Tuesday, November 25th, 2003

'Tis, in fact, the most glorious of days here in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota where the air is so clean that there ought to be a way to bottle it and sell it to those languishing in smog and such - don't know when I've felt feistier - if not indeed but in mind - than I do this fine day to be alive. 'Tis, of course, the birth date of a woman who tried very hard to be the feistiest of any human ever, that axe-wielding crusader Carry Nation, born November 25, 1846. Before she completed her passage in the middle world months before her sixty-fifth birthday, Carry Nation terrorized those who drank and/or smoked and especially those who sold liquor or tobacco with a zeal never surpassed. The little lady loved clean air - she once said, "I want all hellions to quit puffing that hell fume in God's clean air."

She had a lot more to say, of course - what crusader doesn't? She didn't really have all that much use for the male gender in general - she rather summarily dismissed us all with such sweeping generalizations as "Men are nicotine soaked, beer besmirched, whiskey greased, red-eyed devils." That, I think, is going the weest bit too far - I'm the first to admit the natural moral superiority of women, but I take a bit of umbrage with such categorical dismissal of all men. There's a great interactive web site about Carry Nation by the Kansas Historical State Historical Society -- click here to visit it. How did she justify wreaking such havoc? By the by - if you really want to know how such phrases as "wreaking havoc" come about, go here and scroll down to the phrase - 'tis a grand site to discover more about such hackneyed phrases. But I digress (I usually do - we can't all be as single-minded as Carry A. Nation). Here's what she had to say about why she took the law into her own hands, from The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, Written by Herself, 1908.:

Begin Carry Nation Quote
When I found I could effect nothing through the officials, I was sad, indeed. I saw that Kansas homes, hearts and souls were to be sacrificed. I had lost all the hopes of my young life through drink, I saw the terrible results that would befall others. I felt that I had rather die than see the saloons come back to Kansas. I felt desperate. I took this to God daily, feeling He only, could rescue. On the 5th of June [1900], before retiring, I threw myself face downward at the foot of my bed in my home in Medicine Lodge. I poured out my grief in agony to God, in about this strain: "Oh Lord you see the treason in Kansas, they are going to break the mothers' hearts, they are going to send the boys to drunkards' graves and a drunkard's hell. I have exhausted my means, Oh Lord, you have plenty of ways. You have used the base things and the weak things, use me to save Kansas. I have but one life to give you, if I had a thousand, I would give them all, please show me something to do." The next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, "GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the interpretation was very plain, it was this: "Take something in your hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them." I was very much relieved and overjoyed and was determined to be, "obedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19).
End Carry Nation Quote

'Tain't just anyone who gets such direct advice from above, kola. Today I do have a special salute, a huge swig of grape juice in toast to one of the Great Plains' greatest gifts to the millennia, John G. Neihardt, the author of Black Elk Speaks who died on November 24 in 1973 at age ninety-two - what an extraordinary man! (I was about to salute him yesterday when I waylaid myself with yet another of those deliciously pesky digressions, so I'm a day late in observing the thirtieth anniversary of his passage from the middle world.) If Carry A. Nation couldn't have cottoned to Neihardt, methinks she had the weest bit of a hole in her soul, kola. In addition to introducing the world to the spirituality of the Lakota in one of the greatest books ever penned, Neihardt was an extraordinary lyric poet. If you have the weest bit of time, have a look at some of the poems from his 1912 collection, The Stranger at the Gate, especially the poem, "The Red Wind Comes!" where you'll find the lines

O pious Nation, holding God in awe,
Where sacred human rights are duly priced!
Where men are beggared in the name of Law,
Where alms are given in the name of Christ!

Among the great summaries of Neihardt's life and work is "Saving a Great Vision: Poet John Neihardt," an essay by David L. Bristow written in 2000.

Here's to you, John G. Neihardt. 'Tis time, this glorious A.M. here on the east bank of the Missouri in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, for one of my friend Idell's caramel rolls and perusal of the morning paper. Hope you have a bit of whatever soul food you fancy, a little laughter, and some music today --I'm gonna continue to sample and savor five collections put together for me by my good friend and generous soul, music-lovin', great-pie-makin' Jim Lund, who has shared Ann Burton, John Barry, Frank Sinatra with some great love songs, some wondrous Gene Harris, and the incomparable Rosemary Clooney's album "For the Duration" - what a gift such music is - here's to you, Idell, and to you, Jim Lund! You're gonna make my day - 'tis kola like you that helps me keep that old insidious invader at bay. And don't smoke, even if you got 'em - or Carry Nation may reincarnate and come to snatch it from your mouth as she was wont to do to men walking down the street smoking a cigar. Have a big swig of grape juice on me.

Ev Albers

Monday, November 24th, 2003

So, it's a degree or two below zero - and the weest bit crisp - 'tis a glorious day here in beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota the day after I consumed both a great pumpkin pie and some cheese cake after taking nourishment ala a great soup and sandwich provided by my lovin' spouse. 'Tis a day that shan't be spoilt by the Vikings finally winning a game - 'twas, after all, against the hapless Detroit Lions at home. Some of you know that I take no joy in a Viking victory - but do indeed rejoice over the victory of Green Bay of the 49ers. Lest you think I do nothing but watch football on a Sunday afternoon, I'm happy to say I did so at my office whilst sitting at my computer working away to catch up the weest on matters left unattended while I was gone. All in all, a glorious day yesterday, and the prospects of an even brighter, more productive one today.

