June 2015 – Thoughts Towards a Better World

#1040 – Dick Bernard: A Community Theatre. Les Miserables

June 28, 2015/0 Comments/in Community /by dickbernard

At some points in our lives we all experience an “as good as it gets” moment or two.
For me, one of those times happened five minutes from our house, on June 25, when the local Community Theatre staged a magnificent version of Les Miserables.
Here’s the program for the evening: Les Miserables002, and below is a photo from the cover of that program.
(click to enlarge)

I’ve seen “Les Mis” before, including the film, and a powerful professional staging at the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul.
It looms large. A large cast. A long, long time in your seats with two Acts, 19 Scenes.
For a professional company it’s a daunting production.
For Community Theatre? I can only imagine.
I can thank my friend Michelle Witte for the nudge. It was just a last minute e-mail announcement she sent the day of the performance we attended.
I am embarrassed to say that I had not been to a production before this year, though I’ve lived in Woodbury for 15 years now, and the Theatre has existed for 40 years (beginning as an idea for a fundraiser for Royal Oaks school in our general neighborhood.)
Because I have a “history” with Les Mis, I took Michelle’s bait, and to be honest I thought they were desperate for customers. It was the end of the run, after all.
We got a clue, soon enough.
The parking lot at the high school was well-filled, and people were streaming in.
Something was up!
Inside, a near full house, and then the performance began, one act after another.
We’ve all seen “The Music Man” one time or another. This was River City writ large. One performer after another nailed their parts. I’m sure someone could find a misstep here or there, but those 76 trombones kept on playing, flawlessly, one piece after another.
During the intermission, Michelle spied me and came over. Over 5,000 people had come to this run, she said.
The word had obviously gotten around.
I knew she was long time active in this theatre. In the program, I looked at the bios of the company (page three). Down at the end of the alphabet, there she was: “Michelle Witte (Producer) adores the COMMUNITY in Community Theater….”. Producer? Oh, so obvious. I’ve known Michelle for a dozen or so years now, and enthusiasm and tenacity would be good descriptors of her.
Before going to the show I was visiting with our neighbor across the driveway, Lynn, and mentioned we were going to the performance. “My granddaughter is in the play. She is Cosette.” Of course, Cosette is a centerpiece of the show, the little girl on the program cover.
Wow.
In the same program you’ll find young Cosette listed right after Michelle Witte. I’ve seen her visiting Grandma more than once in our neighborhood. Lynn says Victoria has no stage fright and wants to go to acting school in New York.
Never doubt the power of belief.
To Woodbury Community Theatre, here’s to 40 more years or more.
Thanks, Michelle.
We’ll be back.

#1039 – Dick Bernard: The South Carolina Confederate Flag Debate

June 24, 2015/0 Comments/in Family History, History, North Dakota, Peace & Justice /by dickbernard

(click to enlarge)

Last night I saw on television much of the remarks of South Carolina State Senator Paul Thurmond, son of Strom Thurmond, making a strong argument for removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina Capitol grounds. He seemed somewhat nervous, but sincere and impassioned.
A distillation of his remarks was in three paragraphs in the midst of a news report on Page A5 of todays Minneapolis Star Tribune. I hope the entire speech gets more publicity. If anyone was putting himself out there, personally, it is Strom Thurmond’s son, arguing against what was his father’s mantra for his entire career.
It is a good sign.
This is an issue – race – that will not go away, and it lives within all of us in this country in one form or another. It is part of our national tradition, our personal DNA.
We are steeped in the notion of superiority of the White Race and the inferiority of those whose complexion suggests Black.
A good briefing on the history of this issue was sent to me by my friend, Joyce, yesterday. You can read it here: In her note, she says “this was published almost a year ago, but it is well worth rereading”. I agree.
Indeed, it is helpful to look back.
Two years ago someone with whom I had common ties many years ago in small town North Dakota, stuck me on a list which turned out to be your basic rant-site against anything related to President Obama.
At an early point, I asked a pointed question about one particularly racist rant. Who would pass along such a thing. The writer, from Washington State, took the bait Nov. 7, 2013:
“Mr. Bernard, you want to know who [I am]. I don’t know about your back ground. But I can give you a little bit about mine. My real name is ________. My back ground is that I served this country for over 53 years. 23 as a Soldier, and 30 as a Civilian. I spent most of that time in Foreign Countries. I’m a Vietnam Vet. I am a Republican, although I have voted for a Democrat in the pass, (President Kennedy). By the was [sic] my Brother In law is a disabled (retired) Federal Park Police. So I know a little about the Park Police through him. As for this President. In my opinion The only reason he was elected, was the fact that he is half black. You never hear him talk about being half white. [emphasis added] One more opinion, I think that all US Citizens should fire both the Democrat and Republican Congressional leader and start over, including the President and his cabinet. Our Government Leaders should live under the same laws and regulation that the American Citizens live under. I think you would see a big difference in our laws that we would have to live with.
That’s just a little about me.”
Which leads back to “our personal DNA”.
I have been going through the endless task of sorting stuff at the North Dakota farm, and one day came across the book, whose cover photograph leads this post. “The Clansman” was published in 1905, the same year my grandparents came to that farm. But this book (see end photo) included many photos from the film Birth of the Nation, based on the book, from 1915, and also indicated that the book had once belonged to the Moorhead MN Public Library.
When did they get this book? Who got it? Why? Why was it kept for over 100 years? Why did it fascinate me sufficiently so that I now have it?
We didn’t talk about Black people out there. In my growing up, there were hardly any around to talk about.
There were, however, Indians. Different story.
All this and more part of the necessary conversation.

