#258 – Dick Bernard: Planting Poles of Peace

/in , , , , /by

Today was another stunningly beautiful Minnesota Fall day, a perfect day for – as the invitation stated – “a peace pole planting & dedication ceremony” at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Sunfish Lake MN. I took the drive over to the picturesque church. It is a place I have passed by often, but until today never actually entered.
There are hundreds of thousands of peace poles around the world in almost any kind of location. As the St. Anne’s program stated, “In planting peace poles, we are linking with people all over the world who have planted Peace Poles in the same spirit of peace.”
I gathered that the peace pole project at St. Anne’s was a creation of the youth of the Parish who did the fundraising for the project. Rather than a single pole, the decision was made to plant three poles in a specially constructed Peace Garden near the Church. The project took one and one-half years to complete, but in the end the children had raised more than enough money for the poles which speak “…”May Peace Prevail on Earth” in Arabic, Chinese, English, Greek, Hebrew, Hmong, Maya, Ojibwe, Paw Prints, Somali, Spanish and Swahili.” (Among the onlookers was a gentle dog, for whom the Paw Prints fit!)

The Peace Poles prior to planting.


I have been to numerous dedications of Peace Poles, Peace Sites and the like, and they share commonalities, though they are planned individually, often over an extended period. Each are unique and inspiring.
At St. Anne’s, the opening prayer was as follows:
“We gather here today as diverse expressions
of one loving mystery –
To celebrate,
to sing,
to accept differences,
to promote justice and peace.
To recreate the human community.
We gather to plant these peace poles as a sign of
our commitment to nurture and encourage the seeds of
peace already planted in our community and in the world.
As we plant these poles, we commit to:
seeking peace within ourselves and others,
promoting understanding,
celebrating diversity,
caring for our planet,
reaching out in service,
working for justice,
and creating, in this place,
a sanctuary where all are embraced.
We are called to peace.
Peace within and peace without
Peace before and peace behind
Peace on right and peace on left.
We are called to peace.
Peace with brother and with sister
Peace with neighbor and with stranger
Peace with friend and with foe.
We are called to peace.
Peace in work and in play
Peace in thought and deed
Peace in world and in action
We are called to peace.”
The gentle ritual continued with a Song of Peace, readings from different traditions about peace, and thence the planting of the three poles with members of the group, young and old, contributing earth to the holes in which the poles were planted.

Planting the Peace Poles at St. Anne's


There are many perfect ways to do Peace Poles and Peace Sites. St. Anne’s was one of those perfect ways.
More information and ideas about Peace Sites and Peace Poles and other Peace programs are accessible at the website of World Citizen.
“Let There Be Peace On Earth” (one of today’s songs.)

#256 – Dick Bernard: The Chilean Miners

/in , , , /by

The rescue of the 33 Chilean miners after 69 days underground grabbed and held on to me today.
I got up about two a.m. to see the 4th miner reach the surface, and I watched intermittently today, and for an extended period tonight as the final miner reached the surface.
For me, personally, the entirety of the drama centers around community. The men in the mine became and nurtured community under conditions I cannot even begin to imagine.
The country of Chile rallied around its citizens and their families; and the rest of the world was invited in, and participated, in a moment of unity of purpose.
We saw, I think, what the world can be when it is allowed to reflect the unity of humanity – our commonality more than our differences.
It was interesting, and I suppose expected, that we, through the media, would, for some odd reason, marvel that Iranians might be human beings just like the rest of us, and that these Iranians would be gripped by the same story in the same way through the same media as we. It certainly should not be odd, but the political investment has been in our differences, rather than our similarities, and the differences are magnified, and similarities diminished. But we really are not different at all. We are simply human beings in different places, each of us with our own stories, our own frailties, our own strengths and weaknesses.
The end of this 69-day story in the Chilean high desert is far away and unknown.
One can hope that the survivors and their families can reestablish some sense of normalcy in an environment where that normalcy will be all but impossible to re-establish.
But at this moment, on the day the rescue was accomplished, it is truly a time and an event to celebrate and cherish.
Perhaps we can learn something of value from this moment in history.
One can hope.
UPDATE October 17, 2010: here

#255 – Dick Bernard: Au Revoir to Five Sisters

/in , , , , /by

The call came on Friday. It was unexpected only because I didn’t think I’d be in the communications loop.
Sister Victorine Long CSJ had passed away at Bethany Convent in St. Paul. She was 90. Her niece said she had a folder of assorted photos and letters for me – items which Sister Victorine had kept over the years.

