Minnesota – Page 9 – Thoughts Towards a Better World

#942 – Dick Bernard: Another delightful night at the Minnesota Orchestra.

October 13, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Minnesota, Quietings /by dickbernard

We went to our subscription season opener on Saturday evening, and it was, as always, a delightful experience.
Andrew Litton conducted a program of Richard Strauss: Don Quixote: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character; Salome’s Dance (Dance of the Seven Veils); Suite from Der Rosenkavalier.
It was a marvelous, fun program.
Through the program I kept thinking of a bookend someone gave me once, that sort of reminds me of Don Quixote, for some odd reason. Here it is (yes, it badly needs a dusting):

We’ve now been to several performances of the Minnesota Orchestra post-lockout (the lockout began two years ago, September 30, 2012, and ended in early February, 2014.) We’re glad to be back, and the people we see seem to be so as well.
Lurking not far in the background, reasonably, is the long impasse. But we’re moving on, it seems.
These days, I have begun to make sure I look at every page of the program booklet, just to make sure I don’t miss anything.
In Saturdays Showcase, for Sep-Nov, 2014, came a most interesting article, “a continuum of contributions”. You can read it here: MN Orchestra Oct 2014001. It speaks for itself.
Doubtless much effort and edit and review and revision went into the article. One can look for what is said, and what isn’t, and in what order of emphasis (which is as meaningfilled as the text itself)
I felt it a reasonable representation of the current reality.
One wonders, however, how the gap between the $10 million anonymous donor, and the equally anonymous $1 donor, will be bridged.
Money talks, the more money, the more the listening.
But the small folks are now, as before “the franchise” that is the Minnesota Orchestra. None of these folks are on anyone’s address book, but in the long run they will make all the difference.
As for us, we’re glad we’re back, and looking forward to a great season ahead. Yes, I’m a Guarantor (I think about $500 worth over my career). Nonetheless, we’re invited to a special performance led by Osmo Vanska next weekend. Quite likely we’ll go….
Nice touch.

#940 – Dick Bernard: The 125th Birthday of North Dakota

October 1, 2014/0 Comments/in Family History, Minnesota, North Dakota, Politics /by dickbernard

NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: An earlier version of this post has been updated below,including more content, links and photographs. This post was picked up by Twin Cities on-line newspaper MinnPost on Oct. 1, and can be read here.
After publishing this blog, I received a note from the coordinator for North Dakota Studies at the State Historical Society of ND. Neil Howe noted “We provide print and online resources to teach North Dakota history, geography, and citizenship in the schools of ND. You may know that teaching North Dakota Studies in ND is required at grades 4, 8, and high school. We are one of only a few states with this requirement — and we take pride in that.
You may want to visit the North Dakota Studies website here. I think you may find lots of interesting information about ND.”
*
November 2, 2014, is the 125th birthday of North Dakota – the 32nd state of the U.S. Today, October 1, 2014, is the 125th anniversary of the day North Dakotans ratified their new Constitution in 1889.
Happy Birthday!
(click to enlarge all photos)

North Dakota State Capitol as pictured in 1911 North Dakota Blue Book.

North Dakota is my home state. Many North Dakota towns and cities have earlier celebrated their 125th. Sykeston, where I graduated from high school in 1958, celebrated its 125th in 2008.
Some serendipity happenings cause me to give focus, this day, to the original Constitution of the State of North Dakota. (History of the North Dakota State Capitol buildings can be read here. The original building was built in 1883-84, burned down in 1930, and was replaced by the present skyscraper of the prairie in 1934.)
Most of the text and illustrations which follow come from the 1911 Blue Book of North Dakota, which I found this summer amongst the belongings at the LaMoure County farm where my mother grew up. In the books illustrations (below) you see evidence of pencil scrigglings. Most likely, they were made by my then-two year old mother, Esther: she was born in 1909, and by the time this book was at the farm home, she was probably at the age where a pencil and paper had some relationship together. (The final picture, at the end of this post, is of the first page of the book. Likely an Esther Busch original!)
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The cover of the “red, white and blue” Blue Book of North Dakota, 1911

