Not Exactly the Same Dumpster...But Close!

Most of you don’t know that, in addition to working as a full-time District Court Judge, writing novels, running a blog, working with Boy Scouts and confirmation-age kids, and being a dad and husband, I also teach. At UWS. This semester, it’s Environmental Law, which is a fairly sophisticated and demanding subject. I’m what is classified, within the University of Wisconsin system, as a “Senior Lecturer”. Now, I don’t know if you have to be AARP qualified to attain the designation as “Senior” when teaching undergrads, but if that’s the sole criteria, well, I meet it!

Anyway, Sunday evenings, I usually get ready for class by reading and outlining the selected text for the week from our course books, putting aside any relevant news articles of a conservation or environmental bent for class discussion, and setting aside any DVDs I’ll be using in class. My liturgical practice is to curl up on the sofa in my writing room, books and pen in hand, the computer tuned to MPR’s classical music station, Brahms, Bach, and Sibelius playing softly in the background, with the door to the great room shut, cozy as a caterpillar in a cocoon, as I prepare. That’s the way I’ve spent many, many Sundays the past three years and I truly enjoy the work. But not this Sunday. This Sunday, panic; mind-numbing, deep-roosted uncontrollable fear took the place of careful consideration and contemplation.

“I can’t find my text books!” I yelled.

Rene’, our 3rd son Chris, and our youngest son, Jack were all within earshot as I stepped from the study into the great room of our house in a funk.

“Did you leave them at work?” Rene’ asked.

“Nope.”

“Sure you’re not just overlooking them, Dad,” Chris offered.

At the suggestion I was less than diligent in my search, my blood began to boil.

“I guess I’d know if I looked or not, now wouldn’t I?”

“Chill, Dad. Chill.”

I shook my head and wrung my hands.

“That’s over two hundred dollars in books. They’re instructor copies. Provided by the publishers. I can’t afford to replace them and I need them for Tuesday’s class. Jack has Scouts tomorrow so tonight is the only night I can prep for class.”

“Are you sure you didn’t…”

I left Rene’ in mid-sentence. A thought, a horrible realization, dawned on me.

Oh shit! I said as I walked back into the writing room and stared at last year’s books. Those were supposed to get tossed with all those writing magazines I cleaned out of here last week. I bet I tossed this year’s books instead. Shit, I am an idiot.

I threw on my jacket, pulled gloves over my hands, and bolted out the door into the garage. Without a word of explanation to my dumbfounded family, I slammed the door, hit the remote garage door opener, climbed into Rene’s car, fired it up, and backed out of the garage.

I hope they’re still there.

I knew that Harold (the youngest member of our town board) was working at the Minno-ette, the neighborhood bait and convenience store. I whipped the Matrix into the lot, leaving it running as I dashed into the store.

“This is gonna sound weird, Harold,” I said through labored breath, “but do you have a key to the mixed paper dumpster at the recycling shed? I think I tossed some text books I need for a class I teach at UWS out along with some old magazines.”

Harold shook his head.

“Nope. Not any more. But Connie can open it for you.”

“Could you call her?”

Harold, being a nice guy and a diligent public servant did just that.

I drove over to the recycling center and waited. Within minutes, Connie (one of the recycling center attendants) and her husband arrived. I retold my tale of woe to Connie. She opened the dumpster. It was jam packed full of cardboard and magazines. I climbed the cold steel skeleton of the box and plunged in.

“You know,” Connie said thoughtfully as her husband shined a flashlight on my work, “I think they emptied this since you were here last.”

I ignored the nice woman’s observation. I didn’t want it to be true: I wanted to spy one copy of Poet’s and Writer’s Magazine  or The Sun amidst all that trash. Then I would know: The books can’t be far away. No one else in Fredenberg, I reasoned with some sense of sinful pride, reads Poet’s and Writer’s.

Connie was right. I was wrong. There were no textbooks anywhere to be found in the cold, silent depths of that steel box.