I went to Sister’s funeral on Saturday, and her niece, Sister Lillian, gave me the folder which brought back many memories of not only Sister Victorine, but four of her colleagues at Bethany who had preceded her in death.
The six of us were occasional friends, sometime correspondents, infrequent lunch companions at Bethany, which is the home for elderly and disabled Nuns of the St. Paul Province of the Congregation of St. Joseph of Carondolet (CSJ). These are the Nuns who founded the College of St. Catherine and St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul and many others. They are a remarkable Order among many Orders.
For me, the relationship began in the early 1990s when a CSJ, Sr. Mary Henry Nachtsheim, CSJ, and I got to know each other in a French-Canadian Club, La Societe Canadienne-Francaise du Minnesota (LSCF). Sr. Mary Henry and I served on the Board of now-defunct LSCF. I doubt she had a lick of French blood, but she had a passion for things French, and her career was teaching French at the College of St. Catherine.
Before she died in 1995, Sr. Mary Henry introduced me to Sr. Ellen Murphy, CSJ, a remarkable poet, born and raised on a farm at Bachelors Grove ND. (See the poem at the end of this writing.) Hidden behind Sr. Ellen’s Irish name was her French-Canadian mother whose maiden name was Normand, and who grew up in the same community as my Grandmother, Oakwood ND. Sr. Ellen had a great interest in things French-Canadian. As she grew older, she took up residence at Bethany.
In turn, she introduced me to Sr. Ann Thomasine Sampson, CSJ, a resident of Bethany, and at the time I met her an historian completing a fascinating history of some of the powerful women who led the CSJ’s (“Seeds On Good Ground”, 2000).

Sr. Ellen Murphy and Sr. Ann Thomasine Sampson at Bethany Convent St. Paul MN July 1997


Ellen began to organize occasional and elegant formal luncheons for the three of us in the Bethany dining room. We had fascinating conversations about many things.
Ann Thomasine shared Ellen and my French-Canadian heritage, and while we never talked about it specifically, most certainly her family name, Sampson, while rooted for her in Minneapolis, also migrated to Oakwood, a community near Grafton ND.
Early on Wisconsin native Sr. Magdalen Schimanski, CSJ, joined the occasional table get-togethers. Like the others, Magdalene had been a CSJ for many years, and she, too, was a resident at Bethany. I knew her primarily in connection with the Art Department at the College of St. Catherine, which she had headed. Her art hangs in the reception parlor at Bethany and in our home as well. While she was not of the French-Canadian cloth, we all had a great deal to talk about in our every now and then lunches.

