June 2013 – Page 2 – Thoughts Towards a Better World

Dick Bernard: Remembering Sykeston ND in the late 1940s

June 12, 2013/3 Comments/in Community, Family History, North Dakota, Quietings /by dickbernard

Other Posts in this series, as follows:
Feb 11, 2013: “Sykes High, oh Sykes High School”
May 4 (the main article): Thoughts on Sykeston High School at its Centennial
May 9 A 1957 Social Studies Test
June 28 Snapshots in History of Sykeston
June 29 Sports in 1950s small towns in North Dakota
July 3: Remembering Don Koller and the Lone Ranger
*
Today we saw 8th grade Grandson, Ryan, off as three busloads of kids left for a week in Washington, D.C. A couple of months ago, two other grandsons, grade 7, were on a similar trip.
I thought, as I watched the kids board the bus this morning, about my own graduation from 8th grade (1954, Ross ND). I would have had absolutely zero framework of reference of even the possibility of ever going to Washington D.C. then, though I do recall seeing President Eisenhower on motorcade in Minot ND about that time. He was probably there concerning the soon-to-be Minot Air Force Base.
But today seems to be a good time to recall Sykeston, as the tiny central ND town prepares to celebrate its High School Building Centennial in early July. Here is what I have written thus far about that school.
We lived in Sykeston twice. In this piece, I choose the years 1946-51 as a personal focus, grades 1-5 for me.
Below is Sykeston from the perspective of the United States Geological Service in 1951; and a photo of our family in June, 1948, shortly after youngest sibling John was born. I’m the kid on the right, 8 years old. A couple of days before John was born, was my First Communion at St. Elizabeth’s down the street.
Here is Google Maps satellite perspective of Sykeston in the present era.
(click on photos to enlarge)

Sykeston from a USGS topographic map, 1951. (www.usgs.gov for this and other maps.)

Parents Henry and Esther; kids (from left) Frank,Florence, John, Mary Ann and Richard, early June, 1948, Sykeston ND

Sykeston in the 1940s hardly varied from about 225 residents. Its highest population never exceeded about 275 (1920), and since 1950 the population has decreased.
Beginning in perhaps the summer of 1947, we lived in what the family always called “the North House”. On the map, it is the northernmost dot in Sykeston. Its recent past was as a granary somewhere out in the countryside. Even from a 7 year olds perspective, it was a major rehab effort.

The “North House” comes to Sykeston from the country in 1947

A tired Henry Bernard,visible at left, takes a break while rehabbing the North House in 1947. Photo is of the east exposure of the house.

I made a few nickels hauling buckets of grain from the North House to O. J. Lundby’s elevator. I’m guessing it was more a reward for effort, than of value to the elevator, but nonetheless those Buffalo/Indianhead nickels burned a hole in my youthful pocket.
Of course, there was an outhouse, initially. When city water made it from the water tower to our place, a tiny bathroom was built in, and I vividly remember the time a dead minnow made a trip from Lake Hiawatha to our bathtub. At that time, I believe, the town drinking water came from a town pump by Merck Grocery, “downtown”, a few blocks away.
For some reason, I have vivid memories of two airplane events when we lived at the North House.
Townsman Jesse Evans owned a plane, and had something of a makeshift runway in the field north of our house. One time he overshot the runway and ran into Lake Hiawatha. Best I know he survived, and the plane as well. It sticks in my mind.
Much more vivid, because I actually saw it approach and pass over the town, was the day when a huge aircraft with six propeller engines came over Sykeston, at a very low elevation, from the north.
There was no notice of this event. The plane came and it disappeared.
Piecing together this mystery, I’ve concluded that I (and perhaps others) likely witnessed a B-36 bomber on some kind of training mission from South Dakota’s Ellsworth Air Force base, sometime after 1947. Here’s an article and some video about the B-36 and here’s an article about Ellsworth AFB and the B36.
For kids, the world is the bounds of their neighborhood, and for we kids in Sykeston, the streets of the town were our neighborhood – our range. Occasionally there were forays out to the Dam north of town; as well as to the town dump, repository of treasures a bit to the east of the town. But mostly our adventures (and misadventures) were on those city streets, and at Lake Hiawatha, a unique part of Sykeston, an amenity shared by few ND communities.

Eight kids and dog on Lake Hiawatha in winter.

