sturvoni - busy being born

Busy birth

2010-04-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

So now I'm a grandfather. I've accepted Grampy Jim as a placeholder address until Rocco begins to pay attention. It' s an amusing title and I'll answer to anything he wants. So here are a few photos that catch a few moments in the rapid growth of the boy. Born February 27, 2010 and just about 2 months old. He weighed in at 13 lbs. 9 0z. last friday, which is up significantly from the photos posted here. Its "like starting over" from when Tony was born back on December 9, 1977 and I got back to basics, trying to appreciate life at its inception and wonder. Busy being born, indeed. Being born is totally busy. Keeping it up is the trick. But with parents like Tony and Erica, Rocco is one fortunate son.

Noodles by Night in Urumqi

2009-07-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

And, here we are...Kathy, Mary Jo, me and Chuck.

Urumqi by Night

2009-07-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

urumqi

2009-07-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Just three years ago, four of us found ourselves in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, as a stop on our tour of the China portion of the Silk Route. One of the more remarkable facts we learned as we approached Urumqi was that it is considered the most remote city from any sea in the world i.e. its about 1400 miles from any oceanic coastline. So its a bit of a drive to the beach. The biggest surprise for us, though, was the sheer cosmopolitan size of the place with over 2 million inhabitants.

Our local Hui guide was most accomodating and we wandered throughout the city prior to catching a plane for Kashgar where our guide was Uyghur. I'll have to post some additional photos to show you where our Urumchi guide, "Joseph", took us for a very tasty meal of noodles, lamb kabob and I can't remember what. But it was all good and the atmosphere unbeatable.

I post this now because of concern about the people we met in both Urumqi and Kashgar and the violence reported during the last month there. It appeared during the several days we visited both cities, that the Uyghur inhabited only the old, gradually ebbing, stone part of the city while the Chinese, many of them, recent immigrants from the east, lived on the modern, steel, neon and concrete side of the street. The demarcations were abrupt and vivid in that respect; a century or so between curbs.

However, our days so far from the beach, as on other stops along the Route, was rich and inspiring. Who knew?

Happy New February!

2009-02-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

OK. It's late and semi-coherent, but this is what we sent out this year over the holidays. I hope its readable. If not, well, let me know and I'll send one directly to you. I may also get around to more posting...later...that will include dome of the individual photos and/or substance of what's been happening. [I once considered creating a superhero by the name of ANDOR! or, AND/OR, the Great Equivicator!). I'm also considering a Facebook presence. Will it make my life easier? Later.

...so it goes.

2008-12-11T20:38:00.000-08:00

You wait long enough and someone you care about no longer is busy being born and...is busy dying. November 19, 2008 at 6:12 p.m. Dad finished his business. And, once he made up his mind, it took him less than a week. On Thursday, November 13, shortly after noon, his oncologist, informed him that the chemo wasn't working, the tumor on his pancrease had grown, and the only thing left to prescribe for him, was hospice. Dad was stoic, although he said later that he was surprised, that despite being bedridden for a month, he was going to beat it. Like he did before. That same night he told Bill that he would be dead in a week. The nurse at Hospice House said "no way". He was much too strong and would be around a few more weeks, at least. But he didn't see the point in that. On that last day, Mom and I took a break after 8 hours in his room. Ten minutes after we left him, he let go. He liked to be alone for moments like that.

He had good run. Here's his obit:

http://obit.petersonkraemer.com/obitdisplay.html?id=605574&listing=Current

Now, where was I...?

2008-07-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, a few days after the March 27 report on sugaring up north, MJ and I flew to Istanbul for a couple of days and then Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan until April 21 and 1400 photos later. One of those photos is at left, the tomb of Amir Timur (or, in the West, Tamur the Lame aka Tamerlane) in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. A terrific odyssey into the post Soviet world of Central Asia 15 years after the Russians told the Turkmen, Uzbeks and others that, like it or not, they were on their own. Independent, as it were. Of course, for many, that meant independence from jobs, housing, pensions, education. From cradle to grave. Hello, grave. The strongest party boss took power while the Russians took much of the parts and hardware from the factories and the citizens took a look around and said "whoa! Now what?" Some reached back into the family traditions dusted off neglected tools, revisited the skills of the older folks and fired up the cottage industries of ceramics, paper making, fiber art, jewelry making, etc.

