Skip to main content

Just One Week Left

Maria and I have called Milwaukee Wisconsin home for almost twelve years now. It's been a great ride.
She blossomed when she took over the Charles Allis and Villa Terrace Museums. I had fun as a bookseller, museum guide and historic tour narrator on a tour boat.
We both became involved in the greater community. I joined, through my friends at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, in Common Ground. Our association with Historic Milwaukee started when Maria became their first paid Executive Director. My work in neighborhood organizing started with our membership in Water Tower Neighborhood Association
We became huge fans of the theater. We bought season tickets to Next Act Theater for years and cherry picked the others including the Rep, In Tandem, Boulevard, Chamber and Splinter Group.
We attended many films not only during the fabulous Milwaukee Film Festival, but at the Landmark Theaters all year.
Favorite things? For me it was the buzz of city life. Even listening to a committee meeting at the county or city was a special moment as they allowed me to look around at the beautiful buildings we were sitting in and muse about what had transpired in those buildings.
You can tell when it's spring in Milwaukee because all of the restaurant's sidewalk seating gear comes out of storage and the Bubbler Bike racks reappear.
You can tell when it's fall when everyone is talking about Badger and Packer Football.
Summer means there is something to do outside every day. You can run in a race or sit at an outdoor movie or concert.
Winter? Winter has some weight in our final decision to move to Mandeville. No surprise to those that are close to her, Maria suffers from seasonal depression. While she takes a break and visits our friends in Mandeville, LA once or twice a year, she suffers through a winter like the one we had this year. It isn't the cold or the snow that causes her to become upset. It is those long periods of constant cloudy days and unfortunately, we got and usually experience a lot of those days from January to April.
I leave Milwaukee with a heavy heart. I'm going to miss all of the fabulous people I have met and worked with here. I can't name all of them but if you look at the circulation list you'll get the idea that we were fortunate enough to acquire many lifelong friends.
We will visit. We will try and stay in contact. We hope you will visit us if you're in the New Orleans area

One way I promised to keep in touch is through this blog. If you for any reason don't want to be on the circulation list let me know. You won't hurt my feelings and if I win the lottery you will still be invited to the celebration party.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Diversity

As we look forward to celebrating the Pride we have in our Gay population, (Yeah, I couldn't resist the pun.) I'm pleased to report that diversity in the mix of our residents here in the Fox River Valley continues to surprise me. Example: As my wife and I waited for friends, in the lobby of the Marcus Hollywood Theater on the west side of Appleton, I witnessed three AfricanAmericann ladies buying snacks. Behind them was a Latino couple. At the end of the line, behind was an Asian fellow with three kids. We represented the WASP's. This is in a community that when I first visited in the nineteen sixties, if a black man walked down the street, he more than likely played football for Green Bay. After that, there was a rather pronounced immigration of Hmong and quieter arrival of Latino's. For a while, the worst keep secret was that the new Italian restaurant was actually owned by Mexican's. Since returning to the Valley, I've grown use...

A rustle in the hustings

I am trying to stay away from politics on my blog. I know that some of my intended readers do not share my feelings. As well, I don't entice dialogue. Occasionally my readers will address something I've written about. For the most part, they are merely saying something like, "Oh yeah, I felt that way too," regarding some experience, that I related. However, I have to share these particular feelings about the new Ryan Healthcare proposal that is sailing through the House of Representatives. Market-driven healthcare provision: This concept proposes that if put on the free market health care insurance will become more affordable. The theory is there will be competition among insurers to gain market share and lowering the prices will be a possible outcome. None of the insurers want customers who are old people or people with a pre-existing health problem ( heart disease, cancer, etc...) Older people, who are not on medicare, have more health care ne...

I Can See The End Of The Road

 Pam and I have been working from home on the line by line edit of my novel 26 Women . When we work, she is at home looking at the latest draft I've emailed her and I'm at home looking at the same version.  It's like being back in one of Marshall Cook's gatherings. Marshall ran the Writers Institute in Madison for a number of years. Participants would come with a short piece and exchange them with the others. He would moderate a discussion of the entries that would allow the writers to get input on their work. It's always interesting how readers will misunderstand the brilliance of your writing. Or put another way, how your writing will defy explanation.  Pam will ask me some form of the question, "What are you trying to say here?" We usually ended up rewriting a word, sentence, or paragraph. Only occasionally, the work would stand scrutiny and remain unchanged. I also seem to go into a coma using commas. I tend to sprinkle them like fairy dust in hopes th...