Category Archives: Been There

Sturgeon Bay Sturgeons

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First stop in Door County on July 5: the town of Sturgeon Bay, county seat and tourist magnet during the summer.  Wisconsin 57 connects the city of Green Bay with the town, which straddles the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal.

The canal, which started as a bit of Victorian engineering – it was completed in 1881 – means that ships out of the city of Green Bay don’t have to go all the way around the Door Peninsula to get to Milwaukee or Chicago. It also cuts Door County in two, making part of it a large island, though no one seems to think of it that way.

Sturgeon Bay was a fairly busy place on the day after the Fourth of July, but not so crowded that we couldn’t find a convenient parking space and, at about noon, a place to eat without waiting for a table. At the corner of Third and Louisiana streets is the Inn at Cedar Crossing, which I thought was a fanciful name for the restaurant where we had lunch, but it turns out there’s a bed and breakfast upstairs, and Third used to be called Cedar. Whatever the story, the place serves a satisfying lunch.

Third is one of the town’s main streets, featuring a mix of tourist businesses and everyday-need retailers. Also along the street are sturgeon statues. They’re part of “Sturgeon Around the Bay,” one of the many descendants of CowParade, which the city of Chicago helped popularize in 1999.

This particular one is called “Bon Appetit,” created by Chonda Hoschbach and Cori Rosen.  I looked at it for a minute before I realized it was made mostly of stainless-steel spoons, with some forks thrown in. According to the plaque that comes with the fish, the works will be auctioned on September 21, just as the tourist season is winding down. The beneficiary will be the Sturgeon Bay Visitor Center.

Looking for Tail-Gunner Joe

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A funny thing happened to me yesterday, late in the afternoon, as I scoured through St. Mary’s Cemetery in Appleton, Wisconsin, looking for a particular tombstone. I wasn’t having any luck finding it. But I did enjoy the graveyard’s handsome grounds, which are near the Fox River.

On Independence Day, we’d set out for northeastern Wisconsin – to see Appleton and the other Fox River cities, plus take a jaunt up to Door County.  I enjoyed parts of Appleton last year without my family, and I thought they’d like some of the places I’d been. As for Door County, we paid a visit in 2001, but it was too short and we’d long wanted to go again. This visit was also too short – I figure we’d need a week to do Door right.

Yesterday was our last day, and I headed out for St. Mary’s Cemetery by myself, since no one else cares to visit cemeteries. Specifically, I wanted to see the place’s most famous – infamous – resident, Sen. Joseph McCarthy. I couldn’t find him for a while. Find-a-Grave wasn’t exact enough. There were other McCarthys – even other Joseph McCarthys, since the cemetery is well populated with Irish names – but the Senator was elusive.

Then I spotted a man and his small daughter riding through the cemetery on something like one of those drivable carts you see at grocery stores. Eventually, they came fairly close to me, and I had to ask, since we were the only (living) people in the cemetery, and no guide signs or other clues pointed the way.

“Excuse me, do you know where Joseph McCarthy is buried? You know, the Senator.” Even in Appleton – he was from nearby Grand Chute – I can’t assume anything.

The man, about 10 years younger than me and with close-cropped reddish hair, looked at me for a moment. “We’re not supposed to tell people that,” he said. “He was my great-uncle.”

“Oh.”

“But I will tell you he’s at one of the corners, near the river.” And then they started on their way again. I guess he decided I didn’t want to harm the memorial, which of course was true. I just wanted a picture. Soon I found the stone and took one.

What are the odds of running into a grand-nephew of Joe McCarthy? (Assuming he wasn’t kidding about that.) I checked, and McCarthy was from a family of seven children, so in Appleton, the odds wouldn’t be that bad.

Gettysburg

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Got a postcard from my nephew Dees last week, the nephew who’s the drummer for Sons of Fathers. It describes the 12th Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival earlier this month, in which the band participated. The photo on the right depicts the only known first-name Deeses of the world, together about this time last year, when Sons of Fathers played at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, Ill., and I went out to see them. He’s the hale fellow with facial hair.

A little further in the past – 1991 – I found myself driving from Boston to Chicago during this time of year, and I stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park. I missed the 128th anniversary of the battle by a few days, and presumably whatever commemoration events they had. I thought of that when I was reminded by the newspaper today that the 150th anniversary of the battle is upon us, beginning tomorrow, of course.