We visited many homes and small workshops and saw (and purchased) beautiful items while being treated to demonstrations and a meal. I'll get into more of this later but we also have a wedding being planned for September 27. 2008 and, to introduce the fiance, we shared Tickfest 2008 with the Schiavoni siblings. More on that later, too.

2005 & 2007 Sap runs

2008-03-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

March maple madness

2008-03-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

March 2008 is just about over. The vernal equinox passed by last week which occasioned Ma Nature to dump a load of snow on us Madisonions. Being the good northerners that we are, we cheered it on, somewhat, because, having already broken the old seasonal snow fall record of about 76 inches, we wanted to break 100, which we did with a follow up of about one half an inch after the post Spring 7 inches. Now its time to say good by to Winter. We have crocuses, snowdrops and helibores blooming although 150 miles north there's still a lot of snow. And its time for the sap to run. That's March Madness Up North. Tap them trees, collect that sap and boil it down over an open fire. And you all know that it takes 37 gallons of sap for one gallon of maple syrup. That's a lot of tapping, trudging and pouring. But I'll miss it this year. Uzbekistan calls. Samarkand. See you later.

The romance of night hockey

2008-02-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

One week ago. Tomorrow we do it all again. I can't wait.

More iceholes

2008-02-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

Just an excuse to post a couple of more photos that didn't make the transfer. That's Al, Tom, some kid, and Jack in the shanty.

Iceholes

2008-02-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

Iceholers. January and Lake Mendota froze over. The shanty was hauled out and the games began. The games...and the shoveling, blowing, hauling, drinking, laughing, aching. Sundays at 1; Wednesdays at 7pm. or thereabouts. Last Wednesday, 6 of us, about average for the night game. Plastic puck with a glowstick in it. Snow falling, glasses fogging, beer and icehole going down. Shovel till 7:30, play til 10ish, drink and jaw until midnight. Superbowl Sunday; played for a couple hours, hung out until holers drifted off to various plans for watching Superbowl XLII. Icehole? Its a peppermint schnapps made over in Minnesota with an icefishing hole on the label. We've adopted it. Our pond hockey ID. All comers. Generations. Great piece of ephemeral real estate. Middle of Madison. View of the Capitol. Picture window, woodburning stove, candles. No rent. No electricity, no sound system. Voices and heavy breathing. Play to 5, keep going or take a break. Depends on how winded and/or frozen. Usually sweating and steaming. Sometimes subzero. A rush. Something special. Al, Jack, Paul, Tom, Eric, Tony, Chris, Jason, Mike, Jeff, David, Dave lately; in days of yore; Dave, Lauris, Beezer, Tom, Natasha, Sabrina, Angie and many others who have come and gone.

Wausau, Color and MLK

2008-01-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

It's Martin Luther King, Jr Day as celebrated this year, 2008, on January 21. I never tire of listening to his "I Have a Dream" speech. Today I watched the video and it moved me again, watching him read much of it, head bowed, occasional glancing right, left and forward. A hand reaches in to lower his microphones to match his low delivery; but when he intones the first "I have a dream..." he forsakes his text, looks to the heavens and all but those two microphones are also uplifted. And I recall again the day late in 1966 or early 1967 (I forget) when Dr. King came to Wausau, to the University of Wisconsin Marathon County Center as it was known in that day.

I had just completed my term as president of the student government and was involved in the selection of a speaker for a student assembly. Somehow we had, I think, about $5000 to pay out to someone of national stature to come to our northern outpost. There was a list someone had proposed from which a selection would be made and it was put to some sort of a vote of the student council membership. Still a birthright Republican and a Goldwater supporter (not a rabid but more of a radical position I took at that time) I voted for William F. Buckley but was not the least disappointed when King was chosen because, believe it or not, I was into the civil rights movement. I shall digress...