Dejected, I drove home. I parked the Matrix in the garage, buzzed the door closed, and headed into the house uncertain of how I was going to explain my lack of preparation to my class. Then it hit me:

Environmental Law books sent to the recycling shed… Isn’t recycling part of protecting our environment? This all must be a lesson from God; some bit of knowledge I’m supposed to comprehend and pass along.

When I figure out  the significance behind my dumpster diving, how it relates to the bigger scheme of things, I’ll let you and my students know.

Peace.

Mark

Up North by Sam Cook (1986 and 2003. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN0-8166-4267-2)

Everyone needs a toilet book. At least I do. Something to divert one’s attention from the business at hand, so to speak. OK, that’s not strictly true. There are folks whose constitutions require only brief forays into the lavatory: I’m not one of them. Too much information? Sorry. Not relevant to a book review? Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, dear reader.

Recently, when I’d finished the latest copy of Conservation Volunteer (that great little magazine put out by the Minnesota DNR) my literature of choice for the potty, I searched my bookshelf for something suitable for…contemplation. The stories have to be short, to the point, uplifting, and well written for a book to serve such a function. Sam Cook’s Up North is just such a collection. To be fair, it would also be great bedside material or sitting in the deer stand material or toss in your Duluth Pack and take along the trail material as well. In fact, that last application, where this thin volume is pulled out of a canvas satchel after a long day of paddling and portaging in the wilderness, opened before a roaring campfire, and read aloud, might be the most appropriate suggestion of the lot. Like a well-seasoned woman, you know, the kind with girl-next-door looks and keen intelligence who’s comfortable in a canoe, at the symphony ball, or giving birth, Up North seems to fit in wherever you decide to read it.

Not every story in this collection is great literature or reminds one of John Muir or Sig Olson or Aldo Leopold or Jack London (or any of our other great nature/outdoor/conservation writers). But there are some tales squeezed into the 180 pages of this seasonal work (the stories are arranged “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter” as their topics dictate) that reach such heights. My favorite? The story of octogenarian brook trout fisherman Enok Olson. Just give a listen to this description of a day on the water with Enok in “The Trout Fisherman”:

Soon we could hear the stream, and finally, after sliding part way on our rear ends and climbing through some cedars, we were there.

At one of our pauses on the way down, Olson said, “We may not get any fish, but I know you’re gonna marvel when you see the river.” He was right This wasn’t just a stream. It was a canyon. Sheer walls of sedimentary rock rose from the water’s edge, some 40 feet high. Where there were no walls, the valley rose at a pitch like the one we had just slid down.

The water was low, almost as low as Olson ever remembered seeing it. In the shallows it was the color of weak tea, but coffee brown in the pools below the ledges and along those sheer walls.

Olson couldn’t wait to get a worm on his hook and get it in the water. He wasn’t asking for much. “If I get one fish, I’m happy,” he said. “If I get two fish, I’m really happy.”

He pulled his hip boots up, put his walking stick in front of him, and waded into the stream. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be stream fishing at 89 when you’re eyes won’t see all you want them to see and your wading legs aren’t as steady as they once were.

“They’d Rather Have Cash” takes readers inside L.L. “Newt” Newton’s fur buying operation in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, perhaps giving us a glimpse of what it was like to trade furs back in the heyday of the voyageurs. Cook’s descriptive and narrative powers are on fine display in that tale, drawing us into a world that most of us will likely never traverse. Some of the shorter pieces, like “Stocking Feet” whet our appetite. Cook teases us with the beginnings of a duck hunting story: We awaken with the protagonist, can smell the morning coffee, feel the crispness of the early morning air as we load our gear, but we don’t follow the story into the duck blind itself. That’s not a bad thing. It points out, as many of these essays do, how important the smells and sounds and tastes that accompanying great trips or hunts are to our memory.

Sam Cook has been an icon in the Duluth writing community for decades. It’s a testament to his story telling ability that, when I pick up the latest Sunday edition of The Duluth News Tribune, his work is the first that I read. Here’s hoping he keeps writing great stories of the world outside our doors for years to come.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5. Take this book along with you and read it aloud around the campfire on your next outing!

