#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.

#557 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #13. Attending Cong. District 4 Political Convention.

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I’m a Democrat (called DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) in Minnesota).
Today I attended the 4th Congressional District Convention as a voting delegate. This was my first 4th CD Convention. It was a simple matter of redistricting due to the 2010 Census. The previous ten years we lived at the same address, but in the 6th CD.
Registered were 225 delegates, earlier elected at Senate District Conventions. I described mine here.
(click on photos to enlarge)

CD 4 DFL Convention in Vadnais Heights MN Apr 21, 2012


Political Conventions are where the crucial decisions are made concerning representation at the levels leading, ultimately, to the general election in November. It takes some patience to last through parts of long convention days dealing with important but often uninteresting stuff, but at the end of the day it is the delegates – people like myself – who make the crucial decisions selecting those who will represent us at state and national levels.
Assorted candidates appeared from time to time during the day, and all were given an opportunity to speak.
The DFL State Convention is in Rochester on June 2-3, and the National Convention is in Charlotte NC Sep 3-6, 2012.
The important business of todays Convention was endorsing our candidate for Congress, incumbent Cong. Betty McCollum, as well as to select eight delegates – four women and four men – to the National Democratic Convention. (Delegates to the State Convention had been elected earlier at the Senate District level.)
It was the selection of the national delegates near the end of the afternoon which was of most interest to me.
DFL rules pay great attention to affirmative action, and four women and four men as delegates was no accident. In fact, there were separate secret ballot slates for election of women delegates, and men. We all voted for every one of the the eight.
There were 14 female candidates and 17 male. I was in a new setting, and I wondered how the process could possibly work at all.
It worked very well.
Every candidate was given an opportunity for what I’d characterize a one-minute “elevator speech”. Some had fliers; some had likely done some pre-convention work with delegates.
They were an amazingly diverse bunch, representing all manner of the diversity of CD 4. I would have been comfortable being represented by most all of them.
In the end, 28 of the 31 candidates appeared to give their “elevator speech”; two had used leaflets to advertise themselves earlier in the convention; one was highly recommended to me by a delegate I know as a friend.
I voted for five of the eight winning candidates.
During the hiatus when votes were being tallied one of the Congressional District officers gave us a little quiz, showing the following quote:
“Fairness is the Final Result of
Years of Effective Effort
Combined with the Experience of
Diversity.”
“How many “f’s” are there?”, she said. I counted seven.
How about you? (clue: I was incorrect.)
Her point was a good one: we humans are wired in peculiar ways. Sometimes we selectively miss things that are obvious.
And so forth.
Election 2012 is not much over six months away.
Get involved.

Denny Schneider and Grace Kelly at the Convention April 21


(For other Election 2012 postings, simply enter those two words in the Search Box.)

#556 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #12. The Proposed Minnesota Voter Disenfranchisement Act.

