Shipwreck Letter

Posted on 2014-03-12 by Roger Wright

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Searching 27,000 miles of open sea for that missing Malaysian airliner called to mind this old story. A shipwreck from another time. 

On Wednesday July 14,2010, workers in Manhattan excavating the site for a future World Trade Center came upon the remnants of a ship. It was estimated that the ship had lain undisturbed for over 200 years. If there had been a letter found in the ruins of this old shipwreck . . . or perhaps 200 years from today, a letter found in the ruins of the Malaysian plane. I wonder how different they would be?

 ******************************************

To my love across time,

 It is snowing at the foot of the island. Grey skies. A winter wind of moderation. And the ship is going down, our eyes will soon feel the icy waves, so there is not a lot of time, maybe just a second or two, and I wanted these last words to be with you.

 

Let it always be known what happened here. We were coming home to our land of snow. Not because the mouth of the river they called Mississippi wasn’t bountiful. The fish swam in swamp land waving grass under star light currents of plenty and all the music had a jump and merry melody. We really could have stayed.

 

But the land of snow called us home. We had winter in our bones. Acadian driftwood. Gypsy tailwinds. So we set the compass north again.

 

And just in sight of the tip of the island is when the fire started on the ship.

 

Someday they will find the mighty ship. They will puzzle at the semicircular metal collar several feet across, built into the hull. They will surmise correctly that it was an oven. All that will be missing is the smell of warm bread baking in the snow when the fire started up.

 

And the scripture lines I said out loud as I realized that the fire would be stronger than the ship, at just that golden moment when we passed the tip of the island and I somehow saw giant towers from the future falling, hit by strange flying machines high in the air, a vision of fires blazing strong now just like the one by the oven in our ship.

 

I said the lines out loud. I prayed the lines from Kings, but as I prayed I also just spoke like an everyday, ordinary conversation to you. As if we were home. In our own warm kitchen. And it was almost time for dinner, “but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

 

The ship started to roll slowly, tip to the left, and began to sink beneath the waves. And I prayed again, the lines from the book of John,

 

“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

 

A long time from now, my one and only love, when the children of children, carrying this deeply buried memory of you and I, are running, playing dancing joyfully in the snow, in a time that will come even after the towers in the sky had fallen and in that naked dawn when only a few survived, in that time so far from now, they will finally find our ship.

 

They will measure it off. Our 30-foot length of a wood hulled vessel. They will puzzle as to why we had an oven. Never having smelled our home made bread. And they will find our ship near where those towers had fallen from the sky. They will find our ship in the wet melting simmering heat of July. A heat like the one that drove us back home from New Orleans.

 

And when they find that ship in the middle of some hot July.

 

Somewhere, we will be feeling that gypsy tail wind, running with our little family, children laughing, tramping through the snow, looking up and catching frosty white flakes in our eyes like shimmering winter diamonds. The splendor of the winter. And the comforting chilly white winds of home.

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Paul Gauguin & Friends

Posted on 2014-02-26 by Roger Wright

 

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Paul Gaugin is the white haired gentleman hit by the light on the left. His shoulder to the camera.  Arthur Wesley Dow is in the white hat, sitting behind the table on the right. The rest? Who knows. And why so serious? Looking off in different directions. Many questions here.

Posed in front of the Pension Gloanec. Pont Aven. Brittany. Picture is from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Dow’s legacy now preserved forever in the Smithsonian, the Addison Gallery and collections world wide due in large part to the work of his Grandniece—Dr. Barbara Wright. (aka . . .my Mom)

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A Mother’s Better Angels

Posted on 2014-02-13 by Roger Wright

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There will be snow on the gravestone, drifting and blowing in a suburban Chicago cemetery, when the mother comes to tell her child that she got the apology and the story told from the man who threw the punch that killed her boy.

It took Nanci Koschman almost ten years. But she did it. She wasn’t looking for vengeance. She was looking for an apology. And the real story. She was looking for someone to say, “Here’s what really happened,” She knew RJ, a nephew of former Mayor Richard Daley, didn’t set out to kill her boy. But he did. In the 4:00 a.m, gin soaked, desperation sidewalk outside just another bar on the aptly named Division Street, the raw power of the Daley clan collided with David Koschman, a slight, young man not much over five feet tall. Nephew RJ threw the punch; Koschman went down and never really got up. RJ’s crowd scattered, no one saw anything, and several days later, Koschman died. This was ten years ago.

Last week, RJ stood in court with no family, only the best lawyers money can buy, and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to sixty days in prison, some community service, and told to write a check to Nanci Koschman for $20,000. Last week he apologized to Nanci Koschman.

But in those ten years, it is what did not happen that’s the most telling part of the story. A 162 page Special Prosecutor’s report concluded that no one gave the order for the massive amount of work, time and incalculable amount of money that went in to killing the story, making it just go away, making sure there was no connection between the killing and the Daley family halls of power.

All of this effort to build mountains like giant snowdrifts that had to be scaled by Nanci Koschman to find out what really happened. Scaling those mountains that separated her from the real story would of course have been much easier if someone had made the calls for the Mayor, the States Attorney, the cops, and said. “This is the mayors nephew. Make this go away.” But that is not the way it works.

