Canoecopia and the Birds

Gary and I joined his sister Kathe at Canoecopia at the Alliant Center in Madison today.  We couldn't believe the traffic and the cars in the parking lot until we realized it wasn't only the canoe show.  In adjacent buildings there were golf and bicycle shows, too, plus another part of the parking area was set aside for those who were going to the anti-Governor Walker rally at the capitol.  People parked there and caught buses carrying their signs of protest.

It won't be long before Walker is an ex-governor.  Yesterday he set up a legal defense fund, but state statutes specifically state that he cannot do so unless he is under investigation for voter or electoral fraud.  It looks like he is on his way to the court system. 

But that wasn't on our mind today. We were collecting material for our summer tour around Lake Superior as well as looking at new equipment. We talked to the experts from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and of course, Ontario.  We went to a symposium by Bill Mason's daughter Becky who demonstrated advanced Canadian canoeing. The week before, Gary showed me Bill Mason's movie, Path of the Paddle, in which he took his family canoeing on a river leading into Lake Superior. His daughter Becky was a little girl then.  Now she is making her own canoeing movies, using techniques unavailable to her late father.   

We learned a lot today but the crowds were more than I can stand.  

I found myself talking to rangers and instead of listening to them, thinking about the calm of a Wisconsin lake, the swish of a paddle, the songs of the birds.  I am not cut out for hiking through crowds.  My feet hurt, my legs ached, and I was happy to end the afternoon.

We came home with stacks of maps, brochures, and posters to consider in the next three months.

On the way home, we stopped at Van Patten Road east of Shiocton and found Canada geese, coots, sandhill cranes and red winged blackbirds setting up their summer homes.  Just east of Black Creek, tundra swans were paddling around in water. These birds arrived a week earlier than last year.

Seeing avian friends again is making me so happy so when I totaled the negatives and the pluses of the day, it was a positive day.  

It's Coming

When we started to plan our summer activities, I began to realize that it wasn't going to be all that easy to get a short story written every other week for the blog I write with Wade Peterson, Black Coffee Fiction,  http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com   We are going to be out camping and traveling.  Where will I find the time?

I've been too lazy this winter, simply dipping into a store of stories I've written over the years.  I still have several left, but now I need to get busy and work ahead.

Where would these ideas come from?  I was struggling to find a story this past week when I remembered newspaper columns I wrote years ago.  I began to look through them and found so many stories.  The one I published today "It's Coming", is based on a trip I took to Texas.

I was at Galveston when hurricane warnings were issued.  I had to drive back to Wisconsin chased  first by the hurricane, then torrential rainfall, followed by a blizzard.  It was one of the most harrowing experiences in my life.   But I was able to re-work it into a good short story. I left out some people, added characters, even changed the car I was driving.  For some reason, a Camero worked better than a Chevy Nova. I changed the ending...after all, I survived the experience remarkably well. The heroine in my fictional story is not so lucky.

That is what I have observed throughout my life.  Good news does not make good writing.  The worse the experience, the better the story.

So now I have my source for stories.  Best to get to work and write them before summer comes.

Mobility

This afternoon, I was at Evan's first grade classroom.  Each week, one of the students becomes a star and gets to bring someone in for show and tell, and today that was me.  I thought I was going to be there for fifteen minutes, but was there for forty five, telling stories and singing songs.

I told stories from around the world and nothing threw those first graders.  They followed the Australian animals in "Tie Me Kangaroo Down", though "wallaby" was not an animal they knew.  They liked the sounds a Jamaican toad makes.

I met Evan's little girl friend Eva.  He likes her because their names are so similar...and I think because she's a very bright little girl.  Evan asked her to sing a song for me.  No, she said, it would be "inappropriate."  No, said Evan, it would be "appropriate".

When I was done, I chatted with the children who wanted to tell me where they had been, where they came from, and in a couple of cases, where they were moving.  They knew where their relatives lived, at least the names of the towns and states, though they were sometimes confused about the exact geography.

What amazed me was how mobile modern families are.  One girl's family is going to Arkansas.  Another's came from California.  They reminded me of the children I tell to at military bases. Those kids are moving all the time.

When I grew up, people stayed put.  My great-grandparents, grandparents and parents lived and worked on the same farm.  My grandfather and father went to the same one room school I attended.

I wonder where all those children will wind up.

Two State Senators

This morning, I woke up to find out that Gogebic Taconite, the mining company,was giving up on a mine that would have destroyed a heavily forested area near Lake Superior. I was so happy I was ready to jump up and down and wake Gary up to tell him, though he wasn't likely to wake up on his own for another three hours. When he heard about it, he said he wouldn't have minded getting up early for news like that.

