Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

(Posted December 25, 2009)

I’ve plagiarized the above line from John Lennon more than once. It’s a trap of age, this repeating of quotations, stories from one’s youth, and the forgetting of names of actors in movies, friends long removed, or streets we’re trying to get to. But I have to admit as I look out the walls of windows which bless my writing space in our house just a few hundred feet from the Cloquet River, even with age creeping into my bones, I am truly humbled.

I have an astute and caring wife; four intelligent and healthy sons; a wonderful daughter-in-law; a neat young woman who’s a steadfast friend to my son Christian (and who, I hope, continues to be part of the family); many friends; and of course, extended family members, all of whom love me and I love them.

The wind outside is fierce. The snow (eighteen inches since yesterday and climbing) alternates between bitter pellets of ice and wickedly propelled gusts of solid white. The photograph inserted above is looking out my writing studio at my favorite tree. I’d guess the lone white pine framed by the birches and hanging on tenaciously by strong roots to the steep bank of the river is about fifty years old. The same age as me. That’s, as I’ve said, a guess. I’m no forester but I recognize the majesty and perfection of God’s handiwork in that pine. The fierce zephyr is blowing in from the east, off the big lake, and buffeting the pine to and fro as I type these words. I’m certain that the tree will withstand the storm. It’s seen far worse weather over it’s half century of life.

Today, my father, mother, brother, sister and their families, are due at our house to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. I’m in a bit of funk; not because the storm may cancel our family gathering. Such things are beyond my control and rest in the hands of the Creator. No, I am disconcerted because, for the first time in over twenty years, we were unable to make Christmas Eve service last night. Oh, we had good intentions to take in the sublime and sacred candlelight evening service at a local Lutheran church. But the weather caused the service to be canceled, leaving me with an empty feeling in my soul. And then there was the change of tradition occasioned by my son and daughter-in-law having to open their “Santa” packages, not on Christmas morning, as has been our family tradition for the entirety of my long life; but on Christmas Eve because they were due at her parents this morning. My wife is always quick to observe that my love of things past is sometimes endearing, sometimes vexing depending upon circumstances. Regardless of the label one places on my ennui, it exists despite all the positives one can stack against these minor disappointments. “I ams who I ams”, to quote that noted sage, Popeye the sailor man.

Whatever happens the remainder of this blustery morning, this is destined to be a memorable Christmas. There’s a chance this storm will equal the great Halloween Blizzard of 1991. That would very cool. Very cool indeed. As I finish this sentence, I receive a call. My second son, who borrowed my Pacifica to go into work last night, is now stuck in our driveway. His two younger brothers are being dispatched to his aid. Whether the van remains stuck or makes it to the house is out of my hands, as are so many things.

Merry Christmas to one and all.

Mark

(Posted December 9, 2009)

Hype. That’s what I see and hear every time I listen to modern day television weather casters. It’s Tuesday. I’m fighting through some nasty criminal court sentencings to get to my last book selling event of the year at Duluth Congregational Church out on the city’s east side. My courtroom has no windows so as I deliberate the fates of folks brought by the law before me, I can’t tell whether the hype about the upcoming snow storm is achieving fruition or is merely hyperbole concocted by the news media to sell ad space on television. By the time I finish the last hearing for the day, I am a half hour past when I was supposed to be at the church, setting up my table.

I race to the car. In the process of careening out of the county parking ramp, I remember I don’t have any five dollar bills in my wallet. Since I sell my books at five dollars off the cover price at events like the craft show at the Congregational church, fives are essential. I pull into a “no parking” zone next to the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Duluth, run like a scared rabbit through the frigid wind blowing in from Alberta, a precursor of the storm fueling endless discussion on “Garage Logic”, the Joe Soucheray radio show I’m listening to as I drive across town, grab a fist full of fives from a teller (I exchanged twenties for them, I didn’t pull a bank heist), and gun the Pacifica’s V-6 towards the far eastern reaches of Duluth.

“You’re late,” Wendy, the soft spoken organizer of the little craft festival says as I wander into the basement of the church at fifteen minutes to five. The event is already in progress. There are twenty or so vendors, some of whom I recognize from “the circuit” I’ve been working over the past ten yeas.

“I know. Court hearings ran late. I had to take another judge’s calendar.”

