A beautiful day

Every week I drive to Dubuque at least once. The agency I work for has work for me there, and I really enjoy the work. I also enjoy the drive. Highway 151 between Anamosa and Dubuque is full of wide vistas. It's the country that inspired Grant Wood. I used to look at Grant Wood paintings and think they were tantamount to Norman Rockwell, overly stylized and not serious enough. When I moved to Iowa, I began to understand rolling hills and crops in tidy rows. I have also softened toward Norman Rockwell.

I have begun packing my camera along on the drive and have started to take pictures in places I like. It is the very cusp of Autumn and I'd like to document a little of what I see as I make the hour and fifteen minute commute.


Today started out hazy and as I drove north it became cloudier. There is a lot of enthusiasm for what we do in Dubuque and I work with people I really respect and so it was a good day.


Mid-afternoon, I made the drive home again, heading for a meeting in Cedar Rapids. The sun had burned off the haze and the sky was becoming more and more blue. I'd been trying to get hold of Su Williams, my assistant, who had not shown up for work on Monday. I had left her a message. When my phone rang and I saw her name, I picked up. "Hey Su, how are you?"

Su lost kidney function about 17 years ago and has been a dialysis patient ever since. She explained that if she got a new set of kidneys her condition would begin to erode the new ones, so she has just carried on. It was not Su on the phone.



It was her son-in-law, telling me that Su passed away last night. Someone from the dialysis unit called when she missed her first appointment in 17 years, and a family member went to her apartment and found her in her chair.


Su started working for me when my program was in crisis. We had an inattentive administrator who didn't understand our business and didn't want to. Things were bad. Su hit the floor like a tsunami. She made valentines for all the clients. She cleaned out the refrigerator and inadvertently broke it by chipping too hard at the ice with a knife. She was horrified. We teased her relentlessly. "When we get to the new site, there's a BIG refrigerator. You can put it on your wall after you kill it!"


Su could schmooze anyone. She finessed agitated delinquents, called families for insurance information, made reminder calls. She calmed kids in the lobby. Su had been a high risk foster parent and she adopted one girl nobody seemed to want. "We were getting along, and she kept getting disappointed and so I said 'why don't you just be my daughter.'"

Su remembered the receptionist's birthday and put on a full Mexican smorgasbord with Chorizo and beef and chicken, guacamole, corn and flour tortillas. She knew that Barb was a little anxious and needed appreciation.

Su understood that we were all very busy taking care of kids and families and that this was important and it was her mission, too. She knew that too much information was in my head and needed to get into manuals, and she took that on. She had an amazing mind for process and could get it down. She left me with manuals and processes. We met every week and I'd give her tasks and projects and she would make them happen.



Su was afraid of no one. Our CEO, whom she didn't know, walked in one day and wanted to check things out. Su would not let him pass. She was 5 feet tall and looked older than her 55 years, and she stood right in front of him and insisted that he identify himself. She coralled 10 delinquent kids with anger control problems each night and insisted they stay in our lobby until their parents came. Thought nothing of it.



I talked to Su about my mother. I told her about the facility insisting that I hire someone to come in and take care of Mom's cats. Su's immediate response was "I'll do it. I'd love to meet your mom. It would be fun to take her out and do things."


Last Friday was grandparent's day at Prairie Ridge Elementary School. Su took the day off because she'd been to grandparent's day for each of her grandchildren. The youngest said "you have to do it for the baby, too."


Su spent a lot of time with her grandkids. She made crazy recipes and tried weird foods. She was spontaneous and present in their lives. She knew, I think, that each day we live is a gift. She made a great deal of effort to connect and make a difference. I came to take her for granted.


Goodbye, Su, assassin of refrigerators, schmoozer extraordinaire, friend, colleague, teacher. I'll miss your wry humor and your unflagging lust for life. You wrung every minute out of it that you could get.


When I left a message on her machine yesterday, her recording said: "Hi, this is Su. Leave a message. It's a beautiful day."


And it is.

Me and my wife

Last weekend, my Mom tagged along as we went to a gig in Hills. It was a bike ride in memory of a young man who died of cancer, raising funds for said disease.

