whether I had worn the uniform.


No. After relinquishing my student deferment in 1971, I was classified 1-A for induction for more than half a year. On Aug. 5, 1971, the draft lottery drew number 228 for my birth date. That meant the chances of my involuntary service would be very low.


I have looked back on occasion. On Oct. 11, 1987, I studied the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington. Earlier that day, I had attended the unveiling of The AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall, memorializing those who had fallen in a different war.


More recently, after 9/11, I was ready to enlist. If they needed me and wanted 50-year-olds, the cause was just and worth the fight. Talk, however, is cheap. That is why I have little patience or use for the rantings of those on both the right and the left of the political spectrum who have not worn the uniform or walked the talk. The daily diatribes of some of them about how their freedoms and liberties are being abridged or denied ring hollow in my ears.


In February 2006, I attended a national arts conference in Washington, D. C. Our activities included a reception at the residence of the ambassador from France to the United States, Jean-David Lévitte. At the time, France had been pummeled for three years by leaders of the U.S. government and others throughout the land for its refusal to share in the erroneous belief that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 and was amassing weapons of mass destruction.


In his greetings to us, the ambassador recounted poignantly the 200+ year relationship between the two countries, saving his greatest eloquence to acknowledge the ultimate sacrifice made by ordinary people from all corners of America to liberate his country in 1944: "For this we shall be forever grateful," he intoned. "This we shall never forget!"


Lévitte's sincerity was diminished only a little when I learned later that he used that speech regularly while doing his job of representing his country and making what friends he could. In fact, France and its people are grateful and, because they have seen the U.S. at its best, have been critical when we have failed our better selves.


The British people also are grateful. Near Downing Street and Whitehall in London, the underground Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum testify to the close working relationship between the World War II prime minister, Winston Churchill, and President Franklin Roosevelt. A memorial plaque to Roosevelt resides prominently in London's Westminster Abbey.


Since 602 AD, a church of Christian worship has stood on London's Ludgate Hill. The medieval old St. Paul's Church was one of the largest structures in Europe. After The Great Fire in 1666, Christopher Wren designed the current structure and dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. During the German bombing Blitz of 1940-41, much of London and the English countryside was laid waste. Although the survival of St. Paul's dome stood as a symbol of British resolve before the U.S. entered the war, a bomb in October 1940 destroyed the cathedral's eastern apse and, with it, the High Altar.


In post-war rebuilding, the High Altar was repositioned. In its former setting was created The American Memorial Chapel. Dedicated Nov. 26, 1958, the chapel is one of the most emotionally arresting sites for an American visitor. Opposite the altar, the American Roll of Honour, presented by Eisenhower, holds the names of the 28,000 Americans who went to Britain and died in World War II; the roll is kept under glass, and a page of names is turned each day.


The chapel's three, stained-glass windows represent Service, Sacrifice, and Resurrection. Wood carvings represent flowers and fruits from the American heartland. The altar's ironwork shows the Burning Bush of Moses and the Tablets of the Law on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed as a memorial to America's Jewish soldiers who died.


Speaking in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940, Churchill asked his country to let the coming struggle be its finest hour. While the U.S. has known many fine hours in the creation and maintenance of its experiment in democracy, its response to fascism in World War II still stands as its finest hour in the defense of its principles, values, and beliefs.


I do not seek the living among the dead, but I feel deep love and gratitude to the ghosts of those who have gone before. We are the heirs of their faith, the instruments of their hope, and the products of their love.

Kenny

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Monticello Times, Monticello MN
Thursday, January 8, 2009


Kenneth J. "Kenny" Vetsch, 84, Monticello

Kenneth J. "Kenny" Vetsch, 84, Monticello, died Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008, at his residence.


A Mass of Christian Burial was 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009, at The Church of St. Henry in Monticello. Father Timothy C. Rudolphi was the Celebrant. Visitation was Friday, Jan. 2, 4-8 p.m., at The Peterson Chapel St. Michael-Albertville Funeral Home. A Prayer Service was held at 7 p.m.


Kenny was born Nov. 8, 1924, in Buffalo Township, Wright County, the son of William and Antonia Wey Vetsch. He honorably served his country in the U.S. Army.


He married Millicent I. Peterson July 24, 1971, at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Columbia Heights.


Kenny worked in dairy farming in Monticello Township for many years. He later became a construction laborer and belonged to The Construction & General Laborers Local # 536.


He was a faithful member of The Church of St. Henry in Monticello. He was also a longtime active member of The American Legion, V.F.W., Catholic Order of Foresters and Knights of Columbus.


Kenny loved the outdoors, especially working at Beebe Lake Park for 17 years and having a large garden.


He is survived by his wife; children, Gary Peterson (James Davies), Debra (Jeff) Lewis, Patti (Patrick) McCann, Tim Peterson and Sandy Peterson; 11 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; brothers and sisters, Orville (Marlene) Vetsch, Willard "Willie" Vetsch, Anna Mae (Gilbert) Valerius, Earl (Joan) Vetsch, Fred (Alice) Vetsch, Nona (Lyle) Lindenfelser, and Dianne (Duane) Kemmetmueller.


He was preceded in death by his parents; four brothers, Ralph, Lloyd, Joseph and Donald Vetsch; a granddaughter, Bernadette Lewis, and by first wife, Kathleen.


Casket Bearers were Kevin McCann, Aaron McCann, Kelly McCann, Ryan McCann, Peter Lewis and Brian Vetsch.

Kenneth Vetsch Eulogy, St. Henry’s Catholic Church, Monticello MN
by Tim Peterson - January 3, 2009

Good morning. Happy new year everyone. This would certainly be Kenny’s wish for each of us on this fine day of remembrance and celebration.


How does one even begin to summarize the essential character of someone as beloved and dear as my step father Kenny?


The author Dr. Stephen Covey wrote that in order to truly become fulfilled, each of us seeks to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy. I would add my own personal fifth item: to laugh often. Kenny’s life had the gift of many years to master fulfillment in each of these areas.


As I stand before you today, I am struck by the greatest of ironies among my many reflections over this past week. When Kenny married my mother back on July 24, 1971, I was but a scared, awkward, pimple faced, 12 year old kid. Beginning way back then, I literally ached to emulate and to always be as much like him as I possibly could. This was apparent in everything from wearing my Jacques seed corn cap, my leather work gloves, my blue jeans, and my red wing brand work boots that we acquired from a big trip down to Minneapolis. I must confess to you all that here I am now today, almost 38 years later, and I still ache as ever to be as much like him as I can!


Although certainly more numerous, there are at least six reasons why:

1. Kenny had a Quiet Kindness to him. He was authentic, non-superficial, the REAL deal. Kenny was not a talker. He let his actions speak more loudly than his words, as was shared so eloquently last night in comments from both my brother, Gary, and my brother-in-law, Patrick McCann.

2. Patience. Kenny showed this in spades throughout his years, but perhaps no more directly than after the April 26, 1973, construction accident when, at roughly the same age of 49 that I am at today, he fell three stories off of an apartment building that he was working on. He landed upon his seat on the hood of the cement truck below and his hard hat also came off from the fall. Moments later, he was struck in the head by the wheel barrow full of concrete which followed him in the fall. Kenny was nearly killed from this mishap and he suffered through great pain during his recovery and was challenged by great disability and hearing loss throughout the remaining years of his life from that point forward. I cannot even imagine how difficult that must have been to endure such an ordeal.

3. Dutiful. Kenny was the guy who always showed up with his legendary work ethic. He pulled his weight, or in his own words, he "cut the mustard." He always did his job and he did it well.