If you had to be TOLD what to do to protect the powerful—then you wouldn’t have even had your job. These are unspoken rules. Not orders given over email.

So in the course of those 10 years, attempts were continually made, as often to blame the victim. It was the tiny Koschman’s fault. He threw the first punch. But the steel wall of protection didn’t stop there. Written into a police report was a claim that Koschman started the fight.  RJ was never interviewed. And all of RJ’s friends claimed, until given immunity 10 years later, that they saw nothing.

Then there were the lost files. “Yeah,” said one of the cops interviewed by the Special Prosecutor. “I mighta thrown a file away.”

Division Street is wired for video surveillance in a way that would do the NSA proud. But nobody looked at the tapes.

Still Nanci kept going. Putting herself out there. Being the face of all this. Reliving her son’s pain. Along the way she got some major artillery. An investigative team from the Chicago Sun-Times relentlessly kept pushing to get to the story. FOIA’s were filed. The dean of Chicago journalism Carol Marin was part of the team—and there is no greater source of credibility in Chicago than Carol Marin. The Koschman lawyers stood up to the money and the Daley power.

And then finally, 10 years later, in the winter of endless snow, RJ listened to the deal worked out by his lawyers and he said “Yeah. I’m guilty.” Appearing in courts without family,  RJ apologized.

Now Nanci Koschman can go visit the grave of her son and tell him she got the story out. She got the truth. She did that for him.

Some will wonder if that’s enough. A friend said to me recently that you’re never really a gown up till you lose a parent. But a parent losing a child? No one can judge another’s pain, but the reverberations of that pain can bring darkness beyond words. Vengeance? She never had the room for that.

Forgiveness? Maybe someday. If anyone could make that giant leap, I’d bet on that strong woman.

First though comes the trip to the gravesite in the snow to tell her son the story.

**********************************************

I remember that same cemetery well from almost 25 years ago. We were going there to tell her father that we’d be getting married. The man had survived a German POW camp, made it to America, built a life, and raised three beautiful daughters. Then he died young.

 

So, as we two knelt before the grave to share our news in the open prairie wind she said to him, “Dad, this is Roger. I wish you could have met. But this will have to do.”

********************************

Perhaps Nanci Koschman, will say something similar. That she wished they’d had more time. But she got the story told. She did not call for vengeance.

She inspired.

And that will have to do. 

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More than just “How To Get a Job”

Posted on 2014-02-11 by Roger Wright


Dig deep enough, and every job search is unique. Beyond resume data is a personal story. It’s the story that prompts answers to questions like, “Is there a ‘fit’ here between this individual and this work?”

 In her own words, Jennifer Seaver Stokes, of Tuned In Coaching, Carmel, Indiana tells her story here.

 Everybody’s story will be different. So the question becomes, “How can you use the principles she outlines to make your own path to finding the right work for you?”

 

Jennifer’s Story—First Came Music

Labels. Branding. Even resume data. The shorthand code we use to really tell our own unique and very personal story. Ever have the feeling that it was missing something? Not that it was wrong. It just wasn’t enough to really tell your story. I’m a successful entrepreneur. A musician. A mother. A coach. All facts. But NONE of those labels really tell my story. I think that sometimes it’s important to go beyond the simple facts and look for the way they are woven together. The connections. From those connections comes The Story. And what I came to realize, in reading the dozens of stories in Finding Work When There Are No jobs, in answering the “connecting to action” questions and especially in thinking about “The Five “ Principles; is that my search for work was much larger than simply getting a job.

As I really read the book, I began to see my search more like some kind of river. And the five principles were more like smaller streams that flowed into that larger river of my search.

The First Stream Was Music

My story begins with a love and natural talent for music. I remember trying to string rubber bands on cardboard boxes to make sounds. My first instrument was the piano but I loved any form of live, acoustic music making. Throughout my training as a musician I was privileged to have master musicians that cared about my personal development as well as my musical maturity. In many ways, I had a one-on-one master coach every week of my life until I graduated with a Masters in Music from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

 

In 1987, I married and started a family with two wonderful children. By the time my son was in kindergarten, I knew it was time to start the divorce process. Clearly it was time to get to work. I easily found work as a collaborative pianist, church musician and University instructor. However, the cost of individual insurance, working and practicing long hours for low pay began to wear on me.

It was time for a change.

Second Stream: COMMUNITIZING

If you haven’t read the book, communitizing means the work of community building. ANY kind of community. For example, I live in a wonderful neighborhood, filled with people like Debbie, one of my faithful supporters during my divorce.  Her father was a pastor at a small Lutheran Church, another community. She helped me get an audition for the Music Director/Organist position.  I got that job. None of us “networked” or had meetings. We shared a community.

 

Steam #3: Solving Mysteries

The Lutheran church supported a school for children on the Autism Spectrum.  So much progress has been made in treating autism, but there is still much that is a mystery. The school administrator asked me to teach piano to a boy that suffered from dyslexia.  As soon as Jonathan began studying piano – he began to have success with reading.

 

There is always an element of mystery in knowing yourself. As my 50th birthday rolled around, I knew it was time to re-invent myself. I began coach training at through iPEC, completed Corporate Training Certification (ASTD) and attended a weekend workshop with well-known author and public speaker, Marianne Williamson.

