Some Thoughts on the Highlights of our June
By Chuck Peek
Where to start? Possibly with the privilege of introducing Laura Bush for the dedication ceremony for the new National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, where one of my poems adorned the back cover of the commemorative booklet. All this the day after Tom Gallagher’s wonderful “Red Cloud Cannonball” musical presentation at the Opera House, a fine spring conference, preaching a beautiful Eucharist at Grace Church (Fr. Randy Goeke celebrating and Mother Ruth Eller reading the gospel on the anniversary of her Diaconal ordination), and our lunch with friends Ron and Barbara Hustwit and Nancy Savery. Mrs. Bush: intelligent, gracious, and well protected.
Then an absolutely wonderful time wearing several hats for the Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival in McCook (150 years as a state, 135 years as a city) where I got to perform with Ginger ten Bensel, Jeff Barnes, Kim Weitkamp, and Frank Solavan and the Dirty Kitchen Ban—and enjoyed the surprise of being given one of BCSF’s “Master Storyteller” awards. Cloyd Clark, Linda Crandall, and Mary Dueland are great hosts . . . and nothing surpasses Matt Sehnert and his bakery and Bieroc!
Brody and Rowan’s baseball and Noelle’s birthday treats at Ptomeys for Harlan and Rowan’s birthdays, followed the next day by coffee and rolls with Nebraska State Poet Twyla Hansen who graciously signed some gift copies of her latest poetry book and followed up by asking me to read with her at Omaha’s Bookworm in the fall.
Interruption One for “Great Story”:
At Lincoln’s MoJava with Twyla, we ran into Eric Brown, Jim McKee, and Ron Hull huddled conspiratorially over coffee. I had mentioned Ron a week before in Red Cloud in my introduction of Laura Bush, and when we greeted them Ron said, “Is it true that you mentioned me in Red Cloud?” This is the definition of “a small state”!
Besides the good talks at the Cather International Seminar in Pittsburgh, Tim Bintrim and Jim Japp’s great organization and hospitality at Duquesne, and the good sessions I took part in on “Paul’s Case,” we also enjoyed three fine nights out in Pittsburgh, the first at Nicky’s Thai Restaurant with Marvin Friedman, Margaret Vogel, and John Jacobs, the second at the Cather Trivia night at the Red Line (where our table bet everything on the last round and lost it all!), and the third with our good friend Steve Shively at Lucca’s, an Italian restaurant, near the Carnegie museums and concert hall and the “cathedral of learning” at Pittsburgh University.
Interruption Two for “Great Story”:
For years I’ve dismissed “Paul’s Case” as a weaker story often anthologized because it costs less to use than her other “good stuff.” Getting ready for Pittsburgh plunged me back into the story and taught me how wrong I’ve been. I’ve begun seeing its virtues and its importance in understanding Cather. Another in the accumulating evidence that old dogs often cannot remember old tricks but they can certainly learn new ones!
Our first experiences using Uber, all of them good, with interesting drivers (who, incidentally, should get a bigger slice of the payroll!). Thanks Ray, Caroletha, Gary, Michael, Syed, Samson, and Jorge. And outside of, after all these years, not figuring out how to get passengers on and off a big airliner, American treated us pretty well, too.
A wonderful visit with all of Nancy’s family—her brother Barclay (II), his wife Lorita, their youngsters Barclay (III), Keagan, Pierce, and Sutton, Keagan and Brian’s three: Talon, Emma, and Collins, and Pierce and Bryce’s two: Brooks and Cullen. We were there for II’s birthday party, were treated for our anniversary to a night at the Kennedy Center for an outstanding production of The Sound of Music (my favorite of the “sing-along” musicals) and a visit to the awesome Smithsonian Museum of African American History (with thanks to Stephon). Two evenings of dinner with III and seeing again the nieces and children! Loved Army/Navy, Logan Circle Tavern, and Clyde’s Mark. Happily, we took some advice to see the superb Frederick Bazille exhibit at the National Gallery, and made our usual stop to enjoy with awe the Great Hall of the Library of Congress.
