Ode to a Broken-Down Palace

What goes around, comes around or so they say. For me, it was an invitation to join a poetry reading at a local bookstore in downtown Saint Paul. Subtext Books was hosting a poetry reading by Greg Watson and Patrick Cabello Hansel, two well-known and respected poets in the Twin Cities and regionally. I was asked to join as a third member.

It seemed a fitting ‘coming home’ after more than eighteen years of wandering the vernacular jungle. Beginning in a rundown hovel in the mid-70s, the exploration of the written word in its many forms had begun as a second life/side gig/closet passion and held me fast for so many years. Poetry and songwriting had become my moniker; that hovel, my writers’ nest.

Everyone wants someplace to call home. For me, it began in a house on Randolph Avenue where the trials and tribulations of youth were hidden in the stale air still lingering there. Then, after living in Europe after college, I was looking for a place to crash while I waited for my life to take some semblance of order.

Finding that sad old relic of better times on University Avenue marked the beginning of yet another world I was about to enter. I joined a cauldron of cast-offs and bottom feeders which accurately reflected where my head was at and where I was going…in no particular order. Disheveled, messy, chaotic and rudderless yet always angling for a better direction.

The Twin Cities has a long history of nesting enclaves of immigrant families and other bottom feeders who haven’t yet assimilated into modern day society. This apartment building was just such a place. It was Swedes Hollow, the Bohemian Flats, Little Italy and the West Side Flats all wrapped up in a half-dozen, squalid, cut-up apartments. As time progressed, that area around the University of Minnesota, especially around Dinky Town and the West Bank, became my own microscopic version of Greenwich Village.

And as the song lyrics go ‘most of my changes were there.’

It’s become part of my lexicon now. Not because of some foolish notion that it represented my ‘glory days’ or the ‘best years of my life.’ And hopefully not because it might sound like the musings of an old man. It was, instead, a moment in time long since gone but still captured in a few faded photographs and dusty vinyl jackets which help poke probing fingers of inquiry into that slowly fading memory bank cached inside my head. For those places and people and events all helped define who and what I have become…and strive to be.

From 1967 through 1970, the Palace became my safe abode where I could spill out my thoughts and ideas on paper without the threat of criticism. That relic of better times came to represent, among other things, all those individuals I knew and loved and lost touch with over the years. It was the silly and foolish things I did and thought. It was all those wild aspirations and stumbles I took in the right direction. It was accidents that didn’t happen and a few that did. It was all those seemingly innocuous events that changed my life and laid the groundwork for a lifetime of story-telling in one form or another.

So, while some oldsters may lament their sometimes checkered past or lost years, I choose to embrace them as a reflective exercise. While some may scowl at rekindling the past by saying ‘it’s best not to look back’ and ‘let the past be,’ it is for me very personal.  It was a time of my ‘lost years.’

The building had been chopped-up, divided and then subdivided into probably illegal apartments for whoever could afford the cheap rent. There was a group of graduate students from Pakistan below me and odd assortments of humanity in the other units who seemed to come and go with the seasons. The overall mantra of the place seemed to be “Say Hi,” don’t ask questions and ignore what’s going on unless you think the place might burn down. I thought of my place as bohemian chic. Visitors might have had a different impression. Shortly after I moved out, they tore the building down and put up a parking lot (seriously).

After a couple of months working/writing at the Public Health Department, I ventured down Como Avenue to the studios of KTCA. They weren’t hiring at the time but they were glad to use my volunteer services in the evenings. I learned the craft of television from the ground up. It became my first real job where I never felt like I was working.

As significant as that old television building was in my life, even more prominent was a bar on the West Bank. That den of ear-busting music, sweet-smelling haze and questionable characters figured prominently in one of my first novels entitled “Love in the A Shau.” On the surface the Triangle Bar was a rundown three-two joint with intoxicating music, cheap beer and loud crowds that came to see, be seen or just smoke a joint in the corner. Beneath the surface it was my baptism into another life.

During its heyday, the Triangle Bar became the flash point for a burgeoning music scene centered on the West Bank. Since they didn’t card, the bar attracted a lot of U of M students. I’m guessing the term ‘jail bait’ was first coined there.

But beneath that surface melting pot of hippies, junkies, college drop-outs, undercover cops and other assorted flotsam from civilization came a wonderful collection of lost souls and seekers. Every night brought another stimulating conversation with some colorful character who usually gave a false last name, lied about their background but presented fascinating suppositions on life and love and war and college and our future in general. It was a true college education outside of the classroom.

