Leaving the Sandbox

As a child I spent countless hours in the sandbox.  Well, it was not a sandbox, but a circle made from large concrete blocks set in the earth that served as the border with the area between dug out and filled with sand.  My mom, who spent a great deal of time in the kitchen, only needed to look out the windows above the kitchen sink to see me playing in the sandbox. Using my hands, and Tonka equipment I would build cities with roads and buildings.  I took cuttings from trees to use as landscape. I sifted sand, using the larger grains for gravel, and the small grains for rooftops or sidewalks.  I would wet and pack some sand to make a nice hard surface. Stones and hunks of wood would be gathered to provide bridges and their abutments.  Lucky for me we did not have a cat who would use the sandbox as a litter box.  I am not sure if it was in my DNA from birth, or if it was the play in the sandbox that most informed my career choice as a city planner.  When attending the grand opening for the Fitchburg City Hall in 1999, a project I managed for the city, my Dad commented to my sister that Fitchburg was my sandbox.  It is now time for me to leave that sandbox.

Fitchburg City Hall
Author photo

I have been employed by the city of Fitchburg for 32 years.  It was just but a three year old as a city when I started, although it was a town before its incorporation.  I have worked for the city longer than I have been married, but not as long as I have had a mustache.  I had a full head of hair, a smaller waist line, and a mustache with no gray when I started my position.  The city then had a population of about 13,900, and has since grown to over 28,000.  I was hired by the second mayor, but to count the chief executives under whom I have served, I have to use more than my ten fingers.   The city in aging from toddler to that of an adult, from a rural town to a suburban city, provided challenges and opportunities which have been remarkable, difficult and daunting. Showing the common paradox, the work has been both trying and at times rewarding.  I feel as if I have attended more public night meetings than a person should endure.  I have sacrificed family time, missed school concerts and sporting events, to attend yet another night meeting.  For 32 years I have calculated dates around when Plan Commission meetings were held, as they were the dates most quickly recognized. 

1937 Air Photo of Fitchburg
Fitchburg Planning Dept. 

As gruesome as night meetings can be, they are part of the mission of government, particularly local government.  While people often gravitate to that which is most familiar, and acceptance of change can be difficult, public acceptance of planning documents is crucial to a workable plan.  In a sense, public meetings are the backbone of American government.  Such meetings either reinforce the politic of divisiveness, or show a cordiality and spirit of proper engagement.  The former, unfortunately, can be more common than the latter.  Alexis de Tocqueville, the French commentator on early American life,  wrote in his well-known work Democracy in America: “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”  I have longed believed that which governs best governs locally.  Being local does not mean it would not be difficult.  When it comes to land use and planning in the local government of Fitchburg, nothing, it seems, is ever easy.   Why, because Fitchburg is at the edge of different landscape types--rural (pastoral) and suburban.

Card Made for Me by a Sister-in-law 

as I Started Work in Fitchburg in 1986

Upon my starting to work in Fitchburg, I was presented with a unique opportunity to help form a new city.  City land use has changed over this time.  When I started it was primarily large lot single family subdivisions.  There is now lots of varied size, varied housing opportunities, and much more commercial-industrial development.  Multi-family housing has been significant in the past several years to provide housing for the millennial generation, and those that now are in an empty nest and wish to downsize.  Residential density has increased, and this helps to protect the environment by reducing the consumption of open space and agricultural land for development.   An increase in density also, as shown in a study by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, reduces pollutant levels into our lakes and streams.  Unfortunately, density has actually declined for many industrial or commercial developments, which means more agricultural land is used for suburban development.  Big box single story development eats up land, usually agricultural, at a ridiculously high rate. 

Growth Ever Problematic in Fitchburg

Wisconsin State Journal, October 19, 1975

Originally formed as an agricultural community, Fitchburg is a microcosm of Dane County.  William Vroman, who with his brothers were the first permanent European settlers in Fitchburg said: “It is one of the best agricultural towns in the county, with very little or no waste lands, about equally divided between prairie and oak openings.  The soil is very rich and climate healthy.”  Fitchburg is unique in the state of Wisconsin.  It was the first city in the state to have exclusive agricultural zoning (which was adopted in 1979 and stayed in place upon upon its incorporation in 1983 and exists to this day), and it is also the only city in the state to have SmartCode zoning (2010), a neo-traditional zoning to help form place by creating development that enhances the public realm.  But, land use is only part of its diversity.  As a city, it has a higher percentage of minority population than any other city or village in Dane County.  Planners desire to protect and improve the public safety and health—for all of the population.

