Dear Sen. Klobuchar: It’s not as sexy as a new baseball stadium or as macho as a new war in the Middle East. It’s no the kind of thing that has a constituency. No lobbyists. Only a few nerdy civil engineers writing report cards from dusty hidden offices. No one gets on a bus to Washington, DC, to demand that the government DO something to ensure that our nation’s bridges, water systems, steam service lines and power grid are up to modern standards. Not until yesterday. Continue reading →
ESSAY
2
Aug 07
Bridge in Troubled Waters
We’re not in the natural disaster business here in the center of the country. We don’t have either of the oceans at our doorstep. There is no large lake on which a large ship can sink in a withering storm. We have tornadoes that barely warrant mention, occasionally mussing our hair a bit but not doing much more. Rain comes our way and Dave Dahl runs his hand through his receding blond hair and tells us how many minutes is the storm from our zip code and block. During 9/11 authorities decided to evacuate the IDS Center, 55 stories, the tallest building in Minnesota. It seems a little silly now. Continue reading →
2
Aug 07
Four Point Six Miles
According to Google Maps we are 4.6 miles away from the east bank anchor of the I-35W bridge. It is not a structure we use very much because the natural alternative routes are the more logical way to go. A friend called from California and was concerned about some friends who live straight south of us in Saint Paul. She hadn’t been able to reach them. Continue reading →
7
May 07
Primordial oak
It is May. We stop as one. Two humans and an Australian Shepherd. A small forest of oak trees. Adorned in budding bright green. Basking in a rare mist so deep. We watch for dinosaurs peeking through giant ferns. The last sun of the day makes the air around us come alive. One man and a brown dog are dancing on the sloshy grass. Leaping for a treat. The slow steady rain of the day is gone, as though heading back out to sea. And we listen for the sounds of waves breaking on a beach made of railroad cars crashing and slam banging into each other. A few children climb the damp play equipment. Watchful parents ready to dart home with their brood at the last sign of this Monday.
21
Apr 07
Who’s askin’ Peg?
The story is apocryphal and it matters little. It is the iconographic rememberance of Aunt Peg, always the supporting actor but one who deserves an Academy Award for her performance. “Who’s askin’ Peg?” What is the meaning of Francis “Sam” Boyce without Margaret “Peggy” Boyce? Where is the center of gravity in an extended family strewn about the eastern third of the country. It is Aunt Peg. What loss is the most devastating for a family that has little left to lose of “the Greatest Generation.” Aunt Peg.
From her hospital bed she gathers the family to her and creates connections between us. Holding court in her tiny apartment with empty refrigerator and rented furniture, she commands our attention, our devotion, even while she waits almost impatiently for the thing she fears and, maybe, welcomes.
Her wit. The dry Walsh humor unscathed by her decaying body. Unintentionally making us laugh not at her but in amazement at her observations. Her truth.
17
Mar 07
Where do they go?
They smile at us through the tiny window of a paper photograph. An army of people we will never see again. Never touch again. Never hug again. Never laugh with again. Never worry about again. We will never hear their voices on the telephone. Or see them briefly as we dash through our own hectic dreary lives. We will not benefit from their wisdom or argue with them about the right thing to do. They sit there lined up on couches, arms around each other, smiling brightly at the photographer who cuts off their legs and leaves too much room above their heads. The light glints off of their glasses and they hold their pose. Forever. We think to ourselves always that we have not done enough to make their declining years more meaningful. We remember how they faced their own mortality with incredible courage and grace and we wonder whether we will measure up when our time comes. They who faced so many challenges in their lives from fighting Nazis to fighting boredom in the suburbs. Selling the old house that we had abandoned dozens of years ago and moving boldly to some new place where they would put out of their minds the next
and last big event in their lives coming someday soon.
As each one passes on we think of a hundred questions we wanted to ask. We gather at their funerals to go through a timeless cultural dance we do not understand but nonetheless pursue with dogged determination. And then it is over. We go home. Look at our photographs and see one new face staring back at us.
4
Jun 06
Northcountry June
Hazy sky filters through raspberry swaying oaks. The next door kids climb the maple tree and look down upon my Australian Shepherd seeking solace under the oversized pagoda dogwood in our backyard. My children. Adults now. Laze under stacks of books and sometimes emerge, blinking into the real sun of a young summer month. Standing in my backyard I call my dog into the house and she retreats further into the shadows. Too easily, I give up and marvel that I am outside, wearing shorts. Wind blowing through my hairy legs. The high temperature today is 80.
