#572 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #18. Four days without the "news"

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Last Friday I took a four day one thousand mile trip related to family matters in North Dakota. The trip included a visit to an Aunt and Uncle and a drive to a family funeral near the Canadian border. Over half of the trip was by myself, which always makes a trip seem longer, at least to me.
The 450 mile portion of the trip with my Uncle – my Aunt was not feeling well and stayed home – was a pleasure, albeit connected with a sad occasion: the final memorial and burial of one of my cousins.
There was lots of time for us to just visit, in the country manner.
In those four days there were scant idle moments. If I wasn’t doing something, I was sleeping. Such is how it goes.
As I age, it takes longer to recover from these trips, but they all have their pleasant aspects: “visiting”; arriving at the assisted living facility to find a couple entertaining the residents with karaoke; taking a side trip enroute home from the funeral to see the dikes attempting to hold the ever-swelling Devils Lake from flooding even more territory (my Uncle seriously tempted to stop to do some fishing); going to church; doing some routine work on the home farmstead; experiencing a whole lot of old-fashioned hospitality….
In 1000 miles, 450 of it essentially new territory for me to actually see, one sees a lot of interesting things, and much beauty, even in an ever more sparsely populated state like my home state of North Dakota.
Something else happened this trip.
I didn’t watch television, listen to radio, or even read newspapers, not even the local weekly, The Chronicle, which I am in the habit of buying when at my relatives town. The Chronicle is a throwback to the ‘old days’. Indeed, when it is published tomorrow, I will appear as “news” in the community events section of the paper. I was a visitor, after all, and such things are noticed in those not-always mythological “towns that time forgot and the decades cannot improve” of Garrison Keillor.
*
Then I arrived home Monday night and was reunited with the real world conveyed through television and newspaper.
This particular time, the evening of May 21, 2012, the battle was still raging over what Mayor Corey Booker of Newark NJ had passionately opined on one of the Sunday morning news program. The topic is irrelevant, but the outcome was predictable.
Because the statement was passionate, probably not scripted, and because Mayor Booker is identified as partisan, favoring one candidate for President over another, the statement was quotable, and it was instantly manipulated into useful sound bites for political advertising and partisan commentary, and required response from the other side.
The statement seemed to have basically swamped the news cycle of this particular day in history. It had even outlived the traditional one-day ‘moment of fame’.
Mayor Booker’s major sin, it seems, was that he was honest in his expression of opinion. Honesty in politics is truly politically dangerous, We seem to not only expect, but demand, that our politicians be dishonest.
I had come back from my isolation in “Lake Wobegon” to the battlefield of today’s contemporary politics where the objective is for one side to win, by making another lose; the elevation of an ever meaner and nastier side of what passes for political conversation in this country.
We witness it all, most of us from an easy chair in front of a television screen, too many of us picking up our reality from one extremely partisan side, or another.
It is not a winning strategy for our country, our larger community.
Election 2012 is looming.
Either we are part of the solution, or part of the problem…and the solution is not demolishing by any and all means the opposing ‘other’, or dismissing the other point of view.
We are, after all, part of a very large family of humankind.
*
Monday early afternoon, visit over, it was time to head back to “the Cities”.
Out the window at the assisted living facility I had noted that the American flag on the flagpole was badly frayed from too long in the North Dakota wind.
Down to the hardware store I went, and picked up a replacement which will be posted in time for Memorial Day, in memory of cousin Pat, and for all of us.
Happy Memorial Day.
*
An album from May 18-21, 2012: (click on photos to enlarge)

Karaoke program at Rosewood


Remembering a life at Langdon


A little lunch after the service


The ritual photo at Mom and Dad...and Sisters...grave at Dresden


spring


Wimbledon


Bedstead and old harnest in the haymow of the old barn


In the old barn. Dad helped make these beams when the roof of the old barn blew down July, 1949.


1915 Stanchions for milking cows


An old stove in a shed


where the old house used to be, from the haymow of the barn


Uncle Vince planting tomatoes

#571 – Dick Bernard: Customer Service

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Monday my wife and I were enroute “between here and there” and I suggested we stop in at Maplewood Toyota as we might be in the market for another car.
The stop was a logical one: we’ve purchased four cars there, the most recent one 7 years ago, all from the same salesman who’s very easy to work with.
We parked and got out of the car and saw a man crossing the street. He gave a friendly greeting. He was in front of us, and saw we were heading towards the same door he was entering, so he held it open for us.
Cathy said we were there to look at a car, and were looking for Tim. It turned out that Tim was the one who had just held open the door for us. He didn’t recognize us, and we didn’t recognize him. It had been, after all, seven years, and we don’t hang around auto dealerships as a matter of course.
We laughed about it, did our looking, and I told him that if we were to buy a car, it would be from him. And we went on our way.
But I got to thinking about this routine but extraordinary act of customer service, without any notion of who we were or why were there. It was simply Tim Ehlenz being Tim Ehlenz. And by the way he was selling himself, he’d made a sale without selling anything. He was being with us as he’d be with anyone coming in from off the street.
One never knows who the “customer” is, or when he or she will show up on your doorstep.
We are no longer an isolated world where you all live in the same little town and know everyone.
I did a little piece about that just a few days ago: about Montrose SD.
Nowadays our community is much larger, and we’re at risk if we don’t recognize that reality.
A couple of years ago I had occasion to write specific letters to a number of legislators, only one of which was “my” legislator. Each of them happened to be on a committee dealing with a particular policy issue in which I had a specific interest. I went to each legislators website and in several instances found a “welcome” note that basically said, in different words: “if you’re not from my legislative district, don’t bother me with your prattle cuz I won’t answer your e-mail.”
It wasn’t much of a welcome. For all they knew (nothing, since they didn’t even look at my letter), I could have been helpful, or damaging to them in many ways. Maybe a friend or one of my kids lived in their district, and I would pass on good news, or bad, about them…
Further back, in April of 1999, I remember a very similar happening under completely different circumstances.
I had been driving home from a meeting and heard the first radio announcements of something bad that had happened in Littleton CO – a shooting at the high school.
My son and family lived in Littleton, and had the natural need of a parent and grandparent to know if everyone was all right.
They were.
As the information began to come in about Columbine, I came to know that the school was only a mile from where my family lived, and Tom felt he had probably seen the two perpetrators the day before in a local McDonald’s.
The day after the carnage at Columbine, I happened to be in a learning session with about a dozen colleagues, all of whom were school public relations professionals in Minnesota school districts.
We were talking about Littleton, and somebody said, “I’m sure glad that isn’t my district right now”.
I said, “my granddaughter lives only a mile from that school”.
The tenor of the conversation changed completely in an instant.
It hadn’t occurred to anyone that our world is indeed a village without borders, and that just because the carnage hadn’t happened in any of our districts, didn’t mean that people in our districts were not affected.
Customer service is always, every day.
Regardless of what you’re selling….

