Both Sides of the Fence

Children get older. . .

2008-08-30T15:38:00Z

Yesterday was last minute get-ready-for-college shopping day with Liz. After breakfast among Harley riders and fashionable east siders at the Cafe Hollander, we headed to Greenfields to look for posters. In case you haven't been there, it's the kind of store where I'd have bought flowing skirts, incense, and posters for whatever Madison apartment I had in 1970.

Liz is a big Salvador Dali fan. This is very cool, but there is Dali, and there is Dali. This is the sort of Dali that appeals to Liz.

And there are roommates, and there are roommates.

"Liz. Don't you think you might want to get to know your roommate a little before you put up a poster that might be, you know. . ."

"SCARY?" she completed my sentence. "You think this would be better?" unscrolling a bold red-and-black floor-to-ceiling Che Guevara banner and looking at me with feigned innocence.

"Erm, well, it's very. . . arresting. But the colors might be a little off-putting. Besides, it might not go with her stuff, and she might care about that." This is, by decree of the big dorm room furnishings purveyors, a brown and pink and green year with lots of orange, purple, and teal thrown in. A very un-revolutionary colors year. I don't even have to go where the politics might lead this discussion.

"How about this," I ask, finding an unusually sweet Dali with butterflies and no naked bodies or Blessed Virgins or melting clocks. A lifted eyebrow is reply enough, but my daughter is trying to keep me calm and so she says, kindly and gently, "it's just not me, Mom."

She finds something that's imaginative, thought-provoking, and unlikely to make her roommate call for an exorcism. I am relieved. I buy her two beautiful scarves and we head to the car. There, Liz is captive, and I can waterboard her with 18 years worth of pent-up advice, praise, and Mom-neurosis.

"I'm channeling Sally Field again, right?" I ask, coming up for air myself. In case you haven't seen Brothers and Sisters, Field's character, Nora Walker, is so much like me that even I can see it when my kids point and hoot during a familiar scene of excessive, sure-to-be-thwarted, mother love.

Time to shut up and turn on the radio. Strains of the Dixie Chicks:

I took my love and took it down, climbed a mountain and turned around, and I saw my reflection in a snow covered hill, well the landslide brought it down

. . . can I sail through the changing ocean tides, can I handle the changing seasons of my life?

. . .Well, I've been afraid of changing cause I built my life around you, but time makes you bolder; children get older, I'm getting older too. .

I'm about to launch into my usual exegesis on why the original Stevie Nicks version of Landslide is superior when the song hits me and the tears start. "This is about us, isn't it?"

Liz, always much wiser than I am, nods. Later, she will let me hug her longer than she has ever let me hug her.

This morning, she packed her dad's truck. I handed off a plate of zucchini bars with caramel frosting for the trip, and they were off to Steven's Point.

Take this love and take it down, children. Climb a mountain. But now and then, turn around.

In transit

2008-08-21T13:29:00Z

With the trip meter on, it's easy to pretend I haven't just rolled the odometer over 100,000 miles on the dinged but reliable Nissan. But even the lower mileage meter's in the thousands, what with trips to campuses, family visits, and job interviews. Sometimes, you just can't get away with driving less. And even if you do, chances are your life isn't staying in the same place.

Last weekend the kids and I went to Oshkosh to see my sister's family before Liz and Geo head off for school. Geo goes to Madison this weekend, Liz goes to Stevens Point the following one. The dual departures are just days away, and I'm still in denial.

We hit the road early--or what passes for early with 18-year-olds. There was a little crankiness during the rousting/dog walking/breakfasting period: "hurry up" is no one's favorite phrase. But we finally got into the car.

I'd imagined a charming 80 mile conversation, the kids talking about their lives and aspirations, a joke now and then, maybe a song here and there, me imparting a piece of life wisdom so wonderful that the kids nod with affectionate gratitude, and finally the excited recognition of the "almost there" marker, the buffaloes at Glacial Ridge Farms.

As the kids might say "Mom, what were you smoking?!"

Instead, Geo said "I'm tired. You drive, okay?" Liz claimed the stretch-out territory in the back seat, and Geo reclined his passenger side seat as far as it could go. Head sets were on, and before we hit Menomomee Falls, both kids were out.

It took a few miles of mostly rural roadside before I lost the old "this isn't how I'd planned it" resentment. The sky was clear, the fields green with short corn and gold with tall grain, and I was driving with my babies on board. Little soft snorey sounds escaped as they slept to the car's hum and vibrations, just as they always had. How many contented miles have I driven, luxuriating in the presence of my children near me, safely strapped in, and, for as long as the car was in motion, not yowling? For this hour and a half, I had them all back.

Yesterday was another fine day for a trip of the same length. I had a job interview in Madison, the second one. It was both fun and intense. I'd forgotten to eat lunch, so I wandered down the construction zone that's Madison's State Street and grabbed some pud thai to eat at the wayside on the way home.

I sat at the picnic table in my job interview dress, trying to manage the noodles with the spoon the restaurant had packed and wishing I'd picked up chopsticks on my way out. For 50 some years I've been eating at wayside picnic tables with family and friends, and those memories joined me. Then, the peanuts usually came in the form of peanut butter and jelly. But other things haven't changed: the farm on one side, highway on the other, the cleanness of Wisconsin's facilities, the sense of being somewhere safe on the way home.

If you are still long enough, something wonderful will present itself. A young buck stepped out of the woods to eat his field corn, and we shared our dinners in companionable silence.

Then it was back in the car, back to Wauwatosa, back home, where everything is the same and everything has changed.

The vanishing newspaper

2008-08-19T04:05:00Z

Everyone's decided that the newspaper as we know it--big sheets of thin paper you can use to polish windows or wrap your trash -- is about to be extinguished. But apparently that hasn't been happening fast enough, so the newspapers themselves have decided to speed along the process of self-destruction.

First they convinced the advertisers that they weren't a good place to advertise, and the advertisers obliged by stopping advertising there.

Now they're getting rid of their most seasoned employees. And when they go, the paper gets thinner, and not just in terms of size.

