Detroit Shout Out 1 - Duffield Public Library

Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "You Can't Go Home Again." I just returned from Detroit, and I wanna tell you, he was wrong. After more years than I care to admit, I flew into my hometown for a Zug Island mini-book tour and was warmly greeted with courtesy by everyone I came in contact with.

Detroit's Duffield Public Library on West Grand Blvd. was my first stop. It was 100 degrees outside and even warmer in the almost 100 year old building. An African-American woman in her fifties, walking on a wooden cane, braved the heat and climbed a flight of stairs where it was even warmer, just to hear me speak about the Detroit Riots of 1967.

I'm not going to kid you, this woman took me to school on the Detroit Riots. She was fascinating as she reminisced about being a twelve year old girl at the time.

"I was standing on my front porch watching people running towards the stores and others riding new bicycles in the opposite direction. I ran in the house and yelled up the landing to my mother. 'Mom! Why are all those kids riding new bikes?' She came down and looked out the front door; then she locked it. It stayed that way for a week. I remember it. It was hot, like today."

When my presentation was over, we kept talking as we carefully walked down the stairs and the ramp onto the steamy boulevard. My rental car was parked right in front of the library. "Can I take you anywhere?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I have a bus pass."

"I have new air conditioning and comfortable seats."

I think I made a friend. She needed to go across town to the main branch of the post office on Fort St., and she told me wonderful stories about the city as we drove through Detroit's almost deserted streets. She pointed out the new Motown housing development with streets named after Motown acts and stars. She told me about the gambling palaces that cleaned out some of the slums and then fleeced the people.

"You know," she said, "there are more churches in Detroit than anyplace."

"No. I didn't know that," I said as we arrived at the post office.

She thanked me for the ride and the conversation. I hadn't felt this connected to the city in over forty years. I am sad to say that I don't even know the lady's name. I hope she likes my novel.

Blast from the Past

I received an interesting letter the other day from a college friend of mine with a forty year old, yellowed news clipping in it dated March 15th, 1971. Our university newspaper, The Eastern Echo, interviewed me about a poetry reading I was about to give, my first of two. I had forgotten about it.

There I am in a photograph, twenty-two years old and looking gaunt, with my trusty companion, Blitz, who is wondering when we are going for our walk. I'm spouting off about one thing or another. The reporter asked me if I was going to pursue a writing career.

"It's something I'd like to do. If I can make a living at it, I will; if not, I'll do something else. Eventually, I'd like to write longer works like novels, but I don't have the control over my writing I'd like to have."

After thirty-seven years of teaching English language arts and literature, a great preparation for a writing career, I've finally written that novel, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel, and seen it through the publication process. It was a long time coming.

Prompted by that article, I dug out some of the poetry I wrote back then and read it with a mixture of amusement and humility. In retrospect, all that comes to mind is what a pretentious twit I was. But one poem in particular has withstood the test of time.

Impressions

Looking back,

I saw my footprints

Glow and then melt

in the sand.

Washed away

by the metronomic mix

of breeze and sea,

It rushed at me.

Time doesn't pass in anything so glorious or regal as a "winged chariot," it is measured in the silent footfalls we make as we walk through life.

How Far Seems Shangri-La Now?

Being an author is something I've wanted to do since I was in junior high school. I spent more time in the bookmobile than on the sports field. One rainy Sunday in April, I began reading James Hilton's Lost Horizon and I was hooked. It wasn't a huge novel, and I read it in one day. But it was full of wonderful ideas and strange places to an eighth grader from Dearborn Heights, Michigan.

The novel touched the Shangri-La of my heart and soul. It wasn't until I was older, an English teacher as a matter of fact, that I discovered that this simple novel, which spoke to me on a personal level at age thirteen, was a cautionary and prophetic warning about the coming of World War II, or more accurately, the continuation of World War I. If you haven't read it, do! The restored version of the Ronald Coleman movie is marvelous as well.

Almost fifty years after my first reading of Hilton's classic, I've finally authored and published my own book, Zug Island: A Detroit Riot Novel. I start a summer book tour in Detroit next week. My hope is that I can move readers the way I was moved by Hilton's words those many years ago.

When the Concert Hall Met Tin Pan Alley at the Globe Theater

The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego continues to produce quality shows, season after season. Last week, I was fortunate to usher one of the final performances of George Gershwin Alone before Hershey Felder, author and performer, retires his one-man show Sunday, July 10^th, 2011. He has toured with this show for the last fifteen years, but the performance is not lost to posterity, it has been preserved on video for future broadcasts. Hearing "Rhapsody in Blue" performed live was a moving experience.

Hershey Felder has performed on Broadway, at London’s West End, and over 150 theaters worldwide. He has been a Scholar in Residence at Harvard and is married to Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada. The man can teach, write, act, perform concert music, and charm audiences with his easy manner and polished performances.