4. Adaptable Kenny was often resourceful in overcoming adversity and embracing change. I will be forever amazed by how well both he and my mother made the proactive decision 12 years ago to move off of the farm and into town as they proceeded in age into their early 70s.

5. Kenny could be tremendously Humorous. He liked to pull the occasional prank in order to tease my mother. He would help to lighten her up and keep things easy going. Many of you may not know this, but Kenny spoke German, learned long ago from his early farm family upbringing, and this would happen often when he would get together with his many siblings. We kids would be utterly fascinated by this and would beg them to say something in German. "Spechen se Deutsch, spechen se Deutsch," we would plead.

Kenny would then glance at his conspiring brothers with a twinkle in each of their eyes and state something like the following (hopefully, those of you who are fluent will forgive my attempt to pronounce correctly here): "Ah-Bay-Say, Kat-Schlecken-Sneigh. Sneigh-Dey-Vet, Kat-Schlecken-Det!" Fully believing that we had just heard something very deep and profound we would then plead with Kenny to translate what we had just heard. "Say it in English, say it in English," we would beg. Kenny and his brothers would by then be laughing so very hard as they let us all into their little linguistic joke by stating the following: "A-B-C, the cat sleeps in the snow. The snow then melts, the cat sleeps in the dirt!" I guess you just had to be there in order to most fully appreciate how humorous and priceless of a memory this is!

6. Finally, Kenny was very Spiritual. He would never let on himself outwardly about such a thing, but his very persona once again spoke volumes through his love of husbandry and all agrarian activities. His actions were almost always in sync with the seasons. Kenny seemed to get the "inside stuff" right. I did not realize it then, but looking back, it is very apparent that his ongoing, quiet example of living opened many doors to the unfolding of my own spirituality which has continued over the years since he came into our lives.

To conclude my comments, I wish to share some timeless wisdom from my friend, Joe Henry, who lives as a rancher on the western slope of the Continental Divide along the roaring Fork River Valley in southwest Colorado. My friend Joe is an elder of native American, Cheyenne tribal ancestry. His words provide a significant measure of calm and comfort ... so appropriate as we all remember and honor Kenny this day:

I know that love is seeing ALL the infinite in one.

In the brotherhood of creatures; Who the father? Who the son?

The vision of your goodness will sustain me through the cold.

Take my hand now to remember, when you find yourself alone.

You are NEVER alone!

For the spirit fills the darkness of the heavens.

It fills the endless yearning of the soul.

It lives within a star too far to dream of.

It lives within each part, and is the whole.

It is the Fire and the Wings that fly us home.

Fly us home … fly us home.

Ah-ho, Ishinyuwanta … you are the blessed servant Kenny, filled with joy and peace.

Ah-ho, Ishinyuwanta … we are all the blessed ones this day, filled with joy and peace.

Harvey Milk and 30 years

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Milk movie trailer

On Tuesday, on one of the rare occasions she has done so during the past 30 years, Dianne Feinstein spoke about the events in San Francisco, Nov. 27, 1978, that started her on the path to national prominence as a United States senator from California.


In an interview with Rachel Gordon of the San Francisco Chronicle, Feinstein, who in 1978 was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, recounted how she had found the bullet-riddled body of her colleague, Supervisor Harvey Milk, and checked for his pulse by placing a finger into one of the bullet holes.


Milk had been murdered with five shots fired at close range from the gun of former Supervisor Dan White. Minutes before killing Milk, White had used four bullets to kill Mayor George Moscone in his City Hall office.


Moscone was a progressive figure, intent on opening up San Francisco's political culture to a host of groups who had not been part of the city's power structure. Milk had been elected in 1977 as the first openly-gay official in California, representing the Castro neighborhood. White, who had represented a more conservative district, had recently resigned his seat on the Board and then changed his mind. Moscone, who had stated publicly that he would reappoint White, was persuaded not to do so by Milk and others.


The murders capped a tumultuous period in San Francisco's history. Nine days earlier, Leo Ryan, the area's congressional representative, was one of 900 people – many of them from the Bay Area – who died in a wave of homicides and suicides at the People's Temple cult community in Jonestown, Guyana. Even earlier, the city had been the scene of the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, the Zebra killings, and the Golden Dragon restaurant massacre.


Feinstein became interim mayor and later won election to the post in her own right.


White's conviction, May 21, 1979, on two counts of voluntary manslaughter – instead of premeditated, 1st degree murder – prompted the White Night Riots by San Francisco's gay community. His trial gave rise and national prominence to the "Twinkie defense."


White's release on parole after a mere five years in prison occasioned a protest rally on Castro and Market Streets. Live entertainment was provided by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Dead Kennedys band, and the folk singer Blackberry. James Davies and I were in San Francisco at the time and attended the January 1984 event.


White asphyxiated himself, Oct. 21, 1985.


Three weeks before the 1978 assassinations, Milk and the nascent, national gay and lesbian communities had celebrated the defeat of California Proposition 6, The Briggs Initiative. The initiative would have banned gay men and lesbians from teaching in California's public schools. Sponsored by John Briggs, Orange County's representative in the state assembly, the measure received overwhelming initial public support. Milk helped lead the statewide opposition. Opponents included Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Voters defeated the measure by more than a million votes.


• • • • •


On Wednesday, my reading about the Chronicle's interview with Feinstein prompted a visceral sadness that brought tears to my eyes as I recalled the turbulence of those days. Consciously, we may move on in life, but feelings stay with us. However, at the same time this emotion surged, the instant realization that fully 30 years had passed gave me a mental image that felt as though an intellectual file drawer had slammed shut on those events. The passage of 30 years suddenly had relegated them to a more objective and non-present lens of history.


I was startled to read Feinstein's comments that Milk and White had met weekly as colleagues, if not friends, for morning coffee in the Castro neighborhood. This information is confirmed in an essay for the Chronicle by Willie Brown, a former member of the California Assembly and a former mayor of San Francisco. Somehow, this bit of history has not been part of the popular myths and legends that have evolved surrounding the life and times of Harvey Milk.


Milk, a film by Gus Van Sant about that life and those times, opened nationally on Wednesday. It received its world premiere showing at the Castro Theatre, Oct. 28. It features Sean Penn as Milk, Josh Brolin as White, Victor Garber as Moscone, Emile Hirsch as Milk confidant Cleve Jones, and James Franco and Diego Luna as Milk's lovers.

Nov. 4: Vote YES for Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Chapter 1: Vote YES for Minnesota
Chapter 2: Scenes and reflections
Chapter 3: The arts's need
Chapter 4: Allocating the resources

Chapter 1. Vote YES for Minnesota


Growing up with a Republican father and Democratic mother, I developed an early propensity for telling other people how to vote. The impulse was reinforced one very rainy day when my dad and I walked door-to-door distributing leaflets that told people to vote for taxes to build schools. He told me I would take pride and satisfaction in having helped to build them. He was right. This posting continues that tradition.


On Nov. 4, Minnesotans should Vote YES √ on the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment to protect the Minnesota we love. Those voters who skip this ballot question will be counted as voting no.


YES will amend the Minnesota Constitution to dedicate funding to protect drinking water sources; protect and restore wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; preserve arts and cultural heritage; support parks and trails; and protect and restore lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater by increasing the sales tax by 3/8 of 1% beginning July 1, 2009. The tax increase will expire after 25 years.


YES will generate $300 million annually, beginning in 2010:

• 33% for a clean water fund;

• 33% for an outdoor heritage fund;

• 19.75% for arts, arts education and access, and preservation of history and cultural heritage;

• 14.25% for parks and trails of regional and statewide significance.