Today's birthday boy, the one who gets the first toast of the day, is Laurence Sterne (born 1713), the author of Tristram Shandy. I wrote about one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite writers a year past - you can check it out in the archives by selecting 11/24/02. Sterne died months before his fifty-fifth birthday, but he produced one of the funniest durn books you'll ever read. The full title is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.Far better, of course to hold the book in your hand - I still have a time actually reading for pleasure on a computer terminal. 'Twas Sterne who observed that "Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the soul of reading!--take them out of this book, for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them;--one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;--he steps forth like a bridegroom,--bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail." He also said, "I take a simple view of life. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it." Well, as Emerson observed, "Consistency in small matters is the hobgoblin of small minds" - which is not invoked to suggest that Sterne was inconsistent in any way. I prefer the adjective eclectic - and choose to think that what Sterne got on with was delectable digressions, such as thinking of pie at 6:30 A.M. or whatever.

'Tis also the birthday of President Zachary Taylor, Old Rough and Ready, born on this day in 1784 - he died after only sixteen months in office. He was, of course, the hero of the Mexican War, the United States mid-nineteenth century attempt to take care of problems beyond its borders. Some say we still have lessons to learn from our experience back then. As the Dutch philosopher Spinoza, also born on this day - in 1632, some 152 years before Old Rough and Ready - observed, "If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past." But, alas, as Dakota's gift to the millennia said so eloquently, "We're a people who forget our history about every fifteen minutes." 'Tis worse than that, I fear - there's no small evidence that we've never learned a history to forget.

Anyone who doesn't have a hole in her/his soul remembers the great American composer and musician born on this day in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War - Scott Joplin, the guy who could play the piano, guitar, and bugle. If your butt doesn't wiggle the weest when you hear a Joplin rag, you better check to see if you have a pulse. Joplin wrote the tunes we're all familiar with - like "The Entertainer," popularized by the movie The Sting. But he also wrote operas - and his disappointment with not being able to see them produced successfully led to a nervous breakdown in 1916 and death a year later. Of course, back then, Anglo Americans didn't think that African Americans could compose operas, let alone write one worth seeing. 'Twas there loss. And it's a birthday of a guy who's alive and still laying down some of the greatest bass lines in the history of modern rock, Donald "Duck" Dunn, who turns sixty-two today. You might know him as the bass player for the Blues Brothers Band of the 1998 movie Blues Brothers 2000 fame- he's been on albums by such as Roy Buchanan, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart and Muddy Waters. He's the guy who laid down the beat for Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Albert King - happy birthday Donald "Duck" Dunn!

I'm goin' on down to check out that cheese cake friend Rose Marie Henke brought over - and I leave you with hope that you are taking care of yourself and looking out for your neighbor - today's quote comes from the The World According to Mister Rogers, the chapter "We Are All Neighbors" - "Peace means far more than the opposite of war. Or as birthday boy Spinoza put it, "Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." Peace, my sisters and brothers, peace.

Ev Albers

Sunday, November 23rd, 2003

Ah, home to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota at last after a couple of weeks on the road, the last few days of which my lovin' spouse spent at a grand conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, on regionalism and the humanities – one that featured a talk by Annie Proulx, author of Shipping News and the new That Old Ace in the Hole about Bob Dollar and his quest for the site of a new hog farm factory on the plains of Texas – it looks to be a really great one. Of course, since our darlin' daughter resides in that fair Nebraska city, we had the grandest time with her – and I spent two of the most stimulating days of my recent memory hearing scholars doing the humanities well. I need one of these at least every other month or so – and I get it at home with the programs the Humanities Council I work for sponsors as well.

Concerned about incoming snow and the possibility of not being able to travel the 650 miles from Lincoln without running into stuff that would impede our homeward journey, we left yesterday morning at 5:00 A.M. – hence the curtailed message yesterday – which I finished, by the by, complete with a photograph of my young friend Elias Alexander Everett Fisher – click on 11/22/03 above and read the rest of the story if you visited yesterday and are of a mind to know "what else?" We purred through Nebraska up Route 77, hit the North Dakota border at 11:00 A.M., and were safely in our garage at 5:00 P.M., having escaped all snow and compacted roadway, drifting, or anything else. Of course, 'twas the goddess of great Serendip, along my spouse's wisdom and skill at the wheel that got us back – why, we even spent two hours on the road lolly-gagging over lunch and such, or we would have been home by 3:00 P.M. – in short, made 650 miles in eight hours – thanks largely to the fact that I did no navigation whatsoever and kept any comments about where we should be going or stopping to a minimum. I'm learning the weest as I grow older. Speaking of growing older – or at least less vigorous and resilient than one once was, kola Susan from Israel sent along a too-close-to-home parody ala "Cat in the Hat"

I cannot see
I cannot pee
I cannot screw
Oh, God, what can I do?
My memory shrinks
My hearing stinks
No sense of smell
I look like hell
My mood is bad — can you tell?
My body's drooping
Have trouble pooping
The Golden Years have come at last.
The Golden Years can kiss my ass.