COMMENTS:
from Jeff: I am not sure what to make about the sudden GOP conversion. I suspect after 2 or three days of saying it was “up to South Carolina”, or
It was an attack on Christians… both of which were universally derided … someone who was doing polling figured out that stonewalling
Wasn’t going to help this time.
Although I think the smoke of removing flags… covers the issue of gun violence and right wing terrorism.
from Carol: Great job. I’d like to see that book!
from Peter: The “stars and bars” was a battle flag, not a national flag, and was only resurrected in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. It symbolizes anti-integration, racist sentiment, and nothing more, recent interpretations notwithstanding.
from Alberder: Thanks for this honest and candid post.
from Bruce: At some level, Dick, America is dealing with race. That’s good, but there is double standard going on, not the one you might initially think.
Remember Anwar Al-Waki. The Muslim American that without due process according to his & our civil rights was designated as a terrorist, sentenced to death & was murdered by the president.
Now, from what I’ve been reading these white supremacy groups are an international conspiracy to control, if not eliminate, people of color. For me, these are far more dangerous to the Homeland than the groups designated as terrorist organizations, which are called Islamic extremists.
If the these white suprematist organizations are labeled “terrorist”, will the president hunt down and kill their leaders without due process. I hope not. But the precedent has been set.

#1038 – Dick Bernard: The Barn Roof

June 21, 2015/0 Comments/in Family History, North Dakota, Quietings /by dickbernard

PRE-NOTE: I’ve added to the beginning of yesterdays post material from Basilica of St. Mary today regarding the change in Bishops in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. I have also included a link to Pope Francis recent encyclical on “Care for Our Common Home” (the earth).
*
(click to enlarge photos)

The Bernard kids the morning after the barn went down, summer 1949. Richard (Dick) is the kid facing away from the camera.

This is the first year ever, in my memory, where I have mailed no Father’s Day best wishes.
I know lots of fathers, including myself. It’s nothing personal. This year, no cards.
My biological Dad died in November 7, 1997, at 89. He was a powerful and positive force in my life. In a real sense, my surrogate Dad, later, never married nor had any children of his own: this was my Uncle Vincent, who died at 90 on February 2, 2015. Vince and I spent a lot of time together, though as I said at the lunch after his funeral, neither one of us were much for talking, and my efforts to record the essence of his thoughts driving between LaMoure and the farm proved fruitless: it was minutes of dead air, with an occasional staccato comment on somebodies field, or a bird in the air. In a real sense he and I were peas in a pod. Now I’m dealing with the end of life issues for him. It is an honor.
Vince’s Dad, my Grandpa Ferd, was another crucial actor. He was 60 or so when I was born, so, while he lived until I was 27, he was always a somewhat ancient personage to me.
Dad and Vince and my life intersected directly and pretty dramatically at one point in my life, which comes to mind on this Father’s Day.
It was the end of July, 1949. I was 9, and we were at the farm, and had gone to bed, only to be awakened by a horrific south wind with very heavy rain. My particular memory was of water gushing in through the window sill. For the adults there was a whole lot of praying going on. Oddly, we stayed upstairs the entire time.
The next memory was the following morning, and when we went outside, the barn roof was no longer on the nearby barn, scattered to the north and east.
My memories are, of course, of a nine year old.
For the adults, it was a time of crisis.
There were cows to milk, and they could be milked, but the roof needed to be rebuilt.
Dad, 42 and a schoolteacher, was still on summer break and could stay and help. Vincent was 24 and, by then, basically the person who did the farming.
Grandpa, I learned years later, scouted the neighborhood and saw a barn with roof-beam pattern he liked, and made a form on the haymow floor, and the men hand-constructed each and every roof beam, then raised the roof, and construction proceeded.