 

Jonathan’s parents were owners of a public relations company.  I invited Jonathan’s mother to the very first Coach Training session in Chicago.  We began talking about coaching and their business. She attended one of my first Strengths Development Workshops.

 

Just before completing the coach training, I started having surgeries and treatment for an abdominal issue caused by a C-section repair involving mesh that was put in in 1997.

 

Another student from the Lutheran school, Ivan, was referred to me for piano instruction.  His mother’s brother was a specialist in gastrointestinal pathology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.  He referred me to the surgical teams that were already doing the type of surgery that I wanted. 

 

I used my coaching skills and strengths awareness to manage my health and create a strategic plan to put the best surgical team and procedure in place. I was told that there could be up to 3 surgeries over a one year period. I set my intentions; remove the mesh, repair my intestines and abdominal wall and restore my health. The surgical team was superb and after 9 hours they had successfully completed the entire procedure with success.

 

Finally, “Practicing Stewardship.”

The “Practicing Stewardship” principle simply means taking care of something even larger than myself. Making sure that my own river flows into the river of a greater good. And that’s what I’ve tried to do. My life experiences, music performance and practice, strengths awareness and belief in the coaching process have helped me manage my life and thrive on my own. But even more important, they have helped serve a greater good.

 

My River Keeps Flowing

Jonathan’s parents were working with a mid-sized company going through reorganization.  The owners wanted to provide outplacement coaching for a large number of released employees.  I submitted a proposal and was hired on short notice to help others find work and re-invent themselves.

I look back on my story now, my river, and I see there is much more here than simply finding a job, finding work when there are no jobs or labeling me an entrepreneur.

 

It’s hard to describe, all those streams flowing into a river and then my river flowing into an even larger river or a sea.

 

It’s kind of like where I started my story. It’s like music.

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Pete Seeger Still Sings

Posted on 2014-01-28 by Roger Wright

 

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Pete Seeger upstairs at the People’s Church on Lawrence Avenue in Chicago; rail thin, head thrust out, jeans and flannel shirt with rolled up sleeves, picking banjo, leading the crowd in song—his voice is almost gone now. And it doesn’t even matter. He has taught us.

 

He lifts his right hand from the banjo ever so slightly, a welcome to all, and then like a community having lived each moment of their very lives together, we sing:

 

Inch by inch, row by row,

Gonna make this garden grow.

 

Just east of the Peoples Church on this rain speckled gray city night, decades earlier, Studs Terkel tells the story of the two cross country travelers, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, needing a place to stay in Chicago that night. Studs went on ahead to make sure it was all right with his angelic wife Ida. And that night, Seeger and Guthrie spent the night on the Terkel’s kitchen floor.

 

Pete Seeger slept on kitchen floors, rode the rails, sometimes with Guthrie, sometimes alone. He made over 100 albums, sold millions of records, sang to millions all over the world. Yet upon induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, Arlo Guthrie noted that “Goodnight Irene” reached #1 and then the New York Times reports, Guthrie added, “I can’t think of a single event in Pete Seeger’s life that is probably less important to him.”

 

Spending years being hounded and blacklisted by various incarnations of the radical right, a massive persecution that went so far as to cite him for contempt of congress, Seeger never stopped singing. Seeger was, many would say, “hated by all the right people.”

 

Through all that, over a career that spanned six decades, Seeger stood alone, wound around the very heart of the American soul. Perhaps, because above all else he practiced the redemptive power of community. A man whose very life breath exhorted not just the world, but every single individual in it, to just sing along.

 

This morning broke clear and brutally cold in Chicago. Grief being that continual search to find flowers in the snow. Sometimes so much so that words stop, one goes mute and there is simply nothing to say. The old hymn asks “How Can I Keep From Singing?” and you answer, “Easy.”

 

But then comes Pete Seeger, and of course you have to sing! How could it be any other way? And then comes an image of those you love most dearly, whether absent or near, they are smiling and laughing, even celebrating the sound of their own voice because they are singing now with Pete. You think, whatever separates you from those you love? Just start singing.

 

Your community comes alive. Chicago radio steps up masterfully as Lin Brehmer of WXRT writes,  “Tom Joad was a character in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Pete Seeger gave him a voice. R.I.P.”

 

Carl Grapentine, of WFMT, as always, steps up and guides those of us who are both grateful and grieving and seamlessly weaves together Bach and the banjo and even Odetta.

 

Pete keeps singing. But of course, it’s our turn now.

 

“Pullin’ weeds and pickin’ stones,

We are made of dreams and bones

Need spot to call my own

Cause the time is close at hand.

Grain for grain, sun and rain

I’ll find my way in nature’s chain

Tune my body and my brain

To the music of the land.”

 

You remember an old Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee song sang with Pete called “Passing Through.”

 

“I saw Adam leave the garden with an apple in his hand

I said now you’re out what are you gonna do

Plant my crops and prey for rain

Maybe raise a little Cain

We’ve so little time

And we’re just passing through.”

 

Then one more time.  I am 16 years old. Lining up on the stage of the Auditorium Theater in Chicago with all the real reporters to ask Pete Seeger a question. I get to the head of the line, its my turn, I look up into those wise eyes of kindness. I see the way he rolls up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. And I have no idea what to say.

 

So I just say “thank you!”

