Between Yesterday and Tomorrow

On Sunday I glanced at the lake from Atwater Bluff, expecting nothing special. Yet it was spectacular! What made the lake look that way? There were dark streaks, turquoise streaks, and a startling band of white in the distance, probably a mix of mists and cloud reflections.

That's what's so fascinating about life: I never know what I'll find somewhere until I get there, what friends, what strangers, what mists.

I of course have no idea who will show up at Friday night's reception in our gallery. I do know what work is there! Adolph recently moved his BALCONY from the Regent's Board Room at UWM's Chapman Hall to the gallery, and his Oriental Pharmacy Lunch Counter is still there. I just set up a show of dancer drawings that I did last year when Margot Sappington was setting Common People for the Milwaukee Ballet. These drawings aren't yet on our web site, but some earlier dancers are. Our guest artist is Joe Boblick. You can see his work in the MIAD Online Gallery.

As for the Artist Marketplace on Saturday, I'm not yet sure what sculptures, what paintings, what drawings we'll use, don't know if our tent will consent to another fair, don't know if the weather will be fair. What I do know are the details of both events, if all pans out as planned:

FRIDAY, July 25, 7 to 10 PM, reception at Rosenblatt Gallery, work by Adolph & Suzanne Rosenblatt & Joe Boblick, 181 N Broadway, in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward
SATURDAY, July 26, 10 AM to 5 PM, Fourth Annual Artist Marketplace, in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 North Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee
 
 

People use a plastic bag, and then what? Into the garbage, into the gutter, into the tree, into the sea. I’ve been thinking a lot about plastic bags recently. China actually banned them! So did San Francisco. And New York is thinking about it. I looked at the Reusable Bag website, which made me think even more about these airy objects that flutter through our lives for minutes or hours, then remain on earth forever.

I’m a member of the Shorewood Conservation Committee, and we, too, want to do something about the bag problem! For the past nine months we’ve been working on a major project: designing, getting sponsors for, and producing reusable bags to distribute to all 6900 households in Shorewood. And now we've finally come to the big moment, the distribution stage. Here's our plea for volunteers:

Awareness of the Shorewood Conservation Committee (the ConCom) is growing in the village and will really go through the roof when all 6900 households receive one of our reusable green bags on July 19th.

We've already collated and paper-clipped together 13 inserts for each of the bags, including one that introduces the ConCom and gives green hints. Now we need volunteers to stuff the bags with the collated inserts and to deliver them. Specifically, we need volunteers for the following:

Bag assembly:
Thursday, July 17th, 9:30 - 5:30, 6:30-8:30 Village Hall
Friday, July 18th, 9 - 5:30, Village Hall
Saturday, July 19th 8am-noon, Village Center North (lower level library)*This is a back-up shift only, please try to make one of the other two days.

Bag Delivery:
Saturday, July 19th, 9-5, Village Center North (lower level library). We hope you'll come early and stay as long as you can! Volunteers will arrive throughout the day.

Please email Kim F.  <kim@forbeck.com> or call her at 332-7024 if you’d like to help.
 

The Great Depression was definitely not the good old days, yet that's when the federal government actually came to the rescue of artists! My friend Susan Quinn has written a book about this, Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times, and she's coming to Schwartz on Oakland to talk about it this Thursday, July 10, at 7 PM.

Studs Terkel wrote: "Susan Quinn has gifted us with a key moment in the history of F.D.R.'s New Deal. Especially thrilling and revelatory is the work of the Arts Project of the WPA. Not only were there rakes and shovels, jobs and food for family, there was exhilarating and hopeful theatre, music, and painting, lifting our spirits. They gave us all hope." And here's an excerpt from a Publisher's Weekly starred review: "Quinn (Marie Curie) does a superb job of recounting the rise and fall of the Federal Theatre Project…describes eloquently and artfully a not-so-distant time when a nation bled and great artists rushed as healers into the countryside. " 

Susan is an excellent writer, so come to her book talk and signing:
Thursday, July 10, 7:00 pm
Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, 4093 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood, Wisconsin

Several years ago I stood at the top of Atwater Bluff and watched a storm move over the lake, towards me, towards me, and finally above me. Everything I wore was wet with rainwater. I thought it was pure, clean, no need for the washer and dryer, I’d hang my soggy jeans on the line. That’s when I discovered the reek of acid rain.

