Ref. - past things; Not just whistlin' Dixie; A rainy morning; Potatoes in; Wm's bi-plane; Angel; Grandfathers great

Forgot to mention this last Saturday:

Note that Wis signed his name squiggly
to pick up on the worm-eaten theme.
He hasn't told me this
but I noticed it and I think he meant it....

.......

A missed picture from the Pancake Supper

The Radtkes were there.

I didn't mean to leave this picture out.
One of the best likenesses I got!

.......

A K. Redding bulletin board Easter original

.......

An Easter bunny, sans ears, came this year to the Odd Fellows.

We saw basket grass he/she made on our paper shredder - in green and pink.

Candy delicacies pretty sure from Allo Chocolat.

Nice.

.......

Before church

I slipped two pews back in the Galleria Peanut

 and snapped this one.

Imagine me on his right, and next to me

the other book-end, William. *(see asterisk below.)

The church was packed moments later.

The Easter music rocked on the anthem

with the choir under direction of Mark Schmidt

swayed left and right in unison

right out of a storefront What'shappninnow church,

prompting this Email afterwards:

"Mark Mark Mark

What hast thou wrought?

Did I see our suburban choristers

Swaying left to right

Negro-wise during the anthem?

Did my old eyes deceive me

Or was I sitting too far back

In the peanut gallery?

The Congo twice-visiting Chreasters

Must have thought

Has it come to this?

Answer, (LOUD and clear)

Rootin-tootin “Hi-yell YAY’-uh!”

This IS  what’s happenin’ now

Come and see

Hear the rocking keyboards

The zesty voices

In bodies going left

Going right - fingers poppin’

Eyes flashing in glee

And afterwards in the sanctuary

As awestruck Chreasters filed out,

A pick-up round-the-piano group

Singing the Beatles “Let It Be”

(Thank you Jesus)

Made MY day

I’ll tell you that!
More of that for sure

This gallerista’s sword is unsheathed!

And I ain’t just whistlin’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prBXNwxjU4I"

.......

I could have seen this happening outside my OF window
and have:

A Rainy Morning

by Ted Kooser

A young woman in a wheelchair,
wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain,
is pushing herself through the morning.
You have seen how pianists
sometimes bend forward to strike the keys,
then lift their hands, draw back to rest,
then lean again to strike just as the chord fades.
Such is the way this woman
strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers,
letting them float, then bends again to strike
just as the chair slows, as if into a silence.
So expertly she plays the chords
of this difficult music she has mastered,
her wet face beautiful in its concentration,
while the wind turns the pages of rain.

"A Rainy Morning" by Ted Kooser from Delights & Shadows. © Copper Canyon Press, 2004.

.......


From Dee's sister out in Pleasant Valley Maryland last night:

Dear Dee  and David,

      We planted potatoes this evening.  We only planned 100 lb instead of 150 lb. Using the antique planter that Lucas borrowed from Chris, it took us less than 1 hour.  Then I planted peas, onions and some lettuce.  I know that we can buy the stuff at the store, but there is something special about growing your own.  Dad was happy we planted it and talked about the other things to plant.  He gets upset that he can not do it, but then talks that he is glad we paid attention.  It was breezy, but sunny today.  He has been on the porch on these warm days.

      I printed off the last raccoon news, so Mom and Dad could see Erin's apartment.  Mom really enjoyed it. 

               Take Care!

                            Lots of Love,

                                          Donna

Dee gardening in Maryland herself
some few years ago...

.......
*

Speaking of William:

Wm shows me his Leggo Sopwith bi-plane
last Sunday.

His Leggo work area over a stairwell.

.......


Son of Jose,
http://raccoonnews.blogspot.com/2008/08/yes-go-to-daves.html

Owner and chief cook at Dave's Restaurant
at the Five Points Waukesha,

>Angel Suarez<
(below)

Angel waited on the Rev. Leroy and me early today (Fri.)
with his cheerful countenance
and swift service.

He said it would be OK to shoot his picture
at booth-side taking our order
and then came back and said he was going
to cook himself a Denver Omelet
if I wanted that...

He joked about how his dad, Jose,
was slowing down cooking and needed help.
Jose smiled.

Angel is studying business at WCTC
and is a good kid.
He works at the restaurant to earn money
and to help his dad out...

.......

>A grandfather and a great-grandfather<

David Dix, son of David Zep Dix (pictured)
and Emmalee
this week at the Odd Fellows

Big finish

Willis Guthrie: Mother and child; S'wonderful, D. Krall; Teaching; All you can eat

MOTHER AND CHILD by Willis Guthrie
on permanent display at the Congregational church
100 E Broadway, Waukesha

Wis Guthrie is known for his assembly of found objects.
Discarded things sometimes pulled out of dumpsters.
He has been a Quaker friend of our church for decades
backing up his wife Ina, SS superintendent
and since her passing Wis still attends services.

Here is an assembly by Wis of old picture frames
with the incidental but central focus being a silhouette outline cut with a
small saw, of Mary and Jesus.

Wis explained MOTHER AND CHILD thusly:

"I wanted to combine old picture frames, even a plastic one,  around 
representative icon Mother and Child in the way one finds sometimes in 
European art museums.  Where the central art object may be missing
but suggested by a silhouette as I have done with this.
The ornate framing thus becomes what people see.

I took a piece of worm-eaten wood, mitered it and it became part of the whole."

Wis has frequently bequeathed his principle of 'random' beauty, even worm-work,
to art students and those taking his Carroll (University) art history course
sometimes for the kicks.  The kindly professor, 96, has been retired
for some years but still gives talks when asked.

Note:  The church owns this featured artwork through the generosity of
 George and Edith Love.