Last month the Journal Sentinel announced that it was jettisoning 10% of its employees, the second major shrinkage in six months. President Elizabeth Brenner told USA Today that the layoffs/buyouts would be done by the end of the year -- another five months away. If they're like most businesses, the next batch of lost jobs should be just in time for Christmas.
You can't find a list of who's gone yet, but the news is oozing out. First Mike Nichols said farewell. I never especially liked Nichols, but he made me think, sometimes with some heat under the collar. That leaves Patrick McIlheran to be annoyed by. But he's not half the writer Nichols is, and he'll never make anyone rethink a comfortable thought the way Nichols occasionally did.

Yesterday, we learned that Joanne Weintraub and cartoonist Stuart Carlson were among those who'd accepted buyouts. They're some of the best.

I wonder if the paper's management has noted the irony in their most recent big story by veteran reporters Dave Umhoefer and Alan Borsuk. It seems that Milwaukee Public Schools built lots of fancy additions while cutting back on staff, hoping to lure folks back to the neighborhood schools. It didn't work, at least partly because it's who's inside the schools, not the buildings, that determines loyalty.

When my bill arrived, I put it aside. Why should I keep subscribing to "the paper"? There's less of it, and what's in it is not necessarily the best of the lot. Advertisers, journalists. . .add readers to the list of missing elements.

You can get information anywhere, but knowing what it's worth is another matter altogether. Good reporters and editors, like good teachers (or even just more teachers) can make a lot of difference when it comes to making sense of things.

If sense is what you want, that is.

The class reunion

2008-08-11T03:22:00Z

If you're a Wauwatosa high school grad about my age, chances are you'd have felt right at home at my Nicolet class reunion Saturday night.

Or uncomfortably not at home; that seems to be the way these things hit people. Being reunited for an evening with the people who gave you your first kiss, deep friendships and deep enmities, a massive case of insecurity, the joys and perils of youth spent ill or well, is a wonderful lark or a brief descent into hell. Maybe a little of both.

Nicolet has always been a breeding ground for over-achievers, so it helps to have a strong sense of self at these events. When you have ex-classmates who perform in operas with their entire families for recreation, it's a little daunting to admit your hobby is walking the dog and yelling at the kids to do the laundry.

I've attended parts of all of my reunions. The first was from curiosity. The second, revenge. Since then, it's always been about gratitude for spending time in shared history and fellowship. It's wonderful to see Tommy, who made butter and applesauce with me in four-year-old kindergarten (yes, we had those way back when). And as long as Wendy and Warren, high school sweethearts who married after college, are still together, there's hope for living happily ever after. Every old acquaintance renewed is a pleasure, every new connection a gift.

This decade I went with my dear old friend Vicki, whose husband received special dispensation to stay home in Tennessee. Her big brother Jack flew in from New Jersey to be the escort du jour. He can still pick us up and swing us around the dance floor. We'd met and gone to the pre-event event, the Friday night bar scene. So far, so good. The next night would be at Tripoli Country Club.

But I'd forgotten my teensy tiny country club handicap: I suck at small talk. And there is something about the whole country club atmosphere that chokes any other kind of conversation.

If you haven't been to one of these things, here's the formula. Thirty three percent of conversation is devoted to how great the women look--and they do look fabulous--and trying to figure out who the men are. Another 33% is jobs-kids-accomplishments-grandkids and other predictable life circumstances. That leaves the final brutal third to talk about whatever it is people talk about that requires paying no attention and giving no offense.

I was doing fine until I wandered over to an old boyfriend. A madly successful Chicago ad guy, he was deep in conversation with another classmate, this one a madly successful gastroenterology guy. They were probably having a soulful and charming conversation before I showed up. But the interruption shifted them into set-speech mode. Gastroguy begins reciting the physician litany: medicine's no fun anymore. Too much paperwork. The insurance companies. Medicare. Yaddayadda.

The conversation shifted again, this time to catered medical care. This newer arrangement assures the already well-served faster access to their doctors. Like medieval patrons, they present the doctor with a stiff yearly fee on top of insurance payments and out of pocket expenses. In return, the physician takes fewer patients and makes office calls--at your office, not theirs.

"Um, isn't that sort of. . . REPUGNANT?!" I suggested, perhaps a little short on tact.

"What do you mean? Oh. The poor," says Gastroguy.

"Yeah. The poor. And the ordinary. You know: like. . . sick people."

"Well, they come to my emergency room," Gastroguy says, "and I treat them for free. The hospital gets paid, but I don't. . ."

"The poor, they get screwed," says Adguy. "They always get screwed."

I am wearing the look people would have given Marie Antoinette had she ever actually said "Let them eat cake," which she didn't. Adguy takes a little pity on me. "Maybe someday we'll have national health insurance, and then they won't be screwed so much," he said.

I smile and flee, or as close to fleeing as I can, limping along in heels as I am. It's time to go home, put on my Wellingtons, and walk the dog under the heavy half moon. The air is crisp and cool, and it's easier to think kindly on my old friends at a little distance. The problem, I see, is not in them but in me. I'll have to get a small talk intervention before trying this again.

Next time, though, I might try to infiltrate the reunion planning committee. Anyone else think it might be more fun to pile into canoes and do a river clean up project, barbecue, and drink around a campfire?

Does it matter what your business is?

2008-08-01T23:27:00Z

The line in the business section stopped me: "Manitowoc builds ships, cranes, and ice machines. . ."

You can sort of see the ship-crane connection. Once upon a time, the company was building a really beasty boat, and they couldn't get a crane big enough to top it off with whatever you'd plunk atop such a vessel. So they built the crane themselves, or so I imagine. But the ice machines? So much for the "narrative arc," the storyline with a beginning, middle, and end that makes some kind of sense.

One of those things doesn't belong, and the Manitowoc Company has decided it's the ships. I'd have guessed the ice makers, even knowing that the marine business had become the smallest chunk of the pie. After all, people who work in a business identify with the things they create. We're all the heroes of our own lives, and even if it's the same sweaty work, "My daddy builds combat ships and luxury yachts" trumps "well, mine builds honking big stock pots for restaurants."

But when your company's mission is "to continuously improve economic value for our shareholders," I guess it doesn't matter what you do.