The barn roof beams July 2014

My personal narrative does not include neighbors, etc., but I’m sure they were involved as well. But there was a great deal of damage in the surrounding area from the same storm, and I’m sure Uncle Vincent bore the brunt of the heavy-lifting later, including shingling the structure, which had to be a terrifying task.
These days, 66 years after that summer storm in 1949, the barn still stands, much the worse for wear.
I’ve often said that the barn roof is holding up the 1915 main floor, rather than the other way around, and each time I see that structure, however decrepit it has become, I see a joint effort of family and in particular of men in the summer of 1949.
Nobody’s talked about it much.
Nobody has to.
Happy Father’s Day, everyone.

An inadvertent double exposure, 1949, Uncle Vince appears twice, at left and in center, with his sister, Florence Wieland, her husband Bernard, and son Tom and duaghter Mary. All in the photo, save Mary, are deceased.

In the hay mow, May 23, 2015

Henry Bernard in the hay mow June, 1991

#1037 – Dick Bernard: Compassion and Flags and a call to action.

June 20, 2015/0 Comments/in Community, Guns, History, Peace & Justice, War /by dickbernard

POSTNOTE: Sunday, June 21: This morning at Basilica of St. Mary, a two page handout gave q&a’s about the recent happenings in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis regarding the resignation of the Archbishop and one of the Auxiliary Bishops. The Priest, Ft. Greg Welch, gave his homily on today’s gospel, and as I told him afterward, he “hit a home run”. His message ended with spontaneous applause from the large congregation, and applause is very unusual at Church. Essentially, as I interpret the Priest’s message today, (and likely the reason for the applause), “The Church is the People in it. Each of us.” Here, in three pages, are the Gospel passage, and the flier distributed: Church Archbishop Change001 For those interested in the Pope’s encylical that is receiving so much attention these days, you can access it here.
*
Quite routinely, when I have a thought for a blog; I let it germinate a bit; do a draft; and if fits I complete it in my own always imperfect way.
So it was with the following three paragraphs and photo, which began June 15, 2015, with an e-mail comment from my good friend…and fellow Catholic, Jeff: “waiting for the Bernard report/comment” on the resignation of the Archbishop and one Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis; the latest chapter in alleged mishandling of sex abuse of a Priest by Archdiocesan officials. But no words came to fill the space till Thursday, and then I wrote the following, and closed the file again, till today:
*
June 18, 2015
A few days ago a good friend asked me if I had a comment about the latest turn in the scandal-plagued Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis where, that very day, the Archbishop and one of the Auxiliary Bishops had resigned.
Of course, I have thoughts and feelings, but not until today’s headlines did I find a peg on which to hang my feelings. It comes from neighbors on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: a new interim Bishop arrives in Minnesota; nine people are gunned down by a lone gunman in a church in South Carolina. Those who watch the news probably know about both of these happenings.