The official story of the history of North Dakota, as told in 77 pages of the text of the 1911 ND Blue Book is accessible as follows:
1. The 1889 Federal Enabling Act leading the Constitution is here: ND Enabling Act 1889001 (13 pages)
2. The text of the 1889 Constitution of North Dakota is here: ND Constitution 1889002. (57 pages) At page xxviii is the vote by county for and against the Constitution.
(North Dakota’s Constitution, when completed, was over 200 handwritten pages, a fact I didn’t know till I was trying to locate a copy of it.)
3. The summary history of the state and Dakota Territory, its predecessor: ND TerrHist writ 1911 002 (7 pages) [See note at end of this blog].
North Dakota’s history, like all places, then to now, is complex.
For anyone interested there are a great many sources and observations interpreting North Dakota’s early history and the torturous course of its Constitution pre and post 1911. Between statehood in 1889 and 1911, when this book was published, there had been great changes in ND, with extremely rapid growth. It was doubtless an exciting time on the prairie; a time of transition.
Elwyn Robinson, author of the definitive history of North Dakota, gives this description of the beginnings of the ND Constitution Convention in 1889: ND Constit – Robinson001.
Complex as it was, it seems that the ND process was very civilized compared with the earlier Constitution deliberations leading to Minnesota statehood in 1858. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, in the 2009 Minnesota Blue Book, has this account of the Minnesota Constitution Convention: MN Constitution Hist001
Of course Constitution history does not end with enactment. Re North Dakota, Dr. Jerome Tweton much later wrote an interesting commentary on a later effort to redo the oft amended original Constitution of North Dakota.
The rest of us.
Of course, such recountings as shared above, tend to overlook the ordinary human element – people like ourselves. The recounting is of power transactions, in the old days, virtually all made by educated white men, setting the ground rules for the society in which they lived.
In 1910, North Dakota had 577,000 or so population (today, approximately 700,000). That would mean 577,000 individual stories.
Here, very briefly, are snippets of four human stories, those of my grandparents.
The person who acquired and then saved the 1911 Blue Book was my grandfather Ferdinand W. Busch.
He and his wife, Grandma Rosa (Berning), came to the pioneer farm between Berlin and Grand Rapids from extreme southwest Wisconsin (a few miles from Dubuque IA). They married Feb. 28, 1905, and the next month came west to virgin prairie.
Grandpa Fred Busch seems always to have had an active interest in politics, and it is probably thanks to him that I now have this precious old book. (Rosa would have little of this political stuff: there were mouths to feed, after all. When Grandpa ran unsucessfully for County Auditor in 1924, my Aunt Mary once said, Grandma, now with the franchise, campaigned against him!)
Their farm was purchased from the father of Milton R. Young, long time ND U.S. Senator. Fred knew Milton well, personally. They are buried, literally, across the road from each other just outside of Berlin. My mother worked at one point for Milton and his wife at their farm on the edge of Berlin.
Fred became a Non-Partisan League advocate, and later in life especially liked Sen. Bill Langer.
Dad’s side of my family preceded ND statehood.
My grandmother Bernard, then Josephine Collette, was born eight years before statehood at St. Andrews, where the Park and Red Rivers come together in Walsh County ND. Her parents came to ND in 1878; several uncles and Aunts came west about the same time, just before the great land rush.
Her uncle, Samuel Collette, who migrated to the St. Paul MN area from Quebec in 1857, was the first family member to see North Dakota. He was part of the Minnesota Mounted Rangers in 1862-63, a soldier in the so-called Indian War, and likely was with that unit in 1863 when it reached what later became Bismarck. This was a few years before Interstate 94.
I don’t recall much talk of politics by Grandma or Grandpa, though I think Grandma had a Collette Cousin who was a ND State Senator for a long while.
In the reverential description of the ND flag in the book (see below), I found most interesting the many references to the Spanish-American War in the Philippines 1898-99.
Grandpa Busch, Mom’s Dad, would not, in 1911, have had any idea that his future brother-in-law, my Grandpa Bernard, Dad’s Dad, who came to Grafton from Quebec about 1894, was in at the beginning of that long war, spending an entire year in the Philippines, part of Co C, Grafton.
Where that ND flag was, there was Grandpa Bernard.
I have visited Manila, Pagsanjan and Paete, all mentioned in that description.
North Dakota was one of the earliest enrollees to support that war in the spring of 1898. Of course, the “Roughrider”, Teddy Roosevelt, had spent two important years in ND in the mid 1880s, living in the Badlands not far from todays Medora. In a way, by 1898, Theodore Roosevelt had become a North Dakotan.
Without knowing it, the two ND families were already “tied” together.
(Another book found at the Busch farm is one about the Spanish-American War written at the time of the war in the grandiose style of the time.)
Every family has their own stories. These are only five small snips.
And every state has its symbols.
Here are the 1911 descriptors of the Wild Prairie Rose, North Dakotas State Flower, and the North Dakota Flag: ND Flower Flag 1911 002. These are the only state symbols within the book.
There is no descriptor of the North Dakota Seal in the 1911 book. Here is a more current interpretation of that Seal.
(click to enlarge)

ND Flag, as presented in the 1911 North Dakota Blue Book. Scribbles likely compliments of then 2-year old Esther Busch.

ND State Flower, the prairie Wild Rose, as presented in 1911 ND Blue Book

Great Seal of North Dakota in 1911 ND Blue Book. Scribbles likely contributed by then 2-year old Esther Busch of Henrietta Township, rural Berlin ND.

Likely artiste, Esther Busch, in the 1911 North Dakota Blue Book.

Happy Birthday, North Dakota!
POSTNOTE: Esther Busch went on to Henrietta Township School #1 near Berlin ND, thence to St. John’s Academy in Jamestown, thence Valley City State Normal School. She became a North Dakota Public School elementary school teacher in the late 1920s, met her future husband Henry Bernard at Valley City State Normal School, and together they taught a total of 71 years in North Dakota Public Schools.
re ND TerrHist link (#3 above): At page four of the link you’ll find the population of ND by decades until 1910. Succinctly, the population grew by 75% from 1890 to 1900, thence 80% from 1900 to 1910 to a 1910 population of 577,000.
That more or less remained the population of North Dakota until the recent oil boom.
They say ND is now about 700,000; In the 1960 census, when I was a junior at Valley City State Teachers College, ND population was about 630,000. When I did the Busch family history some years ago I looked up the population of Berlin, which was platted in 1903 and incorporated in 1906. Berlins highest population ever was in 1910, 137 people. It was all downhill from there. The current population of Berlin, ND is about 35. Here’s how it looked about 1910: Berlin ND early pre-1910001
A small photo album.
click on all photos to enlarge them

Busch farm harvest time 1907,. Rosa Busch holds her daughter Lucina, Others in photo include Ferd, behind the grain shock; Rosa’s sister, Lena, and Ferds father Wilhelm, and young brother William Busch. It is unknown who was unloading the grain in background. Possibly, it was Ferds brother, Leonard, who also farmed for a time in ND.