#570 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #17. A Funeral

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A couple of weeks ago I attended the memorial service for a former colleague of mine. He was 78 when he died, and the memorial service was in a small city outside the twin cities area.
John had been my colleague for 24 years. I didn’t know him well, as we were among about 40 staff people in a state-wide organization, and other than relatively frequent staff-meetings, he & I didn’t have any day to day relationship. He was from another part of the state. But we were part of the same staff group and saw each other frequently.
John’s was an open casket funeral. We were there, family and friends and colleagues. A Methodist minister officiated.
(click on photos to enlarge)


We’d seen the obituary before the funeral, and it mentioned John’s “significant other for 37 years, Oliver…”
I asked our colleague who I was riding with, “was John Gay?” Yes. Obviously he was. I’d never noticed anything. He was simply ‘staff’ like me.
With John’s casket was a military-folded American flag, recognizing his military service. He’d been a Marine in the Korean War years. For nine years he had been a public school teacher before he was a union representative.
I’d guess there were about 30 of us at the service, mostly family members.
It was a very nice send off for John.
I noticed in the obit that while John grew up and went to college in Iowa, and had lived for almost all of his work life in Minnesota, that his burial was to be in a rural Norwegian cemetery in eastern North Dakota.
As is my tendency, I asked a stupid question of Oliver, his partner: “why is the burial to be in North Dakota?”
Oliver replied politely that the cemetery was his families cemetery, and he and John had bought adjoining plots some years earlier. It was a matter of fact answer. I felt foolish.
They’d loved each other for 37 years, why wouldn’t they want to be buried together?
John’s funeral occurred at the very time when the issue of Gay relationships is under the spotlight in the United States. In the last few days President Obama has weighed in, powerfully, on the issue; and North Carolina has enshrined anti-Gay marriage language in their State Constitution.
Such a matter is pending in Minnesota in the Fall election as well, and politically savvy people are calling the Gay issue a wedge issue….
As the casket was about to be closed, Oliver said the final goodbye to his partner. I don’t recall ever seeing such a tender farewell from one to another. It was a gentle, powerful moment.
Perhaps, just perhaps, John’s death on April 29, might be part of the death of the anti-Gay hate campaign that has been so useful to so many for so long.
One can hope.
TWO VIGNETTES plus two other points:
1. My Aunt Jean passed away in 1994, and I volunteered to give my friend, Fr. Paul, a ride to the memorial service.
Paul had married Uncle George and Aunt Jean in 1944, and had baptized me in 1940. In his later years, he and I had become good friends.
During the long drive from his home to the place of the memorial service, Paul began to reminisce about his growing up, seminary, and his many years in the Priesthood in North Dakota. By all accounts, he was a very faithful Priest, a very good man. We talked about many things: about the loneliness and isolation of his profession, and of how he and his colleague Priests coped, and of occasional serious lapses. Priests are human, after all. He allowed me to tape his reminiscences.
There was only one point at which he became visibly agitated about anything, and that was when he talked about homosexual relationships. “I just don’t understand that”, he said. And on we went.
It has occurred to me that it was not homosexuality of someone else that was Paul’s problem; it was Paul’s unwillingness to understand it that was his own perception problem. So it goes for those who rail against it. It is not a religious issue so much as it is an understanding issue.
2. The Catholic Church hierarchy (happens to be my church too) is in the forefront of the marriage/man/woman campaign. It is not quite as simple as the Bishops and Cardinals ‘teach’.
I have the marriage contract of my first Bernard ancestor in Quebec in the year 1730 (in its entirety here: Quebec Marriage Cont001)
The document speaks for itself. Quebec was a Catholic country: non-Catholics were not welcome. So this civil contract did in fact require marriage in the Catholic Church. But the civil contract was entered into two weeks before the religious marriage, and they were separate and distinct entities. Even in an all Catholic country, there was separation between Church and State. In the Bernard-Giroux case, the marriage in the church happened two weeks after the civil contract of marriage. Would there have been a valid civil marriage if one or the other of the couple died before the religious bans? Doubtless that happened more than once.
3. I keep thinking of my classmate, Jerry, who died in 1993. We were simply classmates in a tiny school (senior class of nine) and it wasn’t till years later that I learned he was Gay, from his Aunt. Recently I googled his name, and up came a short obituary of him. It would seem appropriate to add this web reference to Jerry, which speaks well for itself. I particularly note the anonymity of the two brief tributes. That is how it has been, to be Gay in our society.
4. A longer summary of the current political conversation about the Gay Marriage issue is here.

