Minneapolis, Minnesota
In the summer of 1954, our family was the second to move into one of the newly-constructed houses on our block on Second Street N.E. in the panhandle of Fridley, Minnesota. The purchase price was $9,900.
I was two years old, my sister, Deb, a few months.
Located in Anoka County, Fridley is a first-tier suburb on the northeast border of Minneapolis. It was incorporated as a village in 1949 and became a city in 1957. In the "Fridley tornados" of May 6, 1965, a quarter of the city's homes were damaged or destroyed.
In short order in 1954 and 1955, other young families took up residence in the remaining abodes, most of them with one or two youngsters in-hand. No one of a certain age required clairvoyance to know what transpired in the bedrooms of young parents throughout the neighborhood. In no time at all, additional younglings arrived to provide playmates for each age cohort.
With no grass at the beginning, nor trees to climb, and no fenced yards, there was no end of open-range play areas. Also, there was "The Field," an expanse of sand and weeds across Main Street that stretched a mile north and south along Main, and a quarter mile west from the street to the massive railroad switching yard.
We learned to ride bicycles on the dirt alleys – which caused fewer injuries than did falls on paved roads, few as those were. (It was a big deal when curbs, gutters, and asphalt eventually replaced tar and crushed rock for street surfaces.)
As grass and a few trees were planted, fences were installed that restricted our range of free movement. Play then came to center on a few front and back yards, including ours. We knew everyone, and everyone knew us.
The Hansens, next door, were Methodists. The Willmans, across the alley, were the token Catholics. Next to them, the Sepples attended First Lutheran Church, which was somehow more conservative than our church, St. Timothy's English Evangelical Lutheran, affiliated with the United Lutheran Church in America. Mainly – owing something to my parents' evangelism – if you were Lutheran in our neighborhood, you joined or attended St. Tim's.
My family were charter members of St. Tim's, organized on Palm Sunday, 1959. My brother, born in April that year, was named after the church. At its peak, 10 years later, the church counted a membership of 1,200, operating on 10 acres of land on the shores of Sullivan Lake.
In those days, most of our mothers did not work outside the home. Also in those days, no 24/7 news cycles convinced our parents that we needed to be kept under lock-and-key or chaperoned. We could roam all day and most of the evening, and got in trouble only if we failed to show up for supper.
Friendships formed, all of them meaningful and some of them lasting.
One of the lasting ties was that between my brother and David William Wicklund. Dave was born in November 1958 and lived across Second street.
Dave died of natural causes on June 2, last week.
Over the years, many of the Second Street parent neighbors have died – Don and Elaine Archer, Harold and Audrey Sepple, Arvid and Fern Hansen, Tom and Tess Thompson, Gene Wicklund – while others have moved away.
Yesterday afternoon, I picked up my mother at her home in Monticello and drove to Dave's visitation and memorial service at St. Tim's. We were way early, so we spent time driving around the old 'hood.
The landscape had an alien feel, what with trees 50+ years old. Our old house has a basketball hoop on the garage. (We never had a garage.) Many of the houses sport bay windows, brickwork, decks, and other affectations.
It was mid-afternoon and no one was extant in yards or on the street.
We arrived at St. Tim's at the stroke of 3pm. Dave had been confirmed in his Christian faith there on May 5, 1974. The photo of his confirmation class is displayed permanently in the lobby, as are those of all of us who passed through from 1959 to the present.
Dave's mother greeted us at the entry and welcomed a long and silent embrace. There are no words that can comfort a grieving mother. Dave was the second son she had lost to natural causes.
It was a blessing to see Harvey and Sylvia at the church, along with their children, Neil, Donna, and Debra. I babysat those children after their parents moved from South Dakota.
Daniel Lloyd held court at the organ and piano keyboards, as he has done since he was a teenager in the 1960s.
Dave's younger sister, Susan, recalled her brother as a man who viewed life as a glass half-full, one who cultivated an encyclopedic and rabid knowledge of the Minnesota Twins baseball team (and, to a lesser extent, of the Minnesota Vikings and the old North Stars).