So, what do I remember? This is an abbreviated list. Every reader in Sykeston, particularly my contemporaries back then, can identify many more memories. Everyone, anywhere, would have their own similar memories about their own cohort, their own town.
The local “gang” – I don’t recall there was any competing gang – were basically the same age, and ran the same routes. Some names that come to mind: Tubby Sondag, Jerry Kutz, Bobbie(?) Kunz, Don Koller, Johnny and Jim (“bull” and “little bull”) Merck; Johnny Hammes; the Woiwode boys; Dougie Wild; Wagners; John and Jim Eaton. Arlo Neumiller and Bob Miller may have been around the bunch, too, but this bunch was basically the Catholics, from St. Elizabeths School, and religious denomination made a difference in those days.
My apologies to any kids I inadvertently missed in this list.
About the time we moved to the North House (1947), the next door neighbors were the depot agent, the Neustel’s, and their kids Pepper and McGee. They moved away from Sykeston not long after we moved into our house one vacant lot away.
The locus of the action for the Sykeston “gang” seemed to run between Kutz’s pasture on the east end (the dump, further east, on really adventuresome days) to Lake Hiawatha on the west. Of course, the “lake” was Pipestem Creek, which to my knowledge was initially dammed by the town founder Richard Sykes, part of whose property was north of what we kids knew as the swimming hole (I almost drowned at that swimming hole, and as a result have never learned how to swim – that is a whole other story. That hasn’t stopped me from occasional dumb things around water, like twice canoeing in the Quetico Wilderness, but the incident at the swimming beach across the walking bridge from town was terrifying and life-changing for a perhaps 9 year old.)
Compared with today, Sykeston’s Main Street and the side streets surrounding were pretty busy in the 1940s. Here are some memories, hopefully reasonably accurate:
Merck’s Grocery was a town institution and the place where I made my first small purchases of goods in the 1940s: I seem to remember Popsicles and Sunkist orange pop, for instance. The town pump, was near the store, between the store and Merck’s house, and I hauled drinking water more than once from that pump to the North House. I don’t recall city drinking water in Sykeston at that time. I might be wrong on that.
The “fire department” I recall was still the old firehouse hand cart with coiled hose pulled by men by hand, or at least I recall seeing a practice run by some men from the firehall by the water tower. Maybe there was a town fire truck. I don’t recall it.
Mr. Spitzer, I think, took a large wheeled push cart down to the depot to pick up the mail bags when the west bound train came through in the morning.
People gathered at the post office, kibbitzing, waiting for the mail to be distributed. It was the daily predictable weekday event in Sykeston.
There was the Wagner Hardware, the Blacksmith Shop, Daniels Barber Shop (the first barber shop hair cut I remember), a still working cream station – maybe two of them, a Red Owl, the Locker Plant, the saloon of course, with roller skating upstairs every now and then, a gas station with lots of inner tubes – one of which accompanied me on my near date with death at Lake Hiawatha, the baseball diamond, the Lutheran church which seemed to be off limits to we Catholics.
I contributed to the Sykeston economy and Wagners by buying – then losing – marbles to the more expert kids. Once I recall being invited to the attic of the Sondag house at the south end of our block. Up there were buckets and buckets of marbles, sorted by types. It was like I’d seen marble heaven.
Mr. Kramer sold insurance downtown I believe, and a dentist, Doc Dummer, and Wild’s Restaurant, and the two gas stations on the highway, one at each entrance point to Sykeston.
And Lundby’s elevator – O. J. was the rich man in town (or so I thought).
Deserving many stories all by itself, perhaps the main social center of the town, was the St. Elizabeths Hall – to me it was the Town Hall: basketball, school plays, the movies, Bingo, dances. A single sentence doesn’t suffice. Together, those who gathered in its space could write a very interesting book….
I probably could go on with more and more memories, maybe embellished by imperfect memory after over 60 years away from them.
But some memories do stick, as we all know, good and bad, and I hope you enjoyed reading this.
(click to enlarge)

Several early plat maps of Sykeston area seen in old post office July 2008

The Sykeston North House, June, 2000, the east exposure. Some years later it burned to the ground.

#731 – Dick Bernard: Remembering a Wedding 50 Years Ago Today, June 8, 1963

June 8, 2013/3 Comments/in Colorado, Community, Family History, North Dakota, Quietings /by dickbernard

A short while back came an invitation to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Jules and Sharon (Alinder) Dragland: click on Dragland.
They went to the same college as I, at the same general time, and while we didn’t know each other personally, then, we’ve become acquainted through a college alumni mailing list.
I asked if I could send their announcement on to the list, and they said fine.
I also remarked about the coincidence: my first wife, Barbara, and I were married June 8, 1963, as well. And asked the question: and where did you marry? It turned out they married the same day as Barbara and I, at a Church one-third of a mile from ours, in the same town, Valley City ND. A pretty amazing coincidence.
Those who know me know that Barbara and my marriage was not at all routine. It wasn’t marital problems – not that at all. Five months after we were married, she had to quit teaching due to a previously unknown and ultimately fatal kidney condition. She had our first and only child, Tom, February 26, 1964, and passed away waiting for a kidney transplant July 24, 1965.
A friend marveled, today, that I remember the details so well, so many years later. Such journeys one never forgets.
Life has gone on, and I don’t think she has accompanied me too much as a ghost since then, in the sense of impacting on later relationships. Had she lived, I think we would have done well, knowing our mutual interests, then, but anyone who’s been married knows that you are never guaranteed an easy path. There is this and that wrinkle: every couple knows this. Widows have the luxury of defined memories that, at some point, are terminated by their partners death. In my case, this was only two years for both of us living from one day to the next, not knowing what the next 24 hours would bring, healthwise.
Here are two photos: of Barbara on our wedding day at St. Catherine’s in Valley City ND; and of me, a few weeks earlier on Army maneuvers at Yakima Firing Range, Washington. There is a little story to follow:
(click to enlarge)

Barbara Sunde Bernard, June 8, 1963

Dick, Yakima Firing Range, Washington, May, 1963

Barbara was doubtless better at planning this wedding than I. She was very poor, but she had family and she had friends in town.
Me? I had been in the Army since January of 1962 at Ft. Carson, Colorado; she and I had become engaged, and the wedding date was set.
Then our entire Division set out to play war on the Yakima Firing Range in dismal southeast Washington State. (The Division was preparing for later duty in Vietnam. We didn’t know that at the time.)
We went the 1200 miles one-way, there and back, by truck, and, it seemed, I’d be home in time to get the required blood test.
I know from letters I wrote her (which she kept), that she was nervous about all of this separation, so close to wedding day. This was not deemed to be an emergency matter by either the Army or myself.
I recall distinctly, on some liberty time, going in to Yakima to be fitted for the wedding wear, so at least that could be ready.
Maneuvers over, the Division motor-marched back to Ft. Carson, I took my leave and got home in time for the wedding, which went well.
We “honey-mooned” by taking the Greyhound bus back to Colorado Springs, and living in a tiny apartment, half of a two car garage, for the next month. We gave meaning to the phrase: “poor as church mice.” Then she returned home to start a teaching career, which lasted two months till she had to resign due to illness.
And that began Fifty Years Ago today.

