The Purge

 I have to say it.  It's not easy for me to get rid of crap that I've accumulated.  Once it gets into my brain-activated database, it's got anchors, and shucking it can require all the horsepower of a riverboat dredge.  

But it can happen, especially when you have more books than you have shelves for, so I've been giving away some serious books, some of which were specifically obtained to enhance my ability to teach my classes.  That's no longer an issue, so if it's a teaching book, it should go to a teacher.  And I've made progress, and shelf space is opening up.  

Still, I know people who are publishing books, and I want to be in on the ride.  Ted Kooser, for example, newly engaged in the Facebook world, has a new book out, A Suite of Moons, from Gibralter Press.  At $40, I probably won't spring for a copy right away (though that's for a signed copy).  Meanwhile, in a recent Facebook post and poem, Ted tells about his love for yard sales and his love for children's books.  Of which, apparently, he has a plenty.  

I've often thought of Mr. Kooser's poetry as a model for the kind of poem that I want to write, but I've got to NOT follow his example in terms of accumulating illustrated children's books.  

Dreaming of More than a Walk with Wildlife

 The little to report is evident.  You know what's happening around the world if you're paying attention, and if you're reading this, you're paying attention to a lot more than most folks, so it's worthwhile mentioning the state of the daffodils in our yard and the dwarf irises.  They're blooming, the bright yellow daffodils and the purple dwarfs.  

Tomorrow is my first grand-child's birthday, and she's turning nine.  She's a bright child, devoted to her mother and father, learning still to love her little brother and her cousin.  We'll pay her a visit and offer a gift for her birthday.  

In other news, we took a good walk in the sunshine with a friend before the wind came up and brought another couple of cool nights and days this week.  

And I got the plumbing on the Roadtrek camper fixed, I think, so the grey water tank won't leak like it was.  I hope--not at all.  And I helped my Georgia brother-in-law in his search for a camper equivalent to mine.  

The wife and I keep considering a place to go this summer.  Apparently, Iceland is so popular that plane tickets to REK are sold out until June, even with the lava flowing and the volcanoes erupting.  And the Canadian border is still closed.  But Colorado is open, and other states will take us if we jump in the van and hit the road.  

My brother JP is back from his Mexican land voyage.  I was tempted to board a plan and join him there for a day or two and ride back with him.  But not this time.  

Still, the time will come for traveling again.  And I'll take it.  Meanwhile, here's a reminder of a drive we took when we spent some time in Ireland.  (Not our video.)  

A Measure of Calm

Rain has come to South Dakota, leaving the ground wet and lush while bushes and grass and flowers and trees are pushing forth their buds and new shoots and blooms.  It's an explosion of green in Madison, with the snow only so recently gone.  

I've transplanted some lilac shoots from along the driveway back into the area behind the row of ancient lilacs that stand tall and bloom with gusto once the spring is fully under way.  I hope the new rains will keep the lilacs and other plants newly transplanted alive until they can sink their roots and fend for themselves.  

I'm watching too the trees I planted last fall when the Arbor Day trees came in and I managed to plant them before the snow came.  Whether those tiny sprigs will survive is anyone's guess, but they got more care than ones I usually got, including some chicken wire to protect them from deer and squirrels and other sapling-eating beasts.  

Speaking of beasts, it's been fun to see some relatively rare animals recently.  We've tracked down several eagle nests and seen some bald eagles, and a fox crossed our trail on the drive to Brookings.  And in the back yard, we saw a mink the other day, and a groundhog.  And deer and squirrels are regular visitors.  So we've got some company in our little patch of earth.  

I'm hoping to get some writing done today, and this little exercise has limbered up the keyboard.  

Moving Day

    Yesterday was moving day for our friends Stacey and Andre, and I helped move their few belongings into a big beautiful new (to them) house on Egan Avenue, one certainly over a century old. It went pretty smoothly except for a box spring that didn't want to go up the stairs into the bedroom, but a little minor carpentry, furniture repair work on the box spring, it squeezed up the stairs and we put it back together in the bedroom. 

     I got good news on the Toyota Tacoma that I bought from Tammy after Steve died and left it sitting in the driveway. It had a very bad miss, and Travis at Roger's Service was not hopeful about what it might be, but it turned out to be a failed injector, which they were able to replace yesterday. So I'll sell the Ranger and the Jeep and we'll be back to having just two vehicles here over the winter. That's the way we like it. 