Sr. Magdalen's art at Bethany Convent, St. Paul MN


Sometime in 1999, Sr. Victorine Long joined the table. Word apparently had gotten around that a North Dakota native was lunching with the other Nuns. Not only was Victorine a North Dakotan, but she had grown up at the same time and same rural countryside (near Berlin ND) as my Aunt Edith. They were four months apart in age. Victorine, 79 when we met, had most recently been a medical professional in Jonestown, Mississippi during her “retirement”. Like the others, she had a quiet and very accomplished careerVictorine Long002.
Life went on, as did age, and my friends, all of whom had joined the CSJ order in the 1930s, slowly became more and more disabled. Sr. Victorine organized our last luncheons. Sr. Ellen was second to die in about 2004; then Sr. Ann Thomasine. The last time I visited Sr. Magdalene she was waiting for the release of death from her physical maladies. I walked down the hall that day and Sr. Victorine had no idea who I was – for her, her mind failed before her body. Sr. Magdalene passed away last year, and now Sr. Victorine is gone, and the luncheon table is empty for now.
When I viewed Victorine in the simple pine box at Bethany Chapel Saturday, I revisited and remembered some wonderful conversations with some wonderful ladies. I wonder how they’d comment on happenings today. They were far more than one-dimensional.
They are all at peace.
If I Am There
Sr. Magdelen Schimanski CSJ
in Sisters Today, March 2000, p. 90
Spring will go
and summer come.
Who will care
if I am there
when leaves fall
and then snow
softly covers all?
Saint Catherine’s Wood:
Reflections On An Autumn Scene
Sr. Ellen Murphy CSJ revised, 1994
We looked in wonder from southwestern slopes,
facing the wind, facing the guardian wood
where every shade and shape of leaf was moved
to catch our ears with murmurs, hold our gaze
with bronze, gold, crimson, russet leaves
the windswept boughs let fall
within our old and ravaged,
dear and criss-crossed wood. But then –
it’s true –
Progress brings need to dig and dump and plough
now here, now there – where ecosystems grew
fresh revelations of the Love we knew:
the bottle gentians, lupine, ferns and moss,
the owl and thrush, the moth and butterfly –
a myriad of those shy and gentle lives that must
thrive upon trust – all there on common ground
like you and me. Their lives a providence
of earth and sky and love and mystery.
Some trees are bent with burdens not their own.
Some stand tall and open as a prayer
that hasn’t yet received its sure response. Their
dignity, their strength will come to life
through temporal loss. Their life’s austerity in ways
like Monks whose spirits thrive through Lenten days.
What if today from every compass point
the Angels of the Earth called out, ‘Do not impair
the sole protection of the ozone layer. Do not unsheathe
the suns life-fostering rays; do not pollute
the vital air you breathe; your temporal light
that gives you such delight. Love meant all these to be,
with sheltering trees, the mainstays of your life.’
What if an Angel called to all of us in time
a louder, more peremptory ‘Wait! O, do not harm
the land, the sea, the trees! And then revealed
that God, our Love, will now make all things new:
our ravaged planet and polluted air, our ruined
ecosystems’ ecospheres. The stones
that tell our earths history, the song-birds’ bones.
All that we mourn for in our Guardian Wood.
All of creation that He looked upon
and found so good.

#248 – Dick Bernard: Awaiting a new season

/in , , , /by

One of the duties on a quick visit to the home farm near Berlin ND was to harvest the last of the land falls off the apple tree beside the house.
This was a good year for apples – at least for three of the four trees on the homestead – but very few of the apples were salvageable, mostly landfalls that either rotted or were partially eaten by one critter or another. Produce from nature doesn’t wait around to be attended to. My uncle and aunt couldn’t get to the task, much, this year.

Apples at the farm September 19, 2010


I picked what seemed to be usable apples and temporarily placed them in an old washtub – a relic of the days before washing machines – and mowed the grass.
My uncle and aunt knew that most of their apples would end up spoiled, and that was distressing. In some other year there was a lot of apple juice, etc., coming from these trees.
This year, almost nothing from the trees would actually be consumed.
While I mowed, my mind wandered back to a long ago visit to a relatives home in Mt. Angel OR, not far from Salem. It was 1971, and I was in a summer program at an area college. We went out for dinner at this families home. We’d never met before.
I remember nothing about the visit except for the huge Bing Cherry tree beside the house. This was an undisciplined tree, reaching so high that the fruit on the topmost branches was unreachable. In fact, most of the cherries were rotting on the ground. This astonished me, a kid from the midwest who grew up when perhaps once a summer a truck would come through with these same luscious cherries for sale, and my parents might buy a lug or two for canning purposes. And here I was seeing these riches of the earth rotting on the ground – no doubt a smelly nuisance to the homeowners.
As I completed my mowing, I put together a small pail of the best apples and went back to town, and then back home to the Twin Cities.
My thought process changed as time went on.
From the point of view of the apple tree, those apples aren’t wasted at all. They are simply the end point of the apple trees job: to provide seed for a potential new apple tree sometime in the future.
Those apples rotting on the ground were simply the fruit of its labor.
Next year is another season. Maybe lots of apples, maybe few, maybe none.
Hopefully I can give back at least as much as I took out as my own cycle of life continues.

