tag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=1Blog2023-10-16T02:55:51-12:00Curtis & Lorettafalsetag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963162019-05-20T12:00:00-12:002020-09-18T05:03:14-12:00Video of final "When There's Good to Be Done" concert
<h1>The final concert of our "When There's Good to Be Done" tour throughout Minnesota, funded in part by the MN State Arts Board, was held at the Owatonna Arts Center, on May 4. Here's the link to the video, which was made courtesy of Limberg Productions. Click on the link, then scroll down to the Curtis & Loretta video.</h1>
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<p><a href="http://www.owatonnalive.com/Arts-and-History.html" data-imported="1">http://www.owatonnalive.com/Arts-and-History.html</a></p>
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<p>It was a very special afternoon, with a wonderful crowd filling the chairs. The Arts Center is located in the building that was originally the main building of the Minnesota State Public School Orphanage. We sang many of the the songs from the CD, all about real people who overcame great challenges in their lives. But absolutely the most touching were the songs I wrote about two men who grew up at the Orphanage, in the 1930s and 40s, especially because they were with us, in the audience! After the concert, Peter Razor and Harvey Ronglien spoke to the audience and answered questions. It was so very poignant to hear their stories right at the Orphanage where they grew up.</p>
Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963152019-04-30T12:00:00-12:002020-01-13T09:09:24-12:00Two final concerts of "When There's Good to Be Done" Tour
<p>We are so thankful to the Minnesota State Arts Board, for awarding us the Arts Tour Minnesota Grant. It has been a wonderful year of touring across Minnesota, presenting our concert, "When There's Good to Be Done," at many locations. It's hard to believe that we have only two more concerts remaining! Thursday, May 2 we'll be at the Princess Theater in St James, and May 4 we'll be at the Owatonna Arts Center in Owatonna. </p>
<p>Thank you to everyone who has helped make this 22 city concert tour happen! From volunteers at the venues, to local newspapers who covered our events, to "Friends of the Library" who served refreshments, and of course our wonderful audiences, we are thankful from the bottom of our hearts!</p>
<p><a href="/calendar" data-imported="1" data-link-type="page">Click here for all the details on these two concerts!</a></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/1452d549f70d18fbf4cf2548e38cb48518bf0356/original/st-james-letter-may2.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTcwMHgyMjAwIl0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="2200" width="1700" /></p>
Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963142019-03-14T12:00:00-12:002019-03-15T08:50:30-12:00LATEST NEWS ON ARTS TOUR MINN GRANT
<p>Here's the latest on our "When There's Good to Be Done" tour, backed by an Arts Tour Minnesota grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.</p>
<p>-- Our March 9 concert at the Owatonna Arts Center had to be postponed because of extreme winter weather. It has been re-scheduled for Saturday, May 4 at 2 pm.<a href="/calendar" data-imported="1" data-link-type="page"> All the details are here.</a></p>
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<p>-- We continue to marvel at the subjects in our songs! Just a few days ago, we heard that a man who heard our song, "When There's Good to Be Done," was inspired to donated his own kidney to a stranger after hearing it. Our song is the true story of Christy Harding, who donated her kidney to a little girl she found on Facebook.<a href="https://www.curtisandloretta.com/news/uplifting_news_from_wtip_radio/" data-imported="1"> Read about it here!</a></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/c155797914dc63b585508008426eccf81ee55d42/original/dsc-0644.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjAwMHg0MDAwIl0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="4000" width="6000" /></p>
<p><strong> Curtis & Loretta sing "When There's Good to Be Done" at Moose Lake Public Library on October 29, 2018</strong></p>
<p>-- Besides the re-scheduled Owatonna concert, on May 4, there is one more concert before our tour across Minnesota ends. It will be Thursday, April 11, at the Princess Theater in St James, Minnesota. <a href="/calendar" data-imported="1" data-link-type="page">All the details are here!</a></p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963132019-02-19T12:00:00-12:002019-02-20T08:29:54-12:00Next "When There's Good to Be Done" concert March 9