 A Younger Me

Fitchburg Star, June 19, 1986

I have spent over thirty years attempting to create a land use pattern that is productive, livable, variable, and enjoyable. Creating place is not easy in an auto-oriented suburban culture.  Creating place allows engagement and discernment, and for lives to be led in a purposeful and meaningful manner.  The land use pattern, however, is only one aspect of place.  Undifferentiated space, according to Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, becomes a place when that space is endowed with value. The values of the people expressed to a space provide and give meaning, creating place.  The values of a community, however, are not always easy to discern.  After all, people have different ideas and mores.  But, as planners the task is to take these varied values, find commonality and infuse, or endow, our collective values to the shared space.  The name becomes the identifier and common language of a place recognized by our shared values.  

South Branch of Swan Creek
Source:  City of Fitcbhurg McGaw Neighborhood Plan

What does Fitchburg represent?  Fitchburg has created place names like McKee Farms Park, or Haight Farm Rd to recognize the historical nature of agriculture.  Yet should Fitchburg become like a subdivision named for the landscape feature which it has replaced?  Unfortunately, that seems to be more and more the case.  My hope is that Fitchburg will continue to deliberately include and respect its agricultural land, for that heritage makes up such a large part of the community’s collective value.  Agricultural land needs to be viewed as a resource in its own right, not just land for development.  Unfortunately, the latter seems to be ever more the case.  The urban-rural tension will not cease.  However, as shown by past experience, with proper planning it can be managed.  It comes down to respecting and working your plan.  More than ever in the past at least 32 years, and perhaps since Fitchburg created its first land use plan in 1974, planning now takes a back seat to development. 

1980 Air Photo of Fitchburg
Fitchburg Planning Dept.

For the past forty years in Fitchburg it has been a goal, a value, to allow for proper, measured development in an appropriate, meaningful location and manner, respecting the environment, but also to respect the agricultural heritage of this growing city by keeping agriculture a prominent land use.  Times have changed, and development values more and more usurp those larger (becoming former?) community values.  Values of the importance of agriculture were present in Fitchburg long before the creation of its first land use plan in 1974. However, such effort is more than marginalized by forces of power that use language to wash and mask true intent.  Local politics is a master at this. 

Farmland in Fitchburg, circa 1990
Author photo

Current city policy makers well out-do the state legislature in developer friendliness:  agreeing to accept wetlands as parkland dedication even though the wetlands are already protected (a first for the city).  Complaining about the amount of multi-family development, and need for more industrial land only to re-designate industrial land for a multifamily development.  Looking to reduce parkland dedication requirements (yes, at the same time now accepting wetlands as parkland).  Or, allowing a subdivision to use a lift station when a gravity option was available, the city's first permanent lift station.  In today’s climate most every development is a good development that has to be accommodated.  What is seen in Fitchburg today is clear evidence of what Michael Farren, a research fellow at George Mason University, wrote in a guest opinion piece in the "Wisconsin State Journal" on January 28, 2018:  “Moreover, the competition between local governments to attract jobs pushes politics toward cronyism.  Giving special interest groups undue influence runs against the ideals of democratic governance—that government authority should serve the people in general, rather than just those with power and influence.”  That is why James Madison, writing in the Federalist Papers, warned of what he called the mischiefs of faction (Federalist #10).  Yet, Farren is only partly right.  Cronyism is present regardless of competition for jobs; it is present for many developers.  

2017 Air Photo of Fitchburg
Fitchburg Planning Dept.

The negatives of cronyism affect not only our democracy, but our built environment.  This view destroys good planning, demeans the intent to create place, and shows a lack of respect to the population, and more important provides a shaded view of long-established community values.  As urban development continues to advance onto the rich soil recognized by William Vroman in the mid-19th century, the faint glimmer of recognition that farmland is a resource in its own right is near extinguished.  When that glimmer is extinguished, Fitchburg will have lost a key aspect not only of its heritage, but, its meaning, its value, and what has provided its sense of place.  Its heritage will be but recalled in photos, old plat maps, and in the names of streets and parks using an ersatz measure to replace the real thing. 

Sidewalks, Still Controversial
Capital Times, July 22, 1987

Migration is comprised of push and pull factors, and as I migrate from this large sandbox called Fitchburg, both factors are in play, although one is greater than the other.  Always wanting to keep the best interests of the general public in mind, it has become difficult in the current climate.  It is a sign of the times when euphemisms become commonplace.  James Madison’s “mischiefs of faction” would later become “special interests” but today the euphemism is a reference to a special interest as a "community", as in “development community.”  (These factions have a place in the debate or dialogue, but they should have no more than any other individual.)  There comes a time when a confluence of circumstances envelopes position and place and brings with it a time when one has to say goodbye.  For me, that time is now.   Future generations will critique my contributions to the city of Fitchburg, I just hope it not too harsh.  I leave knowing that, while it was not always enough, I did my best.