Those of you who follow this blog know that I was invited, on the strength of my essay, “Reading Herbert Krause” (see “Other Writings” on the dashboard and click on the title to read the piece), to participate in a discussion of Krause’s work this month. The festivities have begun! If you’re interested in following the discussion, sponsored by Buffalo State College, log on to:

http://rurallitrally.org/?page_id=478

And join the discussion!

Peace.

Mark

Traveling Show by the Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank (2009. Consider it Correspondence Music.)

Little Duluth is on fire when it comes to music. I’ve already profiled the latest album by that Duluth-based icon of slow rock, Low (see review archives for a full review). Next up will be my take on Duluth roots musician and guitarist, Charlie Parr’s 2010 effort, When the Devil Goes Blind. But today, I’ll let you in on a secret: The Hobo Nephews can write and play authentic roots music, pulling out all stops in a musical compendium that includes aspects of John Prine’s vocals, Wilco’s musicianship, and The Band’s grit. Really. These guys are that good.

My son Chris has talked quite a bit about both the Nephews as a band and Teague Alexy (one of the two Alexy brothers who make up the trio know as the Hobo Nephews) as a solo act. Chris has tried (without success) to drag me to see Teague at Beaner’s or other local venues. For whatever reason, I haven’t made it out to see Alexy or his brother, Ian, who joins Teague in the Hobo Nephews. Now I know what I’ve been missing: The two Alexy brothers play some mean guitar and write some mighty fine songs. Add percussionist Paul Grill to the mix and you’ve got a fine, fine trio. Filling out the album is also a fine constellation of players, adding pedal steel, strings, mandolin, banjo, horns, and keyboards when the songs demand.

From the opening cut, “Traveling Show” to “Daddy’s Coming Home”, this disc is full of lyrical genius and just plain home-cooked playing. “Old Friends and Rent Checks” is such a spot on tribute to John Prine (including the mandolin playing of Erik Berry) you’d swear it was Prine himself behind the lyric and the voice. “Memphis in Your Head” brings to mind Levon Helm and The Band, especially with the Wurlitzer adding texture to the driving beat of the song. The country flavor of “A Long Time to be Gone” makes the grade as either a terrific road or country song: you decide. And “In the Morning” has got that toe-tapping feel of the best of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco.

The production of this album doesn’t match the lushness of Low’s latest, but given the rockabilly leanings of the Nephews, one wouldn’t expect the same level of sonic artistry. My only criticism? At times the vocals twang a too much and thin out some. But that, in the end, is part of the charm of the group.

The CD comes with a DVD which is a bit odd in pace and direction but has one great scene of the band busking on a stairway in Brooklyn. That cut is worth sitting through the rest of the video and redeems the project, in my eyes. For those of us who don’t know much about the Nephews, a more straight on documentary of their touring and their recording sessions would have been welcome.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5. One of the best out of Duluth I’ve ever listened to!

White Pine Plantation-The Other Munger Trail

I was off work on a mental health sabbatical. Those of you who follow this blog know why. ‘Nuff said. My dad and I together have a parcel of 135 acres (give or take) out in Fredenberg Township, the place my wife, our four sons, and I have called home for the past 28 years. 28 years! That’s a hell of a long time to be rooted in a place, any place, in these topsy-turvy times. Most folks move from place to place, job to job, community to community, getting their education, chasing employment, following their children or parents. Not us. Rene’ and I were both raised in Duluth and knew, when I finished law school, that Duluth was where we wanted to settle in. I really didn’t have an itch, a desire, to live out, to live in the country, until Dave Michelson (he’s gonna want royalties pretty soon since this is the second blog in a row he’s appeared!) bought some land and an old fire-trap of a trailer on Bowman Lake, an ox bow on the Cloquet River. Once I saw the soaring bald eagles, nesting osprey, the flowing black water, and felt, yes literally felt, the quiet, I was hooked. I bugged Rene’, as law school wound down, to travel back to Duluth to look at rural property. Nothing clicked. So, like many young couples, we settled: We bought a nice little house on St. Marie Street in Duluth and moved our family of three (Matt was just a year old) back home.