Ferd and Rosa Busch with first child, Lucina, in yard of their farm home likely Fall 1907

Josephine, Henry, Henry Jr and Josephine Bernard, Grafton ND 1908

Esther and Lucina Busch, rural Berlin/Grand Rapids ND 1910

Henry Bernard (top left) and Josephine’s cousin Alfred Collette (lower right) ready to embark for Philippines from Presidio San Francisco summer 1898.

(If you enlarge Alfred Collette’s head (lower right) you can see that his hat is emblazoned with 1st North Dakota text.)

North Dakota State Capitol June 1958 photos by Henry Bernard.

#933 – Dick Bernard: Working for Change

September 8, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Environment, History, Minnesota, North Dakota, Politics /by dickbernard

A couple of weeks ago a waitress at a local restaurant I frequent asked me a question.
She knows I’m interested in politics, and her son-in-law, now in law school, had developed a strong interest in the Constitution. Could I give her some ideas?
There’s loads of materials on the U.S. Constitution, of course. I knew this young man was from my home state of North Dakota and I suggested that I’d try to find out something about the ND Constitution. Maybe he’d be interested. She thought that was a great idea and I embarked on my quest. It was more difficult than I had thought but as of today the young man has (I’m pretty sure) information he hasn’t seen before, and this is the 125th year of North Dakota becoming a state (1889).
As often happens with such quests, one question leads to another, and yesterday found me looking at the 2013-14 Minnesota Legislative Handbook (they used to be called the “Blue Book”) to see what information it might have about the Minnesota Constitution (Statehood, 1858, right before the Civil War.)
I found a fascinating page and a half description of what it was like to enact the Minnesota Constitution back then. You can read it here: MN Constitution Hist001.
It doesn’t take long to discover that it was not an easy process to enact a new Minnesota Constitution. In fact…well, you can read the short article. Of course, back in that day, all the players were men, didn’t make a difference which party they were, and they were accustomed to being in power, and (I suppose) the primacy of their own ideas. Compromise was not their strong suit, shall I say.
By the time of the North Dakota Convention in 1889 the process was considerably more cut and dried, but still it wasn’t without discord. The final document is, I’m told, 220 handwritten sheets, and here are the first two pages of what Prof. Elwyn Robinson in his 1966 History of North Dakota had to say in introduction to the proceedings: ND Constit – Robinson001.
Of course, again, all of the delegates were men of prominence in their communities.
Long after each convention, in 1920, Women’s Suffrage helped to begin level the playing field. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 began to deal with the residue of slavery, which was supposed to have been taken care of as a result of the Civil War 1861-65.
Nothing is easy.
Yesterday evening, winding down, I happened across a PBS program entitled Secrets of Westminster, about power in English history. You can watch it here.
There were many fascinating tidbits, but the one that will stick with me longest will be the segments about the long struggle for women’s suffrage in England, finally won in 1918, two years before the rights were granted in the U.S. There is an interesting timeline of the quest by British women to receive the right to vote here. Note especially the three entries about 1909, and 4 June 1913. Both were featured in the PBS program.
Change is a continuing struggle. Where there are people, there are differences, and there is power. Change cannot be made by pretending someone else will do it; or that it is impossible to do anything about “it” (whatever “it” is). But it is possible.
At a recent meeting, I was noting a sign I had recently seen on a Holiday Inn Express motel in Bemidji Minnesota. It is pictured here:
(click to enlarge)

At hotel entrance Bemidji MN August 8, 2014

I commented on how inconceivable a sign like this would have been not too many years ago.
Jim remembered how it all began. He was a college student 50 years ago, and it was the time when the first warnings were publicized on cigarettes, which “may” be hazardous to ones health.
Change happened, there, because some people, individually and then united, worked for it, and worked, and worked, and worked….
We must do the same.

#932 – Dick Bernard: International Day of Peace, September 21, 2014

September 4, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, History, International Relations, Minnesota, Peace & Justice /by dickbernard

(click to enlarge)