 

To which he brightly replies as if I am the very first and possibly the only person in the whole world to tell him that. “Why, you are quite welcome young man!”

 

Then he gingerly lays his banjo in its case, snaps it shut, walks down the steps into the now empty theater, bounds up and out into the taxi honking Chicago night, hails a cab, gets in and drives away.

 

And the sleeves on my flannel shirt have been rolled up ever since.

 

Thanks Pete.

************************

Songwriting Credits:

“Garden Song” written by Dave Mallet. “Passing Through” composed by Dick Blakeslee

 

 

 

 

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A New Years Beatle Party!

Posted on 2013-12-31 by Roger Wright

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It’s a Beatle party. You’re invited!

That quiet snow on New Years Eve—calls to mind my brother in law: The Beatle. This week marks his birthday—he’s in his extremely late 50’s now. But still unquestionably a Beatle. So of course there is a party.

Where? Anywhere you are.

 C’mon in! The doors to the tent are thrown open in all directions. Just like on the Plains of Abraham.  So all are welcome. It’s the birthday of a Beatle.

 And if you step inside, it might prompt the thought that there is a Beatle in your life too.

In our collective human lifting of voices into one resounding song, some people are just Beatles. Maybe it’s just for a moment, for a week, a year or even a lifetime. A Beatle is a person who makes a difference. Their song sounds in ways that changes things. Beatles change other people’s worlds. The Beatle can capture the golden moments in even the most brutally tough years.

Beatles are often people you wouldn’t look twice at if they passed you on the street. Picture John, Paul, George and Ringo standing in the gray English rain on a street in Liverpool, all at age 10. Who knew they’d change the world?

Wendy’s Beatle grew up close to Liverpool. In Manchester. Felt that same English rain on his face.

 When Wendy first brought him home to our parent’s house, no one knew he was a Beatle but her.  He was the kind of longhaired, bearded, revolutionary spirit likely to storm the temples of complacency, preach something frighteningly radical and overturn the moneychanger’s tables. He stood at the counter in my parent’s kitchen, took a long swig of an ice-cold Lite beer and spit it on the floor, saying, “You really drink this stuff?”

 

This was long before he took me into my first English Pub, warmed in the glow of the fireplace, the laughter in the conversation, the cheese and sausage pub lunch, the beer that leaves you thinking, this just might be like wine to quench the thirst of every tomorrow I am ever blessed to have.

 

When your sister marries a Beatle. You get to be a Beatles’ brother. Which is nice.

 

At their wedding, which might have been 30 years or 30 seconds ago, throngs of longhaired English people filled our parents back yard bringing the very same warmth of an English Pub. Our Dad made his now very famous in the family quote, “I don’t feel like I’ve lost a daughter. I feel like I’ve gained a country!”

I got to play basketball with guys that did things like see Van Morrison sing down at the local pub for a dollar, and Wendy and her Beatle went off to make a life.

 As the years went by, the rest of us began to understand what Wendy already knew: this guy really was a Beatle.

 I could see it when I watched him write a song. He did this every week.

 Every week.

 

I got to see this more than once. Here’s how he’d do it. He’d start pacing around the room. Sometimes in circles. Faster and faster. As if any second he could careen off a wall like a silver rolling pin ball. He’d be muttering to himself. Every now and then he’d go look at this big book that always lay open on a table. Then he’d start pacing again.

 

I don’t remember the part where he wrote anything down. But I sure remember when he sang these songs. There would be two or more of us gathered, and Wendy’s Beatle would start off. No notes. He’d hold all who listened just with his words. And I knew it was him singing. I saw it. Those words coming from his mouth. But I also knew that what he was singing about was much bigger than anything he said.

 

See, that’s what a Beatle can do. A Beatle can lead you past what you see and bring you face to face with a mystery. Face to face with magic. With things you don’t really understand, with things you doubt.

 

Doubt. That essential element of faith. Singing songs of praise that don’t teach, preach, or sell—but instead reveal. A Beatle can do that. Sometimes with words, sometimes with actions. It depends on the Beatle. And the varieties of Beatles are infinite.

 

In fact, now that you’re thinking about it—doesn’t a Beatle from your life come to mind?

 

Wendy’s job, in her life’s travels with her Beatle, has always been, as the poet Mary Oliver wrote, “loving the world.”

 

Wendy’s Beatle sang songs of love. So that meant bringing in the rest of the world to sing along. John, Paul, George and Ringo did a lot of that too. They listened very hard to Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, even the Broadway songwriter Meredith Wilson, and then they carried on the song.

 Wendy’s Beatle did the same thing. He read from that big open book. He drew from the real life, everyday world around him, and then he put together all those love songs. And delivered them pretty near every week of his life.

 Now, all these years later, Wendy and her Beatle have two children and a daughter in law off in the wider world. Doing things like walking dusty roads in India looking to give comfort. And striding through hospitals in the U.K, looking to give care. Wendy and her Beatle now have a sparkling joyful granddaughter in Wales and a full throttle Skype connection to help connect them all.  

Beatles abound!

So, take a look around. You might see a Beatle too.

They’re the ones the ones who are speaking words of wisdom. And singing, let it be.

It’s a Beatle Party! You’re invited!