    The Tacoma comes with a nice topper, and I still have to put tires on it, since the ones that are on it are virtually bald.  People say that not not knowing how bald we used to be willing to drive on tires, but these are bald bald.  

    Yesterday also included a walk to Tammy's to pick up the Tacoma, driving the rig to Roger's, walking home.  Then moving assistance.  Then a trip to Sioux Falls and grocery shopping for us and Mom at Costco and HyVee.  Then picking up chicken tikki masala for us and the JordanBerry's at Shahi Palace, and a drive home.  Then supper, and then a visit to Mom and my brother Jim, visiting on his way to St. Louis.  

    So it continues with the COVID-19 situation.  Trying to find balance between life as we once knew it and staying safe, especially from those who call the whole thing a hoax, a way to sell a lot of masks and destroy the planet by throwing masks on the ground, where they stay because nobody wants to pick them up.  

Negative

I got my notice today that my results were in, and it's good to see that COVID-19 test came back negative. The wife (who hasn't been notified yet) and I have been careful, masking and keeping distance, holing up in the house and avoiding traveling and unnecessary contact with other people. We have a few friends who also keep a tight leash on their activities, and it's good to have them to share and meet with, helping to keep us all sane. Yesterday Dale and I planted 10 trees at four different houses, trees I got from the Arbor Day Foundation. Here's our list: At our house, a white pine and a white flowering dogwood. At Dale's house, a pin oak and river birch. At Angela's house, a silver maple, a redbud, and a sugar maple. At my rental house, a red oak and a red maple. In 20 years, we'll be rocking some cool trees!

Virus Testing

We've stayed at home and avoided crowds for months now, but today we'll get in the car and drive across the street to the Baughman Park parking lot where vans are waiting to offer coronavirus testing. The wife and I are signed up, but we are assuming that our diligence will have paid off and we will get clean bills of health. Then, this afternoon, I'll pick my mother up at Bethel Lutheran Home and take her to an appointment at the clinic. Such a small world we live in today.

A Week for the History Books

This week gave us a lot to think about and worry over as all across the United States protests against the blatant killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police erupted and often turned violent, not only in Minneapolis, but Sioux Falls and Duluth too saw violence and destruction. 
It's frustrating to see the legitimate protests against racial profiling and systemic racism become sidelined by violence and destruction and looting.  Opportunists see the disruption and extend it for their own gain, whether it be to subvert the nonviolent message of the protests or simply to get material gain from looting businesses. 
Deana and I were happy in Sioux Falls yesterday to see a huge crowd moving north along Minnesota Avenue, so many that they were disrupting traffic and extending their planned march through downtown.  Starting at 5:00 Sunday afternoon, by 6:00 the crowd, mostly of young people, were chanting the name of George Floyd and calling for justice and the end of racist practices. 
But when we returned to our home in Madison later that evening and saw the news that violence had erupted at the Empire Mall, and that the city was under curfew and the guard had been called out, the story was then a different one.  Teargas and rock-throwing youths and troops with their weapons drawn and lights flashing while drivers honked or zoomed past.  It's not the thing we imagine for South Dakota. 
And to see our Governor, Kristi Noem, appear last night to send a message to the people of Sioux Falls and South Dakota, and the first thing I see is her with her baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, I can't even look, and I turn off the television.  That cap is a signal of the disregard she has for the job she holds, to appear on camera at a microphone with her face half shrouded.  It is as though she's a football coach who has to face the media after her much vaunted team has just lost a big game, and she's out on the field with the glare of cameras on her.  I can't stand it.  So I don't know what she said except that violence has no place in South Dakota.
But one thing she can claim is that unlike the elected Democratic leaders who Donald Trump was railing against as he hid away in the bunker at the White House, she had called out the National Guard at the first sign of violence.  So some of this, at least, is fodder for the President as he campaigns for re-election. 
Meanwhile, what comfort can he give to a country that has seen violence escalate from coast to coast?  There won't be any.  He'll rail against his enemies and point the fingers at anyone he can think of to take the blame. 