They’re all gone now. Removed like push pins off a bulletin board of icons long since dis-appeared. My apartment on the avenue, the Triangle Bar, the old Public Health Department building on campus, crumbling Dinky Town, Newman Center with its folk music, the Grandview Theater and its foreign films and a dozen other sad-eyed structures all razed by a bulldozer called time.

So, I guess I’ve come full circle now. Re-reading poems that were written more than fifty years ago. It's still a sometimes conflicting confluence of attitude and interest, circumstance and focus, goals and objectives. Back to crafting thoughts, ideas, emotions and moods out of jumbled words tied together with a string of imagination. The focus is on song lyrics, really poetry in disguise, that I’m trying to capture once again.

Interestingly enough, the grandkids came down for this poetry reading, listening to Papa reminiscing and recollecting when I was just a little older than them. One generation sharing with the next. Isn’t life strange that way?

And wonderful.

Where the Penguins Went to Roost

Before Sharon’s health issues prevented me from venturing out on my bicycle this spring, I had a ritual dearly loved and enjoyed. My Springtime bike rides into St. Paul and Minneapolis were classic-at least in my mind. They would begin innocently enough; unplanned, scheduled or routed. Just another Saturday morning jaunt to discover or rediscover parts of the Twin Cities I hadn’t been to for a long time. It was a return (abet, just passing through) to those parts of the city that had affected my life so many years ago.

First stop on my journey of discovery always began at the Dunn Brothers coffee shop in the Longfellow neighborhood of South Minneapolis. The earlier in the morning the better. The perfect time for insomniacs, running and biking fanatics and one oldster reclaiming his past.

After a less than nutritional breakfast and some reflection, it was time to begin my journey of discovery. It might be down Lake Street to downtown Minneapolis. It might be down the River Boulevard to the University of Minnesota or south to Minnehaha Park. Today, it was a quick decision to head east toward the rising sun and my old haunts in Saint Paul.

F. Scott. Fitzgerald used to live in a row house with the plaque out front before fame and alcohol cut short his writing career.

There’s a story here and a poem too (Under Cathedral Dome) but Alice wouldn’t approve and besides that was another era long since past. It’s probably best left unspoken now…unless it shows up in some future novel.

Then it was a drop down off of Ramsey hill to what was once the edge of downtown Saint Paul.

This would have been the first of several marginal rental properties we lived in before my mother built our home in Highland Park. Not surprisingly, the entire neighborhood has turned over several times now or morphed into empty lots. The playground in the background is now United Children’s Hospital.

My mother’s first and only grasp at entrepreneurship came right after she got married. It was a small café they called ‘Frenchy’s Eats’ named after my father who was French-Canadian. The venture failed miserably because, according to my mother, the help stole from her and my father drank away the profits.

At the other end of the block from ‘Frenchy’s Eats’ is the bar where legend has it my father drank almost every night. It was a half a block and a total lack of responsibility away from my mother’s dreams and aspirations. I’ve written a play entitled’ Frenchy’s Eats’ which explores that period in my mother’s life, my own life later on, and the ensuing repercussions that flowed downstream.

The only memory I have of this rundown six-plex is a phone call my mother received one evening. She started crying… then my sister started crying…so naturally, I started crying. I was six years old at the time.

Years later, I found out that the phone call was from a grandmother (on my father’s side) informing my mother that my father had just died in some old flea-bitten hotel in Missoula, Montana. My mother told us he was on his way back to Minnesota from the west coast… after an absence of four years from our lives?

We were always warned not to talk to or go by the DPs. They were displaced persons mostly from Eastern Europe who were resettling in Minnesota after the war. I learned much later the building was a way-station for these refugees because they had to be quarantined for a certain period of time. The units are all condos now.

The Little Sisters of the Poor have been doing God’s work since 1855. They were feeding and housing the poor long before I was born. They’re still doing it today.

Wilder Nursery was one of the few day-care operations for indigent folks back when. For my mother it was a God-send. There was this older black woman who was a playground supervisor. She liked me. Kids can always tell when an adult likes them. She called me ‘butterball’ probably because I wasn’t the thinnest kid on the block. It was my first taste of affection from another human being and made me feel warm all over.

On our sporadic outings from Wilder Nursery, we would go down to Irving Park. Back then, it was old and tired and a sad reminder of its glory days back in the twenties. I led my gang of four- year-olds from the nursery. We would run around and scream at the other kids and pretend we were cowboys. I had a vivid imagination even back then.

I’ve often said I’m grateful that my mother gave me life and raised us in this house instead of an apartment. There are a lot of memories there. Mostly good ones and I never once felt different from the other kids on the block because I had a house to live in like they did.