The Wausau of my youth had no people of color. None. However, a combination of the purer christian teachings of my catholic education, an awareness of the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution and my father's attitudes and actions resulted in an uncontradicted fundamental belief that all people were created equal, whether under the law of god or the law of the USA. Of course slavery and discrimination were evil and, somewhat paradoxically, the absence of racial differences among the residents of Marathon County Wisconsin solidified that assumption because there were no confrontations to even suggest bigotry or racism because there was no one around against which to discriminate on the basis of race. So this provincial little white boy went all the way through high school without ever meeting a flesh and blood "Negro". But isolated incidents began accumulating and, because of their relative singularity, they became that much more memorable...

One such incident: a very brief item printed the the Wausau Daily Record Herald reported that the "first" black man ever had moved into a home in rural Marathon County just east of town. I believe it was near Hatley or Bevent. A few weeks or months later another small item appeared in the interior of the newspaper and reported that fire, probably due to lightening, had destroyed the home of the first black man to settle in the county and that the man had left the county, whereabouts unknown.

I also recall that my father came home from work rather upset one day in the early 60's and told us that news of the civil rights protests was brought up among his co-workers. Dad said he opined that the protests were a good thing due to the discrimination in the South (Dad had trained in Biloxi, Mississippi prior to going off to WWII as a tailgunner in a B-24). One of the guys suggested that he wouldn't feel that way if he had a daughter and his daughter married one of them. Dad replied that he would rather have his daughter marry a black man rather than someone like his co-worker. I guess the shit hit the fan with that. I recall thinking; cool.

Then the Job Corps workers came to town. I was 18 and had just graduated from high school and got a job at American Can Company through the efforts of my uncle Don (and joined my first union, the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers. Dad didn't have much use for unions, however and would probably not have his daughter marry a union man.).
The Job Corps was one of LBJ's civil rights programs that got kids out of the cities to work in rural and suburban areas. Camp McCoy, up towards Black River Falls, was one of the sites where workers were housed and for a little r&r, a group was brought to Wausau to hang out and see the sights. In fact, I saw my first African-Americans, a few of the Job Corps kids, walking down the street a couple blocks from my home. My street was Grand Avenue, US Highway 51 which ran through the city of Wausau (and, somewhat ironically, the Highway I drove down on my first trip though Mississippi as a truckdriver several years later). I heard some guys in passing cars yelling something at these visitors but there was a lot of traffic and I couldn't hear what but I was terrifically naive and didn't think much of it, until I went back to work a couple of days later.

[The job was to catch paper products, mostly soap and ice cream containers, that started out at one end of a long and complicated machine as a roll of paper and, after being cut, folded and glued, that a couple of workers would catch and put in cardboard boxes for shipping to Proctor and Gamble or Sealtest or some such food processor. It was noisy, dusty and gloomy place as were the men who worked there. The kind of job that certified one's decision to continue with higher education. There were scheduled breaks but many unscheduled ones caused by machinery breakdowns when conversations could resume.]

That day, the conversations were, to say the least, heated. As I recall one guy came over to where I and a lifer were working and ranted about the black kids who had come to town and that the only reason he was living up in the cold north was because there were no "n.......s" living here. I took a cue from my father's on the job confrontations and suggested that people of color had every right to be here. My co-worker on that machine told me that I wouldn't talk that way if I lived in South Africa where the blacks carried submachine guns and shot white people. I replied that I hadn't been to South Africa but I did know he had the situation backward. We worked directly across from each other about two feet apart and he never said another word to me.

I also had this dream. I'm not sure when but, despite my egalitarian views, I also had a certain anxiety about actually meeting and touching a black person. It was the unknown. The dream was so simple but it was also incredibly vivid and unlike any other dream I can recall. I shook hands with a black man and it was ok. And that anxiety was erased years by a dream prior to the real thing.