It's hard for me to get my head around that. Whatever you spend your time doing is full of meaning, and most businesses start out of a combination of passion and opportunity. So selling off the marine division to an Italian company, Fincantieri, seems an act of kindness. Let the ships sail across the ocean to someone who loves them.

Fincantieri knows what its business is. They've diversified into submarines and ferries, but it's all ships all the time. "With 120 years heritage, 400 vessels and 100 submarines built, Muggiano yard has the reputation for excellence in high-tech, high-quality and high-performance vessels including warships and 'Destriero', holder of the 'Blue Riband' for an Atlantic crossing at over 53 knots average speed." In this, Fincantieri claims it helps to be Italian, with a tradition of mastering sexy design.

In looking only at the bottom line, it's easy not to think much about what choosing ice makers means for the shipyard workers in Manitowoc, Marinette, and Sturgeon Bay. Maybe they'll get to build restaurant equipment and be glad they have any kind of a job. The odds don't seem good, though, when your business has slipped out of a mythic identity that connects it with people and place,

And all things being equal, I bet most employess would rather work for a company like Fincantieri that builds speed, beauty, and excitement for all to see, not just "economic value for shareholders."

Take a chance on Mamma Mia!

2008-07-27T20:56:03Z

The few critics who admit to liking Mamma Mia! the movie—despite their better judgment-- usually try to protect their snark cred. You know the slap-stroke routine: “Clever and well done - in a cringey, cheesey, bizarre way. Now, where did I put my HRT?” (HRT, for those of you who don’t know, is hormone replacement therapy, the bane or blessing of middle aged women.)

Don’t let snobbery keep you away, especially if you’re someone who’s old enough to have a little bit of dancing queen inside you. Or if you’re a man who’s old enough to have had a Stevie Nicks fantasy or two back in the day (okay: or one with a bit of the dancing queen himself).

This movie lifted my spirits, which is the point of most musicals. And I don’t like Abba or musicals. As one Australian critic who "got" Mamma said, “It’s Beach Blanket Bingo meets Zorba The Greek, music by Ulvaeus and Andersson. Nothing more.” In other words, it’s a MUSICAL. It’s not supposed to be Henrik Ibsen’s Dollhouse, and for that we can rejoice.

I’ll go further. There were times the film connected with the audience in a deep way. There were tears and laughter and maybe even a dollop of that classical measure of drama: catharsis. For that, the music is largely responsible.

One critic who "gets" it is Melanie Reid of the UK's Times Online. Of Abba’s music, so mocked by people like me who prefer Tom Waits, Reid pointed out “But the music endured, and its rhythms and combination of sad lyrics and uplifting tunes - what the lyricist Tim Rice calls true genius - has proved us all wrong. This is not dumbing down. This is remembering that the true purpose of art should be to entertain, not to prop up some kind of exclusive club. One is not stupid or compromised if one is uplifted by popular music or drama; nor should one be cowardly in admitting it."

I “got” Abba for the first time hearing the divine Meryl Streep (Donna, the woman who loved and lost--or did she?) singing The Winner Takes It All.

This number alone is worth the price of the movie. It’s campy and at the same time deeply true. And Streep and her most excellent posse (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) are the rest of us out here, fortyish and fiftyish and more--and still alive, loving, and dancing, if only in our hearts. Or as15-year-old Houston teen critic Leigh Jensen, who also “got” it, said: “They were sassy and funny in a way only middle-aged women can be.”

While the old gals--all the old gals on the island--carry the story, ingénue Amanda Seyfried is luminous and adorable, and so are the other young folks.

Over the top: yes. It's a MUSICAL. The story doesn’t really hold. Who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. The accents are improbable: who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. The continuity is off: Donna’s summer of love child would be 40, not 20. Who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. This is Brigadoon territory, people.

Some would like more music. I’d like more of the delicious men, Donna’s old suitors (one of whom is her daughter’s father), played by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard. And no, Brosnan can’t sing, but you know: WHO CARES?

I think the audience at the Majestic Saturday night liked the movie, but this is Wisconsin, after all. We’re private and reserved. I’m with Leigh: “The rest of the moviegoers seemed pretty unexcited. They did not dance once, which shocked and dismayed me. If you're dorky enough to stay up half the night waiting for the release of Mamma Mia! chances are you're not too cool to dance in the aisles. "

I'll willingly suspend disbelief over all of it to be reminded to take some chances.

And any dancing queens willing to take to the aisles with me next time, let me know!

Cleaning tips from the dead

2008-07-26T16:39:10Z

I've been thinking about my mom a lot lately. It's been almost four months since she died, but I find myself thinking about her more, not less.

If I hadn't been thinking about her, I'd have started when her nursing school graduation picture thudded to the floor from its resting place in the closet. It was night time, and I ran to see what had fallen in my room. And there was Mom, in her white cap, youthful beauty, and steady gaze, looking up at me from the floor outside the closet.

If she'd been able to speak, I know how her sentence would have started: "Tine, you really should. . ."

I had been in the kitchen thinking about avoiding cleaning, just as I am doing at the computer now. Mom disapproved of my preference for reading over doing. And one of her favorite "you really shoulds" had to do with getting California Closets(tm) to organize my chaos. I suggested that I'd probably prefer to manage the part of the house people actually see first. But she always knew that you have to get to the bottom of the problem if you want to fix it.

But I digress. I'm really here to give you cleaning tips. Or one cleaning tip to get to the bottom of bathtub stains:

ZUD.

When we cleaned out Mom's apartment, I took the under-sink stuff, spray cleaners and an antique power box of ZUD, the Heavy Duty Cleanser. We'd always had it around the house, but I'd never adopted the habit.

So when I thought I'd better clean the tub in preparation for a nice soak after a long and sweaty walk, I decided to give it a try. None of the Scrubbing Bubbles or bleachy things had worked, and even when clean, the tub looked sad.

No longer. ZUD, an old-fashioned mix of oxalic acid, pumice, and quartz, did the job. I think it also polished my nails, as I didn't bother to wear gloves, figuring that any substance found in rhubarb, lambs' quarter, and chocolate (the oxalic acid) couldn't be too harsh.

