Post 163 - August 21, 2020

Day 163…

I spent the early part of this morning at the intersection of 38th and Chicago.

There’s a gas station on one corner and across from it a small convenience store. It’s a much nicer area than I was expecting. That is my racial bias showing. The houses and businesses surrounding it look well cared for. This morning people were out working in their yards and walking with their kids.

The hotel in Minneapolis where I stayed last night was much like the others that I have been staying in. Rooms sealed and disinfected. No room service, in fact, no service of any kind unless you request it. This one provided me with a plastic bag so that before I left, I could put all of my garbage in it. That was so the person cleaning the room would have to come into contact with anything I might have touched. There were very few people staying at the hotel. I never ran into another sole besides a masked attendant in the lobby who was there to answer questions.

When I woke up this morning, I thought that I might write this from the intersection of 38th and Chicago but once I got there, it was far too overwhelming.

On May 25, in that intersection, Police Officer Derek Chauvin ended the life of George Floyd by kneeling on his neck until he suffocated.

For a block in either direction, the streets have been closed off and the whole area has been transformed into a vibrant, colorful, messy and completely heartfelt tribute to Mr. Floyd. In letters about a foot high, the names of other people of color who have lost their lives to law enforcement are painted on Chicago Ave from the blockade all the way up to the intersection.

There are many of them. I did my best to read them all.

The gas station appears to have become a sort of open-air teaching area. The business is closed, but this morning somebody was teaching a class in how to combat systemic racism. A group of about twenty people stood and sat rapt among the gas pumps. It was like Socrates talking to a group of students who were hanging onto his every word.

In front of the store a huge memorial has been erected. Thousands of flowers and other tributes are stacked in an orderly pattern radiating out from a central tent. There is a ring of planters with living plants in them around everything. In the center of the intersection is a sculpture of a raised fist. It, too, is surrounded by flowers and stuffed animals and signs. There are signs everywhere.

The whole thing was not unlike the encampment that emerged in the park across from City Hall in New York City calling for the reform of the NYPD. The difference is, that this has an air of permanence about it.

A Native American man was circling the clenched fist and chanting.

From there, I drove about two miles away to where the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct building stands. It was burnt out and destroyed during the rioting that followed the violence and is now completely surrounded by high fencing to keep everybody out. The only thing that identifies it are the charred remains of the metal words Minneapolis Police that are still visible along one side.

Joe Biden gave one of the best speeches I have every heard him give last night during the final day of the Democratic National Convention. It capped off four days of addresses from a diverse and eloquent group of his friends and supporters. It gave me hope that we aren’t done yet.

When I first started seeing Michael, he took me to the annual gala of a group called Our Time. Our Time was founded by Taro Alexander to help kids who stutter. A person who stutters, himself, he envisioned a place where kids could get together and be themselves and not worry about being made fun of by anyone.

SAY, the Stuttering Association for the Young, as it is called now, works with kids to help them find their voices. They aren’t about curing their stutters - nobody really knows how to do that. Instead they give the kids the time and space to be able to express themselves.

Every summer they hold a summer camp where kids from all over the country can come together and not feel like the odd person out. During the year they work with theatre artists to write songs and plays and then once a year they bring us all together to perform them.

Posters for the event used to have a line that said, “Running time: 2-6 Hours”. The event is usually hosted by one of the kids, often a really young one. The entire audience sits completely still and listens to them speak for as long as it takes them to get through. Then the kids sing their songs along with the likes of Kelli O’Hara and Brandon Victor Dixon or talk onstage with the likes of Dame Helen Mirren.

Joe Biden is a person who stutters.

Last night, a thirteen-year-old boy named Braydon Harrington from New Hampshire addressed the nation from the Convention. He talked about meeting the former Vice President. “He told me that we were members of the same club. We…. Sssssssss…….ssssssstutter.”

That singular act of unfathomable bravery by that young man who stood up in front of the WHOLE COUNTRY to speak was a perfect way to introduce Joe Biden and launch us all into this final election dash.

It will be interesting to see what the Republicans can come up with for their convention beyond the usual jingoistic rantings from the President that we’ve grown accustomed to from his rallies. It will certainly be very different from what we’ve seen these last four days.

Not everything that I have been doing on this trip so far is anywhere near as moving and awe inspiring as walking through George Floyd Plaza this morning was.

I am a sucker for a good cheesy roadside attraction. There is nothing better than coming across something completely random and unexpected. You can’t get a real feel for where you are from the interstate, but the second you get off, America rises up to greet you.

Driving away from Valley Forge National Historical Park, I passed by a lot of houses proudly displaying placards in support of the President.  One house had one over its front door with two Revolutionary muskets in an inverted “v” over it. There was too much traffic for me to stop and take a picture of it, alas.