Thing is, I could never get the image of the Cloquet River out of my mind. Eventually, I found what I (if not Rene’) was looking for: And old Sears house, complete with a vegetable garden, a barn,  and eight acres along the banks of the Cloquet came up for sale. It took some convincing but, in 1984, expecting our second child (Dylan), we moved to Fredenberg. And we’ve been on the same tract of land ever since. During our nearly three decades in the country, I’ve managed to carve a few good trails through the woods that we use for hiking, hunting, horseback riding (we no longer have horses but our neighbors do), and cross country skiing. The photo above depicts one of those trails as it cuts through an old pasture on our property The white pines you see growing alongside the path? They’re seedlings deposited by century-old giants that survived the Great Cloquet Fire of 1918. They are not planted by man: They’re nurtured by God.

So, on my day of contemplation and rest, what I really wanted to do, since it was winter and all, was click into my Nordic-style cross country skis, let the dogs out (no need to ask “who” in this equation!), and ski our trails. But there’s little snow this year. Oh, there’s a trace: you can see that in the photos. And, desperate for the swoosh of wax on white, I’ve skied once since November. But that was short-lived: The day after I skied, it was over forty degrees and the snow cover we had turned to solid ice. I’ve learned, living out so long, that there’s great relief in being able to compromise. And so, on a fine January day not so long ago, I laced up my hiking boots, buttoned up a warm jacket, slipped gloves over my hands, and took the dogs for a walk.

We have three dogs. Matt, before he left home for good, brought a year-old-lab-husky-something-or-other mix named Daisy home from his work. She’s black most seasons, brown and black at times, and is the smartest damn dog we’ve ever owned. She’s getting close to a dozen years old at this point, a bit long in tooth for a big dog, and her hips are showing her age. But she’s always game for a romp in the trees, especially if rabbits are involved. Not grouse: She has, despite clear Labrador lineage, no interest in birds. Then there’s Jimi Hendrix, a miniature dachshund  (German for “badger dog”) who’s getting on seven years old, give or take. Jimi is about as dumb a dog as God ever created. But he is so damn cute with his double dapple coat and the way he scoots after bunnies. Finally, Chris (our number three son) rescued another Labrador,  a dog Chris named “Kramer” after the Seinfeld character of the same name because the dog is lean and lanky. Kramer came to us on approval from a veterinarian’s office in River Falls, Wisconsin, where Chris was going to school at the time. The deal was, if we liked the dog, he stayed. If not, he was going back to the vet to meet an unfortunate end. Since I’m listing Kramer as one of our three dogs, you know the end of that story!

Jimi and Daisy

The day of our walk, there wasn’t much happening in the forest. Jimi and Daisy lunged ahead over stiff snow in search of rabbits. Kramer, timid and exceedingly gun shy, his rear hips delicate and barely able to bear the weight of his rear end, ambled agreeably behind me, displaying zero interest in anything remotely close to hunting.

Kramer

It happened when we hit Old Man Farley’s Trail (don’t ask: that story would take an entire blog). Without warning, Jimi burst into his “I’m on the trail of a silly rabbit” bay. I’m not sure if all wiener dogs are high tenors or if Jimi’s pitch is due to being neutered: In any event, when he started his call, Daisy, always interested in bunnies, joined the daschund in the chase. I kept walking, knowing exactly what would happen. And it did. The yapping of the little dog grew more intense. Daisy dove deeper into the alders and birches and balsams lining the trail. And then, there it was: a bolt of white zipping across the open space of the trail cutting through  the tight woods. The snowshoe hare was fifty yards ahead of its pursuit and in no danger of apprehenshion.

We kicked up one lone roosting grouse as we descended the only hill on the trail. I wasn’t startled by the burst of energy from the fleeing partridge. And the dogs, true to form, weren’t the least bit interested in the bird. We followed the River Trail (clever name, eh?) to the banks of the Cloquet River, where, though the water was near freezing (too cold for any being possessing common sense to go for a dip) Daisy promptly plunged down the bank and sat in the black water. I stood at the top of the bank, Kramer by my side, watching the sun sink in the west, as the pink tongue of the old black dog lapped and lapped and lapped.