International Peace Day at Loring Park, Minneapolis, September 21, 2003

Eleven years ago, sometime in August, 2003, a group of peace and justice folks at Minneapolis’ First Unitarian Society had an idea: let’s do a Peace Day at Loring Park on the International Day of Peace, September 21. Their plan involved enlisting churches in the downtown Minneapolis neighborhood.
I volunteered.
“Peace Day”? September 21?
It wasn’t until later that I learned of Jeremy Gilley, a young Englishman, who had done the inconceivable: an ordinary citizen convincing the United Nations to fix a specific date for its annual International Day of Peace as September 21 each year, rather than the third Tuesday in September, or even other dates, which had been the practice since the day was established at the United Nations in 1981.
The first Peace Day observed on September 21 had been the previous year, 2002. Somebody in the Twin Cities had heard about it, and here we were: planning one for the Twin Cities in its second year, 2003.
(NOTE: Sunday, September 21, 2014, is this years International Day of Peace. The complex and fascinating story of Peace Day is told in a free 80 minute on-line movie, “The Day After Peace”, accessible here.)
By September, 2003, I had become active in the peace and justice committee at Basilica of St. Mary, one of the downtown churches, and I agreed to help out with the Peace Day event, which came to be called “Peace on the Hill” (First Unitarian is, in fact on Lowry hill, a couple of blocks up from Loring Park).
As I recall, the committee was having trouble finding somebody to be a speaker.
On the day itself, Sep. 21, 2003, the weather was uncertain, and maybe a couple of hundred of us gathered in a circle, some local musicians inspired us (photo above), and then-Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak came at the last minute and gave a very good speech. He had made a special trip to the event as this was his wedding anniversary weekend, and they had made other plans.
Peace on the Hill was a very good event, and my friend Madeline Simon, and her colleagues at First Unitarian, deserve the credit for a very good idea. (My personal thoughts, written a few days after the event, are at the end of this post.) I still have the t-shirt from the day: Peace Day 9-21-03001
Events like Peace on the Hill are difficult to put together, and it is even more difficult to sustain interest. So, to my knowledge, the first day was also the last. There were other efforts, but they were only sporadic and scattered.
Assorted “bugaboos” known to anyone who has ever organized anything interfere with long term success.
There were plenty of reasons for Jeremy Gilley to give up on his noble idea of a specific day set aside for peace.

By tragic irony, the United Nations adopted September 21 as the International Day of Peace on September 7, 2001, effective in 2002.
Four days later, on September 11, 2001, as the UN was celebrating the 2001 International Day of Peace, outside, on a pleasant day, the Twin Towers just down the street from the UN were hit.
It all could have ended, then and there. But it didn’t.
From all indications, in 2014, Jeremy Gilley has the focus and the momentum. His goal now, and it’s an attainable one, is that 3 billion people, half of the worlds population, will be aware of September 21 as the International Day of Peace.
Simple awareness is a large step towards victory.
Watch the movie, and commit to do something this International Day of Peace, and every day following.
*
POSTNOTE: Thoughts written after International Peace Day September 21, 2003.
Dick Bernard, September 29, 2003, P&J #460 “Who’ll be speaking?”
Note especially the bold-faced section beginning at #4.
A suggestion: I am reading a little book, and near the beginning was a paragraph which caught my eye:
“…if we so choose, we can always postpone the jump from thought to action. We really need to acquire more information, read another book, attend one more conference, hold further conversations, in order to “clarify the issues.” Then we’ll act. So if the action looks risky, there is always a good reason to postpone it: we don’t know enough yet.
“We are fooling ourselves: we never actually “postpone” the jump from thought to action. For, paradoxical as it sounds, not to act is to act. It is to act by default for whoever is in charge. People who did not oppose the Nazi gassing of Jews were supporting the Nazis: “See,” Hitler could say, “nobody is objecting.”….”
(From Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, by Robert McAfee Brown. Check it out.)
What to do?
Some Actions among many we all can easily take:
1. Actually write a real letter to your Congressperson and Senators and editor, etc., about the $87,000,000,000 and the additional immense deficits. Make it brief and to the point. It will be read by somebody, and they will pay attention.
2. Do something for Peace and Justice YOU consider to be a bit outrageous – outside of your comfort zone, even if only a little. That is the only real way to get into action…to be at least a little uncomfortable. For sure don’t be stymied by a need to know everything (see the book quote above). As we are becoming more and more aware, the “big deals” probably know less than we do – yes, they may have more information, but their “blind spots” are huge – their ego causes them to miss the obvious…and then deny its existence long after it is obvious to others.
3. Pay much more attention to today’s quiet masses than to the loudmouths. I think the quiet multitude among us – the vast majority – is starting to wonder if Iraq, the economy, etc makes any sense. In a sense, they might be like the ordinary passengers on the Titanic who might have been on deck and wondering about those icebergs out there, but said to themselves “they must know what they’re doing”, and expressed concern to nobody. Of course, “they” up on the bridge of the unsinkable Titanic apparently didn’t have a clue, and the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. We are, collectively, on our own Titanic…. There is a temptation – I feel it myself – to say “see, I told you so”. Avoid the temptation. The nature of humans is to not want to admit they’ve been wrong.
4. Make a commitment to SUPPORT activities in your area that SOMEBODY like you is investing a lot of time, personal effort and even money in to make a success. Attend those demonstrations, and programs, etc., etc., and by so doing you show your support of somebody’s hard effort for peace and justice. Thank the people who made the event happen even if it might not have been perfect. Ditto for requests people make of you. (Personally, I will be giving you a couple of invitations in the near future: it will be a good opportunity to practice your skills of acknowledging/accepting/declining! Stay tuned.)
The importance of Active Support came close to home for me at an event I was helping coordinate in Loring Park in Minneapolis on September 21, Peace on the Hill. The event turned out to be a real success, but before it began one of my fellow volunteers was talking about a party he’d been to the previous evening. A number of peace and justice activists were at the party, and he invited them to come to the get-together. “Who’ll be speaking”, they asked in a variety of ways, suggesting that they’d consider coming if the program would be sufficiently “interesting”. At the time, we couldn’t guarantee any speakers – in fact, our focus was not speakers, rather music, and my presumption is that the activists my colleague was talking about were not in evidence at the Park during our program.
“Who’ll be speaking?”. In a real sense, the speakers that cool and overcast Sunday afternoon were the several hundred people who actually came with no expectations. (Ultimately, the Mayor of Minneapolis, R.T.Rybak did come to our Peace on the Hill event, and spent a lot of time with us, and gave a great speech as well. It developed that he couldn’t absolutely commit to coming beforehand because of a family commitment, and he had to drive home early to be with us. Rather than passing the duty off to an aide, he felt it was important enough to attend in person. He deserves gratitude.)
Some of you came to Peace on the Hill, and I was grateful to see you. It was acknowledgement that the event was important, even though there were many other things you could have been doing. Event organizers notice things like that, even if they’re too busy to chat at the time. The musicians noticed that the audience was an appreciative one, engaged. That was important to the musicians – who performed for nothing.
“Who’ll be speaking?”
How about you, in any of sundry ways?
Have a great week..

