Northern Crayfish

I’ve been pretty busy at work. Some of you gleaned this from the fact my name’s been mentioned of late in the local newspaper. In my “real” job, the one that pays the bills, that happens sometimes: I get cases assigned to me that someone at the newspaper thinks are “newsworthy”. But as I move into my 14th year as a judge, I’m feeling the weight of what I do for a living a bit more than I used to. I’ve heard that’s a natural progression. Maybe. But I find myself less and less willing, at the end of a hard day, to tend to things that need doing around the house. It’s driving Rene’, my long-suffering wife of thirty-three years, crazy.

So the other day, I ripped off my suit jacket, slacks, dress shirt, and tie (how I hate wearing a tie!) and slipped on my battered old paint-stained bluejeans and an old T-shirt. It was  sunny and warm outside and the leavings of winter (you know: old dog turds, bits of paper, scraps of wood, gravel from the road; that sort of stuff) needed to be raked into piles. So I walked out to our tool shed, pulled out a rake, and took a swipe at some physical labor. You know what? It felt good. Oh, I paid for it last night when my left shoulder, the one that’s been acting up since Jack and I got T-boned by a young lady on a bright Sunday morning (we were on our way to church: she, unfortunately, was still drunk from Saturday night) throbbed in bed. But being outside, with a rake in my hands, the sun shining bright, and birds flitting over the greening grass of our lawn, well, it was something I needed to do more than something that needed doing. When I was done with the raking, I walked over to stairs that slope down the riverbank to the Cloquet River. Kramer, our frail chocolate Labrador, stood behind me, scanning the flowage, unable, due to age and bad hips, to join me as I sat on a wooden tread of the stairs and watched black water move. Beneath the river’s undulating surface, in about two feet of water, I spotted a crayfish walking, not scuttling, slowly across the pebbled bed of the Cloquet. He or she or it (I’m uncertain as to the sexual nomenclature of crustaceans) didn’t do anything fancy during the fifteen minutes I watched quietly from the stairway. I saw no great episode of life and death. No bass zipped into my field of view to snatch up the shellfish for a quick dinner. No otter plunged to the shallows to pluck the crayfish and motor off. It was just me, and Kramer, and the little crayfish absorbing the sun and taking a breath.

Movement up river broke my meditation. I caught sight of a male wood duck, all alone, no mate in sight, drifting with the slow current. The duck stopped a dozen yards from the dog and me, his colors dazzling in the late afternoon sun, his peeping voice at odds with his ducky bill.

Male Wood Duck

It didn’t take long for the beautifully feathered bird to figure out I was there, gawking at him. He fluttered his short wings and scooted away, hell bent on finding his wife. Once the duck was out of sight, I rose slowly from the stairs, patted Kramer on the head, and ambled towards the house. I filled bird feeders with feed, put away the rake, and then decided, because my attempts to get Jack, our youngest, involved in my chores had failed, to pull out the trampoline and set it up. The rig was a gift to our third son, Chris, who’s now twenty-four, for making the honor roll when he was at Hermantown Middle School. The tramp has served all of our boys, their friends, and assorted nieces and nephews well over the past thirteen summers and is still in good shape. Oh, there’ve been a few broken bones (cousin Alex broke a wrist, I think) and some odd bruises and bumps, but mostly the kids have had a ball jumping and flipping for hours on end. During the hottest days of summer, one of Jack’s favorite things to do is to set up the lawn sprinkler under the tramp and jump through cold well water beneath the glaring sun. Anyway, it took a good hour or so to get the trampoline set up. That was the last of my chores, at least the ones on my list (as opposed to Rene’s list), which meant I had time to sit on a rocking chair on our covered front porch and read the newspaper.

Eastern Bluebird

My work finished, paper in hand, I settled into the rocking chair intent upon focusing on the day’s news. But nature wasn’t quite done with me. My favorite bird, the male eastern bluebird, decided to make an appearance. About ten years ago, we started putting up bluebird houses. And the bluebirds decided, after some discussion in bluebirdeese, I am sure, that they liked what we’d done. So now, every year, pairs (at least two, sometimes three) of eastern bluebirds come back and nest in the little wooden birdhouses on posts next to our vegetable garden. And every year, little bluebirds are hatched, raised, and fledged at the edge of pasture on our place. I watched as the male bird, his bright blue backside most visible during flight, landed on the very tip top of a spruce near Rene’s dormant flower garden. The bird didn’t seem to mind my company. He too seemed content to pause, to take a moment, and breathe.

