In the Arboretum gardens

What a difference a day makes. 

Yesterday we reached 70 degrees. Today was windy, gray and cool.

November establishes outposts long before it arrives. Today is a reminder of that. Today’s weather is not untypical for this time of year.

Seventy degrees like yesterday happens in our part of the Midwest. It’s not a common October temperature. We certainly don’t take warm days given us now for granted.

One October reading in the 70s is about normal for us. There have been three this month. Rather a marvel to make it to three. Cool and windy has defined a good portion of the fall.

We were at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum yesterday. Bright foliage and blue sky made for a treat. Aware of the imminent dip in temperatures we wanted to capitalize on the phenomenal Thursday. Evidently, so did everyone else.

Schools were out Thursday and Friday. It was because of the state teachers conference. It's held annually this week in October. 

We used to call it MEA weekend. There's been a name change since our kids were in school. My family looked forward to this weekend which comes six weeks after the start of school. We used it for visiting the grandparents. 

For me MEA sticks better than the new name which I don't hear often enough to put into mind. It remains a special weekend separating the start of fall from the settled-in later parts of it

The Arboretum was packed when we arrived. It was mid-morning and parking space was at a premium. Car lines through the gates continued all day.

Students home from school were there with parents and grandparents. These intergenerational groups made up a large number of the visitors.

It was like a giant field day to see so many school-age visitors. The only element missing was the yellow school buses parked to the side waiting for their student loads.

This isn’t the first blog that has told about the Arboretum. Seeking harmony in nature it comes naturally to want to share this spot. This inviting space makes many happy to the core. It rejuvenates with each visit.

The rolling grounds not far from the Twin Cities are beautiful at all seasons. It can be hard to choose one favorite time. Plenty of us come as often as we can.

Winter brings a hush to the white hills. The cold season offers trails to hike or ski when the planting beds are covered with snow and areas are fenced to keep out deer.

Spring with its myriads of ornamental tree blossoms, and stunning arrays of tulips and other first flowers, is easily considered prime visit time. 

Others opt for the next phase, when the roses and their scents spill down their terraces and vivid shades describe the late summer blooms.

Then we come to fall. Fall holds particular sway, from the gorgeous sugar maples firing up the countryside to the last quiet colors before killing frost.

In October, borrowing from nature, the Arboretum creates its own take on the season with a harvest theme exhibition called “Scarecrows in the Gardens.”

The entrance to the planted areas this month introduces the display of fanciful scarecrows and folk art. 

The scarecrows are decorated or outfitted in vegetable garb. They’re put together with gourds, pumpkins and squash. Straw, berries, fronds and other whimsical touches add to their features.

The scarecrows delight all ages. You can gauge their effect by the clumps of folks who gather around each artwork, smile broadly, comment spontaneously and then move on. 

As well as fun the scarecrows are fabulous photo-ops. Parents (and grandparents) were snapping away yesterday.

Enjoyment was palpable. The kids present ensured a kinetic energy. Meanwhile, with an energy level also to be admired, a group of volunteers (probably volunteers) was planting tulips.

The promise of spring was in each tulip bulb being planted. The autumn sun wasn’t a promise but a reality. It nicely warmed the backs of those who worked in the annual beds.

With camera along, and scouting for pictures to take, Al came upon the tulip planters. I didn’t see them.

Perhaps this when I was finding the sunglasses. They were a brand name pair of sunglasses. They looked expensive and modern. They had pink frames. 

The sunglasses lay, quite incongruously, in a flower bed. The frames, which if you hurried by you might have interpreted as a pretty pastel bloom in the greenery, caught my eye. 

The sunglasses must have tumbled from a pocket or slipped off the top of someone’s head. I took them to the front counter. Someone maybe missed them before they left and thought to go to Lost and Found.

Both of us noticed that many beds have been cleared for the season. Fall has a tidying-up look that speaks of endings and change.

There are flowers still in bloom. The leggy dahlias are the drawing card on the trail that leads up and past the peony row. I check on the peonies, loyal to the magnificence they bring to their walkway in early June.   

I notice the berries on  the Arboretum shrubs and trees. Berries are among the details I’ve begun to note as more time is spent at the Arboretum. 

It's become a hobby with me to observe the small things. Much of beauty is in the minor notes.

Wildlife is noticing the berries too. They’ll come to feast on them. It assures a continual buffet for the season ahead.  

Ro Giencke – October 17, 2014

 

Second Rendezvous with Sacagawea

It’s always great to be in Kansas City and revisit the master touches of its beautiful old buildings, fountains and shaded boulevards.

It’s a little bit like Europe touching down on the prairies and going head to head with the raw and muscular personification of the pioneer West.