Our natural heritage and arts and culture play important roles in our economy, the tourism industry, and our quality of life. They must be protected and enhanced.


YES will cost an average household $56 per year in sales tax. It will prevent long-term priorities from falling victim to short-term budget needs, and will produce benefits both tangible and not.


YES invests in the future of our state. Residents of that time and place will applaud our collective foresight, although our individual motivations for voting YES will vary. My own reasons are complex, hold special meaning for me, and have a particular focus on arts and culture.


Chapter 2. Scenes and reflections


Recently, I passed through several Minnesota River towns, traveling south on U.S. Highway 169 from Minneapolis to Mankato. That drive on a sputtering Saturday morning brought to mind many of the stories and things I love about Minnesota.


The city of Shakopee, 17 miles southwest of my house near downtown Minneapolis, serves as the seat of Scott County government and home to the Canterbury Downs racetrack. For decades, it also has hosted the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, a cultural state-of-mind as much as it is a geographical place. The festival serves as an imaginative commercial venue for many of our artists, crafters, and performers from mid-August through September, a time when sumac turns red and seasonal vendors along the roadsides display the enticements of apples, pumpkins, sweet corn, and potatoes – plus loads of caramel for the apples.


Past the town of Belle Plaine, one reaches Le Sueur in the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant, 30 miles from Minneapolis. Here, the Giant Celebration, known formerly as Corn on the Curb Days, takes place for three days every August.


As it passes through the Nicollet County seat of St. Peter, Highway 169 assumes the name of Minnesota Avenue. State residents worth their salt know the story of how Joseph Rolette, a senator, thwarted the attempt in 1857 to move the territorial capital from St. Paul to St. Peter when he absconded with the legislative bill that was on its way to the governor for signature. Gov. Willis Gorman is said to have owned the land on which the capitol building would have been constructed. St. Peter never became a major center of population and commerce.


The town nonetheless became an aspiration of Lutheran boys and girls after Gustavus Adolphus College set up shop a few blocks off of Minnesota Avenue. A liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Gustavus offers study in several artistic disciplines and hosts visiting performers on its campus.


Once upon a time, until life led elsewhere, the college and its iconic Christ Chapel beckoned to me. I have since become increasingly interested in stories about King Gustavus Adolphus, founder of the Swedish Empire during 30 years of warfare that helped preserve the Lutheran Reformation. After his death in 1632, the throne passed to his daughter, Christina. One of my Peterson forbears was among the Swedes who settled the area around Wilmington, Delaware, in the late 1630s, and named the Christina River there after the queen.


Back in present-day Minnesota, Highway 169 soon reaches the cities of Mankato and North Mankato at the place where the Minnesota and Blue Earth rivers meet. Nearly 50,000 people live in the area. I almost joined them for two years.


In 1984, I had been accepted into a Master’s program at Minnesota State University. My partner, James Davies, and I rode a Greyhound Bus from Minneapolis to Mankato to check out the city and the 303-acre campus of 14,000 students. Comparing notes at the end of the day, we learned that both of us had experienced an uninterrupted series of encounters that felt “not quite right.” After some reflection, I interpreted these encounters as “signs” and declined the invitation to study.


That decision had three major consequences in the following years. First, I increased my attendance at various dance classes, leading to more than 20 years of involvement with Minnesota’s dance world and stints as manager of Zenon Dance Company, Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre, and James Sewell Ballet. Then, I started co-hosting a radio program for more than eight years, turning my part of the show into a public affairs forum for the Twin Cities GLBT community during the development of the community’s social, political, and commercial infrastructure. Finally, I planned the trip that Davies and I took in 1986 to England, France, Italy, India, and Hong Kong.


From Mankato, Highway 169 continues south through Garden City, Amboy, and Blue Earth, before entering Iowa just past Elmore, the hometown of Vice President Walter Mondale. During a social lunch that Davies and I had with him three years ago, he mentioned that he strongly supports Mrs. Mondale’s advocacy for the arts, but wishes that orchestras played more music by Benny Goodman instead of more classical composers.


American taxpayers have invested in the development and well being of the U.S. highway system since the 1920s. I applaud the foresight of their investments. U.S. Highway 14 begins in Chicago, Illinois, and runs west to Yellowstone National Park, another taxpayer project, in Wyoming. Highway 14 intersects 169 in Mankato.


Within Minnesota, Highway 14 passes through more than 30 towns and cities, including Winona, Rochester, Owatonna, New Ulm, Sleepy Eye, Walnut Grove, Tracy, and Lake Benton. Those who have lived here for any length of time have heard of these places; lifers have visited many of them.


Winona is a college town on the Wisconsin border, home to Saint Mary’s University and the Page Artist Series, the largest presenter of performing artists in southeastern Minnesota. Rochester hosts a large presence by IBM in addition to serving as the world nerve center of the Mayo Clinic. Included among many music and theater organizations in the Rochester region is one of our strongest community theaters, the Rochester Civic Theatre.


Walnut Grove was the real life setting for the Laura Ingalls Wilder book On the Banks of Plum Creek, while Tracy received honorable mention in The Long Winter. I started kindergarten when we lived in Tracy for a year while my dad helped string telephone wires throughout Lyon County. During his visit with us in 1957, my grandpa and I searched the night sky outside our house on Roosevelt Street for a glimpse of Sputnik.


For 49 days between April and June this year, many of us cheered vicariously the unfolding adventure of Sean Bloomfield and Colton Witte. After graduating a month early from Chaska High School, this duo-with-a-dream set off to paddle 2,200 miles up the Minnesota River to Big Stone Lake, “down” the Red River to Lake Winnipeg, across that lake to the Hayes River, and then through several rapids to York Factory on Hudson Bay.


The men drew their inspiration from Canoeing With the Cree, the book by Eric Sevareid that recounted his trip with Walter Port along the same route in 1930 at age 18. After receiving his BA from the University of Minnesota, Sevareid built an international career as a print and electronic journalist and commentator. Bloomfield and Witte are now freshmen at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Reportedly, one of their next adventures will be a kayak race in Alaska. We look forward to following their adventures.


Recently, I wrote about the role that water and lakes have played in my life and in the lives of Minnesotans. My family’s camping, swimming, and fishing experiences included Lake Minnetonka in Hennepin County, Fish Lake near Cambridge, Crooked Lake in Anoka, the North Shore of Lake Superior, and lakes near Alexandria, Bemidji, Annandale, Buffalo, and Chisago City. Years ago, we caught small mouth bass while standing in the middle of the Mississippi River downstream from the nuclear power plant in Monticello. More years ago, my parents and I stood in Lake Itasca at the Mississippi’s headwaters.


One specific lake eluded me.


In the late 1960s, I ran with a crowd that had an affinity for the theater department at St. Cloud State University where many of us vowed to pursue our careers as thespians. St. Cloud is located 72 miles northwest of Minneapolis, just off I-94. Seventy miles further is Alexandria, where St. Cloud State is affiliated with Theatre L’Homme Dieu, a professional summer theater situated on Lake L’Homme Dieu. We thought – at least, I did, until life led elsewhere – that spending summers performing on the L’Homme Dieu stage would mean we had arrived in life.


The Minnesota Historical Society preserves our stories by operating archives, museums, and 26 historic sites, including the Minnesota History Center, Mill City Museum, Historic Fort Snelling, Split Rock Lighthouse, Mille Lacs Indian Museum, Charles A. Lindbergh House, and others. In addition, many of the state’s 87 counties maintain their own historical societies; I saw a couple of them on Highway 169.