Prairie fruit near Berlin ND September 19, 2010


Today Fall begins.
Make it a productive season.
**
Vince and Edith’s garden was as productive as ever. There were immense numbers of green tomatoes, and some great muskmelons still thriving. No killing frost yet, but this is the time of year when that is bound to happen on the North Dakota prairie. Everyone, the natural world included, begins to hunker down for Fall and then Winter.
Muskmelons at the farm September 18, 2010

Green tomatoes September 18, 2010


Uncle Vince checking out the garden September 18, 2010

#242 – Dick Bernard: A School for the Feeble-Minded

/in , , , , , , , /by

When I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, we would occasionally go to visit my Dad’s parents in Grafton ND.
While there, one of the certain trips was to the city park, Leistikow Park, on the bank of the Park River. It was an awesome place in the eyes of small town kids in the big city of Grafton (which probably was well on the short-side of 5,000 residents in those years).
Approaching the park we always passed what we knew as the State School for the Feeble Minded. There was one particularly large building that I remember, and on summer days the lawn was crowded with people we knew were very different from ourselves. Even in those years, when there was at least the beginnings of recognition of special needs, the perception was that these people were more-or-less warehoused, much as they would have been in an insane asylum. The financial resources and the political will were not yet there to help these persons who were very different from we supposedly normal folk.
We looked at those people behind the fence much like someone would look at animals in a zoo.

Undated photo of the main building at Grafton


By the 1950s enlightenment was beginning in states across the nation. Apparently, even though I remember the school only as the School for the Feeble Minded, its name had been changed even before I was born to the less descriptive “Grafton State School”.
By bits and pieces, everywhere, came new programs and attention and funding for “MAXIMIZING human potential for greater SELF-SUFFICIENCY*”
I’ve come to know about the importance and richness of the special needs community in the years since my youngest child was born Down Syndrome in November, 1975.
Heather is nearing 35 this year, and is a phenomenal human being.
This week I drew the pleasant duty of picking Heather up at her daytime work facility, Proact*, in Eagan MN. (It is Proact’s operating philosophy which I quote above.)
Off hours she lives in a pleasant suburban home with a couple of other special needs adults.
I’ve written before about her active engagement in after hours athletic activities most recently last month.
Last night, Heather watched the Vikings and the Saints at her sister’s home. She’s an avid sports fan.
It is easy to take for granted the safety-net we have constructed in this country for those less capable of competing on their own. It is easy to say they’re a waste of precious resources.
In a bygone day my Heather could have been one of those behind the walls of that School for the Feeble Minded. I sometimes wonder how it would have been had she been child, and I parent, 100 years ago. What forces would have worked on me, then.
Those were not the good old days.
And as for going back…when I picked up Heather yesterday, one of her workmates gave her a hug as she was leaving. Then this friend, named Mary, reached out her hand and said to me, “hi, I’m Mary”.
Can’t get any better than that.

Dick and Heather as photographed by the Smooch Project www.thesmoochproject.com

#240 – Dick Bernard: Rene Collette Celebrates a Birthday

/in , , /by

Today – September 8, 2010 – Rene Collette of Lemon Grove CA is 90.
These days, 90 is “just like a kid” in some contexts, another year hardly worthy of notice.
Rene is definitely worthy of notice, any year, any time.
The family invitation says “Rene [as in the French pronunciation wren-a] chose not to have a party, so we are planning a month long CARD PARTY!…Select any day in September and send a card or a note to Rene with any message you want to send. He will be so pleased to hear from you. That’s all there is: …No RSVP…No gifts…No traveling…No dressing up…No crowds…No rich foods…Just a nice quiet afternoon or evening of your own choosing to do whatever you want.”
Rene’s address: 2520 Bonita Street, Lemon Grove CA 91945. Go for it! (If you’d like to take a peak at where Lil and Rene have lived for many years, a few miles inland from San Diego, here it is.)