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Highest on the list of contemporary issues I am concerned with is what I would call the “Minnesota Perpetual Voter Disenfranchisement Act”. This Act, HF 2738, is the proposed Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution which covertly (at least to public gaze) ends same day registration (the means used by one of six Minnesota voters) and replaces it with something called Provisional Voting. The HF 2738 is a voter dis-empowerment disaster in the making…exactly what its proponents intend.
Regardless, polls suggest that most people – party affiliation makes no apparent difference – think this idea is a good one and, at least at this moment, they will probably vote for it in the fall. If it passes, it will be a tragic mistake extremely difficult to undo. It will not pass if people know what it will do.
The proposed Constitution Amendment passed virtually unanimously in the 2012 session of the Legislature by solely Republican votes. (One Republican legislator voted against it, no Democrat voted for it, and it was intentionally passed so that it would bypass the potential veto by the Governor. There was no bargaining on this bill.) It does not even have a name as yet, and its descriptor masks its intent.
There is a fundamental (and encouraged) misunderstanding of what the bill is. Koolaid laced with Cyanide seems as good a descriptor as any.
My personal file on this issue, including the final bill passed in the Legislature, and the ALEC Model Legislation that is the birth mother of this monstrosity, is already an inch thick. (The Bill itself is only a few short paragraphs.)
All I can say is make every effort to learn everything that you can about this proposed Constitutional amendment in the coming months, and encourage your friends and neighbors to do so as well. There will be many sources of reliable information. Clear your calendar if you see or hear about a presentation in your area. You will want to know about this piece of poison you are being asked to enshrine permanently in our states Constitution.
And it is not absolutely certain that it will even pass court muster to be on the ballot in November. It is too deceptive and misleading.
I keep thinking of “Russian Roulette” – the deadly game where one bullet is placed in a revolver, and if you spin the cylinder of the six-shooter and pull the trigger and nothing happens you live.
HF 2738 is Russian Roulette with your right to vote, EVEN IF you think it can’t possibly affect you. What if you show up late to vote, and forgot your ID at home? Or you moved recently and do not yet have a valid ID with your new address? And on and on and on. It CAN happen to YOU.
(A while back I did a little exercise about my own voting history. I turned 21 in 1961, and cannot recall a subsequent election in which I have not voted (except in U.S. Army year of 1962). 2012 will be my 26th biennial Election in the United States.
Some time ago I reviewed my residence history in those 25 Election years: I lived in 10 different towns, in three different states. In four of the years I had been resident for three months or less; in five more, less than two years.
We are a migratory society and I’m not unusual.
I’d suggest doing your own history.
You may be surprised at what you recall.
And commit yourself to learning about one of the most disastrous initiatives ever to be foisted on the electorate of this state.
Related here, here and here.
(For all posts on Election 2012, simply type those two words in the Search Box.)

#554 – Dick Bernard: Parents United for Public Schools, looking forward

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Towards the end of yesterday’s most stimulating conference of Parents United for Public Schools, a slide appeared on the screen:
“I skate to where the puck will be,
not to where it has been.”
Wayne Gretzky
Gretzky was the almost superhuman hockey player who made it all look easy. I had the privilege of seeing him in person, one time, at the old Bloomington Met Center in the mid-1980s. We were at center ice perhaps a half dozen rows up, and when Wayne Gretzky was in the neighborhood, you knew you were in the presence of greatness, even amongst other great National Hockey League players.
“I skate to where the puck will be….” What a great metaphor for success in anything. Possibility replaces impossibility.
Our guest speakers were truly a dynamic duo: Dr. Tom Gillaspy and Dr. Tom Stinson. They’ve been advisors to the high and mighty in Minnesota and even folks like me have been privileged to hear them speak in other settings. Their specialties tend to make the eyes of mere mortals glaze over: economics and demography. But like Gretzky and his hockey puck, they make it all make sense, and make it interesting to boot!
In fact, much to my surprise, this mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune gave Tom Gillaspy page one treatment in the Variety Section. Imagine that: a demographer featured on page one of the entertainment section of the newspaper! (And I can say that Tom Stinson deserves equal time and treatment.)
I wish their message were on film. But it isn’t.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

Mary Cecconi, Tom Gillaspy, Tom Stinson, April 16, 2012


Second best is that their entire Power Point presentation is accessible at the Parents United website. It is here (click on “keynote presentation”), and very well worth your time.
We were also privileged to hear brief and inspiring messages from MN Gov. Mark Dayton and Education Commissioner Brenda Casselius. Sen Al Franken appeared on video.

Mn Governor Mark Dayton, April 16, 2012


Mn Commissioner of Education Brenda Casselius April 16, 2012


Two veteran retiring legislators were honored yesterday: the first time Parents United had made such a presentation. The Awards went to two long-term Legislators: Republican Senator Gen Olson (Minnetrista), and Democrat House of Representatives member Mindy Greiling (Roseville).

Rep Mindy Greiling, April 16, 2012 - courtesy Parents United for Public Schools


Sen. Gen Olson, April 16, 2012


It is always interesting to watch how people like these leaders, who we in the public are taught to view as combatants, treat each other: with respect. Senator Olson, who I knew as a public educator in long ago Anoka-Hennepin days, received her Award from former Democrat Senator and current lobbyist Kathy Saltzman (my former Senator); and Rep Greiling received her Award from Roseville School Superintendent John Thein. Sen. Olson got her start in public education; Rep Greiling got her political start on the Roseville School Board.
We saw, Monday, and we need more of, these highly visible lessons in political competition and respect as opposed to vicious political combat and loathing. There is a big difference.
We saw it in Roseville, yesterday. Absent teaching, we need to learn this skill ourselves.