Anyway. I'm drafted to usher at the appearance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which took place on Marathon County Park grounds adjacent to the UW Center in a structure called the Youth Building, which was essentially a gym where I played basketball and lifted weights. It was also a site for judging events at the annual Wisconsin Valley Fair. The stage was set at one end of the hall and folding chairs were set up for the full house of attendees and I simply helped people find seating in addition to guiding dignitaries to the front rows. There was some tension due to the fact that someone, rumored to be some UW students, had burned a cross somewhere in the neighborhood the night before. Now, I cannot recall much at all about Dr. King's oration other than all went well, without disruptions, and he was applauded and then led off stage right, to the room where I lifted weights, for a press conference. One of the openings to the room was directly to the side of the podium set up for the press conference and my job was to just stand there (I was wearing my only suit, the one I got for high school graduation) and just keep anyone from wondering in. No one made any attempt to do so. As I watched the press conference from that vantage point the only sight line I had was directly toward King's left and at a certain point he cast a wary look at me. Up to that point I was fairly blase about the whole event but that moment of eye contact with Martin Luther King, Jr. had a power that created an imprint in my memory and psyche few other moments have in my life. And this wasn't a memory recovered after his assassination less than two years later nor occasioned by his "I Have a Dream" speech three years earlier. I had yet to wake up to that. This was, to put it rather tritely, a Magic Moment. A moment of true inspiration ignited by a man probably and rightfully suspicious of some guy lurking in relatively close confines. A moment of inspiration ignited by a great man, a man of such power, intelligence and goodness that the forces of ignorance and fear had to destroy. But how fortunate was I to have had that moment and I am ever (and, I hope, humbly) grateful for that moment.

Happy Birthday to Martin Luther King, Jr.

2008-01-10T19:48:00.000-08:00

So way back on Thanksgiving I took the family to see Todd Haynes' cinematic impression(s) of Bob Dylan I'm Not There, (link to Hayne's bio and note some of his work; "Far From Heaven" and his 1985 short "Assassins-A Film Concerning Rimbaud" another "aha!" Dylan connection.) Loved the film. Love Dylan. He's a member of the family in the way he's been part of my life for about 40 years now. In spite of, or maybe, because of, his occasional unlikability, exasperation and infuriation. But his words, work, meanderings and mystery has always kept me interested.

You can google this film and get all sorts of analyses and critiques and it is kinda dylanesque in how and why you respond to the film. To each his own. I smiled through most of it. You know, that (sometimes smug) delight that comes from one's personal recognition of performances, lyrics, legend and associations one may note in a film. I have one, in particular in "I'm Not There". It made me laugh. Admittedly a self-satisfied laugh but here it is...

Haynes gives the various characters different names; Jude, Woody Guthrie, Jack, Arthur and Richard Gere as, according to the cool "Official Guide the the Movie" that was given out at the theater, Billy. No character is named or addressed as "Bob Dylan". However, you have Richard Gere in that Western period setting. The Basement Tapes motif is certainly evoked in that segment but there was one moment, basically one word, that rolled me back in my comfortable, 608 Sundance movie chair. Gere/Billy is wandering around the scene with some very interesting characters, animals and just odd stuff all over when he comes upon this guy kind of hunkered down with, as I recall, a wife and kid or two near a wagon or some piece of equipment (no, I haven't attended a second viewing, yet.). Gere saunters over to this family tableau and says one work of greeting..."Chester". Immediately, from the depths of my television saturated mind came the programmed response "Mr. Dillon"................The INT character, of course, did not say "dillon/dylan" and I cannot recall what he said because I was listening for any other audience reaction, of which there was none but I was plenty pleased with my reaction/recognition. Of course, on the heels of that sweet thrill came the question; coincidence or did Haynes' only mention of the name or sound of "Dylan" come in an ethereal, unuttered reply that reached back to how Dennis Weaver's Chester would respond to James Arness's Matt Dillon every week in that great, black and white tv classic, "Gunsmoke"? That's how it would go, the man of few words Matt Dillon would greet people with just their name; "Miss Kitty" - "Hello, Matt" "Doc" - "Matt" but when he acknowledged "Chester", Chester would reply "Mr. Dillon". Of course, Chester's replacement, Festus addressed Mr. Dillon as "Matthew" but then that was in color and a 60 minute format. That's it. A moment of particular pleasure in a pleasurable film.