There were some other visitors when I was there, but not too many.  It was a hot day, fittingly, since it was a high-summer battle, which must have added to the misery. This image captures the summer conditions of the site pretty well, besides the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument, which has its own intricate history, and which was knocked over by high winds only last week.

Here’s another view of the Angle – the stone wall that Pickett’s men managed to reach (Lewis Addison Armistead’s men, but let’s not be too pedantic).

I haven’t seen one of these quarters yet, though I’ve been noticing a number of national park quarters in change lately.

Funerary Art

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The All Saints Cathedral Polish National Catholic Church Cemetery near O’Hare doesn’t have the most elaborate examples of funerary art that I’ve ever seen, but there are some nice ones there.

Most a bit worn by the elements, and darkened by air pollution.

But they’re still standing in the places that family members, themselves probably long gone now, put them.

Most of the names on the stones are Polish, as you’d expect, but a sprinkling of non-Poles reside at the cemetery, too. Because it’s a cemetery, there are clearly sad stories beneath the stones. Such as that of Doris Jean Putynkowski, whose stone is simply marked 1925-1925. A family named Deal has a column indicating long lives for Robert (1920-2009) and Jean (1921-2008), but not so much for Jeffrey, whom I presume is their son: 1951-1999.

In contrast to the large funerary art, there were a handful of veterans’ stones, including this one.

It’s easy to look up in our time. The 383rd Infantry was part of the Okinawa campaign, so we can be sure that’s where PFC Schneider gave his last full measure of devotion.

All Saints Cathedral Polish National Catholic Church Cemetery

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The Cathedral of All Saints of the Polish National Catholic Church happens to be on Higgins Road in extreme northwestern Chicago these days, though it was once deeper in the city. I happened to drive past the current site today, and decided to visit its cemetery, a patch of land behind the church, verdant and quiet in the late morning.

Or at least as quiet as a place can be tucked near the junction of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) and I-90, and within two miles of the runways at O’Hare. In fact, activity is all around the area, at hotels, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, a casino, a convention center, and more – the town of Rosemont, which is right next door, has all that.

The cemetery has trees and bushes and grass and flowers and stones. Except for a groundsman, I was the only living person there.

 

Goethe Institut, Lüneburg

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It’s the oddest thing: looking at this snapshot, taken 30 years ago this month, I can remember the name of only one person in the picture besides me, but I remember almost everyone’s nationality. Then again, the grundstufe 1 class at the Goethe Institut in Lüneburg, West Germany, in the summer of ’83 was a motley one, representing four continents and at least 10 countries. That must have made an impression on a lad traveling outside of his country for the first time.

I was traveling that summer with college friends Rich and Steve. It was their idea to study German in Germany, the better to read philosophy. My interest in 19th-century continental philosophers wasn’t as keen as theirs, but I thought spending five or so weeks in one place, taking classes in the morning and knocking around the rest of the time, would be a good idea. And so it was.

How they picked Lüneburg, I don’t remember, but it’s a fine Lower Saxony town near Hamburg. I ought to ask them sometime. They might not remember either. Rich and Steve knew some German already, so were in a higher class. I was in the beginner class, grundstufe 1. One day, the class went outside an lined up for a photo.

On the upper row, beginning on the left, are three Americans. The fellow on the farthest left was nicknamed Howdy Doody (by the other Americans) for his red hair, small stature, and childishness. Fourth on the left was Herr Witt, our teacher. A fitting name, since he was a lively, entertaining teacher. Next, and to the back, a Japanese fellow. Then me. Next to me, a Finn, who was something of a celebrity on Finnish children’s TV, if I remember right. I ought to remember his name, since he lived in the same building as I did, and we spoke fairly often, but I don’t. Behind him, a Frenchman, and then a South American whose nation I forgot. At the end is an Italian woman.

On the lower row, beginning on the left, two Italian girls; Howdy Doody in particular was fond of flirting with the girl second to left, and she was fond of brushing him off. The black fellow was from Canada. Next to him, another Japanese guy. I ran into him one day at the Lüneburg McDonald’s, and we had lunch together. Next to him, a Venezuelan, and finally a Hungarian, our only classmate from behind the Iron Curtain.

More About Lilacs Than You Need to Know

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One more shot from Lilacia Park — a peculiar tree. Who doesn’t like tree trunks that splay out in different directions?

