Monthly Archives: August 2015

Alone in the Dark

09 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in Events, Growing up, Gullibility, Learning from mistakes, Running

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Chicago Old Town

In 1969, working for the Independent Precinct Organization [IPO]in Chicago’s north side Lincoln Park neighborhood, we canvassed door to door to build support for community-based initiatives instead of the urban renewal plans of the democratic machine and Mayor Richard J. Daley’s administration. The city plan called for bulldozing entire blocks of housing, displacing hundreds of poor and elderly families of many races and ethnic backgrounds, and building apartment buildings and condominiums that would cater to wealthy, upper class, largely white people. The area needed rehabilitation and preservation, from our perspective, not destruction and replacement. In canvassing , we met many wonderful people of various backgrounds who would be forced to move, priced out of the neighborhood.

We organized meetings, rallies, and took part in city-sponsored meetings that were supposed to give the people a voice, but largely consisted of city spokesmen telling the residents what was going to happen, whether they liked it or not. The city’s only authentic German beer garden became a center of attention, when the city planners decided it had to go the way of every other building of historical, ethnic, or cultural significance in the urban renewal area. What would the new neighborhood look like? An uninspired collection of modern boxes of uniform size, shape, and costliness, with little attention to amenities that existed in the previous community, because Lincoln Park would be considered a residential extension of the downtown. “Little boxes…full of [just more expensive] ticky-tacky,” anyone?

One night I had to park three blocks from the meeting –place at the edge of an already bull-dozed three-block strip, where the citizens were confronting city planners. Parking was scarce because we had generated a lot of interest in the meeting. The people present were angry and eloquent, expressing their grief at the prospect of losing homes and businesses and facing an uncertain future with below-replacement value appraisals and no help in relocation. The IPO presented alternative plans and proposals that had the backing of much of the resident community. When the meeting ended we felt that we had done well in getting both citizen-involvement and the important media attention.

I walked out of the building after a brief feedback session with my co-volunteers, needing to get back to my apartment on the south side and ready for seminary coursework the next day. The street was empty and dark; many of the street lights were removed with the destruction. I didn’t see anyone around, until I had walked a block, but then I heard from a distance when a gang of Spanish Disciples had spotted me. I didn’t understand all that they were saying, but I knew from a few words and phrases that they had recognized a lone target for their resentments and rage when they saw me. It didn’t matter that I thought I was serving their interests in being there. Their street sophistication did not extend to political disputes between the city and local white liberals.

They were coming at a run, and I decided that I needed to be faster, and so I was. I unlocked my car, jumped in, and sped off just as they were arriving. I didn’t wait to see whether I could persuade them that I was a good guy just trying to help out.

I returned to that neighborhood, continued to canvass, participated in other meetings and demonstrations, but I made sure that I was not alone in the dark after that.

Check the Supporting Structure

07 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in House, Learning from mistakes, Prayer

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Burlington house in fall

Our Burlington house is a late Victorian eclectic built in 1899, originally a farmhouse on the railroad magnate Charles Perkins’ estate. For most of its life three families by the name of Nelson had owned it, although two of them were not related to the third. The family that sold it to us in 1988 had begun to restore it after several attempts at remodeling. Jan said, when she first entered the front hall, seeing the old varnished woodwork, that it wrapped its arms around her and said, “Welcome home.” That made me happy, since the other seven houses in our price range that I had previewed all had serious problems that would need a lot of attention right away. This one was almost “move-in ready.”

Walls were newly papered with tasteful period patterns. Ceilings were newly coated to cover the cracks and holes. New curtains were hung just about everywhere. Floors were sanded smooth and refinished. Only a few issues remained that would need resolution sooner or later.

The six basement windows provided the first challenge that I tackled. The casings had deteriorated past the point of repair, reglazing, or repainting. I tore them all out, stabilized the surrounding limestone rocks with mortar, and installed new windows that resolved some of the leaks and drafts in the cellar.

All the while I looked at that solid wide-board wooden wall that ran down the center of the cellar, lengthwise of the house, separating the cellar essentially into two large narrow rooms. Above that wall in the center of the house, the floors were noticeably uneven, and a wall crack had broken through the new wallpaper on the second floor. Something was going on behind that wall, I decided, exercising my powers of deduction.

