Past Blogs

As we approach the 245th celebration of our independence from the tyrannical British, I write my one and only political blog of the year. Every other week, I adhere to the original reason I started writing, namely, as an antidote to all the bad news that is part of daily life. Here are my reflections for July 4th, 2021.

Joe Biden is in the White House working harder than any other 78 year old in the world. He is appealing to our “better angels” and is making a monumental effort to save our precious democracy which is under attack from within. America is at a serious juncture: democracy is a fragile thing and there are no guarantees that ours will hold.

Despite the perilous nature of this time in America’s life, I intend to enjoy the next three and a half years. With the election putting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the helm, we have adults in charge. It’s time to light the sparklers, watch the fireworks and stay hopeful.

To celebrate, I have conjured up a few sound bites which are apropos of the times. I’m hoping our better angels would agree with these sentiments.

• What would Abraham Lincoln do?
• Voting: A right, not a privilege.
• Kindness is not weakness.
• Pro choice means I can choose my own religion. (Reference: The Bill of Rights, Amendment One)
• The flag belongs to everybody.
• Bring back the Common Good.
• Freedom only works when we all are.
• Democracy: Not perfect,  but nothing’s better.

Name about any food and you will probably have been told that it is bad for you. The pleasure police and health food folks have been busy. Meat, milk, bread, eggs, cheese, fruit juice and anything that contains sugar are all on the hit list. And even the few items that aren’t on the “bad for you” list are scary. Romaine lettuce harbor E. coli, and fish is laced with mercury. Eating anything these days appears to be detrimental to one’s health.

So it was with great pleasure that I saw this post on Manitowoc Minute the other day. “Whoever is making those cheese commercials can save their money. We’re buying cheese, and we’re never going to stop buying cheese.”

Being a true daughter of Wisconsin, I’m all in with that statement. One of our local dairies has a small retail cheese store. It’s located on a bucolic country road and features over 100 varieties of Wisconsin cheese. The dairy also churns out tons of butter which is sold for the amazing price of $2.39 a pound. After the hard work of selecting a sackful of cheese, there’s another treat in store. A full-size ice cream cone costs 25 cents. The dairy even provides a small picnic area across the road where customers can consume their cone and cheese curds in leisure. The pleasure of the senses beats out food fear every time.

It’s time to cast food in a more favorable light. In that spirit, here are some of my favorite cheese quotes.

• “You can’t make everyone happy. You are not cheese.”
• “Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.” M.F. K. Fischer
• “The secret ingredient is always cheese.”
• “When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say”? George Carlin

Do you like your address?

I’m not referring to fondness for your home, but rather to that unique combination of numbers and words that mark your unique spot on the planet.

Not having a particularly good relationship with numbers, I consider myself lucky to have had three words in our first home’s address and also three in our current one. Honey Creek Drive and Lake Shore Road both leave no doubt that we love to live near water.

Liking my own address does not preclude noting other street names near to us that I wouldn’t mind having as my return address. Playbird Road conjures up images of happy, fluttering birds, while Grandpa Road must be filled with happy memories.

Our daughter lives on Clove Drive in Madison and the streets around her home are well seasoned. You can cruise down Basil Drive, Sage Circle and Chive Court.

Our son, on the other hand, used to be surrounded by gems and minerals when he lived on Felspar Street in Pacific Beach, California. Note that those city fathers spelled both feldspar and hornblende incorrectly. Here are the neighborhood gem streets in order: Agate, Turquoise, Sapphire, Tourmaline, Opal, Beryl, Chalcedony, Diamond, Emerald, Felspar, Garnet and Hornblend. If I could afford to live there, Turquoise would be my pick.

I recently drove past Zuzax Road on the outskirts of Albuquerque. This certainly would be a very zippy address. I also encountered Butter and Eggs Road, Pancake Boulevard and Sugar Street in Kansas. I’m guessing these might be addresses a foodie might crave.

We have a friend of many years whose house is on an extremely short street. Her town actually let her pick the name of the street. Most of us don’t get this option. What a delight it must have been for her little boy named Russell to grow up on Russell Court.

Post Script….I thought this blog was finished and ready to be posted tonight. But today I had a program for kids at a summer school two-thirds across the state from our home. And on my three-hour drive to get there, I spotted an unusual street sign in a tiny, tiny rural town. I was intrigued and checked it out further on my way home. This is what I found!

Anyone who has ever taken a road trip out West has probably noticed a strange phenomenon. Westerners love to put giant letters on their mountainsides. These humongous initials are called “mountain monograms” or “geoglyphs”.

The first geoglyph was a super-sized “L” created by students at Lahainaluna High School in Hawaii in 1904. Plants were cleared to shape the letter, and then lime was put down to prevent the regrowth of vegetation.

In 1905, the second letter was a “C” constructed of concrete. It was made on Charter Hill by University of Berkeley students in California. As of today, around 500 hillside letters can be found around America, almost all of which are in Western States. The top lettered states are California at 81, Montana 80, Utah 78, Arizona 59 and Nevada 47.

While reading about these geoglyphs, I came across a big surprise. My home state of Wisconsin, an extremely non-mountainous state, hosts a giant letter. To be more precise, it is the biggest “M” in the world.

Our “M” was built in 1937 at the University of Platteville by students in the Mining Engineering Department. The area around Platteville is famous for its historic lead mines. Because of this heritage, our state flag even includes a picture of a miner.

The project began when students simply put foot tracks in the snow on the side of Platteville Mound to make a big “M” for the School of Mines. The snowy “M” was so popular it was replaced with limestone rocks when the snow melted. Picks, crowbars and wheelbarrows were borrowed from a local CCC camp to accomplish the task.

Throughout the years, the letter has been illuminated for homecoming by various means. In 1949, 250 cans with corncobs were torched to outline the letter. More recently, wicks in kerosene-filled coffee cans have been employed.

My newfound knowledge of this inevitably led to a road trip across the state to see the “M”. After all, that is my initial, too.

When I was in my early teens, my parents let me take Saturday morning art classes at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. I cannot thank them enough for all the times they drove me there and paid for the classes and art supplies.

My teacher for those classes was Lois Ehlert. I could not have been luckier. She was about 23 years old at the time and an art student herself at Layton. She made Saturday my favorite day of the week.

Lois went on to be a world-famous illustrator and writer of children’s books, winning a Caldecott award in 1990. But fame came late. For many years she was a commercial graphic designer. It was not until her 50’s that she began creating children’s books.

Above all, Lois was a colorist and a lover of folk art. With scissors, vibrant colored paper, fabrics and collage materials, she would cut out and paste down eye-popping pages for her books. At heart, she was always a brilliant graphic designer.

Lois was generous with her time, making frequent appearances at libraries and community events. Many of my fellow art teachers and I were able to be part of some of these workshops. Lois would walk into the room with her huge smile, colorful jewelry and hand-made outfits and make creativity run rampant in all of us, young and old alike. Being part of her library “Poetry Concerts” was an unforgettable experience.

And I have a personal Lois story to tell. My husband and I were at an outdoor sculpture exhibit by a Wisconsin folk artist, Ellis Nelson. We ran into Lois who was also there to see Mr. Nelson’s large, bent wire animal figures.

“You know, Mary”, she said, “you should buy one of these. He’s terrific.” Lois lived and worked in a very colorful apartment near Lake Michigan…but she had no yard. We took her advice and bought a rabbit and a dinosaur. They now run (in place) perpetually through our meadow.

Lois Ehlert died last week at the age of 86. She has left behind an enormous legacy of color, kindness and joy.

My favorite book which was both written and illustrated by Lois is Feathers for Lunch.