Lil and Rene Collette, Lemon Grove CA, January 20, 2008


I’ve been privileged to know Rene for years, but it’s only since the 1990s that I have really got to know he and his spouse of 63 years, Lillian (Sando).
He is especially in mind now as he helped me get my start on researching our shared Collette family history in 1981. His handprints, shoe leather, pen and ink, miles on the road and intellect are all over the 500 page history of the Collette and other French-Canadian families that I just completed, and which will be printed within a couple of weeks. For many years, Rene has had a passion about preserving the family roots, the family story he grew up in during the 1920s and 30s. The book is an unintended birthday gift for Rene and for Lil (part of whose Norwegian family story also appears in the book.)
Rene was born in Grafton ND, the son of Edmond Collette and Clara Rheaume, and grandson of Ovide Collette and Olivine Laberge. He grew up in the largely French-Canadian Oakwood community just east of Grafton.
I know only fragments of his most interesting history, but I do know it included military service in Asia during WWII. He and Lillian Sando of Grafton area married, May 17, 1947, and have five children. Rene had a long working career in the San Diego area, and a hugely productive time in retirement, with active interests in many things. His backyard orchard was a place to behold, and his colony of large turtles would surprise a new visitor to their backyard. He helped rebuild historically significant airplanes at a Balboa Park facility in San Diego, and he was proctor at southern California Bar exams for many years. Life has been interesting for Rene, and in turn he has made life interesting for many, including myself. I was privileged to visit with he and Lil a number of times at their home.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RENE!
An undated photo of Rene, his parents and three of his four siblings, is at upper left on page 41 of the Sacred Heart of Oakwood 1981 Centennial Book. A pdf copy of the entire Sacred Heart Centennial Book can be viewed in four parts, accessed here.

#226 – Dick Bernard: Winning Last

/in , , , , /by

I arrived late for the Dakota County Softball League Championship Picnic on August 17, and as I got out of the car I heard the beginning of the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. I turned around and in front of me was the American flag, backlit by a brilliant sun, and as much instinctively as intentionally, I stopped in place, took off my baseball hat, and paid attention to the national anthem as beautifully sung by two young women somewhere in the park.
It was a perfect start to a perfect three hours on a pleasant Tuesday afternoon at Aronson Park in Lakeville MN.

During the Star Spangled Banner August 17, 2010


The event was, I guess one would say, the “World Series” for a bunch of truly exceptional adults, one of whom is my daughter, Heather (photo below). The program listed a dozen teams, roughly half in the “A” League, the other half in the “B”. Heather’s team was vying for 5th Place in their Division.

Heather Bernard August 17, 2010


After the national anthem, and before the games, came the picnic for about 400 of us: players, coaches, families and friends. Fried Chicken never tasted so good! Heather’s sisters and their families were there, as well as the family in whose home she lives with two other exceptional adults. We sometimes joke with Heather being “the Queen”. For sure, on Tuesday, she was! Her own cheering section was “in the stands”.
After the picnic came the game. Every player came to bat, and spent time as fielders. Can’t say I saw any double plays or ‘out of the park’ home runs, but I was truly at the World Series! Heather is a big sports fan. When she came up to bat, she did the routine, “knocking” the dirt off her sneakers; doing the stretching exercise with the bat before coming to the plate – the whole nine yards. She rapped a couple of near-hits. While in this particular game she didn’t actually reach base, it made no difference at all to anybody, including herself. She’d shown up and taken a cut!

The mighty Heather taking a cut at the Plate


Game over – each game lasts an hour – Heather’s team, Rave Red, was on the short end of an 8-4 final score. The way some people would see it, they came in last in the league.
But you wouldn’t know it from the players, the coaches, the fans in the ‘stands’. They were winners, as they congratulated the opposition, and ran the bases one last time for this season, and received their trophy for a truly winning season.

Heather receives her award


Before the game, I made a side comment to Jeff, who’s a good friend of mine, one of the volunteer coaches, and parent of one of the athletes.
“Without volunteers, this country of ours would collapse“, I said. He agreed. We are bombarded daily with all sorts of very bad news about us; it is good, sometimes, to take time to identify the good – and there’s lots of that, too.
So to all the unsung heroes, especially those folks who make things like the Dakota County Softball League happen, including the players on the field, I offer my heart-felt thanks and Congratulations!
You make my day.

Coach Jeff gives an Award to one of his players after the game.


