Kuchen

I dug out my family recipe for kuchen.  There's no great family secret about this recipe...you could do a Google search for a kuchen recipe and find dozens that are similar.  As I look at it, I am reminded of the form of the recipes my family shared.   These days recipes take the form of listing the ingredients and numbering the steps to bake.  The way we shared, I realize now, was designed to fit all on a 3X5 card.  It was assumed the recipient cooked and baked, and didn't need step by step instructions with full sentences.  It doesn't say so, but I'm sure this recipe came from Great Grandma Spradau.  I copied it from her daughter's recipe card,  Grandma Knowles.  That's Grandma Spradau in front, with her birthday corsage, one of her daughters in the back (Aunt Vera?).

I got this out because I'm going to bake a kuchen for my co-workers.  Somebody started a cake-of-the-month club, and way back when I signed up for November.  I don't do so much baking now.  It's years since I baked this...but you don't forget, do you? 

A month or so ago somebody also proposed we create a zine with all our recipes, and each of us who brought a cake could design a page of the zine, or at least hand our recipes over to the zine editors.  I started to think in terms of story as well as cake.  I'd really hoped the recipe would be in my grandma's handwriting, then I would scan and put the recipe in the zine as-is.  Sadly, it is in my crappy mistake-ridden handwriting. Perhaps I will still include it that way.


I thought briefly about making the Poppy Seed Cake, written out by my grandma, all for the story.  There's Grandma Knowles' handwriting, and Grandma Spradau's name, and there's the form our recipes took: brackets pointing from the ingredients to the actions, ever more cramped at the bottom of the card.

I don't think I've ever made this cake though.  I loved it when my grandma made it.  It doesn't even say, but I"m pretty sure when done she would wrap it in tin foil, and the cooked vanilla pudding would soak into the cake, unless that was a different recipe.  However, another reason I love it is that there is NO LEMON.  Why does everything sweet poppy seed also have to have lemon these days?

But there is story  to the Fruit Kuchen recipe as well.  I had to do a Google search myself, seeing that no fruit amount was listed.  Some recipes listed about 4 cups.  Then I remembered that you put enough fruit to cover the batter, and of course, in this old school way of sharing, the women would just know how much they would need.




Grandma, my mom, and my aunt most often made this in the spring and early summer.  First when the rhubarb was ready, later, when the raspberries were ripe. 

There's my mom, my grandpa, my grandma, and my aunt at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  I wasn't able to attend because I was away at college.

I know my great grandpa came from Germany.  I'm not sure about his wife...I'll have to ask my mom.  Either she did too, or her parents did. As a family, we certainly had a lot of German eating habits, like kuchen, and vinegar on vegetables. (And we would say we would "go by so-and-so's house" rather than "visit" or "go to"  ...it's a German thing.)

I suppose I could find some rhubarb in the frozen food section, but I decided I would find something fresh and local, so I put pears and apples on my grocery delivery list.  I'm not sure which one yet...maybe both.  I still want to plant rhubarb in my front yard as a part of the edible landscaping. I want to make rhubarb custard pie, rhubarb kuchen, and take a raw stalk and suck on it, making my mouth pucker so I can remember that childhood feeling of wondering why I was doing that if it was so tart.  And, with rhubarb in my yard, I can feel connected just a little bit to my family's traditions.  Everybody had a rhubarb patch.

Wisconsin visit

As I mentioned earlier, it was a dark and stormy night when I arrived in Wisconsin.

By staying in Fond du Lac, I chose to stay in a place I never have before. My mom told me at the last minute it was possible I could have stayed at my grandma's house if we scared up some furniture, but I told her I'd already said my goodbyes anyway. I didn't even visit Plymouth, come to think of it. I had no wish to drive by.

I chose Fond du Lac partly because I got the best deal on a hotel room, and partly because my dad is there now. My mom had been concerned I wouldn't have the time to see her, being so far away from Waldo, but when I called about that, she was busy herself. I would have liked to see her more.