This has nothing to do with the picture on the left, which I just like. It's Walker trying to win something at the Fair. He only threw 55 m.p.h., not enough for a cool prize. Throwing money at the carneys is part of the Fair ritual. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Mom's always a little hungry, which is good because she lost a lot of weight when she was sick and is fattening up well now. I got her a subway on the way to Hills and she watched as BWR played a couple hours. When we got back to Cedar Rapids, she was hungry again and offered to buy lunch. So I took her to the Flying Weenie.

For those of you who are not familiar with Cedar Rapids culture (and yes, there is such a thing), the Flying Weenie is a converted 40's gas station with a yellow airplane on the roof. I don't mean a sign that looks like an airplane. I mean a real airplane, probably an old Cessna, painted yellow, and attached to the roof. They have great Chicago hot dogs, polish sausage, gyros, and a peculiar, dusty ambiance punctuated by airplane parts, airplane manuals, airplane pictures, and a couple vintage Pac Man machines from the 70's. Because of it's location at the crossroads between Czech Villiage, downtown, the Police Station and Wellington Heights, you never know who will turn up. I've seen the mayor in there lined up for dogs.

Mom was a little skeptical about the Weenie. First of all, there was no beer. We ordered and sat down, while I attempted to explain the charm. In the dining area were a couple young women, one plump and blonde with a bandage affixed to her right upper shoulder and her foot in a temporary cast. The young women were eating and talking quietly.

Two young men walked in, well dressed, African American, but perhaps a little disheveled. They sat down and and spotted the two young women. The taller of the two young men went over and introduced himself. He asked about the bandage and the blonde revealed a brand new, weepy tattoo. It became evident that the tall fellow was significantly inebriated at two in the afternoon. He succeeded in getting the tattooed woman to put his number into her phone. She was obviously flustered, although the young man was obviously harmless. He was muttering something like "If you have a boyfriend, that's cool, I can respect that, but I'm a man who goes for what he wants, so you can give me a call . . ." et cetera, et cetera.

In the meantime the other gentleman let me know that he and his friend had been partying all night. This was breakfast. He was the designated driver. This made me wonder what the other guy had to do to qualify as passenger.

"How long have you and your wife been married?" the designated driver asked, looking at Mom and me.

I laughed and said "This is my mother."

"I lost my mother," he said, "not missing a beat." Mom was dying by this point.

About this time the grumpy guy behind the counter called one of the young men's names and they went to check on their order. The blonde took advantage of this to get her stuff, and urge her friend to run out the door. The friend was non-plussed and wanted to finish her fries, but the blonde hot footed it out the door, as if running from Mandingo, or somebody equally potent and scary. "I'm getting out of here, OH MY GOD!"

The young men collected their order and got back into their car. Mom said "Romeo's leaving."

We got our food and finished an uneventful meal. The young men drove off to finish their food at home and go to sleep. More people came in with children, round and drab, and there was no more drama at the Weenie.

I dropped Mom off at "the place," as she calls it. We had a pretty good time, she and I. I don't think she'll remember it, but hanging with Mom is a lesson in living in the moment. We spend time and enjoy it and then it passes out of memory as fast as we encounter it, just like the money we throw at carneys.

See, I knew I could work that simile in somehow.

Gore

My son, Walker, recently put together enough money to puchase and X-Box 360. If you are 13, this is what you must have. He can now play games on the internet with people he has never met, wearing this headphone with a microphone that reminds me of Madonna. He is, predictably, obsessed, and he and I have done a couple rounds about homework, sax lessons, and generally coming up for air.

He's downloaded a trial of one of those shoot-em-up games where he gets to do house to house combat and kill people, who die with great graphic accuracy, with parts of their heads splattered against the wall and pools of blood for them to lie in (which grow bigger as the blood leaks out of their pixilated bodies). Sort of Iraq lite, if you think about it.