I gained first-hand appreciation for the value of these repositories from my travels in Kansas rather than in Minnesota. In a journey of great discovery and insight eight years ago, supported by the Jerome Foundation, I spent two weeks reviewing old newspapers, census records, photos, and histories in Topeka, Junction City, Salina, Dodge City, Meade, and Arlington. From the individual threads gleaned at each of these stops, I was able to weave together the 360-year story of one family’s pursuit of the American Dream and to place it in the context of a nation’s effort to perfect itself.


I applaud the foresight of those who established and have maintained historical societies, large and small, in all parts of our country.


Minnesota’s 19,600 individual artists and nearly 1,600 nonprofit arts and culture organizations provide full-time jobs for more than 22,000 people. An additional 10,400 for-profit arts businesses employ more than 58,000 people. This industry generates annual state and local government revenues of $94 million, and nearly a billion dollars of economic activity.


In 2004, statewide attendance for arts and culture activities totaled 14,487,592, more than triple the combined attendance of 4,610,201 for all professional sports teams. I have enjoyed attending both arts events and sports events.


In addition to direct economic returns, our arts and culture industry attracts businesses and their employees, stimulates development, and drives tourism. Five of our top tourist draws are the Walker Art Center, Guthrie Theater, Ordway Center, Orchestra Hall, and the Children’s Theatre.


I know this scene well. With dance companies, I worked with people in more than 50 communities, as far ranging as Grand Rapids, Crookston, Morris, Fergus Falls, Scandia, Little Falls, and Ely. Over the years, I have been a member of 18 panels that reviewed arts grant applications and recommended funding. This process has made me familiar with hundreds of individuals and organizations, in all disciplines and corners of the state – Lanesboro, Duluth, and Rochester among them.


At whatever stage of their artistic development, all of these people embody the core values of artistic excellence, accountability and transparency as stewards of public resources, innovation, and respectful partnering in the intellectual and creative development of our people.


Chapter 3. The arts’s need


The legislature established the first state arts agency in 1903. Successive changes fixed its name as the Minnesota State Arts Board, and established 11 regional arts councils to distribute funds and to maintain a degree of local involvement and decision-making. Public investments in the short- and long-term health of our arts and culture industry reach all 87 counties.


Although the legislature has been episodically very generous in its appropriations for the arts, its overall investment has not kept pace with inflation and growth of field since 1977:

• The 1977 appropriation of $500,000 is worth $1.8 million in 2008 dollars. A lobbying effort by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts succeeded in raising the 1978 appropriation to $1.77 million – equal to $5.98 million in 2008. Subsequent appropriations increased or decreased modestly from 1978 until 1983, when the appropriation was cut to $1.5 million.


• The 1983 appropriation of $1.5 million was equal to $2.48 million in 1997 dollars, a year when the actual appropriation was, more favorably, $6.98 million. However, the annual appropriations in that 14-year period fluctuated, year-by-year, within a range from –7% to +52%.


• With passage of the initiative by Gov. Arne Carlson, the legislature appropriated $13 million for 1998. This was reduced somewhat to $12.6 million for 2002, and to $8.59 million for each year 2003 to 2007.


• The appropriation for 2008 is $10.33 million – 73% higher than 30 years ago, after 1978 is adjusted to 2008 dollars. The average annual rate of inflation over the 30 years was 4.14%.


• The average annual inflation rate of 2.71% during the 10 years from 1998 to 2008 makes the $13 million appropriation for 1998 equal to $17 million in 2008 and, if extended, $17.9 million in 2010.

http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

Along with our natural heritage, the arts need a stable and protected source of funding. The YES amendment will provide that.


Chapter 4. Allocating the resources


The legislature will retain oversight of the designated funds generated by the YES amendment. It is estimated that $58 million will be generated annually for arts and culture beginning in 2010. A possible $28 million of those funds will be allocated to historical societies and cultural heritage.


It is expected, but not yet established, that the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Regional Arts Councils will serve as the legislature’s vehicles for administering $30 million of new resources for the arts. Members of those bodies have been holding conversations with artists and organizations about how the money might best be spent. I also have a list of suggestions for them to consider.


First, however, let us assume that – instead of having $30 million of new money, added to $10.3 million of existing money, making $40.3 million available for 2010 – we will have $30 million of total money actually available.


A number of factors could produce that scenario. We know that (a) the legislature that convenes in February to craft budgets for 2010 and 2011 will face a projected deficit for that biennium of at least $1 billion, and possibly as much as $4 billion; (b) the governor is loathe to raise taxes; (c) the state and national economies are in less than sterling shape; and (d) a major lobbying effort will probably be required to maintain the current appropriation. As prudent stewards, we should plan for how we will “make do” under the more conservative scenario.


My wish list begins by restoring all arts programs for 2010 to the level they enjoyed in 1998 when funding was $13 million. This will require an allocation of $17.9 million to fund the same programs for the same number of communities, organizations, and individual artists, adjusted for inflation.


The following funding increases should then be made to allow for inflation and growth of field: (a) Individual artist initiatives - $1 million; (b) Institutional organization support - $1.5 million; (c) Presenting organization support - $500,000; (d) Arts Across Minnesota touring - $500,000; (e) Arts education initiatives - $2 million.


The powers-that-will-be should make an annual grant of $250,000 to the Performing Arts Archives at the University of Minnesota. This grant should be earmarked specifically to accelerate the acquisition, processing, and retention of records for archival purposes from performing arts organizations throughout Minnesota.


Prior to 2003, the McKnight Foundation’s capital program made equipment and technical assistance grants to its grantees over and above its general operating grants. Grantees were eligible for one capital grant every five years. Applications were straight-forward, and their approval helped build an organization’s physical infrastructure, including such things as telephones that work, computer networks that can talk to each other, lighting equipment, portable floors, etc.


Anyone who has participated on a Regional Arts Council panel to decide which six of 18 equally meritorious applicants should get computer hardware and software will understand this need. An $850,000 pool of technical assistance funds should be administered by the Regional Arts Councils for all grantees of the Arts Board and the RACs, regardless of budget size.


If innovation and collaboration are keys to advancement in any endeavor, then funds should be available to any individual artist or arts organization to commission new work from Minnesota artists in all disciplines. A $500,000 pool of commissioning funds, administered by the Minnesota State Arts Board, should be available to applicants in amounts up to $50,000, with 20% of the available pool reserved for grants of $15,000 or less.


Once annually, members of the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Forum of Regional Arts Councils should convene as the [new] Minnesota Cultural Facilities Commission. The commission should have a $2.5 million pool of funds with which to make annual planning grants of up to $500,000, and capital construction grants of up to $2 million, for projects whose total cost will be $10 million or less. This body also should recommend statewide priorities to the legislature for capital bonding projects costing more than $10 million.


Finally, as a consequence of present economic conditions and activities, it is probable that portfolios of many of the more than 100 foundations that provide grants to the arts in Minnesota will be adversely affected, leading to a decrease in the numbers and sizes of their grants. A funding pool of $2.5 million should be reserved for emergency budget relief for existing arts organizations for 2010, and subsequent years as needed. The criteria and logistics of such a program are beyond the scope of this essay.


That is how I would spend $30,000,000.


How would you spend it?


All of it is academic until you Vote YES on Nov. 4!

Evensong

San Francisco, California


San Francisco's Grace Cathedral offers the service of choral Evensong on Thursday afternoons throughout the year. It is a particularly Anglican service that evolved from the monastic hours and combines features of the office of Vespers and Compline. It is sung regularly in many cathedrals and parish churches throughout the country, and daily in many places in England. At Grace, one is invited to sit in the choir for the service which draws just under 100 people, including members of the choir. Yesterday's anthem, with text from Ephesians 5, was composed by Thomas Tallis, a 16th century contemporary of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.