The Cloquet River

And then, we turned north. We followed the riverbank for a bit, still on property that my father owns, taking our sweet time to amble home. The point of this essay is this: Sure, you can spend some dough on expensive therapists after something bad or unexpected happens in your life. Seeking such help is, in fact, a good way of dealing with tragedy, a breach of privacy and safety, or loss. But there’s also this: A lot can be healed by a simple walk in the Minnesota woods with three imperfect dogs by the side of their imperfect master.

Peace.

Mark

Prague by Arthur Phillips (2003. Random House. ISBN 0-375-7577-8)

Too harsh, you say? I don’t think so, kind readers. The book blurb from The New York Times  (the determinator (to coin a new Bushism) of good taste for American fiction readers) reads:

Ingenious…Phillips presents his characters with a wry generosity and haunting poignancy to rival his wonderfully subversive wit…”

Well, after slogging through 367 pages of Phillips’s prose, I am a bit confused: I never found much evidence of “haunting poignancy” in this novel. Oh, there were fits and starts of a story (several stories in fact) in the form of some intriguing character sketches. One actress in this aborted play set in early 1990 Budapest, Nicky the bi-sexual, cropped hair, photographer and painter, is particularly well crafted and comes off as a complete, if flawed, human being. The primary protagonist, John (a journalist working at a tabloid in the Hungarian capital) is less fully developed, though Phillips does spend a great amount of paper and ink creating a tale of ugly sibling rivalry between John and his brother Scott, a conflict that finally disipates into thin air like smog from Budapestian traffic. That’s the pattern that is repeated time and time again throughout this novel: Characters are introduced through great chunks of narrative and dialogue that seemingly ramble on for pages, only to have those actors vaporize without any resolution of their respective roles in the overall plot.

Now it may be that I am too dunderheaded to appreciate challenging, new-era prose for the genius that it is. I am a fairly straight forward sort of a guy who responds best to novels told in classic fashion. So take this criticism with a grain of salt if you relish the odd, the brinksmanship of say, Ulysses. I’m just not that interested in stories that don’t take me to a conclusion where sense is made; where the inner and outer turmoil of fictional characters comes to a point of resolution. That’s my main criticism of this book: The writing is, overall, nicely done (with the exception of the dialogue, which tends to denigrate into speechifying) but the story is so disjointed and unrelentingly inconsequential, I found myself wanting more and getting less. For example, about half-way through the tale, Phillips introduces us to Imre Horvath, an old man and the last of a publishing dynasty that has printed Hungarian literature for over a century. Much of the second section of the book deals with Horvath’s attempts to obtain the rights to the Hungarian portion of his family’s former empire as the Communists leave power and free enterprise returns to Budapest. Charles, another main character (part of the cadre of expatriates integral to the overall story as they move through the city and plot as a group, as a band of merrymakers) ends up working with Horvath in the old man’s efforts to reunite the company. Phillips gives us, through Horvath’s piece of the overarching “pie” that sometimes resembles a plot and sometimes resembles a series of vignettes, a reason to become intrigued. But the effort doesn’t satisfy because, just as soon as we are captured by the old man’s story, we’re off again chasing the cherished Emily (the somewhat infantile and unfeeling object of John’s romantic love); or watching Mark, a gay Canadian of means implode; or sitting in the corner of John’s bedroom voyeuristically watching as he deflowers a Hungarian speed skater.

I’ll admit to it: I was looking for another Per Petterson novel after reading Out Stealing Horses and stumbled upon this book in the “P’” section at our local Barnes and Noble. I’d never heard of Arthur Phillips or the book but given I have a desire to someday go to Prague and act like a typical boorish American tourist, and given that the cover is extremely captivating, I picked up a copy (along with Petterson’s To Siberia which was a far better read. You can find a review of To Siberia and Out Stealing Horses below). To my mind, Prague doesn’t live up to its cover blurbs or its cover.