#931 – Dick Bernard: A new school year begins

September 1, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Education, Minnesota, North Dakota /by dickbernard

In a few hours, most Minnesota students return to school for the 2014-15 school year. At this moment, more than 800,000 Minnesota public school students, and more than 100,000 more teachers, administrators, cooks, custodians, bus drivers, etc., are, regardless of their grade level, or number of years of experience, somewhat nervous about tomorrow. It is a bit like preparing to go “on stage”. The jitters are very normal.
(About 9 of 10 school age kids attend publicly funded schools. Education is a primary constitutional function of government and reflects the diversity that is America. Most of the remaining students attend non-public schools of one sort or another. A smaller percentage are home-schooled. The general Minnesota data for all is linked above. National enrollment figures are similar. About one of six Americans are enrolled in public schools.)
Among those returning to school in Minnesota will be eight of our grandkids, my daughter who is a school principal, and another daughter who is a school board member.
Even though we’re physically detached from that place called “school”, it is certainly never far away.
We wish them all well.
I’ve spent most of my life immersed in public education. Both parents were career public school teachers. Both of them were my teachers, at school, in 8th grade, then high school. Four aunts and two uncles were school teachers, most of them career teachers. Some cousins are retired teachers…. Yes, school has never been far away, including the 27 years I represented public school teachers through what was then called Minnesota Education Association (now Education Minnesota (EM)).
Today was the last day of the Minnesota State Fair, and we went to the Fair. For me it was the second trip.
This day I made my usual stop, at the long-time booth of Education Minnesota.
(click to enlarge)

Education Minnesota booth, September 1, 2014

For many years, Education Minnesota’s booth has been one of the more popular stops at the Fair. Folks can stop by and get their photo and a 2014-15 calendar for free. I got in line for mine, which you can see, in part, here: Bernard – EM 9-1-2014001. Julie Blaha, tomorrow a 5th grade teacher in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, Minnesota’s largest, and for several preceding years President of the local teacher’s union there, greeted all of us in the cheery way of a great teacher. Those who entered the EM booth knew they were with friends.
School is a complex place during the best of times. When mixed in with politics, and emotions, and all of the other facets that go with a complex people institution, no doubt even the first day some things will happen, somewhere.
But when one considers the infinite potential for problems, it is amazing how well schools work.
Most kids are looking forward to being back in school, albeit somewhat nervously. The system will work, not always perfectly, and for the most part retired folks like ourselves will not hear much, mostly because there is not much to hear! Things are working okay.
Our nine grandkids (one graduated long ago) are all unique individuals. Somehow or other, schools do a pretty good job blending kids with each other, and helping each kid find his or her way in whatever grade he/she finds him or herself tomorrow.
We wish everyone well.

Part of the gathering crowd at the Minnesota State Fair, last day, September 1, 2014

COMMENT
from Shirley L:
Appreciated your comments about school and opening day. It was always an exciting time for our family with both parents in school positions – and my brother and I matriculating at the college lab school. Such a regular routine that in the fall I feel a bit out of step! I do take advantage of the back-to-school sales of school supplies…really stock up on pens, paper, folders, sketchbooks, etc.
So here’s a toast to you – your grandkids – and all of our wonderful memories of those great school days!!
from Denise S, President of Education Minnesota: The other day a couple was [at the booth] getting their picture taken and they said it was #17. Fun! A great tradition, indeed. Our best guess is we do 1,200-1,500 calendars a day. Good stuff!

#930 – Dick Bernard: Our (Minnesota) State Fair; and remembering North Dakota and Texas as well.

August 29, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Minnesota, North Dakota /by dickbernard

Yesterday I spent three or so hours at the Minnesota State Fair. It’s “my” state fair, and as the song from the musical goes, it’s “the best state fair in our state”. Over the last 50 years or so I’ve often been to the Minnesota State Fair. It’s something like a piece of genetic code. When the last 12 days of the month of August arrive, I know that I will, at least once, go to the State Fair.
Plenty of folks share that gene, I know. The State Fair has been attracting people for over 150 years, just a year less than Minnesota has been a state.
Out at the ND farm of my mother, was this postcard from way back:
(click to enlarge)

Postcard dated 100 years ago, Sep. 22, 1914, featuring Minnesota State Fair.

I’m no high-roller at the Fair: yesterdays total cost was about $26.00, including $5 for bus to the Fair; $8 to get in (senior citizens day); $5 for deep fried veggies; $8 for a cup of Sweet Martha’s Cookies, most of which came home with me. Even for me, this was a cheapskate day. A period of light rain interfered, and some of my usual stops I just passed by. But I’m glad I went. I happened to be near leaving when the daily parade started. It was fairly short, but nice. Several bands, and almost a herd of those gigantic cows advertising this or that.