Since then I haven’t purposely let a storm drench me, no matter how dramatic its entrance into the eastern sky. I do walk or bike to the bluff, especially for spring and summer sunsets, whenever I get the chance. Sometimes I merely admire the scene, sometimes I draw, sometimes I write. And I hope that the only drops falling on me will be eavesdrops.

My purse is filled with pieces of scrap paper, shorthand scribbles legible only to me. Here’s one about two or three weeks old: Two days ago at the verge of sunset, the Atwater Beachscape mesmerized all of us there to celebrate a break in the rains. The pastel pink clouds to the south were so distinct they appeared outlined. The still water, luminous as it reflected the vanishing light from the west, was streaked aqua and pink. And now I’m here again, same time of day, benched on the landing one flight above the sand.
“So many steps, this is absurd,” mutters someone climbing upwards.
“Long way down there,” says a woman peering from the top.
“A lotta stairs.”
“Look at all these steps.”
“It’s a long way down,” a boy’s voice this time.
The light gradually turns dreamlike, but tonight everyone’s looking at the steps.

Here’s a piece of paper that actually has a date, June 25: It’s stunning again tonight, but people as always trudge up and down, attention focused on steps instead of pink-blue sky reflected on pink-blue lake.
“I thought you said you were gonna carry me.”
“Carry you? No. You need an army to carry you!”
The redwing black birds converse in melodic bird chirps. It's hard to imagine what they're saying. Do they, too, love luminosity?
Still water, rippled streaks, colors subtle, alluring, luring me to stay when it’s time to go.
Bird speak, bird cheep, bird trill, tones sweet, getting dark, three-dimensional bird-sounds, gulls add their sour notes. It’s hard for me to leave the birdversation.

I’ve been a shore bird my whole life, writing, drawing, painting, contemplating. So I’ll end with one of my lake poems, written years ago:

THE DARK SIDE

Where the surface is textured
Like treads on a tire
The water is dark,
But where it is calm
There is light,
Where it is calm
There is light,
Perhaps that's why lakes
are streaked.

Where warmth and cold meet
There's traveling heat
Creating wind, gale, breeze.
If there were no cold,
where would warmth go?
If there were no cold,
where would warmth go?
Would there be currents
in lakes, lagoons, seas,
Would there be currents
in me?

The outside opposes,
Or flows with,
the currents beneath,
Affecting the light side
The dark side, the streaks.
What would light fill
If darkness weren't there?
What would light fill
If darkness weren't there?
Would there be currents
in me?

The inside opposes
or flows with
Crosses
or goes with
Exposes or hides.
Unlike the lake
our surface being skin
Makes less transparent
the currents within
The light sides, the dark sides
What do our hides hide?
Why do we live our lives streaked?
 

I was fast-walking along Olive, halfway between Murray and Oakland, when I saw the bus pass by, second time in a week I’d just missed it. Was I doomed to be a bus-misser?

No! I took off down Olive, heavy backpack bouncing. I wished I weren’t such a slow runner. At least the traffic moved slowly, Oakland being an obstacle course. I was a constant half-block behind the bus, couldn’t seem to get any closer. Ah! Red light at Capital, the bus was stuck there. First time in 39 years the interminable light functioned to my advantage, and I actually outran the bus.

That was April 19. And recently I saw a woman in her 80’s hobble along for almost a block and beat the bus to the bus stop. We still have the obstacle course. How long is it now?

I soak up people’s comments as I walk around Shorewood: “Are people in Shorewood very rich? They‘re doing all that work! Who’s paying for it?”

“At least it looks attractive and will last forever.”

“Why are they changing the street lights? What was wrong with the old ones?”

“Are the new lights solar-powered?”

“They should have gotten the road out of the way first, then done the walks.”

I’ve been concerned about the lack of concern for pedestrians, especially the elderly, the confusion in crossing the street and in finding safe pathways. And I’ve wondered about the effect of all this on business-owners.

The strangest part of the project is the four by eight foot (eyeball estimates!) concrete frames that surround the trees, go right to the curb, and are about six inches high! One friend wondered if they’d damage the plows when workers clear the walks in winter. I wondered whether they’d trip up pedestrians, especially when hidden under snow.

But there’s one comment that really sticks with me. Someone said, “I guess they’re not going to allow parking along Oakland.”
“What do you mean?”
“People won’t be able to open their car doors.” And she pointed to the framing around the trees. So now I’ve started looking at the height of car door bottoms.
 

