ARTS & FARCES internet

Detroit Lakes (or, more accurately Lake Sallie in Shoreham) was, if not paradise, my “safe haven.”

It was where the same family of ducks nested in the same birch tree every year.

It was where the only lock on the front door was a butter knife wedged in the door jam to keep the wind from blowing it open. The back door had a padlock on it, but it was on the outside.

It was where my sister and I spent more time on and in the lake than indoors.

It was where the lake was smooth as glass on calm days and foamier than a root beer float when it stormed.

It was where we could always find a cold spring in the middle of the lake on even the hottest summer days.

Halfway through the book I realized that Morrie must have been a colleague of my favorite professor, Jim Klee, when they were both at Brandeis in the 1960s. At least they both had Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin as students. I bet they were close friends, although I don’t recall Jim, who died in September 1996, ever mentioning Morrie. They were a lot alike, those two, with a strong desire to live life to the fullest and die a good death.

A friend of mine’s dad died this morning and I’;m reminded, yet again, that nobody here gets out alive and the best we can hope for is to live fully and die well.

Reading Albom’s book brought up feelings of guilt within me. I haven’t kept in touch with many people that were important to me, including Jim. Once we moved to Minnesota I sort of dropped contact. He and his wonderful wife Lucy came to visit once or twice, as did Karen and I, but I deeply miss the long talks we used to share almost daily. You see, I took every class the man taught and toward the end of my graduate studies he let me invent individual classes.

Jim was the kind of teacher who assigned 10 - 12 books to read for each class, and he fully expected you to have read the material before you ever set foot in his classroom. He was a steady stream of consciousness but somehow everything he covered came around to being relevant to the subject matter sooner or later. The level of synchronicity and Jim’s ability to be fully in the moment still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was the educational equivalent of improvisational jazz, and when Jim was on, he could blow better than the best. And he was always on.

I miss Jim a lot today, and I can only hope to live a life half as full as his.

When I was young I never realized how important family was. I just took them for granted. Now they’re mostly gone and I find myself missing them terribly from time to time, especially during American holidays. My parents both died when I was in my twenties and I had unresolved issues with both of them, although things were getting somewhat better between us. I still find myself almost picking up the phone to get their take on things, especially when my kidney disease takes an unexpected turn. But they’re not there. You never get used to it, I guess. It’s got to be even worse on my sister—she’s two years younger than me. There’s still wide spaces between us, but we’re getting closer. Chronic disease will do that, I suppose.

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday with my wife’s family in Macon, Georgia. It’s always an interesting experience because her family has very interesting perspectives on almost everything and they’re quick to let you know their opinions. It was especially interesting discussing the U.S. presidential election with Karen’s dad. The South has migrated from hard-core democrat to harder-core republican, and Karen’s dad is no exception. I think he’s convinced that the democrats are attempting to stage a coup. What concerns me is that he parks himself in front of the right-wing Fox News all day long and buys into the Murdoch bias with wild abandon.

Macon is the home of a lot of music (and music history) for such a relatively small town. Little Richard, the Allman Brothers, and Capricorn Records are all from Macon. My favorite thing in Macon, though, is without a doubt the Nu-Way. An institution since 1916, a Nu-Way hotdog is like nothing else in the world. I’ve been known to eat six of them in one sitting. Best of all, the Cotton Avenue store is virtually unchanged, physically, since the 1940s. A distant second is the H&H on Forsyth. This is one of those meat and three vegetable joints that every town in the South has at least one of. Don’t miss the butter beans, sweet tea, and peach cobbler and make sure you thank Mama Louise. Look around while you’re there; chances are at least half of the patrons will be connected in one way or another to the Allman Brothers.

Another Macon landmark is also unfortunately associated with the Allman Brothers. The Rose Hill Cemetery on Riverside is one of the most beautifully cemeteries in America. Elizabeth Reed, Duane Allman, and Berry Oakley are all buried here, and the crypt used for the cover of the first Allman Brothers album is also here.