Friend Randy, who met Dave at Columbia Heights High School in 1975, recalled an intelligent and loyal friend who lived each moment in color.
Randy's sister and Dave's love, Renae, described a man who provided the color to her life and knew how to work an entire room at every high school reunion.
We listened to readings from the Book of Revelation ("the old world has passed away"), Psalm 91 (expressing confidence in God), and the Gospel of John (Jesus taking leave "to prepare a place").
We sang "On Eagle's Wings" and "Amazing Grace."
We adjourned to the church basement for fellowship and a light meal that, in Lutheran fashion, was anything but light.
As she has for more than 50 years, Eva, 88, continued her ministry and constant presence at the food table, assisting in the provision of nourishment to the nuanced ties that bind.
In the fullness of time, all boundaries of time and space pass away and collapse upon themselves. This was expressed best in the handwritten message that accompanied the bouquet placed in the worship chancel by Dave's mother:
"I will love you forever."
Showing posts with label Tim Peterson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Peterson. Show all posts
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Friday, October 23, 2009
What happens to dreams when they die?
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Destiny lives in the choices we make that result in dreams realized, deferred, or denied. Regardless of the intention or merit of one's choices, they often substitute for what we originally wanted, whether for ourselves or others. Ten years ago, on Oct. 24, 1999, my niece Bernadette Lewis realized her destiny in a fatal choice at a railroad crossing in Baltimore.
A barren landscape of anguish, regret, and sorrow confronted her survivors with the loss of possibility and the futility of hope. Yet, while her dreams for herself had ended, 10 years on ours for her and for ourselves have continued, changed forever by the choices she had made.
In the climactic scene of Bright Star, Jane Campion's current film about the 19th century Romantic poet John Keats, Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne receives news in England that Keats, her betrothed, has died at 25 in his rooms overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome. In her grief, Cornish is wracked by the suffocating spasms of angina pectoris and cries out that "I can't breathe."
Ten years ago, I could not breathe after hearing the news of Bernadette's death, and believed I would suffocate in the middle of the night on a hillside above a lake. The intensity of my emotional turmoil in the months that followed exceeded by many factors that of the multi-year mess that had marked my coming out as a gay man many years earlier. I discerned few choices and no dreams in the wake of Bernadette's demise.
Over coffee with my friend Florence, a retired dance educator, I asked when the pain would end. "It never stops," she answered. "The intensity may diminish and surrender to time, but it will keep coming back. When it does, you need to let it wash over and through you."
Every person experiences these dynamics from a different perspective. The members of my family have made new choices and adjusted their dreams in different ways. Bernadette's mother, my sister Debra S. Lewis, published a book in 2007, Song of Bernadette: A Mother's Memoir of a Daughter.
As I have done on other occasions before and since, I entered into the loss and gradually harnessed the power of its pain, bending it to new choices in pursuit of new and old dreams.
One of the choices led to the life-changing journey of a two-week tour of Kansas in 2000. My brother joined me for a few days from his home in Denver. We met new relatives who were more excited than anyone had been to see either of us for a long time. We found the lost roots of our paternal grandfather, and from there we found a story of family, country, and dreams stretching back nearly 400 years. The outcomes of those choices led to the launch of this blog and inspiration for a future book that ties the story together.
Three years ago, when I visited Baltimore and the place where she died, I told Bernadette all the news that had happened since, and told her that as long as we all lived, so would she.
Thwarted dreams can resurge and lure us to create new possibilities, testifying to the resilience of things we do not fully comprehend, and providing evidence that while people die, dreams never do.
Destiny lives in the choices we make that result in dreams realized, deferred, or denied. Regardless of the intention or merit of one's choices, they often substitute for what we originally wanted, whether for ourselves or others. Ten years ago, on Oct. 24, 1999, my niece Bernadette Lewis realized her destiny in a fatal choice at a railroad crossing in Baltimore.
A barren landscape of anguish, regret, and sorrow confronted her survivors with the loss of possibility and the futility of hope. Yet, while her dreams for herself had ended, 10 years on ours for her and for ourselves have continued, changed forever by the choices she had made.
