Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

(Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915  during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium by Lt. Col. John McCrae, British Expeditionary Force)

Graves of the Lost

The guns fell silent 93 years ago today. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the fifth year of the devastation and destruction that defined the so-called Great War, the fighting stopped, men and boys at arms stood down, and WWI was over. Though political intrigue and fighting would continue in places like Finland, Estonia, Russia, and the Middle East as world leaders tried to redraw and redefine the global map, with the Armistice, the war was declared “over” and American soldiers, sailors, and Marines (who, in the last year of the war had been deployed to shore up the French, British, Italian, Canadian and other allied forces against the Germans and Austrians) began to dream of returning home.

Home.

I sit this Armistice Day (renamed “Veteran’s Day” to honor all of the men and women who have fallen defending America across time) in the comfort of my little writing studio along the banks of the Cloquet River in northeastern Minnesota, never having fired a shot at another human being; never having clawed my way through mud on my belly in the face of combat; never having experienced the utter terror and degradation of war on a personal level. Oh, I served ever-so-briefly. My career as an Army Reservist was undistinguished and of short duration. It did not involve watching my friends and my enemies die. It involved typing at a unit typewriter (you remember typewriters, I’m sure) at a cozy desk in a warm office in Fort Snelling. But, despite my innocence, my naivete with respect to the horrors of combat, I think I understand. But of course, as interview after interview with the vanishing heroes of another war (members of, as Tom Brokaw proclaimed, “The Greatest Generation”) have revealed I know nothing about war. So I will not pretend, as I sit contentedly in my bathrobe sipping hot coffee and listening to classical music as I type this piece, to understand what our young men and women in uniform posted in Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing. I cannot relate to their reality any more than I can relate to the experiences of Frank Buckles and the other young men who stood the trenches on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month so many years ago.

Frank Buckles, last WWI Veteran

And now, they are all gone. Buckles was the last: The last American veteran of WWI. He died this year. He died, in some ways, unhappy: He had lobbied, to the end of his days, for a memorial to be erected to honor those who fought and died (improvident as the war might have been) as Americans under arms in the Great War. Perhaps it is too distant a time, too far a journey back, for the public to care enough (or at all) about their service. But Buckles cared: He knew the terror, the blood, the horrors of trench warfare and its impact on those who survived and how, for nearly five years, political forces on both sides of the conflict moved young men around strategically, like pieces manuevered by chess masters, with little regard for their dignity or their lives. They called it the Great War: Those who served and saw would tell you that there was nothing magnificent or heroic about it at all, that in the end, twenty million human beings (more than six million of that number were civilians) died because of a madman’s political insult. And though, in some ways, WWI was the end, for empires and old alliances, it was also the beginning: Science and technology impacted the way men would kill each other in that, for the very first time, masses of humanity could be dispatched from a distance by the use of modern weaponry. Despite the distance of time, on this eleventh day, of the eleventh month, of the eleventh year of a new century, how much, dear readers, has really changed? How much have we humans really learned?

Today, take a moment away from your coffee cups, from your cozy enclaves, from the safety and security of your existence here at home and say a prayer, or recite a poem, or simply remain silent in honor of those boys who stood (and still stand) the trenches, and for the women who minister to the wounded, guard our positions, and transport our troops. Whether you believe we need to be in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t the issue. When you remember the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month remember this as well: We asked and they said “yes”.

American men and women who serve in uniform should be honored (for doing what the rest of us cannot or will not do) regardless of our personal politics.

Peace.

Mark

The Judge lugging back a rooster pheasant somewhere north of Ashley.

When you’re nearly 84 and your doctor tells you, “Sorry, Harry, but you’re not going to be able to go” a few days before a scheduled hunting trip with your son, two of your grandsons, and your lifelong buddy, well, that doesn’t light up your day. That’s what happened to my old man about a week ago. He and I went down to the Eleanor Mondale Memorial Service in the Twin Cities so he could pay his last respects to the daughter of one of his oldest fishing pals, former Vice President Fritz Mondale. Somewhere along the way, grandpa caught a nasty bug that turned into pneumonia serious enough that it landed him in St. Luke’s Hospital for a week and ended his hopes of joining me, my sons Chris and Matt, and Bruce out in Ashley, ND for our annual pheasant hunt. It was a bummer but, when your doctor, a guy who’s saved your life a few times, tells you, “No”, you have to listen.