The area was gateway to the western trails long before the vision of urban beauty of a century ago came to pass. Vital, vigorous, sleek and sophisticated, Kansas City today shows its many sides letting us take our pick.

Charleston, Savannah, New York City and a handful of other locales come to mind as getaways for the romantically inclined. After this most recent trip we’re in favor of adding Kansas City to those at the top of the list.

Romance came to us not in the Plaza district (it’s there and we’ll be back for it) but elsewhere in town. The romance we found we sought out in the form of a bronze monument set high on a bluff.

Looking online for Kansas City attractions we saw Ermine Case Jr. Park. We noticed it because a statue of Lewis and Clark is mentioned in conjunction with it.

My interest in the Lewis and Clark Expedition goes back a long way. 

Nor was this the first statue connected to the Lewis and Clark Expedition to pique our interest (see “Gathering of Greatness,” a 2006 post, included in online book Years of Grace, Days of Understanding @ rogienckeblogspot.com).

Al went along with my desire to find the statue (both times). Therein, for me, lies the crux of romance.

Romance isn’t just fine words and fluttering hearts. It’s seeing what’s innermost in a loved one’s heart and rising to meet it in an act of generosity that becomes a gift mutually shared.

Getting to Case Park tested us. We weren’t far from it as we proceeded with GPS directions from our current stop. Directions got muddled along the way.

It was the reality of road construction or road closures or something. We were momentarily distracted and for a short time totally confused.

Driving directions as simple or difficult are often determined by the direction from which you come. Some routes don’t lend easily to straightforward directions and this is what happened to us.

Questioning the park’s whereabouts, as we fell to doing en route, gave us to feel as if the Corps of Discovery statue was hidden off in some remote area. Looking for it, it didn’t strike us as a park out in the open. This can keep some folks away.

One’s tendency is to visit something if it’s a piece of cake to find. It really helped that the stop was so worthwhile when we did arrive at the park. We’d come close to giving up.

Case Park (as the name is often shortened to) and the Lewis and Clark monument are  at 8th and Jefferson streets on Quality Hill.

Once a neighborhood of fine homes between Wyandotte Street and the west bluffs, and then gone shabby over time, Quality Hill (like many grand neighborhoods of the past) is currently being rehabbed. It’s being reestablished  as a district with a hip address.

The park is atop a 2000 ft bluff overlooking the confluence of the Kansas River with the Missouri River. It hangs above the rail yards that fill the river bottoms. It affords sweeping views. It gives the sense of the West opening up right before you. 

The commemorative piece, the work of sculptor Eugene Daub, was done in 2000 and heroic in size, measuring 21 feet across and 18 feet high.

Meriweather Lewis, William Clark and Sacagawea, Shoshone guide and translator, who stands with them in bronze posterity, are depicted as key figures of the 1804-1806 exploratory voyage undertaken, under the aegis of the US government, to the Pacific Ocean and back.

The three are portrayed visually by the characteristics which were their personal contributions to the physically demanding endeavor.

Clark, his leadership skills evident in his commanding frame, holds a telescope (or some instrument) in his hands, peering westward.

Lewis, his quiet mien and keen scientist mind the perfect balance to Clark 's decisive manner, rests his journal on his knees as though in the very act of entering that day’s account.

His taut lean shape gives the impression that observation and recording are inherent gifts for which the expedition was a destined match. 

You can believe the journal on his knees came into the world with him, part of his birthright, as it lies comfortably spread out before him where he is about to write into it.

Sacagawea has a far-seeing expression and rapt gaze. Like the two men she looks to the West. Her gaze might be interpreted differently, however. What she sees isn’t the unknown. It’s home.

She is born of the Plains and Western high country. She uses this familiarity of place and native knowledge of the natural world to help inform the expedition in their route through the Rocky Mountains.

She’s the miracle worker for the Corps in so many ways that, as I think about it, it makes me want to read the journals all over again.

Missed on our visit are the three other figures which complete the sculpture. We’re not sure how they were an oversight but can guess.

Afternoon sun, full on Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea, may have been strong enough to shade the other figures positioned on the other side of the sculpture.

We were caught up in the expressions and stances of Clark, Sacagawea and Lewis. 

They're truly riveting as rendered. Our inspection of the three, each in turn, and marveling at the scope of the statue as it draws you into it, no doubt drew all our attention.

At home, doing online search on this statue that wowed us, a surprise was revealed. 

Clark’s slave York, the Newfoundland dog Seaman (bought by Lewis as he prepared for the expedition) and Sacagawea’s son Jean Baptiste, all members of the Corps, were inadvertently overlooked by us.

Jean Baptiste was the son of Sacajawea and Touissaint Charbonneau, hired by Lewis and Clark as an interpreter (thereby acquiring Sacagawea’s help for free).  

He was born February 11, 1805 while the Corps were at their first winter camp in present day North Dakota.