Worshiped at St. John’s, Lafayette Square, and followed that with brunch at Old Ebbitt Grill with Cynthia Caples, who had been at the consulate in Shenyang, the one closest to us when we were in China, and subsequently retired only to go teach at an Anglican seminary in Kenya and now back in Alexandria, as always gracious and astute (as in suggesting to us that we visit the Bazille exhibit), and Cathleen Carothers, currently with the State Department in D.C. but soon to be on her way to head up Consular Affairs in Athens. (If I were rich, I’d take every restaurant in mid-Nebraska that purports to serve crab cakes to the Old Ebbitt Grill and, pointing with some glee, say “HERE is a crab cake”!)
[Nancy, Chuck, Cynthia Caples, Cathleen Carothers at Old Ebbitt Grill, DC]
Interruption three for “Great Story”:
Uncertain at St. John’s whether our brunch guests would join us for the Eucharist, we took a short side pew and placed our bags in the little pew in front of us to save it for them should they come. A couple came in, saw what looked like an empty pew for two and started to take seats there when they saw our bags. We explained that we were saving the pew for friends, so the couple took the small pew behind us. The friends didn’t materialize and at the last moment a woman took the little pew in front of us. After a wonderful celebration concluded, she turned and greeted us as guests and as we chatted asked if we had ever been to St. John’s before. I told her that indeed I had, in fact I’d worshiped there one Sunday when Bill Clinton had been in the congregation (Bible in hand, incidentally). Well, the woman said, and you know who that was sitting right in back of you! No, I said, we didn’t—we did know how they’d gotten to the pew in back of us but didn’t note who they were. Why, she exclaimed, that’s Robert Mueller and his wife. Believe me, had we known, we’d have thrown our friends to the wolves and done whatever might show him our support! A person has to have some priorities after all!
Our trip home was uneventful enough, arriving safely in time to enjoy the retirement party for Fr. Ness who leaves Kearney this week for his beloved Chicago, and also in time to turn right around and drive to Lincoln where we enjoyed a brief but wonderful reunion with Peter and Barbra Clark, old friends from Graduate School now living in Hilton Head. We took them around to see new developments at the University and old haunts we’d enjoyed together before meeting up for lunch with other old classmates, Gerry and Cathy Parsons, now living in Minneapolis, and their granddaughter Anna Leigh.
Interruption four for “Great Story”:
A post we caught on our departure from DC included a pop up ad from a “talking” books site with the message that we could use a laugh in our day . . . the post the ad accompanied was the announcement that the new Senate “stealth” care bill was, surprise, not much different from the old House “stealth” care bill. So: Mission Accomplished. About the same time when we received this, our old friend Jim Work, enjoying the boundary waters, received a suggestion that if he would contact some of his older relatives it would raise their spirits. Jim allowed that it certainly would have to, since his older relatives were all dead. See what laughs you can have without spending a dime!
Back in time the same day to hear Jane Kleeb address the Kearney Action Network and guests about Bold Nebraska, the renewed fight against the Keystone XL pipelines and the predatory company backing it, and new developments on all sorts of electoral fronts. Nancy had helped arrange Jane’s visit. Among her many uphill tasks, Jane is the new head of the state Democratic Party. We first met her when our “Green Team” at St. Stephen’s invited her to speak there with the Randy Thompson of “Stand with Randy” fame, and we first met Jane’s husband Scott at Jerry and Janet Fox’s house when Scott was running for congress in the 3rd district. Supper after the talk with Jerry, Janet, and Gregory, savoring the glimmers of hope that come from Jane’s outlook.
Poised now for a Library Commission meeting by Skype, a trip to Red Cloud with Linda and Ken Anderson so Ken can get some photos for sketches for his December show in the Opera House gallery, a party at Rosy Northwall’s when her son Joel, his wife Beth, and their two sons, Garrett and Walker come to visit, and the approaching visit of Jessica Dart where we’ll join the Knippings and Darts in welcoming her home. Then off to Faulkner land with stops on the way with the Days in Waterloo, the Halls in Davenport, and Marty Townsend and Clark Swisher on the way home in Columbia, and the best of all pools with Jim and Bev Carothers, Theresa Towner, Terrell Tebbetts, Brian McDonald, and Grayson Schick. A quick turnaround to check in with our house watchers and off to Milwaukee, the Peeks, and the Bruss family. Here we come Willie, Greta, and Huck!