Photo of plaque in an Alaskan store

I have had the privilege of working with some very fine persons in Fitchburg over the past 32 years, including a few elected and appointed officials.  The city, in age, is a millennial in young adult hood.  Like some in that age group it still is looking for identity, not fully cognizant of the forces at play to remove what is its identity.    I only wish I had kept a log of the varied happenings encountered in my work since the former television series “Park and Recreation” is not near as bizarre as real life.   As I leave this one sandbox I have the confidence that my time will be well spent engaging and pursuing adventures in a variety of the world’s sandboxes.  Not to mention, keeping my wife busy.

Forest for the Trees

A few years back was my first visit to a rather unique natural feature just southwest of Baraboo, WI.  I was surprised it took me so long to know about it since I  worked for a few years in Baraboo only a few miles from this natural feature.   It is a gorge of 30-40' deep in which runs Skillet Creek.  I do recall being involved is in some watershed planning efforts to help protect the water quality of the creek back in the early 1980's.  I wrote about Pewitt's Nest in a blog post in 2016, which you can read here.  In that post, I noted that Skillet Creek will be affected by the new USH 12 bypass and development that I am sure will follow.   The new road is not by itself necessarily overly harmful, but it is what the road interchanges bring that can take a watershed over the tipping point.  The surrounding land use is a matter of local control, and local officials love large big box developments which tend to follow interchanges.  On this Earth Day, we need to see the forest for the trees?

Pewitt's Nest

USH 12 was expanded several years ago in western Dane County from Middleton to Sauk City, but during the planning phase for this project then County Executive Kathleen Falk got WIDOT concurrence for WIDOT to pay for town plans to help preserve the farm land through which the road went from development.  My contacts in Sauk County say much of the reason for the highway came from the politicians in the Village of West Baraboo, and points north (i.e. Wisconsin Dells area).  While we celebrate Earth Day, we also need to think in terms of a renewed and a cohesive environmental ethic.

The main environmental issue that most focus on today, is not air pollution, or water pollution, but climate change.  However, some new books are contending that with a focus on climate change, other aspects of the environmental movement are being ignored.  One commentator said that environmentalists have become number cruncher's in three piece suits walking the halls of varied legislatures.  As I pondered that comment, I suspect there may be some truth to the focus on climate change.  In a sense are they too missing the forest for the trees?  Good ecological practice requires more than the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), but also the 3 E's--Economic, Environmental and Equity. 

Hwy 12 to Pewitt's Nest, about 2800 feet

Sustainability, at many levels, seems to be more related to economics than any other factor.  People were more careful when gasoline prices were in the $4.00/gallon range.  When gas prices are more moderate, as they are today, there is less concern. The world's oceans have large floating islands consisting of plastic waste washed into our streams and lakes and, depending upon the watershed, makes its way to the oceans.  Out of sight, out of mind.  While recycling is important, so too is reduce and reuse.  Human's are, well human.  I am sure that an economist could easily discuss people doing what is in one's self-interest.  However, best-interest and self-interest are not necessarily the same.

Pewitt's Nest

There are many in the nation who don't feel climate change is a real occurrence.  As I look back, I wonder if climate advocates brought it about themselves using the term global warming and people looking at a cold, snowy spring and ask: What global warming?  The Madison area has yet to hit 60 degrees since Jan. 1, the first in recorded weather history.  Hence, part of the reason of the move to the phrase climate change.  The use of the term climate change better denotes larger storm events, and even the existence of colder weather patterns in some areas; in other words it more aptly describes greater variations in the overall weather pattern.  Interestingly, the best article I have ever read on climate change was in "Backpacker" magazine in about 2006, which talked about a study in the Boundary Waters which identified how species in that climate zone were becoming more like species found in central Wisconsin.  Dealing with climate, however, there may be no normal.

Interchange to Pewitt's Nest, about 4,200 feet

Evidence of climate change is easier to spot in other parts of the world.  For example, about a month ago Cardinal John Ribat commented in Washington D.C. that "the southwest Pacific Ocean nation of Papua New Guinea", from which hails, "face dual threats from rising sea levels and the advent of undersea mining for valuable metals."  Americans tend to think the world revolves around us, but it does not.  The world is also those persons in New Guinea, those in the Savannah's of Africa, or the indigenous communities of South America,; they are part of those on the peripheries that Pope Francis had in mind when writing his encyclical, "Laudato Si". This work also brings the equity part of the three E's to the forefront.  Perhaps an introduction in the "New York Times" to "Laudato Si" from June 2015 best summarizes this encyclical:

Pope Francis has written the first papal encyclical focused solely on the environment, attempting to reframe care of the earth as a moral and spiritual concern, and not just a matter of politics, science and economics. In the document, “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home,” he argues that the environment is in crisis – cities to oceans, forests to farmland. He emphasizes that the poor are most affected by damage from what he describes as economic systems that favor the wealthy, and political systems that lack the courage to look beyond short-term rewards. But the encyclical is addressed to everyone on the planet. Its 184 pages are an urgent, accessible call to action, making a case that all is interconnected, including the solutions to the grave environmental crisis.