In the climactic scene of Bright Star, Jane Campion's current film about the 19th century Romantic poet John Keats, Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne receives news in England that Keats, her betrothed, has died at 25 in his rooms overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome. In her grief, Cornish is wracked by the suffocating spasms of angina pectoris and cries out that "I can't breathe."
Ten years ago, I could not breathe after hearing the news of Bernadette's death, and believed I would suffocate in the middle of the night on a hillside above a lake. The intensity of my emotional turmoil in the months that followed exceeded by many factors that of the multi-year mess that had marked my coming out as a gay man many years earlier. I discerned few choices and no dreams in the wake of Bernadette's demise.
Over coffee with my friend Florence, a retired dance educator, I asked when the pain would end. "It never stops," she answered. "The intensity may diminish and surrender to time, but it will keep coming back. When it does, you need to let it wash over and through you."
Every person experiences these dynamics from a different perspective. The members of my family have made new choices and adjusted their dreams in different ways. Bernadette's mother, my sister Debra S. Lewis, published a book in 2007, Song of Bernadette: A Mother's Memoir of a Daughter.
As I have done on other occasions before and since, I entered into the loss and gradually harnessed the power of its pain, bending it to new choices in pursuit of new and old dreams.
One of the choices led to the life-changing journey of a two-week tour of Kansas in 2000. My brother joined me for a few days from his home in Denver. We met new relatives who were more excited than anyone had been to see either of us for a long time. We found the lost roots of our paternal grandfather, and from there we found a story of family, country, and dreams stretching back nearly 400 years. The outcomes of those choices led to the launch of this blog and inspiration for a future book that ties the story together.
Three years ago, when I visited Baltimore and the place where she died, I told Bernadette all the news that had happened since, and told her that as long as we all lived, so would she.
Thwarted dreams can resurge and lure us to create new possibilities, testifying to the resilience of things we do not fully comprehend, and providing evidence that while people die, dreams never do.
Bernadette "Berni" C. Lewis passed away Oct. 24, 1999. She was 26 yrs old. Berni was born in Fridley, MN on March 15, 1973. She lived in Mpls until she was 11 and moved to Kenton, Ohio, where she graduated Valedictorian from Kenton High School in 1991. She graduated from Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA in 1995 with a Biology Major. Following graduation, Berni worked at Henry M. Jackson Foundation in Rockville, MD as an AIDS researcher until 1997 when she accepted a position at the University of Maryland. Berni loved her family, her soul mate, Su-hun, her friends, her dog "Lola" and the outdoors. Her future plans were to attend Medical School and become a rural family Physician. Berni is survived by her parents, Jeffrey & Debra Lewis of Ashland, WI; her grandparents, Kenneth & Millicent Vetsch of Monticello, MN and Dr. L. Clifford & Jacqueline Lewis of Mantoloking, NJ. She also leaves her sisters, Jenine N. Lewis of St. Paul, MN and Emily J. Lewis of Ashland, WI, along with her brother, Peter E. Lewis of Ashland, WI. A Memorial Service will be held in Washburn, Wisc., on Sat., Oct. 30, 11 AM at the Messiah Lutheran Church.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
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.
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
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:
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:
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.
Friday, January 2, 2009
For all the saints
St. Michael, Minnesota
I am the eldest of my mother and stepfather's five children.
As we have gathered over the past several days and shared stories and memories, I have felt envious of my three youngest siblings who had the opportunity, as our oldest sister and I did not, to live day-to-day for many years with our stepfather. I was living across the country when my mother and Kenny met and, beyond an occasional extended visit, I never lived here in Wright County.
On Tuesday, my youngest sister, an aunt, and I joined my mother at her house. On Wednesday, my carpenter sister returned from vacation to join us. My brother arrived from Denver on Thursday. With the arrival of our oldest sister today, all of us are together for the first time since the somewhat-expected-but-unbelievable happened.