Dick and Barbara with family members, Grandma and Grandpa Busch, my Mom and Dad, sister Mary Ann, David and Ruth Kent, Barbara’s Mom and brother, my sister Florence, and brother Frank. Missing from photo were my brother John, and Barbara’s brother Mike. My Dad’s parents had both passed away by then.

Barbara’s bridesmaids, June 8, 1963. (I hope I’m correct) Connie Cink, Florence Bernard, and Shirley Undem.

UPDATE:
from Sharon and Jule, June 8, 2013: This was most interesting to us. You have great memories. I found this sad to read, yet happy to see how happy Barb was on your special wedding day. She chose lavender and we had blue with lavender flowers. . We have been so very lucky and have had a great 50 years. We had an awesome day, are so happy, feel extremely blessed and looking forward to our party tomorrow. Thanks for sharing your story and sending your best wishes. There will be several people here that you know. It was great to get a long note from Richard Greene yesterday. We have heard from so many people. Because of you, we have heard from people we hardly remember, but who seem to remember us. It has been a fun ride.
See also Responses to this post.
Barbara is buried in the St. Catherine’s Cemetery, Valley City ND, perhaps 100 feet northeast of the statue on the south edge which overlooks the cemetery.

At St. Catherine’s Cemetery Valley City ND August 16, 1978

#730 – Dick Bernard: Community Celebration of Place. As good as it gets.

June 7, 2013/0 Comments/in Community, Education, Minnesota /by dickbernard

Even preceding retirement 13 years ago, I wondered about how it would be out in “Elder-land”. I wrote about this recently.
Just last night, at a meeting where the age range was from (I’d guess) early 30s to mid 80s we talked about the huge dilemma these days of elder to younger communications. We communicate differently: too many new options, which many elders are not willing to adapt to. In a way, there is definitely a “canyon”. Elders and Youngers are in different worlds.
Unexpectedly, a few weeks ago, I had my eyes opened to something truly wonderful: a “bridge” between the worlds. My 92-year old friend, Lynn, asked me to accompany him to two events in Minneapolis. The first, at Sanford Middle School on May 22, was called Elder Wisdom Childrens Song “Featuring Eric Sparks’ 7th Grade Students”; the second, on May 30, was a planning session of the parent organization of the Sanford event, an organization called Community Celebration of Place directed by the organizations Executive Director and Smithsonian Folkways recording artist Larry Long. The planning session involved Elders and Youngers, visioning the coming year.
Both programs were uplifting and fascinating.
There is far too much to say to describe these programs, so I’ll just post a few brief comments, and a few photos, and you’re on your own to find out more.
Community Celebration of Place is an organization worth getting to know. The brochure available at the planning meeting, and the agenda for the morning planning session can be read here: Comm Celeb of Place001
There was a deliberate effort to integrate Elders and Youngers directly, and it was marvelous to observe.
Here’s a few photos from May 30 at the Youth and Elders Circle 2013 at the Northside YMCA in Minneapolis:
(click to enlarge)

Folk artist Larry Long leads the gathering in song inspired by students at several schools participating May 30.

Kids and Elders envision future improvements at their school and community. A major part of the table talk was strictly kids. Adults were to listen!

Facilitator Anthony Galloway led discussion with participants.

Kids generated ideas for various parts of their home environment, and posted by category: school, community, etc

Work over, everyone was treated to a complimentary meal from Gandhi Mahal Restaurant in south Minneapolis.
On the ground, eight days earlier, I had seen this program in action at Sanford Middle School.
On that day, in a one hour program, Sanford 7th Grade Students honored four community Elders, Radio and performing personality Shedrick Garrett, Supt. Bernadeia Johnson, Police Officer Manny Granroos, and Community Elder and Volunteer Mohamed Salah Abdi.
In each case, the Elder spent a significant amount of time being interviewed by a 7th grade class; the interview was then translated into a story, distributed to those attending the recognition; the story was translated into a song, accompanied by interpretive acting by students in the class. It was an incredible performance and very uplifting hour for everyone. Each elder was on the stage with the kids for the entire hour.
I took many photos at this event. Here’s a single photo with the students and those being honored May 22.

Participants in Elders Wisdom Children’s Song, Sanford Middle School, Minneapolis MN, May 22, 2013

Community Celebration of Place is well worth checking out. Its ideas deserve to be experienced in many ways, everywhere.