Pewitt's Nest

Reading the encyclical what came to mind is a need to reinvigorate or change our values and our ethos.  The small actions that people can take will be related to their values, and if we lack a conservation ethic little will happen.  Some things occur, due in part to cost.  Think of LED light bulbs, particularly now that they have declined in price.  But, there is a need to see both the trees and forest.  Let me use one example.  Where I work there is a large basically flat area formed by a former glacial lake with excellent top soil for crops and since it is so flat it does not erode.  Not only that, it is under laid by some of the best geology of soils possessing a high capacity for ground water recharge if not in for much of southern Wisconsin, then for Dane County.  If any place should be preserved for agriculture, and groundwater recharge, it is this.  Yet, there is now a desire to cover 120 acres of this prime agricultural land with solar panels.  Solar panels are a great idea, but placement on some of the best farm and high recharge soils makes little sense.  The  effort, being pushed by an alder-person has many thinking how great this is, look at the electricity that will be produced, and the reduction in green house gases.  What they don't realize is that solar panels are best located where there is a dual purpose, such as on roof tops, over parking lots, or even in an old abandoned quarry or denuded south facing hillside.  Plenty of which exist within about a 1/2 mile of this site.  Instead, there is a lack of a true environmental ethic to see the forest through the trees.  Farmland, in this case, is not thought of as a resource in its own right, but as a place on which to build.  Pursuit of matters in a uni-dimensional view like a solar field on prime farmland is a fools errand of prioritization.  It is not sustainable thinking.  Simply having solar panels which cover prime farmland is not consistent with an overall environmental ethic.  Sustainable thinking requires examination of the whole, is multi-faceted, and needs to work with varied facets of economy, equity and ecology.

Opening Paragraph, "Laudato Si"
2015 Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter "Laudato Si"
Paragraph copied from on-line from pdf version

We need to rethink our scale of economy and create a new ethic that looks at the whole picture in a sustainable measure from more than just climate change.  The use of this 120 acres for a solar farm will take prime farm land out of production, reduce ground water recharge.  but, those two aspects are treated as if they are of lesser importance.   Food and ground water are also very important.  Place the panels over the large asphalt parking lots at the large industrial user just to the north.  Less than three years ago the then Mayor of Fitchburg asked the industrial user to design their 400,000 sq ft footprint addition to accommodate solar panels, they did not do so.  Now, however, some say they are one reason for the solar panel initiative on prime farmland.

Madison set (setting) a record for the most days since the start of  any year without
having at least one day since Jan 1 of that year reach 60 degrees.
This is a first since weather record keeping began
Source:  Channel3000.com, 4/18/2018

When USH 12 was reconstructed near Pewitt's Nest travel and economics trumped environment.  As time moves, the Pewitt's Nest natural area may be affected by the big boxes sure to come to West Baraboo.  Like the solar installation on a prairie south of Madison a multi-faceted approach is required.  So, too is climate one part of a larger ecological whole.  Or, what Pope Francis would term an integral ecology. We, who make the world, need to implement practices that are more than one-dimensional in nature.  This does not mean that small decisions have no effect.  Any small decision that helps lead to an environmental ethic can't be bad.  Small decisions can use the trees to see the forest.  As noted by Pope Francis in this video, the earth is not just our common home, it is our common heritage.  Happy Earth Day!

Pewitt's Nest photos by author, August 2016.
Maps from Google Maps.

The Wife App, 2.0

One appreciates their spouse and it is often for the small things they do and the advice they provide. Like yesterday, my wife made me chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes, however, a spouse can give out more advice than one wants to hear. In this, think of car driving. In a previous 2016 post called "Traits" I wrote how I thought my wife was a “back seat” driver until I came across the comments of a sister-in-law to my brother.  My wife is tame in comparison. this led me to conclude that money could be made with a technology called "teh Wife App."  It would mimic one's wife. In that 2016 post I made the following observation about how technology could advance:  "Let me point out some of the significant benefits of the wife app.: It could provide commentary on speed, lane deviation, and following too close to a vehicle ahead of you in a female voice, not unlike that of a husband’s better half."  As I have been researching new vehicles I came across a new technology available on many General Motor models, that is replicating my thoughts but without the voice.  It is called "Teen Driver Technology."  With wireless service becoming more available in cars, trucks, SUV's cross-overs (and whatever other type of vehicle is out there) it may only be a matter of time before the remote located voice and real-time comments come into play.  GM says the idea of the technology is to allow parent review of their teen driver ability when the parent is not in the car.  This ability allows, as GM puts it, for the parent to coach the teen. 