Page One Minneapolis Star Tribune June 18, 2015

These “twins” in an odd sort of way speak to our society at large in a way we likely don’t like to consider.
*
June 20, 2015
As a lifelong Catholic, and a career long representative of teachers, including during the days when allegations of sex abuse by people in power against subordinates (i.e. teacher/student, etc) became a white hot issue (ca mid 1980s forward), I have a reasonably well informed base from which to comment, thus Jeff’s query.
But that, like the scandals, is old news, still eagerly flogged back to life when opportunities present themselves. Short story: humans are imperfect beings.
But what happened in that Church in Charleston a couple of days ago, and subsequent events there, are potentially more significant in the very long term, not only for South Carolina but for our country. But only if people get actively engaged in the essential conversations, everywhere. Without those engagements, nothing will change.
What most struck me, post massacre in the Church, was the expression of compassion and forgiveness from family and friends to the perpetrator: “I forgive you”, rather than “string him up” in lynch mob parlance.
These were people walking the talk of the real message of Christianity in their moment of great grieving.
Certainly as news of Charleston goes forward there will be calls for the death penalty, and other “eye for an eye” responses, but those folks who were at the prayer service are for me the spokespeople for living lives together; to rebuild from tragedy.
There’s also the matter of that Confederate flag, unbowed even after this horrific tragedy because it is apparently against South Carolina law to lower it.
Flags through history have rarely been benign creatures, rather they symbolize unity, usually against someone else. “Battle Flags”. “Us versus them”.
I’ve learned this lesson over time, most recently in a very unexpected way over two years ago when I learned that the United Nations flag had been taken down, almost covertly, from Hennepin County Plaza, after flying there for 44 years, in quiet company with the U.S. and Minnesota flags.
There is a story* there, a very long and continuing story, which you can read here if you wish.
For certain, watch the Confederate Flag debate as it evolves in South Carolina.
And watch the narrative as it evolves about punishment, “us” v “them” and the like.
We all can learn something from Charleston.
Will we?
THE UN FLAG: The essential narrative: the flag had to come down because it violated the U.S. Flag Code. It came down. It did not violate the Code, but nonetheless it stayed down. The people who took down the flag (the County Commissioners) had a code of silence, and wouldn’t say who, why or whatever about the real circumstances of why the flag came down. At this writing, they think they have given up. Not so.

#1036 – Dick Bernard: Political Talk. It's way past time we look at our own personal role in all of this.

June 14, 2015/0 Comments/in Politics /by dickbernard

Directly related, for leisure reading, what seems to be a good site on Civil Discourse, here.
In the state that works, Minnesota, we have again witnessed the absurd government-by-posturing where the Senate and House and Governor desperately attempt to avoid another government shutdown, even the thought of which was never necessary in the first place. It is as if the end of the regular session is the beginning of time of action, going to the brink*….
“Bull-headed” behavior, as I learned it in North Dakota years ago, seems to continue to prevail: “My way or the highway.”
Give a political leader a microphone, or newsprint quotes, and blame (against the other, always) comes quickly and easily; as does wearing the personal and partisan mantle of righteousness.
Like it or not, we citizens are the ones most to blame – all of us – however disinterested or repulsed we may be by “politics as usual”. We tolerate this behavior.
Wherever it is, federal, state, local, we get exactly the government that we deserve, and we can’t escape accountability by being able to say “I didn’t vote for any of them”, or such.
We are a democracy “of the people, by the people, for the people”.
We, the people, are very sloppy.
The June 12, 2015, Minneapolis Star Tribune carried four letters about the looming shutdown (which did not happen).
The best letter by far was the last from Meseret Hine a youngster in St. Paul, who said to the titular leaders of Minnesota (two Democrats and one Republican):
“Dear Gov. Dayton, Rep. Daudt and Sen. Bakk:
I am very sorry about the fight you are having with each other.
I have a way for you to stop fighting.
My second-grade teacher Mrs. Sturm taught me and my classmates a way to get along with each other when we are mad – it is called the “Stop Steps. Here they are:
“S” = Say your feelings.
“T” – Tell what you want.
“O” = Own your part.
“P” = Peaceful Partners.
Even if you are enemies, you can be peaceful partners and get your work done if you use these steps with each other. I wish you good luck.”
Of course, Mrs. Sturm and Meseret Hine are not unique among their colleague teachers and students. Neither is their technique new. Remember Robert Fulghum’s “All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten”?
Of course, what is happening in St. Paul is childs play compared with what is happening in Washington D.C. every day of the week. And what is happening there is child’s play compared with the posturing we’re going to have to endure over the next many months.
There is no need to put a partisan designation on all of these.
We all participate, including, especially, by our non-participation in the conversations that lead to our governments being what they are.
I was struck by another item in the Minneapolis paper early this week. It was a column, “A Field Guide to Political Hate”, by Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, hardly a left-wing outfit.
Political hate is about all we get from today’s media bites from this constituency or that.
It’s up to us to sift and sort, and call the offenders out, whenever we discover them doing their deeds. And remind their disciples – the people who gobble up the false news without questioning – that we’re being manipulated.
Way to go, Meseret and Mrs. Sturm! Let’s use some common sense.
* – The settlement came early Saturday morning, thus not in the Saturday paper, and probably no longer “news” by Sunday. The Star Tribune story is here.
POSTNOTE: As I sent this post on to my own list, I added this note:
Back in 1981, lots of Minnesota teachers went on strike, including my own local.
We had the right to do so, for the first time.
Strikes were fairly common in 1981 – maybe 20% of school districts either went on or actively threatened strikes that year; they were less common in 1983, they’ve been extremely rare ever since. To my knowledge, they’re still “legal”, but no one wants to go there.
Strikes, we learned, really solve nothing. Best to figure out how to work things out.
The nonsense at federal and state lawmaking is directly akin to strikes. Once you’re out the door, you have to figure out how to get back in. And management (which seems to have the advantage) does not have any advantage at all. They are equally losers. They can posture about how they can prevail without the teachers in the classroom, or workers on the line, but they, too, are in desperate shape.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s close enough for me.
There’s another observation about this which I think also deserves consideration:
Even in those old days when the adjustment was being made in the power relationship between teachers and school boards, there was, even in small towns, often a long-term relationship between the teachers who represented their colleagues in salary talks, and the management representatives. They generally knew and respected each other, and they occupied, in a sense, the same house.
This used to be true with legislators as well. While they were from different places in the state, or country, and had different philosophies, they at least knew and respected each other, often for many years.
In this era of winner take all and often young and unseasoned and very partisan legislators who are hard to budge from their certainties, “compromise” in any way is considered a dirty word.
We are the worst for this.

