Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

Dr. Paul G. Theobold the Dean, School of Education, Woods Beal Endowed Chair, and chair, Department of Social and Psychological Foundations of Education, Buffalo State College, had his assistant, Ms. Cynthina Anthony, ask whether I would be willing to allow a link from their site, Rural Lit RALLY (Reinvigorating American Life and Learning through the Literature of Yesteryear) to my essay, “Reading Herbert Krause” (see above under the “Other Writings” tab). The Rural Lit folks are apparently trying to catalog and, through the use of their new website (http://rurallitrally.org/) begin an online dialogue about the importance of rural writing, notably the “forgotten” writers of the dust bowl days and before, including my personal favorite, Minnesota native, Herbert Krause. Dr. Theobald and the Rural Lit RALLY folks sum up their mission this way:

There is a saying:  “You don’t  know what you’ve got til it’s gone.”

Out of print for decades, and long-since discarded from all but research university libraries, wonderful works of rurally based literature are disappearing every day.  Variously called “farm novels,” “regional novels,” or “local color fiction,” these works portray farm life perceptively and in great depth.  To lose them is to lose a piece of our collective history; a piece of who we are, as a people and as a nation.

This Rural Literature Initiative seeks strategies for building demand for rural literature in rural and urban schools such that academic/university presses can put this literature back into print or, short of this, that digitized collections might be created.

As a lover of Krause and the not-as-yet-forgotten Cather and Rolvaag, I welcome Dr. Theobald’s interest in my essay. I hope to participate in the online discussion that takes place regarding Krause’s importance as a regional writer in January on the RALLY site. I’d also urge all my blog readers who enjoy finely wrought prose to give Krause and the other authors featured on the Rural Lit RALLY website a try. Most of the books are out of print but you can find these gems online (at the usual suspects) or in the dusty corners of you local used bookstores. You won’t be sorry for trying these forgotten authors. Old is not to be confused with outdated: the themes in these stories are as relevant and timely today as they were when they were written. Who knows, if you look hard enough, you might even find an autographed copy for a reasonable price! Holding literary history signed by the author is a treasure to be relished and read. And, if after reading Wind Without Rain or some other long forgotten classic, you feel like joining in the online conversation, I’m sure your input would be appreciated by the folks behind RALLY.

Peace.

Mark

Thanksgiving on the Cloquet River

This week was one of mild disappointment. There, I said it. I released the anxiety and the minor upset and the bitter taste that sits in your mouth after you’ve tried for something and, through no fault of your own, you’ve failed. The details are wholly irrelevant and unimportant. What is important is that, despite my OCD nature, I am ready to put that failure, that upset, behind me and move on. Part of why this is so is because of last night.

You see, every year, many (not all) of the churches in Hermantown, MN; the little city that has been the center of our family’s life for the past 27 years (mostly because that’s where our sons have all gone to school) gather together for an ecumenical Thanksgiving worship service. It’s one of the only times when the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, ELCA Lutherans, Presbyterians, and even (on at least one occasion) the Latter-day Saints worship together. I won’t pretend I’ve attended every one of these ecumenical celebrations. But whenever I have gone, I have carried away with me a sense of hope and promise that, despite the petty grievances and debates over ritual between denominations, is sustaining and real. Last night was no different. Thank God. It’s been a tough year and I needed the boost.

I am now at that age when my parents’ close friends, folks that were like extended uncles and aunts to me through nearly six decades of life (writing that phrase is daunting!) are passing away, one after another, leaving my parents behind. Now, don’t get me wrong: It is a real blessing to have Mom and Dad around. They’re both in their eighties, living independently and in good health. That, alone, is more than enough to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. But the recent deaths of some of their closest friends, folks who had a huge influence on who I am as a person, have taken some of the wind out of my sails, so to speak. Then there was, as I’ve written in detail, the loss of Mercedes, my mother-in-law, a woman who raised six children on a railroadman’s salary and did her very best to see that they all became good Christians and good citizens. That was a tough one because, even though she was 86, her passing was very unexpected. But the blessing in it is that, for over 35 years, I got to love her as my second mom and she (hopefully) got to love me.

My daughter-in-law Lisa has had it rough this year, rougher than me by a long shot. She lost her father, a guy not much older than me, to a sudden heart attack, and also her maternal grandfather, all in the span of four or five months. Though I didn’t know either man well, their passings touched me because of the pain I could see, and still can see, in Lisa’s eyes when we talk about the men who made a difference, who held her up, in her young life.

All of this loss, this passing (even though, outside of my mother-in-law’s death, I haven’t been touched by gut-wrenching, knock-you-on-your-ass sadness) is sort of like being bit by mosquitoes: The bites don’t have the sting of a hornet’s barb but they begin to bother you over time. Still, even with all that’s happened over the past year, I am a thankful man, though it took last night to reinforce that notion.

Cheryl and I have known each other since we were four years old. We’ve been church friends, work friends, and friends at large for most of our lives. She has had her ups and her downs over the years but, in the end, she’s turned out to be a hell of human being. She’s a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a civil servant, an Episcopal Priest, and an artisan. She was one of the guiding lights in the little Episcopal church that Rene’ and I and the boys attended for many years. Her preaching is powerful yet compassionate. Her singing voice is steady and true. Her ministering is fair and even-handed. So, when she and I talked in my judicial chambers about my decision to leave the Episcopal Church and attend an ELCA Lutheran church closer to home, there were tears and hugs and quite a bit of sadness. I was, and am, despite the transition that needed to be made for our family, so grateful, so thankful to have sung by her side and listened to her wisdom for all these years.