I commented that I found the game offensive. I suggested that I might have a problem with him purchasing it, and that this sort of gratuitous violence is not consistent with our values. Walker was hanging out with his friend Dalton, who I have come to like, with some effort. He was part of an out of control incident with spray paint that resulted in Walker doing some serious wire brushing on our sidewalk and curb. Walker says Dalton is kind of the "bad son" at his house, which seems ludicrous to me because the other son is such a schlub. So, I like Dalton, and root for the underdog.

"It's not real. I'm not going to go out and shoot anyone, and my behavior isn't bad. What's your problem?" my son asked. I said I had a problem with him spending his time pretending to be the kind of person who takes human life to earn a score.

"No offense, Dad," Walker said, impatient to get back to mayhem, "but you're the kind of guy who takes pictures of flowers."

I also have a wide stance.

Walker is a good soul, first chair sax in jazz band, getting good grades, and staying out of trouble. Not bad for a mass murderer.

Laboring amonst the beasts

When I thought I had lost my camera, I also thought I had lost all my great pig shots. The pig experience is integral to Fairgoing. It also factors into politics, health policy, and national security, but I digress.

This is still a pretty new camera and so these idle pigs made good subjects. No danger of any action shots here.

This particular pig was breathing. I checked.

It's Labor Day, when we stay home and mow our lawns and celebrate the demise of the labor union movement in the United States. The folks who gave us the 40 hour work week and health insurance at work are relegated to the political sidelines, for the most part, fighting to maintain fair labor standards that we once thought were immutable, and now are up for grabs. Speaking of pigs. Reagan killed the air traffic controller's union and gave us the deregulated airways we've come to love and fear. He and the Bushes made sure that labor unions were marginal participants in the national conversation. Right to work, indeed!

So we celebrate by lying around. I asked and this fella's actually healthy. This is not elephantiasis, but normal healthy boar anatomy. Ouch.

Robyn has ideas about labor. She has numerous projects in mind at any given time. She is a restless ponderer, considering how this or that thing might be improved, repaired, replaced. She invites sales people to visit us and talk about window film and three season porches. She seriously considers these things, and I think that soon it will be winter and we'll enjoy the sun heating up the house, and soon the kids will go off to college and we'll be fine with how big the house is and leave the basement alone. I'm just lying around, wondering if 1:00 p.m. on Labor Day is too early for beer. I have decisions to make, too!

I look forward to the next long weekend, the next little slice of our anticipated retirement. My plan is to have leisure be the direction of my life, relaxing, reading, lying around. Robyn looks forward to diving in to the next project.

I can see my next long weekend beginning like this. Then Robyn's momentum will carry me along.

Either that or I'll feel . . . sheepish.

Happy Labor Day!

Gay Marriage and Cheesy Guitars

This picture is for everybody who had a first guitar. Mine had a plywood top and a painted on pick-guard. At the top of the headstock, someone had spray painted through a stencil a buck's head and "Buckeye."

I learned some serious and sincere folk songs on that guitar, including The Water is Wide and Mr. Rabbit. It's great being a gifted kid. People appreciate many things that you do because you're doing them "early." Then one day you're not so early any more and everyone else has caught up. And you realize that your guitar has a painted on pick guard and a plywood top. Mr. Rabbit indeed!

A couple of days ago, a district court judge in Iowa, of all places, ruled that gay and lesbian people have the right to be married. One lucky couple got married before he chickened out and put a "stay" on the ruling, so that the Supreme Court could rule. The Republicans, who currently have no power, are going to try to make an issue of this and raise a constitutional amendment that says marriage only happens between a MAN and a WOMAN.

I do some marital counseling, mostly with heterosexual couples. Marriage is certainly an institution, but what sort of institution it is varies from couple to couple. Folks bring their most intimate baggage concerning intimacy into a relationship based largely on fantasized idealized fictions about the object of their affections. As my parents' friend said: "Marrage is most often a case of mistaken identities."

In the end, one has to ask one's self: "What is so sacred about heterosexual marriage? And if it's so sacred, what, besides blasphemy, can we call what many straight couples do to it." I think we could use some help.