#1035 – Dick Bernard: A Visit to the Commons, led by Jay Walljasper

June 6, 2015/0 Comments/in Community, Minnesota, Politics /by dickbernard

(click to enlarge)

A crowd at the Commons, Sunday May 31, 2015 (see end of this post.)

On May 21, 27 of us were given a fascinating tour of the Commons we all share by Jay Walljasper, and how we can constructively engage in and improve those Commons. For those who like to “cut to the chase”, here is speaker Jay Walljaspers web-home; and another website he strongly recommended. Jay Walljasper’s bio is here. There is far more at these sites than I can easily describe in a few hundred words….
A simple definition of Commons that I wrote down during the presentation: “assets that belong to all of us”.
While Mr. Walljasper’s take on Commons seemed mostly geographic (physical places, like sidewalks, parks and the like in which we live, together) I found myself thinking both more broadly and personally.
A simple interpretation of those assets we have in common (my own): in a real sense, everything belongs to all of us, and we are all accountable for the stewardship of those assets, everywhere.
Our planet is our common space.
In this society of ours which obsesses on individual rights for everything, including “property”, however defined, thinking in common about anything is a tall order. We jealously guard what we believe is ours.
Stewarding community assets as a larger society working together is a difficult concept.
It is easiest to do as the 27 of us did on May 21 in a safe meeting room deep inside a large church: gather as ” birds of a feather”, where people of like minds can safely listen to validation of their own world view, and discuss things with people who are likely in general agreement from beginning to end of the conversation. (Eight of those in the room on May 21 were people that I know quite well – “birds of a feather….”)
In my opinion, those of us in the room for the meeting on “the commons” were not in a “commons”. The commons was outside that room, where each of us live amongst differences.
Where the Commons really is, is out in the larger messier world. That often is a very “sticky wicket”. We aren’t all alike.
*
We all have “Commons” that we enter every day.
For me, it’s places like the local Caribou Coffee; the neighborhood of 96 homes I live in within a larger suburb; the local park in which I walk about an hour almost every day; the post office line I’m frequently part of; the local restaurant for afternoon coffee; my Church, the Basilica of St. Mary, particularly the “Commons” for coffee and donuts afterwards where, odds are, I’ll be visiting with somebody I’ve not met before.
Etcetera.
Examples abound, for everyone.
Coffee shops came up in the session as not being examples of Commons, since people there are often solitary individuals, as I would appear to be, most of the time, reading, writing, thinking.
Not so fast.
This past week I visited a friend [see Postnote] I got to know at that coffee shop who is dying rapidly in a local hospital. He and I got to be friends over the past 15 years, only because we frequented the same place for perhaps an hour most every day.
This past Saturday, in the same coffee shop, seven guys involved in Bible Study sat at the big table next to me doing what Bible Study groups do. There were “the usual suspects” there, but frequently some new person stops by. They are having a meeting in the “Commons”.
On this particular day one of them took apparently serious disagreement with someone else over the interpretation of some Bible passage, and it clearly caused discomfort. He left the gathering early. I wonder if he’ll be back today, when I sit in my regular place, and they gather at their regular place next table over.
I wonder how his disagreement impacted the other individuals in the group. Obviously, I noticed it, without even knowing what text they were talking about at the time he got upset.
A good example of “Commons” would be this very thing: a negotiation of differences in a public place. We are not all alike.
*
One of the persons at Walljasper’s talk was my friend, Donna, who’s heading a committee which is actively promoting changing our behaviors on disposal of waste at our very large Church.

