In Memoriam All Saints 2023 to New Years 2024 by Charles Peek
Friends and Acquaintances
Bart Bredenkamp, Acacia Senior when I was a pledge, the very image of a tall, good-looking, had-it-all-together soon-to-graduate senior. The last I saw of him was at his wedding in western Nebraska, to which I took Judy Bishop, then nurse in Dr. Leininger’s office. My friend Freddie Hummer ended up marrying Judy, I lost track of Bart, and the notice in the alumni obituaries brought so much back to mind.
Aaron Broweleit, son of a Seneca couple; I zoom almost weekly with his mother, another of that generation caught between her son’s illness and her mother’s assisted living, but possessed through it all of good sense and good humor.
Marilyn Dorf, originally from Albion where I interned under Bishop Rauscher, later of Lincoln, parishioner at Holy Trinity, and member of the Lincoln Chaparral Poets, well known among the Lincoln writers. Rex Walton let me know.
David Glover, to quote from the Kearney Hub: Dave made a lasting mark as a long-time hospital administrator for Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, NE. He went on to work as the Clinic Administrator at Family Practice Associates until his retirement in 2019. During his career, his leadership would play a pivotal role in establishing the Flight for Life program, and later the Nebraska Telehealth Network. Dave also served on the Kearney Public Schools Board for 28 years.
Robert Nefsky, 30-year veteran of the Humanities Nebraska, many years also on the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and all their good work a rich reward for his stalwart efforts.
Rich Oehlerking, Acacia fraternity brother with whom I was able to re-connect not so long ago. I came out of McCook in 1960, joined Acacia, and Rich Oehlerking was the first Democrat of my age I’d ever lived around! Our arguments about the Kennedy-Nixon race stuck with me and we laughed about it many years later when our thoughts were more closely aligned!
Pat Schneider, whom I met in 2008 and whose story was, for me, very edifying. She later wrote a memoir of her childhood near Inavale, very near Cather’s Red Cloud, and when I suggested I’d be happy to see if the bookstore at the Willa Cathe National Center would like to carry a few copies, she generously sent me a box of copies of what is a charming memoir, and indeed the bookstore has been glad to have it on their shelves.
Rae Whitney, beloved widow of the late Fr. Clyde Whitney and herself a noted hymn writer, whose setting to the Nunc Dimittis is my favorite and whose simple small group songs were so clever and singable. Oh Eve, Oh Adam!
Notables in the News
Kenneth Bloomer, sculptor; his Winged Horse and the trellis that is an abstract image of the Platte River atop the Archway Monument that “bridges” over I-80 at Kearney may have been seen by more people than most other sculptures (see photo below)
Rosalynn Carter, who married Jimmy Carter in 1946 when I was 4 years old, went on to be his best advisor and a champion of women’s rights and mental health care in her own right, as well as a presence at cabinet meetings.
Henry Kissinger. If you favor nuclear disarmament and peaceful relations with China, Henry is your man. Unless you remember how he held up the peace process to end the Vietnam War or used his prestige to divide rather than unite the country.
Bobby Knight, the irascible but indisputably talented Indiana basketball coach…hard not to like unless you are a folding chair!
Shane MacGowan, for years lead song-writer for The Pogues, then fired for his no-shows due to his addictions, of whom the Irish president, said “his songs capture within them, as Shane would put it, the measure of our dreams.” My favorite Pogue song: If I Should Fall from the Grace of God.”
Charlie Munger, the other member of the Comedy Team Buffet and Munger, Warren doing the warning of what was to come, Charlie providing the punch line, Charlie regularly donating shares of Berkshire Hathaway to his favorite charities, but not fast enough to slip out of the billionaire class.
Sandra Day O’Connor, who leaves, as did Henry Kissinger, a very mixed legacy—out of hundreds of “tie-breaker” votes on our nation’s highest court, the notorious decision that made George W. our president, and on the other hand, the defense of Roe v. Wade from the earlier assaults made on good sense. And, to my chagrin, we have to credit Reagan with her nomination to be the first woman on the court, a role she lived out with dignity.
