Year End 2019

Year End 2019

What, already? Yes. It’s time to say goodbye to another year that was filled with activities at home and away. Life has been pretty good. I have been busy with community volunteering, trips, a class reunion, plays, and other events. Much of all the activity included family members and Pete, my boyfriend. I am thankful for all of them. A congenial family and an enjoyable male companion are this year’s happy blessings.

In February, much to my unhappy surprise, I sprained my knee in the Madison snow without even falling down. I twisted my knee as I took a shortcut over a large, packed snowbank left by a plow, and pain lasted for four and a half months. A Google source said that a sprain will heal in a month or six weeks; even my doctor thought so. Maybe that is the case for babies, but some old people heal gradually. I continued with daily life as much as possible, but now I know I am mortal. Also healed.

Pete and I took a trip to Virginia in June. We spent four enjoyable days visiting the homes of three of our Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. We spent the most time in the Jefferson environment at Monticello, and the rest of the time at the estates of Madison and Monroe. They all lived in the mountain area near Charlottesville,Virginia. Road Scholar provided local experts who gave talks to our group. We also spent some time looking at the University of Virginia, which Jefferson founded.

Another tour took Pete and me to Minneapolis in August. We took time for an overnight visit to Pete’s sister Phyllis and her family in northern Minnesota at the start of the trip and some time with my daughter Elizabeth (Libby) in suburban Minneapolis at the end of it. During the tour with Road Scholar we visited Minnehaha Falls, the big waterfall in Minnehaha Park; the well-known Guthrie Theatre, two art museums, and other sights. At the Guthrie we saw all the backstage things that professional theater requires, including costumes made as needed, sets needing assembly, and various props that filled large rooms. We saw the stage area, too, and later we saw the performance of Guys and Dolls. And for me no trip to Minneapolis was compete without Sunday brunch at Hell’s Kitchen with Libby.

During the year Pete and I saw many plays. The best was Hamilton.  We saw it in Chicago in April with a group of seniors, and in Madison in November, and we loved it. It’s the biggest play of the year, in my opinion. We saw MacBeth at American Players Theatre in Spring Green with Pete’s family. We saw Guys and Dolls in Minneapolis. We saw other plays in Madison, where drama seems to flourish.

I attended my 60-year class reunion of Sturgeon Bay High School in October. A large crowd of classmates with spouses and dates filled the Lodge at Leatham Smith. We enjoyed seeing people whom we had not seen in many years as well as some we have known over time. A list of deceased class members was read; it appears that about half of the class has left this world. I was glad to have time to talk with many of the people who came to the reunion of the class of 1959.

Once again this year I took several trips to Washington Island in Door County. Daughter Sarah and I were there for the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.  Grandchildren Laura and Ian came with us. I was there other times for several days at a time, enjoying the woods, the lakeshore and the hassle-free rural environment. I stay in a cabin at the island campground whenever I go there.

Back in Madison I have been doing volunteer work mostly at the Madison Senior Center and the Meadowridge branch library. Also, I exhibited some of my art work in the Wisconsin Regional Art Program and at the senior center. The Friends of the Madison Public Library gave me some recognition for volunteering more than ten years.

As mom and grandma, I enjoyed the family’s musical concerts with Ian’s school concerts and John, Sarah and Laura’s instrumental performances. John and Sherry gave me supper approximately once a week so I wouldn’t have to eat alone but could enjoy their company. It’s good to have them living nearby. I flew to Maryland for a few days with Mary and Gareth, and drove to Minneapolis (not on tour) to be with Libby. Dori, Steve and Robbie came to Madison for holidays when the noisy (adult) kids all talked together simultaneously and seemed to love it. It’s very good and very talkative when the family gets together.

I am still active at St. Dunstan’s Church. When the church went through renovation, I stored the church’s lending library in my home basement for several months. No borrowing happened but the books were safe and accounted for while the church got its facelift. Did I mention that I am the church’s librarian?