#569 – Dick Bernard: Mother's Day 2012. "A woman's work is never done"

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Happy Mother’s Day.
This phrase, (link) “A woman’s work is never done”, keeps rattling through my brain. (The link is an interesting compilation about “woman’s work”.)
There are infinite variations to the theme, “Mother’s Day”. For us, one event will be the always fascinating May Day Parade in south Minneapolis (this years version was postponed due to weather.)
Two recent events lead to this days post.
May 9 I rendezvoused in Sioux Falls SD with my friend from 8th grade, Emmett. Emmett and I have been “Christmas card friends” over the many years since we first met in 1953-54 in western North Dakota. Because he lived on the west coast, and I in Minnesota’s Twin Cities There were rare “faceoffs” (as my Dad would describe face-to-face meetings). I recall brief ‘faceoffs’ between Emmett and I in 1958, 1997 and 2007. That’s about it.
This time a wedding in Emmett’s family in Sioux Falls gave a good excuse for my 250 mile trip west, and the two of us had a great conversation, just “catching up”.
We met in 8th grade, the only year we lived in his tiny town of Ross ND. He was a farm kid, and I the oldest son of two teachers in the tiny town school.
My Mom, then 44, was our teacher in the 7th and 8th grade room. Her son, my brother John, then 5 years old (there was no kindergarten in these tiny schools), spent his school days in our classroom.
click on photo to enlarge

Esther and Henry Bernard at the Ross Prom, 1954


May 9 and 10 Emmett and I had maybe five hours to ‘catch up’ and he told a simple story, a memorable one which seems to fit Mother’s Day.
When he was a kid he had a great interest in airplanes, and one day he happened to see a wing of something protruding out of a bag he probably wasn’t supposed to see. It was a model of a B-17, an important aircraft in WWII, planned as a gift to him.
Somebody had noticed Emmett’s interest, and paid attention to it, and the gift became part of his life memory bank, and possibly a motivator as well.
It was a single item, a single event, but Emmett went on to become an aeronautical engineer and a very successful one.
I don’t have a lot of memories of my Mom as my classroom teacher, and likely Emmett didn’t have either. But as generations of students know, good teachers are best at helping students become functioning and aware adults…and I think both Mom and Dad succeeded at that, and not only with me. Life lessons from our elders are very often doled out in ‘bits and pieces’, most held below the conscious level. Memories that stick.
The second event impacting today happened several weeks earlier when I received an invitation to a reading of a new book by the author, Annetta Sanow Sutton.
Annetta is someone I’ve known for over 25 years, but I can recall only twice actually seeing her in person in all those years.
I went to her reading, and bought the book, and read it: Catholic Alcoholic, A Witness to Addiction and Redemption. (No, it’s not just for Catholics….)
The title is serious, but it is a memoir, and I found it to leave openings to reflect on my own life experience within my own family. While it was a mother’s story, a sister’s, a daughters, a niece’s…it left plenty of room for reflection for me.

One reunion with an old classmate, male, and another, a reading of a book by a career professional in counseling, female, brought me some new insights into the many and diverse ways women – mothers – live on in all of us.
My own Mom died 31 years ago, at my current age, so I think of the moving on of life more so than usual this year.
None of us is perfect. The best we can do is to contribute at least a little to the betterment of our communities, families and world.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Yes, “A woman’s work is never done.”

The falls of the Sioux River at Sioux Falls, SD, May 9, 2012


UPDATE May 16, 2012:
Will, on May 13, responded to this post as follows:
It is among the least politcally correct things to say on Mother’s Day but there are a number of us who were tormented and some who even required mental health care for years because of mothers who, for one reason or another, made our young lives miserable.
I believe it was the writer Philip (sp?) Wylie who wrote about “Momism,” the dark side of motherhood.
When I visit the family burial plot at the Jewish cemetery at 70 1/2 St. and Penn Av. S. Richfield, MN it is decidely with mixed emotions for both my late mother and father.
How to prepare young people for parenthood should be part of the education curriculum, in my opinion.
What do you-all think?
Dick, in response: Will’s is a valid point. Not all mothering…or fathering, for that matter…experiences are all that positive.
Speaking for myself, I was Mom, and Dad, for nearly nine years to first an infant, then, later, to a teenager, my son. I can say, I guess, “been there, done that”. It wasn’t an easy task single, nor married. People have differing skills, priorities and demands. You only hope that in the end things turn out for the best. There is a great deal more to my story, which my family could tell very well. Suffice to say, I understand Will’s lament.
Annetta Sutton in her excellent book, Catholic Alcoholic (see above), makes comments on this issue within her own family.
I noted on Sunday at Basilica of St. Mary that there was a different emphasis in the traditional end-of-Mass blessing for Mothers. This Sunday, the Priest asked all women to stand, and blessed them all, acknowledging that “mother” is a much broader term than simply having given birth. It was handled very well, and I think the congregation was pleased.

#564 – Dick Bernard: Another Birthday.

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Today, all day, I was 72 years old.
I got a head start on a great day on May 3 with a short trip across the Mississippi to Lincoln Center School in South St. Paul MN. There granddaughter Addie (she’s the one in the black and white polka dot dress you can see if you look at center in the photo) and her colleague first graders entertained other students, teachers and assorted parents and grandparents with a program with a Caribbean theme. Louis Armstrong had nothing on these kids when they sang a snippet of “It’s a Wonderful World”. “Entusiasmo” as the Spanish word for enthusiasm spoke for them from the wall beside them.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

Lincoln Center First Graders May 3, 2012


I thought of first grade for me. It was 1946-47, at St. Elizabeth’s in Sykeston ND. I still have the report card. It’s been awhile since I was in First Grade.
As birthdays go, 72 is nothing much to talk about. For me, it has more meaning, this year.
My Mom turned 72 on July 27, 1981. Three weeks later she passed away. She’d been very ill the preceding year (cancer) and there were no miracle cures. For more reasons than Mom’s death, 1981 was an important year for me. Among other things, Mom and Dad helped jump-start me into a family history ‘career’ which has gone on, now, for 32 years. (You can never really retire from family history.)
Being 72 – born in 1940 – means I missed the Great Depression, and was out and about when World War II began for the United States. Recently the 1940 census was released, and I looked. I missed the cut. The census taker in Valley City ND came around in April, 1940, and I was just thinking about arriving on the world scene. It was the census taker who came early, not me!
Of course, when the odometer of life turns over one more digit, it is always a reminder that you are actually a year older than your birthday cake shows. So today I completed 72 years, and begin my 73rd. Such is life.
It’s been a good day today which, for someone my age and temperament, means a reasonably laid back retired person day.
About noon-time today I was at Jefferson High School in Bloomington watching goings-on at the schools annual Diversity Day.
Like the First graders on Thursday, the high schoolers on Friday gave me some sense of optimism about the future IF we adults don’t mess things up too badly. It’s up to us to leave them a future to build upon.
My friend Lynn Elling gave his annual talk, an “old bird” of 91 (as he describes himself) with his spouse of 68 years, Donna, with him.
His talk always focuses on the WWII that he experienced at places like Tarawa Beach, and a 1954 visit to Hiroshima which has had a lifelong impact on him.
In the kids he sees our future, and I like that.
Forward into my 73rd year!