After my frenetic but satisfying New York visit, I was glad to take it easy. My dad called me early, and I told him I would be sleeping a little longer. Then he called again to say he was on his way over on his tricycle. (Pretty nifty, his tricycle.) He wasn't sure I'd be able to find my way to him (he was right) due to street closures due to the flooding. I was just about ready when he arrived. I took him to lunch at Faro's Family Restaurant, located right next to the hotel, and whose parking lot I'd used the night before and hoped wouldn't get me towed, because, you know, the flood had caused my hotel to be completely full, and semi-trucks were taking up parking spaces that I might have used, so I used the parking lot next door. Did you notice that, I ran on my sentence and used 'you know' funny how that happens while I'm talking about Wisconsin. I learned that there.

Then we went driving around a bit, and I asked Dad if there was anything he'd like to do that he couldn't usually do without a car. He wanted to shop at Piggly Wiggly, too far for him to get to normally. I wish I'd taken some photos of the worldly goods damaged beyond repair that had been pulled out of basements and put out on the curb. Already on that second day of the flooding the local paper announced the city would be doing bulk item garbage pick-up. That is something about Wisconsin...the people meet such exceptional needs in a methodical, practical way. Also something about Wisconsin, the people will take all they can get from it. We saw kitchen sinks, bicycles, and many non-flood-damaged items as well as melting cardboard boxes full of lost basement treasures.

We got to see the flooded football field:

I found out later that my sister-in-law Cathy and my nephews also got to see it, that in fact they were in Fond du Lac when the flash flood began. They didn't have any troubles themselves, but they were delayed for hours due to other stalled cars. My nephew Jake got a dramatic video of the water rushing around the cars. I have to pester him to get that on youtube with all the others.

Unlike my many other visits, when my visits with my Dad were relegated to a short afternoon, or in one case, a very short visit before I rushed off to catch my plane earlier than expected, I got to see my Dad almost every day. His creativity has taken a kooky crafty turn, as seen in this tape-covered paper mache hat and this braided-plastic-bag footstool.

More Dad and flood photos here.

Dad told me a neighbor girl was playing with her friends, and asked him, "Are you the mad-man?" My dad said he looked at her, and just gave an expressive non-threatening shrug that he demonstrated for me. It seemed a good answer. We talked about that a little. I think it concerned him that he would be the strange scary mad-man of the neighborhood. I suggested he could say something like, "I suppose so, but I'm not dangerous," and we strategized ways he could let the little kids know that while yes, he is strange, he's nobody to be afraid of.

And that's the truth. He is what you could call the mad man. It's pretty amazing he's survived schizophrenia as long as he has. He's still working on finding ways to live with that in the world. He asked me if I was able to relate to him better than my other family there. I promptly said yes. Even when he was deeply into bible-thumping Christianity, we could still talk in a way I can't really with the rest of my family.

I found out on this visit that my brother listens to right-wing pundits and voted for the frat boy residing in the White House. His in-laws are conservative, and now so is he a bit. I think I convinced him to listen again to Obama, and set aside the biased views he's been fed while he does. Cathy said she would. I couldn't get through by phone, but I decided to take a drive out to their place on the second day, and we had a pleasant evening, albeit smoky. We sat at my grandpa's picnic table, which happened to be downwind of the barbecuing pork roast my brother was cooking for the grad party the next day. I especially enjoyed talking to Jake. Cathy told me later they left us alone on purpose so we could get to know each other better. I do hope the boys will visit me soon. Both artists, Jake and Abe are considering coming to the west coast for college. For now, they're staying close to home for their first year.

On Father's Day, the graduation party. I got myself a little lost trying to find it at the Sheboygan Marsh. This is the first time google maps failed me. You see, it sent me to the edge of the actual marsh, to a dead-end gravel road, nowhere near the other side with the Lodge and the campground. (If I hadn't been in such a hurry I could have looked closer before I set out and seen that on the map.) I found myself back on the road to my brother's house, but of course no one was there. Back in Glenbeulah, at the Citgo station where I got gift cards for the boys, I discovered I was very close, I just had to follow county road P.

So I got there, I finally saw my mom, we visited. I took photos. The boys played croquet, just as they did at Zac's graduation party.



The twins have worked at the Marsh Lodge for years...since before high school I think...mowing the campground, taking care of garbage, etc. The owners lent them the space for free. At Zac's party, Cathy put together a photo display. At this one, not only photos but a wrestling-mat display of all Jake's and Abe's letters and medals. The E is for Elkhart Lake, of Road America fame. Well, maybe fame. I'd be surprised if I have racing fans reading my blog. Abe had a special medal for 100 ?wins ?events but Jake just missed out because he only had 99. Abe, my brother tells me, has the perfectly-formed body for the exceptional runner.