Ryan O’Neal, Tatum’s dad, Farrah’s lover, now flown over the Paper Moon.
Jim Salestrom, last in Kearney at the Merryman Performing Art Center for the 50th anniversary and final tour of Timberline with his brother, son, and a couple of gifted replacements for some of the original band members, and who made Kearney proud whether with gigs at KSC’s Campus Lutheran or on stage with John Denver or Dolly Parton. Jim’s last gig was covered by local (Gibbon) Bill Ganz. Jim’s brother Chuck and his wife Kristi are long-time friends.
Tommy Smothers, who, with his brother, made beautiful music and created pointed and clever comedy routines that helped a lot of us move through a sometimes beautiful, sometimes tumultuous time. Perhaps your PBS station uses their Legends of Folk Music video for its annual fundraising…their madrigal on that video is a prime example of their wit and talent and the joy it brought a generation.
Postscript
Over much of the United States, and no less true of the University of Nebraska at Kearney, this school year and going back some years, supposedly under what is euphemistically dubbed “the business model,” weak or ignorant administrations and clubs of perks for the well-off called Boards of Regents, have been whacking away at the heart (root?) of education—the Humanities (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, and any field that help us understand what forms and informs our humanity). Using metrics, i.e, only what can be concretely measured, and the military surgical strike of what are called “vertical” cuts, and sadly probably thinking they are saving the very education they are killing off, they have narrowed the range of possibilities for their graduates and demeaned the role of critical intelligence, creative imagination, and whatever wisdom challenges our worse natures.
For some years, James Silver, Hodding Carter, and William Faulkner drove around rural northern Mississippi, trying to think of ways to help the Negro that didn’t actually end up further endangering them. Out of that came Silver’s magnificent book, Mississippi: the Closed Society. Discussing how, in a closed society, education is expendable, and pointing the finger at those who ran Ole Miss, Silver quipped, “After all, Geneal Ulysses S. Grant has been the only man in history to make a positive decision not to destroy the University” (110).
Like many places, Nebraska will one day rue the day it turned over the institutions for which generations sacrificed to benighted bean-counters.
Next blog; January…something new for the New Year.
Pilgrims they were, from unknown countries, searching for one who knows the world; lost are their names and strange their journeys, famed is their zeal to find the child: Jesus, in you the lost are claimed, aliens are found and known and named.
— Christopher Idle (b. 1938)
Dear Family and Friends,
I am wondering what you remember most at that time of year when Christians are preparing to celebrate Christmas and so many other religions are celebrating their own “lights”—all of us expressing hope for light just as the northern world is at the time of its darkest days…as is our own world just now, with Fascism creating such havoc here and abroad, and the princes of revenge holding sway. And, we too, sometimes our own hearts, our own outlooks, grow darker as well. Here are some of the things that over the years I’ve found I remember—my Christmas memories, each a little light that dispels the darkness.
If you don’t want to wade through the chronicle of memories, know we wish you light in the darkness and hope for the new year. Chuck and Nancy.
Memories
My Baptism at Trinity, Greeley, December 24, 1942—well, I don’t remember it, but my family memory of it made it real in the stories that were told me when I was little…an extra burden on dear Fr. Chuck Young, but how it got retold Christmas after Christmas in our home!
The unveiling of the tree at the Urie home: Papa would rope off a corner and hang a blanket over the rope saying “no prying eyes”—so that Christmas Eve would be the unveiling of the tree…rather magical to a toddler.
The pageant I had not rehearsed for at Trinity Greeley: we came back from one of dad’s terms at seminary (1947), and joined the family at Trinity for the last Sunday of Advent, featuring the various Sunday School classes performing, and when what had been my old class went forward, all rehearsed for their song, I jumped up and joined them, only to arrive up front and realize I had no idea of what they were singing. I opened my mouth and moved my lips and uttered nary a sound.