Blooming

Today the apple trees are dropping their petals and the lilacs are coming in to their full bloom, filling our back yard with their fragrance.  We have such an abundance that we've delivered a bouquet of lilacs to two homes--Kristina Adams and Jack Walters and his wife Sirje Kiin.  We could do more, but today it rains, helping to give a good start to the vegetables we planted and the flowers and bushes we moved yesterday in anticipation of a good soaking from the sky. 
Last night we watched an episode of Hoarders, where a couple in Washington state had filled their back yard and their home with so much trash it rose to the ceiling and all the floors were covered so that they were walking and sleeping on trash. 
It's not a program I plan to return to--the vivid images of that trash, and the reluctance to part with it by the man and woman will be hard to forget, and there's no reason to remember it, only keep in mind for myself that the accumulation of bicycles or books or records or pens does nothing but tie you to objects.  And the objects give little, if not nothing, in return. 
Let us be like the lilacs, offering our gifts freely and preparing for the fade. 

Last Day

May 21, 2020, today, is the last day of my contract with DSU, where I have been working since 1996.  My teaching career goes back to 1984, when that spring I finished my M.A. in English at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and took a one-year temporary job at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana. 
I discovered when I was there that my grandfather, Sidney Clifford Nelson, had gone there when it was still Billings Polytechnic Institute, but I couldn't find evidence beyond a single mention in a yearbook. 
From there I took a job at St. Mary of the Plains College in Dodge City, Kansas, a Catholic school with liberal leanings operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Wichita.  Many of the faculty there were women, sisters with the PhD's and masters degrees who, given the choice between marriage and motherhood and an independent, educated religious life, chose education and good works and chastity. 
That school ran afoul of the law, wracking up unpaid student loans in a mistaken alliance with a truck-driving school that scammed its students. 
When it closed in 1992, I took a year to try and finish my PhD at the University of Kansas, but I was undisciplined and depressed and when I was offered a job at Sisseton Wahpeton Community College in South Dakota, I took it. 
There the tiny faculty team struggled to bring our courses to a poverty-stricken Native population and others in that far north region, and the politics finally consumed it, and in 1996, our college president, a wildly unpredictable and petty man from a tribe in Minnesota, called me a racist and let me and other white people go. 
That brought me to DSU, a phone call I remember taking, standing in my kitchen at the phone and moving to the porch where it was more quiet and I could hear a lifeline being thrown to me that would carry me the next 25 years. 

Tentatively, Beginning Again

I'm retired.  I hope that means I will turn more to writing as an outlet, that I'll finally tell a story about growing up in the way that I did, not that it's all that dramatic or angst-ridden, but that it was unusual, that it was western.  Not what many people face today or even remember.  Even then, in the 60s, it was a little strange.  Even in Fort Pierre, our experiences were different: while my classmates might be playing baseball and riding bikes around town or working at a drive-in ice cream shop, my brothers and I disappeared on to ranches to be ranch hands.  To be cowboys. 

Beautiful Tuesday Morning

It's a beautiful spring morning in South Dakota, but over our heads hangs the threat of a winter storm that could dump more than a foot of snow on our area in the next couple of days.  Meanwhile, the water table beneath our house has risen so high that it's no longer fully beneath our house, but leaking in. 
While the sump pump purges much of the water, there's a lingering pool that needs its own special attention. 
And there's the pile of wood that still needs to be split and stacked.  And someone needs to fire up the lawn mowers to make sure that once the expected snow or rain arrives, we've got a way to mow the grass. 
At the same time, our new travel van, our little RV, what they call a class B, is waiting in the driveway for us to escape.  We need less water, less work, and less bad news.  I'm ready to hit the road.

Our new travel van awaits us.  

Meanwhile, every day there comes a new sign that the head of our government is an addled, angry head whose strategy is to do more than enough to keep his name at the top of the news feed, sometimes by figuratively lopping off the heads of the people around him. 

Denied

Strange how events fall into place sometimes in a string of misfortunes, leaving us wondering why what we wanted is being denied to us.  Denial makes us feel smaller, less important, more trapped by circumstance and fate, and less able to move and enact the things we want for ourselves. 

It was a string of things, nothing very important, that piled on this weekend to make a person feel small.  We had plans--dinner and a concert, Fleetwood Mac, for crying out loud.  I watched a documentary on the group as I spent some time on the treadmill, and got a little work done before heading off to Sioux Falls to enjoy dinner before the concert.  We had reservations, which we knew was important because we'd been to the packed Crooked Pint once before another concert, and there was no way we'd get in early enough to eat and get to the concert. 