#552 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #9. Climate Change

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A year ago today I was at a resort in suburban Albuquerque NM. It was a nice spring day, and I walked down to the Rio Grande River and saw this tree which was winning the race to be first to leaf out for 2011.

April 10, 2011 Bernalillo NM on bank of Rio Grande

Today, exactly one year later, I went to my favorite little park in my suburban St. Paul MN community, and took a photo of a typical tree from roughly the same perspective as I did a year ago.

Woodbury MN April 10, 2012

If anything, the Minnesota tree is further along this April 10 than its New Mexico neighbor ten degrees of Latitude (roughly 700 miles) to the south was exactly a year ago. The tree in Woodbury MN seems, among its peers, to be about average in leaf development this April 10; last years New Mexico tree was far ahead of its neighbors, which is why it attracted my attention back then.
What is going on?
I’m not a fool. There are many variables that might possibly lead to the unusual “twinning” of two trees of different species far distant from each other. There are differences in weather, day to day. Etc. Etc. Etc.
For certain, however, March, 2012, was an exceptionally warm month. Odd and often unusually severe weather, from droughts to storms, seem more frequent, and more and more certainly linked to human behavior. (UPDATE: Yahoo News had this about March, 2012, on April 15.)
There is something else going and on, and except for those mired in fantasy or with a particular vested interest in maintaining a particular illusion that climate is not changing, and that humanity has nothing to do with it, the debate is over: we humans in the industrialized world have had a great deal to do with the changes we are seeing, and while we don’t know the precise consequences for each of us where we live, there are definitely consequences and they are likely not going to be pleasant.
It was seven years ago this summer that we saw Al Gore make a powerful presentation in St. Paul on what he called the “Inconvenient Truth” of Climate Change. And a year later, we saw his powerful film on the topic. (It can now be easily accessed everywhere.)
An Inconvenient Truth has survived vicious criticism over the years: About a year ago I heard a well known climate scientist say he’d give An Inconvenient Truth 90% for accuracy – a very high grade in anyone’s league, especially when it comes to complex science.
Listen. Learn. Close down the denial mechanism.
Humanity – especially the developed industrialized world – is doing ourselves in and it bodes ill for the future of succeeding generations, perhaps even our own generation.
Check in once in awhile at the website of a new organization called Science Debate.
A while ago I asked a good friend who’s passionate about this subject to recommend a single website he thought would be a good portal for ongoing information. Here’s what he recommended.
But whether these sources, or any one of many others, get engaged and do your part to stop the denial.
As farmers have known forever, weather and climate are bigger than we are.
We are fools to make them even larger factors in our future than they would naturally be.
UPDATE APRIL 11, 2012:
from Lee Dechert, St. Paul: Within the climate science community, Skeptical Science is regarded as the best up-to-date source for a basic understanding of climate science, and for countering misinformation and disinformation on that science. Al Gore is a good example. Last year Minnesota Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen and his GOP committee members rejected and ridiculed Prof. John Abraham’s expert testimony that opposed rescinding a state law that limits emissions from coal-fired power plants and prohibits construction of new plants. I e-mailed a complaint to him; he replied in part by ridiculing Al Gore; I responded in part by saying there are people who also deny the holocaust. His co-authored bill was based on an ALEC “model bill” and was one of the environmental roll-back bills vetoed by DFL Gov. Mark Dayton. The GOP, with its Tea Party backers, is the only major political party on our planet that has officially denied the reality of human-induced global warming and is opposing public and private efforts to reverse it and adapt to its climate change impacts. The International Energy Agency has warned that some impacts will soon be irreversible.

#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.