Lynn Elling at Jefferson High School, Bloomington MN May 4, 2012


Kids listen to Lynn Elling May 4, 2012


Martha Roberts, Donna and Lynn Elling at the World Citizen Table May 4. Martha is President of World Citizen, Lynn founded the organization in 1982.


UPDATE May 8, 2012

Happy Birthday to ME, at a gathering on May 6, and ...


... and Grandson Parker, who shares May 4th as birthday, albeit 62 years later.

#561 – Dick Bernard: Heather, an exceptional citizen and contributor to society

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Back on April 1, my daughter Joni sent me an iPhone photo of her sister (and my daughter) Heather.
(click on photos to enlarge)

Heather at the Park, April 1, 2012


Yesterday Heather and I went bowling. We did two lines. She got a strike on her first frame. She won the first line, I won the second. No need to do the third (or for you to know the score, either!) Suffice to say that I didn’t take a dive to lose, and she didn’t cheat to win. It was all fair and square on Lane 11 at Mattie’s Lanes in South St. Paul MN. We were the only folks in the place. It was fun.
Today* Heather is having a new Pacemaker installed at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. She has lived with a Pacemaker for over 30 of her 36 years. This makes her a pretty exceptional individual in the realm of pacemaker survival rates, I’m told.
Heather, Down Syndrome, has seen a lot of life in her 36 years.
And she’s brought a lot of joy to a lot of lives in those years. Kids like her with exceptional abilities can and do have that affect on people who know them. Those with special abilities look at life a bit differently than we so-called ‘normals’.
When I was young, kids like Heather were people nobody knew much what to do with.
I remember Johnny in a tiny town in which I lived for several years. He was, they would likely say, retarded, or some less polite word: moron, idiot, imbecile…. He was older than we younger kids, and he lived at home. We’d taunt him in the assorted ways kids can, and sooner or later he’d get very angry, and because he was so big he could be dangerous.
We’d run, and he’d go home, and the next day he’d be back.
No special education in those days.
My grandparents lived in the town that had what they used to call the “State School for the Feeble Minded”, and in those years, while awareness was beginning to raise (this was in the 1940s), these folks were warehoused and when we came to visit, and went to the local park, we went by the school and on a summer day they were warehoused behind a fence, sort of like animals in a zoo, no deal differentiation that I knew of.
Things have changed now, of course, and kids like Heather in all their exceptionalness add richness to many lives, not to mention aiding the economy of which they are a part in many different ways.
Heather spends her weekdays at Proact Inc, an extraordinary partnership in Eagan MN. Earlier this week I took her there, and she was proudly wearing her Twins shirt.

Heather at Proact April 24, 2012


The technology she’ll have implanted today is a far cry from the technology of over 30 years ago. In those years, the Pacemaker had one heart rate; the current technology allows Heather to do things unimaginable in those early years, such as playing softball in a Special Olympics league called RAVE in which parents and others give and receive the joy of participation.
I can put Heather in the middle of many “circles”.
To each, she brings more gifts than she takes.

Dad and Heather October 1, 2010


Sisters, Heather, Lauri & Joni, April 26, 2012


For other postings about Heather, simply enter the word in the search box.
* PS: The procedure went well. She’ll be home tomorrow.

#550 – Dick Bernard: Heritage. The Collet’s of St. Anthony MN. An Easter Story

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There are legions of people who toil in the trade of family history. I’m one of them. We can all tell similar stories: as you begin to peel the onion, you find endless layers. Dead ends turn into “aha” moments. Aha moments can later return to dead-ends. The quest for a families history never ends.

Easter week I had an “aha” that may be one of those openings to a new chapter in my own family history. I hope someone takes the bait. I’ll just provide raw material.

My grandmother Bernard was Josephine Collette (until ca 1878 the family name was Collet, then Collett), born, it was always said, at St. Andrews ND in 1880. St. Andrews, at the confluence of the Red and Park Rivers, was built on the general site of an Alexander Henry Trading Post, known to most present-day people as a rest stop on Interstate 29 between Grand Forks ND and the Canadian border.

St. Andrews had a short and interesting life as settlers poured in beginning in 1878. It is said that Grandma’s Dad, Octave, ran a “hotel” at St. Andrews, probably during the period he was proving his claim a few miles west at Oakwood.

For years I knew the Collette family had first migrated in total to the legendary frontier town St. Anthony, preceding, then later absorbed into Minneapolis. They came west sometime in the 1860s. They had come from St. Lambert QC.

There are no family legends about intervening stops, or how they actually made the trip (depending on when they came, they might have gotten as far as the Mississippi R by train, thence upriver by steamboat.) But no story of what had to be a hard 1000 mile trek has surfaced.

Exactly when they came and left St. Anthony is still lost to history. The 1870 census of St. Anthony shows 14 in the Collette household and that the second to last child Joseph (May 21, 1864) was born in Minnesota, the older children in Canada. (St. Anthony in 1870 had a bit more than 5000 population, similar to Grafton ND today.)

By 1869 my great-grandparents Clotilde Blondeau and Octave Collette had married – at St. Anthony of Padua in St. Anthony – and had their first child, and were likely living with the rest of the family, though recorded as a second household. You can see a tintype of Clotilde and Octave, likely taken after their marriage in 1869 in St. Anthony MN, below (click to enlarge all photos).

Clotilde Blondeau and Octave Collette at St. Anthony MN ca July 1869

The census shows that four adults were working in a “paper mill”; the two wives were “housekeepers”. (There is mention of the Paper Mill at page 328 in this most interesting link about the St. Anthony Falls District.)

By 1875 most if not all Collette’s moved to Dayton MN (suburban Minneapolis), thence in 1878, the first of the family moved to Dakota Territory. They seem to have made group decisions on these matters.