C’mon in and let it be.

http://youtu.be/tB-Yxa8mN9U

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Connecting to the PERFECT JOB

Posted on 2013-12-19 by Roger Wright

Illinois Guide  

Originally published in  January 2009. Before the truly brilliant editing that turned this into the last chapter of Finding Work When There Are No Jobs. Here is one person’s unedited story of making a connection to their own perfect work.

“And you are? . . . . .” asked the first of what looked like many receptionists standing guard on the outer reaches of the Oval Office of President Barack Obama.

It was raining hard in Washington DC. I didn’t have a power broker raincoat, so my only good suit was soaked in all the worst possible places.

And I needed a drink of water really badly.

“I’m ah, um. . . Chicago Guy.”

“So is pretty much every one else around here now,” said the receptionist over the top of her glasses. “Unless of course they are “Chicago Gal. What we need to do is for you to tell me your name, young man.”

“Chicago Guy really is my blogging name” I answered—too scared to speak in anything but my very most earnest tones. Much less give a straight answer.

“Ah. I see. Well, perhaps we should call Mr. Emanuel. The President is extremely busy today. If you’ll have a seat I’ll. . . . oh here he is now. Mr. Emanuel sir, this gentleman says he’s here for the one hour lobbying session with the President.”

Rahm Emanuel stopped, swiveled and stared.” Do I know you?”

“Well, no sir. Not really. I mean, I do live down the street from you back in Chicago. But no, you don’t really. . .”

“Wait a minute. I remember talking to you and your wife when you walked past my house She’s a ballet dancer right? “

“Yes sir, and..”

“Also took from Joel Hall Dance Studios, same place I did?”

“Well, she teaches there now.. “

“Yeah. Ok. So the reason for this little visit?’

“I was sent by . . . . ..

“Ah huh. Yeah well, we don’t want nobody, nobody sent.”

“Well sir, this won’t take long. See I won this contest kind of thing. “If you had one hour to lobby the President on anything, what would it be?”

“Well, I can tell you one thing, the President doesn’t have an hour to listen to anybody on anything.”

“Ok, I can do it in half an hour.”

“Hey, you are from Chicago! Ok. What’s your topic?”

“Writers”

Writers? You mean like education? Or NEA grants or something?”

“No, writers. I’m here to lobby for writers.”

“Ok. I’ll give you 15 minutes. Let’s go.”

And before I could draw another breath I was in front of the President. Who actually smiled at me like he knew me!”

“Cubs or Sox fan?” he asked me.

“Baseball fan sir.”

“Hah!” said the president. “Nice answer! Wrong answer, but nice one.” Now, what we got?”

“Mr. President I’m here to ask you to consider reviving the Federal Writers’ Project.—a key piece of Roosevelt’s WPA—and an ideal piece of strategy for supporting your plan to stimulate the economy.”

“Well, laughed the President. Believe me, I know most writers have it pretty tough these days. But we do have grants. But help me with the connection to economic stimulus here?”

“Well, I guess I’d start with this picture,” I began.

“Ah, the Grand Coulee Dam.”

“Yes sir. A direct historical precedent to your plan to rebuild our infrastructure. Building it put 2,000 men to work. Putting people to work just like you plan to do.”

“Impressive project,” said the President.

“Yes sir. As you know, it was one of the first times that employee health care became a factor in a job.”

And who got these jobs? Asked the President

They were mostly white males sir. But they weren’t all white males. American Indians from the Colville Reservation were also hired, as were African Americans.

Well, if you’re here to convince that it was a good idea—I already know that.”

No sir, I’m here because of the connection just ONE of those 2,000 men had with the project. Just one man.

Looking at what he did shows us a way to connect writers (and eventually all artists) with the infrastructure and economic recovery you’ve trying to build.

I continued. He was a sign painter, songwriter from Okemah, Oklahoma. The Bonneville Power Administration hired this writer to do a month’s worth of work. They paid him $270.00. He wrote 26 songs.

If I may include an example of his lyrics?” And I handed him a copy of “Roll On Columbia.” He scanned it. I saw the hint of a smile. And he looked back up at me. 

“So sir.  Imagine we rebuild the infrastructure of the country

Who will tell the story? Do you really want it written down and recorded with power point?”

“I hear,” the President smiled. “That power point makes you stupid. And I understand that Woody Guthrie did really did connect the infrastructure to art. But he was just one man. That all you got for me?”

“Well sir, there were 48 guidebooks written. One for every state. Books that were both practical–telling how to get from one town to the next. But they also spoke to the history, the stories of the state.  Here’s one that was done for California .”

“The detail is so rich it practically jumps up off the page.”

Speaking directly to the President I said,

“Imagine he story of your stewardship of our great country being told not in “spin” driven bullet points; but with the richness of true story tellers. True writers who can bring the music to the words just like Guthrie did.”

“Who wrote these books? Who were the writers of the Federal Writers Project?” asked the President.

“People like Zora Neale Huston.”

There was a lot more than state guides produced. She wrote this:

“Who else?”

Well, Saul Bellow. He wrote for the FWP. Nelson Algren, Richard Wright, Malcolm Cowley.

Ralph Ellison began writing “Invisible Man” while he was working on the project.

Studs Terkel, Rexroth, Patchen. Jim Thompson in Oklahoma.

Remember: these were NOT big name writers at the time. They were writers of immense talent who—like everyone else–needed jobs.

