Our house was a very, very, very fine house

You know how things come together in unexpected ways from time to time? May people say everything happens for a reason. I’m not one of them, mainly because there’s always a lot of crazy shit happening out there that makes absolutely no sense and seems to happen for no good reason. But yesterday on Facebook someone I’ve never met said that an article I wrote 13 years ago sparked their interest and helped them find something they were looking for.

I dabbled in amateur journalism at Minnpost.com for about 8 years, from their inaugural issue in the fall of 2007 until about 2015. I mostly did video stories, but also some written pieces and photography. One of my articles was about the many houses in Minneapolis designed by William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie, renowned Prairie School architects of the early 20th Century. I had gotten to know quite a bit about Purcell & Elmslie because I was lucky enough to have owned one of their houses from 1983 - 1993.

Yesterday I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, and wedged between all the “Hands Off!” anti-Trump rallies I noticed this post (right) from a page called ‘It’s a Minnesota Thing’.

I knew at a glance that all the houses were designed by Purcell & Elmslie. In fact, my old house is on the top left! It’s been 32 years since we sold that house, but it still looks great (even though they changed the stucco color from the original). It’s called the Harold E. Hineline house, after the original owner in 1911 (the date is wrong on the post).

I commented about owning the the house and received a reply from the writer, PhItsamay Noi Chiankhamphet. That was fun.

To read the 2012 Minnpost article Phitsamay was referencing CLICK HERE.

That Minnpost piece was inspired by a post I’d done a couple of years earlier about our house in a blog I did for a while called ‘Trying to Pay Attention’. In that post I described more about the house, how we came to purchase it, and included quite a few pictures, including photo from a Minneapolis StarTribune article about us written by R.T. Rybak when he worked for the paper — about 17 years before becoming Mayor of Minneapolis. To read that 2010 blog post CLICK HERE.

A photo taken just before we moved out and the caption from my blog post in 2010.

You never know when a little nugget of delight is going to drop out of nowhere into your day. I was glad to be reminded that I wrote about the house and that someone all these years later enjoyed reading it and found it useful.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since yesterday, because it brings back thoughts, feelings and memories about that house and my life in it during the 10 years I was lucky to call it home. Many of those memories are extremely painful, and still haunt me because of my personal struggles that deeply affected my family and everyone around me during many of the years we lived there.

But it was also the house where I turned a corner and started my recovery journey, and was able to begin to find some hope for my own future and for the future of my family.

Thank you, PhItsamay Noi Chiankhamphet, for reminding me of this fine house and the bittersweet memories that will always be attached to it.

Thank you, Senator Cory Booker →

Senator Cory Booker gave me the best birthday present ever on Tuesday, when he stood on the Senate floor and spoke for 25 hours and 6 minutes, breaking the record for the longest speech in U.S. Senate History.

It was a wake up call to Americans and a plea for each of us to do something about the existential crisis our country is facing. While I’ve not yet watched the entire marathon, I was deeply moved by the many excepts I’ve seen. The ironic imagery of this Black Senator breaking the record for the longest filibuster in 1957 held by Senator Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who was trying to block the Civil Rights Act was especially powerful. “I’m not here because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful,” said Senator Booker.

Tears welled up in my eyes when he spoke John Lewis of Georgia, civil rights leader and Georgia Congressman from 1987 until his death in 2020. “It is time to heed the words of the man I began this whole thing with: John Lewis. I beg folks to take his example of his early days when he made himself determined to show his love for his country at a time the country didn’t love him, to love this country so much, to be such a patriot that he endured beatings, savagely, on the Edmund Pettus bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this.”

I ask you to read Heather Cox Richardson’s summary of Senator Booker’s speech, which you can find HERE.

I’ve always been impressed by Cory Booker, but his speech this week reminded me why. (Hint: It’s about character.)