One final note. The title of this review comes from the fact that the story is set in Budapest, not Prague. The inside joke amongst the characters, if you will, is that they all long to live in Prague, which, during the early 1990s, was seen as the cultural equal to 1920s Paris by American men and women of creative bent. I wanted Prague and got Budapest. That, in and of itself, isn’t all bad and I’ll give Phillips an “A” for clever deception. But I really did want to be find myself immersed in a story set in Prague, with characters and a plot that made me desire to visit there immediately. I felt no such visceral longing for Budapest as a result of reading this book. I won’t say that my time spent in Hungary was completely wasted but I will say the tour guide could have been more succinct and direct in the construction of his truth.

3 and 1/2 stars out of 4.

The Skier, the Buddha, and Papa

It’s now ingrained, a habit. Every morning I get up as soon as my tired bones let me rise from that soft warmth I occupy in bed beside my loving wife and I pad my way in stocking feet down the carpeted hallway of our house towards the kitchen. Once there, I draw cold water from our well (through the faucet kids: we’ve got power and running water out here in the sticks!), grind beans in the coffeemaker, push the “on” button, and wander off to my writing studio. An iMac waits for me in that little room surrounded by tongue and groove cedar and two walls of single-pane windows overlooking the tired hay field that surrounds our house and the lazy black flowage of the Cloquet River. Even the ceiling of my writing space is aromatic cedar, making my creative retreat essentially a cabin in the wilderness.

The computer slumbers overnight: I rarely turn it completely off. Hell, you never know what you might miss if the magic box is disconnected from the Internet! I tap my mouse and the screen lights up. I log onto Firefox, my browser of choice. I don’t like Safari. Maybe that makes me an Apple heretic. I really don’t care-I like Mozilla better. I check my email, my Facebook page, maybe Huffingtonpost.com and the Duluth News Tribune’s website. Ego usually compels me to Google myself. I know: how horrifically shallow of me. What can I say? Folks without egos don’t become trial lawyers or District Court Judges or bloggers or writers, at least, not in my experience. Then, when the electronic alarm on the coffeemaker sounds, I get up from my cushy office chair, walk back into the kitchen, open a cupboard and select just the right cup for my morning jolt of caffeine. Not just any cup, mind you. Writers, as you are likely beginning to fathom, are the personification of pattern. No, my morning coffee is usually (unless the dishes haven’t been done) poured into either my Sloppy Joe’s cup (pictured above along with a wooden skier by my artist friend Jan Flom and the little red Buddha my sister Annie says I need to rub every day) or one of two Barnes and Noble cups I own. The B&N mugs depict likenesses of Hemingway, Tolstoy, Hurston, and other famous writers. I got them long ago when the economy was better and the corporate bookstore gave out premiums to writers who did book signings in their stores. No more. Today a writer doing a B&N signing is lucky to get a paper cup of way-too-strong coffee as he or she sits in the middle of the sprawling bookstore signing books for strangers. These are the only cups from which I drink my pre-dawn writerly coffee: For it is in the morning, my friends, that I write. Every morning I am home and not ill, I write. It’s been my obsession now for over two decades. For me (and for other authors, essayists, and poets I’m sure) this daily routine is something akin to breathing air: If I was unable to do it, I would likely give up the ghost.

How did this all get started? My wife. She did this to me. Some of you know the story. Hell, like most stories remembered and told by old men, the tale’s been told so often that my children and my wife know the punchline as well, if not better, than I do. But if you haven’t heard it, here’s the Cliff Notes version:

In 1990 I was facing a back fusion and three months away from my work at the time as a trial lawyer (think John Grisham without the money and the accent). I’d been a voracious reader and a sometime writer of poetry and the odd essay or prose piece since I was old enough to hold a pen. My wife knew this about me, knew, it turns out, more about my creative DNA than I did. “You’re a type A personality,” she said as I was recovering in St. Luke’s after having my spine cut apart and reassembled, “why don’t you get a start on that Great American novel you’ve always wanted to write?” That was it. That was all it took: One person (albeit the person I most love in the world) urging me to pick up a pencil and follow my heart. And so it began.