.......

 S'wonderful. Diana Krall

PLAY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyK_RfXWY1U

.......

Teaching Mavis to Ride a Bike

by Faith Shearin

We practiced in Baltimore's alleys with her dress

tucked in so it would not catch in her wheels.

It was late summer and we waited until after supper

when the sun melts. I held the seat and handlebars

and she pedaled as fast as she could. She has

such thin legs, such balance. It did not take

long before she left me standing in place:

hands in my pockets, throat full of hope.

"Teaching Mavis to Ride a Bike" by Faith Shearin, from Moving the Piano.  

 State University Press, 2011

.......

ALL YOU CAN EAT *

A trip last weekend to Appleton
had us visiting our daughter Erin
and her accomplice Ben in their home
in a renovated old paper mill buildng
along the Fox River within walking
distance to the Lawrence campus
where both are employed.

See: http://www.historicfoxrivermills.com/

The Fox river flows by as folks converse.

Dee arranges tulips for kitchen counter.

(Picture taken from across the vast room with zoom)

Smaller rooms fit from large industrial space.

Antique family water color from Grandma Bunker via Erin's
grandmother Ruth (Dix) Hale, fits, too.

Erin accessorizes with a birthday gourd, - 'Treasure Gourd' - I made
for her 10th bithday, Jan. 5, 1996.

Burned into the gourd are these words:

"Erin's ten, and then again,
she'll be much more
I'll not guess when..."

Ben accessorizes with his gourd elephant horn,
a Xmas gift from us since he collects elephant-ware.
He cleverly adapted his instrument with a
dryer vent-tube in the bell end.
In that way he's muffled the trumpeting blasts 
for the benefit of neighbors, though the walls
at the Fox River Mills apartments are nicely thick.

Erin shows us the Lawrence reunion brochure she worked on.

One of the purposes of the Appleton excursion was to attend
the second concert of VENTO WINDS community wind band
she is playing in, a gifts-contributing volunteer start-up group
of high caliber.  It was good to see Erin back at her music.

Vento Winds conductor Andrew Mast, Lawrence University Conservatory

Mill tower out Erin and Ben's dining room window.

A Mourning Dove nested on a window ledge.

* Asterisk notation from above:
On the computer screen, top picture, is our friend William
serving 'all you can eat' extra helpings at the previously-reported
1st Congregational UCC pancake supper.
(Wm is in the orange T shirt.)

From the windshield
our northern drive weather was ominous
both going and returning home,
rain causing bursting clouds,
making floods and catastrophes
and leading us to say that even this fits
- as this is Good Friday - when we put
finishing touches on the Sat. Raccoon.


And tomorrow:

.......

Cap for earless bunny; Being read to; The irrepressible; Annual pancake; Posting two follows

This Easter Dee gets down the old bunny figurine.

I 've tried to reglue the broken ears back onto it several times

but the glue never holds

so this year Dee found a beanie beret for him.

The orange garment was once played with

by the girl pictured below doing the reading,

It fit one of her playtime dollies...

then it was played with by our Erin.

Earless Easter rabbit problem solved.

It will get an egg on the carrots at the right time.

Subject boy - showing great bump on his forehead

both in this exposure and the one above -

being read to by his mother,

having hit his head on the sidewalk 

next to the Baptist Church at Grand and Wis Aves.

He was walking a pipe fence for the benefit of his

schoolmates coming home from Union School kindergarten.
The bump lasted for a long time.
Some say the boy's brain was addled to this day...

.......

The Irrepressible,
collectively

Wis goes to church last Sunday...

picked him up here...

and we hopped, skipped, and jumped to the Congo, center spire.

Picture taken from the roof of the parking ramp

halfway between Wis's and our residence.

Joe Beringer and Ron Abrahamson

buddies at breakfast, Christina's,

their long-time hang-out, 4-10-14

Jim Golding, Pewaukee, also member of the Joe Beringer Breakfast Club.

.......

The annual Pancake

Supper was again a community-wide event

at the Congo (1st Congregational UCC Church)

4-8-14

and the pancakes get made on an antique (now) pancake machine

turning griddle.  It was made in the 1950s by Greene Machine Sop
in Waukesha for both the Congregational Church and
the Waukesha Rotary Club.  We were to own it 50-50 which 
is the case today.  So we share it for our separately-conducted
pancake events.

It is its original configuration and happily no one has
taken the notion to paint it. Clean as a whistle and original paint.

The batter is mixed by a machine which we (the church) now own.
But previously some of us drove out to Phantom Lake YMCA camp
to borrow theirs for our supper, which they graciously allowed us to do.
Then we would take it back to the camp right after, all cleaned up.

I remember the last time we made that Mukwonago trip 
for the machine, Jim Barron and 2 others whose names I momentarily forget,
and we stopped for breakfast on the way back, in Mukwonago.


Bill Huelsman is the traditional operator of the batter dropper
as is pictured in an earlier Raccoon, but this year Bob Gordie
did the honors.

Bill Glasenapp, holding his checklist, sees everything is running smoothly
at the beginning of the supper that starts at 3:30 pm and runs until 7.

Days/hours of preparation ensue before that, work done by Bill and
a host of volunteers from the church.
Men, women and children.

As part of our successful capital fund drive,
this year's pancake supper was the first use of the renovated basement kitchen,
many sweat-equity people working hard to get it finished in time.
No small task but done!
More irrepressibility.

Behind John Kennedy who is loading sausages is the old warming oven
which did not get disposed of, at least not yet.  The old range shown below is now replaced.

Cannot guess over the years how many church meals were prepared 
on this ancient appliance.....
gone but not forgotten.

Cont'd at link following