Of course, I would be wrong about that: ZUD, the "800 lb gorilla of cleansers" is rated environmentally unfriendly. It kills too much bacteria, so you don't want to use it if you have a septic tank. And never mix it with other cleaners, especially those with chlorine.

But if you have an old, stained, porcelain tub, and you just need to feel like you've really accomplished something. . .listen to Mom.

It’s not just “the economy”

2008-07-22T01:40:00Z

When you get bad news and the shoulder shrug, well, sure, it’s “the economy.” It's also something more. Barring natural disasters, flood and drought and the like, “just the economy” is often an excuse that lets someone—an individual or a corporate body—off the hook.

The excuse hides the big uglies: greed and deceit. But even more often, it hides the commonplace ones. "Really bad decision-making,” including when it comes to voting, is one we can all own now and then.

If defrocked McCain advisor Phil Gramm really meant the “the leaders” when he said we’ve “sort of become a nation of whiners,” then I’m with him. Don’t hear anyone taking responsibility for bad policy or no policy, neglecting to get the right information, bad judgment and all the other failures of leadership, do you?

Two more failures really matter: lack of courage and imagination.

Take Midwest Airlines. Go ahead: no one else wants to right now. When things got bad, did it set out to distinguish itself from other airlines that were serving up deteriorating service?

Nope. It jumped right in to join the race to the bottom, or what’s more generously called “adopting a survival strategy.” After all, almost everybody else is doing it, according to Stealing Share, a marketing firm, in their study of American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, and United airlines.

The key word is “almost.” The airlines that are bucking the trend to advertise relentlessly what they all do equally badly (checking bags, being on time) are doing better. Southwest, the #1 airline, posted its 68^th straight profitable quarter in the beginning of 2008. They did it on actually costing less, not just claiming to, and selling freedom, not just transportation.

The others, you can’t tell apart even with a scorecard. “Worse than before, same as the other guys, and a lot less of it!” Welcome aboard the bandwagon, Midwest!

The marketers say that especially when the economy’s rough, you have to change the game. Think outside the box. Or maybe back in, if the box holds cookies and the best care in the air. People's lives and the community are at stake.

The economy, like Pogo's enemy, is us.

Caffeine, the news, and love

2008-07-17T04:19:22Z

I stopped at Stone Creek on Bluemound for a sinful cup of indulgence, at least in this economy. But sometimes you just have to blow a couple bucks, not only for the sacramental beverage of my people, but for the sense of connection.

Sometimes I run into my neighbors the sudoku-mad-pharmacists bent over the paper or absorbed in conversation with each other. I like them very much. We only exchange occasional small talk, but Sheila fills my prescriptions: she knows a lot about me.

I see people I never talk to, but it's reassuring to see them there day after day, with laptops or horoscopes. I wonder what laptop man is writing. The guy with the horoscopes is old but he won't flirt with me: he likes the young barristas, and who can blame him. Me, I'll flirt with anyone.

I asked for the usual: "Large dark coffee, please."

"Shall I leave room for cream?"

"Um, no, that's okay. Yeah." I wish I didn't talk like that, but I do, and this day in particular I noticed it. Maybe it was because I was dressed like a superannuated Annie Hall in black pants, white shirt, and an ex-husband's glen plaid vest, and I recognized that too.

"I didn't think so. You don't look like the type."

"You can tell right away what people will order?"

"Usually. I knew you wouldn't want anything extra."

"Yeah. That's me. I'm a plain old kinda gal." I wish it weren't so obvious, though. I wish I looked like someone who would order a double espresso frozen soy caramel machiato--and who would know if something was wrong with it. Really tall heels would be involved, and a severe expression. People would fear and lust after me. They would not, however, want to work for me or be my friend.

It has been a hard couple of weeks. The economic vortex has started tugging on my household in a big way.

And the news: oil, Iran, Afghanistan, the economy, the economy, the economy. It's enough to make you throw yourself into the center. If you're going down, you might as well do it fast.

Time again to turn off the radio. Right and left, the media pour on the fear. Your head can't hold all there is to be afraid of.

Remember: the worst seldom comes to pass. And much of the economy is a figment of imagination, anyway. You might as well be optimistic. Don't go overboard and become conservative, though.

Turn off the radio. Take a walk. The air is cool and if you move fast enough, you'll leave the mosquitoes behind. Fireflys are everywhere, hundreds of them, thickest near the dense green edges of things and the new red mulch.

Look right and left. There, up the driveway, another neighbor is pressing his wife of 30 years against the car, kissing her urgently. In the dark, she looks like a young girl.

You remember what matters, and what makes life good. Two out of three; not bad.

Pursuing happiness

2008-07-05T01:29:00Z

Happy Independence Day—whatever that means to you. Because when it comes to history, there’s what we know to be true, what we think to be true, and what we or someone else has invented to support what we wish to be true.

Nobody really knows what Thomas Jefferson and his pals meant when they changed the text of the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress from “life, liberty, and property” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.

In 1884, the Supreme Court declared it meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment.

That’ll satisfy the conservatives among us. But it’s not good enough for me. I like to think there’s another level of emotional fulfillment involved, one that comes with following the leadings of your own particular spirit, with being compassionate and practicing "the habit of small kindness."

For my grandmother, pursuing happiness meant fleeing unhappiness. Not outrunning pogroms or famine, but leaving behind a life that nearly buried her in misery.

The details, a mystery before this, fell out of a small booklet in my mother’s files yesterday.

“Her classmates wondered why Miss Violet Dooley was not in class, having no excused absence,” the tiny, undated newspaper clipping gossiped. “When she returned to school the next day, it was learned that she had been joined in matrimony in Sioux Falls to Mr. Selmer Nelson of Canton.”

That’s not the happy part. That’s the start of the misery part.

Four months pregnant at 17 or 18 in 1921, Violet did what other girls did when they were “caught.” She married my grandfather, a handsome, taciturn farmer. I’ve changed the names, not from shame but to evade identity pirates.