Donna aka “the Garbage Lady” May 3, 2015

Recently, she was distributing stickers pronouncing “Let’s Talk Trash”, so I dubbed her “the Garbage Lady”.

One of her first learnings – an obvious one – is that when people are confronted with three choices for their trash, they don’t necessarily follow simple directions of where to put their half-eaten donut or whatever. She and her colleague committee members were, in a sense, monitoring (and teaching about) trash behavior, and it can be frustrating: someone puts trash that should be in bin “A” when it should be in bin “C”…. It is difficult to have even a gentle conversation about this, with a stranger, but this they were doing.
Donna’s committees initiative will succeed long term, but it’s a long and frustrating process educating the people in the “Commons” to change their behaviors related to waste.
*
Then, there’s the much larger scale of “commons”:

On a sidewalk near the American Indian Center, Minneapolis, May 31, 2015

Last Sunday I went over to Minneapolis to see if I could get into a local appearance of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, newly announced Democrat candidate for U.S. President in 2016. I got there 45 minutes early, and it was clear that the meeting place would be packed long before my part of the line would reach the door, so I took snapshots instead.
It was a beautiful day, and pleasant for standing in line.
But, I thought, the real work for the folks who really like Bernie Sanders for President will come down the road, “in the Commons” of politics in this very complex society of ours.
Bernie Sanders knows this. So do the other candidates.
It is not enough to attend a speech, say it was good, or not, and leave….
How will the people who stood in line that one time to see a visiting celebrity become engaged over the long months leading to election 2016? That’s the important question.
It is not enough to express support for a candidate you like. Sooner or later will come a time where these folks will most likely have to choose between two lesser than perfect options, and hopefully they’ll hang in there, and make the compromises necessary to make a wise choice not only for themselves, but for us all.
Yes, there is a Commons, everywhere. It is a place of disagreements to be negotiated; not a place where only agreement is acceptable.
On the Commons is where the results happen.

Comments on the ‘express yourself’ blackboard at Woodbury Caribou Coffee. Note the question of the day at the center of the blackboard.

May 31, 2015. Where are you in the commons of politics?

POSTNOTE, June 16: Yesterday I went to the funeral of my coffee shop friend. It was as all funerals are, a celebration of life. Three of we regulars (Caribou Coffee at Town Centre in Woodbury) were there. I learned a bit more about John.
Front and center on the display table about John’s life was a simple recyclable Caribou cup someone had offered.
Nice touch.
The missing guy at the Bible Study? Still missing….
The Commons can be that way.

#1034 – Dick Bernard: Virgil Benoit on Minnesota's Metis and French-Canadians

June 4, 2015/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, History, Minnesota, Native American, Quebec/French-Canadians /by dickbernard

May 19, a jam-packed room of us were treated to a one-hour presentation by Dr. Virgil Benoit, a man who needs no introduction to those with background as Metis or French-Canadian.
The below photos are from the session (click to enlarge). Here is a one hour podcast of Dr. Benoit’s talk. It speaks for itself.

Dr. Virgil Benoit May 19, 2014, Rice Street Library, St. Paul MN

Some of the Audience at Dr. Benoit’s talk.