Don't know if I quite agree – having far too much fun greeting a great day like this one to worry much about a few little physical problems – no chills or shakes since two nights past, a day to catch up awaits, and there's cheesecake and vegetable soup in chicken broth compliments of kola Rose Marie Henke in the refrigerator, along with gallons of juice – good old Strawberry Breeze and Grape, some apple – life is good, kola, like is good.

Also in our mailbox on our return were gifts – from my old pal Jerry Waldera who consorts with his spouse for quite a few decades – methinks the Jerry & Jean union is gonna last – from Jerry I received from Lake Havasu, Arizona, where the Walderas languish in the winter far from the far more invigorating and crisp, cleansing air of Dakota or their summer home on Lake Melissa over in western Minnesota – Jerry sent me the London Bridge Rotary Club new commemorative coin – "Lewis & Clark Expedition – 200th Anniversary." And from kola Therese Yeaton over in Washington state came a beautiful covered teacup and some cocoas for my long-suffering, indomitable, and ever-supportive spouse, Leslie – and I got a real treasure: The World According to Mr. Rogers: Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers, of course. Among some 180 observations on living and loving – all great variations on the theme "Take care of yourselves and look out for each other – is such as "Human relationships are primary in all living. When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the . . . but we won't break." And I especially like “I often think of what Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization: ‘Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting, and doing things historians usually record—while on the banks, unnoticed, people build home, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry, whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happens on the banks.’” Methinks 'twill be grand to revisit Mr. Rogers and his wisdom from time to time. I’m gonna take some time this afternoon to do something I don't think Mr. Rogers would approve of very much – but I really love to hate the Minnesota Vikings, who are on a four-game losing streak after winning their first six – a typical Viking season. I can't tell you why I feel it necessary to vent all my free-floating hostility in this manner – against those damned Vikings – but I truly enjoy it. How thin is the veneer of civilization. Perhaps it's a way to deal with the few little problems of growing old or living with an insidious invader, but I've loved to hate those Vikings for a long time. Now, if they are beaten today at home by the Detroit Lions, who are but 3-7, and if the 5-5 Green Bay Packers win against the visiting 49ers, we have a tie in the central division – and the annual demise of the Vikings will be well on its way.

Well, dear kola, I'm gonna crawl back into bed this early morning and rest the weest bit more for the grand day ahead. Do take care of yourselves – and look out for each other. And have a laugh or two – consume some pie or cheesecake if you have it, and enjoy this day for all it has to offer. You'll be another day older tomorrow, and who knows what new ills even that small aging process will bring? Best to seize the day – here's a huge gulp of Strawberry Breeze to carpe diem with a salute to friends Susan, Jean & Jerry, and Therese and to all our kola – sure is grand to back in beauuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota!

Ev Albers

Saturday, November 22nd, 2003

A blustery day, one to wend the way home to beauuuuuuuuuiful Dakota where the ground is covered with germ-killing snow and the air crisp and cruel to any bad bacteria that would dare Dakota's daunting air. This is the day that John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas - the day that the dream died for many of us. As I wrote last year when I had little hope of still being here in the middle world to contemplate from the perspective of forty years later what Kennedy meant to my idealistic generation that came of age with JFK's promise that we could change the world you can read my recall of that day on November 22, 1963.

November 22 is the day in 1965 that what I consider the greatest musical ever penned opened in New York -- Man of La Mancha went on to be presented 2,327 more times. By the time I was in graduate school in Colorado in 1966 and two years more, Man of La Mancha was on the road; and one of the greatest experiences in my life was seeing Richard Kiley in the title role in a production in Denver. The sound track remains one of my five most treasured albums. I can still sing - rather badly - "To Dream the Impossible Dream" in its entirety - ah, great goddess of Serendip, how I love those words:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star!

For Richard Kiley, who completed his passage in the middle world in 1998 weeks short of his seventy-sixth birthday. Why the movie starred Peter O'Toole instead Kiley, I'll never understand - and I really like Peter O'Toole, especially his stunning interpretation in Lawrence of Arabia. But he couldn't hold a candle to Kiley's Don Quixote/Cervantes. 'Twas the eyes, methinks, that reached to the back of the huge auditorium where I saw him in 1967 or '68 in Denver - eyes that saw what the world should be and not what 'tis that so enhanced that slim, slim, body moving in minimal perfect support of that oh-so-appropriate, less-than-perfect voice singing "The Impossible Dream."

Yesterday's presentations at the "Regionalism and the Humanities" conference presented by the Consortium of Regional Humanities Centers here at Lincoln were absolutely top drawer - Bill Ferris singing the blues, Natasha Trenewey reading her poetry, great talks on New England, on photography in the South Atlantic, and constructing Plains Identity, among dozens of other choices.