Dick Bernard: An Open Letter to Minnesota Orchestra fans who purchased tickets for 2012-2013, or have ever attended even a single performance of the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis MN

June 5, 2013/1 Comment/in Community, Labor, Media, Minnesota /by dickbernard

UPDATES will be included as received at the end of this post. One particularly interesting link about Orchestra finances has already been added. Take a look within Molly’s comment.
There are other responses at the Twin Cities Daily Planet. You can read them here.
Here is a very interesting blog site directly related to the issue.
MinnPost has hi-lited this post as one of its every Friday BlogCabin, posted yesterday here. Thanks, MinnPost.
Minnesota Orchestra Board of Directors here. Contact address here.
Minnesota Orchestra Musicians website here.
(click to enlarge)

Locked Out Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra Concert Oct 18, 2012, with Maestro Skrowaczewski

Dear Friend: I ask that you consider forwarding this letter to anyone you might know who can connect the letter with someone who’s heard the Minnesota Orchestra at any time at Orchestra Hall.
I write as an individual, expressing my own opinion.
Succinctly, the entire 2012-13 season for the Minnesota Orchestra is cancelled due to a Lock-Out of the Orchestra. If settlement is reached today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, my personal opinion will remain as stated below.
I have been active in the Lock-Out issue all year, and this letter is simply a continuation of that action. Within the externally imposed limits (lack of access to “truth”, “facts” which can be trusted, etc.) I am very well informed.
Prior posts begin here. There is an additional post here.
Personal Comment:
For many years I have attended concerts at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis MN. (The Wikipedia entry about Orchestra Hall, as it appeared on June 5, 2013, is included in text form at the end of this post.)
For perhaps the last dozen years we’ve been six-concert Subscribers, almost always attending some additional events at Orchestra Hall during the year. Our usual location was about Row 4, directly behind the Maestro.
February 8, 2012, we were among those who received an e-mail from the Minnesota Orchestra for a “one-of-a-kind concert season”: MN Orch Feb 8 2012002 We attended the special concert at the Convention Center. We re-subscribed, as always.
“One-of-a-kind concert season”? 2012-13 has certainly been one of those. There have been zero concerts.
Like the Orchestra itself, we Subscribers have been Locked Out.
There are some basic facts I think are important to know:
1. Best as I can gather, an average of 1,600 of us attend each and every concert at Orchestra Hall.
2. The Board of Directors of the Minnesota Orchestra – the perpetrators of the Lock-Out – number about 80 people who, unless you are lucky enough to know one personally, are essentially anonymous, unelected by and unaccountable to either ourselves or the Orchestra.
3. The Orchestra, the target of the Lock Out, currently numbers fewer than 75 members, and this number has decreased markedly in the last 12 months, and will continue to decrease.
4. I have yet to meet an Orchestra goer who comes to Orchestra Hall to hear the Orchestra Board; I don’t recall ever actually seeing in person an Orchestra Board member, though I may unknowingly have run into one in the old lobby of the Hall. They are names without faces to me.
To those of you who feel helpless in this situation, I understand. I feel helpless too.
But if each one of us in some directly affirmative way get into action, there is no way that the Board can continue its current posture, which is to stonewall, and blame the Orchestra Union for the stalemate which the Board, itself, created.
If we don’t act, we are complicit in the destruction of this World-Class Orchestra.
Additional thoughts follow.
You can respond to this post. I get first look, which includes your e-mail address (which does not appear in public). I pre-approve and will approve all responses that are not spam. My contact information is found on the About page of this blog.
Do something!
We are a small but essential constituency. We need to be heard, loudly, in diverse and very strong ways.
I am reminded of the famous Rev. Martin Niemoller quote, which he repeated in slightly differing ways in hundreds of speeches after Hitler was defeated and he was released from prison after WWII: “First they came…”
Destruction of a World Class Orchestra is not the Holocaust, but the general dynamic is the same.
Our silence is NOT golden.
*
Some closing random thoughts:
1. Almost certainly, there was a “Point Zero” in this catastrophe – a place and time when the Power Actors who began the road to this tragedy held their very first conversation, thence beginning the process of bringing their Board(s) along.
Someday, the details may come out about who, what, when, where…, but these will likely never be revealed by the perpetrators themselves. Somebody(ies) coordinated the idea of locking out five major U.S. orchestras, one of which was the Minnesota Orchestra, at about the same time for the same general reason.
All but the Minnesota Orchestra are back to work with, as best I can tell, negotiated agreements.
2. Orchestra Management holds all of the traditional tools of Power here: Money, Media, Mailing List (we have received at least 17 e-mails from the Orchestra Management this year, plus additional letters.) They don’t hold either the Music or the Audience.
3. The Musicians have not had this advantage.
4. As a long time subscriber, and one whose career was labor relationships, it is difficult to envision anything approaching a full recovery from this disaster. Permanent damage has been done.
A. We in the seats – the customers – have been ignored and dismissed.
B. Whether the shrinking body which is the Orchestra itself can recover its morale and esprit is very doubtful.
C. There is no good reason for Maestro Osmo Vanska to remain here, or for successor world class conductors to come to this community after he leaves.
These three, Orchestra, Conductor and Audience, create the synergy which makes the difference.
5. The pot of money called an endowment, and new lobby – are, from all appearances, the priorities of this Board, and make no difference in the long run. Hypothetical guesses about when the Orchestra would run out of money are self-serving guesses. It is interesting to note the Wikipedia article about Orchestra Hall. Its premise was to be non-elitist, welcoming to all….
For us, personally, the lowest point occurred a few months ago when the November 30 Rachmaninoff concert was cancelled.

Cancelled Concert Nov. 30, 2012. This was a special event including our 83 year old friend, and his friend.

This concert was not one of our subscriptions. We purchased four tickets for this one specifically to take our 82 year old neighbor and his friend to the concert. November 30 was to be a high point life experience for him.
Cancelled.
There is no way to recover from such a loss.
The Orchestra Board – all of them – should resign, giving an opportunity to recover.
Of course they won’t, and perhaps they can’t as there is no mechanism to start from scratch.
But they should leave, or at minimum publicly apologize, putting a face and a voice to their public apology.
They are a disgrace.
2012-13 will be the true “legacy” of the current Minnesota Orchestra Board and Management.
What a disgusting legacy it is.
Personally, for me, the Union of the Minnesota Orchestra will be the one who has to invite me to resume my subscription to this Orchestra.