Evensong happens four evenings a week at the General Theological Seminary in New York. I attended twice while staying there last October. The entire chapel on the seminary grounds would fit comfortably, with room to spare, within the choir of Grace Cathedral.


Grace is the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the U.S. and, like much of San Francisco, it has become a global icon. Situated atop Nob Hill, its construction was started in 1928 and completed in 1964. It is a successor to the Grace Church which was organized during the 1849 Gold Rush. Its French Gothic architecture shares many features with the National Cathedral in Washington.


The central, Ghiberti Doors of Grace Cathedral, were cast from the same molds used in the 15th century for the Baptistry of Florence Cathedral. James Davies and I saw the Italian originals during our 1986 visit to Florence.


Following the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed much of San Francisco, William H. Crocker, a Grace parish member, donated the land of his ruined home on Nob Hill for the construction of a cathedral, with the requirement that "Grace" remain the name of the new structure. In 1934, William's daughter, Harriet Crocker Alexander, donated the Alexander Memorial Organ in memory of her husband, Charles Beatty Alexander; the organ was designed by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston.


Crocker was a banker and civic leader, and a son of Charles Crocker, one of the four original investors in the transcontinental railroad. The other three investors, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, and Mark Hopkins, also made their homes on Nob Hill. The Huntington and Mark Hopkins hotels stand today on what were the ruins of their mansions.


Before his days as a successful railroad man and merchant in Sacramento, California, Charles Crocker started life in 1822 in Troy, New York. After a falling-out with his father, he began working his way West. In 1849, he joined two of his brothers and a few other young men in leaving from Quincy, Illinois, to seek their fortunes in California.


The Peterson family lore relates that my great-great grandfather, William Peterson (b. 1815, New Jersey; d. 1899 Pineville, Missouri) joined his brother Dean and a few other young men to seek their fortunes in 1849 California. They would have departed from Adams County, Illinois where they lived, and for which Quincy is the county seat. The Petersons returned "busted."


Following Evensong, James and I located Johnny Foleys Irish House at 243 O'Farrell Street, a favorite from our previous visits. It is a mere block from our current lodgings at the Hotel Union Square, 114 Powell Street. The Powell Street cable cars run past our second floor window regularly.

Another week, another lake

Minneapolis, Minnesota


One of my sisters is quite a carpenter. In this, she channels the talents and vocations of the great-great grandparents on our mother's side who helped build many homes and churches in North Minneapolis beginning in the 1880s.


Many years ago, Carpenter Sister built – single-handedly, with an assist from a cement truck pouring the foundation – her family's second home. She and her husband chose to build it on Matson Lake near Birchwood, Wisconsin, where it served as a year-round retreat while their four children were growing up. Recently, with images of eventual retirement and the last child's tuition payment in mind, they decided to downsize to just this one abode, but only after it had been up-sized.


Two weekends ago, another sister and I made the scene on Matson's shores to haul sand and help make ready for a concrete pour that will result in a new patio, porch, garage, and – most important – a dining room. Carpenter Sister always has wanted a proper dining room where her children, grandchildren, family, and friends could gather to create the soul- and stomach- satisfying memories that let us know our lives meant something to other people, and theirs to us.


This dining room should last through several generations and any storm the elements throw at it. Its floor-to-ceiling walls will be solid concrete except for the large windows providing a million dollar view of the lake. Once installed, the metal roof will be guaranteed for 120 years. The patio will be a perfect spot for meditating upon the sounds of loons on the lake.


Lakes always have been a part of my family's life. In fact, few residents of Minnesota and Wisconsin are deprived of at least occasional encounters with them. Only four of Minnesota's 87 counties lack at least one lake of 10 acres or more, and the state has 11,842. Wisconsin has thousands more. We observe, with landlocked pride, that Minnesota's lakes have more miles of shoreline than the combined oceanfronts of California, Florida, and Hawaii.


As noted in a previous post, I spent much of last weekend on the shores of Pickerel Lake in Barnes, Wisconsin. There, nature's orchestra features crickets and frogs instead of loons.


Last evening, James Davies and I drove 25 miles west from downtown Minneapolis to Minnetrista, located on the western shore of the West Upper Lake portion of Lake Minnetonka. The occasion was a summer gathering of board members of the Plymouth Church Neighborhood Foundation, a faith-based developer of nonprofit housing; James is beginning his ninth year as a director. It was a lovely lake evening, marked by good people, weather, food, and conversation.


Lake Minnetonka is one of the hidden treasures to which I direct visitors to the Twin Cities, suggesting they make a day of driving the 110 miles of shoreline that surround 14,000 acres of water that twist in countless bays, channels, and inlets. The lake and surrounding land were denied to the Indians (Dakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Iowa, and Ojibwe) in the 1851 Treaty of Mendota. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area drew well-to-do people from the American South to its many waterfront hotels and resorts.


As a child in the 1950s, my family's life was not complete without visits to my grandmother's summer cottage on Cook's Bay of Lake Minnetonka. The bay is named for Mathias Cook, an early settler in the 1850s. Gram's place was on Island Park (known now as Phelps Island), just across the channel bridge from the village of Mound (named for the ancient Indian burial mounds found there). James and I drove by on our way home last night. The cottage has been replaced with a year-round home. Interestingly, the garage is built into the hill under the house, as it was for the cottage.


One of my mother's cousins lived in Mound, across the bay from Gram, and I recall riding in a boat from her dock to his. Mound was the original home of Tonka Toys, a company that started life as Mound Metalcraft and was sold later to Hasbro, Inc. The town also was home to the singing Andrews Sisters who Gram claimed among her shirttail relations on her father's side.


One 4th of July, we drove to the City of Excelsior, located on another of Minnetonka's many bays, to watch fireworks. I was impressed by the scores of boats anchored offshore and thought how awesome it would be to watch fireworks from a boat. (I never have.) At other times, we visited the Excelsior Amusement Park, a regional landmark from 1925 until 1973.


Gram sold the cottage after her husband died in 1960. For our last summer there, my dad helped me build a raft. Despite our best efforts, the raft would only float if no one was on it.


In later years, our family sometimes spent a Sunday afternoon fishing on Clear Lake in Annandale, Minnesota; camping on the north shore of Lake Superior; or spending a week at the Lutheran Synod's camp on Green Lake in Chisago City. Later still, we rented a cabin on one of the lakes near Alexandria. Closer to home, we often swam in Moore Lake, near our house in Fridley.


In high school, a friend and I harvested potatoes with his extended family on their farm near Barnum/Mahtowa, south of Duluth. After a day in the field, we adjourned to a nearby lake with his cousin.


Minneapolis is known as The City of Lakes. The Minneapolis Aquatennial festival has staged activities at most of the 11 lakes within the city limits each July since 1939. As a city resident since 1974, it has been easy for me to use them while taking them for granted. During my running days of the 1970s and 80s, the paths around Lakes Calhoun, Nokomis, and Isles were the best.


For a two-month sabbatical in 2004, I resolved to walk the 3.1 miles around Calhoun at least four times a week with Gabe, the younger of our Scottish terriers. He relished such long walks in those days and would stop to swim. Gabe enjoyed waking up the ducks to have their breakfast as we watched the world around the lake come alive in the early morning hours. Afterward, we stopped at Lund's grocery store for biscuits and donuts and arrived home in time to watch a re-run of The West Wing. That routine lasted not quite three weeks before I became distracted by two, unplanned trips to Texas.


I am grateful for the many opportunities that have been given to me over the years to form lasting memories by, in, and on lakes. I hope Carpenter Sister has many satisfying years to make more Matson Lake memories in her new dining room.