The baby boy traveled with the exploring party until their return to the Mandan villages in August 1806 when he was 1½ years old. 

He was carried on Sacagawea’s back and as a passenger in the boats that transported the crew deep into the interior and back east again.

The toddler was called Pomp by William Clark. Clark was fond of him. 

When Charbonneau was paid for his services, and his family ended its time with the Corps, which still had a month of downriver travel ahead of them, Clark offered to take Pomp. 

It was agreed among them that at some later date, if this could work out, it would be done.

The statue places York and Seaman facing east. They cover Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea’s backs literally and figuratively. They’re put this way to make a point I believe.

After giving due prominence to Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea it’s my opinion Daub arranged the others to represent the watchful surveillance of the Corps as they traversed the wilderness across tribal territories.

The statue conveys the constancy of watch practiced by the Corps. They were continually scanning the horizon. They scouted diligently. All eyes were needed to take in and note the important.

By such vigilance, and careful scrutiny of the lands beyond the Mississippi, newly purchased by the young Federal government, the Corps of Discovery were able to accomplish their amazing feat.

They returned without the loss of a single person except the unfortunate Sgt. Charles Floyd. He died of what is presumed was a ruptured appendicitis in the early phase of the expedition and is buried at Sioux City, Iowa.

The secondary figures in the sculpture also suggest to me the richer, fuller story of the Corps of Discovery. The six figures, put together as a whole, are intrinsically linked as I see it. 

They’re above the other relationships that were forged and refined on this journey. They’re set apart and made as one by a certain degree of service, loyalty, respect and friendship.

The point of land with the statue is called Clark’s Point. There’s a sign (as we recall) that quotes from William Clark’s journal for September 15, 1806 in which he notes the strategic value of the bluff for a fort.

The Corps are nearing their return. They’re closing in on St. Louis where their voyage began. Lewis and Clark continue to enter notes in their journals on aspects of the land they pass by on the Missouri River.

In theory they’re in home territory. They could be excused, after two years of meticulous note taking, for laying down their writing instruments and calling it a good trip well done. 

Dutiful to the last they continue with their logs. Their wonder and scientific interest remain intact, and their entries will pass into history as a record of one of our country's most dangerous and ultimately finest adventures. 

Clark’s journal for the day of his climb to present day Clark’s Point mentions several deer swimming the river shortly after they start out in a stiff breeze. 

He notes an afternoon stop “to let the men gather Pappaws or the Custard apple of which this Country abounds, and the men are very fond of.”

In between the deer and "Pappaws" is the climb up the steep bluff, which is come to in late forenoon after passing the entrance of the “Kanzas” (Kansas) River.

Clark notes the river is very low, adding that about a mile below the confluence they make land at the bluff.

The Journals of Lewis and Clark, from the Project Gutenberg collection, is recommended for those who wish to view the entries from beginning to end. 

Clark’s September 15, 1806 entry, which I found at this site, goes in part:

. . . “we landed and Capt Lewis and my Self ascended a hill which appeared to have a Commanding Situation for a fort, the Shore is bold and rocky immediately at the foot of the hill, from the top of the hill you have a perfect Command of the river, this hill fronts the Kanzas and has a view of the Missouri a Short distance above that river.”

There are heroes and there are those who are brave. This sculpture carries forward as a ringing statement the valor of the Corps of Discovery.

Largely a small body of frontiersmen, with the mettle of survivor skills to keep them fit, they entered into the heart of the American continent with no guarantee they would return. In them we have the very best.

Kansas City can be proud of this statue celebrating the passage of the Corps through the area. This beautiful piece represents what we also can do.

It suggests all things are possible when side by side, and allied by friendship, trust and a common goal, and with great willingness to serve from our abilities, we set out with bold hopes.

Stiff breezes can’t defeat our course when preparation is put in place by being versed in - and ready for - what we give ourselves to do.

Ro Giencke – October 13, 2014

 

 

 

 

Finding grandma in Lindsborg, Kansas

Lindsborg is a cute little Kansas town strong on Swedish influence and the home of Bethany College.

It was a planned stop for us on what was mostly a spur of the moment let’s-go-West kind of trip.

My grandma attended Bethany College in the early years of the 20^th century. Her student years were long in the past when I came to know about her schooling at Lindsborg.

I was sixteen and gathering information for the family tree I put together that same year. I remember looking up Lindsborg in the atlas. Places have always interested me.

Grandma's additional schooling is a summary of things on many levels. I was aware of this even at sixteen.

It wasn’t typical of farm girls of her generation – she was the daughter of Swedish immigrants – to go beyond an 8^th grade country school education. College was educational advancement relatively uncommon for women then.