The rest of the photos are here.

I didn't really have plans for after the party, and since none developed, I called my dad and asked if he'd like to go to dinner. I took him to Schreiner's Restaurant. He got liver and onions, which I remembered him getting years before when he took me to the Big Boy restaurant in Sheboygan...now long gone.

Finally, the next morning I visited my mom and her husband before I drove to catch my plane. At least they are voting for Barack Obama. I think the boys might be too. Mom and I went to lunch, and we stopped at a store to try to find a dress she could wear to a wedding.

Their neighbors had this cool bowling ball bug sculpture:

Another Wisconsin Visit

It seems like yesterday, but it was the week of the 4th that I visited my family in Wisconsin. My thanks to you who expressed concern about my dad. He seems to be doing alright. I think he wanted some way to take matters out of his own hands, and the structure of jail was suiting him for the moment. I went for a short visit, my days off from July 1st to the 5th.

I took my mom and grandma out to lunch several times, and they took me out.



My grandma is much more confused and forgetful, but still able to take care of herself. To recap: she's 89, has slow-growing lung cancer that she's elected not to treat, visits her doctor every two months, and my mom and her sister call her every day. I went to visit because my grandma kept asking me, "When are you coming to visit again?" She's full of stories of old, and I recorded some so they may end up here.



There was a small bit of drama on the plane as I traveled there. I had one stop in Phoenix, and the daily temperatures at the time were 115 degrees. We were all seated, ready to disembark when there was a small delay. The plane was hot, and we were told the air conditioning piped in from the airport lost its efficiency at around 105 degrees. Delay over, the captain announced our imminent departure. As if on cue a woman across the aisle from me threw up on her feet. The woman next to me worried the smell would get to her too.

Of course that caused another delay. They brought in a maintenance man, who cleaned it up, sprayed, threw some coffee grounds on it, and came back a second time to sweep them up. The flight attendant and others around me chatted about the smell-reducing merits of coffee grounds. The woman had been ushered to the front where they gave her a bag of ice for her neck. The man sitting next to me stirred fitfully.

Floor cleaned, woman given her seat back, we were ready to go again. Not quite. Now the jet engine wouldn't start. It stopped working as efficiently at temperatures higher than 105 degrees. They were sending a jump start machine, it would take about 5 minutes to get there. The woman held her head in her hand, ice still on her neck, occasionally exclaiming, "I was just so hot!" The man next to me stirred again. "Are you alright?" I asked him.

"No, I don't feel well at all."
"Do you need to get out?"

He responded by reaching for his bag, and I and our other seatmate stood up to let him out. At the front of the plane he spoke a few moments to the attendants, then dropped like a stone to the floor. They sat him there, got another bag with ice, and soon he was let out of the plane. I hoped he would be well. Me, I've learned the less I fuss, the less extremes will bother me, and then I enjoyed the empty seat next to me.

Back to my visit. My first order of business on the 2nd was to find out if I could visit my dad. I called the Sheboygan County Detention Center. The woman answering the phone was less than cordial. She confirmed my dad was housed at the detention center, and informed me the only exceptions to Saturday visitation would have to be approved by the Captain. She patched me through. I was cut off. I called again, and she patched me through to his voicemail.

When my dad first tampered with the fire sprinkler and was sent there, my brother Eric wasn't allowed to visit "due to his mental state." Later, when Eric was finally able to visit during the short visiting hours on Saturday, they told him my dad was moved to the jail. He wasn't allowed yet to visit dad at the jail.

Later that day I talked to my sister-in-law. She asked me to call the DA, that maybe I could find out what was going on. So I did, and I got the phone number for my dad's lawyer. He actually answered the phone himself. He was originally court-appointed, but when the court discovered my dad's money, the money was requisitioned (or whatever legalese term they use) to pay the lawyer's fees. That took care of my dad's worries over the burden of that money. His lawyer informed me that the DA was offering a plea that would mean only probation, and they were also looking into the possibility that my dad could be declared "mentally incompetent at the time." Something, he said, that would be complicated to establish, but would mean no charges. Either way, it sounded, mental health facilities would be involved. When I said my brother and I didn't try to raise bail because we wanted our dad where he could be watched, the lawyer agreed, saying that's why he didn't try to get the bail lowered.