Going through Ohio, I saw a small sign that said “Milan: Edison Birthplace”. I immediately took the exit.

Milan (MY-lan, thank you very much) is the kind of small town that Marty McFly from Back to the Future would feel right at home in. It has a beautiful little town square complete with an open-air gazebo draped in patriotic bunting. The old Victorian Town Hall has a perfect steeple for hanging a wire to attract lightning to charge the flux-capacitor.

Statues of Thomas Edison are everywhere. The coffee place offers drinks named after some of his inventions. The little brick house where he was born is a museum, sadly closed at the moment.

I was saddened to see one of the houses on the street had a sign for the President posted in their yard, but their next-door neighbor had one in their yard that said “Any Functioning Adult 2020” which seemed to balance it all out.

I have gotten into the habit of sending my niece and nephew a post card from everywhere I go. When they were very little, I sent them a laminated map of the world and another of the US so that they could see where I was when the cards arrived. Since I was already doing that, I also started sending one to my Aunt who lives in assisted living in Virginia. Then my mother felt left out, so I started sending one to her too.

I have also kept a scrap book since I was ten years old.

In it, I put all my theatre stubs, museum admission tickets, fliers from shows I am working on, you name it.  They all end up in one place, in chronological order. I also put in a post card from everywhere, otherwise I would never remember all the places I go to.

I found a little junk store in Milan that looked like it might have some cards and went in. I could have spent an hour in there. Lots of weird old pieces of furniture and strange machines. The owner had a small stack of cards but asked me not to buy him out because the guy who printed them had died. We picked out four of them together that we each thought were acceptable. My one caveat about the cards is that the name of wherever it is be on the front and part of the image.

Before we started seeing each other, Michael and I knew each other… vaguely. He knew my ex so we had come into contact with each other over the years.

One night a friend of both of ours, an actress named Dede Lovejoy, came to see Jersey Boys with her mother Marcia Fulmer. Dede had done Noises Off with my ex and I had gotten to know both her and her mother as a result.

After the performance we all went to a bar popular with the theatre crowd on 44th Street. While we were sitting there, Michael came up to the table to say “Hi”, and we all started chatting. He asked how my husband was and I replied that he was actually now, my ex.

Marcia Fulmer was maybe the biggest fan of theatre I have ever met. She loved it when Dede was in something but also loved it when one of Dede’s friends was working on something that she could get the inside scoop on. She lived in Elkhart, Indiana and was the theatre critic for the local paper called The Truth. Her trips to New York and her connections to the many theatre people who met and instantly fell in love with her gave her a major “in”.

When he was first starting out, Tom Wopat had performed in a small theatre called the Wagon Wheel in Warsaw, Indiana. Marcia remembered seeing him onstage there. She came to see Annie Get Your Gun and came backstage and I re-introduced them. I can still see her utterly delighted blush as Wopat sidled over to her and drawled, “Well, hello, mother” and kissed her on the cheek.

I thought about all of this on Wednesday as I drove past the signs to Elkhart on the interstate. Marcia and Dede were there at the very moment that Michael and I met for real. Up until we got married, that moment is what we considered our anniversary. I hope that Marcia has plenty to see wherever she is because heaven is going to need to have some shows up and running to keep her happy.

I was tempted to get off and see Elkhart, but instead, kept going to the Indiana Sand Dunes National Park and watched the sun set over Lake Michigan - the skyline of Chicago just legible on the horizon.

Yesterday, I stopped in De Forest, Wyoming to get gas at a station that had a giant pink elephant in glasses standing next to it. It is, apparently, one of several scattered throughout the country. Selfie with elephant… check. Later in the day I saw the statue of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox outside of the Logging Museum in Eau Clair, Wisconsin. The museum, itself, was closed but I was happy just to see the big statue.

I am writing this, this morning, in the Minneapolis sculpture garden adjacent to the Walker Art Museum. It was raining a little earlier, but now it is a beautiful clear day. Not too hot.

Last time I was in Minneapolis, I came to a great exhibit here that was completely devoted to cats in art. I drove out to see the house that was in the opening credits of the Mary Tyler Moore show because that was the only thing that I knew about the city before I got here.

The intersection of 38th and Chicago here in Minneapolis stands as reminder to all of the work that we have as a nation ahead of us.

In November, we have to choose whether we are going to knuckle down and do that work or whether we are going to just continue to shirk our responsibilities. The first order of business is going to be to elect the leaders that can at least point us in the right direction.

In the meantime, I am going to hit the road again and see what silly things I can discover.

For everyone who’s interested, check out SAY at SAY.org. The work they do, and those friggin’ kids are so moving and inspiring that you won’t be sorry you clicked in.

Maybe next year Braydon can join them all at camp.