We don’t have to travel between poles these days for polar extremes; we can just stay in one spot almost anywhere on Earth. Certainly this winter was a swinger, with thaws and freezes, and the spring keeps swinging, too. I keep thinking how hard it is to be a farmer. I can’t even get my garden planted.

We spent June 7 in Shorewood. In the morning we stood for an hour under skin-burning sun as we waited for our turn at the Police Department’s annual bike sale. Yet the day was no scorcher. After we bought bikes for two of our grandkids, I gardened, did chores, ran errands, then the phone rang.
“Grandma, are you still taking us to St. Roberts Fair?”
 “Well, there’s a tornado warning, severe storm warning, thunder, lightening, and it’s already raining. Are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes.”
It wasn't raining hard, and the tornado warning sirens were no longer wailing, so I grabbed a couple of ponchos and ran to visit the grandkids and try to change their minds.

At the fair the tents were closed, and fair-goers were gathered in the gym, several of them watching the weather report on TV. Inside the gym were cakes, candies, crafts, and used books, games, and videos; outside was the deluge.

We bought some books, then had a choice: waiting or wading. The children just wanted to get home, so we picked wading, and slogged through the streams on the sidewalks and in the streets. “Grandma, do you think there’ll be a flood?”

And that brings me to Noah. We can’t build arks and float our way out of this one. We may merely bail out our basements today. Bailing ourselves out of the mess humans have created on the planet will require drastic lifestyle changes. Worldwide. We’d better believe it.
 

When I think of a pun, it’s so much fun, that I don’t let go. Following my last post, JUST SAY MOW, which seemed to me quite apropos, for mowing’s cheap to do. Or UWM could get a cow, then I’d call this JUST SAY MOO. Well, I know UWM can’t have a cow. A neighbor of mine once wanted a goat grazing on her grass, and the Village of Shorewood just said no.  

I sent an Email, UWM Sprayed Again, to my Grass Roots list, and poets Susan Firer (Milwaukee Poet Laureate) and Jim Hazard sent this letter to Kate Nelson at UWM. They also plan to edit it to distribute to their neighbors. If some of you have neighbors who spray, perhaps you, too, would like to edit and use it!

Dear Kate Nelson,
I heard on WUWM today UWM bragging about its Green Ethic.  However, the recent spraying of the campus by TruGreen has no place in anyone's Green Ethic. Reliable studies have linked pesticides to a six-fold increase in childhood leukemia (Journal of the National Cancer Institute and American Journal of Public Health), have shown that dogs exposed to lawn pesticides are 4 to 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with bladder cancer (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association), and have demonstrated the link between long-term exposure to pesticides and neuron damage that triggers Parkinson's disease (UCLA study reported in Chicago Tribune).

This glaring contradiction between public relations statements and university actions is a very serious matter, affecting anyone who sets foot on the campus grounds and the surrounding community.  Its effects extend beyond the immediate locale since the run off of pesticides and fertilizers does great harm to Lake Michigan's water quality and contributed to the dangerous presence of E. coli on area beaches: a strange policy given the information to that effect UWM's Great Lakes Water Institute has researched and published.

I hope the university will reconsider this irresponsible social behavior, change its policy toward harmful lawn treatment chemicals, and assume community leadership in this serious public health matter.
Susan Firer and Jim Hazard
 

One of the advantages to living in Shorewood is our proximity to UWM. This is self-evident, so I won't try to elaborate! There's also a downside to living near the university: when UWM sprays, the whole neighborhood is forced to inhale!

Last Saturday the fumes were so strong I felt nauseous when I tried to bike past, yet people sat in the TruGreen grass right next to the little white signs. They clearly felt that the university sets an example and practices safe lawn care. I called John Krezoski in the Safety and Assurances Dept at UWM (414.229-5265) and left him a message expressing my disappointment.

I'd been told he's the person to call since this is a safety issue. It IS definitely a safety issue, especially when the fumes are sickening and the lawn care company is TruGreen. One place out of many to get additional info on TruGreen is on the Refuse To Use Chemlawn web site. 