My statement is true. I ended up handling matters, serious, time consuming criminal matters, for another judge after he’d taken the pleas from folks who wished to avoid a jury trial. Three of the matters were extremely complex and took inordinate amounts of time. I’m frazzled and having Wendy point out the obvious doesn’t do much to calm my thumping heart. But she’s a nice woman. So I hold my tongue and we work it out. In a few minutes, my table is set up and I am open for business.

A few patrons brave the weather predictions and wander into the basement of the church, a building that looks like it was transported from Boston and planted on Superior Street right out of the early 1800s. I’m curious about Congregationalists. I’ve never been inside this particular church, nor any Congregational church, that I can think of. I know that some Congregationalists belong to the United Church of Christ, a very liberal branch of Protestantism. I don’t know what the affiliation of this particular congregation of Congregationalists is (that’s a mouthful!) and I don’t find out before the meager crowd dissipates and I pack up for home.

I sell some books, including four to another vendor, which happens to be my last sale of the year. As I’ve chronicled on this blog, it’s been a very, very taxing year for me and my little press. LeRoy Ullrich, the guy who buys the four books from me near the end of the show at the Congregational church, allows 2009 to end on a good note.

“Loved Suomalaiset,” he tells me, eyeing my other work.

“Then you’d probably like The Legacy,” I say, hopeful that I can lure him into a sale.

“I’d like to buy the four pack,” he says, referencing a grouping of my four novels I have on sale as a Christmas promotion. The pricing on the four books is such that I barely break even when they’re sold, a circumstance my wife uses to reinforce my lack of business sense whenever Cloquet River Press is discussed around the dinner table at home. “But I don’t need the Finn book,” LeRoy says. ” Can we substitute Doc the Bunny for Suomalaiset in the set?’

“How about Mr. Environment? It’s more expensive and I think you’d like it,” I offer, kindly reducing my profit margin even further.

“Sold.”

I repackage the four books, swipe LeRoy’s credit card, and the deal is done. What LeRoy tells me after I hand him the books makes the whole evening, hectic dash, anxious heart, and all, well worth it.

“I walk with a guy at the Mall every morning,” LeRoy says. “Lately, we’ve been exchanging John Sanford books but I’m tired of reading the same old story. I like your writing and I need something fresh. This will give me something new to read and exchange with the guy.”

LeRoy retreats across the carpeted floor of God’s house to his booth. The evening and my selling season ends with a big smile on my face and peace in my heart. As the show closes, I pack up plastic waterproof bins of books, tablecloths, and displays, and wheel heavy loads to the Pacifica already warming in the church parking lot. The promised snow hasn’t arrived, though the gusting air seems intent upon some sort of spectacle. I finish loading, shut the tailgate to my car, and zoom off into the dark winter night, traces of white fluttering against the car’s headlights as I head up the hill for home.

See you in the spring at an arts and crafts festival near you!

Mark

(Posted November 22, 2009)

The above heading isn’t quite right. The program I am using doesn’t let me add the Finnish umlauts that should be placed over the three a’s in the last word. And I might be murdering syntax and word order to boot. But, it’s close. As close as a Slovenian-German-Irish-English-Welshman will ever get to mastering Finnish when attempting to type “Thanks and Happy Birthday, Gerry!” to the editor of the New World Finn newspaper, Gerry Henkel. Gerry is the kind of guy who will understand when I murder his mother’s native tongue. He’ll smile and say, “Well, dammit, at least Munger tried.”

Saturday. Dawn. The sun is trying to burn through the ground fog roiling off the river. I fire up the Pacifica and head south on Rice Lake Road through an unfathomably warm November morning. I’m saddened by the tepid atmosphere, which, to a northeastern Minnesotan like me, seems false, somehow fraudulent. Any moment now, sixteen inches of snow could dump on my head. That could be followed by two weeks of sub-zero cold. Doesn’t happen on this day. But it could. And that’s why the morning doesn’t ring true for me as I coast down Mesaba Avenue through a cityscape shrouded in dense comforters of fog.

I park the car and enter the DECC ballroom complex. I’m here to sell books at another craft show; the Festival of Trees put on by the Duluth Junior League. Throughout the day, sales are brisk. Better than last year. I talk writing and books with customers, catch up with old friends, and read short stories out of Glimmer Train magazine, one of the finest literary fiction magazines in America. Reading great stories written by other writers used to traumatize my ego; not so now that I’ve been at this writing thing for a while. I love great story telling, whether it’s my own or someone else’s.