But the reservation was a bust.  We got there before our reservation time, but they told us they'd given our table away.  "We just got busy," she said.  Yup, just like before every other big concert.  So we stood for half an hour or more waiting for a table.  Their offer?  A free appetizer.  Poutine is good, but not that good. 

Fine, plenty of time.  So then we head over to the Sanford Arena and got in with 20 minutes to spare.  Except we had to stand in line for 45 minutes, and by the time we got to security the concert had already been going on for 20 minutes.  We could hear it, muffled through the walls and the floor, "Rhiannon," for one.  Finally, through security and on to the scans, where our tickets from StubHub would finally get us in, even though, by that time, we were getting a little annoyed. 

But the scanner bleeped a big red X, and the worker told us to go to the ticket office.  Another denial! 

At the box office, the woman there told me the same ticket had been scanned two hours before.  So there was that, a ripoff ticket from StubHub.  The woman offered me a ticket--there were tickets available--but the prospect of dropping another hundred bucks per ticket when the hundreds I'd already spent had just gone up in smoke, that didn't appeal to me. 

So we paused, had a seat, listened to another muffled song from that great band, and decided to mitigate our disappointment by having a beer.  It seemed only fitting that as we pulled up at Castaway's, across the street, the last few letters were dim, so we walked in under the Castaw and tried to spin ourselves back up from our denials. 

Today I reminded myself, as I cheered for the Rams to prevail over the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII (53 for you non-Romans), that disappointment is often self-inflicted.  It didn't really matter who won the game.  It didn't kill us to stand and chat while the folks at Crooked Pint tried to find us a table.  We've got the Fleetwood Mac albums at home. 

And StubHub is refunding what we spent on the tickets, with a discount on our next purchase. 

We had a fun drive down to Sioux Falls chatting with our friend, a nice meal, a chance to see some great music, and a safe drive home again.

And that Super Bowl?  We got to watch, cheer, chat, eat, and share the night with some good people.  Life is good. 

Fortune Tells

Sometimes the fortune that appears in a cookie is the right one--a message from the random beyond that rings true to a thing occurring in the center of your self or your choices.  Such it was a while back as the wife and I were at a Chinese restaurant and I found the message above.  Sure, the message might fit a wide number of people, but don't we see ourselves in the things that happen around us?  So there I am, being messaged by fortune that the course of my life is true. 

Some Kind of Journey

Somehow the wife and I got it in our heads that we needed a big van/little RV to head across the country, although we have traveled well in our little BMW convertible.  The above unit has, as I have told friends, everything that can go wrong with a house and everything that can go wrong with a car all wrapped up in the same package.  But I think we may have an adventure trying it out. 

We have cleaned it up and repaired some of the things that weren't quite right, and the wife is working hard to make sure we are comfy in it.  She has discovered many sources online that tell about improvements made to such vans--Roadtrek vans made in Canada.  Ours is a 1999 Dodge 3500 Ram (one ton) van with a 318 motor.  It's got a lot of miles on it, but Roger's Service here in Madison gives it a thumbs up for traveling.  It seems ready to go. 
Among the things we've done to improve it:

• installed a new cd/radio with bluetooth so we can plug in a phone to listen to all kinds of stuff. 
• removed the old monitor hanging over the back bed
• installed new carpeting up front
• installed new vinyl in the back end
• washed and repaired all the curtains so they function properly
• mounted new tires in the front
• mounted the rear-view mirror (found in a drawer)
• cleaned all the seats and fabric and surfaces inside
• changed the oil and air and oil filters

So far we've taken one short trip to Yankton's Lewis and Clarke Recreation Area, and the two nights there in the van were perfectly fine.  We were the smallest RV in the park!  (Ours is a 19 foot machine; Roadtrek made 17 and 21 foot versions.)  We also have plans for some other work before we hit the road.  But once we do, it will be without need for any more work around the house!  All our concerns will be contained within the walls of the van. 

As we go, we'll see what it's like to live the RV life, with the option of heading into the boondocks and setting up camp with our own power and water supplies.  It might drive us crazy, but it might be a whole lot of fun. 

Dolphins in the Mirror

I love this story about dolphins demonstrating self-cognition, the ability to recognize themselves as themselves in a mirror.  Not many animals (besides humans) can do this, and watching them makes it clear that these young dolphins seem to enjoy seeing their own reflections in the mirror! 