The university is worried about people who don't like dandelions. This seems strange to me since Warren Porter, one of the country's top researchers into the effects of pesticides, works at UW-Madison. Here's a quote from his web site: "Subtle Biological Effects of Environmental Contaminants: We have serious concerns about children exposed to low level pesticide mixtures from lawns and in the food, water, and air that passes through their bodies.  Children do not have defensive enzymes at levels present in sexually mature adults. Our 2002 paper showed that a common lawn chemical pesticide mixture can induce abortions and resorptions of fetuses at very low parts per billion concentrations. The greatest effect was at the lowest dose.  Thanks to Richard Dwelle and Dr. James Jaeger, we have an extraordinarily sensitive new means of measuring mouse learning abilities at many levels.  We are currently conducting long term studies to explore the effects of subtle low level pesticide mixture exposures on learning abilities, immune function, hormone levels, and developmental disorders."

Perhaps UW-Milwaukee could use some of the research findings from UW-Madison to educate the public here in Milwaukee. 

Our brother-in-law, Marshall Goldman, may be known as a scholar, but we always think first of his humor! This Friday, May 16, 7 PM, you'll have a chance to hear him in person at Schwartz  Bookshops, 4093 N Oakland Avenue in Shorewood.

Here's an excerpt from Marvin Kalb's review of Marshall's latest book, “Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia”: "This may be Goldman's best book, and that's saying a lot. Focusing on Putin's Russia with a scholar's commitment to deep and meaningful research and a reporter's eye for detail and color, Goldman has explained why and how Russia has again emerged as a global power.." --Marvin Kalb, former Moscow bureau chief for CBS News.

I asked Marshall to send me something about his book to forward to our list, and here it is: Less than a decade ago,  Russia was effectively bankrupt.  Its banks were closed and its debt worthless.  Then in August 1999 Putin was appointed prime minister.  Now Russia has the world's third largest holding of reserves, its banks are profitable and its GDP has doubled.  No wonder the Russian people credit Putin with this turnaround.  Would Russia be any different today if someone else had been appointed instead?  The answer is yes and no.   Because Russia today is the world's largest producer of petroleum, no matter who would have been appointed prime minister, Russia today would be prosperous.  But Putin did make a difference. In what way?  What are the implications of all this for the European Union and the US and what difference will it make now that Medvedev is the new president?

Hope to see you Friday!
 

Blog titles or poem titles pop into my mind as I write; exhibit or performance titles are more of a challenge. Last Tuesday, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Bill Murtaugh, and I brainstormed, trying to find a title for our reading at Schwartz on Oakland on Wednesday, April 30th,  at 7 PM.

We looked for the threads connecting our varied poems: emotions, family, the earth. We eliminated titles like Blood Relations, Father Time and Mother Earth, and then Louisa muttered MUD. Great, I thought, that’s a good blood substitute, though I didn’t want Mud Relations, ah, Mud, Sweat, and Tears. That covers it all, nature, emotions, life. Flowers and frogs peep up from the mud, life creeps out of the mud, life is sweat, life is tears. Mud, Sweat, and Tears, an Evening With Three Poets, hah, then who’s who? Whose name is Mud? Perhaps we’re each all three, for we each wanted to write a book with that title. We’ll have to write it together.

In the meantime we’re reading together on Wednesday, April 30, 7 PM, Schwartz Book Store, 4093 N. Oakland Avenue.
 

Since I'm one of the original members of the Earth Poets, and our twentieth anniversary performances take place this Friday and Saturday, I thought I'd post our press release, and a poem.

Global warming was considered a fringe concept when Jeff Poniewaz founded the Earth Poets in 1988. Now it's 2008, and the fringe has become mainstream. "Green" is the latest buzz word, and it doesn't mean envy. It means harmony, living in harmony with nature. For their 20th Anniversary Performances, four of the original poets, Jeff Poniewaz, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Suzanne Rosenblatt, and Harvey Taylor, and the two musician members of the group, Jahmes Finlayson and Holly Haebig, will continue to transform inconvenient truths into conscientious action. The performances will also feature a special guest, activist and poet James Godsil. Scientists say it's not yet too late, so the Earth Poets and Musicians will contemplate how we can slow down the rush towards global warmth!

