Chautauqua

Welcome to the eleventh annual High Plains Chautauqua, a living history festival that recreates the traveling tent Chautauqua tradition of the early 20th century. This year’s unique blend of theatre, history and the humanities will feature portrayals of fascinating Americans who delight us, infuriate us, scare us, dare us to think big, inspire us to stand up for what we believe, challenge us to rethink our preconceptions, and make us laugh. Can we rise to their challenge? Can we learn from these extraordinary Americans? Can we chime in with them, giving voice to a new American chorus of limitless possibility?
Thomas Edison• Helen Keller• Amelia Earhart• Michael Jackson• Annie Oakley• George Washington• Clara Barton• Roald Dahl• Martin Luther King• Bessie Coleman
President Theodore Roosevelt once called Chautauqua the "most American thing in America". The traveling Tent Chautauquas were an outgrowth of the lyceum movement and evolved in the early twentieth century to bring to rural America the same quality of entertainment, history and culture that was available to city dwellers. The Circuit Chautauquas were modeled after the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York state, a community with summer long programs by politicians, writers, theologians, and musicians.

I was very excited to learn that our eldest grandson was portraying George Washington in one of the many Chautauqua events in Greeley this summer. Living history at its best. This old history teacher couldn't be more pleased.

Visitors From Colorado

Our son Tony, Kari and the grandkids in Kilgali Rwanda from whence Leonard was adopted.Later, having there picture taken in Colorado. Earlier this summer they all came to Minnesota to visit. A great time was had by all. Here are a few highlights:
Visiting Dick & Sharons farm for 4 wheeling.

Tony, Troutbirder, Tensae & Ethan overlooking The Father Of Waters near the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota
We also took a fishingboat ride on the backwaters of the Mississippi looking for alligators. None were spotted (perhaps a little to far north from there usual habitat), however, numerous snapping turtles soon appeared. Here Tensae is getting ready for our lunch stop at Slipperys, the famous restaurant movie home of the "Grumpy Old Men." As I recall Ann Margaret was a professor at nearby Winona State University. Not in my time though.

Home Waters

I just started reading Home Waters edited by Gary Soucie. It's a fly-fishing anthology. Home waters would be that place or places which the flyfisherman considers his own. Not in the literal sense, of course, but in the sense of being at home there. The place with which he is most familiar and most comfortable. A place to which he returns most often in body and spirit.

For me, it is the spring fed limestone creeks and rivers of Bluff Country, the karst region of southeastern Minnesota. There are several rivers and innumerable streams and tiny brooks in this unglaciated countryside. Over a forty year period I have fished most of them. The South Branch of the Root River is closest to my home and heart. It is the place to which I now return in my retirement years.

This is where I first learned how to entice the wily brown trout with the fly. Then taught my two sons the same art. Later, as they grew up, we wandered far afield to the fabulous waters of Montana and Yellowstone National Park. The Boulder, the Gallatin, the West Fork of the Madison, The Big Hole, The Lamar, Slough Creek and countless others became part of our vocabulary.
Here son Ted and I standing confidently above the Lamar having caught and released our share of giant cutthroat trout.Those days of memory are long gone now.

Son Tony lives with his family in Colorado and only rarely are we able to find the time and place to share our common interest in fishing for trout. Grandson Ethan, though, is learning to love the outdoors and perhaps someday.....
My "Home Waters" the South Branch of the Root River.

They Fought For Each Other

Your right . It is hard to read. I paused and took deep breaths many times at every twist and painful turn. And yet if a book can be a "must read" about this ongoing war....this is it. Half of the heroes of Charlie Company 1/26th infantry Charley Company were killed in Iraq. Many came home after 15th month broken in body and spirit. PTSD was only one of many problems.

A reporter for the Army Times, author Kelly Kennedy developed the book from Blood Brothers, a series of articles she had written. A former soldier herself , she tells the story of a Charley company's fight against insurgents and terrorists in a Bagdad neighborhood. Somehow it reminded me of a yearlong version of the day long fight for survival in Blackhawk Down. The following link to the final chapter of the Blood Brother series by the author in Army Times will introduce you to some of the men whose stories are told in the book.



http://militarytimes.com/news/2007/11/bloodbrothersredirect/



I would be remiss if I didn't mention this unit was the only one to mutiny (refuse orders) during the war. Of course, you didn't know that nor did I before reading their story. Soldiers were rotated as units rather than individuals in this war as opposed to Korea and Vietnam. The consequences of this cuts to the heart of this story. You won't be disappointed in finding out why they did what they had to do.

Up North

There was a time when the phrase "up north" meant going to a mom and pop resort for a week or two of a fishing vacation in Northern Minnesota. That tradition has faded quite a bit over the years. Today, fancy resorts with tennis courts, golf courses, computer game rooms and "conference centers" dominate. Ah for the good old days.

Here I am checking out the beach with my Aunt Pearl and my mom (on the right) sometime during WWII.

A few years later, can you believe the striped pants my mom made me wear. The cabins were always "rustic." But what fun. I was an only child in those days as my little brothers didn't show up till I was almost ten.

This sudden dash of nostaligia may have been inspired by getting my Alumacraft fishing boat ready for the season yesterday. The images of long past fishing lakes "up north" kept flashing through my mind. They are far away in time and distance but not in memory. Farm Island, Ball Club, Potato, Sawbill, Mantrap, Battle Ax, Lida, Hoot Owl, and on and on. Those were the days my friends.....