More on the story of this beflowered little park is told by Illinois Old Houses (1977) by John Drury, which this web site extracts and asserts the book is public domain. In any case, it says that “… this was the home of the late Colonel William R. Plum, pioneer resident of the village — soldier, lawyer, traveler, writer, horticulturist, and founder of Lilacia Park. Containing more than three hundred varieties of lilacs from all parts of the world, this park is regarded by botanists as the finest lilac garden in the Western Hemisphere.

” ‘In 1911, when we were on a tour of Europe,’ Colonel Plum once told a family friend, Mrs. Annabelle Seaton, ‘we stopped at Nancy, in France, and there visited the famous lilac gardens of Pierre Lemoine. That visit proved my downfall. My wife purchased two choice lilac specimens, a double white and a double purple, and we brought them back to Lombard. From that time on my enthusiasm for lilacs grew and I have never lost interest in them since.’

“When Colonel Plum made this statement, the results of his hobby could be seen all about the old Plum home. Here were all types of lilacs, including one of his favorites, a blue variety called the ‘President Lincoln.’ The shrubs were pleasingly arranged on the Plum estate of two and a half acres, which he called ‘Lilacia.’ Since expanded to ten acres, Lilacia — re-named Lilacia Park — now contains 1,500 lilac bushes as well as 87,000 tulip bulbs.”

The Abraham Lincoln variety, I noticed, is still growing on the grounds of Lilacia Park. So is one named after Gen. Pershing, but most varieties don’t involve famed Americans. As for Pierre Lemoine, he seems to be this fellow, Victor Lemoine (the Spanish version of the page gives his full name as Pierre Louis Victor Lemoine), “a celebrated and prolific French flower breeder who, among other accomplishments, created many of today’s lilac varieties.” Born 1823, died 1911, so I guess you could say he created lilacs for the Belle Époque.

Water-Colored Water & Pink Flamingos

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Rain promised early in the day on Monday, but it didn’t come until late in the evening. So I had time to mow the lawn, a task that I’ve put off lately. I enjoyed cutting all the high dandelions and scattering their seeds to the winds.

We saw an odd feature of Lilacia Park: a fountain spouting blue-colored water. I’m pretty sure that the last time I saw the fountain, non-tinted water was used.

It made me think of Mon Oncle, which I haven’t seen in many years. One of the features of the ultramodern house in that movie, if I remember right, was a fountain spouting blue-colored water. It was something seen in passing, not commented on, but I think it was supposed to be a visual comment on the vacuousness of the haute bourgeoisie, or burgeoning postwar consumerism, or something (I’m entirely too Anglo-Saxon to care much about the subtleties of Gallic social criticism).

Also noted at the park: a couple of pink flamingos. There were exactly two that I could see, just idling next to one of the walkways. Say what you want about pink flamingos, I think there ought to be more of them in parks and gardens.

Lilacia Park ’13

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It’s been a while since we visited Lilacia Park in Lombard, Ill., at the height of lilac blossoming. It’s been six years, in fact. I wouldn’t have guessed quite that long. On Saturday I thought it was time to visit again.

I’m glad we went. For the profusion of lilacs, if no other reason. Make that two reasons: their fine sweet smell, which the picture can’t convey.

The tulips aren’t too shabby, either.

It was a flawless spring day, warm but not hot. Yet the park wasn’t jammed with flower seekers, though it was hardly empty. It’s a little-known jewel of the suburbs.

Biosphere, Montreal

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May 28, 2002. In the morning, we went back to the quays adjoining Old Montreal, this time for a boat tour of the St. Lawrence. Some nice views, especially of the unexpectedly long Port of Montreal, but the heat wore us out early. So we rested until late afternoon, at which time we took the Metro to Île Sainte-Hélène, one of the islands built (or partly built) for Expo 67.

Besides walking paths and gardens, the main thing to catch the eye there is a large geodesic dome designed by a Buckminster Fuller, probably the best-known relic of that world’s fair. Once the U.S. Pavilion, now it’s called the Biosphere, and houses a museum “dedicated to water,” which was closed when we got there.

No matter. Yuriko wandered off to see the gardens, and I reveled in lying on the grass in the shadow of a five-story ball of triangles, cooled by the wind. Lilly indulged in what I believe was her favorite part of the trip: throwing rock after rock into the reflecting pond near the entrance of the Biosphere.