Teen Driver Technology Center

Technology is fast improving, although with recent collisions the advent of the self-driving car still has a way to go. But technology, through the use of cameras and other technologies, can make driving safer. One such example is blind spot technology. As we age we find that our side-to-side neck movement is not what it once was, this can make it more difficult to look in the blind spot when attempting to change lanes.  My wife can bend down and put her hands flat on the floor without bending her legs, while I am lucky to reach my ankle level, but she cannot turn her head to the side as much as I am still able. This ailment, I believe, is related to her having eyes in the back of her head.  Think about it, with eyes in the back of your head you do not need to turn your head as much.  Thus, one drawback to having eyes in the back of your head.  The human wife app, then, may not be as useful as the blind spot technology package in the car.  In what is usually an upgraded package, you can get a car where the steering wheel kind of nudges you back to your lane as if asking “you sure you want to do that?”

Teen Driving Statistics, Source:  GM website

 Even I have to admit the technology is pretty neat, but I am wary of its unintended consequences.  As the GM web site notes: “The safety feature allows parents to view their teen’s driving habits and use the information to continue to coach their new drivers, even when they can’t be in the car.” The parent can use the setting menu on the vehicle infotainment system (yes, cars now have infotainment centers, no longer a radio, it is multi-functional), to assure that all of the vehicle safety features are on; register the teen’s key fob so the system automatically records when that fob is used and the parental settings take effect; and provide a report card on driving details. Heck, the parent can even set a maximum speed amount to alert the young driver when they go above that pre-determined speed.  The parent can also control the audio system volume so it can be at a reasonable level.  The parent sets all these levels with their own Personal Identification Number, better known as PIN, so it cannot be altered by the teen. Thankfully, younger parents are more tech savvy, so as not to need their teen to set the limits for them. In the past the kids would probably be asked to set their own limits.  "Sure Mom, I have the audio set at no more than setting four, and a maximum speed alert of 55 mph", when in fact they set audio to an ear blowing level, and 75 mph on the alert. Yet, they need to be careful, because the report card will tell the parent the fastest speed recorded. Now, I am not very tech savvy and therein lies my concern with unintended consequences.

GM Teen (read Husband) Driver Report Card

Say I purchase a GM vehicle with this technology, all that has to be done is to replace the word "Teen" with the word "Husband" and my spouse, without my knowing, can set driving parameters, and record my driving habits, set warning limits, and view my Report Card.  Yes, readers, GM will allow a parent to get a Report Card of the driver's capabilities.  In a sense, even when driving alone, the wife app would always be with me.  If my report were to say I traveled over the speed limit, I tend to think my coach (i.e.wife) would be, well, like Vince Lombardi (but, without the word "hell").  If my wife is Vince Lombardi, I wonder what coach would exemplify my sister-in-law?  The GM Teen (Husband) Driver technology even goes beyond what I had envisioned the wife app to be.  The following is from the GM website:

Report Card

Teen Driver is the first feature in the industry to offer a “report card, a feature designed to help coach new drivers.

Once the new driver’s/teen’s key fob is registered to the vehicle and the Teen Driver feature, parents can obtain a report card of various driving parameters on the vehicle’s infotainment screen to view driving habits and discuss with their teen driver.

The report card shows:

·         Distance driven

·         Maximum speed reached

·         Stability control events

·         Antilock brake events

·         Forward Collision Alerts (if equipped)

·         Forward Collision Avoidance Braking events (if equipped)

Additional Features & Benefits

Teen Driver helps protect young drivers behind the wheel in the following ways:

·         Muting the radio or the audio features of any devices paired with the radio until front seat occupants are wearing safety belts

·         Limiting the maximum volume of the radio

·         When a speed warning set between 40 and 75 mph, providing a visual warning and audible chime, if exceeded

·         Automatically turning on active safety features and preventing the ability to disable them, including:

o    Stability Control

o    Front/ Rear Park Assist

o    Side Blind Zone Alert

o    Forward Collision Alert

o    Daytime Running Lamps

o    Forward Collision Avoidance Braking

o    Traction Control

o    Front Pedestrian Braking

o    Lane Keep Assist

Source and Read more: http://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/general-motors-technology/gm-safety-technology/gm-active-safety-technology/general-motors-teen-driver-technology/#ixzz5CUWGkl4i

Cameras, today, are ubiquitous.  Technologies are being developed to let, for example, an older child know if their aged parent got out of bed in the morning.  At some point new technology can seem be intrusive, and even kind of creepy. Will these new driving technologies make the human wife app, and their "backseat" driving obsolete?  I doubt it.  My wife is to clever to not adapt so I am sure there will come some new form of the human wife app. A reinvention if you will.  Hence, at some point I may be writing about the (human) Wife App, 3.0 and what she next brings to the car driving experience. And, when my spouse reads this, after her first question on cost, she may well direct the purchase of our next vehicle to be from GM.  A husband watch device would just be too good for her to pass up, after all that is the purpose of the Wife App.