But where did they live in St. Anthony?

Until this past week, I hadn’t delved into this question.
I found the likely answer a few miles from where I type this post, at the library of the Minnesota Historical Society. In the 1871-72 city directory of Minneapolis and St. Anthony was this: “Collet, D. farmer 2d St. cor [corner] Maple”. I asked to see a period map of St. Anthony (click to open, portion below): St Anthony ca 1870001.

I’ve been to this area many times, in fact, twice this past week I was in the falls area for other purposes. I made a trip to see the exact spot. Alas, there is no longer a “Maple Street”. A quick review of contemporary maps fixed Maple as now being 6th Avenue SE, the access point to Fr. Hennepin Park and the famous Stone Arch Bridge one short block away, and three blocks upriver from the I-35W bridge – the one that collapsed into the river in 2006.

While the environment has totally changed from 1860s and 1879s to today, it felt like I was home for Easter.
Here are some photos I took in the area Friday April 6, 2012. Click to enlarge.
Happy Easter.

downtown Minneapolis from the corner of 2nd and “Maple” (6th Ave SE) Apr. 6, 2012

The corner, looking west at the ruins of old Pillsbury Flour Mill.

On the Stone Arch walking bridge. The Collet corner would be two blocks behind the photographer.

Tourist Map at Fr. Hennepin park. “Collet Corner” would be a block outside right hand side of the inset box on the map.

Tourist info at Stone Arch Bridge two blocks from 2nd and Maple (6th Ave SE) St. Anthony (Minneapolis).

Postscript: Of course, tentatively answering one of these questions raises infinite other questions. Without enumerating mine, perhaps you can raise your own…and help with the research!
Type the word “heritage” in the search box to find the previous five heritage articles. #1 is here.

#544 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #5. Health Insurance responsibility for all?

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UPDATE March 29, 2012: If you are interested in the ‘national health care’ issue, “My favorite blogger” (see below) has perhaps 10,000 words of summary about the three day circus surrounding the Supreme Court earlier this week (A normal newspaper column is perhaps 600-700 words. My comments below are about 500 words). I’d appreciate your reading my comments, and if you read nothing else, note the first and last full paragraphs of the final (March 28) post of Just Above Sunset. Here are the links: March 26, March 27, March 28. These will take awhile, but are worth the time, and Just Above Sunset is worth subscribing to (it is free, one per day).
My 500 words: If you looked at the subject line and have read this far, you’re interested in and literate on the debate which has culminated in oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
My favorite blogger, Just Above Sunset, summarizes at considerable length the views on issues of the day, and his morning post late yesterday, “The Supreme Court Disaster”, as the day before and (probably) tomorrow, will cover all manner of definitive speculation about everything related to the case. Everything said by anyone may be meaningful, or, as easily, meaningless. We don’t know.
But the issue is of huge importance, regardless of the ultimate ruling, and I decided to weigh in with the following comment on this piece of text nearing the end of the March 27 Just Above Sunset post: “But Paul Waldman points out something far more absurd, that Americans want something for nothing.”
So true, so very, very true. We Americans generally have one priority: ME, NOW. Makes no difference our ideology: ME, NOW. We’re used to demanding our way, or no way. I’M RIGHT. YOU’RE WRONG.
My wife and I are senior citizens, with accumulating seniority on Medicare. We both have pensions and we’re on Social Security. We live modestly, but don’t have to live frugally. We’re in reasonably good health. We’re the very fortunate ones in this society.
Today (March 28) we visited the tax man. We itemize: in the medical box is $12,705.66 in premiums and out of pocket expenses for a great assortment of insurances and expenses which we feel are necessary, including Long Term Care. Even Medicare has a premium, automatically deducted from our Social Security. It isn’t “free”….
We have no complaints.
I frequently think back to another day, back in 1963, when I got out of the Army and began teaching school. My new wife had also just begun teaching. We were just beginning our life together. She was pregnant with our first child.
I was back home for less than a month when she began to feel sick. She went to the doctor, and had to quit teaching. It was a steady downhill slide from there. She died of kidney disease two years later, only 22.
We had no hospital insurance. Group insurance was unusual in 1963.
Individual insurance was available. Like today’s kids, we couldn’t imagine ever needing insurance at our young age. By the time we did, it was too late. (Most likely, then as now, my wife would have been un-insurable due to her pre-existing conditions we didn’t realize existed.)
We were saved by public charity (several public and religious hospitals), and later I was saved from bankruptcy by public welfare, and embraced by a caring community.
The hell we went through long ago – our son just turned 48 – created my attitude forever. A caring society matters far more than the “free” individual.
But concepts like insurance for all are abstract concepts for our “me, now” generation. We are an immensely wealthy society (even with the laments about unemployment), and we have difficulty imagining that the others, and the future, matters.
Those wishing for the defeat of “Obamacare” might be careful what they wish for.
(I prefer it be called more accurately “Obamacares”.)
Dick and Barbara Bernard March 1965. Barbara died four months later. We were sponsors at a Baptism of our friends first child.
Photo is of Dick and Barbara Bernard in early March, 1965. Barbara died four months later. She was very ill. We were sponsors at a Baptism of our friends first child.
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#539 – Dick Bernard: Thinking about Peace, near a vigil against War

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Today, March 19, is a tragic anniversary. As my friend, Wayne Wittman, of Veterans for Peace put it: “On March 19, 2003, after a terrific bombardment called “Shock and Awe” we and the other nations we could coax to join us launched an invasion of the sovereign independent Nation of Iraq.”
Our Conductors of War in 2003 likely had the same idea as the Japanese did, December 7, 1941, when they bombed Pearl Harbor: ‘we’ll show ’em our awesome might, and they’ll surrender’.
We all know how the attack on Pearl Harbor worked out for the Japanese; Shock and Awe in Iraq didn’t do so well for we Americans either.
War is the triumph of short-term emotion: stinking, not sound, thinking. But War sells easier than Peace, albeit with a far greater long-term cost.
Yesterday the local Vets for Peace advertised a gathering at the Cathedral of St. Paul followed by a gathering at the USS Ward “First Shot” Memorial near the Veterans Services Building in St. Paul.
I’m a Vet for Peace, I’ve been to many events, and I traveled to the Capitol grounds planning to join the group, which appeared to be about 20 people.
I was there this year, but the attendees probably didn’t know it.
I decided to look at this years event through a somewhat different lens.
Near the First Shot Memorial site is large sculpted soldier called “Monument to the Living…Why do you forget us?” dedicated May 22, 1982.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