Minnesota State Fair Parade August 28, 2014

The real fun of this fair – any fair – is people watching. We’re all odd, in our unique sorts of ways. “Ships passing in the [daylight]” as it were. For the most part, at the Fair, pretense and conventional wisdom is left at the door. Who cares if I’m overweight; who’ll notice that piece of fatty bacon I paid far too much for, and is laden with all sorts of dangerous things, but is oh, sooooo gooooood. For a moment, when I was seeing those gigantic cows being dragged along I thought of as some kind of state fair deity.

August 28, 2014

Almost exclusively I know the Minnesota State Fair. It is my only point of reference.
But a couple of memorable other State Fairs come to mind.
In the summer of 2007 I happened to be in Minot ND at the time of the North Dakota State Fair. Pretty neat fair, if I do say so myself. The Motel proprietor saw fit to give me a ticket to the grandstand show the evening I was there, featuring a country-western guy I’d never heard of. It was a great show. Every now and then I take a listen to one of his songs, “What Was I Thinking”. Had I not been to the ND State Fair, I never woulda known….

Dierks Bentley, July 27, 2007, North Dakota State Fair, Minot ND

Then there was a time way back in the 1970s when I happened to be in Dallas at the time of the Texas State Fair, I believe it was in October, if memory serves. I had an entire evening to kill between the end of my conference, and catching a bus at about 4 a.m. to go visit my brother and family in Altus Oklahoma.
The Fair itself was quite alright. Very large, different from Minnesota, but that was to be expected.
I went back to the Bus Depot to wait for my bus.
Bus depots, late at night, are not for the faint of heart. This particular night, somebody plopped down beside me, mumbled a little, and seemed to pass out. I thought to myself, probably drunk. Then I looked at his arm, and he was all bloody. Some police came in, and something of a surreal scuffle ensued. Nobody said anything. When the dust settled, I learned that my seat mate had been shot by someone at the Texas State Fair.
It was a relief to get on the bus heading towards Ft. Worth. I struck up a conversation with the couple seated in front of me. They were from Ft Worth, they said, and were on their way home. Why by bus? Their car had been stolen at the Fair.
Ah yes, our State Fair is a great State Fair!

#928 – Dick Bernard: Greg H on Ferguson MO

August 21, 2014/0 Comments/in Guns, History, Media, Minnesota, Technology /by dickbernard

UPDATE: Overnight, August 22, “Policing the Masses”, some thoughts on the down side of crowd control.
Grace Kelly’s proposal, presented in the August 7 post (written back in May, before Ferguson; it is at the end of the post), is the basis for conversation and action anywhere. If you haven’t read it yet, consider doing so now. It is simply an idea, to be developed in different ways in different places.

Don Thimmesch (undated). See note at end of post.

A good friend of mine, Greg, is an attorney and retired prosecutor in this major metropolitan area. He’s sent three comments during the times of the incident in Ferguson, and I present them below as received. His is a perspective flowing from experience. Below his comments are a couple of my own flowing from the three previous posts on the topic of police and violence, which can be accessed here, here and here.
Greg H, Aug 15, 2014: A year ago or so [ago] I caught the testimony of a local police chief before a Congressional committee. In part, he chronicled the increase in fire power of the weapons issued to his patrol officers, in a small community.
The latest upgrade was to a weapon similar to that used in the Sandy Hook school shootings.
The police chief explained to the Congressional committee members that the reason for his community spending money to equip patrol officers with more lethal weapons was simply to prevent his officers from being out gunned by the bad people.
Just today we learned the suspect in the murder of the local police officer [Mendota Heights MN, August 7 post] during a traffic stop had told a woman friend days earlier that he planned to kill a cop. He also told her he had been smoking meth for several days.
As to Ferguson, I prefer to wait for the facts of the confrontation between Mr. Brown and the officer before reaching any conclusions.
Greg, Aug 18: A letter to the editor published in the August 16th Star Tribune…pointed out that the population of Ferguson is about 67 percent African American, yet four of the six elected city council members and the mayor are Caucasian. I do not mean to imply that electing more African American individuals to city government will solve all problems. However, as we well know elections do have consequences.
Also, whether that police officer did or did not know Mr. Brown was a suspect in a recently-committed robbery, Mr. Brown knew what he had done and of course he did not know whether the police officer was also aware of what he had done.
This does not appear to me to be an easy-to-understand situation. I am still wanting to know more about what happened.
Greg, Aug 20: A Mike Meyers op ed piece was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today, introducing us to that city as it was in the 1950s- and 1960s as he grew up there. [Meyers is a former reporter for Minneapolis Star Tribune]. Pretty much confirmed my opinion. Reminds me of Studs Terkel. I do not mean Meyers’ column justifies 2014 life in Ferguson, but it does, I think, help us understand how we got to 2014.
Chris Matthews in his sign off opinion comment on Hardball last night [MSNBC] was to the same point. He suggested the root cause of the problems between the races in Ferguson is more about economic disparity than racism. As is playing out across our country, there just are no longer well-paying jobs for people who have only a high school diploma. Actually that is true also for many people with only a bachelor college degree.
Students from Ferguson attend Normandy High School located in a nearby community. Students come from 24 communities to attend that school, whose enrollment is 98 percent Black. Michael Brown was a member of the Class of 2014. Here is a link to a story from NBC News. Grim picture.
How many graduates are ready to face the challenges of the 21st Century? How many Normandy graduates attend college or any other post secondary education schools? In 2012 the school lost its accreditation. The state has taken over operation of the school. All teachers were required to reapply for their jobs, 40 percent of whom were not hired back.
Indicting, convicting the involved police officer will do nothing to address these root causes.
Parting Thoughts as I leave this topic:
My instincts tend strongly to supporting police. While I’ve never owned a weapon, guns for hunting have been a regular part of my surroundings since I was a little kid.
I am long past the illusion that because I grew up in rural North Dakota, before African-Americans were part of my surroundings, that I am race-neutral. We all grew up with messages…. Native-Americans (“Indians”) seem to have been our race of choice.
As demonstrated by events in recent weeks, guns, especially ever more sophisticated weaponry, and the uncertainties of human behavior are not a good combination; and racial tensions are never far below the surface. Guns are not good mediators, and those who “win” at the point of a gun, are the ultimate losers, almost always. The guy who shot the policeman here a few weeks ago may as well be dead; the policeman who shot the man in Ferguson will never recover either, even if totally vindicated.
I agree with Greg that the entire picture is not yet clear in Ferguson. At the same time, what happened there has rippled out, everywhere, not soon to be forgotten. And proximity to a deadly weapon was not good for the officer, whether he ultimately is exonerated or not.
These issues: weapons, race, and police-community relationships generally, are important topics. Ongoing.
NOTE about photo: Don Thimmesch was the husband of my mothers first cousin, and next-ND-farm-over neighbor, Cecilia Berning. He was one of the first 50 uniformed Iowa State Highway Patrol officers in the mid-1930s.

