Gathering with Friends to Watch

Sometimes a big spectacle can bring people together in good ways, even if it's just on the TV. You sit around and as the event unfurls, you chat and give it the attention it deserves. Sunday's Super Bowl LIX was an event that lent itself to talk more than attention on the screen. What talk there was about the game moved to prior disasters in the contest, for example the 1985 game between the New England Patriots and the Chicago Bears. The Patriots got off to a 10-O start, but then the Bears ran roughshod over them the rest of the game, including a TD run by the Refrigerator. And more such discussion about clobberings in the big game. So, the Chiefs championship shirts and caps get sent off to faraway places (why Estonia and Latvia?) and confetti rains down on the Eagle victors. Maybe next year the Vikings will pull through. Or the Lions.

Safe at Argonne

Yesterday, for an outing with the wife's father Tom, we headed north from Howard to De Smet, where we cruised around town looking for the familiar places for them, and a first for me. I'd been there before, but never driven through downtown. We cruised by places where Tom's father in law, the wife's grandfather, lived and volunteered, and where his wife grew up. We passed a familiar park, locations where things once were and are no longer. Then we lunched at the Oxbow restaurant, with familiar food, chicken fried steak, roast beef sandwich, Oxbow ruben sandwich. And we learned about who died and who hadn't yet. Then we hit the road again headed for Carthage, with a pause at what used to be Manchester, where a category 4 tornado obliterated the town and made the news nationwide. 6 casualties, 1998. Now only a memorial marker identifies the town. Then on to Carthage, another town slowly marking time as it declines. One memorial there is a sign that identifies the many churches that were there and are no more. Still, the Cabaret, a small-town restaurant with a cosmopolitan name opens some evenings and weekends and features specials for those in town and those in the area who are in the know. Another small restaurant sits across the street. Is it still open? The fields around Carthage are empty after the tractor-trailer rigs left town upon finishing filming "Into the Wild" back in the day. But Lake Carthage still offers some recreation, and a few fishermen brave the ice, not sure how thick it is, but reluctant to drive out to see. From Carthage we turn to gravel to seek out Argonne, still on the map but with no residents, no standing, just a sign telling how the town thrived along a railroad and tipped its hat to World War I vets when it changed its name from St. Mary to Argonne for the soldiers lost there. We drive along a grassy path past a tree with homemade signs marking 3rd Street and Elm Stret. The car bumps along dragging its belly along the ridged trail, grass sweeping the bottom. We look down 3rd Street, but the winter heat wave has turned the frozen trail to mud. Finally, we stop at the one standing structure, the bank vault from a defunct and departed bank building. Its iron door hangs open, offering whatever treasures it now holds to any visitor to Argonne. We stop a moment for photos, and we drive on, searching our memories for who lived where and when, the map of remembrances faulty and faded, the familiar elusive, the past a windy cloud of dust behind us as we continue.

The End of Another Year

I think it's back in 2005 that I started this blog without a clear idea of where it might go. I got a lot of fun out of it at first, had some followers and commenters on it; maybe that was before we all started spending so much time on Facebook, me included. I remember looking at where looks were coming from, some around the world, Europe and Asia and all over the US. I got a kick out of that, knowing that people in other places had an interest in what I was posting. Things petered out. But there's no reason not to write, right? It's been a pretty good year. Taught a class for DSU this fall semester in "AI in Literature and Media." It went pretty well; I got good feedback in person from the people in the class, and who cares about the surveys they took. The wife and I traveled to Finland, Estonia, and Latvia this summer, having a good time once again far from home. Our Estonia time was mostly with a couple of great hosts, Jack and Sirje, who used to live in Madison and are now in Florida. They showed us around that remarkable country and gave us an idea of what the people there had been through. Beautiful places, all three countries, with a bully of a neighbor to their east. I managed to do most of a porch rebuild this summer, though winter came on before I could finish the porch rails. Still, it looks much better. This spring I sold the house I'd worked on for a year and a half. That was cool, a nice profit. I edited another issue of Pasque Petals, the poetry magazine of the South Dakota State Poetry Society, SDSPS, and we poets traveled around the state reading and hosting poetry gatherings. That was especially rewarding. In all, a pretty good year. I hope yours was too, and your next one better.