In the early going, I wasn’t a solid, every-morning-writer. Our kids were young and there was a lot more going on in our lives so I wrote whenever I had a chance. Morning. During the day. At breaks on the job. Late at night. For a time, I was able to piece words together into sentences and sentences together into paragraphs and paragraphs together into chapters in this haphazard fashion. Novels were born. Short fiction was written. For eight years, I also wrote a “slice of rural life” column for a weekly newspaper. But gradually, as I began to find the rhythm in my craft, mornings became an obvious preference. Some folks who write are night owls: They scrawl long into the evening. Others, confronted by life’s realities, do as I did as a beginner: They write when they can. I found, over the years of following my muse, that mornings are for me. Mornings with my Papa Hemingway cup ( provided to me by my ever-encouraging eldest son and his wife) brimming with hot java feed my obsession and drive me to words.

The funny thing, throughout the now 21 years I’ve been at this crazy lunacy: publishing books on my own because no reputable press will have me; hawking my stories to strangers in places as far flung as Helsinki and Calgary; pecking away at keyboards of successively sophisticated computers; is that I’ve never, not once, been afflicted by the dreaded curse of the writer. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending upon your opinion of my work) I’ve never had writer’s block. Never. Oh, I’ve stepped away from my writing to regroup. I’ve fought off minor illnesses, fatigue, and depression. But the words have never slowed to the point where I could not, on a bright sunny morning like January 2nd, 2012 take my proper place at the keyboard and begin anew.

Peace.

Mark

Wishing all brightness and light in the coming year...

OK. So the photo I’m using in this blog isn’t really from today, New Year’s Day 2012. It’s a shot taken of the field around our house from a week or so ago: You know, the last time we saw the sun in this neck of the woods. I’m using the photo today, the first day of our new year, to make a point: I want to be upbeat and rarein’ to go as we enter 2012 and I hope you do as well. Oh, I could recount all the bad stuff that impacted the Munger Family in 2011. But you know what? Like my buddy Dave Michelson (a smart guy, one I usually listen to) says: “We Americans, no matter our politics or our economic station really don’t have much to grouse about when compared with say, Columbia (a country Dave’s done charitable work in).” Dave’s right. That’s why I ‘m using a photo with the sun prominently displayed in this article. I’m hoping that I catch Dave’s optimistic mantra: Let the little things slide and devote your energy to family, friends, and God; the things that really matter.

Right now, as I type these words in my writing studio overlooking the field depicted in the photograph (but facing north, towards the Cloquet River), I’m mindful that my “little” sister Annie has been concerned about me. Mostly since the shooting in Grand Marais. Concerned enough that, as part of my birthday/Christmas present, she enclosed a small statue of the Buddha in the package. The little figurine now stands next to my iMac. Dwarfed by the big white machine, the replica holy man stands no more than two inches tall, fashioned from some synthetic material to mimic natural stone. He’s not much to look at but I am intrigued by the Buddha and his Noble Eightfold Path, a path which the Buddha claimed would bring an end to personal suffering:

Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha)

Fairly simple. Sort of reminds me Jesus’ Beatitudes: Though whereas the Buddha’s words turn one inwards, towards the self, the message in Matthew’s Gospel is more worldly, more “other directed” if you will:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
   for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
   for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
   for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
   for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
   for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
   for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

(See http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A3-12&version=NIV )

I re-discovered the Beatitudes while working on my historical novel, Sukulaiset: The Kindred. The story is set in Finland, Estonia, and Karelia (Russia) during the Great Depression and World War II. There’s much angst and pain and loving and dying in the book thus far: Pretty grim stuff in spots. So when I needed a bit of light, a bit of spiritual uplifting in the tale, I turned to Matthew and once again fell in love with Christ’s words. Alexis Gustafson (a character reprised from Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh) is the instrument through which I re-introduce myself and my readers to the Beatitudes: As wonderful a passage of scripture as has ever been written. I’m hoping that, as one of my own personal petitions for 2012, I am able to keep my fingers on the keyboard and find out what happens to Alexis and those she loves. We shall see.