The Munger boys aren’t the best shots. We aren’t the smartest or the hardest working hunters. But, over the past five years that we’ve joined my old man out on the Dakota prairie, we’ve always managed to find a few rooster pheasants, the odd sharptail grouse or two and even hit them on occasion. We’ve watched innumerable sunrises and sunsets over soybeans, corn, and sunflowers. We’ve tromped through ditches and hedgerows and swales until our boots were caked in mud and our wool socks were soaked. We’ve tried to sneak up on ever-elusive and diminutive Hungarian partridge, blue-gray birds not much larger than pigeons that favor open fields devoid of crops. We’ve watched wave after wave of sandhill cranes circle high above us, geese soar in gigantic ballet-style formations, and flocks of fast flying mallards and teal race with the wind to the next prairie pothole. This year didn’t prove to be any different even without Dad: Our aim hadn’t improved and, despite a sense of bitter-sweetness to the trip without grandpa, we had a whale of a good time.

Matt, my eldest son, was our chef. He and his wife Lisa (newly expecting my first grandchild: I call her Emily but I doubt that’s gonna stick) did all the grocery shopping for us. Chris was assigned the job of cleaning any birds we managed to shoot. I was the dishwasher. And Bruce? Absent his perennial hunting partner, Bruce continued on in his role as philosopher and guide, pouring over the public lands maps depicting places near Ashley available to hunt. After a day of seeing virtually no birds, we used Bruce’s expertise to find other spots to hunt: We found success, even in a year of poor rooster production (the result of two bad winters and a very wet spring), at least, success in the Munger sense of the word. We shot enough roosters to keep Chris plucking every night when we returned bone tired to the little frame house we rented in the center of town. We ate well, had a couple of cold Leinnies, swapped stories, hit the rack early, and, in the morning, got up to go at it again.

Chris brought his pal’s Springer spaniel, Windsor, along for the hunt. Matt brought his beloved Lexie, a spoiled, but well-mannered bronze colored Labrador retriever. Hunting over dogs in a stiff autumnal breeze beneath the open skies of the North Dakota was a pleasure. There’s nothing like watching a good dog like Windsor lock up tight on a rooster sitting in a patch of sedge grass no bigger than a loaf of bread. The human eye can’t see the bird: But you learn to trust the dog’s nose. Windsor was unrelenting, a bundle of nervous energy, bounding over high grass, cattails, and weeds on the trail of birds. Lexie was methodical but equally effective: In one day, she found, locked on, and retrieved all three roosters we hit. Not that Windsor wasn’t working: Lexie just happened to be the dog of the moment.

Of course, with modern technology, Grandpa Harry kept in touch, calling us every night for a post-hunt update. You could sense the lament, the longing in his voice when he’d call. Though he loves his friend and care-taker Pauline dearly and enjoys her company immensely, he’d waited all summer for our annual trip. Not to be with us was, in a word, heartbreaking. Being that we’re guys, that word was never spoken: You just knew that was the case from the tone of the old man’s voice.

Our last day, we came upon a small covey of Hungarian partridge. We don’t see a lot of Huns where we hunt, though every couple years, we run into them. Usually, the birds are far off, out in the middle of sown crop, nibbling left over soybeans or corn, far out of range. I think we’ve had one or two shots at Huns over the years but never hit one. They are, to use my son Chris’s analogy, my Holy Grail. So when I saw Huns pecking away on remnant beans half a football field away, I wanted them bad. But the birds saw us long before we could get in range. And so, we tromped the edge of a big mown field alongside a huge lake, hoping to coax a rooster out of cover. A mile later, all we had for our effort was the sight of one skittish hen pheasant (off limits to hunters) flying low over weeds.

“I’ll bet those damn Huns are back by Bruce, eating again,” I said aloud, though my two sons were trudging over the wasteland left by the bean harvester too far from me to hear. “And Bruce is likely snoozing in his car.”

Damn if I wasn’t right. Neither of my sons saw them but I did: My little beauties were, as predicted, clucking and picking and eating to their hearts’ content just fifty yards away from Bruce’s Toyota Highlander. Bruce, never one to waste energy, was sitting behind the steering wheel, reading a map, totally oblivious to the Holy Grail just outside his car.

“Huns,” I whispered loudly, gesturing emphatically towards the blue-gray specks ahead of us.

My sons understood. The dogs, though they were working into the wind, hadn’t picked up the scent of the covey. Windsor was by my side though he kept trying to stray. I held him in close by command so as not to spook the Huns. All three of us walked slowly, our shotguns at the ready, making ourselves as small as possible in a completely naked field that rolled to the south for better than a mile. I kept my eyes glued on the birds. The Hun closest to me became skittish, opening and closing its wings as if making ready to fly.

Now or never.

I eased the bead of my 12 gauge over-under on the nearest bird, clicked off the safety, and raised the barrel.

Boom.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The Huns flew away unscathed.

