Past Blogs

I’m going to put a sign on my refrigerator that says, “Remember Galileo.” I am struggling to keep my current frustration in perspective.

Carl Hiassen, Florida’s satirical writer, stated in a recent Smithsonian magazine essay that, “the human race is actually de-evolving, that we are moving backward on the evolutionary scale… slipping backward into the primal ooze.”

I agree. An uncomfortable percentage of the populace is embracing superstition, ideologues and junk science with alarming frequency. Take evolution, for example. Whether we humans believe in it or not, evolution rolls merrily along unaffected by our  thoughts on the subject. I wish all doctors would use the word “evolve” when telling patients why the antibiotic they are begging for no longer works. “The microbes have evolved to be resistant.” Physicians are missing a teaching moment.

There’s a high probability that future generations will look back on our current denial of global warming with amazement. Does the ice of Greenland have to melt and inundate New Jersey before we get it? Do we even know that New Jersey is a state in America?

It’s not a punishable offense to deny the knowledge the world’s greatest thinkers have gained for us. But it is downright unenlightened to say nothing of arrogant.

Science writer  K.C. Cole states, “We don’t even know what it is possible to know.”  I would add that tossing away our hard won accumulated knowledge no matter how small that body of knowledge might be isn’t the brightest action.

Students and teachers are heading back to school this week. I believe it would behoove us on the teaching end of the equation to remember that we should not teach our students what to think but rather how to think.

I love clean beginnings and endings. Summer sits neatly between the bookends of Memorial Day and Labor Day. As we head toward the later, a summer summary is in order.

I will remember the summer of 2010 as the year that bad gardeners were good ones. Plentiful rain alternating with sun created rain forest conditions. Everything shot up like a teenage boy. Our cup plant soared to an amazing height of 9 feet, 11 inches. Flowers I don’t even remember planting magically appeared in the front yard. The fields around us were so lush our farmers had to work nonstop to bring crops in. Hay wagons were everywhere.

The animals must have sensed the abundance. We were tripping over a bumper crop of chipmunks in our driveway. Raccoon families proliferated, and red and gray squirrels bristled in all directions off our bird feeders. The bird population ranged from hummingbirds to bald eagles. The insect count per square inch of our yard was astronomical.

Vegetable gardens overflowed making us all locavores. What we didn’t grow, friends and neighbors supplied. I resorted to that big cookbook in cyberspace several times for advice on freezing piles of zucchini and beans. These souvenirs from summer will be welcome when the snow flies.

Our beach glass collection is a barometer of time spent outside. Since I can hardly lift the bowl, I know ample time was spent on the shore.

The goldenrod is already all brassy, and the monarchs and many birds are heading for their second summers. We, however, are not snowbirds. We will stay put and start looking for more tell-tale signs of Fall’s approach. After all the exuberant growth and greenness of summer, it’s time for a rest.

I am a lover of bridges, both the mighty and the minute. Going up and over and getting a lovely view gives much pleasure.

As a historic preservation Commissioner, I quickly learned that bridges, unlike buildings, get beaten up all the time and have finite lives. Even die hard preservationists can’t save aging, albeit beautiful, bridges.

Luckily, my husband shares my fondness for fine bridges, and we frequently drive miles out of our way to cross one. The tip of  Illinois at Cairo is bridge heaven. We happily drove back and forth several times over the Mississippi and Ohio River bridges only stopping to change drivers so the other person could enjoy the views.

An efficient bypass around Tampa saves drivers from going over Tampa on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. We definitely turned that option down and were rewarded with spectacular vistas of both the bridge and the bay.

Five hours from our house is the Mackinac Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere. It joins the upper and lower parts of Michigan in fact, if not in culture. Like the denizens of the Conch Republic, a.k.a. Key West, Yuppers seem to enjoy being a breed apart. Bridges can do that to you.

Small bridges have charm as well. My favorite is the 98 year old Spruce Street pedestrian suspension bridge in San Diego. It was originally built to allow disembarking streetcar passengers access to their homes on the far side of the ravine. If no one else is on it, we love to go out to the middle and get it swinging. This activity is not for the faint of stomach.

The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge just north of Taos, New Mexico, is an absolutely flat bridge which doesn’t give away its secret until you are on it. Look down, and down is forever which proves that rivers are the best stone carvers of all time.

The bridge nearest our home is the Fischer Creek Bridge beside Lake Michigan. Like many bridges, it is a homage to the triangle, that tough shape that puts the strength into our buildings and bridges. Rectangles aren’t up to the job: they squish too easily.

I’ll cast my vote for bridges anytime. They are infinitely better than walls.

To view a delightful and surprising adaptive reuse of an old trolley bridge, click here.

Sometimes you have to leave home to discover what’s in your own front yard. In our case, we had to go all the way to Tucson to learn what’s in Lake Michigan.

Several years ago, we were at the gigantic Tucson Gem and Mineral show when we spotted a booth proclaiming the wonders of “Petoskey Stones”. We drifted over to discover that these amazing and lovely rocks are found  in our own Lake Michigan… but on the opposite shore near Petoskey, Michigan.

The charming, elderly couple who ran the booth had come from Northport, Michigan, to display their polished rocks as well as jewelry, paperweights and other items made from the stones.

The geology of Petoskey Stones, Michigan’s State Stone, is fascinating. The rocks are fossilized coral from the Devonian Period. The land we call Michigan now was covered by a shallow sea 360 million years ago, and  a species of coral called Hexagonaria Percarinata grew in the reefs. Glaciers subsequently moved, rounded and smoothed the stones.

On a trip to the eastern shore last year we did not find a Petoskey Stone. The city of Petoskey, however, was a delight to visit. This year we went back and hit the jackpot. Walking on the beach at Charlevoix, a stone’s throw from Petoskey, we struck up a conversation with a fellow beach walker. We inquired about Petoskey Stones, and she reached down in the water and came up with one. “It’s easier to spot one in the water than on the beach,” she helpfully said.

She was right. Here I am with my treasure.

I exist because of a library… the elegant Milwaukee Central Library to be exact.

More than a decade before I was born, the woman who would become my mother worked at the circulation desk of Milwaukee Central. A young man came in every week and checked out large piles of books. He was also checking out my mother. Eventually, he got courageous enough to ask her out on a date, and, lucky for me, she accepted.

Of course, if I wished to be more precise, I could thank Benjamin Franklin for my tenure on the planet. In 1871 he started the first free, public lending library in America. Up to this time, libraries were only for the royal, the rich or the church. Peasants did not have library cards. That would have been too dangerous.

My connection with libraries did not end at birth.I have visited some library almost every week of my life since I was four years old. For five years I had my dream job as the “Children’s Programmer” for the Greenfield Public Library. I was paid to read new children’s books, create programs for young people and present them. And for the last 24 summers I have had the pleasure of traveling the state of Wisconsin to present summer reading programs in libraries large and small.

Currently, debates rage on the need for libraries in a computer age. Who needs libraries when all knowledge is as close as your keyboard? Might I suggest that life (real not virtual) will always be found at the library. I should know.