Happy and/or Holy Holidays 2007-2008

2007-11-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

This photo is what you may or may not receive in an envelope along with our somewhat annual letter/card for the holidays. It goes like this:

'Twas the year 2007 and with our usual shtick,
Here's our annual letter along with a pick.
(The event was the wedding of Zaid & Amelia.
MJ was the Parson who pronounced them "Zamelia".

You see, Mary Jo was ordained in our house,
On a spiritual website, with a click of the mouse.
So now while she arbitrates , knits, weaves or spins
She just might agree to forgive you your sins.

Tony's here in Med School (he has his white coat),
And Erica's ed. doctorate is not so remote.
Angie's in SF, her life still awhirl,
You can give it a look-see at one of these URLs:
http://www.newprogressivecoalition.com/
http://schiavonifiles.blogspot.com/

In Feb. Jim turned 60 and now's unemployed
But he's a pensioner, baby, and so not annoyed.
This fall he and MJ toured Canada and the U.P.
Went rock pickin' and camping on the shores of Gitch Gumee

So as we all wonder what the New Year portends
Here's to the health and happiness of family and friends
And as we close this epistle with one final rhyme

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL...AND TO ALL, A GOOD TIME.

Jim & Mary Jo

P.S. We hope this ain't cryptic, a drag or a bore,
but email or call us if you want to know more.
sturvoni@tds.net

October 18, 1967: Dow Day

2007-10-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Forty years ago, just about this time, 2 p.m., Ron Hughes and I were in Bascom Hall in a Spanish Literature class. We had been in Madison a little more than a month. Living away from home for the first time. And we were 20 years old (two years at "the Stench"; the University of Wisconsin, Marathon County Center but previously the University "Extension", hence, the Stench). Four guys (incl. Tom Jehn and Bruce Green) from Wausau sharing a two bunkroom apartment at The Regent, a glossily promoted upscale dorm kinda place dangled by our guidance counselor as a cool place to live. And four green guys from the Northwoods bought into it.
So...here we were. In Spanish Lit and listening to considerable noise and commotion in the parking lot three stories below. We know that the Dow company was interviewing and recruiting at the business school next door and students had been picketing that manufacturer of napalm. We also knew one of the picketers, Roland Olson, big brother of another Regent foursome from Wausau, Matt Olson. Roland was unusual because he was carrying an infant (not many little kids on campus back then and he was the first of our generation that we knew wearing wire rim glasses). The prof said that important things were happening and he would let us go early, but he did not. The bell finally rang and we ran outside Bascom Hall and were confronted with a very angry, very loud and very large crowd of students whose focus was a paddy wagon with students visible in the windows and ringed by armed cops with helments and face shields. I had never seen emotions so intense in a group of people although high school football games begged for a silly comparison.
Anyway, after a few minutes of orientation and, mostly, confusion, I heard a pop and then a smoking object landed about six feet to my right near the curb of the drive. Holy shit! It was tear gas and then more pops and more smoking cannisters. Chaos! Hughes went in one direction and I another, northeast, toward the lake, which happened to be upwind, which allowed me to escape the gas after running about ten yards into the trees. People were, of course, screaming in rage as well as pain and I managed to help a few people to their feet.
The crowd generally dispersed, but mainly into small groups talking and arguing about what the hell was going on. I was not particularly politicized about Viet Nam yet but I was now confronted with it. Yes, it was traumatic. My first act of rebellion followed as I made my troubling walk back to the Regent. I bought my first pack of cigarettes, Salems, and, dammit, lit one up.

Up North

2007-08-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm heading out into the woods tomorrow. Finally for a period longer than a 3-day week-end. Got plans to do things like build a funky woodshed, repair stuff, hike around, maybe even fish; although fishing to me is almost as much work as felling trees and splitting firewood, which I really do enjoy. Gotta check out the beaver pond on the back forty and see if the water level as risen enough to give the beavs any problem with their dams. They have two dams now within 20 feet of each other. The lower one captures a small tributary that flows in, very slowly, beneath the much larger structure so they have created a rather sizable body of water. There is a convenient tree to lean back on there and just soak it all in. Total nature immersion. And there are no invasive species (save for me) that I recognize. No buckthorn, honeysuckle, wild grape or locust. Just sugar maple, birch, oak, alder and basswood. And blueberries, wintergreen, lycopodium, mosses, lichen and rocks. And deerflies and mosquitos at certain times, too. Keeps out the riff-raff. But the sandhill crane family, loons, turkeys and bald eagles offset the insects, somewhat. And we have a sizeable black bear hanging around the neighborhood, too.