#543 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #4. "The Vote is the most powerful instrument; the most powerful nonviolent tool in a democratic society." Cong. John Lewis

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Sunday night, March 25, we tuned in on the new PBS series entitled “Finding Your Roots”, where historian Henry Louis Gates explores roots with prominent citizens. We watched the episode featuring political leaders Newark NJ Mayor Cory Booker and GA Cong. John Lewis, and at approximately the 42 minute mark of the program, Lewis made the quote which is the subject line of this post. (You can watch the program on-line. It’s about 50 minutes.)
In its complete context, the John Lewis segment in particular is truly extraordinary. We tend to take rights, like the right to vote, for granted, until we lose them.
Just days earlier, (March 20 and 23) an initiative I would call the “Kiffmeyer Suppression of Voters Rights Amendment” passed both houses of the Minnesota Legislature, strictly on party line votes. Once the versions are reconciled, and a final version passed, we voters will have to deal with a proposed constitutional amendment in November. It bypasses the Governor, who likely would have vetoed similar legislation since there was no bi-partisan agreement). The seemingly innocuous amendment has huge negative implications for possibly hundreds of thousands of totally legal voters, who have voted for years in past Minnesota elections.
The actual legislation is really very simple to read. Click here, then simply type in HF 2738 in the box, mark “both” and enter. All information is readily available. What’s lost in the few words is the negative implications for future voters if the initiative passes in November.
Rep Mary Kiffmeyer, carrying the Bill, is a state legislator and former MN secretary of state, but more importantly she is representing powerful outside special interests that have an interest in diminishing the rights of certain legal voters.
I’ve been interested in an old e-mail (August, 2010) which is a fundraising letter in which Mary Kiffmeyer is given prominent billing as “Former Secretary of State”…”who serves on our [organizations] Board”. (See end of this post for more on this.)
The same letter notes the names of seven apparently highly prominent founding contributors: Stanley Hubbard, George Anderson, Rudy Boschwitz, Martin Kellogg, John Kinkead, Dale Zoerb and David Frauenshuh). Their organization proposes to “require PHOTO ID in St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth”. Its real dream seems to be to dominate Minnesota Government for the long term by making it more difficult for ordinary citizens to vote.
There is time between now and November to become very aware of the implications of this proposed constitutional amendment, if in fact it passes and goes on the ballot.
Real people – you and I – are the only antidote to this ill-considered attempt to gain a permanent political advantage in our state.
We need to know the facts, and let others know.
Do take time to watch the program mentioned in the first paragraph. You can watch on-line. Cong. Lewis walked the walk with Dr. Martin Luther King and others in the 1950s and 1960s to restore the right to vote gained after the Civil War, then soon thereafter wrested away for nearly the next 100 years. He and his colleagues paid the price for all of us.
END NOTE:
The letter referred to above is accessible at the end of this paragraph. I have redacted only specific contact information – if someone is interested they can search this out themselves. The fundraising memo is full of difficult to impossible to verify innuendo (“numerous states” et al) and targeting (“St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth”). I am most interested in the “140 of 480″ referenced. At the groups website there are 107 candidates listed who signed the pledge. Many of these were elected. Here’s the letter: Voter 18 Aug 2010003 Most likely Rep Kiffmeyer is a silent partner in this group at this point in time, but definitely connected.
(This is #4 in a series of posts relating to the 2012 election. For access to the others, previous and future, simply enter the words Election 2012 in the search box. The dates and topic of each post will come up.)

#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.”

#537 – Dick Bernard: Spring "Yard Work"