The wall seemed so solid until I started to take it down. A little pushing on the heavy boards and they gave way at the bottom, so I proceeded to remove every board. At the top the boards attached to the main support beam of the house. At the bottom, everything seemed increasingly loose and mobile. The upright posts supporting the beam had obviously rotted at the bottom, so that the entire wall, about a ton of wood, was hanging from the main beam. When I finally reached the center of the wall, I found that the beam itself, was not one large hewn timber, but two butted end to end, with nothing supporting the center. The center was hanging from the rafters of the house. No wonder it had settled! The whole support system was hanging from the house, rather than holding up the house. It made no sense, but the house seemed to be lifting its support.

I quickly put several jacks in place under the two main beams, and dug footings under the concrete floor, that the owners had obviously poured years after the original rock footings had been put in place. Then new pressure-treated six by sixes were wedged into position, firmly attached at top and bottom. This house was not going to collapse or going flying off into the great beyond if I could help it.

Not So Finger-lickin’ Good

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Learning from mistakes, People, Travel

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Monkeys see, hear, speak no evil, Bangra.com

We were traveling in Europe as a family—Jan, Alicia, Nathan, and I. London, Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, Frankfurt, and assorted smaller towns in Germany where we rented a small VW Polo so I could enjoy driving on the Autobahn. This was Europe on $25 a day when the dollar was worth more anyway, and beds and breakfasts, hostels, and pensions provided inexpensive overnight accommodations for families.

I was studying the relationship between church and state for two months, so not every stop proved interesting to my minor children, although they seemed to appreciate churches in general, most of which provided stately, beautiful, and immense echo chambers.

One area where I knew we would have to compromise occasionally involved food, considering the fact that my children tended to be picky eaters, one in particular, though she is not so picky anymore in her adulthood, I must hasten to add. England to me meant steak and kidney pie, shepherd’s pie, and stock pots. Only to me. To the rest of the family it meant the accommodation of one stop at McDonald’s.

Amsterdam meant raw ground meat. Only to me and my flirtation with Mad Cow disease. There we began the tour of different national variations of pizza, especially of the Four Season variety, with four different items in the four quarters of the pizza. That worked well in Paris and Geneva, but in Bacharach, Germany, the Four Seasons pizza that included tuna, peas, sardines, and squid did not go over so well with the rest of the family. Fortunately they were placated with Brats mit Brotchen at the next stop.

It was the Geneva visit to Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken that caused the most intense reaction from the local clientele. We had not observed that the advertising slogan “Finger Lickin’ Good” was noticeably absent in French, German, or any other language. Believing that we knew how to eat fried chicken, since it was after all a conspicuously American restaurant with an all-too-familiar menu, the four of us proceeded to eat the chicken with our fingers. Every one of the other customers began to stare at us , and there were unnervingly many customers. As our nearest neighbor at the next table informed us, “It is extremely impolite and unsanitary to eat with your fingers.” We must have thought that we had entered Geneva out of a time warp from the Fifteenth Century when they were not so fastidious, from their point of view. We rapidly adapted to knife and fork consumption of the rest of our meal.

No Waiting

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Faith, Growing up, Learning from mistakes, Running

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After college I swore that I would never stand in a waiting line again. Cafeteria lines, registration lines, textbookstore lines all had eaten up more time than the studies themselves, it seemed. It was a vain resolution.

Lines and waiting rooms became a prominent feature of my career as a minister. Hospital waiting rooms, court house lobbies, city council chambers, and jailhouse waiting rooms took the place of earlier lines. In retirement, road and traffic delays and outer office sitting areas have continued to devour time.

Early line training introduced me to the art of starting conversations with strangers, if they were amenable, or preparing sermons, letters, or work outlines without the benefit of notepaper. Thinking through concerns in empty spaces of time also helped with the daily exercise of running. Regardless of work being accomplished and acquaintances being made, waiting is still waiting.

“Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.” It is a running mantra that I used sometimes. I would say that waiting saps strength and waiting rooms are more tiring exercise chambers than gymnasiums and running tracks. What makes “waiting on the Lord” any different? While most waiting involves anxiety, is there at least the possibility that waiting on the Lord can involve faith, trust, confidence, and some assurance that all things work for good for those who love the Lord? Perhaps waiting on the Lord involves more serving time than leisure time.