It was here. In the Federal Writer’s project, that Studs Terkel began what would eventually become his life long work of telling the story of our history in the voices of everyday, working Americans.

 

Which brings us to right now. Today. With no one writing the history of our times in the voices of ordinary Americans. No one connecting our challenges and pride through the common social themes that unite us all. No one to tell THEIR stories of what unemployment, education, hunger, health, arts, culture, innovation and growth mean in real peoples lives. No writers.”

“So what would something like this cost?”

“We could do it for very little sir. Easy.”

“We?”

“Yes sir. As fate would have it—I actually have experience at running a national organization in the private sector. Managed a P/L; employed hundreds of folks.”

“What did you do?” asked the President.

Training and Customer Service.

“I like that,” said the President. “Training and Customer Service.

Kind of sums up what we do here.”

“I found it all came down to stewardship sir. Taking care of something bigger than we are.”

“What about people? Asked the president. Who will the writers be?”

That’s the easy part sir. There are a lot of writers. The creativity would amaze you.”

“I am expecting you to amaze me.” Said the President. Now how much would something like this cost?”

“”Well, that depends on how good we wanted it to be.”

And for the first time, Rahm Emanuel spoke up. “Cut the crap Chicago Guy. Will this primarily be financed by partnerships with organizations? I mean, if you publish a book for a corporation on their corporate social responsibility, shouldn’t they pay for it? And if a Food Pantry or a Youth Services Project wants a book they can use for fund raising, one that will give them a return on their investment—shouldn’t they pay for it? Hmmm???”

“Well yes but start up costs. . . I stammered.”

He looked at the President. Two million. That’s enough. And you put it back in donations to the NEA in 5 years when you’ve got at least 3 best selling books. And we’ll let you work out of some old offices we have in Chicago.”

“If we had 3 million”. . .I began

If you had nothing, Emanuel smiled. But we do have an office you could use in Chicago. And you could start tomorrow.

“No, said the President.

Start now.”

 
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The Wild Grey Yonder

Posted on 2013-11-26 by Roger Wright

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Binge-watching the TV show Scandal on a gray Sunday afternoon in November. Glancing out the window I do a double take. Brought to my feet, wide eyed, an American Bald Eagle swooping and soaring against the  rumbling trouble in the sky. “Laura!!!” My shout unanswered, she’d gone to Walmart. Yeah, that was it. Walmart. She’d remember if we’d ever had an eagle visit us before.

 

Our place is on the prairie. Between Washington and Bloomington Illinois. The flat green fields of forever, feeding the world. There are wetlands north of Peoria. The Illinois River isn’t far. But there are certainly no peaks or towering trees near our flatland home. So an eagle here? I didn’t understand.

 

And I couldn’t remember when Laura would be back.

 

I paused the TV. Olivia Pope and the President were in this house in Vermont and they were just about to . . . well, I could wait to see what they were just about to do. I might have lost a bit through the years, I am not a young man. But I did not lose memory of that.  

 

I walked outside to say hello to Mr. Eagle. Whistled for Pabst, our wise old mutt to get up and come along. Maybe between the two of us we could figure out why old Mr. Eagle had come to call on us out here on the prairie. And maybe we’d see the dust clouds on the long winding driveway that meant Laura was on her way home.

Outside in the slowly building winds, the eagle seemed like he was painting the sky just above our place. Swooping and soaring. Remembering the line of an old Kristofferson song. Something about “aching with the freedom of the feeling of an eagle when she flies.”

 

What was the name of that song again? And why did it rise up just now?

 

Because as I stood there with my hands on my hips, staring up at that eagle, the winds started to shift, to ramp up speed and start to swirl just like that eagle did above. And suddenly the earth itself let forth a smell of bone chilling terror. As if the ground itself was getting scared and beginning to rot. I could hear some sort of ancient creaking sound. A frequency carrying an echo of a long ago scream. I was ready to toss myself over Laura. Cover her from all harm. Take our chances with the earth to make sure she’d be safe from the winds and the ripping of that scream.

 

But she had gone to Walmart.

 

I saw the distant cell tower snap and crumble. So propelled only by what lets love march through this torn and bleeding world of other times and better places, I started sending her the messages that we would be safe, that we would make it through this storm. Bouncing back to me, I could feel her very soul telling me, take the dog, get inside. Take the dog, get inside.

 

And what they tell you about the sound of a freight train is true.

Grabbing Pabst, closing the door to the bathroom where there was no windows, holing up head down next to the toilet The creaking, grinding roar as the tornado slivered our house, ripped off the roof and the walls. The dog and I shaking as if hope was a plywood splinter wrapped in pink insulation spread out where the kitchen floor used to be.

 

So I just kept singing this song to Laura. Singing it above the wind and the rain  that was pummeling the ripped open wound of what once was our home. I kept singing this song.

 

Till the dark. And the quiet. Till there was only the quiet.

 

And then I came up from some faraway tunnel to the sound of Pabst barking. Opening my eyes, across the rubble of what used to be our kitchen. Three young military guys. Army National Guard. Clipboards. I heard them say my name. Then another one, a voice I recognized, maybe one of the kids from our sub division said, “Number of occupants. One.”

 

“Says here, that number of occupants is two. You sure on that number, soldier?”