In the early afternoon yesterday we visited my young friend Elias Alexander Everett Fisher, son of my friends of more than a dozen years and the former tentmaster of the Great Plains Chautauqua Society, Fred Fisher. Fred's mom, Molly, was an associate director and program director with the Nebraska Humanities Council before retiring at a tender age to hit the road in the summers with her husband, Fred's dad, Jerry. Fred hooked up with this beautiful young woman, Susan, a few years ago - and Elias is the pride and joy of them all - a joy to humankind, I'll wager. I'm quite taken with the young lad, shown above with my darlin' daughter Gretchen, with his parents in the upper left, and with a goofy yours truly in the bottom right. He will dream the impossible dream and change the world - and have a great time doing it. He's begun with a love of books - always a great start. Friend Molly made a great pie - a southern delight called chess pie made of a custard of buttermilk and eggs. Wouldn't you know it, with a slice of pure paradise set before me and young Elias entertaining, I had to have one of my little chills and shakes episodes, so I could neither finish the pie or spend as much time as I would have liked with my young friend. When we returned to the hotel, I had to get under the covers where I stayed - and missed the banquet and presentation of Lewis and Clark scholar Gary Moulton. And that's where I was until hours before dawn this morning, when my spouse and I got into our Subaru and headed north at 5:00 A.M. in hopes of beating the storm.

Trust you are taking care of yourselves, kola, and that you're looking out for each other, especially the little ones you know, like young Elias.

Ev Albers

Friday, November 21st, 2003

Ah, what a grand day 'twas yesterday in a 70 degree Lincoln, Nebraska. By evening, the weather had turned more seasonably cool. Regional conference speaker Annie Proulx gave a fantastic presentation on sense of place and landscape in fiction from an essay that she said continues to be in progress after eight years. Before her program, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, Vien Dong - with good friends Jane Renner Hood, executive director of the Nebraska Humanities Council and her former associate director, Molly Fisher, grandmother of my young friend Elias Alexander Everett Fisher whom I'll see tomorrow afternoon for the first time. There were five of us - Jane, Molly, my lovin' spouse, Leslie, and my darlin' daughter Gretchen. Here's Leslie's account of our interesting experience -

Begin Leslie Albers account of dining 11/20/03
We were seated immediately - always a good sign when you have only an hour and one-half for dinner - but a bad sign if you believe crowds mean good food. I had been looking forward to a beer while deciding what dish to order from the varied menu. The waitress told me, no beer - and I must have looked shocked and crestfallen, as she changed her mind and said she would check - she went off. I was hopeful, yet being somewhat practical, knew what she would say upon her return - no beer. So I settled for green tea - a drink perhaps more suited to the menu. No tea appeared - but out appetizers did. However, no plates and no silverware - she did not return. I did manage to attract the attention of another waitress, who did not speak English - but she went to get our waitress, and we told her we needed plates, silverware, and five teas. She motioned to the second waitress who brought our silverware. She started to put them down and then suddenly took them away and gave them to other tables, where those sitting were perplexed at getting more silverware. Meanwhile, our waitress brought more food - still no silverware, and when I asked for teas for all of us she disappeared and finally came with a teapot and four cups for the five of us. We finally managed to procure silverware after the second waitress was brought back into the discussion. Gretchen, who gave up her tea cup to poor Everett - who never did get his wonton soup-although he would have had to share a spoon had it arrived. Gretchen ordered a coke - she was brought a warm Dr. Pepper. Our bill finally appeared. Jane insisted upon paying. Our waitress asked her if the amount looked right - actually, the only sentence spoken to us by either waitress.
End Leslie on November 20, 2003 dining experience

Tell you this, kola - my lovin' spouse doesn't mince words when it comes to less than adequate service when dining out - or other important matters - a gift, methinks. Here's a toast to Leslie - and another to today's birthday boy, Francois-Marie Arouet, the man from the early eighteenth century we know as Voltaire, born on this day in 1694 - he lived to hear about the American Revolution, but not to learn of its conclusion, dying in 1778 at the great age for his time of eighty-three and months more. His Candide is on my list of the top five books that are must reads and necessary to take to a desert island should one be exiled to one with but five books. Here's a little sample from the last chapter (30), and an overwhelming question by Candide:

Begin Voltaire Quote
It was altogether natural to imagine, that after undergoing so many disasters, Candide, married to his mistress and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo, and the old woman, having besides brought home so many diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas, would lead the most agreeable life in the world. But he had been so robbed by the Jews, that he had nothing left but his little farm; his wife, every day growing more and more ugly, became headstrong and insupportable; the old woman was infirm, and more ill-natured yet than Cunegund. Cacambo, who worked in the garden, and carried the produce of it to sell in Constantinople, was above his labor, and cursed his fate. Pangloss despaired of making a figure in any of the German universities. And as to Martin, he was firmly persuaded that a person is equally ill-situated everywhere. He took things with patience.

Candide, Martin, and Pangloss disputed sometimes about metaphysics and morality. Boats were often seen passing under the windows of the farm laden with effendis, bashaws, and cadis, that were going into banishment to Lemnos, Mytilene and Erzerum. And other cadis, bashaws, and effendis were seen coming back to succeed the place of the exiles, and were driven out in their turns. They saw several heads curiously stuck upon poles, and carried as presents to the Sublime Porte. Such sights gave occasion to frequent dissertations; and when no disputes were in progress, the irksomeness was so excessive that the old woman ventured one day to tell them:

"I would be glad to know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?"