The Shack

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young is a publishing phenomena. It's subtitled "Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity. It is a novel about faith. A father loses a child. The question comes to him as to presence of God in a world filled with evil and unspeakable pain. In his search for answers he finally visits the the shack where his young daughter was murdered. There he meets God, who is a black woman who makes really good pancakes. Huh? Jesus a young middleaster fellow with a big nose. Very understanding and kindly is he. And The Holy Ghost, who likes purple, appears to be of Asian extraction and is otherwise quite undescribable.

Obviously it's a fairy tale. An allegory of the quality of Pilgrims Progress? I think not. Fairy tales though, can provide wonderful moral lessons or be just plain silly. Millions of people have, apparently, felt this book to be a life altering reading experience. At least many, who might be of a less than a traditional Christian point of view, have recommended it to their friends. That's how I got it. Perhaps it's a derivative of the "Emergent Church."

The writing is weak at times and the lengthy dialogue seems trite at points. Yet, to many the underlying questions and answers must be profound.

I don't believe in fairy tales. I know all about losing a child. A good book reviewer should be able to tell his readers whether a book is worth reading or not. I can't do that because, theologically speaking, quite simply this book was way beyond my understanding. You see in the end, it is a matter of faith.

Growing Up

When I was growing up in St. Paul in the 1950's:

A little house with three bedrooms, one bathroom and one car on the street. A mower that you had to push to make the grass look neat.

In the kitchen we only had one phone,And no need for recording things, someone was always home.

We only had a living room where we would congregate, Unless it was at mealtime in the kitchen where we ate. We had no need for family rooms or extra rooms to dine, When meeting as a family those two rooms would work out fine.

We were the last kids in our neighborhood to have a TV. We only had one set, and channels maybe two or three, But always there was one of them with something worth the view. My dad thought he got a bargain from "Mad Man" Muntz you see. It was a giant 17 inches and black and white indeed.

For snacks we had potato chips that tasted like a chip, And if you wanted flavor there was Lipton's onion dip. Store-bought snacks were rare because my mother liked to cook, And nothing can compare to snacks in Betty Crocker's book.

Weekends were for family trips or staying home to play, We all did things together -- even go to church to pray.

We all loved to go camping then, here my mom is helping pack the stuff and to this very day, Mrs. T and I like still like the woods as long as we can stay. Sometimes we would separate to do things on our own, But we knew where the others were without our own cell phone.

Then there were the movies with your favorite movie star, And nothing can compare to watching movies in your car.

Then there were the picnics at the peak of summer season, Pack a lunch and find some trees and never need a reason. Get a baseball game together with all the friends you know, Have real action playing ball -- and no game video. Now they speak of the Boyz In The Hood. Well, here we all were then. Boys and girls together playing Robin Hood. That's me, lower right hand corner, getting ready to shoot. The game never tired for us as it always was a hoot.

Remember going to the store and shopping casually, And when you went to pay for it you used your own money? Nothing that you had to swipe or punch in some amount, Remember when the cashier person had to really count? The milkman used to go from door to door, And it was just a few cents more than going to the store. There was a time when mailed letters came right to your door, Without a lot of junk mail ads sent out by every store. The mailman knew each house by name and knew where it was sent; There were not loads of mail addressed to "present occupant." There was a time when just one glance was all that it would take, And you would know the kind of car, the model and the make. One time the music that you played whenever you would jive, Was from a vinyl, big-holed record called a forty-five. The record player had a post to keep them all in line, And then the records would drop down and play one at a time.

Oh sure, we had our problems then, just like we do today, And always we were striving, trying for a better way. Oh, the simple life we lived still seems like so much fun, How can you explain a game, just kick the can and run?

This life seemed so much easier and slower in some ways, I love the new technology but I sure miss those days. So time moves on and so do we, and nothing stays the same, But I sure love to reminisce and walk down memory lane.

George Clooney

Some weeks ago I posted a review of the movie Up In The Air. http://troutbirder.blogspot.com/2010/01/up-in-air.html The review was somewhat less than highly favorable. Apparently his appearance in a film automatically makes it Academy Award material. I don't get it?

Korean War Memorial

After I had (in the previous post) misidentified the Washington monument as a high rise hotel, we saw the new Holocaust Museum, and then headed down the mall to pay our respects at the Vietnam Memorial and to President Lincoln. On the way back up the from the Lincoln Memorial we noticed a large crowd was gathered around some statues. They represented some soldiers walking carefully across a rice paddy.

It was the memorial to the veterans of one of America’s forgotten wars. Korea. Unfortunately, I must admit I was unfamiliar with the memorials very existence. Of course, I had read many books about the war itself. I had also talked with my retired Marine Corps brother-in- law about his experiences there as an 18 year old. He had gone straight into the thick of the battle from high school in Mississippi.

As we approached the crowd it was apparent some sort of ceremony was taking place. TV and movie cameras were everywhere. Reporters gathered around a distinguished looking elderly gentleman. I asked a member of the crowd who the gentlemen was.
"You mean the man wearing the Congressional Medal of Honor," he replied. This is America's highest decoration for valor in defense of our country.

"His name is General Ray Davis." Raymond Gilbert "Ray" Davis (January 13, 1915 – September 3, 2003) was a highly decorated Marine Corps officer, serving in World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. His single most notable endeavor was the salvation of hundreds of trapped Marines during the 1950 Battle of Chosin Reservoir while commanding the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

History. It's all around us. You just have to keep you eyes open.