hangin' out with the Mormons

Greetings from Salt Lake City, Utah, which is actually kind of a nice city (for a couple of days, anyway)... We had some preconceived notions about this Mormon-headquartered state that have been de-bunked -- for instance, that because Mormons don't ingest caffeine that we would have problems finding coffee or Pepsi, but there are plenty of Starbucks and other coffee outlets everywhere. We have gotten a good flavor of the city and did some Mormon stuff too -- my favorite part being attending a recital on the beautiful Mormon Tabernacle pipe organ this afternoon (Remember, I'm a pipe organ freak). (click on the photo at right).

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We're staying at a hotel across the street from the arena where the Utah Jazz NBA team plays (The "Utah Jazz" to me being the funniest name in major league sports, in this unjazziest of states). Am having a good time traveling with Jerry and Nancy and Joan.... Finding some interesting things out about these two sisters of mine -- that Nancy is sort of attracted to guys who drive Harleys (!) and that Joan is very attracted to clean-cut 20-year-old Mormon boys in their white dress shirts (Although I'm not sure she'd like to keep them all that clean-cut)... :-)

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Heading tomorrow to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.... Staying tomorrow night in Jackson Hole...

brother in a strange land

My friend Barb, the leader of my book group (that I am usually AWOL from), was surprised several months ago when I mentioned that I had a brother who lived in Shanghai. Barb, one of the select few people in the world who read my blog, said she only knew about my sister Joan, who gets a frequent mention here in these meandering lines, so Barb assumed she was my only sibling. Actually, I have five siblings, and what's amazing is how well we get along and how much we still like each other and keep in touch with each other. Joan just happens to be the only one who lives nearby.

It's my brother Davy who mostly lives in Shanghai. He teaches English there, loves China, is very fluent in Chinese. When he is back in the States between semesters, he lives in San Antonio, Texas. He's in San Antonio right now, skipped a semester to take care of some medical issues, which thankfully he came through great.

But it's funny to think of a brother in a place that is so foreign. No, not China. Texas. Yes, I know what you're saying, it's one of the 11 states I haven't been to yet, so I shouldn't judge a place by pre-conceived notions. Well, why can't I? And then last month the governor of Texas suggested that Texas should secede from the United States because it's so out of touch with what's happening in the rest of the country. I say, why the heck not?.. (although I say he should have to take all the states between him and South Carolina with him)... I really can't picture the rest of the country bothering to fight another Civil War to keep them in the Union.

So, if I don't go visit Davy sometime soon, I might be visiting him in a foreign country. Who knows which one?

And I need to get down to visit my sister Nancy in North Carolina sometime soon also. It's been a year already.

Next week, though, I'll get to see my brother Ronnie and sister Mary when Jerry and I vacation for a week in our family's home state of New Jersey, the only state that's totally in touch and of which nobody ever has pre-conceived notions.

another jelly doughnut

I haven't mentioned politics in a long time, Nancy....

In 1963, President Kennedy delivered a speech in Berlin, Germany that included one of the most famous sentences of his Presidency: "Ich bin ein Berliner" -- meant to mean, "I am a Berliner" -- a citizen of Berlin. The Berlin Wall had just gone up, the city was glaringly divided. So he was saying, We are with you, citizens of Berlin, ready to stand against the division, the Communists, whatever...

But to many Germans, at least supposedly, the word "Berliner" is better known as the popular name of a certain jelly-filled pastry. The legend goes that JFK was inadvertedly saying to the Germans, when translated, "I am a jelly doughnut" (I've wondered what he would have said if Hamburg had been the divided city instead -- "I am a Hamburger"?)..

This week, Barack Obama, candidate for president, is on a tour of various countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq (and some photo ops with the troops), and then on to a couple of countries in Europe, including Germany... I'm not sure what he'll be doing in Germany, but at one point there was discussion of having a rally at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, where he would make a speech in front of tens of thousands of cheering Germans... Now, make no mistake, I'll vote for the dude, and I understand that he is quite popular in Europe (the rock-star thing again), but isn't this a little weird -- and maybe a bit arrogant -- for a U.S. presidential candidate to be making what are essentially campaign speeches in other countries?.. We'll see how this all goes this week.

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We said Auf Wiedersehn to our German girls, Jana and Saskia, this past Wednesday and were surprised how much we missed them after they were gone!