So last night. I wandered over to our new church, Grace Lutheran, for the ecumenical Thanksgiving service because, well, because I had to. The minor disappointment of the week, sitting as it was, on top of the larger losses of the past year, compelled me to seek solace in faith. I know, from year’s of casting petitions to the great beyond, that not every wish or desire or whim I send up to God in a prayer comes to fruition. But I also know that sitting in community with others, listening to sacred music, hearing the words of the Savior, never hurts. And so I went. I am so glad that I did.

It wasn’t a huge crowd, maybe eighty or so Christians from all faith traditions worshiping together. But the vibe was so calming and grace-filled, the size of the congregation really didn’t matter. The sermon was rock-solid, like Peter roaring at the crowd on his best day. Each pastor or priest played a part, no matter how large or how small, in the service, giving the ceremony legitimacy in ways that an ordinary service, conducted by a singular man or woman of God, cannot. But the best was yet to come.

Cheryl and the musical director of Grace stood shoulder to shoulder by the keyboard and sang a duet, so spiritual and soothing, so thanksgiving laden, that tears came to my eyes. The music moved me to understanding, to releasing my burdens and bowing my head in a gentle, calm, and sincere prayer:

“Thank you, God, for I am truly blessed.”

The faces of all those who have departed (and those still with us), the dozens if not hundreds of friends, family, teachers, religious leaders, co-workers, Boy Scout leaders, coaches, and all the others who have carried me this far in my life came into focus during my silent contemplation. And with that prayer came the reinforcement of spirit that I so desperately needed and this realization:

I know I am a blessed man; the father of four beautiful sons, the husband of a wonderful wife, and the son of two caring and loving parents.

Nothing life throws at me can change that truth.

Peace.

Mark

Rene' and Mark Munger at FOT 2011

I’ve done the Festival of Trees (FOT), an event sponsored by the Junior League of Duluth, ever since I became a published author. My first novel, The Legacy was published by Savage Press of Superior, WI in October of 2000. That November, I sat in the Savage Press booth during the FOT and sold books alongside the owner of the press, Mike Savage. I did so well that, the next year, I had my own booth space. Over the ten years CRP has been a presence at the craft show, it has done well. I’ve sold hundreds of books to folks (mostly women). This year’s event, sad to say, was not very productive.

Now, I’ll readily admit, that part of the problem is that I haven’t had a new book released since Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story came out in March of 2009. So It’s been over two years since a new “Munger” product has been released. And book buyers, whether they are purchasing for themselves or others, want a new book, something unique and never-before-seen, to either read themselves or give as a gift. I get that. But, with stock of four book titles on hand (out of eight), one might assume that there would be something for everyone interested in buying a book even without a new title. But it’s more than that, dear readers. It’s also, as someone during a debate once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” To be fair to the estrogen-driven female shoppers at this year’s FOT, I’d say my poor sales this year are a combination of not having “new” on hand to entice shoppers and the hard economic times we find ourselves in. I can remedy the first problem by releasing a new book (though, right now, I can’t afford to print it). But, like President Obama and Congress, I am clueless as to how to turn our dismal economy around.

Rene's Benches FOT 2011 CRP Booth

Thinking  about this weekend (two days of not many sales), maybe there’s more to this story than just product fatigue and global economic malaise. I come to this conclusion because, as the title to this piece says, I spent much of the weekend in my booth with Steve Jobs. No, I didn’t become delusional as I sat alone, waiting for customers, asking the perennial question I always ask: “Did John Grishom start this way?” (Actually, he did. A Time to Kill, his first effort, was self-published and languished in boxes in his basement until The Firm went ballistic.) I was reading, as I always do during down time at festivals, and my book of choice was the new biography of Apple icon and founder, Steve Jobs. I’ll save the review of the book for another blog but, suffice it to say, with all Jobs’s peculiarities, there’s one thing that has impressed me about the man’s story so far: He was always concerned with the aesthetics and the utility of his products. Keeping them beautiful and simple, while retaining functionality, was and is the hallmark of Apple’s product line. Reading the book got me to thinking (always dangerous, as my wife will attest): What if Cloquet River Press adopted the same business philosophy? What if, instead of perennially hitting my head against the wall, trying to break into a mainstream publisher through force of will, churning out manuscripts, sending out queries to agents and small presses, I simply took a step back, gathered my breath, and changed how Cloquet River Press does business? Interesting. What if, instead of trying to do things that big publishers are very, very good at (though their profit margins suck these days due to the onset of e-readers), like getting books into bookstores for strangers to read, I concentrate on my loyal fans, as small a base as that may be, and simply give them the best product I can produce? What if, when the next Munger book is released, it is done not with an eye towards pushing Mark Munger to a new level, but is released on a limited print basis (with e-book versions on all the major platforms) so that, in the end, I am not running hither and tither trying to sell books in the rain beneath my beloved EZ-Up? Craft shows were once the mainstay of what I did to sell books. Over the past three years, that avenue to sales has, even with a new book on the table (Mr Environment) dried up. Maybe the message that is being sent is: “Munger, it’s time to re-think, to re-vision what it is you’re trying to do.”

Over the next year, I will ponder more and travel less in an attempt to figure out what model makes the most sense for CRP. I’m tired of swinging for the fence only to hit pop flies: Better to wait for the right pitch and take a single. Steve Jobs likely wouldn’t be happy with that analogy: He’d urge me to swing for the fence. But in this changing world of print media, with a down economy and all the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring, maybe taking a deep breath and actually thinking about where I want to be with my writing and my stories is the right thing to do.

Peace.

Mark

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