Yearbook

It was a book from 1974, 44 years distant.  The book was about to be thrown out, but I recovered the book if but for no other purpose than to find pictures of one particular person. It was a high school yearbook, the ones that provide memories of past days of youth.  The photo of the person I was looking for was stuck between Melvin Fritz and John Goodwin.  The picture I found showed a female with long hair; a slight smile crossed the closed lips, the type that could almost become a smirk.  Being black and white there is not way to discern color. 

Long hair must have been common at that time, as of the six girls on the page, five had hair longer than shoulder length.  I should remember long hair as being popular since only two or three years before this photo when I was in 7th or 8th grade there was a silhouette project for art, and the silhouettes were hung in the library for all to see.  There was one that stood out not due to the particular profile being well executed in silhouette, but a prank pulled to the art work.  It was of a girl with long hair draping down her back, with heard and hair obviously in black construction paper and someone had placed a white streak down the back edge of the hair.  From that day forward she received the nickname "Skunk."  Today that would be bullying, back then it was funny, although the girl was not amused.  But, back to this story.   The faces on the page had last names which stretched from Falk to Grinwald. If nothing else, a high school or college year book can give us a snapshot in time.  Clothing, and hair style is more easily discerned than that of any particular values.   For example, unlike today all the boys on this page were attired with a tie with sport or suit coat for their senior class photograph. Yet, values can be discerned by using other measures--activities in which one participate can be one measure.

Page from 1974 Senior Year Book
Mukwonago High School

The name of the person I wanted to view was followed by activities in which she had participated.  It reads: "FMCC 4; Chorus 1,2,3,4; Chamber Singers 4."  Clearly, the person liked to sing.    This person transferred into this school during her freshman year, but one has to pity poor Melvin, the boy to the left of her photo, who transferred as a senior and has no index of what he may have done while in high school.    That simple note makes him an outlier from the other 13 on the page.  Of the 14 persons listed on the page, the index on the right side identifies three (not including Melvin) as not having participated in any extra-curricular activities.  Jim Fleury was the jock on the page having participated in football and basketball all four years, baseball his first two, and track his last two.  A three season sport athlete.  He also, somehow, found time for intramural volleyball his last two years.  His photo reminds me of the character Johnny Clay, the three-season athlete in the movie "Radio" (which depicted events in the year 1976).  Johnny Clay meet Jim Fleury.

Choir Photo, Sophomore year

I commandeered the yearbooks from a pile of books to be tossed or recycled or reused, to the dismay of the person doing the tossing. This is history being tossed, and I needed to recover some artifacts.  I recovered yearbooks for her sophomore though senior years. And while she cannot recall what the FMCC in the prior paragraph meant  she did know of the three class photos, she made the dress she wore in two of the photos, and she also knew what color the dresses were.  Yellow, was the color of the dress for her senior year.  Her Junior year she wore a sweater with a large turtle neck collar.  The collar made me think of the movie "Love Story" and the big sweaters with overly large collars worn in the movie, which was made in 1970.  Perhaps she was wanting to hide something on her neck, but I really doubt it.  While she can recall the dresses she made, wore, and their color(s), her only recollection of FMCC was that it may have been medical related.  Apparently FMCC left little in the way of long-lasting memories.

Mixed Choir

Yearbooks are for a person, or in this case their spouse, to peruse and look back in time.  She has never really shared much of her high school years and while I can see her slight smile in her senior photo, her chorus photo group photo has no smile, but more a look of disinterest.  It must have been some choir class, since few seem to be smiling.  With some imagination one can call out the red, blue and white colors in this 1970's floral print hand-made dress.  Notably, the length of the dress is above the knee, but longer than other girls in the front row. She would not, it appears, be sent home from school for a dress code violation.  I am sure her mom would have made sure that did not happen.  The same dress is being worn in a photo of her in mixed chorus, where she is seated and partially hidden by the girl sitting in front of her.  In this photo she has a large smile on her face.  I guess this class must have gone well, or she was thinking of what she was going to be doing after school.

Junior Year, where's Toni?