March 18, 2012


I’ve seen the sculpted work many times – in fact, I’ve photographed it. It is evocative and haunting.
But this time, for the first time, I noted the date of 1982. Later that same year, strictly by coincidence, I was in Washington D.C. the weekend the Vietnam Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall Vietnam Mem DC 1982001. I was there for a time that weekend. Seldom has there been such powerful emotion on display. I’ve been back there many times.
Between the “Why do you forget us?” sculpture and the State Capitol is the Minnesota Memorial to the Fallen remembering American war deaths in Vietnam 1962-73. I’ve been there many times as well, almost always at Veterans for Peace Memorial Day events. Sunday I looked a little closer.
I found the inscription for Army PFC Joseph Sommerhauser, killed 1968 in Vietnam. He’s the brother of my barber, himself a Vietnam vet, a Marine. Every now and then Tom and I talk about his brother. On the face of the memorial, above Josephs name, is the inscription “We were young, we have died, remember us“, Archibald MacLeish.
Indeed.

For the first time I stopped by the Directory of names on the wall, and this day I looked through it for names of casualties from towns in which I was living at the time of this deadly war.

Here’s what I found:
1962-63 – the few first casualties. (In 1962-63 I was in the Army myself none of us knowing that our newly reactivated 5th Infantry Division (Mech) was preparing for the war in southeast Asia. Some of my snapshots from this era are accessible here See “Photographs of 1/61 in and around Ft. Carson”.)
1966 – William Wilber, age 18, of Anoka was killed
1968 – Charles Clitty, age 19, of Spring Lake Park was killed.
In eleven years of the Vietnam War, only two people from towns I’d lived in were among the fallen. Even in that deadly war, few actually died in my sphere (two of my brothers are Vietnam vets…both lived.)
Of course, in those years, I believe you counted only if you died in a combat zone. Those permanently and totally disabled by war injuries, mental illness, agent orange or such are not reflected on the wall. They don’t include later homelessness, PTSD, suicide or the like. They don’t include the civilian casualties, like the 16 Afganis mowed down by an American soldier on his fourth combat tour in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor do they include the damage to the national sense of morality, not to mention pocketbook.
Those who died and listed on that wall are, tragically, the lucky ones.
War is criminal.
Back in the Vets for Peace circle, there appeared to be about 20 or so [one who was there says 35] hearing short talks on topics which I have doubtless heard many times before.
I drove by the VFP gathering on my way out of the area about 2:15, and had this thought which I have had more and more frequently lately: The circle, today, needs to be turned around, and the people in it need to seek out and get in conversation with the other folks who can’t see the problem with war, cuz they weren’t in it, or they don’t know anybody who died over there….

At the First Shot Memorial March 18, 2012



“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

#533 – Dick Bernard: A Picture from the past, remembering Louis H. Bruhn

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See Update from Carl Peter at end of this post.
Going through some old photographs recently I came across this one of Louis Bruhn, taken by my father in May, 1974, at a Valley City State Teachers College alumni gathering in Anoka, Minnesota. (click to enlarge).
Louis H. Bruhn at Valley City State Teachers College Alumni function in Anoka MN May, 1974.
I lived in rural Anoka at the time, and I remember my parents visit but not this specific event, though I’m sure I was there.
Both of my parents were graduates of what we called, then, VCSTC, Valley City State Teachers College. I graduated from there myself. Just this morning I mailed my annual small donation to the now-VCSU Foundation. A pleasant sounding student called me a few nights ago just to renew my acquaintance with my alma mater.
Colleges know how to keep in touch with their alumni!
Mr. Bruhn – that’s what we all would have called him – was Dean of Men and Director of Special Services at the tiny 700 or so student college in 1958-61 when I was a student there.

Two very important mentors: Lou Bruhn, and Mary Hagen Canine, pictured in the 1959 Viking Annual of Valley City State Teachers College


