Retirement Diaries 2024: Back in Minnesota

After three weeks in Washington and Oregon, I’m back in Minnesota.  I had so much fun, seeing friends, visiting my favorite places, and getting in plenty of beach time. 

The weather is so much better than when I left!  Instead of lows of 7 degrees and snow on the ground, the weather has been mostly sunny and in the 50s and 60s since I got back.  Until today at least; it’s raining now and it is supposed to rain off and on until Monday.  There are worse things in life.

The grass is green from the recent rains, and once the rain stops I’m going to be getting out into the yard to work on pruning and trimming back the dead foliage.  The lilac bushes are starting to leaf out, so there will soon be the sweet smell of lilacs blooming!

Cora and Yellow were of course happy to see me, and have forgiven me for being away.  It is so nice to see how bonded they are; they regularly snuggle and sleep in the same puff, even though they have lots of options.  At the moment, I can hear Yellow snoring in the other room; they really have a good life!

Mom was kind enough to think of me when she went to the library book sale for the next town up the road, and she got me some books on the Civil War.  She’s always so thoughtful!  There is also an upcoming book sale at our town library, so I’ll be helping move books from storage next week to get ready for it.  I’ll be considered the young person with the strong back among the other volunteers I’m sure.  It reminds me of helping mom to purge her books before the move last year.  That was a lot of boxes of books!

On my way home from Washington, I spent a couple of days on the Oregon coast, camping, looking for agates and just enjoying the beach.  I did get rained on a little, but it was pretty good weather for the most part!  After I left the coast, I spent a few days getting home, doing a little bit of sightseeing on the way.  A winery along the Columbia River Gorge, and a few museums in Montana and North Dakota.  After leaving Oregon, it got too cold for camping, so I splurged on a few nights of hotels.

Along the way I had a few lovely chats with people I met on the beach, at the winery, or in the restaurant bars – I like sitting at the bar when I’m dining alone, it just invites more social interaction.

Of course, now that I’m back I’ll be able to write more regularly again.  Not much driving to interfere with my downtime!

I hope everyone is well – and enjoying spring!

Book Review: A Fever in the Heartland

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan

Most of us probably associate the Ku Klux Klan with the years immediately after the Civil War.  And indeed, that was when the KKK was originally founded, in Tennessee, to intimidate blacks who had recently gained their freedom at the end of the Civil War.  Chapters popped up all over the south, in an attempt to suppress the black vote and intimidate blacks into not running for political office, and for a few years, it was very successful.  After President Grant came into office in 1870, laws were passed to suppress the Klan and prosecute members for their illegal activities, and Klan membership dropped.

However, in the early 1920s, the KKK experienced a resurgence, and Klan chapters were created all over the country, with a large following in the northern states.  This book is about this second wave of the KKK and one of it’s most influential leaders, D.C. Stephenson.  D.C. Stephenson was a drifter, an abuser, and a deadbeat husband, but somehow his charisma still managed to get him appointed as the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan and the lead recruiter for seven other states in the Midwest. 

The KKK during this period grew to a membership of between 3 and 8 million members. They gained this following by presenting themselves as a family values fraternal organization, that fought for women’s rights and sought to weed out the undesirables.  Who did they consider undesirable?  Well, in addition to Blacks, there were the Jews, the Catholics, the Communists, and any number of recent immigrant populations, including the Italians, Russians, and Lithuanians, among others.

Timothy Egan focuses this book on Stephenson’s rise to power, the corruption with which he ruled his section of the Klan, and his ultimate downfall.  Stephenson was a raging alcoholic, and as is frequently a problem with heavy drinkers, he just couldn’t control his behavior.  After a number of attempted and completed sexual assaults of women, where he was able to buy their silence, he attacked a young woman whose silence he could not buy.

Madge Oberholtzer was a young woman working for Stephenson, and after he attacked and raped her, she attempted suicide by poison while she was still his captive.  He did nothing to try to help her, and eventually dumped her back off with her family.  She didn’t die quickly though, and over the next few weeks, gave a detailed account of her time with Stephenson, and the assault.  When she died, he was charged with her murder. 