For a couple months, she tried. Her Bride’s Diary has empty pages for gifts and parties, but there are budget entries: $12 for groceries that first month, $1.38 for clothing, $.55 for “investment,” $.45 for entertainment. After May, no more entries.

The family legend is that Selmer’s mother, my great-grandmother, made Violet’s life miserable. Hid her violin, set her to sewing curtains. The curled recipes cut from packages that Violet stuck in the diary are recipes no one with any domestic notions would ever have saved. She was an artist and a dreamer.

In August, a few isolated entries start in my mother’s baby book. Like the marriage, they began in Sioux Falls. “Baby weighed 8 pounds; 25 inches.” That can’t be right, but it’s what’s there.

“Baby is real good. Sleeps through the night.”

Then this, under Baby’s First Trip, apparently in November or December: “She is enjoying her journey to the coast with the Dooleys: Jimmy Schaeffer drove the car for Papa.”

Violet’s mother, father, and sisters rescued her, I think. They pulled up roots and drove her far away to start a new life, settling in Portland. In that same compressed single year was a divorce and another marriage, this time to Jimmy. The couple moved to California to live happily ever after, which turned out to be all of a year. Then my grandmother, who I hope was happy now, died suddenly. Jimmy drove the tow-headed baby girl, now walking, north. With her grandparents and aunts and neighbors raising her, she was a wild and happy child.

It’s hard to imagine the kind of unhappiness that would lead to such radical acts. But I do understand the love of family that allowed Violet’s kin to wrap themselves around her in a time of great need and do what they believed necessary to help her.

One of America’s great gifts to us is the freedom to follow through on our inspirations to acts of compassion. To go where our hearts lead us--in pursuit of property, in pursuit of vocation, in pursuit of what it takes to do more than just survive. Even if no one understands.

Becoming a Badger: some things get better

2008-06-28T01:49:00Z

Once upon a time, my high school friend Vicki, who'd gone to Brigham Young for college because it was the cheapest school with great skiing, called me and asked, "What are you doing next year?" I didn't have any good ideas, so when she said, "Let's go to Madison," I answered "Sure. Why not?"

I can't remember if we drove there in her brother's VW Beetle or took the Badger Bus. But we got there, enrolled, and wandered around until we saw an apartment building on Francis Street with a for-rent sign. The manager gave us the names of two girls who were looking for roommates, we talked to one (Mary Hill of Wauwatosa, it turns out), and we signed the lease. A month later we came back, big brother Jack and a U-haul in tow, and moved into The Surf.

Next step: stand in line for what seemed like a couple of days in the stock pavillion or some such place to sign up for the few classes left after everyone had gotten first dibs.

The message was a subliminal one: Well, you're here. Good luck. Sink or swim; it's up to you.

We thought it was pretty great.

Now Geo's going, but what a different world. There's a sophisticated 2-day orientation, Student Orientation Advising and Registration (SOAR). At the end, you walk away with a schedule and maybe, like Geo, a sweet deal on a Mac laptop. They even let you bring your parents--mainly because parents have changed more than the students. While the kids are off with troops of cheerful guides and advisors in red shirts, the parents are being gently deconditioned by warm and experienced professors. "When your student calls to ask you about their schedule," the charmingly crusty retired bursar tells you, "DON'T answer."

The whole room shifts as people try on a new idea; let the kids float with a different flotation device. The school isn't going to let them sink unless they really want to.

Some of it felt like alternate reality. There are no rotary blades on this single parent's back, and I was not the extremely involved parent for whom much of this excellent program was designed. My kids have been managing themselves for some time, and there was no way Geo would even think of calling me to check on his class choices. For one thing, I don't have a cell phone. I was pretty impressed, though, with the parents who seemed to be ready to learn Korean to help their daughter's new roommate.

But what fun. We met great people from places like Little Chute and Edina. All stayed in Liz Waters, where Geo will be living in fall. Slacker and zealous moms alike were throughly worn out with good will and information by 9 pm. The kids lasted a little longer.

I figure if I stumbled through Madison, Geo will do great. The road is much better prepared for him. And in spite of -- or maybe because of -- my limitations, he's ready to roll.

An inconvenient truth: authenticity is rare

2008-06-20T17:46:00Z

Although the major news media are ignoring it, a recent news release on Al Gore’s energy consumption is propagating madly through smaller publications and right-wing blogs. The point of the press release, from the right-wing think tank Tennessee Center for Policy Research, is that the Gore family consumed an enormous amount of energy--more, not less, than last year. And he’s a big old hypocrite.

I don’t have a problem with pointing out the huge carbon footprint of Gore, who preaches responsible energy use and conservation. But the gleeful furor over his hypocrisy is self-indulgent and not very useful.

Authenticity is important. Being honest about who you are is the basis of trust. Unfortunately, we’re not very objective in considering claims of authenticity. And the media don’t give us the information we need even if we want to work a little at informing ourselves. Instead, they pass along a lot of junk without vetting it.

Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti calls the race between Barack Obama and John McCain an authenticity contest. Obama just lost big points for reneging on his promise to have a publicly funded campaign. Now he’s foregoing the $85 million he’d get in order to jump onto unlimited fundraising bandwagon.

That’s a concerning precedent. How should we think about changes people make in the face of new—or newly understood—reality? The ethical question here is does the need to change the path of American government for the greater good outweigh the need to follow a high-ground decision and be true to your beliefs? And the strategic question is can you win if you try something different, or do you need to stick with what seems to be proven?

I think Obama should have stuck to his guns. That would inspire people who want to send Mr. Smith to Washington, and right now there are a lot of us. But does that make him a hypocrite--or a realist?

Of course, McCain is no more authentic that Obama. He has history as a chameleon, and he’s counting on people having short memories about his views on taxes, immigration, oil, special interests, and more. What lets him get by as "the candidate with character" is the failure of the press to report as critically on the facts behind McCain's claims.

That, and our willingness to believe that being a prisoner of war improves someone's character. I know a few POWs, and I will tell you that many are terribly harmed by their experience. Nobility isn't an assured outcome here.