The moon is waxing and I'll be up there when it's full on the 28th. Won't see as many stars but I'll be able to walk around at night without a flashlight. Of course, its likely to be overcast and, therefore, no night sky to speak of. But I have a lot to read (current novel: Orhan Pamuk's "The Black Book) and a lot to ponder...and hummingbirds to feed.

ट्रांस्लितेरेशन Transliteration

2007-08-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Transliteration...or, how did I acquire the ability to render this in Hindi? Threw me off my game. Changed the title from something about crickets. Finally figured it out. दुह । Crickets are almost constant now here in southern Wisconsin। They ratchet up their sawsound about the time the back-to-school sales begin and football news starts crowding the pennant races। But I am sadly unilingual and am as likely to carry on a conversation in a language other than English as carry on a discourse with crickets. You know the joke ( I heard it in the film The Blue Diner ): You ask "what do you call someone who speaks two languages?"; the answer, of course, is 'bilingual'. Then you ask the same for three languages, answer; trilingual. Many languages? Multilingual. Then you ask "what do you call someone who speaks and understands one language? The answer..."American". There are those "americans" who are so obsessesed with creating a law that would make English the national language. Must be because its the only one we know. Its kinda hard calling someone who speaks or understands more languages than you, ignorant.

Speaking of cultural differences...what's up with americans and anise? Anise, fennel or licorice, that wonderful, universal flavor whether from licorice root or anise/fennel plant, shows up just about everywhere I've traveled or sampled off liquor store shelves but it is getting more difficult to find even a Twizzler licorice in a convenience store or pitstop anymore. And "red licorice" is not licorice, godammit. Italy even had licorice Skittles! And in different flavors. Consider mint licorice. Alcoholwise, Italy has Sambuco; France, Pernod; Turkey, Raki; Greece, Ouzo. What does America have? Anisette. Little more than a flavoring agent. And for what? There seems to be a national aversion to anise flavored anything. At least in the mass market. And why? As a nation of immigrants why hasn't anise stayed with the population. Could it be that immigrants weren't fleeing religious persecution or economic disasters but anise? Sometimes I wonder...

Passages

2007-07-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

In the month of June 2007, four of the Schiavoni/Sturm/Johnson/Maxwell clan pictured in a photo of a photo from about 15 years ago celebrated their respective milestones of graduations, a marriage and an enlistment. The photo photo was taken at Nick Schiavoni's high school granduation. In the holiday photo, he's fourth from left on cousin Bri Schiavoni's lap. At his graduation party, June 16, the valedictorian & boxing champ posed with his posse. The bluish guy at far left in the old photo, Zamilia (Zaid Maxwell & Amelia Styer) were married in Chicago on June 30. No contemporary photo of Ohio college grad, Mark Schiavoni was available. He did not have a party. He's on Angie Schiavoni's lap 5th from right. Next to Mark, on Tony Sturm's lap is Gabe Johnson. Young Gabe joined the Navy in June and left his tearful mother, Lisa Schiavoni, shortly after Nick's graduation blowout. Lisa says she cried when he left but would cry harder if Gabe is returned.

Congrats, of course, to all, including everyone else who may not have had so obvious a transition as these four or who did not have the good fortune to stumble in front of my camera during their respective festivities. Those in the "Holidays in Wisconsin" photo photo not mentioned, Joe and Dan Schiavoni and Max Johnson, were huge influences on the level of revelry at each and every event they attend. As did Tony, Angie and Bri who donated their laps to their l'il cousins so long ago. Although Gabe's passage was not shared by the rest of the family in the form of a hall and a DJ, it is understood that he shared his joy in joining the Navy with the rest of north central Florida around his Gainesville home. And, although he did not have a college graduaton party, Mark was give a bash just like his brothers four years earlier.