The book details all of this, from the events leading up to the assault, her suicide attempt, her lingering illness, and her eventual death.  D.C. Stephenson’s arrest and trial were widely publicized, and considered the scandal of the time.  Even so, a conviction wasn’t a sure thing.  It’s tough to call yourself a man of family values after all that. 

Egan did a great job of researching and writing his book, holding my interest throughout as he told the story of the rise, and eventual fall of Stephenson and the Klan. 

4 stars.

Book Review: The Lieutenants

The Lieutenants, by W.E.B. Griffin

What can I say about this book?  It is a bit of a challenge to describe.  It is a novel of the men in World War II, but largely it isn’t about the war.  Instead it is a series of stories, with characters who are all, at some point, Lieutenants.  They might have started out at that rank, or ended there, or they may have just been passing through their time as a Lieutenant somewhere in the book.  They got there in a myriad of ways, through West Point, or combat promotions, or the fluke promotion by a General who wanted a man for his polo team. 

The stories start out as largely disconnected from each other, of men who are fighting in the war or who join after, but eventually their stories weave together, as they know each other, or have a friend of a friend, or a commanding officer who worked with one of the others.  The reader learns that the Army can be a very small place indeed, as these happenstance connections continue to bring them together throughout the book.

There are likable characters and ones who aggravate with their bumbling.  Griffin pokes fun of the Army with the absurdity of some of the situations.  Such as 18 year old Lowell, who is promoted to Lieutenant because, as a rich kid, he learned to play polo.  His assignment is gravy until his commanding General dies on the polo field, and another commander decides to get rid of him by sending him to the battle front in post-war Greece.  The reader is privy to stories of their wives and sweethearts, and the complicated social structure that prohibits officers and their wives from fraternizing with enlisted soldiers and their spouses.  The random nature of how decisions are made is also front and center in the novel. 

It got off to a slow start, but I did begin to appreciate the characters, and the fact that most of them were trying to do the right thing, while looking out for themselves at the same time.  Others didn’t have that same set of morals, and were only in it for themselves.  Griffin does a decent job with his character development, creating a nuanced set of characters with the conflicting motivations that we all carry with us.

If you are turned off by bad language or racism, this will not be the book for you.  It is set at the end of World War II, and the fact is, racist terms that we denounce today were still in widespread use.  Anti-semitism was common, and it affects how a Jewish character is treated.  The author could have avoided this language and not addressed it at all, and some other reviewers would have preferred that.  However, the novel’s language is accurate for the time, and provides a sense of realism. 

Overall, I didn’t love or hate this book.  It held my interest, but wasn’t particularly memorable, and didn’t make me eager to pick up the next books in the series. 

3 stars. 

Retirement Diaries: A Full Cup

I’ve been in Washington nine days, and what a whirlwind they have been!

I have spent my nine days visiting the places that bring me joy and peace.  I have spent some days at the beach, and gone to visit some of my favorite nearby towns.  I have poked around in shops that I love, and gone to restaurants old and new.  I have taken walks on some of my favorite trails and in the parks, and watched the sunset over the water.

I have spent the nine days visiting friends who are dear to me, catching up, laughing, hearing stories of joy and hardships, and sharing my own.  I have reconnected with people I have missed terribly.  There is something so powerful about being able to connect in person with friends who I usually only get to talk on the phone with or text.

I do love my home state and miss it, but it is my people that I miss the most.  Seeing them has filled my cup!  I feel so blessed! 

Book Review: The Snow Child

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

I had gotten good feedback on this novel from social media, so I decided to check it out!

Jack and Mabel are a couple nearing their fifties when they decide to leave their home in the Eastern U.S. and take a homestead in wilderness Alaska in 1920.  They were never able to have children, and they believe this might be the fresh start that they need.  But the work is brutal, and life there is isolating, and their marriage is crumbling under the strain. 

When the first snow arrives, they decide to take a few minutes for fun, and they build a snowman.  Jack carves a beautiful child’s face in the snow, and Mabel dresses the snow child with a red scarf and gloves for a child they never had.  In the morning, the snow child is gone, and so are the scarf and gloves.  But soon, they see fleeting glimpses of a real child, a toehead blonde running through the forest with her red fox friend.  And she is wearing a red scarf and gloves.  Is this their snowman come to life?