Beijing and interlude

Pickerel Lake, Barnes, Wisconsin


The month of July refuses to linger.


I have noticed this for several years. Whether it is a function of one’s psychology or a law of time and physics, once the 4th of July arrives summer flashes past until the dog days of August have formed up on the horizon.


This is a good time of year to make an appearance in Northwestern Wisconsin. Although the roads leading north out of Minneapolis remain well traveled on Friday afternoons, the environs of the Eau Claire Chain of Lakes enjoy a brief respite from the arrivals and departures of the high season. All the cabins on the lake are quiet this weekend. Even the frogs have delayed their nightlong, rhythmic vocals until a later starting time.


Temperatures are cooler than normal, with a high yesterday of 78 and an overnight low of 47.


While Pickerel Lake is not connected to the 11 lakes in the Eau Claire Chain, it is part of 10,000 acres of spring-fed, clear waters that form the headwaters of the Eau Claire River. The area is bordered by Barnes on the northeast, Gordon on the southwest, and divided by Highway 27. Barnes is located in Bayfield County, 20 miles north of Hayward, the former logging town, and roughly an hour southwest of Ashland, Wisconsin, and southeast of Duluth, Minnesota. The Chequamegon [shuh–WAH–muh–gun] National Forest and the towns of the Chippewa Flowage are nearby.


I have visited here regularly since meeting James Davies 25 years ago. He was born in Ashland and his forbears founded The Daily Press there in the 19th century. Save for Barnes, his family has all passed from the area. For the last dozen years, one of my siblings has lived in Ashland with her family. An old friend, Jon, who lives in Chicago, is in the process of clearing land near Brule with his partner.


The Bayfront Blues Festival in Duluth is celebrating its 20th anniversary this weekend. The four-day event will feature 37 music acts on Lake Superior’s waterfront and is expected to draw nearly 30,000 people. For those who prefer to savor the blues inside and at night, Reverend Raven and the Chain Smoking Altar Boys played last night at the Horseshoe Billiards in Duluth, and will perform tonight at the Fortune Bay Casino in Tower.


Ship traffic in the harbor was light yesterday, with no activity at the Superior entry. The Duluth and Two Harbors entries saw the loading and unloading of coal, limestone, and iron ore pellets.


A couple days ago, I opined on Obama’s website that his campaign was flirting with throwing away a sure thing in November unless it started acting like it wanted to win. I read yesterday that it had started a new radio ad in Ohio doing just that. Also, as I recommended, several people saw the movie Mamma Mia! and told me they liked it. I always enjoy it when my advice is heard and followed.


In last weekend’s repeat broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor’s report from Lake Wobegon concluded by observing that when one walks around holding a quarter in one’s butt, you can’t think of anything else. You had to hear it, but the hilarity of the story should have made everyone relax and let go of anything they were carrying.


I diced celery, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, and mushrooms to scramble with eggs for breakfast this morning. Since early May, we have adopted the South Beach Diet and abandoned our longstanding weekend tradition of consuming waffles, fruit, sausage, juice, and coffee. I am down 25 pounds so far, halfway to my goal.


The Summer Olympics opened in Beijing yesterday with stunning ceremonies. I am happy for all of us that China was able to present such impressive images to itself and the world. It is one of many needed developments that will hasten the day when it adapts more fully to the higher angels of its nature, the pursuit of freedom, and the rule of law in its dealings with its people and the world. (At the end of most days, I remain an optimist.)


President Bush (43) attended the ceremonies accompanied by President Bush (41), a former ambassador to China. It was an action that many, including other heads of state, urged him not to take. Before entering the country, 43 criticized China’s human rights record, albeit with tarnished moral authority.


Since March, Tibet has remained off-limits to foreign reporters. CNN remains in the Chinese doghouse because of comments made by Jack Cafferty. Internet censorship remains in effect throughout China. Annual deaths from air pollution remain near 300,000 and there is lead paint in children’s toys. We can condemn all of it. We can isolate the country and refuse to deal with it. We can declare war. Or, we can seek various levels of engagement.


Sometimes, as post-9/11 in Afghanistan, there is no choice but to fight. Earlier, however, President Reagan met President Gorbachev in Reykjavik and, later, told him in front of the world to tear down the Berlin Wall.


It is a tedious business, the tending of relations between nations. So, too, are the encounters among people on our streets.


A year ago, one of our Minneapolis freeway bridges crashed into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people and injuring more. A replacement bridge has been constructed in record time by Flatiron Construction Corp. and will open next month.


Early this week, Karl Aarsheim, a straight man, and his wife, Nikki, left a gay bar near the bridge construction site after visiting with a friend. Three men, workers on the bridge crew, attacked the man because he “looked gay,” and kicked him in the head. Two have been fired and one – Otto Marin – faces misdemeanor criminal charges. Do we condemn? Yes. Do we isolate and exile? Perhaps. Do we declare war, and execute? Hmm – what would you do, if you had been attacked? Do we engage? You know, this is a lot of thought right now –––


Unbelievable! I just took a moment to look at a piece of email news from minnpost.com. Todd Bachman, the CEO of Bachman's garden centers in Minnesota, and his wife, Barbara, were attacked by knife today at a tourist spot in downtown Beijing. Todd is dead. Barbara has had surgery for life-threatening injuries. The attacker, described as a deranged man, jumped to his own death.


I worked for the Bachman family for two years in Minneapolis more than a decade ago.


The sun is warm and bright. A cool breeze is rippling across the lake and through the trees. I need to go shed a tear.

Rose-colored realities

Miami, Florida


This past week, July 12-20, has been my third visit to Miami, occasioned by the quadrennial GALA Choruses Festival. The festival was a week of 15-, 30-, and 60-minute performances by more than 140 GLBT choruses and smaller ensembles presented and attended by 5,000 singing delegates from around the world. Members of the South Florida public also attended. The logistics of making it all happen were a wonder to behold. The organizers did a great job.


All of it was more than a person could absorb or process. I fear it will become a surreal blur of memory in short order. All of my Miami visits have had a surreal quality. Unlike travel to New York, San Francisco, Jacksonville, and other coastal cities, Miami feels like a different planet.


My first trip to Dade County started on a Sunday afternoon, July 2, 1972, as the principal driver of a new, black Oldsmobile 88, equipped with a mobile telephone. Four other staffers of Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign and I were driving south from Washington, D. C., to the Democratic National Convention; the oldest of us was 21.


We passed through Richmond, Virginia, well before dusk and continued through the night. Around 4am, the darkest time before dawn, we managed to get lost somewhere in southern Georgia. Although we had a letter of introduction from the U.S. Secret Service, we had been warned not to stop along the way unless it was imperative. Unwilling to ask directions, we gutted it out for what seemed hours until we found our way across the Florida state line around 6:30am.


If you must drive the length of Florida quickly and can avoid using A1A, do so. Although this often scenic highway runs along the coast, it passes through every stop light and traffic jam in every village and city along the way. We were getting nowhere in a great deal of time when someone pulled out a map and noticed there was an interstate freeway running parallel to us about three miles inland.


Although sleep-deprived and loathe to miss my first glimpse of the fabled scenery of Cape Canaveral, Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, and the rest, I yielded. It was one of many occasions when I have had to accept that a group’s wisdom might exceed mine.


We arrived at our hotel headquarters, in the vicinity of 69th Street and Collins Avenue, before dinner, and called our Secret Service contact in Washington to check-in only a few hours past our expected arrival time. From there, we jumped into doing whatever passes for important work at a national convention. Democracy was never intended to be a tidy and rational process, and political campaigns embody that reality.