The usual way one could get an exception to the Saturday visitation rule was if the inmate asked for a visit. I couldn't call my dad, only he could call me. Since I have only a cell phone, he couldn't call me collect. The only way for me to communicate with him would be through a letter. I was informed of this by the rather cold telephone operator at the Sheboygan County Detention Center. I asked the lawyer if he could get a message to my dad about visiting him. He readily agreed.

I never got a call back from the captain, so the next day I called the Detention Center again. The cold operator informed me the captain would not be back for the week, and if he didn't contact me, I obviously didn't have permission to see my dad. Wasn't there anyone else who could help me? No.

On the off chance my dad was in the jail, not the detention center (I don't know the difference either, just that they're two different buildings) I looked up the number and called the county jail. Yes, my dad was there, and yes I could visit him...someone was supposed to have contacted me. Wow. Excuse me, but what a bitch that other woman was. The holiday? Actually a holiday visit would be better for staff. I already had plans to meet my brother at my dad's apartment to pack some things, and it turned out the jail was not too far away. (There would just be a 4th of July parade blocking my way from one to the other, but I was prepared.)

My brother told me he'd received similar cold shoulder treatment at the county detention center. What did these strangers think of us? My mom told me her friend C. worked at the jail, as opposed to the detention center. Perhaps that was the kind person I spoke to that set up my appointment. Years back, we'd made horseradish together.

I was allotted a 20 minute visit at 11 am on July 4th, no physical contact. My dad was the only one there, we were alone in the row of booths. There was no phone, just an automatic intercom built into the separating wall.

They let us talk for 40 minutes instead of 20. My dad was still saying the Christian path was no longer for him. He knew he needed some kind of structure, couldn't really live in the city...unless it was a group home situation. He was doing better at the jail. The week before he'd stopped eating and taking his meds, so I wonder if that was why they moved him. We talked about his cat. He agreed that my brother could give it a try giving it a home at "the farm." (That's what we call my brother's place, even though it's more of a woods and orchard, with barn.) I was relieved the cat wouldn't be put to sleep. He'd seen his lawyer once. As far as he knew, the trial, if there was one, would be set at the end of the month. I suppose I should call his lawyer again and find out the latest.

My dad looked much older, scraggly with his beard grown out. When I asked if I could take his picture, he stood up, straightened his prison reds, tucked in his shirt, and stood back next to the wall.

He seemed to me to brighten a little, but that doesn't necessarily show in the photo. His glasses were still back at his apartment. Later that day my brother told me he didn't think they'd let dad have his glasses, so he hadn't tried to get them to him. Probably not, as my dad wasn't yet allowed even a pencil.

So that was my first, hopefully only, visit to a family member in jail. Here I've been facing the mortality of my grandma, but now I wonder how much longer my dad will be alive. All these years of taking meds, years of lithium, then the newer drugs I can't keep up with, I wonder what these do to him physically, and then there's always the allure of checking out. My brother bears the brunt of this. I am glad Eric has become softer, kinder in the face of this illness. More on my visit with my brother later. Hopefully not too much later, but I've got a zine to finish and other articles to write before the second week of August.

Outlaw Margarine?

Who knew margarine was illegal in Wisconsin in the 50s? My mom and my grandma both remembered this, and told me again about how it came white like shortening, and you kneaded in the red color tab.

Because Wisconsin is the dairy state, you couldn't buy margarine there. According to Wikipedia, Wisconsin the last state to lift bans on margarine. People would go down to Illinois and buy cases of it and distribute it among family and friends. It was bad if you were caught with contraband margarine. I told them how people find it funny that I grew up in the dairy state but that we always ate margarine. Now we know it is bad for you, and butter is actually better.

It makes me wonder if that is part of why Wisconsinites eat margarine, not just for the 'diet' and the cost, but because once upon a time it was forbidden and a delicacy. Mostly I think it was the cost. My grandma still has margarine in her fridge, not butter. They still only have it at the holidays. I hope they figure out how bad it is for the 'diet'.

At some point after I got off the diet merry-go-round and actually was eating quite healthily, nearly vegan, I stopped eating margarine and started eating butter instead. I think I did so because I was told butter didn't have the same allergic effects as other parts of milk and it was right around that time that alternative health sources were beginning to say how bad margarine is for you. I hadn't yet heard the term hydrogenated oils. I lost about 30 pounds without 'dieting'. Hmmm. It was about that time I broke up with my first husband, who regretted that it was just as I was getting more attractive. Perhaps he'd be glad to know I gained it back and then some when I started eating pizza again. He's not missing out after all. Hah.