Marshall Fields Santa—new husband for mom: While we were in Evanston, Illinois, Mother and I made an annual trip to Marshal Fields for a visit with Santa. One year, while my dad was sub rosa working two jobs while being a full-time student, tensions rose in our little garret apartment, resolved by my mom and dad simply not speaking, the parting shot being my mother (jokingly or not, I probably didn’t know even then) saying she wished she had a new husband. When Santa asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him nothing for me but my mother would like a new husband. Despite her being mortified, when the story reached home, it broke the ice.
The blue tree in Salida: Our second year in Salida, Colorado, my dad decided we could fudge on not decorating for Christmas during Advent by having a tree with only blue lights. Only years later did the Church begin to adopt “blue” as the color of Advent, and I recall staring at ours thinking it was quite beautiful.
Drunk woman on porch in McCook: Christmas Eve, I’d been an acolyte for the Midnight Mass. My Aunt Sis and Uncle Art were visiting for the holidays. We’d gone to bed late, but in the middle of the night, Dad heard a great clunk on the front porch and went to see what could be the matter, and found the clunk was from a very drunk woman having been dumped there. As the story unfolded, she had gotten drunk on Christmas Eve and, perhaps in some disgust, her sons had taken her to the only place (they later told someone) they knew she’d be taken care of. Which we did—took her in, got her a pillow and blanket, let her sleep on a sofa, fed her breakfast with us, and while Dad took Christmas communion to the shut ins of our parish, my uncle drove her home. We knew who she was, but Dad and Mom never mentioned her name while we lived in McCook.
Silent Night in Lincoln bar: At the start of St. Mark’s on the Campus, Christmas Eve was celebrated early—an elderly local congregation and the sizeable student part of it already on break. On occasion, Dad would even be called on to celebrate a Midnight Mass somewhere nearby after the earlier service at SMOC. Following that earlier service one year, Nancy and I went to a downtown bar for a pitcher of beer. We talked to some friends and to some strangers, and then suddenly some of the lights went out and someone started singing Silent Night and before the end of the first verse, everyone had joined in. Whoever was leading would be just a beat enough ahead that everybody could recall the words. And after the last verse, there was just silence…not even the tinkle of glasses… and then someone stood and raised a glass and said, Merry Christmas Everybody! Such a dear and indelible memory.
Oyster Stew! Nancy and I married in June of 1965 and as the year on, she asked me, what Christmas customs do you hope we will continue. Mostly I wanted a crèche…what did she want. Well, she said, our family always had oyster stew on Christmas Eve. As the time approached, I found a recipe, bought the ingredients, and made my first pot of oyster stew. That night we sat down to a little supper with oyster stew and, at some point, I looked over and she hadn’t eaten any of the stew. Maybe I’d made it poorly or made the wrong thing. Maybe there was more than one thing called oyster stew? I finally asked. Well, she said, I’ve just been thinking—we always had oyster stew, but I don’t think I ever ate any of it. Very funny moment…but she tried it that night, ended up liking it, and we’ve done that ever since, some nights with friends.
The Jensens singing at SMOC: My friend Dewey had a fine voice. He’d been tabbed to be the tenor in NU’s production of the Messiah, but sadly caught pneumonia shortly before and couldn’t sing in the performance. But we’d had him and his wife Peggy sing a duet once at St. Mark’s on the Campus…from a great loft that sent sound out over architect Burket Graf’s famed three-domed space. They’d sung From the Font of Every Blessing. So, as we approached a Christmas Eve, Dad asked if I thought Dewey and Peggy would be willing to lead the music and sing the Offertory Anthem for the Christmas Eve service. Dewey sang one of the pieces from the Messiah, and knowing it was my dad’s favorite, they sang a duet to The Snow Lay on the Ground. And as we left that night, so it did.
