Ted and LaVona's 2400 Mile Journey Diary [page 1]

Ted and LaVona's 2400 Mile Journey Diary [Page 1]

"South-West corner of North Dakota"

Tuesday, August 20, 2002
We began our 2400-mile trip right after LaVona had a midmorning
bone scan in St. Cloud. First stop, St. Paul and the St. Paul Saints
game with Mary and her men.

I'm in the Roseville public library coffee shop surreptitiously
photographing an aging blonde editing copy at a table behind me.
This kind of picture taking is the essence of the male gaze; libraries,
like museums and produce sections of supermarkets, are erotically
charged sites. The camera is by my coffee, the lens aimed through the
gap between my arm and torso. The shutter goes off via a self-timer
so that I am not seen pressing it. It doesn't work, though. The camera
has focused on my shirt, not the blonde. Meanwhile LaVona is in Oak
Grove having a full treatment body massage, a gift from her daughters.

I'm here killing time, waiting for Mary's workday at the reference desk to
end. I am to be Mary's guest at tonight's St. Paul Saints game. She's also
invited John Hylle, Brad and Max Seim, her father George, Dennis, Max, and
Aaron Brown, Tom Fiero, Kevin Anez, and John Hingten.

LATER, about 11:30 p.m.-Mary's second annual celebration of the main men
in her life took place in steady rain at Midway Stadium. After a half hour
delay, the game was called but we had a good time under umbrellas on the top
row of the left field bleachers. All but Tom, Kevin, and John H. were there.

A rainout at Midway Stadium is still better than a full nine innings at
the Metrodome.

Mary and I arrived early to hear one of her favorite local bands, the Cajun
Hot Soles playing in front of the stadium. No one danced-baseball fans
usually don't dance-so Mary played triangle with the band. She tried to get
me to dance. "Just think step-step, step-and-a-half, step," she said, but I
didn't budge.

"Mary's Men"
St. Paul Saints Game, Midway Stadium
Aaron Brown, Max Brown, John Hylle, Max Seim, Sam Hylle, Mary Seim, George Seim, Dennis Brown, Brad Seim

After the rainout, Mary, Max Seim, and I went to the State Fair just a few
blocks away for the opening fine arts reception. LaVona was there and so
were Marcia and Honna and Natalie. The place was jammed, the humidity high.
And LaVona was high with the exhilaration of her drawing getting into the
show and winning an honorable mention.

Wednesday, Aug 21, 2002
rain
This morning's visit with Frank Gaard at his studio on Nicollet. He talked about
a small Ghirlandaio portrait in the MIA, so after lunch we went to the museum.
We found two Ghirlandaio portraits, Portrait of a Lady by Benedetto
Ghirlandaio (1480) and Portrait of Silvestro Aldobrandini by Rudolfi Bogordi
Ghirlandaio (1600's). I went back and forth between two galleries trying to
guess which one he had in mind. It was probably the Benedetto, a smaller,
softer picture of a woman with drooping eyes and the kind of enigmatic beauty
Renaissance Italians were so attracted to.

Read more about Frank Gaard - Frank Gaard

Frank cracked a few cynical remarks about Republicans but he is convinced
the GOP will lose a half dozen seats this fall. Mostly he lectured at his
kitchen table about the effects of aging on his thinking process. The
connection between idea (he pointed to his head) and action (he moved his
arm in a painting gesture) takes longer now. If the outcome takes longer
and is less spontaneous, it is also in some way deeper and more resonant.
That enriches his paintings. He talked about his email dialogue with a City
Pages art writer on the subject of Minneapolis artist Alexa Horochowski.
Frank thinks she is in a particularly fertile period; the critic thinks she
is overextending herself.

L. and I took Mary to a Turkish restaurant on Snelling near University and
dined with a couple of Mary's folk-dancing friends.

Thursday, August 22, 2002
OSSIAN, IA (853)-- The first stop of the day on our drive
to Winfield, IL-midmorning tea. LaVona chats with old guys in seed caps.
How's the stock market? Down Monday, up yesterday. How do you deal with
carpenter ants? Catch em with a spoon, stab em with a fork. As we leave,
one says: If you get rid of all those CEO crooks, there'd be no stock
market.

Motoring through the rolling country around Decorah. Luther College is
nestled monastically in wooded hills away from the temptations of Decorah.

POSTVILLE, IA (2,273): Teenaged waitress has a central European accent.
Are you Bohemian? From St. Petersburg. Do you know St. Petersburg? I
visited there when it was Leningrad, lovely city. Lovely culture, terrible
economy, she said. After bringing me more tea, I thanked her in Russian.
She smiled appreciatively, replied in Russian. More tea? Nyet. She smiled
again. Lovely smile. That exhausted my Russian. She once lived on an
island off St. Petersburg where her father worked for the naval base.