My memory of those two weeks is a mix of blurred and disparate images. I recall the press conference where HH withdrew from contention for the nomination; the ocean's aquamarine color; our dorm-like accommodations; strawberry pie at Pumpernik's deli; kissing a young woman on the beach at night; ferrying people to and from the Miami airport endlessly; a party on a boat; and passing out souvenir booklets at the convention center.


I also recall feeling totally grateful that a young man traveling from Germany turned-up and offered to drive the Oldsmobile back to D.C. (Two weeks later, he and I, with another friend, from Australia, drove the car and a U-Haul from D.C. to Minneapolis.) There was one campaign charter flying back from Miami to Washington on July 14. After the desolation of losing the nomination fight I was desperate not to be left behind on the ground.


The next time I saw Miami was six years ago, in June 2002, while attending a Dance/USA Roundtable conference. About 400 dance artists and administrators from around the world gathered at the Marriott Miami Biscayne Bay for several days of workshops and networking. While I attended conference activities, my partner, James Davies, spent time across Biscayne Bay figuring out how Miami’s South Beach works. We took part of a day to tour the Art Deco District, the Jewish Museum of Florida, and other sites. One evening, all of us toured the facilities of the Miami City Ballet, and on a number of nights we attended performances of the Florida Dance Festival. At the conclusion of the Roundtable, James and I flew to Jacksonville to visit relatives.


During this past week, we again lodged at the Marriott. The Trinity Episcopal Cathedral stands across the street and next to the Venetian Causeway. Organized in 1896, it is the oldest church within the original city limits of Miami. The cathedral's distinctive Mediterranean appearance derives from Romanesque, Byzantine, and Italianate elements combined by the architect, Harold Hastings Mundy. The building is on the Register of National Historic Places. James woke early on Monday and Wednesday to volunteer with the Feed My Sheep program that provides breakfast for 150 homeless people at 6:15am.


Some of us attending the GALA Choruses Festival discovered the S & S Diner four blocks from the Marriott. Part of a small, local chain hailing from 1938, the S & S is located across the street from the Biscayne Park Cemetery. Its 23 seats at a horseshoe-shaped counter make it a great place to have breakfast or lunch for less than $8 and to hold a neighborly conversation. The wait-staff knew more about the Festival gossip than we did.


The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is two huge structures situated across Biscayne Boulevard from each other: the Knight Concert Hall and the Ziff Ballet Opera House. Located three blocks south of the Marriott, both buildings are stunning, particularly the Knight. Although the Miami community spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the center, it required an infusion of $30 million earlier this year from Adrienne Arsht, a banker and philanthropist, in order to stabilize its finances. Things that still need fixing: (1) doors leading into both auditoria make an inordinate amount of noise when opening and closing – new closer hardware should fix the problem, and please get rid of the noisy rubber seals where the edges of two doors meet; and (2) the electrical outlet receptacle, located center stage at the base of the lowest riser in the Knight needs to be rotated (or removed!) so an extension cord can be plugged in without being seen by the audience. God lives in the details.


It is billed as "an international phenomenon" where "St. Tropez meets Miami chic." It claims a reputation as "a party playground for jet-setters, celebrities, VIPs" and others. Nikki Beach is a large, oceanfront complex with an outdoor beach club and a restaurant and night club. The Friday evening concert by gay Billboard sensation Ari Gold was fabulous, and it was great to dance 10 feet from where he was singing. Nonetheless, I just don't see the glamour of it all. I was glad to have passed through the gates of what is simply a state of mind for people who don't sweat – except for Ari. Most of the time, that glistening moisture on their bodies comes from turquoise pool or sea water.


The World Erotic Art Museum in the Art Deco District displays 12,000 square feet of erotic art from all cultures and time periods. The Wolfsonian showcases American and European decorative and fine arts produced between 1885 and 1945. While contemplating an exhibit of New Deal art, tears came to my eyes accompanied by a nostalgic feeling for an era I did not live through.


My visits to Miami have provided many blurred memories which are becoming a treasure trove of rose-colored and emotion-laden realities.

Beside Biscayne Bay

Miami, Florida


Twenty five years ago, GALA Choruses, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, took flight on its mission to serve the fledgling GLBT choral movement.


Now, with 120 member organizations in the United States, Europe, and Australia, ranging in size from five singers to 250, GALA represents the artistic, communal, and political aspirations of 7,500 singers and, by degrees of separation, their audiences.


More than 5,000 of those singers are gathered in the center of Miami this week for Festival 2008 to celebrate and perform from a growing body of GLBT choral work as well as "mainstream" standards.


The assembled ensembles will present 141 performances in 27 concert blocks at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts through July 19.


I traveled here from Minneapolis on Sat., July 12, with 122 delegates of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus and 38 delegates of One Voice Mixed Chorus. Most of us are lodged at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay, Double Tree Hotel, or Hilton Hotel, located within a block of each other.


They build structures tall and skinny here to maximize views and income potential. James Davies and I are on the 18th of the Marriott's 31 floors, with a balcony view of the marina below and across a sparkling Biscayne Bay to South Beach. We stayed here in 2002 while attending Dance/USA's Roundtable conference.


While many more are under construction, I am told there are 40,000 condos for sale in the immediate area; people can't or won't pay for the hurricane insurance.


Saturday's opening ceremonies, sponsored by acfea Tour Consultants, featured engaging and spirited performances by Ann Hampton Callaway and the massed choruses of Florida.


There are lines everywhere for everything. Surprisingly, despite the scale of its convention and hospitality facilities, Miami feels under-prepared in some respects to handle 5,000 people; there is a degree of "not quite right." Maybe, it is just us.


People have located the IGA grocery store, four blocks from the hotels, and are stocking in-room refrigerators. Everyone is settling in for the duration.


The positive energy is infectious!

Silver threads among the gold

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Uncle Sam I ain't, but I am a new uncle this 4th of July. A sister and brother-in-law are adopting J and R, two of his nephews, ages nine and 11. They arrived in the Midwest from their former home out East three days ago. Welcome to the family, boys!


My mother, a Yankee Doodle Grandma, turns 78 today.


For James Davies and me, today marks 25 years together.

A touching time to be alive

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Last Friday, my friend G and I attended "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing," the summer concert of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. It was a lovely and splendored evening at Ted Mann Concert Hall on the University of Minnesota's West Bank campus. Going to and from, all of the electric power was "out" in the nearby 7-Corners neighborhood, including at the Southern Theater where TU Dance had to cancel a performance and re-schedule it for Sunday. The Southern is within a stone's throw of where the I-35 bridge collapsed and is being rebuilt, so traffic in the best of times is a mess. With no stoplights, no traffic cops, and no street lights, it was a wild and woolly time.


Saturday morning, G and I spent three hours working at the Obama booth at the Pride Festival in Loring Park. Steady, non-stop visitors the whole time. After our shift, we walked over to St. Mark's Cathedral where my partner, James, and colleagues were wrestling to keep the 70-foot rainbow banner attached in one piece to the bell tower. They won the battle on Saturday, but on Sunday the whole thing ripped in two.


Sunday morning found James tuning up and marching in the Pride Parade through downtown Minneapolis with the Minnesota Freedom Band. I marched with 100+ others in the Obama contingent. The mayor of Minneapolis led our group down Hennepin Avenue where we handed out 15,000 "Obama Pride" stickers before they ran out. The enthusiasm and cheering that went up all along the route as our banners -- and a life-size cutout of Barack -- proceeded ahead of us was amazing. It was very easy to rev the crowd into chants, "Yes we can!" People reached for stickers with such enthusiasm -- leaning forward to be touched.