He seemed terribly old at the time, but through the miracle of the internet (which he could not have imagined then), he was apparently only 55 when I first darkened the college doors in the Summer of 1958. Here’s what someone wrote about him in 1976.
He was 71 when Dad took the above photo. GASP. That’s how old I am, now!
The bio says that Mr. Bruhn came to VCSTC in 1938 to teach Business courses.
My parents, Henry L. Bernard of Grafton and Esther Busch of rural Berlin, had both matriculated at the college, probably in the summer of 1929, and like legions of country school teachers of the time they would teach school during the school year, then come back to college in the summer. They are both long deceased, but left behind many stories. They met in the halls of VCSTC, married in 1937, then taught together at Amidon ND during 1937-39. Most likely they were back at Valley City in the Summer of 1938 when Mr. Bruhn arrived.
During 1939-40 Dad became a full-time, full-year student at the college – the only full year he ever spent in college – and he received his degree a few weeks after I was born. They lived, that year, in the McGillivray Apartments just off campus, right behind what became Cinks College Grocery (and what is now the Valley City State University Student Center – which was actively being planned in 1961). For over 30 more years they remained in public education, Mom taking a few years off to raise us younguns to school age.
Dad most likely got to know Mr. Bruhn fairly well. They were, after all, about the same age. Eighteen years later, in 1958, it was my turn to do something with my life after graduating from Sykeston High School.
Truth be told, for this lazy kid in the summer of 1958, college summer school looked far better to me than wrestling a wheelbarrow full of dirt at the under construction St. Elizabeth’s Church in Sykeston. So, off I went. My mother went as well, to Summer School.
College caught on, and I went straight through, graduating 50 years ago last December. Those were memorable years.
Small colleges like VCSTC certainly don’t have the reputation of big or prestigious institutions, but I’m here to say, loudly and proudly, that with folks around like Louis H. Bruhn, we country kids from tiny high schools not only got a solid college education, but we left well prepared for life, accompanied by a strong work ethic.
The biography does not list a date of death for Mr. Bruhn, though I’d doubt he’s still with us. Doubtless someone will let me know details posthaste (you can comment on this post – see tab below).
Thanks Mr. Bruhn, Mom, Dad, and everyone who saw me and legions of fellow students through the growing experience from post high-school to college graduation.
Thanks once again.
from Shirley Bruhn Lindsay (Lou and Mabel Bruhns daughter, received Mar. 9, 2012): It is with an overflowing heart that I reply to you re the messages about my dad, Lou Bruhn. It is such a lovely tribute to him – a man who loved people (especially the students) and the town of Valley City more than he could ever really express. He served on the City Commission for several years and ultimately served as Mayor. A fond memory for our family is of the “Lou Bruhn Day” the city declared when he retired as Mayor.
My dad died late October 1988. He and my mother, Mabel, moved to the Sheyenne Care Center (SCC) several years earlier after she suffered a severe stroke. They had a wonderful quality of life in SCC and continued their enjoyment of people in the town they both loved.
Thank you for these tributes and memories. I have shared them with my brother Dave’s family.
My parents moved to VC in 1938 to “try it out for a few years”…they never left. Isn’t that a tribute to the town and state of North Dakota?
UPDATES: MARCH 8
From Valley City State University Alumni Association via Facebook: Dick – thank you for sharing this post. We enjoyed reading it. Looking at our records it looks like Lou passed away in the late 80’s.
Bob Zimmerman, Fayetteville AR: It’s good to hear from you again, Dick! It’s okay if you and others want to send e-mail to me at: BobzATuark.edu. Lois Nunn Zimmerman and I willl be married 50 years on June 3, 2012. We [recently] were vacationing at South Padre Island, TX. I met Myron (Ike) Luttschwager there for lunch. I will be retiring from my position as Associate Vice Chancellor for IT at the University of Arkansas on June 30, 2012. We hope to spend some time in SD, ND, and MN this summer. Best wisher to all! Lois and Bob
I had a recent letter from Bob and Marge Nutz Sogn. Bob and Marge Sogn sent pictures with David Thielman and his new wife. The Sogns live in Tuscon, AZ. Dave lives in Palm Springs, CA, in the winter. I have not seen Dave and Bob for many years and I hope to find them and some other long lost pals again. Bob
Lois and I had a conversation with Bob and Deann Horne about a month ago. They have moved to Fargo from Minot. Their home in Minot was severely damaged by the floods in Minot. We will visit my brother, Allan Zimmerman and his wife, Carol Schmidtz Zimmerman in Fargo. Buddy Schmidtz is a brother to Carol.
Duane Zwinger, Carrington, class of ’64: It was sure enjoyable reading your recollections about VCSTC and “Mr. Bruhn”. I truly agree with your statement that “tiny” Valley City State Teachers College
gave us all a great start in making our small mark on this great big world. The email also brought back some memories of myself and some of my hooligan buddies having a “close encounter” with Mr. Bruhn. We really didn’t mean to get into trouble, but it did seem to find us.