Peace.

Mark

Waiting for the Doors to Open

Saturday. I’m up at 5:00am and in the shower. By  5:45am, I’m on the road to the Bloomington Writers’ Festival. I’m nervous: I’m not only selling books at the festival; I’m also reading from Laman’s River for Bloomington cable access television and I’m a featured presenter at the conference. I’m about to embark on some serious multi-tasking and I don’t know if I’m up to it. I’m not behind the wheel of my 2008 Pacifica, my vehicle of choice. I’m driving Rene’s 2005 Toyota Matrix to take advantage of better gas mileage. It’s a down and back trip: I won’t be staying the night in the Cities. I can’t afford it.This writerly kick I am on has long ago eaten up the budget for motels. And there’s a George Clooney movie Rene’ wants me to watch with her  tonight. What the hell is it about George Clooney anyway? I mean, is he really that sexy to women of a certain age? I just don’t get it.

Anyway, after eating a rubber egg, cheese, and sausage muffin purloined from the shelves of a gas station in Cloquet and downing two cups of strong coffee and a bottle of orange juice, I finally, just south of Forest Lake, drive out of the perpetual fog that has been squatting on northern Minnesota for the past week. Ever since winter decided to vamoose, the Northland has been socked in with rain and fog. It’s a pleasure to finally be able to see the highway in front of me as I drive out of the foggy envelope. Don’t mistake what I’m saying here: There is no sun to speak of. Only more gray. But gray with perspective instead of claustrophobic closeness. When I pull in to the parking lot of the Bloomington Theater and Arts Center, where the conference is being held, I’m a few minutes ahead of schedule. The doors are manned by a smallish man, a volunteer, who has us wait until nine before allowing the milling crowd of weary eyed would be John Grishoms and J.K. Rowlings inside.

2012 Bloomington Writers' Festival

After the doors open, I pull my foldable two-wheeled dolly stacked with plastic bins and boxes into the building, register with another volunteer at the main table, and find my spot. I’m an old pro at setting up my books: Table cloth first, then the plastic placards holding images of each book and details about them, followed by neatly stacked copies of the books I have in print, finished off by two plastic business card holders full of my business cards. In less than twenty minutes, I’m ready to start selling. Of course, the public isn’t allowed in for another half hour, so I take full advantage of the down time and wander off to the room where I’ll be presenting my program. I spend a few minutes talking to a guy setting up the digital projector that I’ll be using in conjunction with my son Jack’s netbook. After talking to the guy, I’m confident that this experiment, which has me extremely nervous, will work out OK: I’m going to try to show aspiring historical novelists how I use the Internet to conduct research for my work. I’m doing it in real time, right there during my one hour lecture. Understand, I am not a tech nerd. I can adequately function in front of a keyboard for simple tasks like using the Internet, doing word processing, and the like. But I am not a computer guru. This is only my second attempt at using a computer during a lecture. The last time I tried it, it was a disaster. I am hoping history doesn’t, as some say, repeat itself.

Mark's Table at the Writers' Festival

There’s a slow but steady crowd at the conference. Many of the folks milling about are more interested in what you have to say as a presenter than what you’ve written as an author. I always sell enough books here to pay for gas but that’s usually about it. Today is no exception. Copies of my new mystery, Laman’s River, prove popular as do copies of Suomalaiset, my historical novel about Finns in NE Minnesota. I collect my complimentary box lunch and eat it at my table after doing my ten minute reading from the new book for cable access. The reading seemed to go well, with only a few minor stumbles as I tried to “set the mood” of the story so folks will want to buy the book. I even had a couple of fans in attendance.

Old friends from Moorhead, the Floms, surprise me, stopping by in the early afternoon with their daughter, Sarah, and her toddler son, Will. We catch up on our kids, I get to hold Will for a few snapshots, and then they’re gone. Another friend, John Helland stops by to chat as well. That’s one of the main benefits of these outings: Getting away from behind the keyboard and monitor and talking to folks who like and support your work. I keep checking my iPhone for the time. Eventually, I leave the table and pad off to the Rehearsal Hall where I am to give my lecture. The room is full, nearly thirty folks have paid money to hear me blather. Even though I teach college courses at UWS each semester, those courses are linked to my vocation as a judge. Today, I am speaking about my avocation, my hobby.