LANARK, IL (pop.1,600): Our first choice for supper was Max’s where
the specialty is fresh Mississippi catfish, but they were closed so we
settled for a plastic place, Kampmeier’s Dee-Lite, “serving the public since
1995.”

WINFIELD, IL (8,500): I think I left my diary at Kampmeier’s Dee-Lite in
Kanark. I’ll call them tomorrow. We arrived at Jan Davis’s house in Winfield
at suppertime. She grilled a chicken with a pop can up its butt, not sure why.
Tasted good, though. After supper she drove us on a tour of Wheaton and
Winfield. Couldn’t see much because it was dark, but I sensed it was upscale.

Most of the protestant churches were red brick Greek revival with white columns,
the kind preferred by southern Baptists. Drove by Wheaton College’s
enormous auditorium paid for by Billy Graham.

Our bedroom in Jan’s house is actually a suite, with a large TV room
and full bathroom. This is more luxury than we are accustomed to.

Friday, August 23, 2002
WINFIELD, IL: A day with Jan…three thrift stores in the
Winfield area, Vietnamese for lunch, gelato at a Wheaton confectionary shop.

At a thrift store I picked up a new Eddie Bauer wool shirt for $5 and a
used Hawaiian shirt for $1.50, two pairs of socks for a dollar (to replace
the sport shirts and socks I left at Mary’s apartment). Sent Kemmerer’s
Dee-Lite a stamped self-addressed envelop for return of my diary.

At sunset I drove to Glen Elyn (25,673) to get money from an ATM machine.
It was a harrowing navigational experience, six miles of upper middle class
leafy neighborhoods, one suburb dissolving into another. Finding the ATM
was a bit like finding the end of the rainbow. On the other hand, these
suburban drivers are most well-mannered. At four-way stops, they implore
me to go first.

Tonight Jan showed us a videotape of a 1999 Lavinia festival performance by
Marian McPartland, Dave Brubeck, and Rosemary Clooney. They are old
musicians, 70’s and 80’s and I think Clooney recently died, but they
performed with swinging gusto and wit. Bruckbeck and McPartland
acknowledged each other with knowing smiles as they played his tribute to
her, Marian McPartland.

"Ted and Jan"
Jan is a treat to be around, bright and funny

Saturday, August 24, 2002
WINFIELD, IL: Our trip to Chicago (2,783,726). We came
here to see the current bosses of the German art scene, painter Gerhard
Richter at the Art Institute and photographer Andreas Gursky at the Museum of
Contemporary Art. The mural sized, digitized, and reorganized photos by
Gursky contained unexpected surprises. I had never seen the big Gurskys
except as small magazine reproductions. They are much more musical and
formal and less sharp than I had imagined. In a purely visual way, the
Richters were more demanding and finally more rewarding. The other big
surprise: I had expected Richter to be more of conceptual experience, more
about defining the boundaries of painting. Instead it was most intense
two-hour period of raw seeing I can remember. And I don’t think I’ll
forget the Baader-Meinhoff series—photo realist paintings based on blurry
press photos of the controversial suicides in German prisons of three
radicals in the 60’s. These paintings were installed in a gallery more
somberly lit than the other galleries, suggesting a Sept. 11 context never,
never dreamed of by Richter.

Read more about Andreas Gursky - Andreas Gursky

Read more about Gerhard Richter - Gerhard Richter

A weekend pass for the Winfield to Chicago train and back is $5. The ride
usually takes about 40 minutes, but today the train into the city stopped
two hours a few blocks from the downtown station for track repairs.

Sunday, August 25, 2002
LUVERNE, MN (pop. 4,500)—Left Winfield at 9:30 a.m. and
immediately got onto Interstate 90, clipping along at the speed limit
through northwestern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and southern Minnesota.
The current plan is to make time until the South Dakota border, then start
meandering on country roads into small towns.

We lunched in Tomah, WI at Ted’s Café where every table has an ashtray,
where old folks drink coffee most of the day because the refills are free
and conversation is sparse. For supper we pulled off the interstate at
Jackson, MN (3,545) and lucked out with the China Buffet, no frills décor and
good food served by heavily accented Chinese. Probably the most culture this town
has ever had. How do people from thousands of miles away end up in rural towns
like Jackson?

On the road, we traded driving chores and talked a lot about Chicago and
Jan's good life in Winfield

We're staying at a Comfort Inn with a back door that will not open.