Holidays at the Link’s in McCook: When my Uncle Art (from whom I got my middle name) suffered a massive heart attack, he had to retire from the Bureau of Reclamation where he’d been a civil engineer on many of the projects in southwest Nebraska as well as on the tunnels through the Rocky Mountains. The Link’s moved back to McCook and became the “greeters” for the Herrmann Mortuary. Before they purchased a home a block away, they lived in an apartment in the mortuary. When we visited, we’d be lodged downstairs near the display and embalming rooms. Very peaceful! One Christmas, Uncle Art asked Dad and me to go with him on a call. Art Herrmann was out on another call and he needed some help with a fellow had died while using the restroom, and fallen so as to be caught between the facilities and the wall. Yet, over the years, as Mom and her sister Margaret, their spouses, and my two cousins and their families came to McCook, I recall most not that scene with the dead body but all the times telling stories, playing cribbage, helping with meals, and enjoying the Christmas tree, where I was sometimes the “santa” who distributed the wrapped packages if none of the second cousins felt up to it.
Harvesting our own tree with Nancy Carmichael in Flagstaff: Moving to Flagstaff from Nebraska, to the mountains from the plains, I taught at Northern Arizona University, was in charge of the mission church, St. John’s, in Williams, and assisted at Epiphany in Flagstaff. There we became friends with a young parishioner recently moved from California, and somehow it became a Christmas ritual for our new friend Nancy and my Nancy and I and our kids to go cut down our own Christmas tree. It was cheaper than buying one, more fun, and the kids loved the snow. The first year, still in our little second story apartment, we chose a tree as wide as it was tall that could sit in front of the plate glass window that looked out over the apartment complex courtyard. Due to fire hazard in the great Coconino Forest that surrounded Flagstaff, the fire department had a huge tank in which you could dip your tree in fire retardant. We dipped it into the icy sludge. And the whole, nearly round tree sank. We had to get help to pull it out, get it back in our car trunk, and then let it sit in the apartment complex’s laundry room to thaw out. But, once up and decorated, it was a glorious tree, taking up half the little living room.
Dashing through the snow: Our son had been born in 1969 at the Lincoln, Nebraska, hospital named for William Jennings Bryan; our daughter was born in Flagstaff, December 11, 1972, just after we’d bought our home there. Flagstaff often measures its winter snowfall in feet, not inches, and true to that, I had to carry her from the hospital door, where the nurse handed over her responsibility to a young father, to our car, the way there being ice-impacted walks, and then back to get Nancy to the car. We wanted very much for the folks at St. John’s, Williams, to see the new baby on Christmas Eve, so up we drove through the falling snow for the Christmas Eve celebration, 13 days after she was born. When we arrived, we found that the furnace had gone out sometime that day…nobody was warming up there. I shortened my homily and what I could of the service. The warmth was that everybody was so happy to see the new baby…and everybody counselled us not to bring a two-week old baby out in a snowstorm again.
Tom Donohoe’s Advent High Tea: Through friendship with Glenn and Gail Reed, my colleagues at Northern Arizona University after some years together as graduate students in Lincoln, we became friends with a stalwart of the English Department (Victorian Literature if I recall) named Tom Donohoe. Tom was a man of many parts—organist, maker of vestments, host, along with teacher. One year, Tom included us among the guests at his Advent Hight Tea, along with the Reeds and other faculty, from whom Nancy would be taking classes as she began work on her Masters. I can’t begin to describe the fare Tom put out—so many different foods and each perfectly prepared. Glenn and I taught in a separate experimental college from where the English Department was housed, and there had been quite a lot of bad feeling and suspicion when our college was created, but you would never have known it that night, as Tom’s feast made us all feel as though we were meant to be together.