Over time, they gain her trust, and come to see Faina as their daughter, however eccentric she is.  She refuses to settle down and live with them, instead preferring to continuing living in the woods, trapping and gathering berries.  But she visits often, accepts their kindness, and returns love to them when they need it the most.  Her existence is an enigma, as it seems impossible that this young girl could survive the harsh wilderness of Alaska.  That is, if she really is a girl.

Of course, it isn’t just a story of a strange child wandering the woods, but instead it is a story of grief, and healing from loss, of hope, of tenacity, of friendship, and of what is important in life.  Life is hard, and there are no guarantees, and we must make of it what we will, just as Jack and Mabel are trying to do. 

Eowyn Ivey’s novel draws upon a Russian folktale, and it blurs the lines of realism.  The reader is left to their own devices to figure out what is real, what is fantasy, and what may be the madness caused by cabin fever.  At times beautiful and joyful, at times heartbreaking and raw, she draws the reader expertly into the story, and leaves you curious until the very end.

5 stars.   

Retirement Diaries 2024: Packing Up…

Last Friday, Mom and I headed over to a garden nursery for a planting event!  You could choose to plant a container garden or a hanging basket.  Then you pick your plants, plant them in the dirt and you are done!  The nursery takes care of your baby until Mother’s Day weekend, when you go pick up your plant and see how much it has grown!  The cold weather in Minnesota makes greenhouses a necessity.  In Washington your little container gardens would already be out soaking up the sunshine and the rain! It was a fun drive over; we saw farmed elk and bison on the way, and a wild Bald Eagle. 

Early Sunday morning, it started to snow.  And it pretty much continued non-stop until Tuesday evening.  It came down relatively slowly, but I would guess overall there was 8-10 inches.  Today the skies are back to being blue and sunny! 

Sunday Morning

 

Monday Evening

Sunday morning was also the Agate Swap!  Mom hadn’t been to one before, so we braved the snow and checked it out.  It is basically a rock show, with lots of vendors selling their wares.  You can bring in agates to trade or sell, but mostly the Lake Superior Agates I have found are small and not very impressive, so no trading for me.  I did buy a few agates and an antique agate marble that caught my eye.  I’m slowly filling up my house with rocks! 

I’m glad the weather system has now passed through, because I’ve been packing up the car to get on the road!  It’s spring, and I’m ready for a trip!  It was strange yesterday hauling things out to the car in my snow boots.  It will be too cold to camp on the way out to Washington, where I will spend a few weeks with friends, catching up with everybody and seeing the sights.  Hopefully I will be able to camp on the way back though, so I’m putting all my gear in the car just in case.  I haven’t been to Washington in almost seven months, so I’m beyond excited!

I’m sure the kitties will miss me, but Yellow is doing well with his new food and daily fluids, so I don’t have to worry about him as much as I was.  Cora is doing great!

On the way back, I haven’t decided my route yet.  I suppose it will probably depend on the weather.  Stay north and go back through Montana, or cut down through Oregon again and maybe do some of Highway 20?  There are so many choices – and so much to see!   

Salem Weekend: Oregon State Insane Asylum

Saturday, August 31, 2019, Salem, Oregon

In 2019, I took a Labor Day long-weekend trip to Salem, Oregon.  Some of the trip was for chores (getting new tires!), but I also had time for some sightseeing.

The Oregon State Insane Asylum, now known as Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, has a long and fascinating history. 

The Architecture

The hospital was built in 1883 as a Kirkbride Institution, and housed both men and women, and for part of its history, children.  Kirkbride plan hospitals were known for their cutting-edge (at the time) ideas for treating the mentally ill, based on the belief that natural light and fresh air were critical for one’s well-being.  Most Kirkbride facilities also gave jobs to patients who were physically and mentally able to work. 

There were several different architectural designs, but the most common was the “bat-wing” style, where wings of the building stretched out from a large main portion of the building.  There were 73 Kirkbride hospitals built; 33 Kirkbride institutions are still in existence in some form and on the National Register of Historic Places today.  Oregon State Hospital has one of the only remaining original Kirkbride buildings.  The building now houses the Museum of Mental Health, which is operated by a non-profit not associated with the hospital.   