Throughout the week, we have had an awareness that the news of Kenny's passing, at home and at night, was rippling out to the extended network of his friends and family of 84 years. This is similar to the way that news of a whirlwind courtship emanated from these environs during the spring of 1971.
In addition to brief phone calls, I relied on letters to keep me posted. First came a letter from my godmother, in March, 1971: "Your mother has met a man." Then, in a letter from mother, he had a name: Kenny. In a subsequent letter, she shared news of one of their first dates, on Apr. 10, the day before Easter, at the Monti Club in Monticello: "He seems to know a lot of people around there." [He hailed from a family of 12 children, each of them networked with hundreds of others in ways that only Facebook could hope to unravel.]
A letter from my youngest sister, age 10 at the time, told of Kenny's first date with just the three kids: "It was May 2nd, to be exact," she wrote. He introduced them to his farm and had them painting fences.
Mother and Kenny married in July.
As we sorted through pictures for the display boards this week, it was clear that, when it came to being the subject of photos, Kenny always took a good picture. He is smiling in nearly every one, just as he is now, lying in repose.
More than anyone else I know, Kenny took seriously the dictates of the Old and New Testaments to practice hospitality. His farm, and later his home in town, was the destination of a regular and unending stream of visitors, young and old, from all walks of life. All were welcome. Always.
All of us do our best to deal with what life throws at us. Like all of us, Kenny did not have – or was not able to give – everything that someone else might need in a given circumstance. Unlike some of us, however, Kenny always gave everything he had when it was needed.
ADDENDUM [01/04/09]: Kenny was buried yesterday at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Minneapolis. His death last Tuesday marked the end of both an era and an extraordinary number of departures from my circle during 2008. Last Monday, I received word that Jennifer, a friend since 1970, had died that morning in Australia. In October, two political friends of longstanding, Allan Spear and Gene Lourey, passed away, as did Sam, a friend and arts patron. Jim Dusso, a longtime arts advocate, departed in September. The mother of an artist friend died in an auto accident in August. My father's cousin took his leave, at 102, in July. The mother of my best high school friend died in April. In February, another political friend, David, and the father of another good friend passed away. Last January, I gathered with others to celebrate the life of a friend and former employer. On the same day that Kenny left us, the final court proceedings took place by which a sister and brother-in-law adopted J and R, my brother-in-law's nephews. Blessings on them all.
I am the eldest of my mother and stepfather's five children.
As we have gathered over the past several days and shared stories and memories, I have felt envious of my three youngest siblings who had the opportunity, as our oldest sister and I did not, to live day-to-day for many years with our stepfather. I was living across the country when my mother and Kenny met and, beyond an occasional extended visit, I never lived here in Wright County.
On Tuesday, my youngest sister, an aunt, and I joined my mother at her house. On Wednesday, my carpenter sister returned from vacation to join us. My brother arrived from Denver on Thursday. With the arrival of our oldest sister today, all of us are together for the first time since the somewhat-expected-but-unbelievable happened.
Throughout the week, we have had an awareness that the news of Kenny's passing, at home and at night, was rippling out to the extended network of his friends and family of 84 years. This is similar to the way that news of a whirlwind courtship emanated from these environs during the spring of 1971.
In addition to brief phone calls, I relied on letters to keep me posted. First came a letter from my godmother, in March, 1971: "Your mother has met a man." Then, in a letter from mother, he had a name: Kenny. In a subsequent letter, she shared news of one of their first dates, on Apr. 10, the day before Easter, at the Monti Club in Monticello: "He seems to know a lot of people around there." [He hailed from a family of 12 children, each of them networked with hundreds of others in ways that only Facebook could hope to unravel.]
A letter from my youngest sister, age 10 at the time, told of Kenny's first date with just the three kids: "It was May 2nd, to be exact," she wrote. He introduced them to his farm and had them painting fences.
Mother and Kenny married in July.
As we sorted through pictures for the display boards this week, it was clear that, when it came to being the subject of photos, Kenny always took a good picture. He is smiling in nearly every one, just as he is now, lying in repose.