FRIDAY, APRIL 18,  2008
7 P.M. Interactive Poetry and Music for the Whole Family
8 PM Earth Poets and Musicians
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt,
Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER
1500 E. Park Place
$5.00 Per Person, $10.00 Per Family, UEC Members Free

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2008, 8 P.M.
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt, Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
THE COFFEE HOUSE
631 N. 19th Street (Just South of Wisconsin Ave)
Donation: $5.00

MUCH OBLIGED
By Suzanne Rosenblatt

What's an artist to do?
He paints, dances, writes,
Maybe he recites,
Composes a sonata, deftly draws a flower
As the mad world succumbs_   
To those greedy for power
He may struggle to get others   
To listen or look
As he tries to make a living   
With his painting, song, or book
Yet he loves what he does   
In his cranny or nook

Should he reimburse the planet for his talents
And work to put the earth back into balance?
Pay rent for his creative space
By trying to make the world a better place?
I'd say yes, we have to do what we can
Have to set up our personal
Repayment plan
 

I feel as if our kids grew up in an art warehouse, walls covered with, and racks filled with, paintings and drawings, sculpture on every table and shelf, and yet all five of us were producing more. And I'm thankful the tradition continues, with spouses and grandchildren thrown into the mix. Recently Eli has been on a painting roll. You might sense from his work that he once owned a bar (in Taipei) and that he has a long-standing relationship with pool halls, as he takes the inhabitants of the night and brings them back to life in his unique style. You can also sense that painting is a natural part of his being. From March 8 to May 30, he has a show at Gallery H2O, 221 N. Water St., Milwaukee. The hours are a little unusual, Mon-Fri, 7:30 AM-4:00 PM, but he'll have a reception on Gallery Night, Friday, April 18th, 6 PM-10 PM, and the gallery will also be open Saturday, April 19th, 11 AM-2 PM. You can see some of his work on his home page.
 

If the sixth sense is intuition, then the seventh must be the sense of adventure. After all, everything we do is one, if we choose to look at it that way. When I walk out of our front door, and I do it frequently, I don’t know what will happen next, even whether or not I’ll ever walk back through it again!

Well, that’s the way I was feeling most of this winter, due to the ice crisis. I walked several miles a day despite the fact that I was terrified of falling. Last week I thought it was spring and decided not to dwell on fallen fellow Midwesterners, but on the residents, incidents, surprises, I come upon as I meander, or rush (more likely rush), through the day.

When I started to blog in June, 2006, I figured I’d write about the many interesting people I run into on a daily basis, get the character of Shorewood by showing the characters in Shorewood. After all, that is an adventure! Then I modified the concept, not wanting to name names, and blogged more about incidents than about particular people. Last year I wrote LOCKED OUT AND LOCKED IN  when I found one of my grandsons locked out of his house early in the morning and later that same day had to call 911 for a lady who’d been trapped in her garage for an hour and a half. And I blogged about the speeding car that killed a dog last month, INCIDENT AT AN INTERSECTION. 

Several days after I posted that blog, someone asked me, as I walked along Maryland Avenue, “Are you the lady who wrote the article about the dog? I had the same thing happen to me. I saw a car hit a dog and speed away, except the dog was a puppy, and the dog-walker was a little boy!”

This past January as I walked along Oakland, a woman standing alone across the street shouted to no one in particular, “Doesn’t anyone have a cell phone?” Why did she want one? Then I saw a man peering under his car’s hood, smoke billowing into his face. He slammed the hood closed, screamed a stream of unbloggable words, and the woman yelled, “Someone call 911!” I did. And I moved as far as possible from that car. About thirty years ago, Connie Wypp, one of Adolph’s art students at UWM, parked her VW Beetle across the street from our house in Bill Nichols’ driveway, leapt out of the car, and within seconds the car was in flames.

That didn’t happen this time. Even before my 911 call went through, the rescue squad arrived. Two brave men lifted the hood and put out the fire, while the combustible VW Beetle burned in my mind.

Yesterday it occurred to me as I passed familiar faces along Oakland Avenue, that I've lived in Shorewood almost 39 years and have probably seen most of these people many, many times, and even if I've never had a conversation with someone, he or she seems familiar. Curious thought. But that's my point. Usually it’s the residents, not the incidents, it’s walking everywhere, or biking, being part of the environment and not enclosed in a car, interacting with whatever's happening, that makes each day an adventure.
 

It’s hard to believe only a week ago we were still in winter’s frozen thrall, praying not to fall. That”s when I heard the rumor: a shipment of salt had finally arrived at Walgreens! I called to be sure it was true, and to check the weight, under ten pounds, light enough to carry home. “Great! I’ll be right over!”

I first stopped at Pick ‘N Save, bought a load of groceries for my backpack, then walked to Walgreens and found the salt. Except it wasn’t salt. It was another one of those chemical concoctions that have to be kept out of reach of children. I didn’t want it for clearing off my roof! So that’s what people use on their walks, I thought, and the salespeople don’t seem to notice it’s not even salt.