Saturday night. My wife and I join fifty or so friends of Gerry Henkel at Norway Hall on Lake Avenue in downtown Duluth to honor Gerry’s work on behalf of Finnish, Finnish American, and Finnish Canadian musicians, artists, poets and writers. I’m a non-Finn hanging out with Finns; invited by the birthday boy himself to read a selection from Suomalaiset at the celebration. The music is great; the poetry phenomenal; Munger’s prose, so-so; but the man of the hour, true to his heritage, is humble and self-depreciating, though he does overcome his innate Finnish recalcitrance to join two dozen other celebrants in a serpentine dance across the burnished hardwood floor of the old Norwegian hall.

Sunday. Sales at the Festival of Trees slow to a trickle. I study a textbook in preparation for tomorrow night’s class at the University of Wisconsin, Superior where I teach criminal law. I sell a few more books before packing up my display and loading the car. I’m out of the DECC in less than half an hour. It’s my last show of the season and I’m looking forward to relaxing in a hot bath and reading a few pages of A Prayer for Own Meany as I unwind from a long and arduous year.

That’s essentially it in terms of Munger’s book selling exploits for the year, kids. Catch up with me next summer at a festival near you. Until then, I’ll try to entertain you with silly stories from my life as a district court judge, father, and semi-famous regional writer. Keep your eyes peeled for updates to this blog until the festival season begins anew.

Peace, and as that sage north woods philosopher, Red Green, would say: “Keep your stick on the ice.”

Mark

(Posted November 17, 2009)

I-35 bleeds through northern Minnesota. I speed along the arterial blacktop in my Pacifica towards another craft show. This weekend it’s an indoor show, the largest in Minnesota, held at Canterbury Downs in Shakopee. The show is four days long (Thursday through Sunday). I drive down on Wednesday, Veteran’s Day. Because the courthouse is closed on Veteran’s Day, I’m only burning up two vacation days instead of three. I listen to veterans’ stories on MPR, including a series of cassette tapes recorded by a Minnesota soldier while he was “in country” in Vietnam; tapes he sent back home to his family. Listening to his vision of “war is hell”, I think about the last American WWI veteran, Frank Buckles, now 108 years old. Though Buckles drove ambulances and didn’t see actual combat in the Great War, the fact that he’s still alive serves as a connection to a bygone age of empire building and senseless trench warfare and rekindles visions (nightmares, really) of senseless slaughter.

The PBS commentaries eat up the clock and, before I know it, I am parked in the Canterbury lot, trying to figure out where my booth might be located within the labyrinthine structure. I find someone who knows something (I surely don’t) and begin the slow process of setting up my booth.

I spend my days in my booth reading Lust for Life, a decent novel about the life of Vincent Van Gogh, and waiting for folks to stop in and buy my books. Few customers ply my wares. I grow closer and closer to Van Gogh’s madness as I wait…wait…wait. For the few patrons who stop, I repeat mundane descriptions of my books over and over and over again. I feel more like a used car salesman than a writer. Bored out of my skull, I fixate on the tender cartilage of my right ear and eye a comely young woman as she sashays by.

Maybe if I sliced off my ear and handed it to her, she’d buy my book.

Of course, I don’t dismember myself to sell a $20.00 novel to a stranger at a discount; I simply hold my breath and pout. Just like I did when I was seven. Didn’t work then; doesn’t work now. By Saturday afternoon when my wife, my sister-in-law (I’m staying at her house in Lakeville) and my mother-in-law traipse into my booth, I’m nearly as crazed as the Dutch painter, anxious for companionship, desperate to make sales. I’m also battling (as one of our female judges at the courthouse would derisively label it) “a man cold”; one of those little flu-like bugs that starts high in the sinuses and eeks its way down into your throat, eventually making you feel like crap. It’s just what I need while I work ten hour days surrounded by Luddites who don’t read.