Last interruption for last “Great Story”:
With all the prevaricating out there these days in the parade of alternate facts, I’ve been put in mind of the first blatant prevaricator I knew, a fellow named (nicknamed I’m sure) Snooks Cross. Summers between college years I worked for the McCook office of the State Highway Department, headed then by Dave Coolidge. For most of the first summer, I was posted in an old truck turned into a weighing station shack. It was hotter than blazes, and the first day I envied Bob Salisbury who was instead outdoors in the breeze. Bob, however, was shoveling lime into the hot mix, and by the end of the day my envy of him had subsided.
My job was to join the construction company’s man and weigh each truck, enter the weight in a ledger, subtract the truck’s tare weight as we had previously established it, and then enter the load weight in a final column. The state didn’t trust the company, the company didn’t trust the state, so there had to be representative of each. In our case, a kid and a seasoned prevaricator. It was an education.
Snooks had all kinds of tricks, chief among them not bathing or changing his overalls and shirt all week long, so as the week wore on, and he appeared increasingly derelict day by day, the stench would grow until it occasionally drove you out of the shack to get a breath of air . . . which is when Snooks would go to town jimmying the scale or altering the chart of tare weights or whatever he thought might give the contractor an edge. He was a loyal employee, all right; I’ll give him that.
Meanwhile, in the intervals between trucks coming over the scale, Snooks would tell stories about his life and adventures, stories a young fellow might enjoy but receive with considerable doubt as to their veracity. I put the girl he’d dated, the car he’d owned, the jobs he’d had all in the dubious folder, especially when, as was often the case, you could tell that Snooks had had a few snorts of something. But, my folks had taught me how to get along with people—the great value of a public education my dad thought—and so, despite having to correct weight charts and get under the scale to set it back to something close an accurate weighing, Snooks and I got along all right. I didn’t believe him and he had a pretty good idea that I didn’t.
Then, one day, I guess I mentioned that my dad had always wanted to learn to play the guitar (he later did, but that’s another story), and Snooks volunteered that I had to bring him to Snooks’s house to see the guitars Snooks made! Dubious indeed! But Snooks insisted and when I told Dad about it he said, What can it hurt? We’ll go. So, one night early in the week after work, I went home, took a bath (it would be a while before we had a shower!), and Dad I and I drove from McCook to Trenton to Snooks Cross’s house, ostensibly for pie and a look at his home-made guitars. Along the way, I reminded Dad of the Snooks about whom I had been telling my folks stories, just so he’d really be prepared for all eventualities. Well, almost all.
Snooks, it soon appeared, had prepared, too. When he opened the door to welcome us, he too had bathed, wore fresh coveralls and clean shirt and had his hair slicked down. He smelled of at least a whole week’s allotment of cologne. There was the barest hint of a smirk on his face as he began bringing out one guitar after another that he had made. My dad was a pretty good judge of craftsmanship, and I could tell that he was impressed with how well made the guitars were. The whole place was clean and his wife’s pie, banana cream as I recall, was delicious. It was served with iced tea and there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in sight. At the end of the evening, Dad expressed his appreciation for their hospitality, his admiration for the workmanship on the guitars, his thanks that we’d been invited, and we left to drive back to McCook.
As Dad drove along, I looked over and was sure I could see on Dad’s face just a hint of an expression that filled me with chagrin as I began to suspect that now my dad was wondering if I’d not made up all the stories about Snooks I’d been telling at home, that possibly they were just youthful exaggeration.
We didn’t discuss it. Nothing more was said and it was some time later at a social engagement when some of the engineers, Bob Stutzman and Hi Schuster and Dave Kinkaid, all confirmed my stories about Snooks. And then I was surprised to find that what they valued in my employment was not my carefully kept ledger or even the money I’d saved the state by my diligence but the way I’d handled Snooks.
Little did they know of the lesson I’d really learned . . . that the trained and practiced prevaricator doesn’t ever defend his lies . . . he makes you look like the liar instead. I’ve always felt indebted to Snooks for that lesson . . . never more so than these days! May you rest in peace, Snooks! The secret lay in your name . . . you’d snookered me but good.
Kearney, Nebraska
July 28, 2017
Look for the July blog (the only one until fall) on “Why STEM needs HEART”! I’ll take August off, let the dust over “stealthcare” settle, and return to some political thoughts as we get a year out from the 2018 elections.
capeek 