"This," said Candide, "is a grand question."
End Voltaire Quote

I wrote at length about Voltaire a year ago. The essential message of Voltaire is inescapable - delivered with a style and wit that has never been surpassed and seldom equaled: the problem with humankind is self-righteous conviction that we have a corner on the nature of God and how he/she should be worshipped and acknowledged; the key to a better passage here in the middle world for all of us is mutual respect, treating each other as we would be treated.

My lovin' spouse and I hope that the weather for our return to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, which will be the weest bit snowy and stormy this weekend, will treat us kindly. We're still trying to decide whether or not to leave today or tomorrow. Life is full of little challenges. I hope you meet yours today with a bit of laughter and perhaps a song - 'twas fifty-nine years ago the Roy Rogers Show was heard for the first time on Mutual Broadcasting System - 'twas in 1944 that the "King of the Cowboys" came into living rooms across the nation with "Happy Trails to You" - not a bad song for this good day to be alive - a good song to hum, today:

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you 'till we meet again.

Here's to you, Roy Rogers - wherever you are - and to you kola - especially friend Jim Fuglie who suffers from the same malady I do - once I get a song in my head, it keeps running around for a few hours. You have to admit, Jim, that there are far worse than "Happy trails are you."

Ev Albers

Thursday, November 20th, 2003

​What a grand, unseasonably warm and early Octoberish day here in Lincoln, Nebraska, where my lovin' spouse and I are ensconced in the fabulous Cornhusker Hotel downtown for a grand conference in the humanities which begins this morning. We had a lovely late morning and early afternoon at our darlin' daughter Gretchen's apartment and a visit for an hour or so and then dinner with her last night. A graduate student in history here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, she'll be joining us for the conference today as well. Life is good. 'Tis not as beauuutiful here as 'tis almost certainly in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, but 'tis pretty durn nice. A few shrimp and a bit of apple cheesecake went down well, and I'm looking forward to a better appetite. Found it possible to get my blood tested here yesterday afternoon with little hassle - and the counts and amounts indicate that I should be in as fine as fettle as I can muster. Life is good.

As I began to report yesterday, we had a grand trip across the state of Iowa on Tuesday and a good night's rest at Council Bluffs before making the trip here. We made a lunch stop at the Ox Yoke Inn Restaurant at the Amana Colonies complex just west a piece on Interstate 80 from Iowa City. I mustered to getting down most of a raisin cream pie, not to be confused with sour-cream raisin pie --this one featured a very rich custard studded with a most amount of raisins on a deliciously flaky crust topped with about three inches of whipped cream - most of which I skimmed off. I looked most longingly at the menu which featured wurst at their best in dozens of varieties and homemade sauerkraut - next time. The Amana Colonies are an anomaly in America - like-minded folk who have stuck together for over 160 years to work together cooperatively and take care of each other. The people lived communally from 1842 to 1932, when they decided to adopt a more American, individualistic style and voted to end the commune - but they remain a close-knit society in which folks are as much concerned as each other's welfare as they are their own.

I drifted off to semi-slumber from time to time and read a bit of escape literature ala Robert Ludlum whilst El Rushbo, Rush Limbaugh, belabored his intelligence for some three hours of the trip on I-80 - his five-week stint at an undisclosed addiction recovery facility has not humbled the self-proclaimed God's gift to humankind in the weest. Incredibly, he described his group of fellow addicts to prescription pain killers as having an average IQ of over 150 - all those who have his problem are geniuses! Rush, Rush - don't ye know, those who so blatantly set themselves up as perfect in every way (as in the song, "Oh, Lord, it's hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way") are soon brought low? Authorities are wondering why Rush withdrew just under $10,000 in cash from his account with U.S. Trust some 30 or 40 times -- $10,000 is the threshold for reporting the withdrawal to the government. "There was a $10,000 reporting requirement and they said if you keep it under that, then nobody has to file any paperwork . . . and so that's what I did," Limbaugh said yesterday, when he also admitted that he had cash amounting to just under $10,000 delivered to his office in New York - but that it was only three or four times, not 30 or 40. Very interesting.

Today is the birth date of Robert F. Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy's younger brother who was running for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1968 when he was gunned down in California - an early end to an earnest life (born in 1925, he was 42 when he was assassinated). He said of us Americans and folks in general, "One-fifth of the people are against everything all of the time." He also noted that "Democracy is no easy form of government. Few nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires that we take the chances of freedom; that the liberating play of reason be brought to bear on events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed to make its appeal for acceptance; that men chance error in their search for the truth." My favorite quotes of Robert F. Kennedy are those in which he invoked the best of the ageless quest for a less violent way of settling our difference than killing and maiming each other - and the quote of today as I toast RFK's memory with a big swig of apple juice is "Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." Now there's a worthy mission - one that I'm sure young Emily Yeaton of Seattle, who turns thirteen today, has heard from her mom Therese, one of those wondrous folk who read these meanderings and sends encouragement and newsy emails from time to time, along with great pie recipes. Happy birthday, Emily - may your day be filled with laughter and love as you search for ways to make the middle world the weest bit more sane.