As the earth careens on its desperately short trip around €“ and tilted slightly closer to €“ the sun, June arrives in the Northcountry. Can our summer months be shorter than other people’s and our winter months longer? Each day passes and I beg it to return. Let me try again. Let me make more of it and have different memories when I am darting between the snowflakes.
Oak canopy | Summer’s gift
4
Jun 06
Good night Uncle Bob
GOOD NIGHT UNCLE BOB. I hope you liked the sendoff. I’m told it was quite a show. You would have liked it I think. It was quite a crowd. A real Northeast Philadelphia event. You got ‘em in from up and down the east. Sorry I couldn’t be there. It would have been fun to see everyone. Except that you weren’t going to be there. And that’s really too bad because I know you would have made me laugh. You always have. Back in those wonderful days when you and your two sisters (and, I guess, half of Hannah’s family too) were living within shouting distance down there in Florida we all used to have a good time. We’d come over and hang out at your place (your “tin box” as you called it fondly) and we’d talk about things. There would always be something you could slice up with that cool rapier wit of yours. And we’d wait for it … wait for it … here it comes! And then every once in awhile (sometimes days would pass) Hannah would come out of nowhere and put us on the floor laughing. Usually at your expense. But it was all in good fun.
Marian, Bob, Kay, Peg in Florida together
You sure did like Florida. And you must have been a heckuva salesman ’cause you got half of the living Walsh siblings eventually moved there after you. I think we were living in Topeka, Kansas, when the phone rang. It was your sister Kay informing me she had just bought a place in Bay Indies. Just across that alligator (singular) infested lake with the fountain in the middle of it from you and Hannah. She had waited the obligatory year from the time my father has passed on to make the decision. But she was goin’. I’m proud to say she called me first because she was most confident of my reaction. Heck, she backed me when I decided to go out West. Hitchhiking no less. What could I say? I’d never really been to Florida, anyway.
So January would roll around and we would load up for the trip to Cedar Rapids (we’d moved to Iowa very shortly after that phone call). Park the car at this hotel. Leave our warm clothes in the car. Fly to Sarasota. Like magic, winter would be gone. Not so shocking a transition as the return trip when, on some occasions, the car would be literally buried under a snow drift. And you know who had to wade over to it to dig out the down coats and snow boots (yeah, it wasn’t my lovely bride from wild and chilly northern Montana). This was one of your gifts. Bringing all of us together in a nice warm place and on top of that giving us a chance to listen to your stories. Always told deadpan in that Northeast Philly twang. Slowly drawing out the laugh. And then looking at us almost puzzled when we all started yahooing and guffawing.
It’s strange being from a place that is always €œup and down€ but never €œleft and right.€ Family lived in New England or Baltimore and then on down to Venice, Florida. Up and down. Nobody lived €œright€ because that, of course, is the Atlantic Ocean. What’s left is me so far as the Walsh clan is concerned. There are a few wayward Sheehy relatives out this direction. So you guys would sit down there in Venice and reel us all in no matter where we were. And we’d all forget for a little while that a thousand and some miles separated us. Sit on the beach and watch the sun set incongruously in the West (very confusing for a Philadelphian). We all knew these were precious times together.
Hearing about your transition has been a big deal for me because you kept the door cracked open a bit. I could hear my mother’s voice when you spoke. Oh you Walshes are a funny stoic bunch. But at least you know how to laugh. Selectively. Certainly not at your own jokes.
Have fun where you are. You earned your way there by living a long time, raising a great family and being a pretty darn good uncle. It was time. You’d been on this world plenty long enough. There wasn’t anything left for you to do here. Though, you could always lighten our day with one of your stories. Sleep well good Uncle Bob. Sleep well.
From the shores of the Mississippi River, we salute you Uncle Bob
14
May 06
Roll credits
It’s just a TV show. An entertaining TV show. A well-written TV show. A well-acted TV show. But, still, just a TV show. It isn’t real. And that is the reason I feel compelled to do something I have never done before. Write something about the end of a long-running television show about a president of the United States who actually cared about the country he was governing.
16
Apr 06
The Train
APRIL 1, 2006 — I CAN ONLY SPEAK FOR MYSELF. TRAINS ARE SPECIAL. They been featured at various places throughout my life and sometimes long stretches in between. When I take the train I connect these dots and the memories that go with them. Yesterday I disembarked from a train — Amtrak’s westbound Train number 7 — as it was just getting warmed up for the long climb across the Rocky Mountain west on its way to Seattle. Continue reading →