However, the grounds still house a psychiatric facility, which is not open to the public. 

The Hospital

The hospital first began treating patients in Portland in 1862; the facility moved to Salem with the Kirkbride building construction in 1883, and is still operating today.  The facility treated both men and women, and for a period of time also treated children.  While the hospital did have some success in treating patients and returning them to their families, it was not without its controversies.  As with all of the state mental institutions, it had periods where it was horribly overcrowded, with over 3,600 patients at one point.   

The hospital practiced eugenics between 1923 and 1983, sterilizing over 2600 patients during the program’s history.  Lobotomies were also performed there until 1981.  In 1942, an accidental mass poisoning incident led to the deaths of 47 patients.  Sodium flouride, a cockroach poison, was accidentally substituted for powdered milk in the scrambled eggs.  It was tragic, and also sad that the kitchen had cockroaches in the first place, but probably not surprising.  

When the hospital was at its peak, there were tunnels built underneath the buildings that allowed staff and supplies to move between buildings without going outside.  This system of tunnels also allowed staff to move patients without having them be seen outside.  Some of the tunnels even had a small narrow gauge railroad to move supplies!  Most of these tunnels are no longer in use today, or are used as storage.  I guess that gives you an idea of how big the property is.  I only saw the main building, but there are dozens of buildings on the site, and it is much smaller now than it was in its heyday. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

It will probably surprise you to hear, but the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed here in 1975.  The cast was permitted to watch patients in their daily routine and even observe electroshock therapy treatments as a part of their rehearsals and to get into character.  The movie depicts some actual hospital patients and staff, who were used as characters and extras during the film.  Dr. Dean Brooks, the hospital’s superintendent at the time, plays a role as Dr. Spivey, the main character’s doctor.  When Dr. Brooks complained that the screenplay was unrealistic, he was told to rewrite his dialogue to make it medically accurate.  The film won several Academy Awards for its depiction of the mental health system and life in an asylum. 

The Museum of Mental Health

Today, the main Kirkbride building at Oregon State Hospital has been opened as a museum.  The museum examines the history of the asylum system, and details what life was like in the hospital.  There are exhibits with medical equipment, ones that show a patient room setup, and others that explain leisure activities that were offered at the hospital.  There is even an exhibit about the filming of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  The museum is one of the only areas of the grounds where the public is allowed today, and it was a very interesting visit!  

The Dead

In 2004, Peter Courtney, an Oregon State Senator, toured the hospital and learned that over 5,000 sets of cremains were being stored in canisters in the basement of the original building.  These were the cremated remains of patients who were never claimed by their families.  The canisters were in poor condition, corroding due to the moisture in the basement (a common issue in the Pacific Northwest). 

The Oregonian newspaper did an investigatory article, and the hospital received a lot of criticism about their treatment of these poor souls.  As a result, the state allowed the hospitals to release the names of the patients, in hopes that some of the families might finally retrieve them.  Those who remained unclaimed were interred in a wall on the grounds, and a nearby building was redesigned as a memorial to those who died here.  The canisters they were originally stored in are displayed.  In my photograph, I tried to make them something beautiful!

 

Overall, it was an interesting and enlightening tour.  It raises a lot of questions about how we have treated the mentally ill in the past, and how we treat them today.  Although the asylum system certainly had its faults and there were bad apples among the staff, as well as mistakes made with treatment protocols, are we really doing any better now?  We have moved from the asylum system to a system where many of our most mentally ill citizens are either in prisons or homeless.  Can we really say we are doing better?

Book Review: One Summer in Savannah

One Summer in Savannah, by Terah Shelton Harris

I was poking around on the library’s Libby app, and found this book, which was being promoted by the library (I’m not sure what program it was, and couldn’t find it again).  At any rate, I downloaded it and started listening.

Sara Lancaster is a young woman who moved away from her home in Savannah, Georgia at the age of 18.  She wasn’t trying to escape an overbearing father, she wasn’t eager to travel the world.  She wasn’t even going to an out of state college.  Instead she was fleeing the circumstances of her life.  Sara was the victim of a rape by a fellow student at the age of 17, and she was now pregnant with his child.  Although he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime, she felt she needed to flee to prevent him (and his family) from having any custody or visitation rights to her child.