Grandma's doing so is an accomplishment for those times. It's testimony to her spirit and grit. It shines the light on her as someone with an intention to follow a dream. Conveniently, too, she had an older sister who taught at Bethany College.

Bethany College was an interesting fact filed away and almost forgotten until it surfaced recently to fill me with renewed curiosity.

We went to Lindsborg to find some imprint of my grandma’s time there. The college that furthered her education made me want to see it. I wanted to experience for myself this specific part of Kansas she once called home.

At our daughter’s suggestion our quest led to the campus library. If I checked online there’s a name for this building. We didn’t catch the name when we were there.

Its name went over us in the excitement of closing in on the hunt to find Grandma on her academic turf. We went in the direction pointed out to us as the place to check with and that was good enough.

From Bethany archives we hoped to uncover yearbooks or other materials that could confirm exactly when Grandma was in Kansas for studies. 

We were working off a date mentioned in the family tree. This would be the first reality check to see if the date was correct.

Assisted by a friendly staff person who brought out old college publications that corresponded with the time frame of our search we got down to work.

We took separate tables and spread our stacks around us. We wanted to find Grandma’s name in the worst way.

We’d have to extend the search on either side of the year if we didn’t find her name as a student right off. We were aware it’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack if the date in the family tree proved to be wrong.

We turned the pages one volume after another. We looked for her name under the various headings students were listed.

The research suddenly felt very personal. We weren't here to prove she attended here. My thoughts ran along these lines as I skimmed the lists of students. 

That first fact was established. We knew that part already. Finding her in the student rosters was instead very much like an act of paying honor.

We came to Bethany College to connect with the person my grandma was at that time of her life. We came to let the surroundings which had been her environs sink into us.

We came recognizing Lindsborg as more than a quaint town off the fast roads. It was the place where my grandmother grew into adulthood and took with her whatever lasting influence Bethany College had on her.

In the end we did find my grandma. It wasn't without further search. She is in the student rolls about three years after the date given for Bethany College in the family tree.

The new date leaves a gap in her story. The time we pegged her to be in Kansas she was somewhere else – at home or at a first job. 

That search is for later. Lindsborg was the here and now. We wanted to use the remaining time to see something of this place which drew us from the start.

Lindsborg is a cute little town proud of its Swedish connections. It calls itself “Little Sweden USA.” 

The slogan is on its helpful visitors brochure with listings for lodging, food and places to visit. (I did chuckle when the first thing we saw coming into this most Swedish themed of communities was Pizza Hut!)

It didn’t take five minutes on main street to see there was more to do here than the time allotted for our stay.

Like the two of us, Lindsborg likes its coffee.Coffee first we said, opting for The White Peacock, seeing it first.

Blacksmith Coffee Roastery, up and across the street in a former blacksmith shop, wound up on our radar too but we noticed it second. Both it and The White Peacock came recommended by a friendly professor we afterward met.

The White Peacock was toasty warm. This won points from me, ducking in from a bit of chill in the morning air. The fragrance of coffee enveloped us. Folks were scattered around in comfortable seating. 

The ambience should have been enough to hold me. A back courtyard had first to be examined, however. I pushed through the door entranced by the enclosed outdoor haven.

Twenty extra degrees to the thermometer reading and I wouldn’t come in I decided about the quiet green oasis. 

But the twenty degrees were missing and I trotted inside to find Al where he’d scored a place, suspecting my exploratory tour would be just that.

The sunny room (it faces east) has books (reading and coffee pair well together), art and posters on the walls and a posted menu which listed egg casserole, Swedish pancakes, hash brown patties, burritos and biscuits and gravy. 

It's easy to believe this is a popular spot in this college town.The vitality that percolates through the intimate space is like a second cup of coffee (which we didn’t have, or else would never have gotten away.)   

Joyously decorated Dala horses are a must-see. They’re a “will-see” if you’re anywhere downtown. It’s impossible not to notice them.

See one and you’re caught hook, line and sinker. The cast fiberglass creations in front of businesses are pure magic. Their unique and whimsical designs captivated us. They had us on an impromptu Dala horse count.

We learned the Dala horse originated as folk art in the central Swedish province of Dalarna. In Lindsborg the Dala Horse has been turned into public art.

Local artists give meaning to the word local color in the blithe interpretations, through color, theme and design, their workmanship has provided. 

The Dala horse, which elicits a smile with each sighting, is Lindsborg’s charming symbol of its ties to Sweden.

In a turn off main street there was a moment when I felt Old Sweden had directly opened to me.

Swedish Country Inn on Lincoln Avenue has nailed the picturesque and inviting hospitality of the Swedish homeland. 

Its blue and white overall decoration (or this is the color duet that stays with me) is a peaceful natural palette to rest and restore its fortunate guests.

I peeked in and, like Goldilocks, advanced farther into the front room, which was the lobby. My gaze was everywhere. Each discovery pleased me more.

