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.