We need all the sanity we can muster in this fragile social compact. This day, November 20, is the nineteenth anniversary of Michael Jackson getting his star on the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame - the largest crowd ever showed up for the unveiling in front of Mann's Chinese Theater in 1984. Today, the forty-five-year-old singer returns to Santa Barbara to face charges of child molestation filed yesterday. The CBS two-hour special scheduled for next week has been pulled, and, unlike Rush, Jackson's fan support, except for the diehard, will fast dwindle.

Sitting here in the lobby of the Cornhusker, who should emerge from an elevator this early morning but my friend Tom Isern from North Dakota State University and the Great Plains at large - he's here for this conference on regional humanities centers and regional cooperation as well. Tom writes a great weekly newspaper column - "Plains Folk" - and has a fine presence on the Internet -- you can visit him online by clicking here. Among many other things, including National Endowment for the Humanities-funded summer seminars and teaching history and traveling to New Zealand and generally keeping pretty durn busy, Tom has taken on the task of keeping track of North Dakota Fall Suppers and a close eye on ethnic traditions in North Dakota. He's one of the great Dakota treasures - and 'tis always a mighty pleasure to visit with him.

President Bush continues his visit to Great Britain today and his stay at Buckingham Palace - perhaps he and First Lady Laura will join the Queen and Prince Phillip in a toast to their fifty-sixth wedding anniversary. I wish them well - the Bushs and the English royals - on this fine, fine day in Lincoln - and I wish you, kola, the very best on this great day to be alive. Hope you have laughter and a bit of song today - and that you aren't humming along with Rush "Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way" on this day - for that ain't no way to be doing what we're here for - taking good care of each other.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, November 19th, 2003

​'Tis a beauuuuuuuuutiful sunny morning here in Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the river from Omaha and just an hour or so from our destination for a few day, Lincoln, Nebraska. Of course, it can't be as beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful as 'tis in North Dakota, which is miss mightily - back home on Sunday after a grand conference at Lincoln. We (my lovin' spouse at the wheel) crossed the state of Iowa yesterday, with a stop at the Amana Colonies complex on the Interstate (the farm and land extend north up Cedar Rapids). I want to tell you about the agony of sitting in one of the great German restaurants with every conceivable wurst and schnitzel on the menu and not being able to eat any of it - except, I did my very best with a piece of raisin cream pie, not to be confused with sour-cream raisin pie. But more of this later today . . . we're late - going to meet my darlin' daughter Gretchen. More later on this fine, fine day to be alive - time to prepare for the short journey ahead today. If you don't get back later today, I hope you are taking care of yourself and looking out for each other.

Ev Albers

Tuesday, November 18th, 2003

Cool, rainy morning here in eastern Iowa near the bank of the Mississippi River where my lovin' spouse and I stopped before continuing our journey from Zion, Illinois, then to the apartment my son and his wife Albert and Bobbi are allowed to live in with their cats in Madison, Wisconsin, for a couple of days, and today westward toward Lincoln, Nebraska, for a grand conference on the humanities. Actually, 'tis quite warm, in the 50s - and the continental breakfast here at the Day's Inn in Dubuque ain't bad. The day's news this 18 day of November is of some 100,000 protestors getting ready for President Bush's visit to England today - they are assembling to protest the Iraqi war and the way the aftermath of the quick invasion and occupation. News reports from the United States' effort to kill or capture Saddam and his remaining cohorts by bombing targets in his home town and area by bombing possible hiding places are now laced with phrases like "collateral damage." To get the culprits, a lot of folks who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time suffer mightily - some of them die. That's war - even though it's been officially over for a long time. History is on the side of those who believe that the United States will give up and go home long before Iraq is rebuilt and some sort of democratic republic is established. It took decades to rebuild Germany, and our troops are still there.

More and more Iraqis are speaking up and against the way the occupation forces treat them - and against the "collateral damage." No one has spoken out quite as forcefully against President Bush's policy in Iraq as Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, who has proclaimed Bush "the greatest threat to human life on the planet." In newspaper poll, Brits were asked whether the United States is a force of good or an evil force - over 60 percent still thinks we're the good guys, and only some 15 percent or so think the whole country is as evil as the mayor of London thinks our president is. We can take heart that at least part of the world is still with us.

Our short trip here from Madison was accompanied by El Rushbo - Rush Limbaugh, of course, returned to the airways yesterday after five weeks of rehab for addiction to pain killers. My lovin' spouse is a much happier traveler with Rush to curse as we cruise. Time to get ready to roll - but not before another gulp of grape juice in salute to Sojourner Truth, born on this day in 1797 (she lived until 1883). She once said, "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, these women together ought to be able to turn it right side up again." I have to say, she was right on - if anyone is going to put a world awry ('tis not particularly worse than anytime in my memory, but 'tis indeed less than what it should be in terms of us humans getting along with each other and treating each other with the respect and dignity we expect to be accorded) - if anyone will change things for the better, 'tis not likely to be someone of the ilk of Rush Limbaugh - or President George W. Bush, or any male, for that matter. In fact, the most cursory review of human history can lead to but one conclusion: the tenuous human hold on to civilization depends almost entirely upon women.