Simple pine furniture and clean inspired touches are throughout, including the upstairs bedrooms (seeing my interest the friendly wave sent me upstairs to see the unoccupied rooms).

An adjacent breakfast room serves a buffet breakfast open to the public. If the menu mirrors the authenticity of this lovely historic inn the smorgasbord is sure to please.  

The Lindsborg brochure, picked up prior to the visit to Bethany College, didn’t get read until we were back home. 

We missed its tips while in Lindsborg but we see the oversight as a promise we’re meant to return. With the brochure now read the places we want to see (or see again) have been marked.

One intended place is Coronado Heights. The spot is noted in the brochure. 

Coronado Heights is the highest of the Smoky Hills – seven hills in a row we understand – north of town. The Smoky Hills are a distinct range. We commented on them as we approached Lindsborg.

Spanish conquistador Coronado is thought to have gotten to central Kansas in 1541 in his search for gold. The story, as passed down, is that he climbed Coronado Heights to look around.

It makes me wonder if Grandma and college friends, or with her sister (the sister who was an instructor in shorthand and typewriting and is pictured in the publications we looked through) traveled out the few miles to picnic on its heights.

Or from the campus, perhaps, she watched the Kansas sky bloom with sunset color behind Coronado Heights and knew the tug of the West. 

I wonder what my grandma thought of Kansas in general.Perhaps the fields and Lindsborg’s Scandinavian culture, similar to that of her home area, made a comfortable fit.

One can wonder if she remarked on the similarities or compared obvious differences. Perhaps she focused on her courses to the exclusion of anything else. 

Lindsborg may have been a postal address and not much else for my grandma. I can guess she’d have been called an intent student.

Lindsborg’s influence on Grandma’s begs asking. When I put the family tree  together as a teen the fact she went to Lindsborg was sufficient for me.

Unable to entirely imagine my grandma young, I couldn’t flesh out or give form to the things that would have shaped her, as I was being shaped, at her very similar age.

Grandma lived far from us as I grew up. Letters were how we stayed in touch. Asking questions and receiving answers by letter is a lengthy process. I don't recall any questions asked, then or ever, of her time in Lindsborg.

You can ask the pertinent questions and expect a reply. Details are trickier to ask for. This, in part, may have kept some of her history from being more completely gathered.

Folks have more diverse and interesting backgrounds than we guess. This includes our own forebears, impacted by their times, opportunities and interests.

“Is Lindsborg a free museum in a town or a town in a free museum?” This is a sentence from the Lindsborg brochure. 

For us Lindsborg was both. It's a refreshing stop because it takes itself seriously and because it doesn't. Like any good museum it knows its quality. It arranges for you to discover it, inviting you in.

Ro Giencke – October 5, 2014

 

To Red Cloud and back

September has been a mix of different things including a recent trip West. 

It wasn’t bigtime West as one thinks of the magnificence of mountain peaks or the sublime shimmer of turning aspens along steep canyons but that’s not the point. 

Our rambles put us across the Missouri River and for me that’s where the West in attitude and inclination begins.

The trip was fun and relaxing with many sights seen and things done. It started out as a chance to visit a few places we’ve wanted to see for a long time.This included (my choice) Red Cloud, Nebraska.

Red Cloud is the girlhood home of Willa Cather, the author who through books like My Antonia helped me to appreciate the prairies and Great Plains. 

Before I found Cather my conception of the Great Plains, and Nebraska in particular, was not favorable. You usually can’t fathom what you don’t experience, and this was an area I didn’t know firsthand.

The vast region which slopes to the Rockies held no romance for me, and therefore no interest, until Cather’s words transferred its color and reality from the turned pages to my mind. 

Once latching on to the idea of prairie as beautiful in its way the prairie with its native grasses, history and culture has become a subject of growing and continuing interest to me.

Willa Cather came to Nebraska at nine from the verdant state of Virginia. Transplanted at an impressionable age she was to find and mine in Nebraska all the material she would need for her writings. 

Many of her novels are set, or set in part, in this marginally populated region which many years later, and not so very flatteringly, came to be called “flyover country.”  

Her descriptions of the land, hospitable and challenging by nature and by the season, with its bounty of planted orchards and field crops, and winters of wind and hunkering down on widely scattered farms amid creeks and arroyos, cracked open this part of the world to me. 

It was as if I physically annexed these millions of acres of the middle West to my own Midwest perspective.  

Farewell  I 35 and 80 70, this time we aren’t going to use you, we said. And we mostly stuck to our word, resisting the convenience of the interstate systems which expedite travel time. 

Instead, we studied maps for state or county roads that linked the small towns. The routes were sometimes winding and sometimes slow but they put us smack dab in the countryside and this suited us perfectly this time.