Back to the main theme of this piece. My sister, sweetheart that she is, wants me to rub the Buddha’s belly “for good luck” whenever I feel the need. As a Christian, I know that’s akin to idol worship; something that’s been frowned on since Moses blew his stack over the golden calf. Still, what harm can it do? I mean, despite my pal Dave’s admonition that “we Americans have it pretty damn good”, who couldn’t use a little luck or grace or divine guidance? Am I right? So, I’ve been rubbing the little statue a bit and praying a bit more. Not only selfish petitions (like the one about my manuscript); not only pleas for myself; but also requests  for peace on Earth, good health for my family and my friends, and healing for those who are troubled and in need of love.

Does God hear me? Is He or She moved to action by my small, distant voice?

Perhaps: After days of faux winter, fluffy white flakes have begun to fall outside the windows of my sanctuary, covering our field in a blanket of much needed snow. A bald eagle (a year-round neighbor because the Cloquet River stays open all winter in front of our house) just drifted into view beneath the thickening squall, gliding effortlessly on a heavy wind. Watching the graceful bird, I find myself asking another question:

Is the eagle a symbol of good luck as my Native American friends believe?

I tend to think so. It’s a talisman that’s worked for me in the past: I’m hoping that’s the case today and that God is indeed paying attention.

Here’s to hoping that your 2012 is as glory filled as the waning sun in the photograph at the beginning of this essay.

Peace.

Mark

In 2002, a group of talented Iron Range journeymen was assembled by Terry Miller and Mark DeMillo to back singer-songwriter Roxie DeMillo (Mark’s wife) on her debut CD. The lineup, Terry Miller on keyboard and bass; Jeff Rantala on lead guitar; Mark DeMillo on drums, and Roxanne DeMillo on vocals, guitar, and flute, is preserved for posterity on To Spain, Roxie’s debut recording. Though Roxie’s voice is a tad thin on some of these tunes (though always evocative), her songwriting (and the expression she puts into her own songs and those of others), along with the phenomenal guitar work of the late Jeff Rantala make this a treasure of a recording that few people outside Hibbing and Grand Rapids have ever heard. Take a listen to “Crow River”, which has a sweet, Irish-Canadian lilt to its melody and lyrics that reminds one of Joni Mitchell at her best. Or turn up the volume and shake your money maker to “Coffee Time” a piece on which Rantala’s Steely Dan guitar riffs soar. Of the ten tunes on the disk, 6 of them are Roxie DeMillo originals and all of them are as good as the stuff that Mitchell, King, Dement, and Chapin Carpenter turned in during their primes. For the past five years or so, Cloquet River Press has featured this CD as a product option both online and at various craft shows. Now, as the economy stagnates, and the last To Spain is shipped out of CRP’s inventory, it is time to say goodbye to two friends who have passed on. I’ve been selling the CD mostly to honor Roxie and Jeff, both of whom died far too young of cancer.

With my inventory of To Spain sold out, I’ve decided to concentrate on my writing and my books. Not an easy choice since I still love, and still play, To Spain when I’m on the road. But though CRP will no longer carry the disk, you can contact Mark DeMillo at 1330 13th Ave E. Hibbing, MN 55746-1220 if you’re interested in buying a copy of this great album for your collection. It is, as I’ve said, a wonderful piece of local recording history and your purchase would honor the memory of two very fine musicians.

Here’s the track index of the CD:

Crow River (R. DeMillo)

Can’t Let Go (R. Weeks)

River (J. Mitchell)

Believe It (R. DeMillo)

Coffee Time (R. DeMillo)

Run (R. DeMillo)

2 Cool 2 B Forgotten (L. Williams)

Kiss me (R. DeMillo)

To Spain (R. DeMillo)

Shearin’ Song (Traditional)

Peace.

Mark

Rene's Christmas Apple Pie

I was going to recount the year for all of you, dear readers. But I found my recollections dragging down the day, a day of glory and honor and beauty in the Christian faith. I won’t do that to you or to myself. 2011 is about to be history. Let us hope that 2012 will be brighter, more lovely, more loving, more peaceful, and more productive (writerly-wise for this author). To all of my friends, family, and readers of this blog, Merry Christmas!

The Munger Christmas Tree 2011

Peace to you and glory to God.

Mark