October 18, 2012

Orchestra Hall (Minneapolis)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Entry as it appears June 5, 2013
Jump to: navigation, search
Lobby and box office seen from 11th Street
Seen from Peavey Plaza
Fountain, Peavey Plaza
Orchestra Hall, located at Nicollet Mall and 12th Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is home to the Minnesota Orchestra. The Hall was built in 1974 (along with the adjacent Peavey Plaza) and opened for the 1974 concert season. It is a major landmark of the southern portion of the Nicollet Mall and home to many events throughout the year in addition to the Orchestra’s home base.
The auditorium seats 2,450, seating 1,500 on the main floor. The remaining 950 seats are placed in three tiers above the main floor, and along the side of the hall. The auditorium is actually a second building separated (for acoustical reasons) by a one inch gap from the “shell” which contains the lobby and offices. The stage is unusual due to the large cube motif in the rear wall, which continues along the ceiling of the hall all the way to the back of the hall. The cubes were added for acoustic reasons (with great success), but turned out to be visually striking as well.[1] The great acoustical design has been attempted to be duplicated in many other concert halls.
Built in 1975, Peavey Plaza was designed by landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg who also designed the Loring Greenway. The plaza which holds an amphitheater and water fountain is considered one of the endangered historic properties in Minnesota.[2][3]
Originally noted for its Modernist design, chosen to represent an orchestra for everyone, not what was then perceived to be the formal “elitist” designs of the past.[1] The exterior of the building is recognizable by its large, blue ventilation ducts. Their unusual size was chosen to reduce air velocity and hence noise. The lobby area’s original “power plant” design was meant to remove tones of class and privilege from the symphony-going experience; it was upgraded in the late 1997 and includes several bars.[1] Expansive windows overlook the street.
In April 2007, it was announced that the hall would be undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation.[4] This renovation had a heavy emphasis on the lobby and patron areas.
On April 9, 2010, plans were revealed for a $40 million renovation and expansion. The lobby and public areas will be doubled in size and the current utilitarian exterior will be replaced with stone and glass. A grand new entrance will also be added. KPMB of Toronto are the architects and MBJ of Minneapolis are the structural engineers. Construction began in June 2012 and will reopen in late summer of 2013.
See also
List of concert halls
References
^ a b c Millett, Larry (2007). AIA Guide to the Twin Cities: The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minnesota Historical Society Press. p. 30. ISBN 0-87351-540-4.
^ Metzger, Michael (May 1, 2008). “Peavey Plaza makes list of endangered historic sites”. MinnPost.com (MinnPost). Retrieved 2008-05-01.
^ Bruch, Michelle (May 1, 2008). “Peavey Plaza on list of endangered historic places”. Downtown Journal (Minnesota Premier Publications). Retrieved 2008-05-01.
^ “What Sounds Great at Orchestra Hall? A $90m Facelift” St. Paul Pioneer Press, 30 April 2007.
External links
Orchestra Hall from the Minnesota Orchestra’s website

UPDATES as received:
from Molly R, June 5: Did you see this post yesterday? I thought it was excellent. Detailed but quite clear. [about the Finances of Minnesota Orchestra, from MinnPost Community Voices]
From Carol T, June 5: Did the subscribers have their money refunded? I have not been to a MN Orchestra concert in years (sorry to say), but this is a disaster nevertheless. And what is the Twin Cities’ motto these days anyway – love our stadiums, hate our musicians?? Response from Dick: Money was refunded if requested. If not, could be used for tickets next season. We opted for refund. We didn’t pay to have our season cancelled.
From John B, June 6:
The orchestra mess reminds me that historically, in Europe, musicians held the same social level as servants to the rich. If the MN Orch was proficiently artistic at a level of say, 95 and even 25% of the members left, management could probably hire replacements at lower salaries and maintain a level of artistic proficiency at 94. This is my opinion, but the available and qualified pool of highly capable professional musicians is very deep and wide. Supply and demand rules again.
To state the obvious: the MN Orch Board has the power, the musicians union does not. It is Walkerism on the cultural level. Truth be told, I bet the 80 Orch board members couldn’t discern the artistic differential between a proficiency level of 95 and 90. Also, truth be told, I think most rich arts supporters don’t know squat about the fine points in the arts. They have the money to donate big time and love the power and want to look good and get the payoff of being on the Board.
I am reading a good book titled The Org, about the why and ways of organizations in our society. Some great insight by Fisman and Sullivan.
From Anonymous, June 6, in Twin Cities Daily Planet: I admit I have been following this issue from a fairly distant perspective. I have attended a small but few concerts at the Hall. Yet I’m still unclear of the reasons the 80 member board to request members of the orchestra to take a 20 to 35% pay cut other than they do not have enough money to support the orchestra at its current level? Could be as simple as they actually do not have the money? Is it because they are inherently evil and are bent on destroying an orchestra? Or are they not inventive enough to attract additional revenue to support existing budgets? Someone help me out … if there is enough money why is the board holding out?
Dick, responding to anonymous: Molly (Minnpost link comment above) provided a link to an excellent analysis of the money situation with the MO. As one who spent most of my working career in and around collective bargaining, I know that the “truth” was often false, in the way that it was presented. The numbers were accurate, but one was foolish to take them at face value. My understanding, and this is only my understanding, is that from early on the Union only wanted to see the documentation of the supposed money problems. For whatever reason, the Orchestra Management declined – and may still be declining – to reveal the kind of things suggested in the MinnPost article. In my own pretty extensive history with bargaining, including working with many staff people who had the same job as I did, all of us working over the years with thousands of contracts, money was almost always the stated public issue; most often, though, the primary issue was not money at all. People could understand $’s (whether the numbers were true or not made no difference); they had more difficulty with conceptual things, often things like being treated with basic respect. From what I know, and I don’t know the entire story here, because no one will ever tell me that, “money” is not and has never been the issue in the conflict between the Orchestra Management and its Union. Money has been the excuse, but not the reason. It also interests me that Minneapolis Star Tribune has twice passed on columns from me about this issue. This is not a matter of writing ability: I’ve been published frequently in the STrib. They aren’t interested in my dissonant voice on this issue. (The President and CEO of the STrib is also on the Board of the Minnesota Orchestra.)
Comments also found at my June 1 Post:
From Alan S, June 2, 2013: I just cannot believe how disrespectful this board is towards their musicians and their patrons. I cannot believe that they have any understanding about what these musicians go through to get to the level so that they can perform in the blind auditions and get acceptance to be hired at that level.
What kind of management would spend 50 million dollars to improve their plant, Orchestra Hall, which I believe is the most pathetic building that houses a major orchestra in any city in the country for a city of our size. Over 10 % of the seats cannot see the entire stage. On the third tier, close to the stage, you have at the most a 20 to 25% view of the stage, and the sound there is pathetic.
The building should have been built like the Ordway, not as deep and twice as wide so that every seat in the auditorium would have a straight on view of the magnificent orchestra that we used to enjoy. The plaza could have been designed to be in the rear of the building. After this building was built, and it was discovered that all of the seating did not have a complete view of the stage, the words architectural blunder appeared in the paper just once, and then never again.
4th row is great seats. We used to have seats in the center section on the left aisle in that row for many years. I myself never went to hear music, but to watch music being made. That location allowed me, if there was a pianist, to see his or her hands on the keyboard.
My own daughter performed as a sub (violist) with that orchestra when Leonard Slatkin was the conductor. One of the letters stated that only 52% of the seats are filled for concerts, Are they blaming their marketing shortcomings on the orchestra members? It appears that to me.