What gives me the right to talk to these folks? I’ve never won the Pulitzer. Hell, I’ve never even won a Northeast Minnesota Book Award, much less a Minnesota Book Award. Just who the hell do I think I am?

I feel a bit like a fraud as I stumble around the Internet while a roomful of strangers gawk at me. But I make it through the hour without a heart attack. I guess that’s something. I take a few questions and then return to my table to pack up my books and hit the road. A couple of the attendees from the class stop by to chat and buy books. They try to tell me that the hour was worthwhile. I listen, but my own take on my performance is less laudatory. Still, I smile and say “thank you” like Mom taught me.

Goose Creek Wayside Rest

Goose Creek

On the road, I eat a bad meal at the McDonald’s in Forest Lake. By the Goose Creek wayside rest, I need to hit the john. I pull off, do my business, and then, because the sun is finally out and the warm air finally feels like spring, I decide to check out the creek itself. I’m not disappointed. I stand in a tangle of gnarled oaks along the creek bank and look out at tired hay stubble waiting to awaken after a false winter. Invigorated, I get back into the Matrix and head north on I-35.

Sunset on Pike Lake

By the time I make Pike Lake, just outside Duluth, the sun is setting. The colors of the sky beg for me to stop and consider them. I park at the state owned boat launch on the lake. I watch the orange globe of the sun disappear behind the trees of Pike Lake’s western shoreline.I put the Matrix in gear, knowing that “The Descendents” and Mr. Clooney are waiting for me at home.

Sunday. Rene’ and I take separate cars to church. After an exhausting “there and back” trip to the Cities the day before, I am slated to have brunch at the Zinema2 theater complex in downtown Duluth. The director of a film I reviewed for the New World Finn newspaper (the film is Under the Red Star), Kelly Saxberg, her husband, Ron Harpelle, and a few other folks from Duluth’s Sister Cities program are gathering to talk about the film in advance of its Duluth debut. Brenda Denton, a local attorney, knowing my interest in all things Finnish, emailed me and invited me to brunch. So here I am, walking across Superior Street after spending an hour with God and family at Grace Lutheran Church, putting on my authorial hat once again.

The fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the film (giving it 4 out of 5 stars) likely helped garner the invite: I doubt Brenda would have asked me to come by so that Kelly and Ron (the co-producers of the movie) could throw hash browns at me across the table! ( I’ll post my review of the film in a day or so now that it’s been printed in NWF.) I sit down at the breakfast table next to Kelly and give her a copy of Suomalaiset with the hope that, one day, she’ll want to make a feature film out of Olli Kinkkonen’s story. I know, I know. It’s a pipe dream, a long shot, a one-in-a-million grasping at straws. But who knows? Stranger things happen in this world, right? We have a lively conversation about Kelly’s films, about the Finnish immigrant experience, and then, we head down to the theater. It’s apparent that the room assigned to the film is too small for the crowd: The event is moved to the larger of the complexes two movie theaters. And still, the larger space isn’t sufficient to hold all the folks who wander in. Ten minutes into the film and there are still people opening the doors, trying to find a seat. But it’s standing room only, a good sign for the movie’s long term impact and success.  After the credits, as attendees ask the director questions about the film and her work, I dash out to the Pacifica to retrieve a copy of Laman’s River.  One of the folks I had brunch with, Naomi Sundog Yaeger-Bischoff, the editor of the Budgeteer, is interested in my writing. I can’t pass up the chance to make another connection.

Better not pass up an opportunity for a review.

That’s thing about being a semi-famous novelist: You are always looking for an edge, some way of promoting your work so that folks will read what you have written. I retrieve the book, hand it to Naomi, and bid my new friends adieu. I still have a bathroom to paint and a garage to sweep before sitting down to dinner with Rene’ and Jack. And then, tomorrow, Monday morning, I’ll be up and ready to go to work. At my real job.

Peace.