Now, eight years later, her father is ill and could die.  Sara and her daughter Alana, return to Savannah to see her father and spend time with him for whatever time he has left.  Over the next few weeks, she encounters her rapist’s twin brother, who figures out who Alana is.  Sara decides to allow him to have time with Alana, but only if he promises to keep her a secret from the rest of his family.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  The story flowed and it kept me engaged from the beginning to the end.  However, there were some details that I found quite unbelievable in the story line. 

Here are the spoilers!  Sara’s father is educated and wise; a bookstore owner (that part I loved!).  However, he speaks only in poetry, leaving his friends and family to try to decipher his meaning.  There is no medical reason for this – he hasn’t had a stroke that has changed the synapses in his brain – he just likes poetry.  Somehow the other characters just seemed to get it, but I ended up having to gloss over his character to not get bogged down with whether their interpretations made sense.  The poetry thing seemed arbitrary and inconvenient, and would drive me nuts! 

The story is a love story; which ordinarily I’m a fan of love stories, but… Sara finds herself falling in love with Jacob, who is no less than her rapist’s IDENTICAL twin brother.  She is traumatized by the rape, but somehow finds a way to fall in love with this man’s identical twin.  I’m going to call that unlikely… 

Of course, there’s a happy ending, with a little bit of a cliffhanger, so I was left wondering about a few details at the end of the book.  Even with those weaknesses, it was a good book.  It spoke of facing your past, moving past your traumas, and the importance of familial bonds. 

One more thing – I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator (Zuzu Robinson) was awful.  She spoke with a cadence that was way too slow, with a strange sing-song rhythm and too-long pauses at odd times.  I sped the narration up to 1.5x to make it less annoying, but if you want to read it, I would recommend reading it instead of listening. 

3 stars. 

Retirement Diaries: It’s Spring!

It’s spring!  We made it to spring! 

After a relatively mild winter, now that it is spring, the snow is forecast.  It will probably only be a couple inches on Thursday and Friday, so I suppose I can deal with it.  It was only 14 degrees outside when I got up today, so hopefully it warms up soon!  At least it is sunny though; Cora and Yellow enjoy sleeping in the sun on the teacup chair. 

Everything around here is still pretty dormant though, since it has been so dry.  No snow, and no rain makes for brown grass and no sign of spring flowers yet.  I’m looking forward to seeing some color! 

In other news, I’m heading out to Washington soon to see my friends.  It’s been over six months since I have been out there – far too long!  I’m starting to get excited! Socializing!  Great conversations!  Beachcombing and looking for agates!  Going to all my favorite restaurants, breweries and cideries!  Sightseeing!  I’ll be driving over, so pray that this weekend’s little snow event stays just that.  Little.

I hope you are all well, and enjoying the first day of spring! 

Book Review: Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Still Life with Bread Crumbs, by Anna Quindlen

Rebecca Winter is a photographer who has fallen on hard times.  She is divorced, with a mother in a dementia care home, and her business income has dropped off.  She needs money.  Rebecca decides to rent out her ritzy Manhattan apartment and rent a small cabin in a tiny town in upstate New York, sight unseen. 

Of course, she’s a city dweller, and moving to a small rural community is quite a culture shock for her.  She’s licking her wounds, and she retreats into herself and into her small, dark, cold, cabin.  She can’t do it for long though, as she has a raccoon in the attic, she needs to figure out where to buy food, and she needs to stock up on wood for the winter.  Little by little, she meets some friends, and begins to establish her roots in her new community. 

Quindlen expertly tells the story of Rebecca’s rebirth, as she takes small jobs to support herself and sells her photographs at the local cafe.  She spends her free time hiking in the woods, and comes upon small tributes left by someone.  A child’s doll, a high school trophy, a photograph of a mother and daughter.  Rebecca doesn’t understand what they mean, but she begins taking photographs of the memorials in the woods, putting together her next exhibit.

The novel is a love story of life, a tale of learning to heal and reinvent yourself, and a story that life is what you make it.  There will always be joys and heartaches.  Fame and fortune are fleeting, but the fundamentals of friendship, family, and a life well lived are what will remain.

4 stars.