We especially enjoyed the designated scenic byways. Iowa's Highway 44 is named the Western Skies Scenic Byway. It’s a name to thrill to. 

The name is evocative of the big skies we came for and the long horizons that are a nightly show as the sunset spreads its flame for all to see.

As we pointed the car toward Nebraska it came to me why my folks went West every fall. They went in September after the summer place was shut at Labor Day and the family, from all our different places, had made our summer visits.

They went West when grasses start to get that burnished color and leaves are starting to turn. 

Their long driving vacations in the mild Western air under cloudless skies would have been a tonic to them, facing (like all Minnesotans) the long winter ahead.

They could get the sun-stoked West deep into them before settling in back at home and waiting for flurries to announce the next season.

Travel educates is the conclusion we come to every time.On the return we visited Kansas City with its fountains, plaza district, art galleries, and so many other places to take time for, that another trip specific to Kansas City is in order.

Northern Missouri is the country of Jesse James, Calamity Jane and horse-drawn buggies (among local farms are those who practice simpler ways.) Southern Iowa is the birthplace of labor activist John L. Lewis.

Red Cloud, Nebraska, the original impetus for the trip, proved to be the means of finding many other places and personalities, past and present. 

Sights and names pique interest and lead to self-directed learning. City is good, and the places one lives, but there are times when to be out in open spaces fills us with the whole sense of being alive.

Fall here proceeded apace in our absence. The deck was half buried in fallen yellow leaves. The leaves were soggy, indicating a shower had passed through rather recently. 

Trip completed, it’s always good to be home as I step out to sweep off leaf debris.

Ro Giencke – September 30, 2014

September carves a memory

Everything quickly shifts with the new school year. 

The neighborhood quiets in the absence of kids who are gone for a good portion of the day.

It’s not that their presence especially registers in the summer. 

Gone are the times when the young are seen and heard in outside play that can go on all day. 

So it’s not an abrupt change in activity that one notes. But somehow, nevertheless, with September a pronounced stillness settles over the tree-lined streets and rows of homes up and down the block.

My sister and I were commenting on this. I mentioned the older students who are at the curb each morning for their bus.

We usually don’t have the drapes open that early, but sometimes we do, and then there are glimpses of them as they step quickly in a marvel of timing that shaves it incredibly close. 

Teens perfect that timing, as we recall how it was with our kids as they met their bus.

She and I keep an interest in the young ones around us. They’re maybe not front and center in our attention at this juncture in our lives but they’re much more than background in our lives. 

They’re part of the important fabric of our surroundings. They shape our wider community.

We may not know all their names or instantly recognize them as neighbors if we were to meet in the store. But we’re aware of their young healthy forms as they walk past our houses. 

We mentally wish them well in their studies and elsewhere as the road of life moves them along.

“Probably our neighbors had the same interest in us when we walked to school,” I throw out to my sister. She likes that idea. She says yes, that’s probably so.

At grade school age we weren’t cognizant of those neighbors whose places we went by as we trudged along, a little family group, with an exact number of minutes to get  to the street corner so the school patrol would let us cross before the school bell rang.

There weren’t neighbor children to walk to school with. We were the school kids these neighbors saw day after day, always the same group, shuffling along if we had an early start, or hurrying our pace if late out the door.

They possibly noted us out their windows or from their gardens and knew the time by the consistency with which we came past.

She and I laughed when one of us brought up the name of an elderly bachelor neighbor and suggested he might have been among those who watched us go by.

He was a character and somewhat of a mystery but we accepted him from the few facts known of him. 

We didn’t know his age or if he was retired or if he had ever held a job. Kids generally accept what is, and don’t particularly wonder about what isn’t filled in.

That comes later when we have time to think about past acquaintances. 

We take them apart in their aspects as we have them in mind. Sometimes, and often, we see them differently afterwards and with greater respect. This comes from having experienced, in the meantime, a great deal of life.

This neighbor was nearest to us on our west. His home, a big white family residence shaded by venerable oaks, stood imposingly on a rise of land between our property and the elementary school.

The south slope of his hill, along which we filed past, because that’s where the sidewalk was, was banked with sumacs whose bright red cones will always be the picture of September to me.

He was apt to be outside in fair weather which is why we saw him frequently in the pleasant fall days or again in the mild weather of spring. He was almost always with a pipe, holding it or smoking it.

He lived with his two sisters who were also unmarried. He might have been in his 60s. The sisters were several years older. 

One can imagine that quite often he found the fresh air healthy for him. It provided a place of separation from domestic life inside. It was possibly the only place he was able to smoke his pipe.

They were Irish, and proud of it, and very musical. The mother, long deceased, had been organist at the Catholic church.