I continued on to Sendiks, and they actually had salt, real salt, rock salt, no warnings about kids, in 25-pound bags. Hmmm, and I already had ten pounds of groceries on my back. Now or never, I told myself. If I wait, it may be gone. Well, 25 plus 10 equals 35, and I lift 40 pounds on the shoulder press. But my back’s supported on the machines, so I’m not carrying the weights, and certainly not schlepping them for more than a half mile. I bought the bag anyway and started out. Dead weight, this is dead weight, when will I learn my limits? I plunked the dead weight onto the first bus stop bench I came to, no bus home from here. Finally I picked the salt sack up and placed it belly high, as if I were pregnant. Didn’t help. I kept an eye out for friends in cars, seriously considered stopping at someone’s house, as I navigated the icy walks.

I didn’t have to carry it to term! About two-thirds of the way home, Thalia was pulling into her driveway. “Hi, would you mind giving my bag of salt a ride to my house?” I asked. “Sure I’ll do it,” she replied, “Would you like to come with it?”

Okay, I won’t do that again. I’ll take a stroller out of the garage next time I need salt.


 

“There’s a time for streetwalking.” I actually said that to strangers passing in the road, and they smiled. Well, streetwalking is keeping me upright. The weather still swings, snow, then a melt, frigid, then ice, snow, melt, frigid, ice, I should write a tune for my disenchanted chant. The cleanest walks become the most treacherous as they layer themselves with black ice, and only those with a layer of snow are safe for me to use.

Every store was out of street salt the other day, several other days in fact. And table salt didn’t do the trick, the grain’s too fine. I had wanted to buy some and walk through ShoreWood, like Hansel and Gretel, keeping track of my tracks as I created traction. Until now I’ve always used sand, feels like it’s harmless if it ends up on the shoreline. And I’m not anxious to live near a great salt lake.

If there’s too much traffic, I do use sidewalks, when I can find a way to reach them. Yesterday iciness on sidewalks surprised me several times, but I managed to save myself from hitting bottom.

Later: I went back to Pick ‘n Save. They finally had salt in 20-pound bags. Then I saw it was four-ingredient salt, sodium chloride the last ingredient, and I wondered about the safety of the other three. I didn’t have to wonder long. If I have to keep it out of reach of children, how can I put it on the sidewalk? Not only that, little kids think snow looks like ice cream, and they love to lick. The easiest way to stop my younger grandkids is to remind them about what dogs do in snow.
 

The older I get, the smaller my artwork. Some reasons: I can carry a tiny drawing pad without needing a big purse.  I can capture fleeting passers-by more quickly and unobtrusively. Anyway, less is often more. Here's another advantage: In the Roberta Avonn Fiskum Art Gallery at UW-Whitewater I can fit several small works into my quarter of the "Phenomenal Women" show. The opening reception is Wednesday, February 27, 4:30-6:00. Marie Mellott and I will perform at 5:00, "Three Ladies in Their Eighties" plus some of our poems. Marie will become her 101-year-old grandmother, I'll do my global warming poem, which you can see on YouTube  if you won't be in the Whitewater area.

MORE DETAILS: The other three artists are Anne Kingsbury of Woodland Pattern, Flora Menager, and Caitlin Carroll.
The Roberta Avonn Fiskum Art Gallery is a newly-constructed gallery in the University Center Building in the heart of the UW-Whitewater campus. If you want more precise directions, please call Beth Wiza at 262-210-9491.

Today is Sunday, and the name’s deceiving, should be called ice day, or ice stay. The temperature’s in the mid-30’s, and that, too, is deceiving, unless you like puddles with hidden layers of ice. They’ll turn solid tomorrow. Weird weather, unexpected swings of Mother Earth’s moods. It’s all part of global warming, so we’d better get accustomed to this bipolar world.

The Fitness Center was in my plans for today, but I was afraid to walk out the door, imagined myself lying unnoticed on the steps. By 2 PM I decided to risk it, sprinkled our last grains of sand on the path and sidewalk. We’re running out, and neither of us drive, a problem if we want to get more. After the gym I’d see if there’s salt at Walgreens, but is that environmentally sound?

