2023 Report

  December 2023

I write to you from Aotearoa/New Zealand as Karen and I are summering here just before the “winter” holidays. It's an upside down world! I know that Minnesota is going to have a brown Christmas but this is something different - the semi-tropics with Sara, Don, Lily, Lachlann and many Harris relations.  We’ve been in Auckland for a week and today, the 23rd, we drove to Hawke Bay, a vacation spot.  Next week we go on to another place for more R&R. Early in January we’ll attend the interment of the kids’ Kiwi great-grandparents' ashes before returning to the metropolis.  

Karen and I visited here 4 years ago, Sara and crew moved here 20 or so months ago.  Lily likely remembers visiting her great-grandmother during our 2019 visit and we’ve learned some interesting family history from Don’s aunt, Sandy.  Murder most foul!  Among other things.  

It was a full day, door-to-door, to get here. 17 hours + in two flights with a stop in LA.  The pricey Air NZ middle class seats are pretty good and the food was very good.  There was even a toilet facility larger than a coffin on the plane! The worst hassle was when we got a rental Land Cruiser here at the airport and found the step up was more than Karen could handle.  I am very glad we traded for an Outlander, slightly smaller, as the road and driveway to their home is quite narrow.  I am almost used to driving on the left and through the wrong way round-abouts now.

Lachlann will be 5 and in March starts Year 0 at Meadowbank School, 10 minutes walk from home.  Elizabeth/Lily starts Year 5 in February and will be 9 next month.  On Monday we attended a powhiri (Maori for ceremonial welcome) for Lachlann and other incoming students.  The whole student body shows up to sing Maori songs, dances and haka chants, some in traditional garb. Staff and students speak what I presume are traditional welcomes in Maori and then English before newcomers have cookies, coffee, water, etc.  

Lily really likes school and while shy, has got some good friends. Lachlann is also shy and the transition from his day care school to this will be harder on him but I am confident they’ll pull it off. He is happy almost all the time, singing, building, cleaning, imagining, etc.  He tells me everyday about everything he loves:  “Who Let the Dogs Out.”  Our rental car.  The color dark blue. The cats.​​ Christmas songs. The smell in the rental car.  Even me! Lily is a great reader and writer and is learning multiplication, division, Maori and Mandarin. Dropped the ukulele lessons though. She’s a dolphin-level swimmer, almost.

Right now in NZ there is a strong push to respect and include indigenous language and culture throughout the country. Witness the powhiri. Traditional clothing was worn by the older and more accomplished dancers, singers and speakers at the powhiri - kids who came from all across the world. It was definitely not a disrespectful thing, as we’ve sometimes seen in the U.S. with black face, with Indian mascots, costumes, etc. An outsider’s view, of course. All kids learn some of this language at school. There are terrible social gaps between Maori and other Pacific Islander people here and the more recently dominating and colonizing populations. While not sufficient, holding up Maori culture and language and rights as high value and a part of everyone’s life must be one means of addressing those problems.  

The new conservative NZ government is now pushing Maori off the national stage, it seems.  It will spend $ millions to change government signs and documents to eliminate newly inclusive Maori language and vows to go back on promises to abide by the ~150 year old Treaty which set the terms for settlement.  

I asked my lawyer-daughter: “Who’s going to stop them?”  Sara:  “King Charles.”

The legal system recently encouraged use of common Maori words in documents and proceedings.  Wonder if that will be permitted?

The old government passed a law to stop selling cigarettes, etc. to anyone born after, say 2010.  The conservatives here are vowing to require everyone to smoke a pack a day.  Just kidding.  But they are going to undo that policy.  And boost speed limits.  Current top speed is 110 km/hr.  Other bad stuff I am sure, but enough of that.

In Minnesota things are good.  Jacque who takes care of my three year old buddy, Louis, from next door, brings him over everyday to our house to feed Bailly and play with him.  I contracted with a service for snow removal.  Wonder if they will really charge me $300 for December if there is no snow?  (No it was $350, I misremembered. 2-9-24)

I think even Molly, Mara, Courtney and Matthew up north of Duluth have had little or no snow so far this year.  And here he bought a real tractor last year for this very thing!  

C and M are good and  their daughters are utterly delightful.  Mara is super-competitive so she’s barely ½ step behind big sister on most things. Courtney is working at the lovely outdoors focused school that Mara attends and where Molly will follow.  https://northshorecommunityschool.org/. Matthew does part-time child-rearing and part-time low voltage electrical work. They have a neighborhood bear and coyotes in the distance.  Mara rides her two-wheeler as easily as she runs, but far faster.  David and Lu-Anne have been very generous in opening their lakeside home for the girls’ birthday parties. Thank you! 

I worked as a judge in another election or two this year. 16 hour days but with a good team each time and a system that is well set-up.  It's a great chance to engage in basic public service. 

The Democrats in MN passed lots of good legislation this year - I hope the various efforts show results quickly, though most such things can only be tested over the long term. My former colleague, Melissa Hortman, Speaker of the House, is probably the second most powerful politician in MN. Another colleague, Rebecca Lucero, is the Commissioner of Human Rights.  