Riding the Rollercoaster

There's the story of the cave, Plato's version of reality in which we're chained to the cave wall, watching the shadows of chairs, or, in some cases, the digital recreation of football players vying to gain points over opposing football players.  In the digital recreation of other people's lives, it's possible to view the digital recreation of the elevated heartbeat of a real human being.

Our hearts beat wildly for the players.  We breathe deep and should loudly in response to those remote views.  I like that our Vikings have won another game and get to play again next weekend, but we cheer for the men who wear the purple uniforms.  We get to know them, put our hopes in them and wish for the best.  But we know very little about them or what they stand for, what they represent.  They carry the flag of Minnesota, but most are not Minnesotans.  And I'm not a Minnesotan.  Most of the Minnesotans I know don't care all that much whether their football team wins or loses.

Still, it was a momentary joy to see the improbable come-from-behind win from a team that has taught us to watch in disappointment.  But not this weekend!   Skol!

Whitman and Dickinson Again

Today I get to talk again with a group of young people about a remarkable thing, a revolution in language that began to take place with the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in the second half of the 19th century. 

Not many people get to do the same.  This is my job today, or at least part of it.  I spend fifty minutes with some young people and some poetry. 

A world is changing around us, with technology and culture and the environment, but the poems that these two figures managed to put together in their lifetimes will remain.  Whitman tells us that he sees us from his far vantage point.  Dickinson seems to see herself, and us, in a bog. 

In a time that seems to offer an option for every way of looking at the world, I appreciate the comfort of these two poets who recognized the changes in their own times and how an imagination can help us see a bigger picture. 

Testing

Testing

Five Days In

So, it's clear that the landscape is changing so fast and furious it's like a flood washing away much of what was built over the last eight years.  Was it so bad?  Is this a sign of better things to come?  I don't think so.  I think it's a sign of petulance and arrogance.

* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Minority Business Development Agency.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Economic Development Administration.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the International Trade Administration.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
* On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy.
* On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered all regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen.
* On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered the National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.
* On January 20th, 2017, roughly 230 protestors were arrested in DC and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics.
* On January 20th, 2017, a member of the International Workers of the World was shot in the stomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition.
* On January 21st, 2017, DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press.
* On January 21st, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largest audience of any in history, “period.”
* On January 22nd, 2017, White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news.
* On January 22nd, 2017, DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back.
* On January 23rd, 2017, DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option.
* On January 23rd, 2017, Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China.
* On January 23rd, 2017, DT repeated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote.
* On January 23rd, 2017, it was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in.
* On January 24th, 2017, Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote.
* On January 24th, 2017, DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is of the 2009 inauguration of 44th President Barack Obama, and is curiously dated January 21st, 2017, the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history.
* On January 24th, 2017, the EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts.
* On January 24th, 2017, the USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House.
* On January 24th, 2017, HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote.
* On January 24th, 2017, DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways.
* On January 24th, 2017, it was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cell phones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting on January 20th, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources.
From News and Guts
*credit for compilation: Karen Cornett-Dwye

Election Election Election

I'm more worried about this election cycle than any other I've been through, because I've seen the devastation that can come from a president who doesn't have a firm grasp of consequences.  And it's not just that there's still a small possibility that the US might elect a president that sends us off the rails.

It's the high level of rancor over the election campaign.  How do we get past the divisive rhetoric that we're seeing today?  I want my candidate to win, but I want them also then be able to govern, to rally the people of the US to do better, to be better people.

I think of it this way--the election on November 8 is the gateway to a new beginning.  I'll take what happens, whatever it is, whatever my worries.  But I want a functional government.  My worry is that politicians will see opportunity in the vast divide to rally a portion of the populace to their side and demonize the rest, leaving us at odds with each other, prey to forces that loom.

Abraham Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Today's rancor seems to me to be a crisis similar to the one Lincoln faced, a country divided by an issue that still hasn't healed.

It isn't one issue that divides our country today; it's many.  The multiple challenges our country faces--mounting and crippling debt, threats from abroad, political gridlock, and environmental devastation--together present a crisis that needs decisive action.

We must face this crisis with seriousness and purpose, forging a way forward with respect for differing opinions and positions.  And we want a leader who will inspire us with the values that the founders of the country did.