I could have further perused the books for notes and commentary about lost or forgotten loves, mundane or perhaps true notes about how she will be missed, or some other aspect driven by young hormones.  But, she told me none existed, and ever the non-doubter (yes, I really am the antithesis of my namesake), I believed her.  Times and styles have changed, but yearbooks remain the much the same.  They provide memories and photos of the past, and note school accomplishments.  The yearbooks of my wife's high school years, absent the pages I mined, lie in the Dane County landfill, a few miles from where she presently resides. That is many miles from Mukwonago, and years distant from her days in high school.  But, the few mined photos may provide some interest in years to come.

Junior Year answer:  fourth row down, second from the left

Swoosh

Over 40 some years ago my high school had some very good boys basketball teams. While they never made it to the state tournament, they came within a game of playing at the UW Fieldhouse. Our immediate family would occasionally be visited by my mom’s brother and his wife who lived in Chicago. My uncle was a petroleum salesman, and his job would take him around the Chicago area to industrial plants and car dealers, and places in between so he well knew the city of Chicago. While visiting us it was not unusual for him to comment that he could probably find some groups of Chicago street boys who could play and beat the Sun Prairie High School team in basketball. Basketball being played in the urban playgrounds, and empty lots of large cities is a stereotype, but in many respects it seemed to fit reality if not now, certainly back then. My uncle would have seen his share of pickup basketball games while travelling about Chicago. This gets me to swoosh, it is not only the sound of orange ball going through the net or chains of the rim, but it is also the sound of urban living: the packages on a conveyor belt, the large truck on the expressway, or the basketball going through a net.

Loyola of Chicago 1963 National Champion Team

When I was a student of urban geography so long ago in the 1970’s, American Cities were not the hipster, millennial dominated places with craft breweries, distilleries, urban lofts, or chocolatiers as is seemingly common in the urban landscape of today. One would not really want to live in many areas of the city. For some, however, the cultural forces inherent in demography, transportation, income, and race dictated certain situations. One common, although generally academic, book titled The Unheavenly City, by Edward Banfield, and his later The Unheavenly City Revisited, can generally sum up the urban situation. It was an era of loss of American jobs in the large old factories and plants which would later become the sleek sought after urban lofts; there was decay, poverty, riots, red-lining, and white flight. Or, for those who gravitate to popular culture, the 1969 song popularized by Elvis “In the Ghetto” would give a taste of the despair present in the nation’s major urban areas. Swoosh, the middle class vacated the cities for the suburbs and the size of the demographic was such as to alter the landscape of the nation. This has reverberated down to this day in the national land use pattern.

Four Villanova Players at Conclusion of NCAA Title Game

Recently, before the NCAA Men’s basketball championship game last Monday, on March 30, 2018, the New York Times had an article by Marc Tracy titled: “Why Catholic Colleges Excel at Basketball”. One of the main points the author made ties my above two stories together. The author notes a number of reasons for why Catholic colleges seem to do well in basketball. They range from the nature of their “mission-oriented institutions” to what he terms the sociological and spiritual.  one specific quote is instructive:

Several characteristics of Catholicism in America, both sociological and spiritual, have helped determine this affinity: the Catholic Church’s decision not to abandon the urban poor in America particularly in the second half of the 20th century, when so many other institutions did was particularly significant.

Many of these Catholic colleges and universities were formed, the article goes on, to serve immigrants of the working class.  The Poles, Irish, Italians, and other ethnic groups upon which discrimination was heaped because they did not meet the nice clean White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant definition upon which this nation had (has?) so long relied. Yes, the nation liked these immigrants for the labor they provided in the factories and hell-holes of urban life, but society desired that they be kept in their place. These schools were founded to provide higher education to the children of  immigrant parents or grandparents in the large cities to which they were attracted to find work: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, being some main examples the Times article pointed out.  Basketball fit a need for the urban area, and for urban Catholic colleges, as it did not require a great deal of space, and teams did not have to be big (as opposed to football). Over 20 Catholic schools dropped football before 1954, including Loyola-Chicago which dropped football in the 1930; Marquette dropped football in 1960. Today only Boston College and Notre Dame have division 1 football bowl subdivision programs. Football, as opposed to basketball, is a much more money intensive sport. Catholic schools were, by need, in many respects the first to reduce, reuse and recycle. My Catholic grade school, for example, would mimeograph assignments on the back of paper from CUNA (secured by the husband of a teacher) so I was surprised upon entering public school how the back of paper was always blank. Basketball was the selected sport because, as noted by Hofstra University professor Julie Byrne (quoted in the NY Times article)—it was cheap. It did not need the high overhead of football. In the 1960’s as more and more white Catholics moved out as part of the white flight, the parishes and schools stayed and the CYO leagues would continue, albeit with a more mixed racial, ethnic, and religious dimension than when created. And as American Studies professor James Fisher said to the Times, as the Catholic parishes and schools stayed, black kids were more and more admitted regardless of religious affiliation. He goes on to say that “the church turned demographic fact into theological virtue by embracing urban advocacy and racial justice.” The Catholic schools, as the article noted, became a magnet for some black athletes. Think Bill Russell at the University of San Francisco (who helped the team win two straight NCAA titles in the 1950's), or the 1963 Loyola of Chicago national champion team being the first to break the unwritten rule of the color barrier limiting the number of black players allowed on the court at one time.