More than anyone else I know, Kenny took seriously the dictates of the Old and New Testaments to practice hospitality. His farm, and later his home in town, was the destination of a regular and unending stream of visitors, young and old, from all walks of life. All were welcome. Always.
All of us do our best to deal with what life throws at us. Like all of us, Kenny did not have – or was not able to give – everything that someone else might need in a given circumstance. Unlike some of us, however, Kenny always gave everything he had when it was needed.
ADDENDUM [01/04/09]: Kenny was buried yesterday at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Minneapolis. His death last Tuesday marked the end of both an era and an extraordinary number of departures from my circle during 2008. Last Monday, I received word that Jennifer, a friend since 1970, had died that morning in Australia. In October, two political friends of longstanding, Allan Spear and Gene Lourey, passed away, as did Sam, a friend and arts patron. Jim Dusso, a longtime arts advocate, departed in September. The mother of an artist friend died in an auto accident in August. My father's cousin took his leave, at 102, in July. The mother of my best high school friend died in April. In February, another political friend, David, and the father of another good friend passed away. Last January, I gathered with others to celebrate the life of a friend and former employer. On the same day that Kenny left us, the final court proceedings took place by which a sister and brother-in-law adopted J and R, my brother-in-law's nephews. Blessings on them all.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Choices
Minneapolis, Minnesota
There is an election on Nov. 4th. It does not take much to get people talking about it.
An account executive for my cell phone service provider called today. She thought that I might not know that 53 text messages had been sent to my phone recently or how much I would be charged for them. I assured her that I knew where most all of the messages had originated and how much they would cost, and that I believed there would be no more of them.
"How can you be sure?" she asked. "We have a low-cost plan designed for such volume."
I thanked her for the expression of concern and told her the messages were from my Libertarian brother who disagrees with my Democratic affinities. "He hopes to convert me," I said. "It would not matter if I was a Republican; my thinking would still be misguided and wrong."
"Well!" she responded. "I am on the phone with people all day long and let me tell you–– No,
I really should not. I mean–– Well, let me just say this: There are an awful lot of people who tell me that they are not going to vote!"
"That's terrible!" I said. "We may not like the choices we have, but we do have a choice and we need to honor that."
She wasn't having any of it, and I suspect she may be one of those who has resolved not to vote. If so, that's most unfortunate.
I give my brother his due. While he may not like his choices, he does choose and he does vote. So should we all.
There is an election on Nov. 4th. It does not take much to get people talking about it.
An account executive for my cell phone service provider called today. She thought that I might not know that 53 text messages had been sent to my phone recently or how much I would be charged for them. I assured her that I knew where most all of the messages had originated and how much they would cost, and that I believed there would be no more of them.
"How can you be sure?" she asked. "We have a low-cost plan designed for such volume."
I thanked her for the expression of concern and told her the messages were from my Libertarian brother who disagrees with my Democratic affinities. "He hopes to convert me," I said. "It would not matter if I was a Republican; my thinking would still be misguided and wrong."
"Well!" she responded. "I am on the phone with people all day long and let me tell you–– No,
I really should not. I mean–– Well, let me just say this: There are an awful lot of people who tell me that they are not going to vote!"
"That's terrible!" I said. "We may not like the choices we have, but we do have a choice and we need to honor that."
She wasn't having any of it, and I suspect she may be one of those who has resolved not to vote. If so, that's most unfortunate.
I give my brother his due. While he may not like his choices, he does choose and he does vote. So should we all.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Ridgely's Delight: Remembering
Baltimore, Maryland
For some reason, I remember her shoes.
My niece, Bernadette, was wearing "flats" on the sunny spring morning when I drove her and my brother to the Minneapolis airport.
As they got out of the car and walked to the terminal, I saw her shoes and how she carried herself, and thought how "cool" and cosmopolitan she had become at 26.
She was headed back home to Baltimore, and my brother to Denver, following the graduation and party of my mother from college in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
That morning was the last time I saw Bernadette. She made a round trip drive from Baltimore to Minnesota and Wisconsin that summer, but I was somehow too busy to see her, although I did talk to her on the phone from my mother's house while she was en route.