Mark

After work today, I was reading the lead article in my friend Gerry Henkel’s great little paper of Finnish and Finnish North American culture, New World Finn, and was intrigued by the the subject matter. The article was about Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’s short piece, “Tapiola” and I became so enthralled with the imagery invoked by the writer (Leon Chia) that I had to hear the music first hand. Well, what to do? YouTube of course! On the first search, I locked onto a real masterpiece: Neeme Jarvi conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. The visuals that accompany the symphony are outstanding. Do yourself a treat. Log on to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l7uq7LWF5Y and be ready to be amazed.

Thanks, Gerry and Leon for calling my attention to this fine piece of music.

Kiitos.

Marki Mungerin

Grace Lutheran Church, Hermantown

A week ago this past Sunday, I spent a lovely afternoon with the men and women of Duluth’s chapter of the Finlandia Foundation. Check out the picture above: Despite the fact that it was hovering near 50 degrees, there was still snow left from the big storm when nearly 100 Finns and Finnish Americans gathered for an afternoon of business and entertainment. My part in it all? A while back, in 2004, I wrote a book, Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh about the Finnish American immigrant experience in NE Minnesota during WW II. Folks, especially Finnish folks, seem to like what this Slovenian German English Welsh French Scots Irish Dutch mutt has to say about a people that I’m not even tangentially related to. What can I say? Finns read. And they really like to read about their history and culture. So, they invite me to join their celebrations from time to time.

But this event was not just about Suomalaiset: It was also the first appearance of my new murder mystery, Laman’s River, at any public event. The Finns were gracious enough to give me space in the tori  (market) for a small table of my books. I had some nice conversations with shoppers, sold a few copies of my work, and had a pleasant afternoon in the later winter sunshine. Still, the day was more than just an opportunity for me to hawk my wares: There was culture and music and poetry throughout the afternoon in the sanctuary of the Lutheran chapel that my wife and I now call our church home. Sheila Packa, Duluth’s Poet Laureate and a person of Finnish descent, started off the program with some thoughtful and powerful images through verse.

Poet Laureate Sheil Packa Reads Her Work

And there was music. Orchestral pieces by Sibelius and lesser known Finnish folk songs (played on the silver horn by Grace’s music director Tracy Gibbons and by Sam Black on the grand piano) filled the chapel with joyful noise.

Listening to Sibelius

Singers and kantele players provided an assortment of folk music in Finnish and English.

The Kantele Payers

And there was a brief, yet exciting appearance of the Mad Scientist (really Dr. Arne Vainio, a Finn and Ojibwe physician) who, with the assistance of one of the only kids in attendance, dazzled the crowd with physics.

The Mad Scientist Thrills the Audience

Of course, there was plenty of coffee to drink and pulla to eat as the crowd mingled with the vendors before and after performances. I reconnected with my Finnish friends, made a few new ones, talked about my current Finnish-Estonian-Karelian novel, Sukulaiset, and sold and signed a few books.

All in all, it was an afternoon well spent at Grace, in grace, with the Finns.

Peace.

Mark

The Chernaks, the Mungers, and the Larsons.

We’re blessed with friends. That’s the one thing that I can say with certainty about my wife Rene’ and I. It’s been that way for a long while now, being blessed by friends. Many of our closest friends are folks we met in high school, at Duluth Denfeld. A few, like Jan and Bruce Larson, I met years before. In Jan’s case, it started at Piedmont Elementary in Duluth when we met in kindergarten. With Bruce, it started when a curious Baptist kid (that would be Bruce) started bugging his parents about where babies come from. Now, being that the Baptist church is fairly conservative, but wanting Bruce to know more than what he’d learn in hushed huddles during Boy Scouts, Bruce’s folks sent him to a sex education class run by Episcopalians. That’s where we met. When Rene’ and I started dating in 1976, she was welcomed into a crazy group of close and loving friends. She’s been one of us now for over thirty years.

Of course, the old friends aren’t our only friends. There are Fredenberg friends (folks we’ve met and grown to love out here where we live), family, work friends, and a whole host of other connections and friendships made over a lifetime. Some mine. Some Rene’s. But all important and sustaining. Still, the time we spend with folks like the Larsons and their relatives, the Chernaks, is a window to the past as we joke and laugh and, as we also reflect on our parents’ ages, a glance into the future. This past weekend, shortened as it was by Rene’ dealing with a flu bug (we couldn’t get up to the Larson cabin on Thomas Lake near Two Harbors until Saturday morning), was one of those get-togethers that sustains us in a world of sometimes seemingly unending uncertainty.