Cancelled Concert Nov. 30, 2012. This was a special event including our 83 year old friend, and his friend.

from John G, June 4, 2013:
Beginning last September when I got first word of this lockout I have been
“on this case.” Likely you have the MOMO website, and there you can see
among “replies” my letters there. From the outset of this mismanagement’s
lockout it has been clear that they own no loyalty to our musicians and to
Osmo Vanska. For me this string of lockout cancellations has been one of
the major disappointments of a life that has been, since my mother’s
teaching of music, altogether fascinated by the world of classical music.
Anger about this is mine as well. I am also fully embarrassed by the
inaction of the powers that be, including our governor whose former wife has
been such a loyal supporter of the MO.
From the start the faceless Board has aimed to destroy the musicians’ union.
Years ago I served on the Board of the Inter-Faculty organization, a
thoroughly weak representative of faculty on the then-seven campuses of the
Minnesota State University System, and I have seen mismanagement in church
settings as well. Dick, the barbarians are storming our gates. Perhaps not
even the group of attorneys that I have repeatedly invoked, could turn
around this situation.
In any case, there is no publicly visible effort to
do that. Not only are we losing our Minnesota Orchestra as we have known it
under Osmo Vanska superb world-class leadership as Music Director. We are
also witnessing another terrible blow against unions and workers’ necessary
right to organize for their own right to exist.
Many thanks for your outrage and its effective expression. John
From Jane P, June 10, 2013: I couldn’t agree more. However, there is so little we can do. Not really anyway to contact them, is there? They are in an ivory tower – it is the newly remodeled hall that is useless.
To me this is a giant example of two very dangerous attitudes I see constantly in art and academic institutions: 1 . buildings are more important than programs 2. the labor and skills of most people have little value and can be easily reproduced by eager hungry new hires.
This is the path to the stone age!
Dick’s reply to Jane: I don’t agree that there is little we can do. If the audience, the subscribers, were to say we won’t be back unless the Orchestra itself asks us back, there’d be movement, fast.
Of course, a subscriber revolt is a very unlikely scenario, but it is possible. You are in the arts. This is an important issue for you, too!
Note additional comment(s) in Response section, below, and at Twin Cities Daily Planet posting (link at beginning of this post).

#728 – Dick Bernard: A great day around kids.

June 3, 2013/1 Comment/in Community, Education, Family History, Media, Minnesota, North Dakota, Peace & Justice, Quietings /by dickbernard

Today I visited two school events, one in Minneapolis, one in South St. Paul. One planned, one last minute. The events caused me to go into my memento box and pull out a little memory book from back in the 1950s.

The book seems to be from my Junior year in high school (Antelope Consolidated, rural Mooreton ND). About all it includes are the basketball scores from that year. We won more than we lost. Once we scored 91 points; once an opponent scored 91 against us.
I loved basketball in our tiny schools. It was about the only sport available. Sometimes there was summer baseball; only once were there enough of us to have a six-man football team. There were no other sports, and never, in high school, a band – no teacher with even rudimentary skills.
The good old days.
Todays planned event was over at Washburn High School in south Minneapolis. I had been there some months ago during a troubled time, and wrote about a community meeting then.
Today was much more uplifting. The students of Cristina Benz’s first hour ceramics class and [some other] students have been diligently working on making a peace pole to rededicate Washburn as an International Peace Site.
They had constructed a unique Peace Pole out of ceramic squares, all reflecting the word “peace” in different ways and different languages. There was an hour of discussion and refreshments, and I went away refreshed in more ways than simply a bagel! The actual dedication of the pole will be a bit later. School ends for the year tomorrow.
Of course, Washburn ended up in the news for something negative…the way news often is. I asked how the next few non-newsworthy months have gone. By all accounts: just fine. The school moved on. The news media went to the next negative stories….
Here are a few photos from the class:
(click to enlarge)

Two students explain the still incomplete Peace Pole at Washburn High School

1939 Washburn High School graduate Lynn Elling talks to this years students at the class.

Some lucky bird may take up residence in this ceramic birdhouse which will grace the top of the completed peace pole.

