Saturday, April 17, 2010

The Raccoon News and Entourage Move to Five Points Is Complete
As of yesterday the exodus from the old stand was effective, and the address here is 308 South Street, No. 311 Waukesha WI 53186
Phone 262 547 1427 (same)
Email ddix1@wi.rr.com (also same)

Several years ago we penned a poem about the Five Points, the historic city hub, and the original formation of this convergng street pattern we now look down upon. At that time it was not known that we would someday live here. Irony of ironies. And we wrote:

IN WAUKESHA

We don’t think about it very much anymore

but the ghosts of Native Americans might;

we walk, or alas, drive their ancient trading trails

paved many times over;

even our later inter-urban streetcar tracks

are now out of sight,

buried like their lightly-beaten paths

by time and poured concrete,

and newcomers can’t get the gist of traveling downtown,

can’t figure these streets out because so many diagonals

cut through strangely, they say.

But it was all so simple then

for the woodland people

to follow their converging spoke-like paths

to the now downtown five points trading posts,

no doubt

going through thick woods

from their outlying settlements,

intending to live forever in their homeland

upon which they trod so gently.

Pioneers built great improvements

on their sacred burial grounds

and cannons stand in the library park

passing time’s additions, tentatively,

muddying the purer water of days

dim to us, unknown;

but not to the ghosts

who watched the flowing streams

clear away many other silty stirrings

only for a moment hiding customary clarity.

We are being watched by these patient spirits,

these spector ‘savages’ who knew so much.

Their way to our downtown

is abiding.

(Originally printed in LANDMARK, the quarterly of the Waukesha Historic Society)

....................................

Here we are today in a loft while the sewer raccoons we began writing about in Dec. 2007 romp - or ceremonially, somberly progress in and out of their primary meeting chamber - which is beneath the old post office. Only one block from here.

Unlike before, the SRN is very close to the raccoonage zeitgeist. We feel the electricity. And we are plugged in through the help and muscle and kindness of many friends and relatives to whom we tender great thanks!













These are early pictures. Things are not arranged as they will be. Pictures are unhung and leaning against the walls, objets d'art scattered about, boxes to be unpacked; some order to be established.
But we are here, be it known, and the South (Street) -land shall rise again.