Lake Superior is one of the last places on earth with pristine water. As good water disappears around the world, here in Wisconsin we share this big and beautiful body of water with Michigan, Minnesota and Ontario. Every so often, someone takes a run at that water, and we fight them off. The latest was Texas, suffering from drought.  The Texans wanted to run a pipeline from the Great Lakes. They didn't get that and the mining company didn't get their way with that mine, which could easily have polluted the Bad River that leads into the big lake. The Native Americans that live in the area are the Bad River Tribe who knew that the mine could destroy their way of life and were prepared to fight.

Some of the local people thought the mine would be good by adding jobs but even they knew that would only be if the company were held to certain standards. Instead, the Republican controlled Wisconsin legislature said they were “speeding up the process” but that meant that the Gogebic Taconite would not be held responsible in an environmental disaster. Furthermore, Wisconsinites would be kept from making comments in open forums.

One state senator, Dale Schulz, held up the legislation. Schulz is one of a disappearing breed, the moderate politician.The original bill had been drawn up by the mining company and he found plenty wrong with it so he refused to vote for it. The pressure he must have been under!   

He stood firm.  The bill failed to pass 16-17. For that this Republican senator deserves a Profiles in Courage award, if such a thing still exists.

There is another Republican state senator, Glenn Grothman, who is just the opposite. He recently introduced a bill which would formally consider single parenthood as a form of child abuse. He claims that unwanted pregnancies are the choice of women who should be taught that it is a mistake. Taught, of course, by a sanctimonious prick.

As a woman who raised a child alone, I consider Grothman lower than low. If there was an award for Jackass of the Year, I would be proud to award it to him.

Two senators, both Republican, but what a difference.   

Spring is Popping Out All Over

The day was warm and when I got home from visiting with a friend and going to the critique group, I took off walking around town.  More fine weather is to come.

Out on Miller Road, Susan Manzke has reported the arrival of the first sandhill crane. Soon they will be all over the state.  Once almost extinct here, they now are considered by some to be a nuisance, in fact, some legislators want a hunting season. I can't imagine anyone wanting to shoot such a magnificent bird, but some hunters will shoot at anything.

On April 14, I will be counting the cranes for the International Crane Foundation out of Baraboo, Wisconsin. I've been doing that for years.  It's one of the rites of spring for me.

I have seen a robin near the Methodist Church but since robins often over winter, that is not a sure sign until a flock shows up.

A surer sign of spring is when Gary throws the first bratwurst on the grill, which he did tonight.  It is not exactly the best idea since he has a cholesterol problem, especially with potato salad on the side, but oh, it was good.  We'll behave ourselves tomorrow.

Coming and going

Spring comes and goes at this time of year.  One day I hear a robin, the next day there's snowstorm.  One day, the snowdrops are blooming, the next day they are buried in the snow.  No matter, they'll be back in a few days.

Even before I started this blog, I wrote a weekly column, first for a newspaper, then through e-mails with subscribers. This gives me a record of springs going back over twenty years. Because of those accounts, I know that one year ago, Gary brought the lawn chairs from storage so we could sit in the sun on the deck. Ten years ago on this date,we were over at Van Patten Road to watch the first flocks of Canada geese land.  The next day, we were hit with a blizzard.

Fifteen years ago, we were at the Rawley Point lighthouse near Two Rivers, staying in the keepers cottage with our friends Karen and Pete.  That morning, I was wading through newly fallen snow and ice boulders formed along Lake Michigan.  It wasn't spring yet, but the lake had melted.

Today, I walked past snowbanks on my errands, yet tomorrow the daily temperature could climb to 50 degrees and remain so until the weekend.

Yes, spring comes in starts and stops.  No two of them are exactly alike.

Gary's Sense of Humor

Gary's sense of humor works only because I understand it.  

When our friend Ron in Minnesota noted on Facebook that he went to a Bill Staines concert a few days ago and posted a picture on Facebook, Gary printed it out.  We took it to Bill's next concert at Mosquito Hill Nature Center near New London and had our own photo taken with Ron's photo. We now think someone along Bill's tour route should do the same.  And the next concert and the next concert, with a long chain of photos.  

Gary commented that we proved that Bill changes shirts between performances.

When I came home from church today, Gary had my "birthday present" ready, a spanking new chainsaw.

No, it wasn't really my birthday present...I don't think.  My real birthday is March 17th, and there better be something besides a chainsaw.

Now he is planning our summer tour around Lake Michigan.  He's marked off a square on the living room floor which he says is the size of the car top carrier than he claims will go on top of his huge van.  Think of all the extra stuff we could take, he says, on a trip that will only be two weeks long.  When I laughed he came up with an alternate plan, a car top carrier for the Rascal Cat. After all, Romney traveled with his dog that way.

He is kidding, I think.