May we all survive another year of chaotic politics with the Trump administration and joys and concerns at home. Life is good.

A Good American Family

A Good American Family, by David Maraniss

(book review)

David Maraniss wrote about more than Vince Lombardi. This year he wrote about another Wisconsin writer who was involved with communism in Detroit. He did it well.

Many of us who lived in the last century can relate to this book because Wisconsin once had Senator Joe McCarthy. It’s a book called A Good American Family, and it’s a lot more than that. David Maraniss wrote a history of the communist “red” scare of the 1940s and 1950s and its impact on his father, Elliott Maraniss, who called himself a newspaperman. Elliott Maraniss worked for newspapers in Detroit and other cities, and later spent much of his life in Wisconsin after the red scare died down, where he worked for the liberal Capital times in Madison.

The first half of the book is about paranoia involving suspected communism. It gives names of people (including Elliott Maraniss) who were believed to be communists and pursued by the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. It isn’t about McCarthy himself but is about the anti-communist fervor that he unleashed on the American population. Much of it was about presumed communist activity in Detroit.

The second half focuses mostly on the Maraniss family, including David. They moved a lot after Elliott was blacklisted and had difficulty keeping newspaper work. After McCarthyism died down, the family came to Madison where they stayed for a long time. The children didn’t know much about what was happening. David says he was three years old when his father was subpoenaed to testify in the investigation. Much later, he did research about his father and uncle and uncovered a fascinating story that became this book.

I remember the red scare.  I was a child and teenager when it was happening in the United States. The Army-McCarthy hearings about communists were broadcast in local media, including WDOR in Sturgeon Bay where I grew up.  Wisconsin’s Senator Joe McCarthy was in Wisconsin news a lot.

A book about the paranoia of the last century reminds me that people in government can incite fear, and it can speak to some of the political unrest that is happening today.

Eddy Allen, the Voice of Door County

The Voice of Door County: Eddy Allen

By Melissa Ripp, Door County Living – July 1st, 2007

(This article is about my brother, Eddy Allen. It tells the truth mostly.)

 

Door County boasts many natives, but it takes a special breed to be recognized as a Door County “personality” – that person who sets the tone for the peninsula, an icon that embodies everything great about life in our small communities. These are the people who know everyone and everything, not because they like to memorize facts or gossip about people, but because they’re sincerely interested in people.

Perhaps the best quality of a Door County personality is that even if you’ve never met that person before, it feels like you’ve known them forever. That’s exactly what it feels like to talk to Eddy Allen, WDOR owner, operator, and radio celebrity.

For some Door County residents, forever might not be a complete exaggeration. This fall, Allen will celebrate a record 50 years on the air. Many people (even the ones who have never met him) call Allen “The Official Voice of Door County.” From a personal standpoint, I’ve been listening to Eddy Allen on WDOR’s Noon Report ever since I was old enough to comprehend what a radio was. Still, the day that I’m interviewing him will mark only the second time I’ve talked to the man, and yet a lifetime of knowing who he is.

It is impossible to talk about Allen and his ties to the radio business without mentioning his family ties. When asked how he got started in radio, Allen laughs and says, “There was no business to start ‘in’ – this goofy business is all I’ve ever known!” Allen’s father, Eddy Allen Jr., was a radio man in Chicago, and his family lived on the north side, across the street from Lincoln Park. When he was eleven, Allen’s family moved from Chicago to Sturgeon Bay, and his father started the WDOR radio station with a group of local businessmen. Their first day on the air was September 8, 1951.

In seventh grade, Allen’s family moved to another Sturgeon Bay home on Iowa Street, which was very close to the WDOR studio. “I hung around the studio all the time,” Allen says. “It beat staying at home and cleaning my room, so I was over here every chance I got.” His own radio career began in 1957, when he was seventeen. “My father figured that if I was going to continue to hang around, he might as well put me to work. I started by doing the morning news on Saturdays.”