Interesting that now New York is pondering a ban of trans fats. What, no margarine allowed, again?

OK, if we go in this direction, at least let's be clear: trans fat is bad for us and gives us the bad cholesterol and makes us fat, but it does not mean that if we're fat, we've got bad cholesterol and are by definition going to die from heart disease. Obesity has not been shown to cause heart disease or diabetes, yet the majority of people seem to think so. Trans fat, on the other hand, can be linked. There's a difference. If I didn't have a job that covered my insurance, insurance wouldn't cover me because of my weight. Will they ask potential customers if they smoke, if they eat margarine, shortening, and processed foods? They'll just ask the weight.

History at the Kohler Design Center

The Design Center had a floor dedicated to the history of the Kohler Company. Of course the first thing Grandma did was go look to see if there was a picture or mention of Grandpa. The center had a DVD that played over and over about the history of the company, about 25 minutes. I learned that a son of the founder, Walter Kohler, built the American Club to house immigrants, which had a school where they could learn English. His father, John Michael Kohler, was an immigrant from Austria, and set up shop with his father-in-law. After his first wife died he married her little sister. Walter also became a governor of Wisconsin. What a good man, remembered his roots, took care of his workers.

Jump to Walter's grandson who was in charge in 1956. That's when my grandpa worked there and the workers went on strike. Somehow the video and the displays skipped over any mention of those years. I did not even see the word 'strike'. Interesting.



Interesting too that the art found there was this WPA style celebrating workers:



Walter set up a fifty year plan for the company and the Village of Kohler. He went to Europe to examine 'garden cities' and designed Kohler to include natural elements and to use nature to buffer the residential area from the factory. He said people should not only receive wages, they should receive roses. He clearly cared.

But by the time it got to his great grandson, Herbie Kohler Jr, the next 50 year plan included elite golf resorts. The American Club became an exclusive hotel. What a change. It made me wonder if it is inevitable, this familial decline.

What happened in that family that they lost the roots of their founder, the compassion of his son? I might not jump to that conclusion, but then why not show the bad with the good, the strike along with the philanthropy? My mom did say Herbie Kohler Jr does some philanthropic things for the community.

Originally an ironworks, Kohler made gas line fittings among other things:



Kohler was always innovative in its designs. First to bring color to its metal that could match porcelain dishes:

This one is for you, Steve:

Kohler Design Center

One more thing my grandpa made: a horse race for gambling. My grandpa was of the set that did football pools, dartball (Follow the link...it seems churches in the midwest have dartball leagues.) He made a dartball board that I think went on to a new home. And horseshoes. He was in a horseshoe league and won several trophies over the years, after he retired from the Kohler Company. I am sad to say I never saw him play this game, rolling the handcarved die to determine how far the horse moved, gambling on 'his horse'. After I graduated from college I visited Wisconsin less and less.

Speaking of Kohler, my mom had the good idea for us to visit the Kohler Design Center.

The first floor was a showroom, full of designer bathtubs, showers, and backlit toilets, sinks, and tubs stacked floor to ceiling.



talk about half-nekkid Thursday:



The second floor had designer showcases. Rich bathrooms, cutting edge kitchens.



The basement floor was a history of the Kohler Company...next post.

Trolley Depot

Whenever I stayed at my grandparents' house when I was a little girl, if a train came through, my brothers and I would run down to the corner and watch them roll through. A half-dozen or more tracks crossed the street and went on past the depot, no longer used as such, but as a steak restaurant. On the other side of the tracks, Depot Street would take us toward downtown Plymouth. I was around 4 years old when my brothers walked with me through the snow down that street to see a Christmas season showing of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Always part of the scenery was this blond brick building. For some reason I got it into my head that it was a fire house once upon a time. Who knows what little girl reasoning took me there, perhaps it was the round holes near the roof that seemed just right for hoses to be pulled through, the huge garage doors, the utilitarian look of the building. Last year I finally found out this was a depot for the trolley line from the first half of the 20th Century that I never knew about. Turns out the holes near the roof were for the trolley cables.