Teacher Cristina Benz chats with guest Lynn Elling after his presentation.

Then to South St. Paul’s Lincoln Center School for the 5th grade run including granddaughter, Kelly.
It was a beautiful day, and the run was plenty long and hard. Quite a number of teachers participated.
This was a fun run: you go at your own pace. I got to thinking back to those old days when, perhaps, there’d be what I think was called a Play Day. I thought of one particular one in Stanley ND when I was in 8th grade. The tiny schools came together for a time of competitions of the time: sack races, softball toss, that sort of thing.
A feature of today’s So. St. Paul run that you wouldn’t have seen in those days was the inclusion of everybody, regardless of native ability. It was a day of personal bests for all.
That’s one of many neat parts of todays society. It hasn’t always been so.
Happy Summer, kids!
Here’s some photos from Lincoln Center run today:

The 5th grade run begins.

Kids from other classes extend support.

Heading towards a personal best.

Doing a lap on the track.

Almost finished!

Schools done. 1950s depiction.

#727 – Dick Bernard: The Disastrous 2012-13 Minnesota Orchestra Season. A subscribers view.

June 1, 2013/0 Comments/in Community, Economics, Labor, Minnesota /by dickbernard

Note comments as received which are included at the end of this post, and as Responses.
Prior Post: here
Musicians website here.
Tonight, June 1, was supposed to be our last concert for the 2012-13 season of the Minnesota Orchestra (MO).
Yesterday, May 31, I went down to view the under-construction area at Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis. Here are three photos:
(click to enlarge photos)

The vision of the building. I was most struck by the police sign on the fence surrounding the illustration.

The north end of the hall, the under construction new lobby would be to the left.

Orchestra Hall from 11th Street. The sidewalk immediately in front of the hall has no holes for "sidewalk superintendents" and security is tight.

Orchestra Hall from 11th Street. The sidewalk immediately in front of the hall has no holes for “sidewalk superintendents” and security appears tight.

Of course, there is no concert tonight. The entire season was cancelled, bit by bit, over the last eight months. The Orchestra was locked out, as was, to little apparent notice, everyone of us who normally fill the auditorium seats.
There have been occasional appearances by the LoMoMo (Locked Out Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra). We were privileged to attend the first one October 18, 2012.
Earlier this week I submitted a perspective on the Lockout to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It was apparently declined. My proposed column is found following the photo of the tickets (below).
I don’t feel as moderate as my commentary suggests.
Seeing angry comments in print in Minneapolis’ major paper was unlikely as this lockout has been and remains a “mover and shaker” issue, and my criticism would be of the “movers and shakers” who make up the invisible Board of the Orchestra, and by extension the downtown Minneapolis and Hennepin County Power Structure. (One of those invisible MO Board members is the Publisher and CEO of the Star Tribune.)
These 80 or so MO Board members are the folks who decided to authorize and to continue the Lock Out. (A lockout is simply a management version of a Strike.)
This management strategy has failed, resulting in an entire season destroyed, and the future is very uncertain.
Revisiting my long career in collective bargaining, I cannot recall, ever, as incompetent a bunch as this Minnesota Orchestra Board when it comes to the most basic of customer relations.
This very large Board seems to have no sense whatsoever about, or no interest in, its real base, we people who pay to come to hear and appreciate outstanding music performance.
The MO Boards apparent devotion is to its immense endowment (investments), and new lobby. Both are useless without an orchestra to showcase world class music, and an audience to appreciate it.
In struggling for an analogy that might give context to non-MO readers of the proposed article (below), I finally compared the 2012-13 fiasco to a theoretical similar scenario in a small school district somewhere in the metropolitan area. How would the community accept a decision to close the schools for an entire year made by a faceless School Board unelected by the public and thus unaccountable to the community?
Not well, I reckon.
Would what happened in that single school district impact on the other communities?
Ubetcha. Communities, even large ones, do not live in isolation from one another.
Over the months it has occurred to me, a long-time subscriber, that I wouldn’t recognize any current Board member if I ran into them on the street or, for that matter, at Orchestra Hall. They may as well be anonymous.
It is unlikely that there will ever be admissions that any mistakes, even small ones, were made by the large MO Board. The “wagons are in a circle”. But it was the Orchestra management who created this lockout, and thought it could force capitulation by its musicians.
I congratulate the musicians.
There will be a settlement, sometime.
Whether there will be a recovery is another question.
We ordinary folks, one by one, need to find our voice and act in the many ways that we can to save this Orchestra. It is not enough to blame, or say we can do nothing. We need to act.

Tickets to the last scheduled concert for the 2012-13 season of Minnesota Orchestra. Like all the other concerts, this concert was cancelled due to the lockout.