Practicing patience and endurance is good for you, my significant other says. Where do these gifts fall in the series of spiritual gifts? Between suffering and hope, with one experience making possible the next, according to Romans 5.

“No waiting” is a good advertising ploy, but I have not found a commercial establishment that yet lives up to that claim. No waiting will be heaven.

The Wild Life at Wind Cave and Custer Parks

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Learning from mistakes, Nature, People, Travel

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Driving through nearby Wind Cave National Park into Custer State Park for a circuit of its forty mile Wildlife Loop has become a frequent part of our sojourns at the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs at the southern reaches of the Black Hills. Both parks have extensive herds of American bison as well as populations of elk, pronghorn, white-tail and mule deer, prairie dogs, marmots, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep. Custer has its burros that became “wild” after their usefulness as beasts of burden officially ended, but the visitors offering food don’t have any trouble getting them to eat out of their hands. We bring carrots, although we often see less healthy snacks offered. The burros are not fussy.

This season we also saw a prairie rattlesnake at the edge of a road, but still no cougars, which are numbered among the inhabitants of the parks.

Two years ago Wind Cave obtained a large additional acreage of old homestead tracts, long since merged into ranch pasturelands, but still containing some of the pioneer buildings, and at least one bison jump, used by Native Americans to herd bison to their doom over the edge of a cliff in centuries past, when several captured animals provided food, tools, clothing, fuel, medicine, and shelter for many native peoples. A ranger took a few of us on a preview tour of that locale, and we look forward to the day when it will be open for others to appreciate.

The bison herds here are among the first to be restored after the animals were nearly extinct. People purposefully destroyed these majestic and well-adapted animals by the millions to make way for cattle or just for their own amusement. It makes us wonder about human intelligence and character. We could watch their behaviors for hours. Part of the herd is usually on the move even when most of the bison are resting as they graze over large territories, never depleting their resources.

One magnificent old bull walks across the road and stops both lanes of traffic, then he walks down the middle of the road as cars slowly pass, then he stops one lane of traffic for a full minute, then he moves into the other lane to stop it for another minute. A loud motorcycle tries to pass, sounding like another bull, and he challenges it with the hoof-scraping gesture and his characteristic bellow, then he snorts and turns his back and moves on. He knows what he is doing.

One bison cow nurses her calf until she decides it has had enough. She turns in circles while the calf tries to reach for more. The calf persists until the cow finally lies down and the calf has to go to another cow if he wants more. It tries, but that cow knows what it is doing, and she imitates the first cow’s behavior. Finally the calf has to be satisfied with what it already has.

We looked for the bison herd on our first visit in 1976, but didn’t see any. Now we usually check with the rangers for their last observed location, and head for it, but usually we find them whether we have good information of not. We have learned to be patient in the quest and we are rewarded.

Shoestrings

01 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by in Caring, Learning from mistakes, People, Words

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3 Owls

Shoestrings are those things that some people live on, some people trip over, and some people tie more or less successfully. My wife has observed that unsuccessful tying seems to be my habit. Using some of the more advanced techniques does not always seem to help. Eventually they come undone and trail awkwardly, close to and akin to an Achilles heel.

The fancier types of shoestrings are the worst. Finished leather, polished and decorated shoestrings slide out of knots like sleight of hand. Plain old cheap ones hold the longest. Bending down and retying regularly would seem the obvious solution, but there are so many other things to do. Why allow such a distraction to interrupt the more important things, that is until the shoes themselves threaten to slip off.

Shoestrings have a life of their own, which makes “living on them” slippery indeed. Pity those who must. Pity the poor. Pity the state and national governments who must, and who find the easiest place to tighten their belts (mixing metaphors) is to cut programs that assist those who already live on shoestrings. That is slippery! Those who make such decisions are far enough away that they do not have to worry about tripping over those shoestrings, more’s the pity.

Living on shoestrings among people who also live on shoestrings, in a society of people who willingly live on shoestrings so that everyone can have shoes, is much to be preferred to the alternative—loafers, whether they are expensive fancy loafers or not.