She died in late October that year of 1999, when she fell under the wheels of a train near her townhouse in Baltimore's Ridgely's Delight neighborhood.
She was the first born of my 10 nieces and nephews. A couple years before 1999, she had graduated from Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts. At the time of her death, she had applied to medical schools and was working on medical research in Baltimore. You can still Google and find a study for which she was co-author in 1999.
She was the first of what we hoped would be many prides and joys. Being first did not diminish those who followed.
Dealing with her death was, and remains, the worst experience of my life.
In a round-about effort to try and make sense of it all, I set out in the summer of 2000 to tour Kansas for two weeks to find the roots of my grandfather, Harry Peterson. I might have made the trip eventually in my life, but never so soon if Berni had not died.
What I found restored a measure of balance and hope.
I found a wealth of living relatives, and stories of others passed, stretching back to Delaware and the 1600s and, somehow, to Sweden before that.
However, that is all its own separate story.
I knew that if the opportunity ever came my way, I would visit Berni's haunts in Baltimore.
My work at Baltimore's Convention Center ended at 5pm today. I walked back to the Mt. Vernon Hotel to change clothes and set out to walk the 1.2 miles to Berni's last residence at 605 S. Paca Street.
The walk is pleasant enough. Past the University of Maryland Medical Center, past Oriole Park at Camden Yards. In fact, Berni's last home was only three blocks from where baseball is played for 80 games every summer.
You would never know it. South Paca Street is such a quiet oasis, lined with trees, townhouses built to the edge of the sidewalk. A red brick, three-story walkup. Around the corner and a block distant is the dog park where Berni played with her dog. Two blocks away is the gas station. A block further is the pub, Pickles.
Six tenths of a mile further south is the 1300 block of Ridgely Avenue.
Three sets of rusted railroad tracks make a crossing next to an abandoned warehouse.
Two blocks away is the relatively new M & T Bank Stadium where the Baltimore Ravens play football. In between lie acres of surface parking lots.
It is almost absurdly simple to visualize the scene late on a night in October 1999. A car of young people stops short of the railroad tracks on the right side of Ridgely. Berni and a friend get out and wait for a train to come by that is moving slowly enough to try and jump aboard.
The scene is so innocuous now. So ridiculously ordinary and benign.
I have sometimes encouraged the nieces and nephews to dream big and reach high.
Berni had always held a dream of riding the rails. That night, her dream exceeded her reach.
Standing in the middle of the middle tracks, I could feel the possibility of chasing the dream for no more than 30 feet before falling short. I could see the feet touching the ground, running to make it happen.
I saw the shoes.
Oddly, it was not as emotional at the tracks as I had thought it would be -- as it had been when I set out from my hotel in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood.
I stood by on Ridgely for 45 minutes thinking of this and that.
Although I had the sense that Berni was no longer at this scene, whether or not she had lingered for a time, I told her of the amazing stories I had been prompted to learn after she lost consciousness here. I told her I would rather have learned the stories later and in some other way.
I told her she had been the maid of honor at her sister's wedding, and was now an aunt. I told her another sister was now living in Madrid and she would never recognize the cool dude her brother has become.
I told her that her grandmother had had heart surgery a couple years ago but was now standing for election to the Minnnesota Legislature.
I told her we missed her, and that as long as we all lived, so would she.
I told her that she may never have known how much Irish was in her blood, and related the Irish blessing:
The train that came by as I walked away had the most mournful whistle -- heard for blocks away. I have heard that train's whistle on the plains of Kansas, next to the childhood home and presidential library of Dwight Eisenhower in Abilene, and next to the homestead where my grandfather was born in Jasper.
For some reason, I remember her shoes.
My niece, Bernadette, was wearing "flats" on the sunny spring morning when I drove her and my brother to the Minneapolis airport.
As they got out of the car and walked to the terminal, I saw her shoes and how she carried herself, and thought how "cool" and cosmopolitan she had become at 26.