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Today, being a late April day (albeit in the middle of March), with all the snow gone, a short sleeve day and all, seemed a good day to begin the annual housekeeping trek along my walking route which ends on the north side of Carver Lake.
Helpfully, one of those small plastic buckets, about a half-gallon in size, materialized near the beginning of the walking route. In its previous life it probably held a plant. Perhaps it had blown off someone’s deck. Whatever, it was useful. (Actually, it had sat there for several prior days, but the time was not yet right to pick it up.)
Today was the day it would be of service to the community.
Our walking route is pretty clean. There is a small crew of people – mostly unknown to each other – who do “police call”.
Still, the first post-snow day out yields its share of treasures, mostly off the beaten path.
For instance, a bright piece of paper beckoned me into the off-trail woods, and when there I spotted three old and gray beer bottles, well disguised from many moons of anonymous living.
Along the way I was fetching something in the weeds and I met a guy who noticed, and groused about those people who toss stuff “when there are all sorts of garbage cans along this walk”. So true. I subscribe to the philosophy, though, that left garbage along the path is a magnet for more garbage, and policing helps keep down careless disposal of anything from cigarette buttes to tissue. Every little bit helps….
At the bench where I learned, a couple of years ago, that it is important to carry along one’s cell phone – it might come in handy – I met the pleasant guy I see frequently, pushing his Dad in his wheelchair for a walk in the park. We chatted a bit, and he commented that he’d filled two bags full of trash this same morning.
He usually does policing of the pond and lake banks, but he doesn’t sound quite as enthusiastic about doing it this year. Too big a mess. Maybe some of us will “step up to the plate” and help?
Past Carver Lake swimming beach and up the hill I went. A one liter plastic pop bottle beckoned, and when I got to it, assorted other trash magically appeared in its neighborhood. I was rapidly filling that little bucket a second time.
At the playground, a Dad was supervising playtime for his two year old. The youngster saw me dumping the garbage, and the Dad said “thanks”.
It was a good day on the trail today.
Have a great one yourself.

#534 – Dick Bernard: The Robocall

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On a day like today it is difficult to imagine that ten days ago we were experiencing our single day of snowy winter in the month of February. Our local welcoming presence, the carved bear at the corner of Sherwood and Juliet, seemed to be reveling in the snow.

at Juliet and Sherwood, February 29, 2012


But February 29 was an interesting day….
The phone rang at 6 a.m.
In our house, if the phone rings that early (I can’t recall a similar happening) it’s something serious, or a wrong number.
I picked up the phone and on came a pleasant authoritative male voice: “This is Superintendent _____, _____ schools will open two hours late.”
It was all very appropriate. Ten seconds and he was gone. There had been snow predictions the previous evening.
The only problems: the Superintendent was calling from a school district many miles from ours; and we haven’t had kids in school for many years.
It was a head-scratcher.
A couple of hours later came an anguished e-apology from the culprit, a highly competent and respected school person.
I’m a retired member of a public school related association, and our colleague had loaned our organization her equipment to get out a notice about an event. It was all perfectly appropriate, but she had forgot to delete us from the robo-call list, and was embarrassed.
Several of us got into a brief flurry of good-natured on-line bantering, and reminiscing about past events. One retiree said “Hey, no problem! Reminded me of those gawdawful no-win snow days! Half the town wants a snow day to play with their kids and the other half has a crisis at the office!”
Back in the day when my oldest child started school – 1969 – I seem to recall the drill for such events. Snow emergencies would be announced on WCCO-AM 830 (Minneapolis), so if the weather looked suspect, we’d tune in to Roger Erickson and Maynard Speece, cracking jokes as usual and reading school closing announcements for Minnesota. It was good for us, and certainly good for WCCO Radio! (Seems I recall they had to clean up their usual farm-yard humor act a bit, too. There was a different audience.)
There was no capacity for robocalls, of course. Phone trees (one call ten, who each call ten, etc.) might have been used some places, but they were subject to human whim.
Oh, how things have changed.
We are wired in ways we older-timers cannot even imagine.
Later the same week I was at a major ticketed event at the Ted Mann Theatre at the University of Minnesota.
“Ticket takers” these days scan the tickets, and if you’re legal you can go through.
I was about to check in and the lady – rather her scanner – was not able to read my name tag. Her colleague was having the same problem with his device.
So puzzling.
A techie looking guy came over, looked over the display on the scanners, and left.
Shortly thereafter a pleasant sounding lady came on and asked all of the people in the foyer to turn off their smartphones: the Mann wi-fi was overloaded.
In a minute or two we were on our way in. The program started ten minutes late, with apologies.
Technology is wonderful.
But sometimes I wonder, wouldn’t it be nice….
PS: Two hours after the 6 a.m. call I was asked to pick up our grandson at his school in Woodbury. His school had been closed due to a power outage, and they were sending the kids home. I went to the school, getting there about 8:30. The power was back on. But they were still closing school.
Half of the kids had already gone by the time the power came on; there was no justification for keeping the others. EVERYBODY would be punished.
Our grandson enjoyed the day off….