 

“Yes sir. I’m sure. This old man, kind of a town character. He did live here with his wife. But she left him. Years ago. So it’s just him and his dog now.”

 

 

“Alright son. We’ll put it down as a “one.” Hmm, I wonder if the old man made it. Let’s go inside and have a look.”

 

Hearing their boots in the rubble, I tried again to send that song out to Laura.

 

Closed my eyes. And hoped she would hear. Hoped she was OK.

 

Hoped she made it through the storm.

 

And that hope was still alive.

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Barry and Jake Get Married

Posted on 2013-11-20 by Roger Wright

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Barry and Jake got married about two miles or so from right here at the old Dickinson Tobacco Warehouse that sits at the very center of Edgerton,Wisconsin.

 

Weathered by Wisconsin snows and blistering heat, still proud with the earthy rich smells of time. Surrounded by the tender rhythms of the Sunday afternoon small town and then splayed out into what were once all tobacco fields that made the money flow straight from the rich northern soil from about 1880 to 1930.

 

 

The Dickinson Tobacco Warehouse. Like a reminder of what endures.

 

 

Barry and Jake got married here.

 

 

Before it was the Dickinson Tobacco Warehouse, it was the original Pauline Pottery factory. At the 1892-3 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, right down the White City Midway from where John Ferris built his first giant Ferris Wheel; Pauline Jacobus, who probably never used the phrase “woman owned business” in her life brought her exquisitely crafted pottery, creating —just like Rodin did—both art and an industry.

 

 

A monumental success at a Worlds Fair that was a virtual fountain of what was new, exciting and best in the world.

 

 

The woman put tiny Edgerton on the map. And her pottery; art like a reminder of what endures.

 

 

 

Barry and Jake got married here.

 

 

Oh, I guess technically they got married in Iowa. A detail that someday soon will be a curious shard of history.

 

 

Like the time I had to ask, “Why did my grandmother have to fly to Reno Nevada to get her divorce in the 1940’s?” A kid will ask a parent “Why did Barry and Jake have to go to Iowa to get married?” And the fact that Barry and Jake were pioneers. That there was suffering. That there was epic struggle. That will become a curious blip of history.

 

 

 Perhaps the best place to start would be with the love that Sunday afternoon when the celebration of the wedding took place.

 

 

That day Jake could smile and say to me, “Hey, we came to your wedding. And you came to ours.”

 

Such a simple statement. Like a reminder of what endures.

 

 

I remember the drive up Highway 90 from Chicago. A silver river of steel rushing concrete barreling across the land and connecting the cities with the towns.

 

 

 

We pull over to the side of the sun baked country road when we see the “Just Married” sign stuck in the ground next to the driveway leading into the woods.

 

A field of rustling corn in the wind on the other side of this two-lane country road.

 

Our big city nieces open up the back doors of the car and start to step out of their carriage. Impeccably dressed for the wedding.

 

And nestled in the woods, you start seeing the fountains.

 

 Jake builds fountains. And today all of them were flowing. Little islands of flowing water delight. Water like a reminder of what endures.

 

 The house, an architectural wonder of angles and light and warmth against the snows and Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keeffe. At its center are weathered old utility poles. The previous owner having been with Wisconsin Power and Light.

 At the center of the house. Literally. Wisconsin Power and Light.

 

 

Outside is a tire swing Jake somehow managed to hang from a branch on the tallest of trees. A hammock. Tables set out with food that just keeps coming. And just when you think you’ve eaten as much as you can, more food.

 

 

Behind the house is the garden. A giant, sprawling wonder of tomatoes falling off the vines, cabbages popping up like friendly blue green little heads, Swiss chard, and oceans of vegetables—food to feed the world. Immaculately tended and cared for. A garden like a reminder of what endures.

 

 

A piñata for the little kids.  A toast for the big kids.

 

Then the sky began to smell like rain. Good luck for a wedding day.

 

In that yard, standing there with maybe my 10th piece of roasted chicken. The day Barry and Jake got married. I looked around me and saw it.

 

It was the people. That amazing patchwork, cross section all shapes and sizes and colors and beliefs and people eating chicken while others ate deserts or took cookies from the resplendent tower of heaping home made platter of cookies made by the best baker I’ve ever known; cookies packed in ice with the very same care Pauline Jacobus used when she’d seal the design on a piece of her pottery.

 

 

Here on the outskirts of Edgerton, just a couple miles from the old Dickinson Tobacco Warehouse.

 

It was the people. The football fans and the artists. The city and the small towns. It was that true and real cacophony of separate souls connected into one.

 

That’s what endures.

 

 

On that day Barry and Jake got married in Wisconsin. And built something that promised to last.

 

With all the colors of the rainbow.

 

http://youtu.be/h2soIL_0ICE

 

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IF MIKE ROYKO CAME BACK

Posted on 2013-11-16 by Roger Wright

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If the joint had not been empty, somebody would have wondered what Mayor Rahm Emanuel was doing, wearing sunglasses, sitting up ramrod straight at a back table in a place that everyone still called Jury’s on a clear blue-sky day in October.

 It had only taken one call to get him there. All I had said was, “He’s back.Come to Jury’s.  No one will be there. I’ll fill you in.”

