Category Archives: Sense of place

Summer time

Ryan T. came into church last night for Game Night, and announced it is mulberry season. Ryan is enthusiastic about such things, not just because he’s five years old, but because that’s the kind of person he is. I share his enthusiasm for mulberries.

I first knew it was mulberry season three days ago because of a sidewalk near our house: I saw a bird dropping that was strangely purple. I puzzled over this for a while, suddenly realizing that it’s mid-June and time for mulberries to be ripe.

I kept watching the sidewalks on my evening walks around downtown Geneva. Within a day, I came across a short stretch of sidewalk covered with little purple squished fruits, and here and there a purple bird dropping. A mulberry tree! I picked a handful (all I could reach) and ate them. They were sweet and good.

Since then, I’ve discovered two more mulberry trees, and Ryan told me about yet a third less than a block from the church on Second Street. Ryan is fortunate enough to have a mulberry tree growing over his driveway, and he was gracious enough to bring me a small bag of his mulberries this morning when he came to church.

Mulberries are a little eldery-tasting, and usually you can’t reach the really ripe ones because they’re too high, or too clearly over someone’s yard. But most years they’re the first fresh local fruit I eat each year — for about a week each year, they are my favorite fruit.

Midwestern savannah

Oak savannah, up until 150 years ago one of the dominant ecosystems around here in the Tri-Cities, has fascinated me ever since I first saw restored oak savannah over at Nelson Lake Marsh natural preserve. Contrary to the stereotypes I’d been fed, the prairie was not the only major ecosystem in Illinois.

The earliest settlers found almost half the State in forest, with the prairie running in great fingers between the creeks and other waterways, its surface lush with waist-high grasses and liberally bedecked with wild flowers. Here occurred the transition from the wooded lands of the East to the treeless plains of the West…. The pioneers admired the grasslands, but clung to the wooded waterways…. The waterways furnished timber for fuel and building, a convenient water supply, and protection for the settlers’ jerry-built cabins from prairie fires and windstorms. Fires invariably swept the grasslands in the late summer, when the Indians burned off the prairie to drive out game….” Illinois Descriptive and Historical Guide: Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Work Projects Administration of the State of Illinois, 1939.

Where did the woodlands go?

Lumbering activities and the pioneer’s early preference for the woodland reduced the forests from their original extent, 42 per cent, to little more than 5 per cent. What is now commonly thought of as prairie is often the increment gained from the clearing of the woodlands. –Ibid.

The oak savannah is neither prairie nor forest, but a separate natural community, a transitional zone between forest and prairie. According to one definition, oak savannah has more than one tree per acre, but less than 50 per cent coverage (some authorities allow up to 80 per cent canopy coverage). The widely-spaced oaks rise out of the grassy undergrowth, giving a park-like appearance. This makes for a beautiful landscape, which feels open yet protected by trees.

How much of Illinois was savannah? According to a 1994 North American Conference on Savannas and Barrens, “No estimate of the presettlement extent of oak savanna has been developed for Illinois.” Since even modern definitions of oak savannah vary, it’s not surprising that no such estimate exists. Yet the reports of early settlers talk glowingly about the park-like settings of early Illinois, so we can be sure they knew and enjoyed oak savannah.

Funnily, the suburban landscape of downtown Geneva superficially resembles oak savannah, with its widely spaced trees and the grassy lawns. But the community of plants and animals is quite different in the suburbs than in true oak savannah, and it is a transitional zone between shopping mall and housing development, rather than a transitional zone between forest and prairie. Some early accounts say the Indians kept the oak savannah open by burning away undergrowth periodically; to shape today’s suburban savannah, humankind uses power lawnmowers and tree services.

You can see a contemporary image of oak savannah at photographer Miles Lowry’s Web site. Link The top two images are of a restored oak savannah about three miles due east of Geneva. Or if you want a technical discussion of oak savannah as an ecosystem, you can find it at the EPA’s interesting Web site on Great Lakes ecosystems. Link

Not midwestern

Living in the Pacific Rim city of Oakland, California, last year, we got immersed in an entirely different culture. For example, ukuleles are not exotic in the San Francisco Bay area — there are plenty of Pacific Islanders in the area, and lots of Asian Americans have picked up the instrument as well. There is a ukulele orchestra in Oakland. There was a fellow in the UU church I served out there who made his own ukuleles. Ukuleles are normal.