We were lucky. When we drove from our place on the Cloquet River to Thomas Lake early Saturday morning, it was snowing: Big, fat, fluffy early winter snow was coming down despite the fact that it was the third day of March. Let’s face it: This winter has been abysmal, a total bust. We’ve had little snow, temperatures that have been too warm, and gray sky after gray sky since November. Hell, our winter has been more like a Kansas winter than one spent in northern Minnesota. So to see snow piling up so late in the season, was, in a word, wondrous. When we arrived at the Larson cabin (which, when I was a Boy Scout and Jan’s dad, the legendary Arnie Erickson was my scoutmaster, was the “Erickson cabin”), the Larsons and the Chernaks were seated comfortably around a fire roaring in the cabin’s stone fireplace, sipping coffee and talking in low tones. Rene’ joined the crew while I hauled in our stuff and some groceries. We’ve been making this annual ski gathering for a decade or better and the ladies in the equation pretty much have it down pat as to who brings what. Bruce makes sure that there’s firewood aplenty, that the sauna is ready to go, that no water pipes have burst, and that the weekend will come off without a hitch. Me? I pretty much just show up.

The pleasantries exhausted, we knuckled down to some hard core political and philosophical discussions, beginning with my diatribe about Russ Limbaugh’s insensitive remarks about the young law student who testified before Congress, and moving on to the state of the economy in Ely, Minnesota, where Charlie and Sue Chernak hale from. By noon, Bruce had heard enough: it was time to hit the state ski trail a few miles from Thomas Lake.

Rene and Sue on the Mother Bear Trail.

Shit, I thought as I plodded along behind Bruce on my skis, I’m more out of shape than I thought.

Bruce and I generally take turns breaking trail. That’s the way it’s always been. And usually, we’re about even in our pace, with the women chatting and taking a more leisurely amble behind us. But this year, I could tell that the extra ten pounds I’d added over the Christmas holidays hadn’t come off: I struggled to keep up with Bruce as we glided silently through the snowy canopy of the forest. Charlie wasn’t with us in the trees: He was content to man the fire back at the cabin and stroke Bella, the Chernaks’ kind and gentle Golden Retriever as he sipped another cup of coffee, leaving the skiing to the rest of us.

I better get myself in shape if I want to be skiing with my grandchild.

It was a serious discussion, the one I had with myself, and one I will take to heart when I get back to that dust-covered treadmill in our bedroom in our house on the Cloquet River.

We were denied, Bruce and I were, our usual course, which is to split off from the women and take the esker trail to the right, a more difficult route. The groomer hadn’t gone up the esker and so, with some prodding from a gasping writer, Bruce agreed to take the easier spur to the left. We pushed on. The only wildlife we saw, or more correctly I saw, was a ruffed grouse which exploded from its hiding place under a spruce as Bruce and I passed by. Bruce never saw, never heard the bird: Likely the reason the Larson freezer is without grouse for table fare.

Bruce and Mark.

Bruce and I took a longer route but, inexplicably, we ended up at the junction with the main trail just as the girls arrived. From there, the five of us skied together on the last leg of the Mother Bear Trail back to the car.

We all knew what awaited us back at the cabin: An afternoon and evening of snacks and cold beer and a hot sauna followed by a nap and Sue’s homemade beef stew and more beer and a board game or two pitting the women against  the men. As usual, the men prevailed and Bruce and Charlie and I raised our arms in our fifty-something version of “The Wave” and sang Queen’s “We Are the Champions” as only old men can.

Thanks, friends, for another great memory.

Peace.

Mark

(Photos by Bruce Larson)

The Blogster at Red Lodge, Montana.

What I learned after skiing five straight days last week with my fourteen year old son  and my wife in Montana.

First, as I get older, I don’t get better on skis. But as 14 year old’s get older, they do get better. Go figure!

Second, Montana beer is great beer. And it’s better than great after that first day of fighting moguls on black diamond runs from the top of Red Lodge Mountain to the chalet. Trust me. 57 year old legs and thighs fairly burn after the first three or four turns at 9,000 feet but after two Glacier Ales at the local pizza parlor (Pizano’s:  great pizza and fantastic staff), you forget the pain. Honest.