The oldest sister, lustrous white hair scraped back and secured in a bun low at the back of her head, was tall and had a commanding personality. 

She taught piano in the home. She was the extrovert, the one who liked to visit.

The younger sister, soft and round, gray hair wound in a braid on top of her head,  with sometimes a shawl over her sweater, nodded agreeably as her major contribution to the conversation.

She was a smiling, kindly, gentle presence as she kept her hands busy with crocheting or other handwork.

These scenes with the sisters are of the future when we got to know them better and went to see them on occasion. In grade school it was the bachelor brother we saw, and often heard, as he played on his xylophone. 

The xylophone was set up on a lower terrace of their yard. It was a short distance from their house. It faced our place. What he played traveled clearly to our yard.  

He had a pet Chihuahua which was his dear companion. Unfortunately for our ears the dog barked a lot. 

We heard considerable barking from that direction when we played outside after school. The barking and the music always let us know our neighbor and his dog were out.

It was our first acquaintance with a Chihuahua. We didn’t think much of this breed of dog. It exhibited nervous energy along with its constant yipping.

Not many families had pets in our part of town. Dogs that were pets tended to be pretty mellow or were hunting dogs trained for fall pheasant or duck hunting. 

A little dog all ambitious with noise to make was a novelty to us.  

Along with his music and his Chihuahua (whose name my sister remembers and tells me of when I forget - so handy to have another’s memory working for you!) this neighbor had one other interest that we knew of, and in later years our family was the recipient of the output of his pleasurable pastime.

He had a hobby of woodcarving. His carvings of birds and animals were whimsical and intimate. They were folk art but we didn’t know the term then.

He must have spent hours carving these various figures. He carved farm animals and more exotic creatures like giraffes with long thin wood necks. 

It’s easy to see him taking satisfying puffs of his pipe as he worked. Almost surely his dog was companionably at his side.

Prompted by the visit with my sister I ponder the long progression of students back to school each year to a new round of academics and playground friendships.

I consider the adults who, for as long as there have been students going to school, have observed and encouraged them from a distance or near at hand.

In the neighborhood hush of a new school year we listen with our ears and hearts. A new crop of scholars heeds the summons of the familiar peals of the school bell. 

Ro Giencke - September 18, 2014

Goodbye summer

Reading magazines on the deck yesterday after supper smacked of wonderful indulgence.

Mild sunlight filtered through the high green branches to dapple the pages I turned with leisurely interest. 

It was like stolen time to be outside in the last of the day’s warmth at the end of the season.

The reading session was particularly appreciated because that’s it for deck time for awhile.

A chilly jab of northern air is headed our way. Signs of the season are everywhere. (Even three wooly bears seen today with their black and brown stripes are part of the signs.)

One way or the other these signals of the season are there to be interpreted and heeded. We’re moving into fall.

With reluctance backed by common sense I’m ditching the summer shorts until next year. 

Even more than the leaves starting to turn, in a few bold splashes here and there, wrap-up of summer is defined by me by the packing away of shorts.

It’s goodbye summer. Balmier stretches may return, bringing more lukewarm weather in the days to come, but this first chilly outbreak is reality knocking on the door. 

It tells us there’s now no turning back, even with a few reprieves granted us.

Fifty degree temperatures intensified by 30 mph winds will make midweek a taste of mid-October. As much as I like pumpkin time it’s a jolt to move so quickly to the further end of fall’s spectrum.

Wanting to hold on to summer, or at least to slow it down, was no doubt behind an impulse purchase made today on a trip that ostensibly started out to return some library books.

Yellow flip flops at Old Navy had summer written all over them. They made a snazzy pair in their sales bin where they shared discounted prices with other footwear which hadn’t made it out of the store during beachwear season.

In the gloom of skies expectant with rain the pop of yellow tantalized me. The flip flops couldn’t be passed up.

My only thought was to take them home with me, put them on then and there and dance with them in the little patch of summer they create wherever they step.

Descend into the chilly zone tomorrow if we must, on my feet are sandals the color of a field of sunflowers. I can now embrace eternal summer with the insouciance supplied by my bargain footwear.

With the forecast for cooler temperatures my closet has been briefly inspected. Sweaters that have had their seasonal rest are being reviewed for the wearing they soon will get.

Summer is in my blood which makes my conscience twinge at the delight which awaits in reuniting with my sweaters.

Luxury may be described in terms of diamonds and stretch limos. For me chunky knits and oversize cotton cardigans have the same luxurious effect.

Clothes closets aren’t the only areas inside the home being opened for seasonal review. Bedding here in the Midwest is rotated as well. 

Breathable bed linens and light summer spreads are stowed to be replaced by warmer layering including blankets. 

This seasonal succession of bedding items culminates in the comforters which make bedrooms veritable scenes of hibernation. We snuggle deep into the quilted coziness when the thermometer nosedives, as it predictably will before long. 