The nuns were housed in this large building across the street from the little French church downtown. My sister and I had to walk by the nun’s residence each morning coming up from the streetcar line. We were always worried we’d meet up with the nuns on their way to school. Dressed in black and white, strict, stern, never-smiling, a walk with them for any distance was pure torture. But by eighth grade, as only a group of smart-ass boys would agree, that was where the penguins went to roost each night.

I was conscripted into service as an altar boy right after fourth grade. My slot was the 11:30 mass every Sunday. So, for years I’d get up at 4:30 to do my paper route and then waste a good part of the morning until I took the bus downtown for mass. I argued for an early morning slot but the priest liked the schedule just as it was. It pleased my mother to see me serve God every Sunday but it sure screwed up my Sundays for other things.

St. Louis grade school was run with an iron fist by the French nuns. The entire school consisted of four large rooms, two per floor. There were two grades per room. The bathrooms and cafeteria were in the basement. Some of the nuns were nice but never overly friendly. Some (in retrospect) were psychotic and dangerous to small children and helpless animals. But that was a different era.

It was in first grade that the dear old nuns informed my mother that the French spelling of my name was Denis, not Dennis. I’ve been Denis ever since. I learned at an early age that one doesn’t challenge French nuns.  Shortly after I graduated, they tore down the school and put up a parking lot.

Cretin High School was a true turning point in my life. I was lost and scared and absolutely clueless. But somehow, I made it through four years and got a good education. After that, there was no turning back. While I was done trudging up the hill and avoiding the penguins, I was still on my quest for a lifetime of learning. My kids have already thanked me. My grandkids can thank me in the future.

My Tabernacle

It’s been almost a year and a half since we’ve been in Palm Springs. Last Fall, Sharon’s health issues curtailed traveling and relegated us to a long cold winter in Minnesota. Now we hope to return this fall. One of the first things I want to do upon my return to the desert is climb a mountain.

It’s my ‘third place’ in the desert much like my mulch garden is back in Minnesota. Most of us have a third place. First is home, second is work and third is some gathering spot for collecting one’s thoughts and sharing human kind. For me, it’s strictly a place to reflect and meditate on life’s bountiful basket of hopes and dreams, stumbles and leaps forward.

As much as I relish my citrus grove, lake front and Mississippi River for though-gathering, the mountains are special. Not just any mountain but my favorite sanctuary of solitude and comfort in my backyard. It’s my granite tabernacle for reflection and contemplation. A slab of rock that warms my bottom as well as my soul. An escape for quiet soul-searching amid the shadows of Indian lore and homes of the rich and invisible.  

The Coachella Valley is shouldered by several mountain chains which have imbued this area with numerous opportunities to seek solace, quiet reflection, exercise, and release from the routine of our daily lives.

Something magical; no almost spiritual, can happen during a mountain hike. It’s a physical as well as mental challenge. At face value, it can be an afternoon of hiking, climbing or finger-probing the rough crags and fissures of the mountain face. On a more spiritual level, it’s an assent into the vaulted realm of oxygen deprivation, aching muscles, sweat-drenched clothing, and overall mental exhilaration…all to put your head in the right place.

There’s a culture here among a small group of old ‘desert rats’ who work and hike these mountains year-round.  They care for the trails as an elder does the tribe. They endure scorching summer heat and windy overcast winter days. Most are rail-thin. Their skin looks like weathered copper or dried up old parchment. Most of them are lithe as an antelope.

Following that elite group of desert denizens come another eccentric group of trail runners and new age meditators.  They frequent the mountains like others hang out at Starbucks. Finally come the tourists, snowbirds and occasional weekend explorer (many with families in tow.)

In the spring, the trail is accented with blooming yellow brittlebush and flowering cacti…and at times an abundance of rattlesnakes. These rattlesnakes are usually very difficult to see since their coloration blends in perfectly with the rocks and gravel on the trail. One bite and it’s off to the hospital for several vials of antivenin serum. It’s an expensive proposition at several thousand dollars per vial.   

           

There are picnic tables at the top which are perfect for casual reflection without worrying about some rattlesnake biting you on the butt. Scenic vistas go on forever in a field of quiet that is almost deafening. Along with dreams and meandering what-ifs, it’s a perfect place to escape within your head and do some exploring there. But it still doesn’t compare to my tabernacle.

I’ve tried yoga, marathons and long trail runs. Collectively they punish the body and sometimes sooth the soul. Oxygen deprivation and bodily stress can cause the mind to wander into some very strange places. My tabernacle can also take me there. It just takes a long climb to get there.