NOTE: I have known Dr. Benoit personally since 1985, and participated in many of his events in the Red Lake Falls area of Minnesota, and into North Dakota, particularly at Turtle Mountain. I wrote personal impressions of him some years ago. You can find that here.
I am also a member of the French-American Heritage Foundation, as is Dr. Benoit. Give us a look. Beginning Friday, June 4, 10:30-noon, for four successive Fridays, several of us will present a personal look at our heritage: “Minnesota History with a French Accent”. The series that will be presented at Washburn Library, located at 5244 Lyndale Ave South, Minneapolis on Friday, June 5, 12, 19 and 26 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Registration is free. Several of us from French-American Heritage Foundation are conducting these classes. We did the first series in April and early May, and will again be presenting them in the Fall.
For those with an interest, there is a fascinating story of Fr. Goiffon going on a Buffalo Hunt with the Pembina area Metis about 1860. You can find it here at pages 451-59 and 466. Also note the index relating to Fr. Goiffon.

#1033 – Dick Bernard: The Great Olden Days of the 1950s

June 2, 2015/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, History, Nature, North Dakota, Quietings /by dickbernard

A couple of days ago a friend sent me this forward.
It is an intriguing piece of video, especially for someone like me who was 10 in 1950 and 20 in 1960. It only takes two minutes to view. Take a look and return.
There is, of course, lots to agree with, especially if you lived through childhood and adolescence then. (I’m fond of saying that the real proof that there is a God, is any kid who survives childhood. I can tell my stories; you can as well….)
At about the same time the video crossed my threshold, so did the below 2×2 well worn time-damaged photo labelled “Berlin [ND] Picnic Sept 7 1952”. The handwriting is unmistakably my grandmother Rosa Busch (who is at left in second row behind the little child and, likely, the childs mother.) I have scanned the photo at high resolution so as to make it possible to easily enlarge it. Most likely, given the nature of that day, this is the Ladies Aid (or Rosary Society?) of St. John’s Catholic Church in Berlin.
Take a look at those Moms, in my Grandmas yard, September 7, 1952. Their’s are the faces of the good old days.

Berlin Picnic Sept 7, 1952

I took a look at mortality statistics for our country – sort of the marker for how it was, and how it is. Here are a couple of items worth looking at:
(1) a chart about developed world life expectancy at birth from 1950-present is in the upper right hand corner, here. (click on the chart to enlarge it) NOTE: the projection to the end of this chart is to 2045; notice the point on the chart for 2010-15.
(2) 75 Years of Mortality in the United States 1935-2010 from the Centers for Disease Control.
It would seem to me that a 12 year increase in average life expectancy from about 66 to 78 years over 65 years of history (first chart) is pretty significant.
Maybe there were some down sides to the good old days?
But maybe we prefer looking at the up-side of some of those changes which the video narrates?
Start with the photo of those women. In 1952, the status of “women’s rights” was much different than it is today.
Change didn’t come easy, but it came.
As for surviving, I’m one of those who lucked out, who made it through the assorted risks of growing up. There were far more risks then, I know. No seat belts in cars; you took your chances with drinking water and home-canned food. Who of my age does not recall the lines to get the Salk Polio Vaccine back in those early 1950s?
And the bomb shelters which reminded us that we were in some bulls eye for one of those Soviet bombs aimed at us (and we aimed our own bombs at them, I guess).
I watched Sputnik blink across the night sky at exactly the same spot as the photographer in the same yard of my Grandmas in the Fall of 1957. In those days, Sputniks path across the night sky was printed in the newspaper (it would have been to the photographers right, to the southeast), and on a clear night, as the saying goes, you could see forever, especially on the pristine prairie “back in the day”.
Now, I’m at the age where nostalgia tends easily to trump reality: it is fun to look back in memory to how it used to be (I think).
But not so fast: I see Johnny, in my North Dakota town when I was 10. In today’s terms he’d be so-called severely retarded. He lived at home, and he was older than we kids who used to persecute him till he’d chase us down the street with a bat, or a stick, or whatever. I was not “happy days” for Johnny (who’s still alive, I hear.)
In many ways we’ve over-corrected, I admit, but by and large I’d rather be where I am, now, than back in those olden days.
COMMENTS:
from Joyce, June 3: Whenever someone waxes nostalgic about the good old days, I think about the plight of those for whom the ’50s were a horror show, in particular, African Americans, but also intelligent women who had few outlets for their intelligence, Jews (universities openly had Jewish quotas in those days and HR departments displayed signs stating that Jews need not apply) and all the people whose careers were destroyed by the McCarthy witch hunts.
from Flo: Thanks for bringing some reality to the good old days! Some kids who were tortured by parents, siblings, or bullies are the angry ones now torturing all of us in retribution!