Take care of yourselves, kola - and look out for each other. Remember, as the German poet and writer Richard Dehmel said, " "A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for all humankind." Happy Birthday, Herr Dehmel (born on this day in 1863, he died in 1920).

Ev Albers

Monday, November 17th, 2003

My friend Therese Yeaton from out in Seattle has noticed that, the less likely I'm going to be able to actually consume any of the food I describe from time to time, the more likely I am to write at great length with considerable passion about what I think I can eat but can't. In fact, the more squeamish and rebellious my digestive system following chemo treatment to keep this insidious invader at bay, the more likely I am to dream about food and recall great food moments from the past. There are times I get myself worked up over possibilities of fine culinary moments that any rational person would suggest is probably less than likely. 'Tis a strange variation on what I understand of the sudden food urges of women during pregnancy, these vagaries of appetite of folks being treated for pancreatic cancer that has done in the bile duct (put back in commission with a steel stent). Saturday, for example, on the way to my son's apartment, we stopped at a grocery store, mainly to stock him up on his beverage of choice, Mountain Dew. I, of course, went to look at the pies - and spied a small version of a covered pie labeled simply, "Raisin Pie." 'Tis a straight raisin pie - no sour cream - a few spices - and the crust is quite dreadful. Now I did have a slice yesterday morning at 5:30 A.M. - with a scoop of ice cream that is far superior to the pie - Beyer's Vanilla. As soon as I opened the refrigerator, a huge mixing bowl of ice hit the floor of the kitchen, raising my wife, my son, and both Mortimer and Oliver, the cats who control things in this household (son Albert's wife Bobbi is on a brief vacation). All hell broke loose - I thought for a minute that an inquisition would convene while the ice cream melted on my pie, but they let me off with considerable disgruntlement despite my protestations that all I did was open the freezer door - the bowl of ice would have fallen had anyone opened it - 'twas a case of stuff ready to come out of Fibber McGee's closet. I ate the raisin pie - with a bit of humble pie for my misfortune. Ollie and Morty had been banging pots and pans, tossing things from counters, and making considerable noise for most of the night - without protest from either son or spouse. There ain't no justice, kola.

This Monday morning here in Madison is quite lovely - not, of course, as beauuuuuuuuutiful as 'tis in Dakota, but a fine day to be alive. In the twilight of consciousness, as I did yesterday morning, I dreamed of those fat red weiners I used to buy at Lynch's Grocery on Sunday mornings back when I was teaching at Dickinson State - must have been 1971 or 1972 that I engaged in the ritual of getting a string of those fat and short sausages and consuming them with a brew or two on a late Sunday morning whilst reading Homer or Cervantes or another of the good old guys in preparation for my world literature class. I liked 'em best boiled to bursting and mustarded in a folded-over, lavishly real-buttered slice of homemade bread. Almost baloney-like, imbued, I'm sure, with enough red dye to create an insidious invader in the largest of laboratory rats, these were truly tasty - as I remember. Small matter that I couldn't probably get even a single bite down this morning - may be one more day of Ensures, and one sans any more of that raisin pie, methinks (when I consider that I'll be leaving town without having a weest slice, I tremble). Sure am thinking about those fat, red weiners, I bought on Sunday mornings thirty-some years ago. Only Mom & Pop stores like Lynch's were open on Sundays back then in North Dakota - all other retail establishments were closed - they still are until noon for everything but groceries. We have had some interesting laws in Dakota involving Sundays and food. Not so long ago, at least within living memories of the oldest Dakotans, there were neither movies nor baseball games on Sundays. Through the early 60s, we had a law called liquor divorcement in Dakota - liquor and food couldn't be served in the same establishment, except for clubs which paid a special license. There were hundreds of side-by-side restaurants and bars around the state in those days. If one were having a beer and wanted a hamburger, one put in the order and then had to go through a doorway without their beer to have the burger.

There were certain foods that were always allowed - by common consent and without any attempt to enforce liquor divorcement when they were consumed - one could have peanuts, sunflower seeds, pickled eggs, and pickled pig's feet. Now there are those who will swear that they have never actually seen a pickled pig's foot consumed after spending several hours a day in bars - and that the same jar that they first saw fifteen years ago is still there, full. Now, of course, bars are even open on Sunday - after noon. Lynch's grocery is long gone. I haven't seen one of those fat weiners in a long time, those red, red, miniature ring baloneys.

Come to think on it, one could always buy a pickle in a bar in North Dakota in the good old days - maybe that's what led to the exception of those pickled eggs and pickled pig's feet from the prohibition of serving food with liquor. Pretty stupid, that law - nothing is better in terms of cutting the effects of alcohol than having some food. Nowadays, you can get any frozen sandwich or pizza, warmed in a microwave, in the bars in the smallest towns in North Dakota. In quite a few, you can still have a pickled pig's foot as well. I had one, once or twice. Not bad. Can't go pickled hard-boiled eggs, though.

But if you crave a pickled egg, I hope you have one today, kola - take good care of yourself. And keep an eye out for each other - in fact, take the same care of your neighbors that you do at your best for yourself. And if you see a string of short, fat, red wieners in the store, give 'em a try and let me know what you think.