The line went from Fondulac to Sheboygan, running through Plymouth and Elkhart Lake, and also from Kiel. Grandma said people from Chicago would work hard and save so they could come up and summer at Elkhart Lake. When she was sixteen she worked in a restaurant, and a sister worked cleaning rooms. She didn't like that the customer was always right.

Grandma told the story again about how she rode the trolley so she could be with her sister when she had her baby in Sheboygan. She was scared, but it was so interesting to see the country between Plymouth and Sheboygan from that different view, rather than the usual roads.

Things My Grandpa Made

While visiting my grandma, I went looking in this desk for a pencil, because once again I forgot to pack a pretty hair stick, so I resort to the old standby, a pencil. Many of the memories in my grandma's house are comforting, and many of the things associated with the memories are still there, still in the same places. My grandparents were always the safe port in a storm. This desk has always been the phone desk. The molded fiberglass chair with the flattened pillow has allows been the uncomfortable seat in front of the desk. The Plymouth telephone book has always rested in front of the chair, open to the inside cover where Grandma wrote her important phone numbers. At some point she stopped rewriting and tore off the cover of the old phone book and paper clipped it into every new book that came along. Various other numbers were also paperclipped, whether business cards or ads from the paper.

The pencil had always been in the top right desk drawer, along with its other half-dozen companions. I realized those pencils had to be as old as me. (I brought the pencil home with me. Perhaps each time I visit from now on I'll bring one of those vintage pencils back.)

I must have made some comment about liking the desk, or the desk still being here, and Grandma said, "Grandpa made that desk."

"He what? He made it? I never knew that. When did he make it?"

Mom said, "Yeah, he made that in the 50s." All my life it never occurred to me it was that old, nor that he made it. To me, it never aged, but now as I examine the photo, I see the yellowing of the glue that peeks around the edges of the laminate. And now that I show Steve, he says, "My dad made one something like that too. I wonder if they both worked from a template in 'Popular Mechanics'. My mom had it in her hair styling shop."

I said then, "I wonder if I could inherit it." Grandma said, "I'll put it on the list." Mom commented it didn't go with any of her stuff. I'd kind of wondered about that. In the past Grandma told us who would inherit what particular antiques, mostly a few particular dishes. I wondered if plans were being made about the many things in her big house. She often says, "I always wanted a big house." I liked that it was kind of nonchalant. Yes, Grandma's stuff would have to go somewhere after she dies, and yes, if there are things we are fond of, we could ask for them.

I slid the drawers in and out just as I did when I was a little girl, and I wonder at how he made the drawers fit just right. I marvel at how all this time I took for granted that this thing came from a store ready-made. Suddenly this desk that embodied comforting memories now carried a piece of my grandpa.

The conversation moved on to other things my grandpa made. Grandma said, "That guy. He was always coming home with TV cabinets. Those chairs were made from TV cabinets." I didn't know that. I decided to wander around the house and take photos of things my grandpa made.

Of course I always knew the
bar was made from TV cabinets. (That's my mom.)

See? : more to come....

Short Wisconsin Visit

I'm back from a short visit to Wisconsin. Of course my mom felt it was too short. I thought it was about right for me. It's easier to visit in small doses.

I wrote some stuff on my portable desktop (if you look closely you can see the zipper from my suitcase, underneath the book, underneath the palm with keyboard):



My grandma ain't dyin' yet, though she is losing weight. My mom and I talked about how she seems to hide when she smokes, we wondered if she wants it to be her own private pleasure.

My corn-fed towhead twin nephews gave me an awesome ~2 foot vase that they made. I didn't get the chance to see their older brother (my godson).

The plane trips weren't as annoyingly uncomfortable as I thought they'd be, perhaps because I was expecting them to be.

More on all that later. Because of the trip, missed the weekly HNT. not sure I'll do Da Count...I do that here anyway.

Prize blue vase

When I visited my family in Wisconsin last July I took a bunch of photos and had such good intentions of writing down the stories my grandma had to tell me.

One afternoon she told me and my nephews about the time she won this blue vase.

She decided she would get it out of the back of the closet and show it to us. (Later I noodled around with my new camera and took silly pictures of her with the vase.)

The vase was dusty and she decided she needed to wash it right then.