“My fault,” I said apologetically as I joined my sons. “I shot too soon.”

“Damn straight, Pops,” Chris said. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” I admitted.

There was little reason to continue the discussion. I’d messed up. Not the first time, won’t be the last. But through all the noise and commotion, Bruce hadn’t moved: His eyes were riveted on the map in his hands. He had no idea the Holy Grail had been just outside his windshield.

Later that evening, I had the chance for redemption. We were driving back to the house on a dirt road near dusk when a big rooster pheasant rose from the ditch and settled in a patch of saw grass next to standing corn.

“That’s your bird, Dad,” Chris said. “He didn’t make the corn.”

I exited Matt’s truck, let Windsor out of his kennel and a flock of pheasants ran across the road behind the Nissan headed for open country.

“More birds. You take Lexie after them. I’ll take Windsor after the rooster.”

We split up. Windsor bounded over thick ditch grass and worked the edge of the corn. The dead stalks swayed and cracked in a slow wind. The sun was setting above the horizon in the west, its gold and orange glow casting magic over the land. Windsor stopped dead, his wet nose pushed into cattails. A cackle split the cooling air. A rooster pheasant rose from thick cover next to an open pond. It’s wings glinted in the dying sun. Then another bird, a hen, rose to my left. Another rooster cackled and burst into the declining sky to my right. I kept my eye on the first bird, the bird that we’d been tracking.

Boom.

The rooster tumbled and hit water. Windsor dove into the rushes. A few minutes later, he reappeared with the colorful bird in his mouth.

As I type this story on my iMac in my writing room overlooking the Cloquet River, far removed from pheasant country and the hunt, day is again breaking. Down river, I hear the bark of shotguns. Geese fly above the house, followed by flights of local mallards smart enough at this stage of the season to get the hell out of dodge. The sun is rising in the east and a clear blue sky is replacing night’s veil. I am hopeful, as I end this story, that there’s at least one more good hunt in my old man. Next year, Jack, my fourteen year old son, will come with us to Ashley. It would be great if he could hunt with his grandpa.

Peace.

Mark

The Misguided Munger Pheasant…

There are no ring-necked pheasants in northeastern Minnesota. Never were. It’s too cold, too filled with predators, too dangerous a place for a bird so colorful. And yet, there he is, strutting around our front yard like an undersized peacock. The bird is an aberration, an anomaly, that can only be explained this way: He’s here to welcome Representative Willard Munger to Fredenberg Township.

Willard, my long-departed uncle, was a great man. I didn’t coin that phrase: His friend and associate Ann Glumac did. Her comment, taken from an article she wrote at the time of Willard’s passing in 1999 (and included in the biography I wrote about my uncle) goes like this:

In the 20 years that I knew Willard, I loved him for his humanity, his humor, his high pitched laugh, his stories, and his dedication to family and friends. I also envied him for his steadfastness in fighting for principles in a world where black and white almost always blend to gray. I’ve been privileged to meet or work with many leaders and public figures, but Willard Munger is the only great man I have ever known.

(Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story by Mark Munger (c) 2009)

So how can a man who’s been playing gin rummy with the saints for over ten years be coming home, to the Munger farm in rural northeastern Minnesota, you ask? And why would a pheasant show up out of the blue to greet him? The answer is simple: providence.

You see, back when I decided to write the story of my uncle’s remarkable life as Minnesota’s quintessential conservationist, taking up the keyboard only when no one else seemed interested in doing so, I was encouraged by folks who, time after time after time at art and craft shows, or bookstores, or libraries where I was hawking my fiction, would come up and urge me to write about my uncle. Many of these folks were environmental types or former Liberal politicians. Some were just good people who loved Willard. I resisted the call to write his biography for five years after his passing: I felt ill-equipped, as his nephew and young ward, to write his story. I wanted someone else to do it, to chronicle Willard’s seventy-plus years in Liberal politics because I felt too close to the subject matter to do it justice. But then, as time passed and nothing was written about Willard and his beginnings as a Farmer-Laborite, or the battles he fought as a legislator on behalf of education and the environment, I began to research and write about my uncle. The result, Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story was published in 2009 to some fanfare and celebration. But the book has been, in a word, a tough sell despite all the urging and prompting I received to take it on as a project. It hasn’t sold like I expected and, two and a half years later, I have a mountain of unsold copies of the book waiting for buyers.