<p>We'll be in concert at the Owatonna Arts Center on Saturday, March 9 at 2 pm. This is the 21st concert of a 22 concert tour across Minnesota, funded in part by the Arts Tour Minnesota grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. The program is "When There's Good to Be Done," original songs of Minnesota unsung heroes. </p>
<p>This is a very special concert, since I wrote two of the songs about men who grew up at the Minnesota State School Orphanage, which was housed in the very building that is now the Owatonna Arts Center. After the one hour concert, one of the men, author Peter Razor, will be on hand for a question and answer session with the audience. Refreshments will follow. Please join us! <a href="/calendar" data-imported="1" data-link-type="page">All the details are here.</a></p>
<p>Here are photos from one of the tour dates, at The Barn Theatre in Willmar, MN on October 13, 2018. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/df973782082c3e19a8408f5f95dc624aee9d9874/original/dsc-0473.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjAwMHg0MDAwIl0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="4000" width="6000" /></p>
<p>Curtis & Loretta onstage, singing "On the Day They Said I Do."</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/eb47dbb49ae3febd4805b6ad995ec61a71bc60cc/original/dsc-0532.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6ODAweDUzMyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="533" width="800" /></p>
<p> After the concert, discussion and Q and A with four of The Willmar 8, who carried out the first bank strike in the U.S., back in 1977. From left to right, Sylvia Erickson Koll, Sandy Treml, Teren Novotny, Irene Wallin, with Loretta Simonet leading the discussion. </p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963122018-10-30T12:00:00-12:002021-12-14T18:04:57-12:00Arrowhead Library Concerts!
<p>We have had such wonderful audiences at our concerts up here in northeastern Minnesota! We are doing 19 concerts at Arrowhead Libraries, from Baudette way over to Grand Marais. We've covered lots of miles, seen lots of deer, and had a great musical experience. As we share our original songs of Minnesota heroes, many people have told us their stories! Yesterday a woman in the audience told us of her nephew, who donated a kidney to a person he didn't know. After the concert in Moose Lake, someone in the audience told us of the terrible fire that engulfed that part of the state in 1918. It consumed Hinckley, Moose Lake, and much more. They told us of how some people were able to escape, while some were not so fortunate. These songs I wrote spark conversations about other real-life people, and what they have been through. I love our job! </p>
<p>These concerts of part of the "Arts Tour Minnesota" grant I received from the Minnesota State Arts Board; it's a part of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.</p>
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<p>Top Photo - Our concert in Grand Rapids</p>
<p>Bottom Photo - Peter Razor speaks at the concert in International Falls</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/7e4911c75beaeb97cff8fe25629f9e0a0286b731/original/dsc-0577.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTAwMHg2NjciXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Curtis & Loretta onstage at Grand Rapids Library, MN" height="667" width="1000" /></p>
Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963112018-10-14T12:00:00-12:002021-12-14T18:05:26-12:00Survey form for "When There's Good to Be Done" Concerts
<p>Have you attended one of our "When There's Good to Be Done" concerts? We're doing 22 concerts across Minnesota, backed by an Arts Tour Minnesota grant from the MN State Arts Board, starting with Oct 13 at the Barn Theatre in Willmar.<a href="/calendar" data-imported="1" data-link-type="page"> Click here to see where the rest of the concerts will be! </a> http://www.curtisandloretta.com/gig</p>
<p>If you were at one of our concerts, and didn't fill out a survey form at the end, please download it here and mail it to us at Curtis & Loretta, PO Box 18652, Minneapolis, MN 55418. Thank you so much! Your answers will help us improve future concerts. </p>
<p>If you did fill out a survey form, please feel free to leave any feedback you like as a comment on this blog post. Thank you!!</p>
<p><a href="/files/654239/evaluation-form-good-to-be-done.pdf" data-imported="1">Evaluation.form.Good.to.Be.Done.pdf</a></p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963102017-05-03T12:00:00-12:002017-05-04T10:29:49-12:00Harvey Ronglien turns 90 years old