She won the vase when she was a young mother. My grandpa took her out to the Greenbush Fireman's Picnic. In rural Wisconsin the fire departments are all volunteer. I'm not sure if the Fireman's Picnics are fundraisers for running the equipment, or for thanking the firefighters, or both. I remember when I was a little girl going to the Fireman's Picnic (in my case the Waldo Fireman's Picnic) was a big deal. It was just about as exciting to me as going to the County Fair.

While the County Fair had rides and 4-H exhibits and plenty of carnival games, at a fireman's picnic I always won a prize. It could be a parachute man or miniature plastic doll. I especially liked the fishing game because somehow I always caught a 'fish prize'. I was just young enough not to realize there was a person behind that cloth 'water'. Somehow a lot of the adults seemed to know me, also magical. There were brats and hamburgers, and somehow all the stranger adults were happier and more boisterous (drunk). The one ride that was there at the Waldo Fireman's Picnic was the pony ride, and I knew them! My aunt Jean and Uncle Kenny owned the Sunset Saddle Shop and pony rides. I was disappointed when rides weren't always forthcoming. I couldn't understand why they didn't just offer me a ride, they were family weren't they?

So many years before my grandpa had taken my grandma
to the Greenbush Fireman's Picnic. People would travel from miles around to go to this one. I'm pretty sure Grandma said she won the vase at Bingo. She couldn't believe it! It was the first time in her life she had ever won anything.

Field Notes on Love and Compassion

More than a month ago I wrote a little bit about "Field Notes on the Compassionate Life" by Marc Ian Barasch. I finished the book, but ran out of time to write about it before I left for a trip to Wisconsin. I was hopeful I could put some new thoughts, new lessons on radical empathy into practice there. The author wrote this book of field notes because he wanted to find out how to be compassionate. It was full of questions, and he sought answers from the experts, either those who studied the science of the heart, or those who were acknowledged to be extraordinarily giving by folks around them. Marc asks, "It's a perennial question about the amplitude of compassion and the carrying capacity of the heart: Do we only have a fixed quota of loving to allocate between family and the world at large, so that if one receives more, the other gets less?" (p. 181) I had a similar question as I headed back for my family visit, I who talk much about it being all about love: Can I be a lover to my birth family?

I was anxious about visiting Wisconsin. When I got there, I felt like I was in a different country. I truly am a Wisconsin expatriate. I was reminded of one radically empathic person interviewed by Barasch, I think he was a rabbi. He gladly indiscriminately dispensed compassion to all, but confessed he did take St. John's Wort for depression. It isn't easy loving all. I did manage to have some connective conversations with my stepfather, and afterward my mom said it made her happy when we talked more. She clearly didn't know how uncomfortable those conversations made me, and I didn't want her to know. On the one hand I thought it was good he seemed to want to connect with me, on the other, the weird warped craziness around alcoholism that is viewed as normal was very difficult to be around. I needed daily conversations with my loved ones back home in Portland.

My visit there sparked thoughts about the difference between urban and rural folk. As far back as the Silk Road, cities have been places where people had to get along if trade was to flourish. People had to get along if they were going to live so closely together. Folks in the country must rely upon themselves for defense, and will often resort to aggressive strategies. I could not go back to the xenophobic, insular society that is found in much of rural Wisconsin. That low buzz of paranoia and racism never lets up. I've heard about Madison, a small haven for progressives, but even there, a few years ago myairportt shuttle driver said, "Yeah, we have some freaks here." (meaning folks like me.) I am still pondering this city mouse/ country mouse difference.

This "carrying capacity of the heart" was significant to me. We polyamorists often encounter the prejudice that it must be unnatural to love more than one person. We commonly counter that with the parent/child analogy. When a parent has a second child, she doesn't worry about having less love available for the first. Really, and this is a very Buddhist construct, the most limiting notion of love is in our own minds. While outsiders glance at this growing subculture and dismiss it as hedonistic or as overrun with jealousy because we're 'wired' to be monogamous, we who experience it and take the time to work the knots out of our societal conditioning find love grows the more one gets practice at loving more than one. Jealousy is understood to be a knot of karmic conditioning that needs untangling. The untangling process reveals fears and insecurities than can be addressed and they dissipate naturally or with a little encouragement, a little changing of mind.

Much of spiritual tradition separates love of humanity from romantic love and sexual love. In my experience they do not need to be mutually exclusive. More thoughts on that soon....