Jury’s used to be a neighborhood treasure. But then it got sold, 2 guys turned it into a low rent, college dive. So I knew it would be empty. And I had told the Mayor’s ‘associate’ to call in advance and make sure that my martinis were brought in from Tiny’s bar across the street. And that they came at a steady pace. 

 I arrived late. But the martini was chilled. And the Mayor, pushing the sunglasses down on his nose and giving me his best tough guy look said, “You said he was back. Where is he now? When will he write? And oh, “Who are you?”

 “So he worries you, huh?”

 The Mayor said,  “When he died? On April 29th 1997. After that? It was easier. For Richie. For Cellini. Imagine if he had been here? To write about Cellini. Most powerful man in Illinois. Gets a year in the pen?  For shaking down a movie producer? And Blago? Too easy a target. 14 years. For failure to steal?”

 “So then why are you here Mr. Mayor? Why did the message ‘He’s back and ready to write,’ get your attention?”

 “I will tell you why. It’s because I do not need. The people of Chicago do not need . . .”

 “Oh stop with the people of Chicago bit. No one will read this, right? He’s not writing this. I am. So it’s just us talking. 10-12 people will see this. Maybe 5 might “Like “ it on Facebook. That’s it. It’s not like he was writing this.

 “As I was saying, I do not need him now. The one man who could come in here. At this time.  In Chicago’s history.  And turn an 800-word newspaper column into a surgical scalpel. Ready to cut. All my plans. For the city.”

 “Mr. Mayor, Everybody’s got an opinion and a blog. Why would you worry so much about this one writer? I mean, he has—as far as you know, been dead since 1997. Right?”

 “Everyone’s opinion? I don’t care. I don’t even listen. Sometimes my wife? Amy Rule? She will give an opinion. Take out the trash Rahm. Pick up your socks Rahm. That is her opinion. I don’t care.”

 “So why him? Why would you be so worried about him? Enough to come meet with me, who you don’t even know,  on the chance he’d still be around?”

 “It’s because of the children. The children of the city of Chicago. I made a promise that I. . .”

 “Rahm. You’re playing the children card to dodge the question. So let’s do this. Lets give you children.  I believe you care about children. I’m sure others would argue. But I’m gonna give you “caring about children.” Now will you answer why it’s so important to you that he stay dead? You afraid he’d write a story about who you hire?”

 I hired JC Brizard. Superintendent of Schools. Now he has resigned. All this. And no one asks me about the children. Is this fair? Is this right?”

 “That was awhile ago sir. Why bring him up? He’s gone.“

 “JC and I. We had a discussion. We decided that for the good of the children, he would move on”

 “See? You did it again! You dodged the question. And you know what “he” would do?

 “Who? JC?”

 “No. Don’t be cute Mr. Mayor. I’m talking about the one who worries you. Do you know what he’d write?”

 The Mayor looked around the empty bar. Made sure no one was in sight. “What would he do? What would he write?”

 “He’d write that you only hire two kinds of people. People like JC, or Barbara Byrd Bennett, who you can control. . .”

 “But I. . .”

 “Mayor. You don’t hire talent. I’m not even sure you know what that means. Or how to do it. You didn’t let J.C. speak at his first news conference. And you hired all his lieutenants.” Mrs. Bennett looks great on paper. Nice lady. But we know who is in charge. The first type of person you hire is a person you can control.”

 “JC understood . . .”

 “ Mr. Mayor. Let’s cut to the point. Like he would. JC didn’t have the talent to do the job.”

 “I know there were experience issues. Rochester New York had 32,000 students. We had 400,000 . . .”

 “Mayor, you’re not listening. I didn’t say experience. I said talent. The innate stuff you are born with. ”

 “You know, we’ve been here 5 minutes hot shot. And I still haven’t gotten an answer. Is he coming back? And if he does, what will he say?”

“Mayor, I told you he’d write that you only hire two kinds of people. People you can control are the first kind. Don’t you want to hear about the second kind of people?”

 “Listen,” the Mayor started wagging a finger in my face,” I am now certain, you are bluffing. He is not coming back. I am not concerned. The children of Chicago are not concerned . . .” and with that he pushed his chair back from the table, ready to get up.

 “So you don’t want to hear about the second type of people you’d hire”

 “No. We’re done. He’s not back. He is dead. You’re bluffing.”

 “Tell you what Mayor, I’ll tell you anyway. Here’s who he’d write about. This second kind of people you hire? They are the ones with connections to power and money.”

 “So you are saying, I am not acting in the best interests of the people of Chicago?”

 “No, I’m saying you hire the wrong people for the wrong reasons. That you ignore talent when you hire.”

 The Mayor reached for the front door of the empty bar and as he pulled it open, shouted back at me, “Well, thank goodness the people of Chicago don’t have to worry about him writing this. Thank goodness he’s not coming back!”  

 

And with that, the old bar was silent.

 

Sitting alone at the back table, sipping my martini, I looked up at the windows out on to Lincoln Avenue. The sun was going down. No trace of the Mayor. Just some guy out on the sidewalk, whose face I couldn’t see, walking north, tossing a 16 inch softball up in the air and catching it as he strolled.

 

And from somewhere very far away I heard this voice say,

 

“Nice try kid. But its 300 words too long.

So cut it.

 Or get the fuck out of my newsroom.

 

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