Wonderful and outrageous journalist Matt Taibbi indicts his own profession for cowardice in telling the truth and being authentic:

Courage is a willingness to face real risks—your neck, or at the very least, your job. The journalist with courage would have threatened to resign rather than repeat George Bush's justifications for invasion before it began. I don't remember anyone resigning last winter. The journalist with courage would threaten to quit rather than do a magazine piece about an advertiser's product, his fad diet book or his magic-bullet baldness cure. It happens every day, and nobody ever quits over it.f journalists had courage, they would form unions and refuse to work for any company that made decisions about editorial content based on the bottom line, on profit?

But even if the press did its job with courage, that would leave us responsible for thinking harder about claims, slogans, and more. The responsibility for finding the truth behind the constant repetition of inauthentic information is ours.

Here’s an example of what happens when we don't take responsibility. On June 3, Tabbi was in New Orleans covering McCain.

. . . here in the Big Easy, John McCain has chosen this moment to mount his first general-election attack against the Great Satanic Liberal Enemy — who, as luck would have it, turns out to be a Negro intellectual from Harvard who's never served in the military. And this is supposed to be a bad year for Republicans?

He interviewed someone named Ron about McCain’s assaults on Obama, which were heartily received by an adoring crowd. It makes for uncomfortable, and telling, reading.

Ron says his problem with Obama is the integrity thing. "He exaggerates too much," Ron says. "He's not honest."

"OK," I say. "What does he exaggerate about?"

"Well, like that time he was saying he had a white mother and a white grandmother," he says.

I ask him how this is an exaggeration.

"Well, he was saying . . ." he begins. "As if that qualifies him to . . ."

Despite my repeated prodding, Ron seems unable or unwilling to say aloud exactly what he means. Finally, his friend Mary, a grave-looking blonde with fierce anger lines around her eyes, jumps in, points a finger and blurts out one of the all-time man-on-the-street quotes.

"Look, you either are or you aren't," she says.

"And he aren't," Ron says, nodding with relief.

Being authentic doesn’t just mean being who we are if we are not very thoughtful or well-informed. It means being trustworthy. To accomplish that, we need to try harder to be better than those we deprecate. Thinking for ourselves requires the courage to discover that we may be wrong sometimes.

Addition: David Brooks wrote a great column about Obama's complexity today. ". . .I have to admit, I’m ambivalent watching all this. On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside. . ."

This just in: Flood brings scams, relief

2008-06-18T21:05:00Z

June 18. Some press releases that might interest you came across my day job desk today.

Emergency food assistance for Milwaukee County flood victims. Governor Doyle announced today that emergency food assistance will be available for residents of Milwaukee and six other counties. However, they only have seven days to apply: the deadline is June 27. If you know someone who has been devastated by the consequences of flooding, let them know they can apply for FoodShare through the county's Department of Health and Human Services. More

Water utility imposters are working the city of Milwaukee. They just might be here, too. The latest scam announced today by Cecilia Gilbert, Department of Public Works, involves people who look official and claim to be investigating floodwater in homes. Usually they work in pairs.

Now's a good time to remind older adults and children in particular to beware of utility worker imposters.

When a utility worker knocks on your door, insist on seeing IDs without opening your door. The legitimate ones will have IDs and are glad to show them. In Milwaukee, call Milwaukee Water Works 414-286-2830 to verify if you are uncertain: in Tosa, you'd probably call the Water Emergency number 414-471-8480 (I called the main number and got a recording, so that seems best. If I'm wrong please let me know). Call police if you suspect an imposter.

And remember: utility personnel never visit homes to collect bills or deliver rebates, inspect plumbing fixtures, or sell products.

The best of schools, the worst of schools?

2008-06-16T06:40:00Z

I just may have shed a few tears Saturday as a bunch of lovely young women (and a few men) in green robes sang "Happy Ending" at Wauwatosa West High School. Still, commencement weekend has been a joyful time. George and I topped it off with gyros at Sts. Helen and Constantine Church tonight. We ran into a beautiful woman who was a student of mine years ago and is now a teacher herself. She says it's my fault, and if that's true I've done one good thing in my life. I bet she's a great one, full of enthusiasm and energy.

And that, plus some heated but polite discussions in the Tosa Town Square about the quality of education and administrative decisions about curriculum and classes, set me to thinking about our family's experiences with the school system here.

I want to thank the district, its teachers and administrators, crossing guard Marge at Underwood and patient Betty Marks at West, and all the rest who helped raise my pretty great kids. The school folks don't think of it that way, but that is what they have done.

There have been some stand-out teachers. Geo and Liz wore golden cords, which means they did better than okay. They also were both accepted at selective private schools, although they decided on state schools. Best of all, they are incredibly solid and well-adjusted people.

But they know they are going to have a lot to overcome in college, because they seldom were really challenged in school. For that, we all share part of the blame; me, the kids, their teachers, and the school district.

The Town Square debates focus on the teaching of reading and math, specifically algebra. Peter Hart's blog already weighed in on the cutting of half the available seats in advanced algebra at Whitman. The underlying question for both is whether a good enough education is good enough, or do we want to give our kids a better shot?

On the good enough side

Parent expectations have changed radically. My parents' generation rarely were involved in kids' school work, and tutors were rare. There wasn't a lucrative industry providing help and enrichment for hefty fees. I don't think there was a demand for it, though there may always have been the need. And yet my cohort, suburban Boomers, were solidly educated. Of course, our parents bemoaned the inferiority of our education and moral character, just as their parents did of them and we do of those who came after us.

Most of us did better in some things than others. The idea was to develop kids who were competent overall. And if they went beyond that, well, that was nice, wasn't it?

Are those who are most disgruntled by the lack of special attention, services, options and so forth suffering from the "keeping up with Joneses factor"? This is the economics notion that as others consume more, we want the same. For us, the Joneses live in Brookfield. They have more Advanced Placement courses, more it seems of just about everything, and their test scores are notably higher than ours.

On the not good enough side

Elmbrook also spends about $1,000 more per pupil each year, according to GreatSchools.net. While there are school districts that "over-perform" for their revenue, like West Allis and ~~Greenfield~~ Greendale, Wauwatosa isn't one of them. Generally, a little more money spent wisely helps.