Midnight mass at St. Luke’s, Kearney: According to the theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, Easter is, as the hymn proclaims, the “queen of seasons.” No doubt so, but the build-up to Christmas in the Christian Calendar—commemorations that punctuate the better part of the calendar year—perhaps explains why Episcopalians love most their “midnight mass.” It is really Christmas that seems to most touch our hearts. Our first year in Kearney marked my 33rd Christmas Eve, and I was blessed to be celebrating in a church with a long history in which the Midnight Mass was the highpoint. We were still in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that I hadn’t used for half a dozen years, but it had lent itself to many years of Christmas Eve from my childhood on. There was no bell, smell, or whistle overlooked and the celebration often drew a number of townsfolk, so the church was always packed. Times are different now, and I truly wouldn’t time-travel back, but I still harbor great memories of the first Christmas Eve in Kearney when, as it turned out, we felt Dame Julien was right; all would be well and all would be well and all manner of things would be well.
Gifts and the year we forgot our daughter’s: Our kids, most PK’s (preachers’ kids) I suppose from the stories I’ve heard, found holidays one of those times when they didn’t have their parent’s full attention. Our usual routine for Christmas day was to rise early, share one small gift over breakfast, then pack up the car and take off for Grand Island, where both Nancy and my parents lived, two doors away from each other, and on the way stopping at Art and Florence Christensen’s in Gibbon to take them their Christmas Communion, the communion calls in Kearney taking place while Nancy was getting the family ready to be on the move. There’d be lunch at my folks, then an afternoon stop for a bit of Christmas with the Peterson and Boosalis families, then a prime rib dinner at Nancy’s folks, and then—after the kids had waited since breakfast, the sharing of gifts. (One year, with a different routine: we took off late in the day in a storm, the car began to slide on the slick road just where an exit from Highway 30 takes you to Stolley Park Road, and it looked like we were going to end up in the little pond there. Both kids were shrieking “save the presents, save the presents”! But the skid stopped before we were off the road, alleluia.) One of those years we saw George’s eyes light up when he got the Atari we’d tried to indicate we couldn’t afford. But another year, when we were distributing gifts, we discovered that we’d left our daughter’s box of gifts back in Kearney. It was entirely my fault and I felt horrible. Even more so, so did Noelle! But she took it as bravely as a child could ever manage. Grace Under Pressure! Small addendum: she’s never let us forget it!
Traveling home from Hyannis: After St. Luke’s and I parted ways and I began teaching at then Kearney State College, I also began serving St. Joseph’s, Mullen, and Calvary, Hyannis, both in the heart of the sandhills ranching country. For a year every Sunday, and then for two more years every other Sunday, I’d be first in early morning at Mullen, then later morning at Hyannis, never once bothered by the State Patrol for speeding to get there on time…the time made possible by passing from one to another time zone. But at Christmas, after the Midnight Mass at Calvary, Hyannis, we’d emerge from church past midnight mountain time and begin the four-hour drive to Kearney, arriving at about 4:00 a.m. central time. That gave Nancy and me about three hours of sleep before George and Noelle were up and ready for Christmas day. Often snow would be falling as we drove home, the two of them would curl up in the back seat, and we’d play carols or possibly George Winston quietly as they slept. And I’d hum to myself, “O Holy Night.”
Christmas trip to Oxford: Nancy and I had a rough patch in our marriage that took some time to heal, but the year in which our rough places had been made plain, we decided on a lark to make our Christmas present to each other a trip to Oxford, Mississippi. We arrived as an ice-storm was just beginning, with rare freezing temperatures that made us relish the warmth of our room at the Oliver Britt House Bed and Breakfast. Dinner at the Downtown Grill, out on the balcony overlooking the decorated Courthouse Square. On one side of us was a large company surrounding writer Willie Morris, on the other was a young couple on their honeymoon. We could tell from their conversation that this honeymoon was a bit of a splurge. I’d met and enjoyed Willie’s company before in Oxford, so was prepared for “when Willie drank everybody drank,” prepared because unlike the me Willie had met, I was not longer drinking. Sure enough, Willie would order drinks for his table and include us. The drinks would be passed over to our table, and we would pass them on over to the newlyweds—whom we’d had the foresight to ask what they’d like to drink. We left the grand company of both tables, drove back to our lodging by way of the Ole Miss Campus where we watched the holly glisten in a sheen of ice, welcomed again the warmth of our room, and watched the St. Olaf Christmas program on the television. We had coffee the next morning with Evans Harrington, then the director of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference, and headed home via Memphis and B.B. King’s.