All of this is gratifying in a Martha Stewart way (or like that other methodical, efficient, industrious and organized Martha, sister of Mary in the New Testament.)

There is consummate satisfaction in effectively managing one’s home according to the season. 

With the summer ship pulling out of port, as ice crystals form over polar regions, the changeover in our house to indoor time has begun.

Ro Giencke – September 9, 2014

 

 

Summer on a stick (record-breaking 2014 Minnesota State Fair)

We almost got to the Minnesota State Fair this year but as it turns out we weren't really needed. 

Without our help 2014 goes into the books with a new State Fair attendance record set. Thank you to the 1.8 million visitors (and then some) and the gorgeous August weather for making this record possible.

The Minnesota State Fair, our final summer hurrah before school begins and fall arrives, really did itself big this year.

Our State Fair is one of the standout state fairs in the country. It has some of the highest attendance numbers even without the count that we put in this year. 

I won't discount Texas, and certainly not Iowa, and a handful of other states who also know how to throw a State Fair party. We're all states that esteem our State Fairs and each with its particular foods and flair.

The Minnesota State Fair retains its draw even as its expands and modernizes. I think this is in part because it manages to keep its down home feel. 

The twelve days it runs are full of events that stay the same with changes introduced that keep the State Fair evolving.

It's a place for food on a stick (it's the stuff that legends are made of) and many other kinds of food and dining venues. You can fare well at our Minnesota State Fair.

Many visitors make a beeline for the Miracle of Birth birthing barn. Farm animals are born and we get to watch. 

It brings us in touch with our rural heritage which is only a couple generations removed (or even less) for plenty of us.

We can see the horses, chickens and bunnies which have their bucolic appeal in the midst of so much Fair clangor.

We can sit in on the judging of farm animals carefully raised for showing at the fair by dedicated youngsters who tend them and come with them to the fair.

We can buy tickets for Grandstand performances, try our luck on the Midway and do the rides. We can check out the homemade jellies and carrot cake and marvel at the array of bars, a Minnesota baking tradition.

One can assess the local art scene (the art exhibit hall is a stop I always make), sample Minnesota wines and get a health check or meander through the global market, not to be missed.

We can chat with our politicians (the ones we vote for and the others ones, those for whom we don't.) 

Each candidate who visits the State Fair (an important place for them to be seen) likely views each of us as a possible vote and a golden opportunity come November.

We voters can discuss directly with the candidates our issues or concerns. Politics at the State Fair is a proving ground for democracy at its truest and most grassroots level. 

We can buy some useful or clever item from the commerce building (or elsewhere) that we don't know how we ever lived without before its marvels were demonstrated to us. 

The State Fair is a chance to revisit favorite places from all the times before. It's a small city to explore. Wear athletic shoes and be prepared to hike a few miles. 

Another helpful tip: locate the patches of shade (they're scattered across the grounds) and all air-conditioned buildings. Someday you'll appreciate you did your homework.

In 90 degree heat (last year six days were in the 90s at the State Fair, and we were there sweltering on the hottest of those days) you'll want to know how to escape the sun.

Local TV stations broadcast their nightly news programs live from locations around the State Fair. Show up at news time and you might be on TV as as part of the TV audience.

A bench to sit on feels wonderful by late afternoon when the news programs begin. Be in the front rows if you can. They're closer to the food samples that will be passed out sometime in the program courtesy of the many different food venders. 

The local stations do a fabulous job of promoting the fair (as do the local papers, in a concerted effort to present to the metro community the State Fair adventures that await.)

There are on-site interviews and interesting facts shared about the fair. This detailed and varied coverage lets everyone attend, even those in front of our TVs as it was for us this year. 

When I'm at the Minnesota State Fair I always think of old family friends of ours. They didn't miss a year, not even when it got difficult for them to walk and to be on their feet for any period of time.

They loved the State Fair. They put up with the heat and inconveniences because they looked forward to it with the eagerness that never stales. 

They wouldn't have missed the Minnesota State Fair for the world. They loved it because it was their tradition. 

Do anything once and enjoy it, then do it again and you have the start of a tradition, no matter what it is.

Tradition aligns you in a way that feels right and proper. It sets you straight with your world to have some tradition that matters to you. It says something to you that may be only a whisper to others or heard not at all.

For roughly a third of Minnesota the State Fair we embrace is not a whisper and it surely doesn't go unheard.

It's a robust call-out to find ourselves and find each other each year as summer slides into September and another school year begins. Students are in the classrooms the very next day after the final day, which is always Labor Day. 

Seeing the Minnesota State Fair come to an end makes the last bite of our desserts on a stick taste both sweet and bittersweet.

Ro Giencke - September 3, 2014