Sunday morning. After four nights of sleeping on my sister-in-law’s couch, I’m ready to pack up. I sell a few more books and Jack (my twelve-year-old son) and my sister-in-law Colleen show up to help tear down. I leave Jack in charge of the booth and wander through the depleted crowd of last minute shoppers (99% of whom are women) to find my Pacifica, get in line with other exhausted, cranky vendors, and move my mini-van into position to begin the load out. An hour and a half later, I pull my car into an empty parking space and start cramming my display into the back of the Pacifica. My head cold has settled in nicely, clouding my judgment beyond the residue of dementia caused by finishing the Van Gogh book (Why would anyone shoot themselves in the stomach?); my back is once again aching, sending shooting pains into the toes of both feet; and my patience (the little that I was born with) has dissipated like summer rain striking sun-warmed stones. I send my sister-in-law home with scant thanks (I’ll need to do more; she and Jack put everything from the booth into boxes and plastic bins while I was listening to idiots talk Vikings football on the radio). Jack and I load the Pacifica and drive to a nearby McDonald’s. After a brief flurry of teeth on burgers and hurried slurps of milk shake, we head home.

If my musings don’t send you to a shrink (maybe we could share a therapist and split the bill?) come visit me at the Festival of Trees in Duluth this weekend.

Peace.

Vincent.

(Posted November 8, 2009)

OK, I know. Henry David Thoreau, famed writer, thinker and Unitarian Universalist is dead. So I wasn’t really with him yesterday at Duluth’s UU church. But I was with some of his modern day pals; fellow UU’ers who were helping the Lake Superior Writers put on a book sale and reading series at the new digs of the Unitarian Universalists on College Street in Duluth.

The day was too darn nice to be in a church, even one as environmentally sensitive as the new UU structure. I drove into Duluth a bit early. The autumnal sun and southerly breeze warmed the air to temperatures more appropriate for late September. With time to kill, I did what any native Duluthian would do. I drove to the end of Park Point, climbed a sand dune, and found a place to worship the glorious day. The truth of it is that spending time on Park Point in sixty degree weather in early November isn’t “killing time”; it’s relishing every moment of life God has seen fit to bless you with. That’s what I did. It’s likely what Thoreau would do.

I sat in the brilliant sun, listening to the gentle tapping of Lake Superior against the rose red sand of the Point, straining to ignore the sounds of children and cars and dogs and screeching trucks competing with the lake’s deftly whispered voice.

I don’t do enough of this, I thought. Rene’ is right. I need to slow down.

But then, of course, it was time to get back to the business of hawking books. I uncoiled my legs, rose from the ground, and brushed the sand of the Point off my jeans before driving back up the hill to Thoreau’s church. After unpacking my wares and organizing my table, I sold a few books to strangers, talked to some folks I knew, and made a new friend. Fortuitously, my new friend (a lady poet) wandered into the Irish pub I’d chosen to launch my “slowing down” protocol after the book fair. She joined me and ordered a pint (I was already deep into my second). We shared a few laughs while we waited for time to pass: her spouse was meeting her at the pub; mine was driving down the hill to meet me for dinner. When my glass was empty, I said my adieu and left the lady poet to her pint, a growing crowd, and an empty table. After spending a bit of time with her, I’m uncertain if she’s one of Henry Thoreau’s pals or not. But I do like her poetry.

Catch me this week, from Thursday to Sunday, at Canterbury Downs in Shakopee. And if you’re a pal of Thoreau’s, make sure you let me know how he’s doing.

Peace.

Mark

(Posted November 1, 2009)

The rain is unrelenting as my Pacifica speeds south towards the Episcopal Diocesan Convention at the Marriot in downtown Minneapolis. The windshield wipers of the car barely keep up with the pounding of water on glass. It’s my 55th birthday, or, as one friend from Trinity Episcopal Church will later remind me, “the speed limit birthday”. Of course, that could apply to many numbers: 30, 35, 40, 45, etc…But I get the drift of the comment. And it does seem, as my car plows through puddles of water draining off the roadway, that this birthday, more than any other, is some sort of a milestone. The only good thing about the drive is that John Prine is singing to me. “She is My Everything” blares over the six speaker stereo of my car as I drive through darkness and murk. There’s something about a John Prine song, even the ones that are sad and desolate, that makes the day worth getting up for. Few singer-songwriters can take trouble and longing and make them seem joyful. John Prine can.