Lessons and Carols at Washington National Cathedral: When Nancy’s dad was dying, he reversed his burial plans. He’d always wanted me to rent a plane and pilot and drop his ashes over Ash Hollow, but decided instead to be buried at Arlington. A distinguished military career won the day. So, we all boarded a plane to Virginia, stayed with Nancy’s brother and his family, and joined them in laying Barkley to rest. There were family plans for that evening, but meanwhile, the afternoon was for us travelers to see something of DC. We all split up, going several places, and Nancy and I decided we’d just make our way to see Washington National Cathedral. We didn’t know the calendar but it was an Advent Sunday and chanced to be the one in which they celebrated a Festival of Lessons and Carols. No one was in the nave proper, all of us seated in the chancel just near the choir and lectors, and what a wonderful celebration to take part in, totally unexpectedly able on the day we’d buried my beloved father-in-law to hear the promise that those who walk in darkness would see a great light.
In sum:
Faulkner’s summary—we’re born, we suffer, and we die—was meant I suppose to remind us that every being ever born will know suffering but not all will ever know joy. In my more cynical youth, I thought that Faulkner might well be right. My life, though, has brought me near not only the suffering of people dear to me, but the suffering of many others. In all that, I’ve never run onto someone who never knew any joy. And for most, it was a moment or moments of joy that took up residence in their memory banks and, except for a few persistently bitter people, joy diminished memories of much or most of the suffering. It seems that, though the world is often no help at all, we are made for joy.
Perhaps some of our moments of joy or of pain redeemed will put your mind to recalling how joy has touched your heart and soul, and whatever you celebrate at this solstice time, you will feel blessed. Joy to the World!
Chuck and Nancy
Our news:
I’ve celebrated and preached quite a lot this year, mostly for places with no priest, at least for that Sunday. Our big travel was in June to have dinner with Linda Clark in McCook, see again the charming city of Salida, Colorado, drive across the four corners and Navajoland, have dinner with Gail Reed and Cheryl Gibson in Flagstaff, and then spend 3 days in Las Vegas visiting Steve and Joyce Schneider. Praying this Advent for Steve—my longest running continuous friendship.
Nancy continues to be part of St. Luke’s weekly prayer group and has stayed active in Kearney Action Network. We both hang around Senior College a lot, and I have a full year of posting entries about Keaney’s arts on our kearneycreates.com website. I’m still in Torch Club, recently joining Stan Dart to present a program of Coyote Legends and Stories, and in November I taught my last class at the Bishop Kemper School in Topeka…a mark of the progress of BKSM, that each year the classes have gotten better. The Kansas trip always includes a stop to see Jim and Bev Carothers for lunch at the Mad Greek in Lawrence, Kansas. They always send us off with a care package from Wheatfields bakery and news of their son Michael and his family in KC and daughter Cathleen and her work for the State Department in Bogota, Columbia.
While we were in Topeka, our Bishop was ordaining Pauline Machard to the Deaconate back at St. Luke’s, Kearney. Pauline graduated from BKSM, so some of her friends set up a watch party—but the broadcast of the ordination suffered a technical failure. The Machards are mainstays at Kearney’s St. Luke’s where we worship when I’m not supplying elsewhere.