You might not know about this, but Cory Booker was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary film twenty years ago called ‘Street Fight’. It’s about Booker’s campaign for Mayor of Newark New Jersey in 2002. As a 32-year old City Council Representative, he challenged the city’s popular, but corrupt, mayor in an unbelievable battle. I saw the film 16 years ago, before Booker was nationally well-known. Karen and I watched it last night (she had not seen it before) and we were both blown away by how mature he was as such a young age. But hour biggest take-away was how similar Booker’s opponent and his campaign tactics were (dishonest, corrupt, narcissistic, prejudiced, ruthless, etc.) to our current President. Booker was accused of being White, Republican, Jewish, and gay, among other things. We HIGHLY suggest you watch the film. It’s on YouTube. Watch this film HERE.

Twenty three years later Booker has found his voice as a senator, crying out against the regime that is trying to destroy our country’s constitution and government structure. Each one of us needs to step up and join him in our own ‘street fight’ to save our democracy.

“These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such,” Booker said in his Senate speech. “This is our moral moment. This is when the most precious ideas of our country are being tested. In this democracy, the power of people is greater than the people in power.”

He also asked reminded us of John Lewis’s idea of ‘good trouble’. “(John Lewis) said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation. I want you to redeem the dream . . . We need that now from all Americans. This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right — it's right or wrong.

Thank you, Senator Booker. You’ve given me hope. I hope this is a turning point for Americans, that new leaders on both sides of the aisle will emerge, speak up, and somehow stop this train wreck. Let’s make America the good guys again.

Happy Birthday to Henry and Me

Today is my 72nd birthday. That sounds crazy to me, just as 71 did a year ago. But I’m starting to get more comfortable with those big numbers when they come around every year. I’ve learned to be grateful for the privilege of growing old. My mom died at 54 and Karen lost her mom at 67. My two younger sisters are both gone and we’ve lost several friends in recent years. I am grateful for each day.

My birthday cake this morning was a surprise treat from Karen. No April foolin’!

Just a couple of funny guys cracking each other up.

I’m starting this blog, which is similar to one from a couple of years ago when Karen and I turned 70, called ‘70 Fun Things @ 70’ . I only made it up to 21 ‘fun things’ — not for lack of fun things to write about, but . . . well, you know how journaling goes.

As I’m writing this, we are at our cabin in northern Minnesota. We live in Minneapolis within a couple of miles of our three grandkids, but because we’re traveling quite a bit this year, we spend a lot of time missing them.

Henry and I share a birthday, in a way. We both were born on the first day of the month. I am 72 today. Henry is 16 . . . months. While we think about all three of our grandkids every single day and love them dearly, it’s little Henry that has captured the hearts of not just the two of us, but everyone in the family. Karen and I constantly say things to each other like, “When can we see Henry again?” or “Look at this picture of Henry” or just “Henry . . .”.

3 wonderful kids.

I think the older you get, the more you realize how precious your time is with very young grandchildren. When a new grandchild arrives in your 70s, you start doing the math and reality hits.

We get to see Henry more regularly than was the case with the older two grands. Almost every week we’re home we find a way to stop over for some HenryTime.

As I write this, I realize it’s kind of pointless to try to describe how much being around these three kids as they grow up means to us. If you know it, you know it. I will write more about Svea and Otto, the two older ones, in future posts, but soon they will be 13 and 11, and their lives have become full of school and activities and friends, which means longer amounts of time between visits. Henry will be the same way before we know it, so we’re grabbing on to this little guy and holding him close every chance we get.

A photo from our visit from a week ago. Henry teaches us animal sounds.

Henry & Mom

Henry & Dad

Not a donut like Grandpa, but still a big boy breakfast of champions!

I celebrated my birthday with a delicious donut this morning. A little later I got a text from my daughter Lauren and a photo sent to her by Henry’s daycare. The note said, “Since he is 16 months today he gets to start eating the toddler breakfast, so they documented him having a waffle this morning.” Here’s a picture of that rite of passage. See? . . . he’s growing up right before our eyes.

I’ll end with a fun thing I stumbled on a few months ago. I can set the ‘wallpaper’ photo on my phone to a bunch of rotating pictures of a particular person. The facial recognition function finds pics of that person and adds them to the queue. Several times a day a random picture of that person pops up. I had it set to photos of Karen for a time, but she got tired of seeing herself every time one of us picked up my phone. So I switched it to Henry. Below are some examples.

What a delight it is for us to be Henry’s Gram and Gramps!