And how about the Reverend Mary Jo Schiavoni who conducted the Zamelia wedding ceremony? After seconds of rigorous study she was ordained online just days before their Chicago wedding. And a spectacular wedding it was. My photos of both events are on my web album which are open to the public but I cannot, for the moment recall how to link it up. Prosit!

Greensburg, Kansas

2007-06-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

June 4, 2007: We left Albuquerque at 9 a.m., passed through the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and into Kansas on U.S. 54 and we're getting hungry. All the towns listed in the Atlas are small or virtual ghost towns with no cafes. But Greensburg is listed on most mileage signs and at a crossroads so that's our goal figuring that, if it merits a sign, it must have a place to eat. We're looking for Kansas steaks, by the way. At Bucklin, eight miles before Greensburg, we find an open cafe with meat and potatoes and chow down. I pick up the Hutchinson, KS Leader, the local paper, and the headline has a One Month Ago Today headline with a big photo of a flattened Greensburg. The tornado struck Greensburg on May 4. We drove the eight miles. Highway 54 goes right through Greensburg's north end. The grain elevator (every town in Kansas, seems to have one) on the north end was the only structure to appear to be undamaged. Everything else was mostly flattened with just a few beat-up structures for relief. It was similar to what I saw of Katrina over 90 miles on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, meaning it was total destruction. There's nothing left for a round 2. Greensburg had a high school and a city hall. Just some brick walls remained. The Guard or Army Reserves has trucks and tents on the track and foot ball field. The rest of the photos I took will be on my photo site.

Off to see the Lizards

2007-05-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, I have a photo blog http://picasaweb.google.com/sturvoni/OkefenokeeKayakRide?pli=1but have only one of many albums submitted. For now. And we're off, too, to the Bay Area, to see the wizards and wizardesses of that Ozzie land. After 4 days or so of hanging with the Turners, Tony, Erica, and Angie, its another Road Trip! To the Grand Canyon, Carol in Sedona and Merle in Albuquerque.

pogo

2007-05-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am with my friend, Pogo Possumhttp://www.pogopossum.com/index.htm at the north entry to the Okefenokee. We were turned away from this entry because of the emergence of the wildfire that's burned in the area since then. Fortunately we were able to enter at the southeastern entry for the refuge http://www.fws.gov/okefenokee/

Albert?

2007-05-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here's one of our friends checking out our kayak in the Okefenokee.

Al McGuire

2007-05-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Even though it's a "busy being born" theme, I'm busy seeking an identity, or at least a blogger sense and purpose while self-consciensely trying to avoid pretentiousness. So I've carried around a stagnant list of "blogits" that stopped after:
Al McGuire
Should have said at 60th
Urban/Wild Dinner
During the NCAA madness (of which I am afflicted) the NYTimes ran a piece by Ray Glier on April 1, on the inimitable Al McGuire the second paragraph of which, in its entirety, says:
"McGuire, who was 72 when he died of leukemia in 2001, would suggest to his players that they spend six months bartending and six months driving a cab after graduation. They would be better prepared for life, he said."
In 1964, Marquette basketball coach, Al McGuire was the speaker at my Wausau Newman High School athletic banquent. He gave that same advice to us all-white, dumbass, midwest Catholic jocks. I was so impressed. He spoke to us as people, not as kids or subjects. He was...comfortable and sensible, as far as I could see. I don't recall any other adult figure in my life, teachers, friends or family that hit such a home run with me. Bart Starr certainly didn't the next year as our speaker. Stiff, remote, irrelevant, the evil twin of Al. And Bart was the superstar. Al's celebrity was waiting for the NCAA championship in 1977, the year he retired from BB. And so I finally got it together and signed on as a bartender in 1972. And Al was right. I'll follow up on this some other time.
I signed in today because of a random restaurant review in the Capital Times today of the restaurant called The Old Fashioned and its old Wisconsin menu that included string potatoes which triggered a recollection of my encounter with string potatoes, or the potato chip like snack food that came in bags or cans. This must have been in about 1960 or so when I spend much time walking the shore of the Wisconsin River which wound through Wausau and approached within a few blocks of the childhood home. An early scavanger (a family tradition) I found floating in the "hardest working river in the world" a sealed No. 10 can with no label. I took it home and Dad and I opened it. Of course, it was a commercial size can of shoe string potatos. Ever practical Dad noted the previously sealed contents and said, without any concern for where the can was found floating for who knows how long; "Let's eat". This, of course, was on course with the dump garden experience where a produce company dumped a load of old stuff early one spring and by fall all sorts of stuff had sprouted and Pa reasoned that it had to OK and we harvested lots of stuff. We also hunted rats in that same dump.