Seen at a game in July, 2010


The sign on the car door says this: “Kate was born with a serious ability“.

#222 – A.J. goes to Teach

/in , , /by

In the next few days A.J., a young woman I’ve gotten to know at my local coffee shop, leaves town for a new assignment and career as a 5th grade teacher in a Montana town. Today there was a farewell party, a going away sendoff, for this young woman. The kids she’s been assigned will be lucky. She joins the millions of other young people over the years who have nervously taken their first full-time teaching assignment. (As I know, from having been a junior high school teacher myself, and knowing from conversations with many others, it is the rare teacher who is not nervous on that first day of the school year. After all, for the most part they have new students, and the certainty that this year will be different than last.)
So, A.J.’s heading west, and I went to the gathering today to wish her well.
My parents were both public school teachers, beginning their respective careers in North Dakota country schools in the 1920s. I was a teachers kid. I have some idea how the business works.
I’ve been thinking of a send-off message for A.J. and mostly I’m drawn back to a memory of my Dad, long after he retired from classroom work.
In the late 1970s Mom and Dad bought a small home in San Benito TX, a Rio Grande Valley town. Their home at 557 N. Dowling was directly across the street from Berta Cabaza Junior High School. They had retired from teaching in the very early 1970s.
Nothing is certain in life, and in 1981, about this time of year, my mother died of cancer, leaving Dad alone, far away and very lonely.
He had a life decision to make, literally, and at some early point he went across the street to the school and offered to volunteer.
San Benito is basically a border town, and many of the kids had a first language of Spanish. It was the language they spoke at home and with each other. The teaching was in English, and the kids just couldn’t keep up.
Dad’s volunteer job was to tutor some of these students in English. It was not a glamorous job, but it was an essential one. The below photo, taken when Dad was 77 years old, shows some of the students he worked with in one school year. Other photos from 1983-86 H Bernard & Stu 4-22-85002:

Henry Bernard with Berta Cabaza students he helped tutor April 22, 1985


Dad and Mom liked to travel, most often by bus, and in their trips they would usually bring home a few postcards, usually non-descript ones, like a free one of a little motel they had stayed in somewhere. Dad kept these “postals” as he called them. One would never know when they’d come in handy.
Dad hit on an idea: he decided to ask his kids if they wanted to hear from him when he went someplace, and a number of them were interested and gave him their home address.
So, out on the road somewhere, say Salt Lake City, Dad might take out a random postcard from his cache, say, California, and write a little note to his correspondent in San Benito.
As it was described at the time, these simple little postal messages were a hit. For many of the kids, it was the first time they had ever received a letter from anyone, much less someone traveling elsewhere in the United States.
A.J., what my Dad did was the essence of teaching. It doesn’t need to be grandiose, or expensive, or time consuming.
Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll ‘catch the wave’ and do a great job! Have a great year.
A.J. has set up a blog to chronicle her first year. Check in once in awhile.

A good card, methinks, for a 5th grade teacher. The card is from Kate Harper Designs, Box 2112 Berkeley 94701. She solicits designs kateharp@aol.com.

#214 – Dick Bernard: Exploring a Cultural Heritage

/in , , , , , , , /by

There was a particularly remarkable moment at the closing program of the Initiatives in French Annual Conference in Bismarck ND July 10.
We had been treated to an evening of wonderful music and dance with a French flavor. The performers were Metis, Native American, African, and Caucasian. They performed ancient and modern music from West Africa to the North Dakota Indian Reservations to the traditional music and dance of the French-Canadian settlers to the Midwest. In common, they celebrated elements of the French culture, which they either represented, or were part of by native language or ancestry. It was a very rich evening.
The final number brought all the groups back to the stage and they improvised together. It was absolutely delightful. Here’s a photo (others from the program are at the end of this piece):

Metis fiddler Eddie King Johnson leads the improv at Belle Mehus Auditorium, Bismarck ND, July 10, 2010.