Mark and his second Glacier Ale of the night!

Third, my 2008 Pacifica (which I just bought with 61,000 miles on it to replace my 2005 Pacifica with 160,000 miles) has the same flaw that the 2005 version of the van had: It hates altitude to the point where it blows its coolant cap and dumps anti-freeze all over the parking lot. You’d think a vehicle that, when new, commanded a $40,000 price tag (not what I paid, trust me!) could handle altitudes commonly found in the American West. Here’s a tip for you Pacifica owners: Carry an extra cap and a gallon of anti-freeze with you anytime you go above 4,000 feet. You won’t regret it.

Fourth, when your wife suggests that she’s just fine gliding down the greens and blues at a ski hill, leave it at that. I followed this line of logic on this year’s sojourn to mountains and guess what? The arguments were nil!

Fifth, 15 inches of mountain snow is still 15 inches of snow. Add to that, the steepness of the bowls at Bridger Bowl and you have the makings of more muscle pain and agony between your thighs and calves. Again, don’t bother asking the 14 year old whether his thighs are on fire after a day of black diamonds and bumps: He’s oblivious, immortal, as only 14 year old boys can are.

Jack Bridger Munger at Bridger Bowl in the middle of a snow storm.

Sixth, hot tubs were likely invented by skiers. Old skiers. And they work.

Seventh, when you refill the coolant tank in your 2008 Pacifica after the cap has gone kaput, do it when the engine is COLD! That’s what the little fill level line is for. Not following instructions leads to two things: No heat in the car and a very serious rise in the heat gauge until you’re smart enough to shut the car off, let the engine cool down, and then fill the coolant tank to the proper level.

The eighth lesson I learned while skiing happened at Moonlight Basin, the newer, cheaper, less-well-known sister hill to Big Sky. Never, never keep skiing on a black diamond run after you’ve lost a ski, especially if you’re surrounded by trees. The result? You take a nice header avoiding a pine and smack your shin with the trailing ski. Metal edges are made out of metal for a reason.

Lone Tree Lift, Moonlight Basin.

Skiing in the mountains is as close as I’m ever going to get to sky diving. But I’m OK with that, and that’s the ninth thing I learned while out in The Treasure State: Be happy with who and what you are and don’t worry about things you haven’t done or may never get to do. The guy who organizes the annual Ski Hut excursion from Duluth to Bozeman, Montana, Wes Neustel, taught me that. Wes is still downhill skiing, in the mountains, at 92 years old. I don’t think he’s all that into hang gliding or sky diving. That Wes is steady and true on his skis, even into his tenth decade of life, seems like a great life lesson to me.

And finally, I learned that, even if the wallet is a bit thin on cash and things aren’t going exactly how you thought they should, a week with your wife and your son, skiing the Big Skies, is a good break from real life. Thanks, Rene’ and Jack for putting up with a tired, cranky old judge skiing on borrowed skis…

The Blogster at Bridger Bowl.

Peace.

Mark

Recently, twenty Minnesota judges gathered at the pastoral Gainey Conference Center to participate in the Judicial Decision Making Conference. Also known as the “Literature and the Law” conference, the premise of the session is to read short works of fiction, including some classic works of literature and some-lesser known stories and plays, with an eye to self-discovery and reflection on what it means to be a judge and how one goes about the difficult and sometimes gut-wrenching job of judging others. I’d heard about the conference but when an invitation to attend popped up on my work computer one day, I thought, “What the hell. I’m a writer. I’m a judge. I might as well give it a go.” And so I did.

The seminar was held at the Gainey Conference Center, an estate just outside Owatonna now owned and maintained (superbly, I might add) by the University of St. Thomas. As is my usual custom, I loaded the address into Theresa (my Garmon navigational assistant) and, on Thursday morning at 6:00am, I drove from Duluth to Owatonna. Being the optimist I am, I thought Owatonna was just a tad south of Lakeville; just outside the southern ring of Twin City suburbs. I was wrong. It’s further than I thought. In fact, it’s south of Faribault. But I had plenty of time to make the opening session, which was due to start at 9:30am, until Theresa sent me on a wild goose chase. I swear that I inputted the correct address for the Gainey Center. So I’ll ascribe my late arrrival to the tendencies of women, including electronic surrogates, to get lost. It couldn’t have been me, the male in charge,who made the mistake, could it?