#926 – Dick Bernard: The Sea Wing Disaster of July 13, 1890

August 18, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, History, Minnesota, Nature /by dickbernard

For a number of months, occasional coffee-time conversation with friends David Thofern and Frederick Johnson usually got around to talk about progress on Mr. Johnson’s latest book, “The Sea Wing Disaster. Tragedy on Lake Pepin” (available through Goodhue County Historical Society here with event schedule about the book here). When the book came out, I bought a couple of copies (well worth the cost), and when I learned that the author would be talking about the volume at the Le Duc House in Hastings MN, I put it on the calendar, and last night my spouse and I went for a most fascinating hour presentation.
(click on photos to enlarge; to further enlarge poster beside Johnson, put cursor over the poster and click again.)

Frederick Johnson speaks on the Sea Wing disaster at Le Duc House, Hastings MN, Aug. 17, 2014

Frederick, David, myself, and others of we “regulars” are into bantering, about this and that, and this project was no different.
But the Sea Wing Disaster was no laughing matter. It happened July 13, 1890, in Lake Pepin, the shallow and large wide spot in the Mississippi River below Red Wing MN.
In the early evening of that day, the overloaded small steamer capsized in very strong winds, and 98 of the 215 passengers died. Most were from Red Wing.
It was and remains one of the largest domestic maritime disasters in U.S. History, and one of the very few in which weather was the major causative factor. (Many of the Sea Wing passengers were aboard a barge, lashed to the Sea Wing. All but one of the passengers on the barge survived. The Sea Wing, only 14′ wide and about 100 feet long, was overloaded and no match for the wind induced massive waves. The passengers had hardly a chance.)

The Sea Wing and Barge in tow before the catastrophe…

…and after. Photos courtesy of Goodhue Co. Hist. Soc.

In these days of AccuWeather and instantaneous forecasting it is perhaps hard to imagine being surprised by bad weather. People back then, and until very recently, relied on the usual visual signs of bad weather, and they knew what bad weather meant, in general. But this storm was different. Not long before the Sea Wing was struck down, a huge tornado from the same system had hit the Lake Gervais area just north of St. Paul. But this was 1890, and there was no easy way to spread the word about what was lurking not far away. The boat, the captain (who survived) and the passengers had hardly a chance.
Johnson first wrote about the Sea Wing in 1986. At the time he started planning to do an article, but there was so much material that he expanded his work into a book. Fast forward to 2014, and major additions provided by newly discovered material, including from the descendants of the casualties and survivors, gave rise to a much expanded new work. Indeed, even at the August 17 program, members of the audience showed photos of their ancestors who were with that boat the ill-fated day.
In this new edition, Mr. Johnson painstakingly researched both those who died and who survived. Judging from the audience on Sunday night, the new volume will bring forward still more new information retained in family collections for near 125 years.
Take in the presentation if you can (schedule above), and/or buy the book. It is a very interesting look at history.