If gay men do for marriage, what they have done for real estate, we may hope for a brighter, more orderly and tasteful future. If we produce more softball playing, celtic ritualizing earth mothers who want to take care of each othe for live, doesn't that relieve the government of the burden of costly "Lesbian Rehab?"

Let us all be allowed to commit to each other, whoever that other may be. In this world, true commitment to another is sacred. There are all flavors and nuances of commitment, but in the end we are all tied to each other, woven through and through like that big spider web on that golf course in texas. Our successes raise each other our failures drag us all down.

To dedicate ones life to another, ANY other, is a beautiful thing. Elizabeth Taylor had eight marriages and eight divorces. My brother in law and his husband have been married for over 25 years. A wise woman once told me "don't listen to what people say. Watch what they do."

This is Walker checking out his throw against a radar gun. The radar gun won. So did the Carney.

I'm proud that a judge in Iowa, my chosen home state, said what needed to be said. I don't know how long this will last, or what marriage in Iowa will mean, but for a moment common sense won the day. Let people who love each other commit to each other and recieve the blessing of "family." Let's find more reasons to connect, rather than divide.

Old Friends

I was messing with some publicity for the band and ran into this fairly recent one. When you've been a band for 17 years, you accumulate photos. I regretfully announce that we have aged. On the other hand, I guess that's one of my life's goals: to continue to age.

Big Wooden Radio has endured its share of drama and conflict, but these days we're making good music and getting along. We have struck an equilibrium of sorts, focusing on live performance and trying for more balance between performing and travelling, and being with our families and friends at home. We're going to play in Grinnell, on Live at the Java House (or whatever it's called now), and at the Farmer's Market. A little burst of show biz! I am grateful to be able to make music with these fellas. It's important to remember what we're grateful for.

Margins

I'm the last guy in the neighborhood to get his lawn mowed. The front is shaggy after all the rain and this was the ideal day to mow, cool and dry and a breeze. Instead, I took Mom to the Lincoln cafe in my new Rabbit. I got to drive and we both got to eat and we didn't discuss topics that are hard between us.

Mom commented about my Aunt Peg, from whom she hasn't heard in a while. "She's all mixed up with her family, over-involved," Mom said. I asked her what she meant.

"They're all involved in making each other's decisions, all involved in each other's lives. I'm glad we're not like that." She took a sip of her tea and we sat awkwardly for a second. "I like seeing you all from time to time. I like being on the margins of your lives."

To my mother, this is a virtue. I'm launched, grown up. She feels my intrusion into her zone of control, counting bottles and throwing away a rotten pear in the fruit bowl. She says "I can do that."

When I was a little boy I could name every car that passed by my house. I still recognize most automobiles and can name them. This skill occupies parts of my brain that could have been filled with tact, or discretion.

My family drove a 1963 Anglia. This is a '67, and ours was black, but you get the idea. It was different from everybody's car. Noteworthy among its characteristics were bucket seats, hinged at the front for rear seat access, with no lock to hold the seat back in the event of a sudden stop. In 1963 there were no requirements for safety belts.

In a sudden stop, my mother routinely threw her arm across my chest to restrain me.

Incidentally, Harry Potter's friend, George Weasley, drove this car to Hogwarts in the second movie. I think it was the second movie, anyway.

I believed that there were normal families, ones where dads went to work and mom's stayed home and dads had jobs other people understood, such as fireman, plumber, engineer at Boeing, and not "writer." Kids would ask what book my dad had written and I would say that he had not published a book yet. The would ask "What does he do?" And I would explain that he sits at a table and writes, and re-writes, and writes more. Other kids didn't get it. "But what does he do?"

I believed that normal families drove Buicks and Chrevrolets and probably voted Republican and ate t.v. dinners. I believed that they were different from us, driving in our little, finned English Ford. They owned their homes and had dependable jobs and dads who could handle small talk and corporate thought. They didn't move from town to town, after greener pastures.

I hope my kids come over for supper and bring their kids. I don't want to interfere in their lives, but I'd sure be willing to help. I hope my kids don't dread seeing me. I hope they feel that I contribute and support.

I do not wish to experience life from the margins.