Despite my sidetracked route, I arrived just as each judge was making a brief introduction. And then, the sometimes intense, sometimes humorous, always humbling work of self-reflection and assessment began.

The two major works we read and discussed, included Arthur’s Miller’s astonishingly vivid depiction of the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible, and a lesser known work by American playwright, Wendy Wasserstein, An American Daughter. The point of the readings (which also included four other pieces of varying lengths) was not to critique or assess story, or character or plot, but to delve into the inner thoughts, emotions, and decision making of the protagonists and minor players with an eye towards tying that conduct to what we, as judges do, every day when we decide cases. There we were: white, black, male, female, Christian, Jew, and agnostic, all seated around a circle of tables, trying to understand the reasons and emotions and driving forces behind our judicial decisions. It was, at least to this judge, cathartic to hear other jurists, some new to the job, but many with more experience than me, express the methodology and basis for what it is they do with the most delicate and important of our fellow citizens affairs: How we reason as we impact liberty, family, and property with our rulings.

For my money, The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1952 and 2003. Penquin. ISBN 978-0-14-243733-9) was the work of the conference. Why? First off, Miller’s attempt to link the McCarthyism of his day to the fear and hysteria of the witch hunts in colonial Salem is spot on. There are also (to a lesser degree) parallels between the mass delusion of Salem in the 1600s to Germany in the 1930s, but the greater and more appropriate link, in my view, is to the American experience during the 1950s when men and women were challenged by “Tail Gunner” Joe regarding their loyalties. The intensity of the play, followed by watching the very fine performances in the 1996 film version of the tale, are haunting and thought-provoking. Especially relevant to the attendees, I believe, is the character of Judge Danforth, the jurist who is bent upon “rooting out Satan” in Salem even if it means the mass execution of innocent men and women. Which, of course, it does. In many ways, reading and watching The Crucible  challenges a judge, including this judge, to reflect upon the quality and nature of evidence we hear and see in court and how one’s personal views, political, religious or otherwise, skew perceptions of truth.

Wasserstein’s play, on the other hand, which was included in our readings so as to challenge our judicial noggins regarding religion, gender, and orientation, never really struck a chord with me similar to what I experienced reading The Crucible. An American Daughter (1998. Harcourt Brace. ISBN 0-15-600645-6) is the tale of Dr. Lyssa Dent, a presidential nominee for the post of Surgeon General. Surrounding the privileged and somewhat aloof Dent are her husband, Walter; her father, a United States Senator; and a host of other “interesting” supporting characters. Dent has a secret in her past which threatens to derail her nomination. Patterned after the “Nannygate” scandals of the recent past, the secret is this: When the elitist Lyssa received a summons for jury duty, she tore it up and never served. This seemingly inconsequential act turns out to be the linchpin upon which Dr. Dent’s figurative lynching in the media takes place. The problem with this play is, unlike The Crucible, where there is an abundance of sympathetic victims to pique our interest and outrage at Danfroth’s pompous piety, An American Daughter provides the reader with no such characters with which to empathize. At the conference, I quipped that the play “Reads like a bad episode of Seinfeld.” I think that’s an apt assessment. The problem for me, and I think, for anyone trying to delve into the deeper meanings of  Wasserstein’s prose, is that, the thinness of the morality of all concerned blocks any such detailed consideration of motivation or character. The play just didn’t measure up in terms of being a catalyst for serious discussion about what it is we judges do in our professional lives.

Over two days, I was privileged to discuss, break bread, and share laughs with some of Minnesota’s most talented jurists. Some folks who hold the purse strings for judicial education seem to to believe that thoughtful consideration of decision making has no place in judicial education, that, to use a Joe Soucherayism, it is too Mysterian, too “touchy feely” to merit funding and attention. After two days at the bucolic Gainey Conference Center assessing how it is we judge’s think, I heartily disagree. There’s great value in such self-reflection and contemplation, value that cannot be obtained at mainstream “topic-based” legal or judicial seminars. I’ll make the Judicial Decision Making Conference an annual “must” because the opening of a jurist’s eyes is also the opening of a jurist’s soul.

The Gainey Conference Center

Peace.

Mark

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

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

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