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<p>You can come wish Harvey Ronglien a Happy 90th Birthday tomorrow, Fri May 5, at the Owatonna Center for the Arts / Orphanage Museum, in Owatonna, Minnesota. Open House from 3 pm - 6 pm. This extraordinary gentleman endured a love-less upbringing at the orphanage, but somehow grew up to be a generous and caring husband and father. He spent many years educating people about the history of the orphanage, starting the museum there, writing a book, and giving talks and tours. Such dedication.</p>
<p>I wrote the song "Case 9164" in 2015, after reading Harvey's book, and interviewing him. You can read more about him here.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.curtisandloretta.com/blog/harvey_rongliens_story___state_schooler/" data-imported="1">http://www.curtisandloretta.com/blog/harvey_rongliens_story___state_schooler/</a></p>
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<p>You can listen to his song on the Music Player, in the lower left hand corner of this page. Just scroll down to Case 9164, and hit the little arrow next to it.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/7de1190766fccc846cae1f342592321c4fe1328c/original/harveyronglien.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjM3eDk2MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="960" width="637" /></p>
<p> This is Harvey's high school graduation picture</p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963092015-11-08T12:00:00-12:002020-09-08T18:17:24-12:00Larry & Doreen Von Berg - "Give Love a Chance"
<p>Larry Von Berg picked up the Star Tribune one day in September of 2013, and read an article about homelessness in the Twin Cities. Toward the end of the article, a name jumped off the page at him. Doreen Marie Donovan. He had finally found her! It said she was working at a homeless shelter in Minneapolis. It was five miles from the Courage Center, where he worked. He hadn’t seen Doreen since 1974. They had volunteered together at the U of M back then, and went out together a few times. They had both moved away and lost touch. But that was about to change!</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/b23576e16b74bb6d6655e721a680cd71e0fc1237/original/larry-doreen-kiss.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDgweDY0MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="640" width="480" /></p>
<p><strong> Larry and Doreen Von Berg</strong></p>
<p>In 2014, Larry and Doreen were re-united, after a 40 year separation. I read about it in a subsequent Star Tribune article. I was deep into my grant song-writing project, and had identified the people I wanted to write about for eleven of the songs. In fact, most of the songs were already written. I was holding off filling the final, twelfth “slot” on the CD. Some of the songs I had already written were very heavy subject matter, including Lester Schrenk on the forced “German Death March” in WWII, Harvey Ronglien and Peter Razor enduring childhood abuse at the state orphanage, and Mary Ann Peltier Rigney battling cancer. I wanted a good balance of stories, and when I came upon the story of Larry and Doreen, I knew this love story had to be part of the project. I contacted them and was really happy when they agreed to meet with me and tell me their story so I could make it into a song! On May 30, 2015, we got together at “Turtle Bread,” in south Minneapolis. I turned on the Zoom digital recorder, and Curtis manned the camera.</p>
<p>They started from the very beginning of their story, in 1973. Every Sunday night Larry and Doreen volunteered on the same shift at the Night Place at Coffman Union at the U of M. It was a drop-in center, a place where students and even some homeless people congregated for peanuts, conversation, and cribbage. Doreen was a senior at the U, while Larry had graduated and was looking for a job in social work. He hadn’t found one yet, so he was working as a cook at a pizza place.</p>
<p>They were interested in each other, and went out a few times. Unbeknownst to each other, they both applied for VISTA, a national service program to fight poverty in America. They were both accepted, and she was sent to New Orleans after she graduated. A few months later, he was sent to Kansas City. As they parted, they promised to write.</p>
<p>Then Doreen decided to go visit him. She told me, “Somewhere around the age of 22 I got it in my mind that I was going to marry this man. So I took the Greyhound bus up to propose marriage. We had planned the visit, but he didn’t know the ‘hidden agenda.’ And when he found out the hidden agenda, he was a little bewildered.”</p>