The Secret History

 My latest book was The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, which I finished last week--and then took up Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, a completely different kind of book.  More about that later I hope.  

Tartt is the author of The Goldfinch, and both of these books reveal an imagination by the author that goes into such detail the lives of the characters are fleshed out in such detail you can see them walking the streets.  

I was a little disappointed by the ending of The Secret History, but Tartt takes the reader on a spectacular ride through a little Vermont town and its liberal arts college.  The students there, who make up the cast, are insulated by the wealth of their families, which allows them to indulge in ways most of us only imagine--and generally frown upon.  One exception is the narrator, who (like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby) is an outsider, a student there on scholarship, not wealth.  This character, Richard, is taken in by a group of wealthy students, and he hides his western, middle-class background from them.  

This mix of students, and the faculty member who dotes on them, are ripe for trouble, and Tartt gives it to them in spades.  Though it sometimes left me marveling--and wondering--about the inclusion of some detailed asides, it's a great read, and at about 600 pages, will keep a reader engaged for a nice long time.  

What's On Your Mind

 I've been reading a wonderful book by Debra Marquart--The Night We Landed on the Moon.  You can't get much better than this.  It's a wonder of essays on small things that the author weaves into visionary meaning.  What begins as a commentary on her mother planting trees in her old age becomes a meditation on hope and the long view.  A childhood memory about a tough classmate and a old woman becomes a kind of ghost story.  Beautiful.  You finish one essay and want to sit and marvel, both at the tapestry she weaves and the skill of her prose, but you soon find yourself wanting more, like savoring a chocolate bonbon and yet wanting more as soon as you finish.  I haven't read a book that so moves me in a long time.  I'm not yet finished, but I don't look forward to having read all the essays and come to the end.  Thank you, Deb!  

The Traveling Sort

 The wife and I are a day away from another visit overseas.  We have enjoyed travel, though preparations can sometimes feel burdensome.  All the reservations, research, and anxiety can take a toll on the pleasure of anticipating a huge change of pace and place and culture--a dose of the world as it is in another location.  

One of the things I like most is the release from my regular activities--from visiting longtime friends and family to mowing the lawn and making myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich.  I enjoy those things, but having a hiatus from them and then returning to them full of new and novel experiences makes them all the more comforting.  

Last summer in Italy we were immersed in the ancient history and culture of the place, from Greek and Roman statues and monuments to work from further back or unfamiliar--Etruscans and others.  We loved the food and drink, both new and traditional.  But we also enjoyed modern conveniences like high speed trains.  

It's hard sometimes to try to share those experiences when we return; friends and family who have less interest or experience in travel often don't share our love for novelty, and after politely listening to snippets of travel tales, they update us on what we missed in our absence.  

Still, we love our jaunts, whether we cross an ocean or not, and we'll continue.  Last year, Italy.  This year, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia.  (Sorry, Lithuania, you'll have to wait for a future visit!)  

Bootjack Available!

 I'm happy to note that my first real book of poems--Bootjack--is available for purchase from me or from the South Dakota State Poetry Society.  You can order it here:  https://sdpoetry.org/product/bootjack/

It was published in 2023, but I got copies only after the turn of the year, and some of them were badly printed, so the printer ran an entirely new batch, so I have lots of copies, and so does SDSPS.  Contact me if you'd like a copy and I'll send you one, signed if you want!  

The book includes poetry about my family, my mom and dad, who appear on the cover, and about growing up in the little town of Ft. Pierre, SD.  I also write about my travels in China, Europe, and the US, and about literature and literary figures who saturated my thinking as I taught American Literature for over 30 years.  

You can read below from the fine comments that I got from readers who appreciate my work.  

I would love to send you a copy, dear reader!