I left, disappointed, my St. Paul Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity Commission post this year.  I joined as a volunteer helper and the Board of Directors, at The Neighborhood Network for Seniors, a tiny non-profit that aims to organize volunteers to assist elders to stay in their homes. I negotiated a settlement of a housing/civil rights case that I took on as a volunteer in 2022.  Maybe my last case?  1978-2023 - forty five years? I may give up my law license in 2024.

Well, I went to a record show (to buy old records) and got COVID.  And then gave it to Karen.  No fun but we don’t have the long-lasting symptoms.  Karen’s health is not robust but it is so much better than it was in 2022.  A fancy new bed is providing her better sleeping conditions than she’s had for years. I’ve been participating in an online caregiver support group for about a year and it gives me perspective (my tasks are easy) and some practical help.

I did get more cycling miles in than in 2022. I think it's about 3300 for the year.  After crashing my old road bike (embarrassing and scabbing but not scarring for me) I had to get a new bike - an Orbea Orca.  Fancy, black, with electronic shifting, hydraulic disk brakes.  But nope, no electric motor.  My regular riding buddies have been laid up by one thing or another, so I have been mostly solo and only in town for the past year.  Carry a bus card with me, too, just in case.

I spend a lot of time listening to music and writing. I haven’t been to many indoor gigs but have gotten to 6 or 8 outdoor events in St. Paul, most of them neighborhood things, free-will donation gigs.  Next year maybe I’ll write up some appreciations.

I’ve taken three writing classes this year, not the best I’ve had, but it is good to meet some new writers, some now friends, and to exercise that part of my brain.  There is a small group of people who are meeting regularly, mainly as an incentive to spend at least those 90 minutes writing.  These are some encouraging and fun people. 

I published an article on public art murals in St. Paul. I find that I can get outside of strict boundaries, expound opinions on subjects I have no experience with, etc. What the heck!   Here is that article, including photos.  https://streets.mn/2023/08/07/indigenous-public-art-in-st-pauls-chroma-zone/. 

I also wrote an essay on “anti-Islamic” art in the neighborhood at Macalester College. (Yes, it is anti-fundamentalist Islam. Yes, it should be seen. Yes, we should take care that our free speech not harm others.  Yes, parts were beautiful and parts were obscene.) I will send it if you ask.

For the very first time I have jumped into writing fiction.  I am shocked. I now have 200+ pages of a novel - working title: My Adventures with The Bandings, The Baroness, and Monk.  Most of it was written in about a  month. I might join a year-long class throughThe Loft which would give me incentive and help in finishing and polishing it.  I am getting helpful and encouraging comments from friends. Here is how I am thinking of the effort: 

This novel follows the adventures, struggles and loves of Joe, a young man who finishes university just before the US entry into WWII.  Later, as an 8th Army Air Force bomber pilot, he has a chance encounter with a Rothschild in a transatlantic voyage during the war.  Through this, he later becomes enmeshed in the new post-war bebop jazz scene in NYC. Joe’s middle-class self is challenged to understand, traverse and sometimes fight battles involving race, corruption, labor, crime, sexuality, addiction, religion, justice and international relations. 

Inspired by actual people: Thelonious Monk, Panonica Von Koenigswarter, Joseph Kennedy, Philly Jo Jones, Nellie Monk, Roy Cohn and my father, the story is invented but develops within the swirl of the momentous events of the 1940s and 1950s. 

While there are noir elements (crime, espionage, liberation, drugs, explosions, romance, imperialism) I also seek to probe the inner life of Joe, a low-prestige criminal prosecutor, as he confronts his prejudices, his doubts, his place in the worlds he lives in or can imagine. Much of the movement in the novel is created by Nica, a Baroness, a pilot, who became an evangelist for jazz and a crusader for racial justice — a woman who set and followed her own agendas.  Monk, historically infantilized by some observers, here is not only a genius composer and enthralling performer, but also a family man who provides Joe with insight into America’s black/white differences and confluences.   

Soon to be a major motion picture.  Hah!

OK. Have I written enough?  Not quite yet.  

Here is something for everyone to think about when contemplating their “maturity”:  you can never have enough friends and it's not easy getting new ones.  Friends are great in so many ways -- practical, emotional, social, etc. -- thank you all!  I see how this works for us and for other friends as they face changes in life.

So, do whatever you can to hang onto existing friends. Make friend-work-fun a regular practice. I have coffee weekly with a group of guys. Some I used to ride bikes with regularly and we hope to do that again. A group of legal aid retirees breakfast together once a month.  Another select group has occasional music meetings where we spend several hours listening to LPs and CDs with close attention. (Some of us have done this together for 50 years and we revisit a few choice cuts from the ‘70s still.) 

And find new friends: the writing group is a very enjoyable new development and I’ve also found a few folks in the neighborhood who I now do things with. The volunteer organizations are “good works” in and of themselves, but also give us contacts for a range of parts of life.  

Well. I will close this year’s missive. I hope everyone is well and that every day you will find a life of joy, service and hope.  And fun, too.

Jay

Photos below:  Sara, Karen and Lily at MIssion Bay, Auckland,

Lachlan, chasing or being chased by neighbor Thomas on the family deck, Auckland

 Courtney, Molly, Mara and Matthew, overlooking Lake Superior.