<p>I turned to Larry and he told me, “I knew I wasn’t ready for any commitment. I was making a Vista salary, which was like $200 a month. Even at that time that wasn’t much. And my apartment was a cock-roach infested ghetto apartment. I knew I couldn't make a lifetime commitment on that.”</p>
<p>Doreen continued, “And by the end of the week, he convinced me that that was true. So I went back to New Orleans.” Larry wrote to her again, asking to be friends. She wouldn’t answer him. About a year later she regretted her decision to quit writing, so she sent a letter, but by then he had moved to Iowa, and he never got her letter. Doreen said, “He never responded, so I assumed he just went on with his life.” She kept that final letter he’d written, and a photo of them, for 40 years.</p>
<p>Decades passed. Larry eventually moved to the Twin Cities, to work at the Courage Center. Doreen eventually got a job in social work, and moved back to the Twin Cities too. Once the Internet came into existence, he searched online for her, but couldn’t find her. When he read the article <a href="http://www.startribune.com/sept-26-2013-there-s-progress-for-the-homeless-in-hennepin-county/225445012/" data-imported="1">(read it here) </a>which mentioned her working at a homeless shelter, it said she had started using her middle name. So he searched on Facebook for Doreen Marie Donovan, and just like that, there she was. He sent her a Friend request, and after she accepted it, he received a private message she had sent him a year earlier but that he couldn’t read because they weren’t Facebook “friends” at the time. By now it was September 2013, and they sent messages back and forth on Facebook for six weeks before he gathered the courage to ask her out on a date. They went to Pannekoeken Huis for pancakes. </p>
<p>I asked how it was, seeing each other for the first time in 40 years. Larry said, “We weren’t expecting anything. We talked about what we’d done over the years and our interests. We kind of wanted to have another date. We had more and more, and got to know each other.” Definitely, sparks were flying! One year later Larry proposed, and her answer was yes. Doreen said before they got married, the priest wanted them to do an activity together that would bring them closer together. She laughed and said, “So, we went to community ed. for a class in Medicare Part A, B, and D.”</p>
<p>Remember back in 1974, Doreen was convinced he was the man she would marry? When I was writing the song, this stuck in my head, and I smiled to myself as the last line of the last verse wrote itself, “And she was right, so long ago, he is the man she married.” </p>
<p>They were married on April 12, 2015, both at the age of 64. Rochelle Olson, the same reporter who had written the first Star Tribune article wrote a follow-up article, telling how they had met and ultimately married due to her article about the homeless. <a href="http://www.startribune.com/lost-loves-reunited-after-article-about-hennepin-county-program-for-the-homeless/301614721/" data-imported="1">(Read the second article here.)</a> It was that article that caught my eye and put me on a mission to craft their story into a song. </p>
<p>In that article, Rochelle Olson wrote, “Donovan said she came to regret losing Von Berg, and also assumed he had moved on. In the past year, the dormant attraction came right back....Of their rediscovered love and marriage, Donovan said, ‘Why not? Give life a chance.’”</p>
<p>In many of these songs I've written, I’ve used direct quotes from some of my “subjects.” As I was writing this song, I came to the chorus, and started to write “give life a chance.” But as I mulled their story over in my mind, I turned things around and ended up with “May life always find a way, to give love a chance.”</p>
<p>Larry and Doreen will be at our CD release concert at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on November 22, along with many of the other people in the twelve songs I wrote for our new CD, "When There's Good to Be Done."</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/5109d3920cc2858d11d1b0383e266efef0c05e9b/original/lor-larry-doreen.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><strong>Loretta interviewed Larry and Doreen at Turtle Bread in Minneapolis May 30, 2015</strong></p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/37dc962889ff9fe7b64cde7ae0b7157140ec76ad/original/larry-doreen-hand.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><strong>Larry and Doreen Von Berg, May 30, 2015, a month and a half after their wedding</strong></p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963082015-10-23T12:00:00-12:002020-09-10T17:01:46-12:00Chuck & Sherri Leyda - What Each One Needs