I ventured forth, and made it, barely, to the corner of Maryland and Olive, safer to walk in the street. So I did, right down the middle of Olive. It wasn’t too bad at first, then got worse, all ice. Made it to Murray, and that street, too, was clearer than the sidewalks, I followed the visible pavement, moved near the curb and watched if I heard a car coming up behind me. When I was about to pass Wood, I heard a motor, turned around, police, the car slowed almost to a stop. Was he going to give me a ticket? Or did he think I needed help. Whew, he moved on.

The Fitness Center had already disappeared from my agenda. I’d better go directly to Walgreens, and then back home. I crossed Murray to talk to a friend walking her dog on Wood.

“Your block’s well-shoveled as usual,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied, “That policeman actually considered giving you a ticket for walking in the street, I saw his mind working, but they don’t give people tickets for not shoveling walks. If our block can do it, why can’t everyone?” I looked down the block at two young men in tee-shirts breaking up residual ice, didn’t think a 70-year-old woman could follow suit. “I called the village,” she continued, “And the manager told me if they give out tickets, he gets a lot of angry phone calls.” I was thinking if they give out tickets, they’d have to give some to themselves. Atwater School’s sidewalk on Maryland and the one on Oakland near the bus stop in front of Shorewood High, a route for lots of old people, are often two of the most dangerous walks in the village. “Well,” she added, “You caught me on a rampage. I have to walk my dog, and I don’t want to break an arm or leg.”

A few minutes later as I walked down Wood, so clear of snow and ice, I thought that if I lived on Wood and had to walk my dog, I’d simply stay on the block, walk back and forth between Murray and Oakland. Four round trips would add up to more than a mile.

The west side of Oakland was clear, walking easy, Walgreens didn’t seem far enough to substitute for the Fitness Center. I continued, noticed several bags of salt in Sendiks’ window, went in and tried to lift one, couldn’t budge it.

At Walgreens the salt was sold out. What else could I use? Kitty litter was probably an invitation to cats to litter. Ah, potting soil was on sale! Perfect. Maybe. And if any remains on my walk after this siege of snow and ice, I can sweep it into my garden.
 

The Oakland Café, my hangout for writing and drawing in the early 90’s, affected my life in many ways. I’ll mention just one at this moment: THREE LADIES IN THEIR EIGHTIES, a series of more than one hundred drawings I did there. I have a few of the drawings on our web site, and I look back at those ladies with affection. They were not living in the same world they grew up in, just as I, now seventy, am living in a totally changed world.

It’s sixteen years later now, the Oakland Café’s no longer there, and I doubt the three ladies are still around, doubt I’ll get to draw THREE LADIES IN THEIR HUNDREDS. But perhaps the ladies do live on through their words. And Marie Mellott and I will be performing some of their conversations at a Valentine's Day Performance in conjunction with The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Show at Walkers Point Center for the Arts. Here’s rthe beginning of the conversations:

WELCOME TO OLD AGE RADIO, TONIGHT PRESENTING TWO LADIES IN THEIR EIGHTIES, THIRD ONE NOT THERE

The time was the early 90's, the place was the Oakland Cafe , and the snoop, well, I was the snoop. I sat as close as possible to Prudence, Gladys, and Madge, and took dictation. They never seemed to notice me drawing them, never knew I used their conversations to form their faces. Eventually Madge came less and less often. She was, however, always there in spirit.

Prudence:      I had a very lovely childhood. We had electricity, we had the first telephone in the neighborhood, my father was always ahead of everybody...
Gladys:    you were very lucky.
Prudence:    Well, you can thank the lord for your two loving daughters. I think it must be wonderful for a mother to have  daughters she can be with. Of course my mother had my father, and that was the most important thing in her life. My brother was very pretty when he was young, very pretty, but he didn’t grow up to be so attractive... Most mothers talk about their children, my mother didn’t. One of the reasons, I figured out, was because my brother was always at the bottom of the class. I was on the top, he was on the bottom. If she talked about me, she’d have to talk about him. I don’t know where he got that trait of a lazy mind. Both of my parents were intelligent...  And my mother always condoned his laziness. He just lived at home all his life.
Gladys:    Free of charge?
Prudence:   Oh yes. ...my brother never even gave us gifts..but we continued to give him presents...then once I looked at him and said, I didn’t buy you anything because I know you don’t believe in giving gifts...