Here in the Midwest, the ukulele is mostly an oddity, a toy you give to kids. Which means Jake Shimabukuro is not exactly a household name around here. If he were white, or black, and played an electric guitar, we would have heard about him. But he’s Japanese American from Hawai’i, and he plays ukulele.

Midwestern culture is wonderful, but cross the boundary into Pacific Rim culture for a moment, and go check out Jake’s version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. He’s incredible.

Summer time

On Memorial Day weekend, we still had the comforter out. A week and a half ago, we were sleeping under blankets. Not any more. Summer is here. Other signs of summer:

  • Robins are molting. Robins are spring breeders who don’t start their molt until their young have fledged (raising young and molting at the same time would be just too stressful). Yesterday, I saw a Robin who had molted the first two tail feathers.
  • Chiggers are out. On Sunday, one bit me. Fortunately, only one managed to bite me.
  • The humidity is back.
  • We leave the ceiling fans going pretty much all day and all night. (We’re too cheap to turn on the A/C.)
  • The people who live to the northwest of us have opened up their pool. We know this because sometimes they leave their very loud pool pump going night and day for days at a time.

But the real sign of summer for me is days that go on forever, and short nights that bring memories of past midsummers, memories which stretch back before I can remember. The world pauses for a moment at this apex of the year, and I find that I can’t sleep deeply, or for long.

Millenium Park in Chicago

We were coming back from the Seminary Coop Bookstore’s annual members-only sale last night. Eco-freaks that we are, we took the train to Hyde Park rather than drive. So when we got off the South Shore electric line at Randolph Street Station with half an hour to spare before catching the train out to Geneva, Carol said, “Let’s go look at Millenium Park.”

I had heard a good deal about the Pritzker Pavillion, the stage designed by Frank Gehry, and I had seen it from a distance, but I had not walked through it. In a word, it was disappointing. The curvy stainless steel proscenium arch around the stage was typical Frank Gehry, except more banal than usual. At first it looks wild and new, but pretty soon you realize he’s using a centuries old architectural vocabulary. Basically it is just a proscenium arch that’s not much different from Baroque arches — except in stainless steel, and without the rich detailing of Baroque architecture. After a few minutes, I started laughing sadly at it because it has such an unfortunate resemblance to the hair styles of late-career Elvis — the bloated, sweating, drug-hypnotized Elvis. And after a few more minutes, I began to see the lack of attention to details, which made it look like one of those Western store fronts that looks really big from the front, but which turns out to be a sad, tiny building from the back.

Worse is the trellis of stainless steel pipes over the lawn seating area. Designed to support loudspeakers, the trellis has the unfortunate side effect of making you feel as if you are in a cave. One of the reasons Chicago is such an extraordinary city, architectually speaking, is that buildings in the Loop soar to the sky, taking your spirit with them — it’s the opposite of a cathedral where your spirit soars only to be stopped by a roof, because in Chicago it’s the open sky over your head. But Gehry’s trellis stops that feeling of soaring dead. The trellis hovers oppressively over you, controlling your spirit and channeling it the same way a closed shopping mall does.

Next we walked over BP Bridge, also designed by Gehry. The bridge is almost quite nice — almost. The problem is, Gehry tries to be sculptural, but can’t quite pull it off. The bridge looks kind of cool from a distance, but when you get closer you see there are dead spots in the curves of the bridge, places where the curves are interrupted by an unintentional flat spot, or where the curves don’t quite flow right. Other details of the bridge are badly done, too. (Maybe the architect did not adequately oversee the building contractor?) It’s covered with what looks like stainless steel shingles on the outside, but as you walk across it the walls lining the walkway are dead flat — which is incongruous at best, confusing at worst. And ultimately, the massing of the bridge just curves around and doesn’t say much of anything.

The worst thing about Gehry’s contributions to Millenium Park is that they seem to completely ignore the incredible wealth of architecture to their west, and the glorious natural beauties of the lakeshore to their east. There is no sense of place, no sense that you are in CHICAGO! — instead, you could be in any generic city center or shopping mall from Bahrain to L.A.

Chicago, 5.26.05

s soon as I got out the door of Northwestern Station, I heard an alto sax. A strange riff repeated four times followed each time by a quieter passage; then a slightly different riff a fifth above the first, repeated twice. Back to the first riff. Some of the echoes from the buildings around us made the riffs sound slightly out of phase with themselves, sounding a little sad, ironic, jerky, strange. The man playing it was wearing a navy blue pea coat and a tam that looked like a beret. Half a block after passing him, I finally realized he was playing a bebop version of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

I noticed the smile first: a private smile, unusual for walking the streets of the Loop during the evening rush hour. She was carrying a bunch of flowers wrapped in a cone of plastic film, and a small balloon. Blue blazer, about thirty. A good-bye party? A promotion?

