I HAVE BEEN BUSY

I have been busy

these past couple of months. Have I told you that? No - I have been too busy to put up any posts.

What have I been doing, you might ask.

Well, I have completed work on the memoir Peter's Story: Growing Up in Milwaukee's Third Ward during the 1920s & 1930s which I co-authored with Peter Pizzino. The book is at the printer. I expect to see proofs this week.

I have completed work on my collection of essays, The Idea of the Local. I sent it off to the printer a few hours ago.

Peter's Story is Peter Pizzino's memoir of growing up in Milwaukee during the 1920s and 1930s. I wrote it in partnership with Peter; that is, Peter told me his stories during interviews that I recorded to audio tape, and I transcribed the tapes and translated the oral telling of the story of his childhood so that it is suitable for the page; I smoothed the order of events and established the narrative arc, beginning when Peter was two and a half years old, and ending when he was eighteen. It is a powerful story, and I hope it finds its audience. The transcribed version of the interviews ran to some six hundred pages; the book comes in at 240 pages. The official publication is in October. A quality paperback, the book will retail at $16.95.

The Idea of the Local is a collection of my essays about place and people in place and ghosts on the landscape. In sum total, the book shows us how we are shaped by the places we inhabit, and how we shape them. The main part of the essays is divided into three sections. "Riding With the Local Used Cow Dealer" collects some of the profiles I have written about people I've encountered, living and dead, showing their lives or portions of their lives in the places they lived them. Some of the pieces, I hope, point towards a new way of writing local history. The second section of the book, called "Being Here," contains pieces related to Fairwater and our life here, Mary's and mine. The third section, "The Idea of the Local," captures small moments and large ones in places I have visited - across Wisconsin and the middlewest, from Willa Cather's Red Cloud, Nebraska, to Wallace Stegner's Eastend, Saskatchewan, from the island of Cozumel to the wild waters of Canada; the section concludes with the title essay, which admittedly is not so much "idea" as it is illustration of the idea, I suppose. There is a Prologue, which sets the stage for my wandering place to place, and an Epilogue meditation on what my obsession might mean. Official publication, again, is October. The book, a quality paperback, comes to 264 pages total, and will retail for $17.95.

Neither Peter's Story nor The Idea of the Local is a perfect book, I know. One strives for perfection, yes, but at some point must let go, and go on. I've made the books as good as I can, and I think that's all I can ask. When I finally hold a copy of each book in my hand, I will be proud of them, of the work I've done, despite whatever flaws remain. Now it is time to go on towards whatever is next.

*

Part of what kept me busy: the last week of April I taught writing at the Elderhostel in Green Lake with Ellen Kort, Richard Roe, and Alice D'Alessio. What a wonderful experience - both teaming up with those three writers to give our students a challenging experience, and interacting with the students themselves, who came to learn, and to write. Every morning, first on the agenda, we had a students write for ten minutes in class, always on particular themes, on the theory that one is a writer only when he is writing. Without fail, our students would cut open a vein and bleed fresh words onto paper. There wasn't much grumbling from these Elderhostel students; instead, they leaned into each chore - whether the writing in class or the overnight assignment - and constantly surprised us with the wonders they found at the tip of their pens.

I hope to teach at the Elderhostel again, because I got as much from the students as I gave, or more.

*

The first Saturday in May was Run-Down-the-Mountain Time in Colorado. I had signed up to walk the Colorado Marathon in Fort Collins, all 26.2 miles of it, but when the time arrived  I knew I wasn't yet in shape to do an entire marathon. So daughter Jessica, son-in-law Tait, and I agreed to change our registration to the 15-Mile "Mini" Marathon. Jess and Tait ran down the mountain, and finished well ahead of Jessica's target time. Hoorah! Dad, however, found out he was in shape for exactly eleven miles. That is, I handled the first eleven miles at a pretty clever pace, then hit my personal wall; during the last four miles, while I wasn't actually on my hands and knees crawling towards the finish line, I might as well have been. It was terrific to see Jess and Tait and my wife Mary along the sidelines a few hundred yards from the finish, and to have Jessica accompany me step for step for part of that remaining distance.

Out of several hundred people who started, I think I was the last to finish the mini-marathon. But I finished!

*

I was in West Point, Nebraska, in late May for my Vagabond project, and had a lovely supper with my friends there, Gwen and Dick Lindberg. I also had breakfast with Charles Sass, who had returned to West Point for his 50th class reunion. I interviewed him about West Point and his years in the community and he gave me some insightful responses to my usual questions. I also interviewed Father Francis Lordemann, who is associate pastor at St. Mary's Church in West Point. I heard someone call him "The Homilator," as his are the sermons of choice. Father Lordemann wrote his dissertation on the "rural church," and kindly loaned me a copy of it for my perusal. Perhaps I'll quote from it here at some point with his permission? He, too, offered very insightful responses to my usual questions.

While I was in West Point, I made time to visit the John Neihardt Center in neighboring Bancroft, Nebraska. Neihardt, you may know, was the author of Black Elk Speaks, which was written in the 1930s and neglected until the 1960s. Neihardt is also the author of an idiosyncratic favorite of mine, The River and I, about a canoe trip he made as a young man down the length of much of the Missouri River. I got to meet the Executive Director of the Neihardt Center, Nancy Gillis, and to talk with her about Neihardt and about her work for the Center. Because I feel some kinship with Neihardt (mostly, I suppose, it is the kinship of those who are neglected writers), I left copies of several of my books for the Center's library.

It was a good visit to the Neihardt Center, and a good visit to West Point. I was reminded how much I like being on the Vagabond Trail, and how soon I need to get back at it.

Now that I have Peter's Story and The Idea of the Local at press, perhaps I can turn my attention to other matters?

Yes.

Comments

[Fred Garber]

I am really excited about Peter's Story! Can't wait. I remember reading The River and I years ago....liked it....need to reread it.

[Tom Montag]

Well, I have copies of PETER'S STORY in my hot little hands even as we speak! I'll be blogging about it later this week or next week....