After setting up my table in the market hall of the convention, I spy our current Bishop, Bishop Jim, working the crowd. I’m a life-long Episcopalian, which means I’m a disobedient Catholic or an uppity Lutheran; take your pick. I’ve attended dozens of these conventions as a delegate, casting votes on various topics, including the election of Bishop Jim a long time ago. But this year, I’m only here to sell my books to fellow Anglicans. I know the Guy in the Big Hat (that’s what I call Bishop Jim) has taken some shots for his style of management. But I like the guy. Always have. He helped get our little church in Hermantown off the ground more than a decade ago. He dreams big dreams for his flock. I wish him well in retirement, though I never get to tell him any of this over the two days of convention.

Sales are, to be blunt, dismal. Detecting my funk, two women from my church convince me to go with them to the Dakota Jazz Club for dinner. I order a couple of glasses of good Merlot, pumpkin soup, prime rib of pork, and top it all off with a birthday dessert. The food is great; the music fabulous; the company, welcome, though later, I sleep like crap in my rented hotel bed 170 miles away from my wife on my birthday.

In the morning, I resume my place behind my table and chat with the guys in the booth next door. They’re architects who build churches. We have some nice exchanges, avoiding hot-button topics like Iraq and that idiot of a man, Dick Cheney who has just come out criticizing President Obama for “dithering” on the war in Afghanistan. I’m a writer. I can tell you that, in over a million words of prose written over two plus decades, I’ve never had an occasion to use “dithering” in my work. But if I had, I would have applied it in the negative to President Bush and his evil henchmen, as in: “I wish these idiots would dither a bit before sending soldiers and marines off to die”. (Note: According to Webster’s Dictionary (Unabridged, 2nd Ed.) in northern English, the word “dither” means “to tremble with excitement or fear”. I’m sure that this definition is spot on when applied to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Not a one of them served their country honorably in time of war; but they were all as giddy as hell to send the sons and daughters of my friends and neighbors off to die in a war of convenience).

I hold my tongue, keeping the peace, and the architects leave shortly before the marketplace closes. I stay on for a bit, hoping to make one last sale, a sale which never happens. I pack up before the final vote is taken on Bishop Jim’s replacement. I’m rooting for a female priest (who served on the Standing Committee with me) to win the election. I learn later that she, like my books, doesn’t fare so well with our fellow Episcopalians.

Catch me next Saturday in Duluth at the Unitarian Church from 2-6.

Peace.

Mark

(Posted October 11, 2009)

I drove south on I-35 in the early morning light. I was on my way to the Rain Taxi Twin Cities Book Festival. Rain Taxi is the name of a book review periodical headquartered in Minneapolis and for the last decade, the magazine has sponsored the only enduring book festival in Minnesota. Duluth tried one (the Great Northern Festival of Words), an ill-fated effort that essentially fell apart before it opened, and Mankato tried to replicate the Rain Taxi experience with its Deep River Book Festival alongside the slowly churning waters of the Minnesota River only to see the event whither on the vine. You’d think that, in a state which prides itself on a highly educated populace, Minnesota would have a festival akin to the Printer’s Row Book Festival in Chicago; a week long celebration of writers, poets, and publishers centered along four blocks of downtown Chicago. Such is not the case. Maybe it’s our Midwestern modesty that prevents us Minnesotans from thinking big. Maybe the vast educated masses in our state are into twittering and texting; the printed word, the feel of a good book in one’s hands having been left in the dust of 1’s and 0’s.

Anyway, as my Pacifica skittered along the first snow of the year (isn’t it a bit early, folks?), I watched the sun rise. Geese flew overhead in their seemingly inexhaustible southern parade. Sunlight reflected off remnant leaves of maples and oaks lining the freeway; new light enunciating the colors of autumn, forming cascades of scarlet, yellow, brown and gold against the starkness of the white ground. Slowed by road construction, I arrived a few minutes before the scheduled 10:00am opening of the festival. Because I had no tent to set up and no tables to carry into the hall, I was able to be open for business in the span of a few minutes.

Folks began to mill around. John Helland, a friend of my Uncle Willard’s and the creator and promoter of an educational video about Willard’s life (see the “links” section to watch a clip of the film) stopped by to render encouragement. My son Chris and his girlfriend Sarah came to cheer me up. And then a guy wearing sunglasses and the demeanor of a musician stopped by to shoot the breeze, having been alerted to my presence at the festival by his cousin, a fan of my book, Soumalaiset: People of the Marsh.