Being touched. That's what politics and the arts are all about. And religion, too.


Later Sunday afternoon, James and I attended Mass at St. Mark's along with nearly 100 others from the Pride Festival. A special part of the service was the touch of affirmation and the laying on of hands given to those who chose to go forward.


We ended the day at an evening bar-b-que fundraiser for Zenon Dance Company. The troupe will perform four times next week at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. I managed this group for five years once upon a time, something like 20 years ago. We wish them well.


I have been touched by quite a few dance performances in the last three months: Ragamala Music & Dance Theatre, Minnesota Dance Theatre, Minnesota Ballet, James Sewell Ballet, Ananya Dance Theatre, Zenon, and a combo of Ballet of the Dolls/Live Action Set/Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre. Also touching were theater performances by Open Eye Figure Theatre and Theatre de la Jeune Lune.

Tides of history...battleground Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota


When it was announced on Thursday this week that Obama would rally at Target Center in downtown Minneapolis today, James and I secured E-tickets; Friday morning there were none left. The tickets said that Target Center's doors would open at 1:30pm.


This morning, we received emails from the Obama campaign stating that tickets did not guarantee entry -- first-come, first-served. We headed down and arrived at Target Center at 1pm.


We could see that the skyways leading to the TC from all directions were clogged with people, and we set out to find the end of the line on the street. You can Google TC to look at a map surrounding the place. The line wound around the main entrance on 1st Avenue North, around the corner on Sixth Street to 2nd Avenue North, and then to 7th Street, and then north past the site of the new Twins stadium, past the garbage burner, to Highway 55/Olson Highway/Sixth Avenue North. That's where we found the end of the line at 1:10pm. The line continued to wrap around 6th Avenue, back to 5th Street, and back toward downtown.


At 1:35pm, the line moved forward about 30 feet. By 1:45pm, another 20 feet. Few, including us, were dressed for the weather for such a period of time, and it became clear that we would need to leave early so James could make a 4pm appointment elsewhere. At 2pm, we left our place in line and joined hundreds who were abandoning the effort while hundreds more were still walking towards us -- having no idea how far away they were from the end of the line!


The crowd was a total mix of ages and races. Everyone quietly very happy. One person saying, "Even if I don't get in, I won't be mad because this is spectacular!"


The television news and CNN covered the rally of 20,000 which got underway about 4pm.


Romney also was in town today. Hillary will be here tomorrow. Ron Paul is coming through on Monday.

New Orleans: Coda and Capo

New Orleans, Louisiana


Six summers ago, my brother and I wept in each other's arms in Dodge City, Kansas.


We were parting at the end of a journey where we had found our grandfather's roots, roots that extended back to Delaware and the first Peterson's arrival around 1638.


Our lives had been changed on the hot plains of southwest Kansas, and we wanted to hold on and savor the grace of the moment.


Different ones had tears at the end of last night's performance at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in New Orleans.


We all wanted to hold on.


Yet, it is time for this tour to end. As someone remarked, “It feels like we've been down here forever!”


In five minutes, a third of our group will leave for the airport and Minnesota. The rest of us will follow tomorrow.


Finding a New Orleans venue - any kind of venue - had been problematic until very recently. Fifteen churches had said “no” before The Rev. Susan Gaumer at St. Andrew's said, “Yes, of course.”


Afterwards, Susan told James Davies that it all came together for her with a single image: 102 singers massed beneath a 16-foot figure of a resurrected Christ, arms raised in blessing.


In many ways, this was the best performance even though the venue imposed technical limitations.


In one of the week's countless sweet moments, the mother of tenor Michael Lahr flew down to hear his solo in “Michael's Letter to Mama,” by Armistead Maupin.


Several other Minnesotans joined us for the finale.


Acts of creation are acts of faith. This is what gives the arts their intrinsic value.


Some of us are called to create human life. All of us are called to live life daily.


In an interview on the bus on Thursday, Richard Long observed that “When a part of you is smothered, a part of you dies.”


Large portions of New Orleans were smothered, and much of it will die. Many people who left will never return. Those who remain have a hard journey.


However, I feel no guilt about our boutique hotel digs in the French Quarter: we are bringing much needed cold cash to a place that will need tons of it for decades.


The city will grow again. What was not broken will be stronger.


The Great Southern Sing Out Tour has been eight days of collective worship, of living life daily. The grace of the moment, the faces, names, and places, will abide with us always.

Musings on the Road From Birmingham

Jackson, Mississippi


An enduring conundrum for artistic directors may be found in the differing expectations that audiences bring to performances about the proper mix of high- and low-brow art.


This tour is not all about lifting people up and promoting social change. Some attendees take the music seriously as music.


This morning's Birmingham News carried Michael Huebner's music review under the headline "Message from chorus is it's ok to be gay." Huebner gave four out of five stars for last night's performance to "a taut group with power and precision." [www.bhamnews.com]


I learned about touring in the summer and fall of 1970, when traveling Minnesota's parade and county fair circuit with Hubert Humphrey's Senate campaign. Us minions drove VW microbuses around the state while the candidate flew by helicopter or plane. (It remains true today that to generate an instant crowd anywhere, all you have to do is land a helicopter in any clearing.)


Most of my touring in recent years has been with dancers, and then only with nine or 10 other people. We have sent them to more than 300 venues, but never with the logistics of moving 130 people across four states this week.


Planning by this largely volunteer organization, TCGMC, started two years ago, and staff members made a phantom foray along the route in March.


Tour Coordinator Jeff Brand is an icon of effective organization. Had he been in charge of our Iraq adventures, the enemies of freedom would have been defeated and the troops returned home years ago. Our arrivals and departures all happen within five minutes of schedule.


Captains of our three buses -- Southern Belle, Magnolia Express and Delta Queen -- hand out donuts and candy (the Twizzlers just came by), collect trash, and tell jokes. James Davies and I are on Magnolia, the "quiet bus," chosen for reasons of age and temperament.


Tall, green trees line the Interstates in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, not unlike northern Minnesota in summer. Today's 240-mile jaunt along I-20/59 is the longest segment of the week; more than yesterday's 183 and less than tomorrow's 140.


It's called "hump day," falling in the middle of the five performances. In other words, everyone needs to conserve and renew energies in order to go the distance.


Just after crossing the Mississippi line at 11am this morning, for about 1,500 yards it seemed as though my worst stereotype about the state was true -- that of a snake-infested swamp. The landscape quickly improved, however.


At our lunchstop in Meridian, we talked about how Jackson was never on any of our lists for a visit or vacation -- certainly not in July. But here we are.


There are many reasons why the TCGMC took on this tour. Not being a member, I won't get into their thinking.


Why did I come? First, because I have never been down here. It's also vacation time, and it was a chance to spend time with James Davies. Life has been so relentlessly busy for both of us for too many years. Certainly, I have been mindful of analogies to the civil rights activities of the 50s and 60s, but those were not romantic draws for me.


There are forces abroad in our land that are trying to claim our patriotism, our country, its flag, and its ideals as their exclusive, private property. They use the tools of language and symbol all too well to serve their own crass and selfish ends. They care not who they hurt in the process.


They hide behind symbols and words about "family," "decency," and "Christianity," to hide their efforts to divide and conquer in exchange for 10¢ worth of power. That 10¢ goes a long way.


We need to meet them word-for-word and symbol-for-symbol.


Two younger men stopped by our lobby table in Birmingham last night. They fear for their
jobs and cannot tell friends along this route about the performances.


Of course, we have fearful people in Minnesota, and we can find as many wackos in the woods
of northern Wisconsin as we can here.


We have arrived in Jackson. About 184,000 people live here, the largest city in the state.