Does the Elmbrook school district over-invest in its kids, or do we under-invest? That depends on what you believe about fostering "human capital." The magical law of compound interest tells us that investments made early pay big dividends over time. Apparently our neighbors are banking on that.

What are we banking on, if we don't offer advanced math to all the kids who are up to the challenge? Or if we put educational theories and our desire to be right over children's learning--whatever those theories are?

If I think honestly, and that's hard sometimes, I'd say the Tosa schools are 2/3 good, 1/3 not so good. The basis for that formula? Two of my kids had as good an education here as I had at infamous Nicolet. They learned some of the same lessons, including this: you can get by, even do well, with not too much effort. And if you follow the little rules, you can ignore some of the big ones. That's probably true out of school, too. Not the way to thrive, but you can survive. But my first child was almost lost because there wasn't any interest in helping kids who scraped by, even if they showed great promise.

I leave it to you to decide who we cheat if we try to just get by with our kids. But it seems to me that in the battle between the past and the future, the past is winning.

Knowing which way the wind blows

2008-06-13T05:54:00Z

A little after 2:00 this afternoon, tornado sirens went off downtown. I was in a meeting near the top of the Federal Building, and while many of us started shifting around uneasily in our seats, the meeting went on without comment. Finally, someone came in and announced "(the director) would like to remind you that we are at the top of a glass building and you need to go down to the ground floor and away from the windows."

I'm not sure what feeling was greater: relief at being told to actually abide by safety policies or annoyance at the interruption of the meeting. We could have reconvened the meeting in the hallway downstairs, but excitement makes people social. We broke into amiable clusters to chat. The Blackberry enclave was the largest group, all peering down toward their palms like soothsayers, reading the weather radar images thereon and describing the storm's movement from Franklin to the airport. Others were texting friends madly asking what was going on in the outside world.

Now, I know that if we went to our basements every time a tornado watch was announced this week, we'd never get out. But it seems a little odd to ignore the urgency of sirens at the same time we're talking ourselves into a frenzy with every bad weather announcement. My guess is that the people who set the sirens wailing have better information than friend Patty waiting it out in the Art Bar in Riverwest.

When it comes to weather, at least, more data doesn't seem to make us smarter.

Riding the floodwaters

2008-06-09T13:15:00Z

Image from Russ's Picasa web album

Instead of tea leaves, I've been reading the trailings left behind by rising floodwaters. In one species' crisis, it seems, lies another's opportunity. While people are suffering from damage to their material world, plants are getting a chance to spread their progeny into new territory.

The thin sideburns of mostly vegetative debris that mark the highwater points in my neighborhood seem to be dominated by maple leaves. Some have traveled long distances downstream. Or maybe I'm just maple-focused and noticing them more. Baby trees from last year's crop are popping up in even the most carefully tended landscaping mulch--none of which is in my own yard, I hasten to add. I've let my yard go "free," so I don't see the seedlings until they've grown eight feet tall and come tapping at the windows.

If you take a standardized test that asks you how maples transport their seeds and you pick "water" instead of "air" from the answer choices, you'll be marked wrong. But those wings can act as sails and rudders, too. Life is never a simple as multiple choice answers, and the more you observe the harder it is to pick one answer on the tests. Usually, the answer is "usually a, but sometimes b or c, you just never know."

Teaching to those tests leaves a lot out. If you've ever read Michael Pollen's Botany of Desire, you can never see plants in quite the same way. Instead of pawns without will or intention, you see them as entrepreneurs who make use of any means possible to spread their kind throughout the world. You also know that Johnny Appleseed wasn't making farmers happy with the source of apple pie; he was giving them the means to make hard cider, something the settlers appreciated even more. Apples grown from seed are weird and unpredictable, lending themselves best to fermentation.

But back to maple seeds. I wonder if kids today have history with them as some of us do. Growing up in simpler times, we spent countless hours with those little helicopters, twirling them, pasting them on our noses, making tiny dolls with dancing skirts, or just looking through the intricate fiber network of their wings. Nature was a source of delight, occasionally fear, and always wonder.

Can Tosa seize a great opportunity?

2008-05-31T16:17:47Z

I just bought my own home for more than it's worth, and I'm not too upset about it.

How did that happen? About two days after I'd closed on my mortgage refinance, the city's reassessment came through. I'd requested a new tax assessment, knowing that I couldn't possibly sell the house for what the city thought it was worth. The assessor's office responded promptly, without fuss, and the new assessment came it at just about what I'd thought it should -- some $40,000 less than the previous assessment and the real estate appraisal.

All these assessments, the tax appraiser's and the real estate assessor's, are acts of best-guessing by knowledgeable people. Essentially, they are well-researched fiction. Your house is worth what someone decides to pay for it. Right now, that's less than I want, and that's why I refinanced.

Refinancing was part necessity and part an act of faith. Wauwatosa is a great and hugely under-recognized value. Housing prices here never soared to dizzying heights, so the market "correction" won't be as severe as in other places. It's not going to get any cheaper to build houses. And as the cost of fuel -- and everything else -- keeps rising, close-in communities like Tosa that have it all already will look better and better. The far-out suburbs are fast losing their sheen.

But are we proactive enough to make the most of the great opportunities to make Tosa the first place people look to live and locate their businesses? Take a look at Shorewood's website."At the edge of the city and the heart of everything" says it all. Now look at Wauwatosa's. Ours is a good place for residents to get information. But it does nothing to "sell" the city. Nothing to engage the imagination or give people something that says "that looks like my kind of place."

I suppose what we need is a marketing campaign. We don't need to wait for new city plans to be in place before we start to show people that this is where the real center of everything between Milwaukee and Waukesha really is.

The question is, can our leaders see the opportunity to step up what needs to be stepped up (schools, green spaces, and infrastructure) and stride out to lead the parade of people and pocketbooks marching into Tosa?

Voting with your genes

2008-05-28T21:24:46Z

Maybe you thought people turned out to vote because they were passionate about a candidate. Or made rational decisions to vote regularly because their civics teachers convinced them that's what good citizens do. Or their parents trained them to vote.