Virginia, Minnesota native Paul Metsa bent my ear about writing and publishing and then asked me what I thought about the state of the arts in Duluth. He’s got something driving him, gnawing at his craw. An idea. I won’t divulge it here because he’s not ready to let it fly in public, but it sounds good. Real good. Coming from a guy who played at the Woody Guthrie Tribute in Cleveland, alongside Springsteen, Pete Seeger, Ani DeFranco and the Indigo Girls, I’d say he’s got a shot. We’ll see. He left me some of his musings from life on the road to look over. Good stuff. Real good stuff. A much different flavor and tone than my own writing but then, Paul Metsa is obviously a much different guy than me.

After selling a few books, I packed up and hit the road. Back in Duluth, my twelve-year-old son was having five buddies sleep over to celebrate his birthday. My wife was alone with the six little devils. I put the pedal to the metal and cruised north against a waning sky to save her.

Catch me at my booth during the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota in Minneapolis on October 30th and 31st at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Peace

Mark

(Posted October 5, 2009)

The title of this post may be lost on some of you under the age of fifty. Or on those of you who aren’t fans of Joe Walsh. No, not the guy who hosts “America’s Most Wanted” (that’s John Walsh). Joe Walsh, as in lead singer and guitarist of the James Gang, Cleveland’s quintessential rock trio. Joe Walsh, lately of the sardonic and cynical California-based mega group, The Eagles. Joe Walsh, while with The James Gang, wrote a beautiful song, “The Ashes, the Rain and I”. I just changed one little word in the song’s title to convey my own sense of irony. Or not.

Friday. I’m headed east on Douglas County Highway 13 towards the Apple Festival in Bayfield, Wisconsin. The sky is so heavy with rain, the landscape feels claustrophobic. As I wind my way along the south shore of Lake Superior, I see a distant sliver of blue sky, which may or may not be an opening in the deluge. All I can do is hope. There’s scant traffic along the two-laner: not a good sign. Even on a Friday, there should be traffic headed towards the festival. Even at seven o’clock in the morning. There isn’t. Fat rain drops splat against the windshield of my Pacifica. I say a selfish prayer. Though there is no rain falling in Bayfield when I arrive, my friends, Donna and Pat Surface convince me to forgo setting up my booth. Forty-mile-an-hour gusts of cold will surely twist the slender frame of my display tent into something akin to a pretzel. I set up one table displaying a few books near the open rear hatch of my car, intent upon leaving at the first sign of rain. I sell one copy of Pigs before the sky opens up. By noon, I am back on the road for home.

Saturday. There is no rain falling in Fredenberg, the township I live in north of Duluth. That changes once I get close to the big lake. Lake Superior has captured the center of a slow moving storm. The storm cell sits over Duluth like a greedy child hunkered over a box of candy. The rain pelts my car as I cross the Bong Bridge into Wisconsin. The rain is omnipresent as I make my way to Bayfield. Despite the weather, I manage to set up my tent, arrange my books and await the throng. The crowd never shows up. The few folks who brave the slippery streets of the little fishing village walk by empty-handed. They aren’t even toting the customary bags of apples which, year after year, are the mainstay of the festival. The crowd seems only interested in food, shelter and finding a porta-potty. In my eight years of selling my books at the Apple Festival, this is by far the worst Saturday of my tenure, which is a bad sign since Saturday is always the best day of the festival. After a cold, wet and agonizingly long day, I enclose my EZ Up and head for home. A hot bath and a movie with my wife do little to improve my mood. I collapse into a funk as deep and as gray as the day I spent on the waterfront trying to sell books.

Sunday. There is the promise of redemption on the Sabbath. The sky continues to dispense rain but the nearer I draw to Bayfield, the brighter the aspect of the day. I greet Pat and Donna with faux optimism. The people begin to wander in and and out of the booths lining ManyPenny, the street where my booth as been located for eight years. A few buy books, but their purchases aren’t enough to save the weekend. Just as the festival draws to a close, blue sky appears. Slashes of sunlight warm the wet blacktop as I make my escape.

Hope to see you all next weekend at the Rain Taxi Festival of Books in downtown Minneapolis.

Peace.

Mark

(Posted September 25, 2009)

That’s Finnish for “thanks”. What do I mean? Here’s the story.