<p>We’ve known Chuck & Sherri Leyda for many years. One night I was scrolling through Facebook, and noticed Sherri was posting in the middle of night (Yeah, I stay up late!). Something about frying bacon for the kids. They have three children, two of whom are severely autistic. I started prowling their Facebook page, trying to discover what their life is like these days.</p>
<p>“Pulled another all nighter with Ro and Clara. Clara actually went to sleep at 5 am,” read one post. Another post reported, “ She was up all last night screaming, head banging, and pinching.” Another, written by Sherri, said, “I am thankful for Clara, who showed me how to be spontaneous within the parameters of a strict schedule; I am thankful for Rowan, who has shown me exactly where the end of my rope is and the knowledge that I can climb back from it; I'm thankful for Mary, who has taught me a completely different way of parenting and the joy of knowing her thoughts and feelings.” I started to understand what their everyday (and night!) life was like, and I detected absolutely no resentment or resignation about what their life has become.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/f82b1474dde0f53442fd6e7b1ef85f9acbdd0659/original/p3244156.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /> </p>
<p><strong>The Leyda family having snacks at the Minnesota Zoo</strong></p>
<p>Chuck & Sherri Leyda are first-rate musicians! We met them back in the 1990s, playing at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. We were the “Haymarket Minstrels” back then, and they, along with their bass player Jim, were “Kindred.” When they’re not at the Ren Fest, they’re the bluegrass / gospel /Americana group “Singleton Street.”</p>
<p>When I started this project of writing 12 songs about real-life people who have gone through great challenges in their lives, and come out stronger for it, I searched for a variety of people and situations, and that late night Facebook prowling led me straight to the Leyda family. One day I called them up. Chuck answered, and I told him I wanted to write a song about Sherri and him, and how they were able to deal with raising two severely autistic children. I heard him shout out to Sherri, “Loretta wants to write a song about our family!” They were open to the idea, but Chuck told me he absolutely didn’t want it to be a really sad dirge saying the kids are a burden, “because they aren’t!” He warned me it was a thin line to tread, between acknowledging the difficulties of their very unique and demanding needs, and celebrating the absolute joy they bring to the family. So, not a dirge, but also not a fairy-tale glossing over of the facts. </p>
<p>I assured him I would try my best, and if the resulting song didn’t work for them, we would start over, or scrap the idea, whatever. I asked if I could come over and interview them, and see the kids, whom I had never met, in action. They told me that was definitely not an option. Strangers at the house were a source of anxiety for the two kids who are on the “spectrum.” Anything different from the daily routine is upsetting. But Chuck and Sherri came up with the brilliant idea of meeting them somewhere on “safe ground.” We got together at a McDonald’s, then the next month at the Minnesota Zoo. Chuck and Sherri are proactive about getting the kids out among other people, rather than staying isolated at home all the time. </p>
<p>I got to see first-hand how all three kids acted and re-acted with each other, their parents, and the rest of the world. Clara is 12 and doesn’t speak, though lately she’s got a few words. But she IS able to communicate. She’s made up signs for many things. She “swims” with her arms when she wants to go swimming. When she’s ready to leave somewhere (like the McDonald’s!), she’ll start “driving” with her hands on an imaginary steering wheel. Sherri hits the palm of her hand with her other hand and says, “This is the sign for ‘give me the schedule.’ She made that up herself. The huge break through with her was when she started nodding, and shaking her head, and the hand thing (schedule). Just being able to say yes and no!” The schedule is very important in her life. At McDonald’s, Chuck shows me how it works. With two fingers, he hits his palm, one time for each activity on the schedule for the rest of that day: Play, home, snack, play, supper, bed, sleep tight. He repeats it once more. </p>