Ev Albers

Sunday, November 16th, 2003

November 16, Sunday in fabulous Madison, Wisconsin, where resides Mortimer and Oliver the cats - they allow my son and his wife to live here in this apartment as well, but they clearly are in control - of such things as banging pots and pans around at midnight and generally letting guest like Leslie and me know that we're not particularly welcome. Son Albert is batchin' for a few days while Bobbi, his wife, takes a little trip to Cancun arranged by her father and step-mother - Bobbi is enjoying the sun with Jonell while the men stay home. The trip was an award for sales. I suppose it's nice enough in Cancun, but I know it's absolutely beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful in Dakota this morning - won't be there for another week or so, but I miss it mightily. At least there's the promise of a little more snow a week hence. Tomorrow will be Arnold Schwarzenegger's Inauguration Day - The Terminator is in charge of the fifth largest economy in the world! It just happens to be the 48th anniversary of the day the United States brought eighty-eight Nazi rocket scientists to the United States - and there's absolutely no connection between the Nazi Germans who were so critical to the success of the United States space program and the unusual ascent to power of Maria Shriver's husband, Arnold, as he so winsomely introduces himself. 'Tis a day to remember Alan Watts, the popularizer of zen and Buddhism who completed his passage in the middle world on this day in 1973 (born in 1916). Watts continuously reminded us that all world religions are "doom and gloom and utter misery" as the signature song of a segment of the television show "Hee-Haw" characterized life. Among his provocative observations was "You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says 'Boo!' and then laughs at itself for jumping." Watts said that, near the end, "I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is." The problem, of course, escaping the illusions - and 'tis hard, kola, 'tis hard. From time we arise to our last thoughts of the day before slipping into that twilight of consciousness before deeper sleep, we either agonize over what has happened and what we might have done to change the past, or we fret about what tomorrow will bring - and, hence, miss most of our lives. I often recall an exhibit of exquisite designs in butter done by Buddhist monks that I saw in Washington, D.C. The artists were completely into the moment, and to appreciate what was happening, one watched the designs develop - then they were destroyed as soon as they were finished. Accepting the cheerful nowness of Buddhist monks is as difficult as really believing for a second what certainly is at the core of the gospels of Christianity - if we actually accepted Jesus' saying (Matthew 6):

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

That's the kind of attitude that will get one on the streets, homeless, in our society. Contrary to this core, organized religion continues to emphasis not the joy of being alive at this moment but the necessity of shaping up so worst stuff that what happens in the past doesn't descend upon us in the future.

One thing the future will bring, if news casts are right - the return of Rush Limbaugh on Monday next - there were just too ditto heads out there who simply have been muddling through the days of his absence wondering what they should be thinking. Perhaps Watts was right - perhaps we simply never take the time to think for ourselves - as he said, "Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them." We are born Republicans, Missouri-Synod Lutherans, or believers that the Ten Commandments belong on Court House lawns - because that's what our families thought.

We didn't give much thought to Buddhism or Zen out in the Garden of the Universe, Hannover Township, Oliver County, when I was growing up. I did know from encyclopedias that they wore robes - red ones in Tibet - prayed a good deal, and didn't accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, so they were going to someplace other than heaven, sure as hell. Homogenized, inbred with our accepted beliefs handed from generation to generation for at least a hundred years, we were mightily curious about folks who didn't know the truth as we did - we didn't see or know many, except for the occasional Catholic - with the rare exception of the visits by the Gypsy caravans - one group of which camped every year or so at the edge of our pasture behind the Hannover Store. Of course, no Missouri-Synod Lutheran would ever be found visiting the gypsy camp to have her/his fortune told - but an incredibly high percentage of folks managed to do it without being noticed - more like not being remembered because the person who saw them was there for the same purpose. And there was many a horse swap - not usually, but always resulting in the Hannoverian coming away with a worse horse than the one they brought to the camp - and there was the strange, wonderfully exotic music that came from the camp - 'twas our window to the possibility of something other than the comforting but sometimes pretty boring same old hymns, prayers, and liturgy.

In many ways, we live in a "Next Year" or "Next Business Cycle" society - things are always going to be better tomorrow - with the help of chemistry, breakthroughs in medical science, possibilities of weather modification, election of a party different than the one in power, etc., etc., etc. Times are difficult for Americans footing the huge bill for invading Iraq and keeping things relatively peaceful and truly lousy in terms of what they shall eat and what they wear and where'll they'll live for the Iraqis - for all of that is going to be better tomorrow. In Hannover Township, too many grew far too old, broken in body and spirit, because of the "Next Year" syndrome - next year the rains will come without hail, next year the price of wheat will jump, next year - and meanwhile, all that is real, the present, is lost in resentment over what might have been and the wild hope that tomorrow will miraculously be better.

Time for another nap, methinks - who knows what dreams will bring? Perhaps I'll help them along the weest, for better or worse, with just the smallest of slices of a straightforward raisin pie I picked up at the grocery store on our way to our son's apartment. Take care of yourselves, kola - find a way to experience today - and that will allow you to help others do the same.

Ev Albers