Collaborating for the fourth time with director Joel Zwick (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Hershey Felder brings his latest work to the Globe stage: Maestro: the Art of Leonard Bernstein on July 22^nd through August 28^th. I am looking forward to ushering this one in a few weeks. George Gershwin Alone and Maestro: the Art of Leonard Bernstein are the last two shows (or movements) in a sonata of four one-man shows called “The Composer Sonata.” Two years ago, I saw the first two shows (movements). Beethoven As I knew Him, the first movement, followed by the intermediate romantic movement, Monsieur Chopin. I will have seen the entire “The Composer Sonata” performed live by its creator. What a thrill!

Don’t miss this show if you are going to be in San Diego this summer and you are a lover of fine music and virtuoso performances. Felder is a musical genius. www.TheOldGlobe.org

Computer Violation

Ever felt seduced and abandoned, even after you've loaned someone money? If the computer is an extension of the central nervous system, then I've been having a nervous breakdown for about a week. There were signs that things weren't right, but I didn't see them; finally my brain flat lined on Monday. Yes, my computer died. It clicked and stuttered before it seemed to say, "You know, it's over between us."

I took it to Office Depot where they "backed up my data" and sold me a bunch of services I didn't need. Finally, when they wanted to put on a gigs worth of more memory, rather than tell me a six year old computer with Windows XP isn't worth upgrading, I said, "Enough."
I felt like the Beaver: "Hey, Wally. Is Eddie giving me the business?"

So I took the computer to a better place, the Santee Recycling Center, and started all over again. My new computer has a burly one terabyte of memory on the hard drive, so I'm back in business.

Everything was going along smoothly until I took the thumb drive of my data, that Office Depot had "saved" for me, and entered it into the new computer. There was no address book, no bookmarks, and no emails on it. Nada! Stripped clean.  "#%$*!!!"

This time around, I got smart. I bought a new computer with Windows 7, and I purchased an off sight backup and recovery service. Over this Independence Day weekend, I plan to recover as many email addresses as I can and contemplate how dependent we have all become on rampant technology.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

Santee Lakes, continued...

Endangered Wood Duck

The beautiful park, with its seven stepped recreational lakes flowing one into the other, is what the general public sees. But the park is only one aspect of the Santee Water Reclamation Project, which began in 1959. Further north, up into Sycamore Canyon, the business of waste water recycling begins.

Used water from Santee residences, not sewage, is pumped into the water reclamation plant where excess flow and sludge is diverted and sent to the San Diego Metro System. The "gray" water is routed to a series of three stabilization ponds with a combined capacity of 40 million gallons. The water, with the help of gravity, works it way through eleven percolation beds, 400 feet long which drain into a French drain.

From there, the water is treated in a chlorination station before it is released into the first of the seven man-made recreational lakes. Once the water works its way through the park, it is pumped into the City of Santee's irrigation system which feeds the commercial Town Center area and also irrigates the Carleton Oaks Country Club.


Historically, many of the American West's worst conflicts were over water rights. That was true 100 years ago, and it's true today. Water Rights is still one of the most contentious issues among the Western states.

Santee Lakes is a successful role model for water conservation with its three use system: household, recreation, and landscape. Check out A&E's Modern Marvels: "Water Conservation" for more information. Saving water is everybody's business because every drop is precious, that's why I'm proud to support my water department's conservation efforts.

The Santee Lakes

Just eighteen miles east of La Jolla on California State Highway 52, Santee Lakes Regional Park lies hidden in gently sloping Sycamore Canyon. The Padre Dam Water District had operated this model water reclamation project for over forty years, and it has been featured on Arts & Entertainment's Modern Marvels: "Water Conservation." 

Santee Lakes is a multi use park. It provides a flyway for a wide variety of water fowl, and the park is involved in a wood duck propagation program. Professional and amateur bird photographers are familiar with the large variety of birds that come through the park following migratory lanes south and then returning north again.

Several of its lakes are stocked with large mouth bass and catfish for local anglers. No fishing license is required, but a day use permit is necessary to purchase at the General Store. Several contests are held yearly with tagged fish and prizes. In my weekly hikes, I see people catching fish with some regularity.

In East County where shade is a scarce resource in the summer, Santee Lakes provides a number of covered picnic areas that can be reserved for group events, and single picnic tables are found throughout the park, with several playgrounds close by for the kids.

The park’s newest addition is a Lion’s Club sponsored Sensory Garden for the blind, while the Kiwanis Club sponsors a Handicapped Fishing Pier. The park also has regulation horseshoe pits, which you don’t see around much these days.

This is truly a community park. Throughout the year, the park holds community events, and in the summertime, Santee Lakes hosts a weekly Friday night movie for families. At the back of the park, there are RV sites with hookups, and a new feature, overnight and weekly rental cabins, some floating on the water.

The Sprayground is the young kids' favorite place to be on hot, sunny days. Water jets shoot city water skyward from the ground surface, only to fall back to earth with a joyful splash. Tipping overhead buckets fill and spill cool, refreshing water on screeching, giggling kids. Makes me want to be young and carefree again.

But even as an adult, I count myself lucky that I live close to the Santee Lakes; I walk around them several times a week. But as wonderful as the park is, the seven, man made recreational lakes are only a part of this impressive water reclamation project. There is a lot more to Santee Lakes than most people are aware.

To be continued…. www.santeelakes.com