Yes, I know, it’s partially my own damn fault. I was (as I usually am) overally optimistic. I thought that folks living in Minnesota would be interested in learning about one of their own, about a guy born in a log cabin to poverty who grew up on the northern edge of in pheasant country (Friberg Township in Otter Tail County, northwestern Minnesota); lobbied FDR during the Great Depression; managed the campaigns of Liberal icons and Minnesota governors, Floyd B. Olson and Elmer Benson; built Liberty Ships during WW II after coming to Duluth; and served nearly 50 years in the Minnesota House of Representatives as the voice of the pheasants, deer, ducks, clean water and clean air. I was wrong: I printed way too many copies out of wide-eyed eagerness and love.

For the past two and a half years, cartons of the unsold biography have been stored in an unheated pole building owned by my friend Dave. Now, I have no problem paying the going rate for storage space and, up until yesterday, that’s exactly what I did. But last night, with the help of my sons Jack and Matt, the last carton of books was hoisted and carried into a vacant bedroom of our house on the banks of the Cloquet River. The books are stacked neatly, all 115 boxes of Mr. Environment (1,600 copies), in our basement, as I patiently sell them one by one to folks who care. I’ve got time. I’m not going anywhere. And neither, unless I get to work, are the books.

I’m convinced that the good Lord knew Willard was coming to stay at our house on the river. Why else would a regal bird, with no ties to the spruce, pine, and aspen forests of St. Louis County, be hanging around our place?

Peace.

Mark

The author hunkered down in his tent at Chester Bowl.

Auf Wiedersehen. Adieu. Näkemiin. Arrivederci. Goodbye. All these words fit the philosophical place where I find myself on this Sunday morning as I type this blog.

It’s drizzling outside. Soft, cold rain patters dying grass and slides over the steel siding of our farmhouse overlooking the Cloquet River. All night long, the residue of a tough week, a week spent in trial, a week spent moving 800 copies of Mr. Environment from a rented storage unit to a recently vacated bedroom in our home’s lower level (with another 800 copies awaiting similar transit), and a flurry of heavy lifting involving Rene’s concrete mosaic benches into the Pacifica for the Fall Festival in Duluth’s Chester Bowl, reminded me that this author stuff, at least the way I’ve been at it since I plunked my white EZ-Up tent down on the hard asphalt of ManyPenny Avenue at the Apple Festival in Bayfield ten Octobers ago, isn’t for the faint of heart or the weak of spine. Advil hasn’t dented the pain in my neck or the constant throbbing in my left heel, the result of too much weight, too much torque, too much lifting. After a fitful night spent on the couch trying to snare sleep, I yield: God (or common sense) has spoken.

Time to try a different approach.

Oh, yesterday at the Bowl was pleasant enough. I had some good conversations, heard familiar compliments about my writing, rekindled some friendships with readers, and chatted amiably enough with folks under a gray, autumnal sky. My sister and her family (including two of the cutest little girls in God’s creation) stopped by to say hello. Even the disaster of a little four year old trying to use one of Rene’s benches as a teeter-totter (which resulted in broken concrete and mosaic spilled over pavement) didn’t destroy the festive mood of the day. But I knew, before the day began, Chester Bowl would be the last outdoor art and craft festival. Not just for this year. Not just for this season. But forever. Last night’s fitful sleep only reinforced my decision.

I need to rethink how I market my work.

Oh, I’ll still do indoor arts and crafts shows, writers’ conferences, and try to get into bookstores, libraries, schools and the like for sales, lectures, readings, and signings. And I’ll still keep my fingers on the keyboard of my iMac churning out stories and blogs and Lord-knows-what-else. But the day of the EZ-Up is over. I met lots of fine folks, sold thousands of books, but there comes a time when all things, good, bad, or indifferent come to an end. I know that today, as I feel the bite of pain in my neck bending over the keyboard. Writing as a contact sport is beyond my reach and beyond my old body’s recuperative powers. I’ll need to find another path.

Peace.

Mark

The road between Duluth and Hackensack, Minnesota takes me past small towns, lakes of all sizes, swamps, marshes, over the Mississippi, and finally, through the Leech Lake Reservation. It’s Saturday. The sun is up, but just barely, and, instead of driving my lumbering old 2005 Pacifica, I am behind the wheel of my wife’s nimble little 4×4 Toyota Matrix. My books are stacked in boxes and bins in the cargo space of the little car. But since I’m headed to an indoor event (praise the Lord: I’ve had enough of the E-Z Up for awhile), I’ve opted for fuel economy by borrowing her Matrix. I’ve got Pearl Jam playing loud on the CD changer. It’s a live album, something I picked up at Best Buy from the discount bin. “Daughter” comes on and I find my right foot (I’m a two footed driver-blame my mother) searching for the accelerator even though the cruise is set. Despite a tremendous urge to unleash the Toyota’s four cylinders, I refrain from breaking the law…much.