#925 – Dick Bernard: Leaving Iowa

August 17, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, Minnesota /by dickbernard

Michelle W., you’ve been promoting Woodbury Community Theatre for a long time, but we’ve yet to “darken the door”. Keep us on the list. Next time we’ll be there.
A week ago I stayed overnight with my sister and brother-in-law in Park Rapids MN. It was a last minute overnight, and they had plans to go to a play in tiny nearby Hubbard, and they scrambled to get one of the few remaining tickets for me.
What a night it was. The tiny Theater was packed; there were more people there, probably, than live in Hubbard. Word had gotten around, and a sold-out house was common.
Community Theater lives!
We saw the comedy “Leaving Iowa” (program here: Leaving Iowa001

Succinctly, “Leaving Iowa” is in essence about everybody-who-ever-was-in-a-family-who-took-a-car-on-“vacation”. In other words, most of us.
On the back leaf of the program (link above), the director describes one such trip of his own; at the end of this post, I describe one of mine. This is an invitation to remember your own experience(s).
The stereotypical Dad, the guy in charge (or so he thinks) died three years ago, his ashes unceremoniously perched on top of the fuse box in the basement. Most all of the play is in the car with the (really nicely) in-charge Mom; Dad; sis and brother, involved as any sister or brother who’s ever had to tolerate siblings in the confines of a car can relate. (For myself, it was seven of us, five kids, I the oldest, and I was in heaven when I finally got the Drivers License, and “controlled” the steering wheel. My siblings got rid of the pest, (me), of course; you know all the rest of variations of the story from your own memories of growing up, somewhere, and going as a family, some place.)
Part of the story involves the son taking Dad’s ashes to be distributed at some special place, and that is itself a hilarious though one-way conversation. Dad sits there quietly in his urn on the passenger side.
The story ends with son and Dad leaving Iowa for the final resting place at the geographic center of the United States, somewhere in Kansas. That, too, was one of Dad’s “democratically” decided destinations sometimes, and now his final.
The play was a little long, but the acting was delightful and if your town community theatre is looking for a really fun play with great audience appeal, this is one to check out.
(I just did a quick google search, and here are many links to check out, if you wish.)
And I promised my own story….
Back in August of 1978, I decided to take my son and my sisters foster-son Buck on a long trip from Minnesota as far south as Grand Canyon and back. The boys were 14, a good age for a trip like this. We traveled in my 1971 Chevy Van, our “motel” for the trip. We saw wonderful things, like driving to the top of Pike’s Peak; they learned to waterski on Lake Powell, and on and on. Like kids universally, they went where I did.
One memorable day we spent much time at Mesa Verde, CO, doing the tour, seeing the sights.
At night, we chose to stay in Cortez, Colorado, at a KOA. This one had a swimming pool, a heavenly development for the boys.
The next day was planned out. I thought that if we left somewhere about midnight, we could get to Grand Canyon in time to see the sunrise over the canyon.
I looked at the map, and it just happened that down the road about an hour or two was Four Corners, where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico come together.
It was a not to be missed opportunity, and it would be the middle of the night when we passed it, so by the dictatorial powers vested in me, I cut back the swimming time for the boys, so that we could go see Four Corners.
They were not happy campers. But what choice did they have? None.
Off we went, me and two surly boys.
We got to Four Corners late on a hot afternoon and there it was, Four Corners, basically a brass plate in the godforsaken desert without so much as a souvenir stand or a place to buy some refreshments.
But we’d come there, and I insisted that the boys stand by the plaque so I could take the picture.
Somewhere in a box downstairs is that picture, a slide of two glowering kids obviously unhappy to be there. It’s a picture worth a thousand words, for sure!
We had lots of good memories from that trip, but this sour note is the one I choose to remember.
What do you remember?

#915 – Dick Bernard: Some very sad news: Journalist Andy Driscoll takes his final bow.

July 24, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, History, Media, Minnesota, Peace & Justice, Quietings /by dickbernard

We had just returned from several days out of town and catching on what’s been happening, Cathy noted the death of a friend of mine, Andy Driscoll.
Indeed it was true, and this morning I woke up with a ever-longer Facebook entry with tributes to and about Andy. I looked at the home page of KFAI, the public station on which he has broadcast since 2007, and saw more about him at the KFAI website.
Andy made a big difference, quietly, for many years.
There are many Andy’s in the world: there just aren’t headlines written about them; and they aren’t in the national media. But at home they regularly make an impact on their communities, small and large, in many and diverse ways.
Beginning in mid-2007, Andy produced and broadcast a one hour program each week on KFAI which he called “Truth to Tell”. I haven’t counted, but at minimum it would appear that he had over 250 programs on air. There were probably near 1000 on-air guests in that time.
Quite an accomplishment, especially considering that one hour interview programs don’t just happen. They take great effort.
In the first sentence I call Andy a “friend”.
I use that word with hesitation, but my guess is that Andy would agree that yes, we were good friends, even if we saw each other rarely.
In fact, along with Syl Jones, Marie Braun of WAMM, and Dr. Joe Schwartzberg of Citizens for Global Solutions, I was one of the panelists on his inaugural show on air, July 4, 2007.
(There were a few earlier practice runs in 2007; and the initial experiment began, I recall, in the Fall of 2006, but July 4, 2007, was the official first program. Apparently that first show remains available on archive. At this moment I haven’t tried to access it.)
Ironically, Andy’s last on-air show, as yet not available on-line, was about the future of the Minnesota Orchestra.
He and I shared a passion for the Orchestra as well; in fact, the last time I saw Andy in person was right after the lockout began, October 18, 2012, at the first concert of the locked-out Minnesota Orchestra. He commented at the end of my post about that evening here.
The last comment I have from him was also about the Orchestra situation at September 6, 2013. Scroll down to it here.
There won’t be any flags at half-staff for Andy Driscoll around his city, state and nation. Just people like myself who take a moment to reminisce.
But Andy, and all who labor in their own neighborhoods and communities are the ones who truly make the difference that matters, unsung, and too often unappreciated.
Andy, I note that you and I are the same age.
We’re walking down the same path towards the same destination.
Good traveling with you over these past few years, Andy.