After work, I head north on Highway 53 to do a book signing and a lecture. Two nice ladies greet me with coffee and cookies at Books on Chestnut in Virginia, Minnesota. I’m in town promoting my historical novel, Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh, a book that exists purely by happenstance. A few folks stop by and buy books. At six, I make my way towards Kaleva Hall where I’m scheduled to talk about the book.

Back when Finnish immigrants were unappreciated by most Americans (unappreciated except for their strong wills, stronger backs and undaunted work ethic) Finns weren’t generally welcome in existing fraternal or service organizations. Of course, many of the immigrants spoke only Finnish, a difficult language, one linked only to Estonian and (more remotely) Hungarian etymologically, which made them poor candidates for assimilation. Shut out from the Masons and their ilk (and being resourceful as all get out) the Finns created the Knights and Ladies of Kaleva to promote the Finnish language, culture and (originally) temperance. Sadly, like most fraternal organizations, the men and women of Kaleva are no longer engaged in a growth industry. Folks today are too busy, too self-centered for such things. But, fueled by sisu (fortitude), the Knights and the Ladies of Kaleva persist in small places like Virginia, Minnesota.

Virginia’s Kaleva Hall is an impressive building. With its hipped metallic roof and freshly painted colonnades, Kaleva Hall is as distinctive as the St. Louis County courthouse or Virginia city hall. Inside, the building has been carefully restored to its former glory.

Diane Langlee and her husband greet me,feed me, and then usher me up the steep stairway into the meeting hall. A refurbished tin ceiling soars several dozen feet above a freshly polished wood floor. This generosity of space gives the room an aspect of being something much larger, much more important, than a fraternal gathering place for an ethnic minority. But then, what could be more important than the preservation of a way of life, a language and a culture?

I am nervous. There have been many times over the course of my writing and publishing career when my modest expectations at such events have been crushed by disinterest. Not so on this night. The hall fills with folks of all ages. Diane introduces me. I read a couple of passages from the book. The crowd seems intent and interested. I explain my strange compulsion for writing and self-publishing. I take questions. We engage in sincere and thoughtful dialogue. It is one of the best nights of my writerly existence.

Kiitos, Diane and all my uusi ystavat.

(Sorry, this program has no umlauts!)

Mark

(Posted September 21, 2009)

“Hi Mark”, a familiar voice from the distant past says as I sit in my EZ Up tent watching folks stroll by, soft autumn light, the last true light of the year before the sun descends to irrelevancy washing the scene. Her name is Kim. She and I dated a few times in high school. We’ve known each other for the better part of five decades of life, having gone from elementary to high school together. I also know her brothers; quick footed guys who were fast around the old cinder track at Duluth Denfeld. We chat for a moment or two. I am happy for her. She looks great, younger than her years and tan despite a summer of clouds, cool weather and little sun. She and her friend turn and walk away, their path taking them down a ribbon of asphalt between the changing leaves of aspen, birch and maple trees. Reds, yellows and browns intermix with the greens of spruce and pine. Additional colors; patrons wearing loud pinks, subtle blues, and the like; move through the natural pallet of Chester Park’s woods as folks wander in and out of vendors’ tents in curiosity.

Rene’ comes back with a hot cup of coffee and mini-donuts. One can never sit at a craft show and not eat a bag or two of mini-donuts. The cinnamon and sugar explode in my mouth. I wash the doughy texture down with coffee. My wife and I talk about her latest endeavour; mosaics inlaid on concrete benches. Across the diminished trickle of Chester Creek, perched high above the bustle of humanity below, the rusted skeletons of two abandoned ski jumps rise unnaturally above the trees. I remember being recruited by Elwood Ramfjord, a neighbor guy, a guy who had four daughters but no sons, to carry on his legacy as a competitive ski jumper. I was eight years old when he bought me a pair of jumping skis and tried to get me to soar into the blue winter sky off Little Chester, the least onerous of the two remaining jumps. I wouldn’t do it. Not then. Not now. I don’t view myself as a coward, and lord knows I had my moments of delinquency as a child. But there are certain laws that I will not offend. Gravity is one of them.

Look for me (I’m the one who’ll be carrying concrete benches with a bad back) at the Apple Festival in Bayfield, Wisconsin October 2,3 and 4.

Peace.

Mark