Duane Zwinger and Dick Bernard, February 2012, at Woodbury MN


Darryl Pederson, Lincoln NE: Got your email. I remember the dean well. He was also a sought after square dance caller. One cold winter evening he called a square dance in my home town of Kathryn. When the dance was over there was a full blown blizzard outside Some of the dancers and Lou Bruhn came to my parents store (we lived in the back) and the square dance continued in the store. As I recalled all spent most if not all of the night with us.
Larry Gauper, Fargo ND: Dick…YES…I remember Lou Bruhn…one of those classic Valley City college names
Wes Anderson, Valley City ND: We have about three audio interviews with Lou in our collection from Don Welch
Colleen Zick: I don’t know if you knew, but he also repaired bicycles. He made mine like new! I remember him and his wife well. Thelma Acker lived right next door to him, and she always cut and permed my hair! Her daughter married Eldwin VanBruggen, Gladys’s brother. The VanBruggens were my next door neighbors.
Larry Gauper: I remember that…and I think he was a ham radio guy too..not sure about that…but do remember now that you mention it the bike repair thing….neat fellow and apparently a great teacher.
Bob Horne, Fargo: Thanks for the Photo of Lou Bruhn, your excellent comments, and ideas added by others.
We remember Mr. Bruhn with fondness; he was a great guy and a friend to students. Also, I knew his son David quite well, as I believe we played Legion baseball together the summer of 1953, between my freshman and sophomore HS years. That summer I stayed with my aunt, Charlotte Graichen, before returning to Edmore HS. You probably know that Charlotte taught at VC State for about 30 years; they named the women’s gym after her. Charlotte and Bill Osmon were long-time leaders of women’s and men’s athletics at VC State Teachers College.
Dick Bernard: The phrase “comfortable as an old shoe” now comes to mind with respect to Mr. Bruhn – but make no mistake, he was MR. Bruhn. As for Charlotte Graichen and Willis Osmon, I came to VCSTC with the idea that basketball would be fun. Things change. I’m guessing that one of the last credits on my transcript was for some required PE class I had neglected to take, and Ms. Graichen was the instructor at the women’s gym. In the spring of 1961, they were just completing the impressive athletic building just west of the campus, I think still named for Mr. Osmon, and I think I’ll dig out my old set of Viking News and scan the photo of me with the under-construction building.
Roger Taylor: I remember Lou Bruhn well. The Bruhn family lived across the street from my childhood home. He did repair bicycles, but not mine, my dad did that. They had a post at the end of their driveway on which they’d installed a backboard and hoop. It was one of the several hoops in our neighborhood which we used, probably the best as the hoop was regulation height and the playing area was flat (most driveways had slants which meant the basket had varying heights relative to the player’s position on the “court”). The Bruhns had two children I remember, a girl named “Shirley” and a boy whose name I don’t remember. They were at least four years older than we. The article also references Cink’s grocery store. That’s another place in which I spent a fair amount of time. But it wasn’t our primary local grocery. That one was on College Street about four doors down from the Bruhn home.
UPDATE March 9, 2012
Dick Bernard: This link Viking News Jul 61 Union001, from the July 5, 1961 Viking News (the college newspaper) shows the site of the to-be college Student Union, including part of Cink’s grocery, and the still under construction Physical Education building which was, in 1961, ‘state of the art’. In the photo, I’m the guy standing by the support beam. For some reason related to the times, I dressed up for the photo.
Ron Morsch: Boy, that’s a name out of the past. I knew the name right away, could faintly picture who it was but even after reading Dick’s post couldn’t recall anything specific. I think Beth is right about Kiwanis or maybe Elks or Toastmasters. My dad was active in them and maybe that’s why I know the name. The bicycle repair stuff also prompted a faint memory of my Dad and me being in his garage having something done to my bike, but I’m not sure.
Barb Lang: Mr. Bruhn’s daughter Shirley is living in Lake Forest, IL and my sister Mary sees her every now and then for coffee. Mary also thinks that possibly Mr. Bruhn was Mayor at some point . . .that’s her vague recollection! Mary notes that Shirley has a Facebook page (my sister is a big looker at Facebook).
Rhea Mills: Has been interesting listening to all the other comments on Mr. Bruhn. Having lived on the “north” side of the tracks, there are a lot of things I had never heard of that occurred on the “south” side of the tracks. I know a lot of names but I really can’t remember things about those names – if, indeed, I even knew those things in the first place – HMMMMM, that is one run on sentence that really doesn’t make much sense except to myself!
Dick Bernard: Of course, in Valley City, at that time, when you’d say “north side of the tracks”, the question would have to be “which tracks?” North of the Hiline, or north of the tracks downtown (or uptown? : – ) NP or Soo Line, or whatever the two railroads were. (My parents did the walk across the Hiline in the 1930s, I think. I never dared.)
I was born at Mercy Hospital in May, 1940, and probably lived in the very tiny McGillivray apartment (Dad once showed it to me – it was vacant at the time, basement, the side away from the college) for perhaps a month or two, then we moved to Rutland area.
I didn’t own or have access to a car during the college years. My ‘territory’ was virtually 100% walking. Farthest north was to St. Cate’s for church on Sunday. Otherwise downtown to Pillar or Omwick where I worked; or Mythaler Hall to the halls of STC…. An aunt and uncle lived in the St. Mary’s of Dazey community but it was real rare to see them out there. The first ND section of I-94 was built between Jamestown and Valley City during the time I was there – “a million dollars a mile” they said. My family lived in Sykeston, northwest of Jamestown, and while I seldom went back there once I started, I can remember driving that freeway including a portion that did not yet have completed shoulders.
The STC of my memory was something like an ant hill, full of activity and a community unto itself, small as it was. Having graduated with 9 colleague seniors, and gone to several other ND public schools which were even smaller, the college was immense. My roommate for three years at Mythaler, a kid from Wimbledon, is a retired teacher in a city high school in St. Paul, and he once told me that for we tiny town kids, VCSTC was much like high school experience for kids in much bigger towns (including Valley City). We came from places that might have three high school teachers, at most, and we got the basics: “Reading, ‘Ritin, ‘Rithmetic” and the occasional ‘hickory stick’ (a”likkin”). Having said that, those tiny towns, and that small college, turned out some tremendous folks who did something with their lives (including me, I hope.)
Yesterday I sent the posting to a guy I student taught at the Lab School at the college. He and I were work colleagues for years with the Minnesota Education Association. For the past six years he’s been Executive Director of the 130,000 member state teacher association in Ohio, and he’d been an Executive Director here in Minnesota, and in Wyoming as well. His Dad recently died and he would have been back to Valley City. It amazes me when I reconnect with people, as I am doing here.
Thanks for the memories.
From Carl Peter, February 25, 2013:
If I remember right, Lou Bruhn taught the college driver’s education class. I took this course, which was a textbook class plus machines. The second part was teaching a student how to drive with a dual control car. I took this course in order to get a certificate to teach driver’s education in high school. This certificate served me very well. I taught the textbook part of driver’s education in my first school. In the second school, I taught five years of behind-the-wheel driver’s education in addition to the classroom part. During that time, I logged in 10,000 miles of dual control teaching without having an accident.
One day I was walking down the hall and Mr.Bruhn stopped me and told me that there was an opening for teaching in McClusky, North Dakota. This was the during the spring of the year I graduated. He told me to call and ask if I could get an interview. At that time, this was just not ever done. In fact it was the first long-distance call I ever made from a pay phone. I called and the Superintendent said that he would like to have me send in an application and my credentials. He also indicated that I could come for an interview. The interview was on a Saturday. I met with him and the president of the school board. The next Monday when I was student teaching typewriting, my supervisor came in and told me that the Superintendent was there and he wanted to talk to me. He indicated that he would like to offer me a contract. The contract for nine months was for $4500.
Added Note from Carl: I graduated from the STC summer of 1960 after having attended there three years and three summers. My first teaching job was at McClusky, North Dakota. I taught there for three years. During this time I bought a 1962 Thunderbird. This was the first Thunderbird that was ever sold in Sheridan County. The kids asked me how I could afford to get a car like that. I told them that it was possible because I didn’t smoke or drink, or attend parties so I was able to save my money to buy this car.
My next teaching position was at Page High School in Page, North Dakota. This was a brand-new school and I taught there for seven years. During that time I had several student teachers from Valley City that I worked with. Their supervisor was going to go on leave of absence, so he asked me to apply to teach in his place. I did and was offered the nine-month contract. I had hoped to be able to be part of a expanding business department, but in the spring there was no opening. The VCSTC registrar came to my office one day and asked me to apply to be his assistant. I worked as an assistant for 13 years before becoming the registrar. I was at that position for 28 years, retiring in 1999.
We are now retired and living in an apartment. My wife retired from Farm Service Agency (FSA) the same year. She worked with making government program payments for farmers. We are enjoying retirement very much.