The U.S. is without any question a multi-cultural nation, in a multi-cultural world. Every world culture is represented within our borders. Increasingly, this is true of other nations as well. This reality can complicate relationships and, worse, can be used to fuel division and dissension through fear. The IFMidwest aim is to celebrate this diversity, and build bridges across boundaries of geography, language, race, culture, tradition….
This bridge building is not easy. On that single stage on Saturday night were performers from Togo, Cameroun, Congo (Zaire), and Cote d’Ivoire – all African countries whose official language is French. (One of the performers – I believe from Cameroun – said that in her country alone there were 218 different tribal cultures, each with their own dialect.) Within my French-Canadian extended family, I have cousins whose first language in Canada is French, including some who have considerable difficulty communicating in English. Then there’s me, who was never exposed to French, even in a school elective course, and is thus language handicapped when someone chooses to speak French, as happened on occasion on Saturday night.
The organizers of the Bismarck conference sought to implement the idea of Heritage as defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
As identified in the conference program “1. …Heritage consists of the worlds natural environment, its history and social institutions and its human spirit to imagine.
2. Examples…in the natural environment are the prairies, bodies of water, wetlands, mountains, oceans, buttes and bluffs, etc. In our social institutions and history, they are schools, families, businesses, farms, ranches, parishes, libraries, and museums, etc. The third heritage, that of the human spirit is found in paintings, stories, drama, the interpretation of history, politics, in moving speeches, music, sculpture, architecture, and daily customs we cultivate from cuisine to gardening.
3. Living heritage…consists of reflection on our past and the pursuit of relationships with the elements that constitute Heritage. Study in genealogy or other aspects of Heritage develop our curiosity, causing us to raise such questions as where our ancestors lived, how they fit into the society of their time, and what motivated them. Living heritage leads to new relationships among the three areas UNESCO defines as heritage.”
During the year preceding the conference, indeed for the previous 30 years, I had been delving into the “living heritage” component of my own family, culminating in a 500 page family history I brought to the gathering. So, the issue was very fresh on my mind.
At the end of the conference, I delivered to the Director of IF Midwest three large boxes full of material I had used for my book. They now reside in the IF Midwest archives at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.
As I picked up one of the boxes, in which my father’s papers had been stored for many years, I noticed on the end of the box something I had never seen before: whichever company had made the box included instructions about its contents. The instructions were in English, in French, and in Spanish. American business has, for some time, really, come to grips with a reality that we all need to face as Americans. We are not, and will never be, a place where one language and one language only will dominate. Best for us to learn how to make the best of the abundant riches that come with our diversity.

African Arts Arena of Fargo and Grand Forks joined by a member of the audience.


Members of the audience join the on-stage performance


Dance Revels of the Twin Cities performs traditional French-Canadian and Metis dances.


Additional photos here.

#208 – Dick Bernard: The Deer

/in , , /by

We had just settled in along the July 4 Parade Route in Afton MN, but I decided to walk back to the car to get rainwear, just in case.
It was a short walk up the street, going up hill, and I was on the left side of the street when I noticed something very, very odd: a deer head – only the head- was looking around from behind the rear wheel of a parked car. It was totally out of any normal context for me.
As I got closer, I saw that it was indeed a deer, and a live one, trapped between pavement and the underside of the trunk of the car. It was terrified. It was doing what a deer would logically do to get up, but this only made its predicament worse – you can’t stand up underneath a car. It made a ghastly sort of sound, as a desperate and frightened deer would do.
There were plenty of people around – this was the main route to the Parade, and the Parade was set to begin only a half block away – so I was not needed. Someone said the deer had slipped on the pavement, and fell, sliding under the car. The police had been contacted. I went to the car, got the rain gear, and on the way back took a couple of photos of the deer.

Afton MN July 4, 2010


I knew the deer was being cared for, but what I had just seen stuck with me during the entire parade.
Parade over, we walked back to the car, passing the still parked car.
No deer head; no deer. But lots of evidence that a deer had been there, particularly lots of scraped off fur on the pavement.
The first couple of bystanders I asked didn’t know what had happened to the deer, but thought it wouldn’t have been able to survive the trauma, and probably had to be put down.
At the parking lot, someone who had seen it all said that three law enforcement people had worked together and freed the deer, which had escaped back into the woods from which it had come.
Apparently there was a happy ending.
The parade? OK. But no match for what I had seen.