Near the Art Institute, a young white woman unconsciously averted her eyes as she passed nine black women walking together. Two different cultures. The white woman walked quickly, dressed in conservative chinos and wearing no makeup, alone and self-contained. The black women walked slowly, dressed in going-out-to-dinner clothes, trading jokes and loud conversation.

Veterans with their American Legion caps accepting donations for veteran’s hospitals outside Union Station. They looked out of place among the hurrying throngs of well-dressed mostly young or middle-aged people streaming towards the station. Neither I nor anyone else seemed to stop for them.

Nighthawks

ll week I’ve been hearing Nighthawks calling as they fly over downtown Geneva. Loud, too. Sometimes their nasal “peent, peent” call sounded so loud they must have been just a dozen feet over my head. But somehow I never saw one.

Then last night, Carol and I went walking down toward the river at about seven o’clock. By the time we got to Second Street, I could hear that “peent, peent” overhead, but I still couldn’t see them. Carol was patient with me, even though I stopped every fifty feet or so — “That one was really loud! But I still can’t see it.”

She was patient with me, that is, until we got onto the State Street bridge, and I walked into her because I was looking up at the Nighthawks. “That hurt,” she said. I apologized, and then looked up again. Now I could see them everywhere.

Swarms of insects were rising up from the river — maybe Mayflies doing their mating flight, but I don’t know much about insects — thousands of insects, anyway. Hundreds of Chimney Swifts were flying over the river, chittering and flitting to and fro, feeding on the insects. And there were Nighthawks among the swifts, twenty or more of them, with their wings crooked back, fluttering back and forth, up and down the river, chasing insects and calling out “peent, peent!” No, more than twenty of them. Lots of Nighthawks.

Don’t ask my why I got so excited about Nighthawks last night. Maybe because of the flittery way they fly. Maybe because they only come out at dusk, or because they’re close relatives of Whipoorwills. Or maybe because they are one of the last migrants to come north, a sign that spring is coming to an end.

The sun set amid white and gold clouds. An hour later, the moon rose in the cool evening air, orange and huge on the horizon. Summer’s almost here.

Public hotspots (Finding wifi part II)

((So here we are in West Concord, Massachusetts — I took a break from candidating week, and Carol and I zipped up here to visit our respective families for a couple of hours — and wouldn’t you know it, suddenly we both needed our internet fix….

((We slipped into an ecological engineering office where Carol still maintains a desk and a phone for her non-profit — and managed to pick up an open wifi hotspot from a public-spirited neighbor….

((Signal strength is real low — but we’re both getting through. Thank goodness for wifi good Samaritans.))

Finding wifi and other adventures

Dartmouth, Mass. Carol and I are in New Bedford, Massachusetts — I’m here for a “candidating week” at First Unitarian of New Bedford, and Carol has a job interview or two. Some notes on our adventures…

Very windy and blustery today. After I got back from church today, Carol and I went for a walk near the harbor in South Dartmouth. I am not the most observant person in the world even at the best of times (I have been known to walk right past people I know and love). And today was so blustery, chilly, and wet that I was even less observant than usual.

But even I couldn’t miss the Red-Throated Loon swimming along the causeway crossing the harbor. We got within fifty feet of it. It was windy enough that I couldn’t hold the binoculars steady, but even then that’s the closest, best look I’ve ever gotten of a loon. The checkerboard pattern on its back was clear as could be. Which is a good reason to take up a pastime like birdwatching — it gets you out of your head and into the real world.

Even though I spotted the loon, Carol had to point three times before I could see the little green crab among the stones at the east edge of the harbor.

Later the same day….

This evening, Carol and I headed out to find a wifi connection. We tried a cafe Carol knew about in Warren, Rhode Island. We couldn’t connect — other people in the cafe could, but our computers wouldn’t, for whatever reason.

In desperation, we drove around ((must have … Internet fix … must … have)), taking random exits off I-195, looking for a likely spot. We even parked outside a Comfort Inn that advertised free highspeed access, to see if we could pick up something. No dice.

At last, we hit the jackpot — off to the right, a Panera Bread place — they have wifi! (Needless to say, Carol was the one who spotted Panera…)

So here we sit, eating dinner, checking email, and updating blogs — for us, this is a hot date.