Performance details:
POETRY, CHOCOLATE, AND WINE, Organized by ABEA
Walker's Point Center for the Arts,  911 W. National Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53204
Adults Only: Thursday, February 14, 7-9:30 PM
FEATURED PERFORMERS: Tanya Cromarte-Twaddle, Bobby Drake, Eric Jefferson, Marie Mellott, Carmen Murgia, and Suzanne Rosenblatt. Patrick Turner will play Blues Guitar
OPEN MIC
 

Friday morning, snow deep, plowing just begun, Adolph and I are on the number 15, headed to the south side to see our chiropractor. Though I figured the bus would be late, we slogged to the stop in front of Pick ‘N Save early. Good move, the bus arrived on the dot. The driver tooted when he saw everyone waiting. “The bus is here!” he exclaimed as we boarded. “Amazing,” I said, “So long as you’re taking us to Oklahoma and Kinnickinnic.” He helped me slide a crumpled dollar bill into the machine, cheerily greeted everyone who got on, “Be careful, take your time.” He sets the tone, a bright bus bubble floating through Shorewood.

We’re passing Harry’s Bar and Grill now, where the Oakland Café once was. For years at 6:15 A.M. I’d swim forty lengths at the Shorewood Pool, bike to the Oakland on my single speed, coast past drivers digging their cars out of snow drifts on days like today, then nurse my coffee, nibble a bran muffin, and write or draw.

The bus TV cuts into my memories, “If you’ve been exposed to toxic chemicals at work or in your home and now have acute myeloid leukemia, call...” “Lawn pesticides,” I say to Adolph, “double your chance of getting leukemia, but at least you won’t have dandelions.” Maybe I’m wrong, I think it’s worse. I’ve read that kids are about seven times more likely to get childhood leukemia if their parents use lawn chemicals.

Here’s Park Place, the stop for the Urban Ecology Center, North Avenue, for Beans and Barley or the Oriental Theater, coming to Brady Street, now Water Street and Danceworks, we saw a great performance there on Sunday, the Marcus Center, we heard Mozart’s clarinet concerto there last Friday, Mason Street, we got off there earlier this month to see the Bellows show at the Art Museum.

“You know, one of these days I think I’ll take this bus all the way to the end,” a man is saying to the bus driver.
“You’ll kill an hour,” the driver replies.
“But there’s a whole ‘nother city.”
“I’ll save you a seat.”

Wisconsin Avenue, and the driver says goodbye to every departing passenger, “Have a nice one,” “Have a good day,” “Have a good weekend,” “See you at the sled hill.” A new passel of passengers boards. A small woman with cell phone, walkman, and a case full of CD’s, sits next to me, peers at my writing, and asks, “Shorthand?” “Yes,” I reply, my own invented shorthand, my own symbols. Now she’s on her cell phone, speaking the fastest Italian I‘ve ever heard, I can’t understand a word she’s saying, so why am I sure it’s Italian? Uh oh, someone went past his stop, has to walk back a few blocks.

As we pass Next Act Theater, the driver  turns to me, “Where did you say you want to get off?”
“Oklahoma,” I tell him, that whole ‘nother city.
 

Sometimes we hate to say goodnight after French Table. We stand around chatting in front of Schwartz on Oakland at closing time. That’s what we were doing a few nights ago. Then brakes screeched, everyone gasped, I spun around in time to see the back of a car speeding down Jarvis, bouncing at every bump. It looked like a police chase, without the police.

“What happened?” I asked. It was dark across the street. All I could see were shadowy figures under the dim streetlight, and I could hear a yelping dog. “That car hit a dog,” Anne, who had younger eyes, said, “And it’s dying.” How could she see it was dying when I couldn’t see it at all?

A few minutes later I crossed over, checking traffic carefully. Jean-M was on his cell, talking with the police. Two women, each cuddling a small dog in her arms, stood crying. “Which dog was hit?” I asked Keith, who had run across immediately. He pointed to a third dog lying dead at one woman’s feet. “I checked, couldn’t feel any pulse,” he told me, “They’re taking him to the animal hospital anyway.”

About 27 years ago our son Joshua brought Happy to the animal hospital, put him on the table, and the vet exclaimed, “I can’t do anything for that dog, he’s dead,” with a tone that said, why are you bothering me with this? Perhaps he didn’t realize that pets are family members, and we don’t want to let go. Perhaps the speeding driver didn’t realize that either. Or perhaps he sped up when he heard the thud, to make sure he’d never know whether he’d hit man or beast. Or perhaps he didn’t know he’d hit anything, just another bump in the road.