Marquette University 1936 Cotton Bowl Football Team
(Personal note, my Dad is front row, fourth in from left)

The NY times article uses the example of the former great Marquette coach, Al McGuire, who being from New York, used his personality to recruit black New York residents to the Midwest school. Fisher notes that McGuire would say that he may not have lived in the neighborhood, but he lived next door.   Al McGuire is quoted as saying he would not recruit a kid with grass in the front yard, that was not his neighborhood.  His neighborhood was urban and cracked sidewalks.  Much of the urban tradition of American Catholic colleges owes to the Jesuit nature—think Marquette, Loyola (not Big East), Georgetown, Xavier, Creighton, all urban schools. But, add in DePaul, St. John’s (NY), and Seton Hall, and you have much of the basketball Big East which was formed out of the ruins when the big public universities left to form the power five football conferences. In fact, when the Big East was reconstituted as mainly a basketball conference, sportswriters, and the power house universities of football scoffed at its basketball-based existence and believed it would never be able to make it without any football schools. But, yet the Big East has proven them wrong. Big East member Villanova has won two of the three past Men’s NCAA tournaments. Two of the top four seeds were from the Big East in the 2018 tournament. Catholic colleges represented 9 of the 64 teams in the tournament.

Al McGuire, Hank Raymond, and Rick Majerus closing seconds
of Marquette win in 1977 

Continuing a failed line of thought some commentators have since claimed that Villanova was not that good of a team.  Yet, they beat another #1 seed Kansas by 16, and beat every other team they faced in the tournament by double digits--only the fourth team in tournament history to do so.  Villanova head coach Jay Wright makes $2.6 million annually, but to win the tournament most teams he had to beat were led by a coach with a higher salary: John Beilein of Michigan ($3.4 million), Bob Huggins of West Virginia ($3.8) and the great Bill Self of Kansas who is paid $5 million a year. Wright is probably due for a raise. But what Jay Wright does is to find the second and third tier players and form them into a team. That is why even though Michigan shut down Villanova’s starting five for part of the game, Michigan had no answer for the 6th man who came off the bench to score 31 points. The team adapted, and work to find the open man.  Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal believes that the Wisconsin team which lost to Duke in the championship game a few years ago could have beaten the 2018 Nova team. Why? He explained it is because Wisconsin had superstar (Catholic high school product) Frank Kaminsky. But, what he gets wrong is that Nova played a team game, where it is not dependent on one or two players, or even, as was shown, its starting five. By focus on a few Potrykus falls into the trap that team effort does not matter. If anything this year’s tournament should have given him pause in his ridiculous post tournament analysis. Kentucky is made of one and done's where did they end up?  Loyola made the final four playing unselfishly as a team, with three games decided in the last seconds by only a few points in each, and in each game a different player made the game winning shot. Loyola, as an eleven seed, lacked the talent of the many power house teams, but they played together.  It was the virtues of team work, persistence and a belief in themselves that allowed them to transcend the expected first game loss to a higher seed, and to continue that trek to the semi-final game. Loyola brought back some meaning and hope to college basketball felled by scandal.

Marquette National Championship Team Photo
Al McGuire always did things his way.

Many institutions left the inner cities of our nation decades ago creating an atmosphere that the hipster urban dwellers of today would not recognize. That is not to say there is not still poverty, or decay, or racial isolation but in many cases sections of our urban areas have been gentrified over the last decade or two. It is now hip to live in the city, and food, beverage places have followed. But yet, in many of the large urban cities of our nation there is one institution that remained constant through the era of white flight, poverty and neglect of the 1960’s into the 1980’s (and even beyond). While the hipsters drink their designer coffee, beer, or whiskey, or do their yoga in the park, they may well benefit by looking to what urban life was like 30 to 60 years ago. The swoosh of Villanova’s three pointers against Kansas, and the swoosh of the in-lane action against Michigan had its start in the early years of urban Catholic schools like the University of San Francisco, Loyola, Holy Cross, DePaul, Georgetown and Marquette.  Those urban dwellers with the cracked sidewalks produce some remarkable athletes.  Perhaps my Uncle was right, some street kids from Chicago could have taken down the Sun Prairie High School team.