Thanksgiving brought us to the Ptomey home in Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska, where Harlan is fighting the good fight for public schools—sadly, here, they are under siege on many fronts. Noelle and her former Rector, now retired Mark Selvey, are exploring how to take the Church to the un-churched, and she continues to substitute teach a lot. It looks as though Rowan wants to go back to school and finish his education, finding ways to harness his unusual brightness with the routines of formal education, and his brother Brody, just now turned 21, is still a student at Nebraska Wesleyan, from time to time sharing one of his paper projects with us. Harlan and Noelle went on our Diocese’s Civil Rights Pilgrimage this past summer.
We will all be traveling together to Milwaukee for Christmas, the six of us in Nebraska joining the six Peeks there for the holidays, the first Christmas there in some years. George, now with a new law firm that thought enough of his work to lure him from his former firm, is enjoying his new practice. Laura Grace heads up the Mount Olive school board and is a docent at the Milwaukee Library. Last we knew, Will, 15 by the time you read this, was finishing reading the Odyssey and playing up a storm on his clarinet; Greta (aka Margaret, Marge) is making her way through “middle school” at Mount Olive, joined there by the adventurous “social chairman” Henry (Huck) and for the first time, Lou, growing up way too fast due to his older brothers and sister’s impact on his life.
Let’s see: Rowan’s Chevy is back to being roadworthy, Harlan’s pickup keeps on running, George replaced a way beyond age and grade Jeep with an Audi, and the Bonneville we got from Brody has developed a mysterious ailment—plenty of power and it still won’t start. Nancy and I may take this as an opportunity to return to being a one-car family. Very strange for me, who thought I’d long ago be rich and own a sports car Scuderia!
With Nancy’s help, I’m in the final stages of editing a memoir, mostly focused on how a boy who grew up in the racist and sexist world of his childhood, came to change his heart and mind from the values of his youth to the dreams of his older (and better?) self. Whether it finds a publisher or not, I’m glad to have gotten it all down, and thankful for three very bright and knowledgeable readers who’ve advised me on the Mss. (There names will be public should a publisher decide to take on the book.) Still writing poems, too, but no publications to show this year. The Prairie Art Brothers, Kearney Public Library, and Kearney Creates put on a vigorous Poetry Month here last April, featuring the State Poet Matt Mason and his crowd-sourced poem celebrating Kearney’s Sesquicentennial.
Nancy has been reading out of my old library on African American Studies and Civil Rights, the books soon to deck the shelves of the library at Church of the Resurrection, Omaha, and interracial parish, where it will be open to anyone wanting the background to African American’s struggle with the racism kept alive by racists and abetted by the ignorance of the rest of us. I’m (huff, puff) just through the nearly 900 pages of John Irving’s The Last Chair Lift, the book loaned to me by my friend Art Hanson. I performed Art and Janey’s wedding over 40 years ago…they, too, are mainstays at St. Luke’s. At my daughter’s suggestion, I’m rereading A Separate Peace…I’d forgotten what a sensitive and well-wrought story it tells. On deck: to follow our son’s suggestion to watch Ted Lasso.
Nancy and I are intent on slowing down a bit this year, leaving behind much we love doing but don’t need to be doing anymore, eliminating some things so we have more time for things that have had to take a back seat for too long. I’m going to restrict my clergy-supply work to my nearby geography, do more writing and listening—listening to music, to good conversation, to the sounds around me when we walk at Cottonmill. I’ll be teaching a short series on the Holy Spirit during Eastertide this coming year, and later in the year a course on Baldwin and Faulkner short stories for our Senior College. With a paper accepted and an invitation to read some poems, we hope we are headed to Bilbao and San Sebastian this summer. And this spring, we’ll enjoy a short reunion of those of us who hung around St. Mark’s on the Campus during the ‘60s.
Love hearing from family and friends. Our contact information remains the same:
Next Blog: About New Year’s Day–a quarterly edition of our In Memoriam.
Pictured below, from summer before last, our wearying but still triumphant hike at the end of the Hemingway Conference near Cooke City, Montana…we are the very done-in looking couple to the viewers’ left.
capeek 