Turns out your parents have something to do with it, but not because of the way they reared you.

Voting and other political participation is in your genes, it seems. A study by James Fowler and Christopher Dawes to be published in the July issue of the Journal of Politics (and already discussed in the New York Times May 27) even found the two genes that seem to account for voting behavior. And those genes do the job because they have to do with sociability and handling stress. The MAOA gene influences voting activity directly, while the 5HTT gene needs some other social activity (attending church) to make it kick into gear.

If you've got the right versions of the voting genes, you don't get so nervous when people start to bash about in the political arena, even if they are saying rude and hurtful and stupid things. In fact, you may think it's fun. Fowler and Dawes didn't say that, but it sort of follows logically from what they did say.

Bottom line is the sociability factor. When you've got the genes for having the "prosocial" neurochemical process thing going on, you're more likely to "identify as partisans" and form attachments to groups. I'm thinking it has to do with being a fan of any sort. This year church attendance: next year, the researchers might look at season ticket holding.

Both genes have something to do with serotonin absorption. The efficient metabolizer gene variants apparently are like having your own little Prozac manufacturer right in your own little brain.

The church thing is a little fuzzy to me. But the authors seem to say if you've got the right form of the genes and you actively attend church, you're likely to be influenced by political information received there. The religious right seems to have figured that out long ago.

The Times says "If certain genes make us more receptive to political messages, or more or less likely to vote, then we know the next step society must take: Keep the drugs that target the specific genes out of the hands of political consultants."

But in the meantime, if you're running for political office, attend church, hang out with sociable people, go to soccer games, and attach yourself to people who aren't afraid to get a little nasty when it comes to political talk. That's where the voters are.

And were, in Tosa, a few months ago.

Discussion ring now open. Spirited--but not mean-spirted--discussion welcome!

Memorial Day is about remembering our better nature

2008-05-27T02:15:35Z

The terribleness and grandeur of young people going off in waves to fight is the stuff myths are made of. No wonder the rhetoric of war is timeless and nonspecific. No wonder each war seems to blend into the ones before and the ones after.

Today's speech may have been President Bush's best Memorial Day speech yet. He remembered that the day was not about a particular political agenda but about something bigger.

The names of these honored are known only to the Creator who delivered them home from the anguish of war -- but their valor is known to us all. It's the same valor that endured the stinging cold of Valley Forge. It is the same valor that planted the proud colors of a great nation on a mountaintop on Iwo Jima. It is the same valor that charged fearlessly through the assault of enemy fire from the mountains of Afghanistan to the deserts of Iraq. It is the valor that has defined the armed forces of the United States of America throughout our history.

Some of us remember that engagement in the war in Iraq bears no resemblance to the American Revolution or World War II. But we'll let that pass as we honor those who live and die with valor--or without it. It's only at a remove that we see the glory in death. Some of us don't see it even then.

On this Memorial Day, I stand before you as the Commander-in-Chief and try to tell you how proud I am at the sacrifice and service of the men and women who wear our uniform. They're an awesome bunch of people and the United States is blessed to have such citizens.

At this point, there was a standing ovation. One women even rose to shout "Whoo-hoo," so inspired was she by this stirring speech, according to the Orange County Register.

It's easy to get people going these days. One hundred and fourteen years ago, it took more. Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr. took seven pages of speechifying to inspire people:

But, nevertheless, the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us. But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.

(Note the source of the title of the Mariane Pearl book/Angelina Jolie movie A Mighty Heart.)

I ask no apology of you who think it's unfair to point out the President's communication limitations. If you're the Leader of the Free World and Commander in Chief, you ought to be able to stick with the speech writer's art and rise above "awesome bunch." You might want to point out that life should be a spirited and passionate activity for all of us, not only the soldiers among us.

After the speech, Bush met with important advisors from a recent trip to the Middle East: five NCAA head football coaches. Tommy Tuberville, Auburn University, had met a soldier who'd lost part of his leg to a roadside bomb.

"I have kids their age and I'd like my kids to meet some of those people. Every one of them look you in the eye, shake your hand, tell them about their mission, what they're doing. ... Our college kids lead a pretty nice life and those kids are over there serving our country and just doing a great job," the Register reported.

Awesome, coach!

I wonder what Tuberville's kids would make of Holmes' second famous Memorial Day speech in 1895:

In this snug, over-safe corner of the world we need (the message of living life for a purpose), that we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempstuous untamed streaming of the world, and in order that we may be ready for danger. We need it in this time of individualist negations. . . revolting at discipline, loving fleshpots, and denying that anything is worthy of reverence--in order that we may remember all that buffoons forget. We need it everywhere and at all times. For high and dangerous action teaches us to believe as right beyond dispute things for which our doubting minds are slow to find words of proof. Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism. The proof comes later, and even may never come.

Soldiers understand that. So should we all.

And not only for going to war.

Food frugality

2008-05-22T21:09:50Z

Tosan Nancy Stohs, food editor at the Journal Sentinel, recently published food shopping tips from a financial counselor. And a good idea, now that food is going the way of gasoline, price-wise.

I can't match the financial counselor's $3 dinner/day/person . (And to tell you the truth, I don't believe she does it, either). But I'm getting better. I’m experimenting with my own approach, the $1.99 rule. Don’t buy anything that costs more than $1.99 a pound at the grocery store.

If you nudge it up to $2, you can have your strawberries and eat 'em, too. Shopping at Sendiks (the closest stores to my house) and applying the rule, we’ve been putting together meals with said strawberries plus green beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, brown rice, and the like.

I had to cheat on two items. Anchovies were almost a buck for 2 ozs. But a little goes a long way. The big surprise was bread. Four water rolls, lots of air, weighing in around half a pound, set me back $2.20. I’m having to regroup on bread: flour, water, yeast, and salt are bubbling away right now at home and will become a loaf for less than a dollar by nightfall.

The most successful $1.99 a pound or less meal was soup: beets, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, red cabbage, onions, and a few assorted odds and ends from the crisper drawer. Add some honey and vinegar, a dollop of sour cream later. Heavenly color and good for you, too.

What are you doing for good eats on the cheap?