Lupie's and special effects

I've been hanging out with my sister Nancy at her home in North Carolina the past several days, the trip delayed from last month. We've sorted through piles of paperwork and financial details and accomplished quite a lot in a short time. Last night, we were mostly finished with all that and drove up to Charlotte, about a half-hour north of here, a city I've flown into several times but have never really seen, and we drove around the inner core, the downtown, got a flavor of it (It felt a lot like Indianapolis to me). Saw where the Panthers and the Bobcats play. Ate at a fun hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Lupie's.

This morning, our brother Davy, the brother that lives in Shanghai, called and gave me a few laughs, and after that Nancy and I went to a movie. She wanted to see the new Indiana Jones movie, and, since I tend to avoid special-effects movies these days, I had very low expectations, but I ended up liking it more than I thought I would and maybe more than Nancy, who had high expectations, did. Don't go out of your way to see it, though.

Flying home tomorrow morning. Getting together with Jon and Tom in the afternoon for Father's Day. Watching the Tony Awards tomorrow evening with Joan, who has seen several of the nominated plays, and Jerry, of course.

Maybe back to North Carolina in a couple months.

alternatives to Orff

It was a space-cadet weekend for me. I think I was a bit over-medicated.

I had planned on being at Nancy's in North Carolina over the weekend to help her out with some stuff and have some good quality brother-sister time. For some normality, we even had tickets Saturday night to attend a concert by the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, which was doing a violin concerto by Mendelssohn and Carmina Burana by Karl Orff.

None of that worked out, though. Instead, I spent Saturday night at home in Minneapolis drifting off on the sofa while watching a couple of early-40s films on Turner Classic Movies -- Now, Voyageur (Bette Davis) and Since You Went Away (Claudette Colbert). There's nothing like a couple of extreme melodramas to complement some nice hallucinations.

Feeling more normal today. We'll see what happens next.

the waves

I've been back in Honolulu for several days, heading home to the reluctant Minnesota spring in two days. The condo unit where we are staying here is 14 stories up, right on the ocean. To my right as I sit on our balcony is Waikiki, to my left is Diamond Head, straight ahead are the surfers riding their boards. Quite lovely.

The trip back to North Carolina was hard, ten hours each way of flying time and dealing with the difficulty of the situation. My sister Nancy, who in some ways seems so fragile to me, is showing amazing strength, dealing with the waves of sadness as they come, sometimes sparked by the slightest memory trigger. If you've been through this, you know what those waves feel like and how it feels to ride them out.

These tend to be the worst of times, but also the best of times for a family. I feel sorry for families that are estranged from each other when they need each other most.

Dave

Not sure how to write today. We arrived in Hawaii three nights ago for a two-week post-busy season vacation. Early the next morning, I received the horrible news that my brother-in-law Dave (see my post of March 17th) had died. He had been sick and in the hospital for a couple weeks, but his death was unexpected.

We are a very close family, my five siblings and myself, even though we are spread all over the place, so we are a family stunned and sad. Without question, this is a time to be together, so this afternoon I am leaving Hawaii for a few days, flying to North Carolina to be with my sister and the rest of the family.

As I write this, I'm overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a perfect early morning in Honolulu, but my thoughts are elsewhere. There are times when it is hard to reconcile the beauty and the harshness of life.

We'll miss you, David. You were an irreplacable part of the family.

she was almost named Patty

I have a bunch of Irish blood in me, but when I wake up on the 17th of March, why should I think of St. Patrick's Day? It's my sister Nancy's birthday! Being the excellent brother, I gave her a call this morning before work, realizing that this is one of Nancy's "landmark" birthdays (meaning one of those ending in a zero), calling her cell phone instead of the land line, luckily, because it turned out that she wasn't at home in North Carolina. Her husband Dave had surprised her yesterday, driven them a few miles into South Carolina, and they spent the night at a quiet Bed and Breakfast. My brother-in-law the romantic! Who'd a-thunk it?

(...and, by the way, I wasn't dreaming of a white St. Patrick's Day, but we got one anyway. Some green would look so good right about now!) :-(

words like daggers through my heart

My sister Nancy in North Carolina, in her emails, is always asking me if i've checked her daughter Michelle's blog for this news or her daughter-in-law Cris's blog for that news or this video, and I always say yes because I like both of their blog sites. But then yesterday I asked Nancy if she ever read my blog. Her brutal response: I've read your blog a few times. I usually forget, but it's not near as interesting as reading about my grandkids.

OUCH! Et tu, Nancy??

A Later Note: Nancy wrote back and said she had caught up on my blog, but she seems to think that it is too political, which she finds dull (agreeing with Tom). So I was amused when I checked Michelle's blog later in the day and found on this very day Michelle's blog had gone at least momentarily political -- Michelle has endorsed Barack Obama for President.