Allen did not plan on staying at the radio station after high school graduation. He wanted to be an engineer, and in the fall of 1958 he went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue an engineering degree. But the fit wasn’t quite right, and so he came back to Sturgeon Bay after a year, working at the station until he figured out what he really wanted to do with his life. History and political science proved to be more interesting, and he graduated with a double degree in 1964. Not much time passed before the “draft board got him” and he was sent to Korea in April 1965.

WDOR’s Eddy Allen calls a Door County League Baseball game, one of the best parts of his job.

After spending three years in Korea, Allen came back to Door County in 1968 and went back to working at WDOR. Little did he know that one of his life’s biggest passions would now become his job. “I always loved baseball – I think it stems from living next to Lincoln Park when I was a kid. Jocko Rader called my father up and said, ‘WDOR should broadcast the Door County League baseball games every Sunday. Can you think of anyone there that might want to do that?’ Of course, my dad told him that I would do it – before he told me. But I’m glad those broadcasts were given to me – it had turned out to be one of the best parts of working here.”

In the nearly 40 years that Eddy Allen has been broadcasting the league games, he estimates that he’s missed about fifteen Sundays. “There have been the occasional missed games, much to my chagrin. I’ve had a few graduations, birthdays, my own wedding.” I asked him how his wife felt about Allen being away every Sunday afternoon during the summer, and he says, “The Door County League is part of what Mary Lou [his wife] married into when she married me – I made sure she knew that from the very beginning!” Allen laughs. “I do try to make sure I get the yard work done at the beginning of the weekend, though.”

When asked why he continues to work in the radio business for so many years, he shrugs and says, “It’s better than actually working! In all seriousness, though, it’s all of the people I have met over the years. All the different groups and causes – that’s what keeps my job interesting.” His favorite part of WDOR is getting to do the daily talk show, where he interviews everyone from the Department of Natural Resources to the United Way to the various historical societies and museums around the county. “I’m a history buff, so I love having the historical groups on the show. I actually save some of those shows,” Allen says, motioning to the vast amount of tapes piled up in his office.

I’m at the end of my interview with Allen when the telephone rings. He reaches to answer it, as the WDOR office is a small enterprise, and he is in charge of receptionist duties for the evening. The phone call is from a woman who had called a few hours earlier to notify the radio station that her dog was missing. She is now calling to tell Allen that the dog has been found. Allen talks with her for a moment, and in a matter of minutes he has engaged in a conversation with such ease and sincere interest that one would think he was on the phone with a relative or a good friend. They talk for a few more minutes, and then Allen hangs up the phone and smiles.

“It’s funny, after all the years I’ve been here, you’d think I’d understand it – the way people thank us so profusely for just doing our jobs,” Allen says. “We get calls everyday from an organization or person thanking us for putting their information on the air. And I always think, ‘Why wouldn’t we do that for you? We’re a community entity – that’s what we’re here for.’”

One would think after nearly 50 years in the radio business, Allen would have plenty of interesting stories. “There are simply too many to count,” says Allen. But his job in radio has taught him a few lessons. “As silly as this sounds, one of the biggest things radio has taught me is to ‘look for the obvious.’ Things are so technical here that it’s easy to think the problem is bigger than it really is. I’m the ‘first responder’ to anything whenever there’s trouble, so experience has taught me that before I scare myself for no reason, I always make sure that ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is, is plugged in,” he laughs. “I’m serious! That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned.”

My interview with Allen wraps up, and we chat about my family for a bit. Inevitably, he remembers my father as a star basketball player at Sevastopol High School and knows my relatives who own a supper club in Sturgeon Bay. The conversation is easy and comfortable, and it is only then that I truly realize how essential people like Allen are to Door County. More than linking family names together, speaking with Eddy Allen has shown me how important it is that we in Door County never lose that sense of community – or personality.