She was headed back home to Baltimore, and my brother to Denver, following the graduation and party of my mother from college in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
That morning was the last time I saw Bernadette. She made a round trip drive from Baltimore to Minnesota and Wisconsin that summer, but I was somehow too busy to see her, although I did talk to her on the phone from my mother's house while she was en route.
She died in late October that year of 1999, when she fell under the wheels of a train near her townhouse in Baltimore's Ridgely's Delight neighborhood.
She was the first born of my 10 nieces and nephews. A couple years before 1999, she had graduated from Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts. At the time of her death, she had applied to medical schools and was working on medical research in Baltimore. You can still Google and find a study for which she was co-author in 1999.
She was the first of what we hoped would be many prides and joys. Being first did not diminish those who followed.
Dealing with her death was, and remains, the worst experience of my life.
In a round-about effort to try and make sense of it all, I set out in the summer of 2000 to tour Kansas for two weeks to find the roots of my grandfather, Harry Peterson. I might have made the trip eventually in my life, but never so soon if Berni had not died.
What I found restored a measure of balance and hope.
I found a wealth of living relatives, and stories of others passed, stretching back to Delaware and the 1600s and, somehow, to Sweden before that.
However, that is all its own separate story.
I knew that if the opportunity ever came my way, I would visit Berni's haunts in Baltimore.
My work at Baltimore's Convention Center ended at 5pm today. I walked back to the Mt. Vernon Hotel to change clothes and set out to walk the 1.2 miles to Berni's last residence at 605 S. Paca Street.
The walk is pleasant enough. Past the University of Maryland Medical Center, past Oriole Park at Camden Yards. In fact, Berni's last home was only three blocks from where baseball is played for 80 games every summer.
You would never know it. South Paca Street is such a quiet oasis, lined with trees, townhouses built to the edge of the sidewalk. A red brick, three-story walkup. Around the corner and a block distant is the dog park where Berni played with her dog. Two blocks away is the gas station. A block further is the pub, Pickles.
Six tenths of a mile further south is the 1300 block of Ridgely Avenue.
Three sets of rusted railroad tracks make a crossing next to an abandoned warehouse.
Two blocks away is the relatively new M & T Bank Stadium where the Baltimore Ravens play football. In between lie acres of surface parking lots.
It is almost absurdly simple to visualize the scene late on a night in October 1999. A car of young people stops short of the railroad tracks on the right side of Ridgely. Berni and a friend get out and wait for a train to come by that is moving slowly enough to try and jump aboard.
The scene is so innocuous now. So ridiculously ordinary and benign.
I have sometimes encouraged the nieces and nephews to dream big and reach high.
Berni had always held a dream of riding the rails. That night, her dream exceeded her reach.
Standing in the middle of the middle tracks, I could feel the possibility of chasing the dream for no more than 30 feet before falling short. I could see the feet touching the ground, running to make it happen.
I saw the shoes.
Oddly, it was not as emotional at the tracks as I had thought it would be -- as it had been when I set out from my hotel in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood.
I stood by on Ridgely for 45 minutes thinking of this and that.
Although I had the sense that Berni was no longer at this scene, whether or not she had lingered for a time, I told her of the amazing stories I had been prompted to learn after she lost consciousness here. I told her I would rather have learned the stories later and in some other way.
I told her she had been the maid of honor at her sister's wedding, and was now an aunt. I told her another sister was now living in Madrid and she would never recognize the cool dude her brother has become.
I told her that her grandmother had had heart surgery a couple years ago but was now standing for election to the Minnnesota Legislature.
I told her we missed her, and that as long as we all lived, so would she.
I told her that she may never have known how much Irish was in her blood, and related the Irish blessing:
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And the rain fall gentle on your fields.
And, until we meet again, may God hold you
In the palm of His hand.
The train that came by as I walked away had the most mournful whistle -- heard for blocks away. I have heard that train's whistle on the plains of Kansas, next to the childhood home and presidential library of Dwight Eisenhower in Abilene, and next to the homestead where my grandfather was born in Jasper.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
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.
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.
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