The submission to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 29, 2013:
June 1 is our last Minnesota Orchestra Concert of the 2012-13 season: Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” plus other pieces.
We’ll do as usual: come in from Woodbury, attend afternoon Mass at our Church, Basilica; have a light dinner at the Hilton Saturday evening….
That’s been our pattern this year, as it has been for many years: six concerts (plus occasional other miscellaneous programs at Orchestra Hall); seats in Row 4, directly behind maestro Osmo Vanska’s stand. Good seats.
Oh…I just woke up.
That June 1 concert I mention was cancelled a few weeks ago, and before that, the 5th program; and before that the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st.
This year our tickets were to be at the Minneapolis Civic Center auditorium while they built a new lobby at Orchestra Hall.
But we and our colleague concert goers (some might say “customers”) were Locked Out an entire season by the management of the Minnesota Orchestra, and we’re supposed to believe the narrative that it is the Musicians Union who are at fault.
We know better.
My file labeled “MN Orch 2012-2013” keeps growing.
Minnesota Orchestra is more than just an Orchestra – it is a world-class Orchestra.
But most people in this metropolitan area probably don’t much care about what is happening down at 11th and Nicollet Avenue.
As I’ve witnessed the destruction of the season this year, I’ve tried to put this unique community of MnOrch in some understandable perspective, if only for myself.
What does this disaster mean to our metro area and to our state?
Imagine a school district with about 150 teachers, whose School Board simply shuts down the entire system for an entire year, then blames the teachers union for the shutdown. What about the students and their parents, who are the customers? [edit June 1, 2013: I think the actual Orchestra – the Union – was less than 100 when this lockout began, and has already shrunk considerably as members leave for other places.]
That’s a reasonable comparison.
Full disclosure: I spent 27 years full-time in and around collective bargaining in Minnesota. It was my career. My colleagues and I managed in many assorted ways negotiations and administration of literally thousands of Minnesota school district labor contracts.
I thought we saw it all, one time or another.
Never in my experience, or in “war stories” we shared, have I heard anything similar to this wreckage of my Orchestra by faceless people – the Orchestral Association Board – none who I’d recognize if I ran into them on the street, anywhere.
Months ago, I wrote each of them – over 80 – a real letter, with stamped envelope, sent to the only address I had: Orchestra Hall.
Not one sent so much as an acknowledgement.
Quite often in my own personal experience with collective bargaining there were bruised egos and even, on very infrequent occasions, a strike, though never anything even remotely approaching the length of this lockout.
Bargaining is not a simple conversation, where one side dictates the answer.
But always there was a settlement. Seldom were there strikes preceding; never were there lockouts.
At some point – maybe tomorrow – there will be a settlement to end the Minnesota Orchestra disaster of 2012-13.
Will we be back in our prime seats whenever the settlement happens?
If it’s up to me, I’ll be back only if the musicians through their union ask us to return.
We don’t go to hear the Management, or to sip wine in a fancy lobby; we go for the Orchestra.
There will be no Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” on Saturday night.
The movers and shakers of this state best get their act together and settle this conflict. The reputation of our community is damaged.

Downtown Minneapolis MN from Orchestra Hall May 31, 2013

From Alan, June 2, 2013: I just cannot believe how disrespectful this board is towards their musicians and their patrons. I cannot believe that they have any understanding about what these musicians go through to get to the level so that they can perform in the blind auditions and get acceptance to be hired at that level.
What kind of management would spend 50 million dollars to improve their plant, Orchestra Hall, which I believe is the most pathetic building that houses a major orchestra in any city in the country for a city of our size. Over 10 % of the seats cannot see the entire stage. On the third tier, close to the stage, you have at the most a 20 to 25% view of the stage, and the sound there is pathetic.
The building should have been built like the Ordway, not as deep and twice as wide so that every seat in the auditorium would have a straight on view of the magnificent orchestra that we used to enjoy. The plaza could have been designed to be in the rear of the building. After this building was built, and it was discovered that all of the seating did not have a complete view of the stage, the words architectural blunder appeared in the paper just once, and then never again.
4th row is great seats. We used to have seats in the center section on the left aisle in that row for many years. I myself never went to hear music, but to watch music being made. That location allowed me, if there was a pianist, to see his or her hands on the keyboard.
My own daughter performed as a sub (violist) with that orchestra when Leonard Slatkin was the conductor. One of the letters stated that only 52% of the seats are filled for concerts, Are they blaming their marketing shortcomings on the orchestra members? It appears that to me.

Cancelled Concert Nov. 30, 2012. This was a special event including our 83 year old friend, and his friend.

from John, June 4, 2013:
Beginning last September when I got first word of this lockout I have been
“on this case.” Likely you have the MOMO website, and there you can see
among “replies” my letters there. From the outset of this mismanagement’s
lockout it has been clear that they own no loyalty to our musicians and to
Osmo Vanska. For me this string of lockout cancellations has been one of
the major disappointments of a life that has been, since my mother’s
teaching of music, altogether fascinated by the world of classical music.
Anger about this is mine as well. I am also fully embarrassed by the
inaction of the powers that be, including our governor whose former wife has
been such a loyal supporter of the MO.
From the start the faceless Board has aimed to destroy the musicians’ union.
Years ago I served on the Board of the Inter-Faculty organization, a
thoroughly weak representative of faculty on the then-seven campuses of the
Minnesota State University System, and I have seen mismanagement in church
settings as well. Dick, the barbarians are storming our gates. Perhaps not
even the group of attorneys that I have repeatedly invoked, could turn
around this situation.
In any case, there is no publicly visible effort to
do that. Not only are we losing our Minnesota Orchestra as we have known it
under Osmo Vanska superb world-class leadership as Music Director. We are
also witnessing another terrible blow against unions and workers’ necessary
right to organize for their own right to exist.
Many thanks for your outrage and its effective expression, John