I’m headed to sell books at the Northwoods Art and Book Festival in tiny Hackensack (population 313), Minnesota: So far as I know, the only specifically art and book event in the state. I’ve done this show for at least six years: At times, I’ve been in my E-Z Up outside. I’ve been inside the community center with other crafters and artisans. And I’ve had a table inside the Congregational church (the “book arts” building) amidst other authors and publishers. The benefits of not being outside in my E-Z Up are many:

1. I don’t have to worry about rain;

2. I don’t have to set up the damn tent;

3. I don’t have to worry about wind; and

4. I don’t have to worry about hauling my own tables and chair.

So inside, which is the venue I’ve managed to snare this year, is better. Inside the church, where I can hob-knob with other authors, is the best.

As usual when driving to Hackensack, I miscalculate my drive time. The festival starts at nine. I want to arrive no later than 8:30. I arrive at 8:45am.

“Mark Munger, Cloquet River Press”, I tell the lady who stops the Matrix at the saw horses marking the entrance to the festival.

The woman dutifully wanders back to the information booth to retrieve my festival packet, which includes my registration. She ends up coming back to the Toyota empty-handed.

“Sorry, you don’t appear to be registered.”

She’s nice enough about it so I don’t protest too loudly. Instead, I pull out the email I received from the book arts coordinator confirming my slot. I hand it to the woman. She nods.

“I’ll take care of it. Just go on in and find Joanne. She’ll get you situated.”

I drive to the church. Some nice fellows (seems everyone in Hackensack is in a jovial mood due to the bright sun and the burgeoning beauty of the day) help me unload. I find Joanne. She shows me to my table. I set up my display.

The day starts slowly but, by the time I call home at noon, I’m selling books. Lots of books. Mostly to folks who’ve bought my work in the past and, surprise, surprise, want more Munger to read.

I need more of these shows to keep me going.

For the past two years, ever since printing Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story, my little excursion in the self-publishing world (Cloquet River Press) has taken a nosedive. Or maybe I should say, developed a nosebleed: It’s been nothing but red ink for the past two years. I’ve taken on too much: too many projects, too much debt, too much time away from family and friends, pursuing an inoculation of ego.

This author thing, I think as I hand a past customer a signed copy of Esther’s Race, is a lot like being a drug addict. Doesn’t help that I’m OCD (thanks again, Mom). Oh, compulsion is a good thing in some ways. It drives me to complete what seem (like Willard’s biography: a five year project) to be insurmountable tasks. That’s the plus side of being OCD. But the downside? I stare at it every time I take out the CRP account book. Red. Red. Red. I’m a terrible businessman. But despite the downsides (including the depression that comes from sitting alone in a booth selling no books to no one) I can’t stop. I simply can’t. I guess it’s these moments, when a reader stops by and says, “I loved The Legacy” or “Suomalaiset is the best book I’ve ever read” that compels me to continue. Just like drugs, when you’re on the upswing, you forget the downside. It’s fleeting. It’s momentary. But the high is very real.

I talk to other writers around me, reconnecting with folks I’ve met out in the area doing workshops for the JackPine Writers Group (see the “Links” section under “Writerly Orgs” for the JPW’s website) and the Park Rapids Library. I always learn a thing or two, particularly about marketing and selling books, when I talk to other authors. Some of the tips work out; some don’t. But the interaction is valuable and the company is great.

By the time the festival winds down, I’ve done better in one day in little Hackensack than I have at any other event this year. These folks, many of them Twin Citians spending a last summer weekend at the family cottage, are readers. Voracious readers. The kind of folks who make semi-famous, semi-finalist novelists smile.

I pack the Matrix. There are less boxes to stack in the car; a sign I’ve sold well at the festival. I give Rene’ a call, telling her I’m back on the road. I fumble with a jewel case and pull out one of my favorite “road” albumns: Canadian folk singer Lynn Miles’ Unravel:

I’ve been living up here by the hydro towers

Trying to feel my feet and regain my powers

Living on the flight path trying to feel the ground

Trying to break the chains that hold me to this town.
I’ve been watching the crows sitting on their wires

Listening to the muscle cars burning their tires

Thought I’d stick around for a month or so

Well I’ve been here for seven and this is what I know

You can read a lot of  books, don’t make you smart

Kiss a lot of fools, don’t mean you gotta heart…

(c) Lynn Miles, 2004

(See “Links” and the subcategory “Musicians” for a link to Lynn’s work)

By the time I turn onto the gravel drive leading to my home on the river, my mood has turned reflective. I’m listening to Duluth’s beloved slow rock band, Low.

It’s been a great day to be an author and a word junkie.

Peace.

Mark