Something

2007-04-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

Yes. Retirement is OK. We just got back from a 2 week road trip with an endpoint in St. Augustine, FL. and we will be flying out to SF on May 24 and driving our old van back with whatever Tony and Erica want to send with us. Speaking of Tony and Erica, those two and I went up north the day after the party and continued the sap run and boiled down another gallon of syrup (about 40 gallons of sap). And if you are interested in T, E & Angie making sausage a couple of weeks ago, check this out...
http://www.ethicurean.com/images/slideshows/salumi2007/
mmmm...

Savannahland

2007-04-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

Just returned, April 24, from the Southeast Coast; Savannah and St. Augustine where, serendipitously, we got a personal tour of the renovation of possibly the oldest house in the USA. And with the owner, a product of Wausau, no less and also a graduate of Newman H.S.; she, the class of 61, me, '65. The house, the surviving walls and facade of which are made of coquina, a sedimentary rock made of shell fragments, was, according to the national historic place plaque, orginally constructed about 1583, or so I recall (I forgot my camera as well as just forgot). The Newman grad is just completing a massive renovation and rehab and was going to spend her
first night there along with her sister and brother in law the night of the day we visited.

We were all in the area for the wedding of Carl Jehn, Tom and Heidi's son, just south of town. MJ and I had left Madison on the 11th for an arbitration in Springfield on the 12th followed by a night in Paducah and lunch the next day at the Mothership Barbecue http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Columns/Dining/2006/07/13/Smokin_/index.shtml in Nashville before moving on to Cousin Jimmy and Jean at their new home in Rome, GA. Then on to Savannah and a couple of days getting acquainted with the quaint. On the way down to Gainesville and Lisa, we pulled into the Okefenokee Swamp to pay respects to Pogo, Albert, Churchy, Howland, Porkypine but mostly saw Albert's Alligator friends on our kayak trip into the swamp. And these were the big guys and up close and personal. Of course, there were ibises, sandhill crannes, egrets, comorants etc. but the gators dominated and got us pretty juiced. Once I figure out how to insert photos here, I'll do it. Same with hyperlinks.

Third trimester?

2007-03-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

Thirty years ago I was thirty. Now I'm 60. Thirty years from now I'll be 90, or not. At my 30th birthday party a very wise and cool friend, Cecil Sutphen, advised me not to sweat turning 30 because, having just turned 40, he was at the top of his game and 30 was just kid stuff. At last week's 60th party, no 70 year old said anything like that. I should have invited Cecil. By the way, today, March 30 is Mary Jo's and my 33rd wedding anniversary. To each other. And, because I started this blog yesterday and noted the day of my first blog entry, I somehow remembered that March 30 also had some resonance. Thirty-three years ago. A stealth wedding. Only the immediate family, slouching down State Street. You see, marriage was not very cool back then. At least not in Madison, not for a radical feminist. Certainly not for a 602 Club bartender. So why did we do it? Parents. Less stress. Moving to Baltimore with a couple of law degrees. Could use the money. Money? A reception, a few weeks later in Youngstown. The central Wisconsin Wausau boy, from a nuclear German family was immersed into a very extended Youngstown Italian clan. Talk about dazed and confused. And 3 years and 8 months later, at 30, I became a father.
30

The first blog post of the rest of my life

2007-03-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

Date of birth; February 6, 1947. Last day at the office; February 23, 2007. The celebration of both; March 24, 2007. Family, friends, workmates, Point Beer, ouzo, leg of lamb and baklava. Like a wedding reception...or a wake. And I was more alert (but less sober) than I was on the first occasion or will be on the last. Now what?