<p>I ask if 10 year-old Rowan (who also does not speak) likes to get the schedule too. No, they answer, he doesn’t think that way. But, like Clara, he has his own ways of communicating. At the Minnesota Zoo, he taps his dad on the chest, and Chuck knows exactly what he wants. Dad swings the boy up onto his shoulders for a short ride. That picture is emblazoned in my mind; it’s in verse two of their song. When we all sit down at a table for snacks, Rowan’s treat is a giant cookie. He feeds bites of it to his dad, no words exchanged or needed. </p>
<p>Little Mary is 5 years old, and she is neuro-typical, Sherri tells me (translates to she is not on the autism spectrum). She has the same brilliant red hair as Rowan, and the two of them are best friends. </p>
<p>Rowan absolutely loves to climb, and he darts right up the rocks to be closer to the glass window of the penguin display. He crouches there, swinging his strand of shiny gold beads, and Mary perches close by, watching the penguins. Later, after the afore-mentioned treats, Clara decides it’s time to get going. She walks off down the hallway at a fast trot. No one freaks out. Chuck and Sherri call softly to her to come back. But Mary swings into action, running after her. When she reaches Clara, she calmly stands in front of her, careful not to grab her, and speaks softly to her till Sherri comes to retrieve both of them. This unforgettable picture appears in verse three of their song.</p>
<p>Clara took lots of pictures at the Zoo, mostly of herself, and also one of me. She handed her cell phone (never used to talk, only as a camera) to her mom, and posed with a huge smile. No words were exchanged, but Sherri knew what to do! That picture, still fresh in my mind, is in the first verse of their song. </p>
<p>Clara and Rowan thrive on sensory input, yet it can also be overwhelming. Chuck told me, “Rowan doesn’t just want his beads. He wants to be watching a video with music going on in the background while spinning beads and dropping legos from the side of his peripheral vision But the trick with Rowan, he’s always trying to over-stim himself and I’m just figuring this out. And when he over-stims himself, is when he breaks something. Now I say, you can have your video, but not everything at the same time. Try just allowing one thing, and a specific place where you do the ipad, for instance.”</p>
<p>Clara loves watching roller coaster videos on youtube, but if the battery runs out, a tantrum can ensue. Chuck says, “Whether they're happy or sad, they’re always making an immense amount of noise.” Sherri says, “Yes, non-verbal does not mean quiet!” On the other hand, neither of them can stand loud noises, “unless they make them themselves,” says Chuck.</p>
<p>I ask if they need total supervision, 24/7, and Chuck answers, “They have their safety zones, but the problem with Rowan is, you pay the price. You can leave him alone in his room with a video, but then when you come in there you’ll find that he’s torn the place apart, or broken the TV or decided to spit all over the floor.”</p>
<p>Chuck tells me, “Clara is pretty happy. Rowan is pretty happy. They go from 1 to 10, that’s the problem. They get mad. My kindle’s out of batteries, I’m going to claw, I’m going to attack you, literally. But most of the time they’re happy.” Sherri adds, “Clara loves everybody.” In fact, at the Zoo, she kisses Sherri several times. She takes my picture, then touches my left cheek with her hand.</p>
<p>On Facebook Sherri posted, “The worst part is hearing her cry like she’s heartbroken, nothing I can do but listen to her cry. Lots of times I know why. (Like changes in their daily schedule, which can be devastating). But there’s lots of times I don’t know what she’s crying about. And then, all of a sudden, she’s laughing hysterically. She’s little Miss Mood Swing, totally. But the crying, that really cuts.” I ask her, “You feel like it’s real to her, what she’s feeling?” Sherri replies, “Totally real!”</p>
<p>Chuck told me, “Rowan’s destructive as hell, he’s noisy, but he’s mostly happy when he’s jumping around the house. And when you come to pick him up from camp, he smiles at you.” He continues, “And Clara, when I picked her up the other day, she came running across, and she gallops, running all the way across the cafeteria with a smile on her face, and everybody lit up in that cafeteria, to see how happy she was to see me. There’s a ton of myths about autism, there’s a ton of B.S. out there. They do want relationships.”</p>
<p>When I sat down to write their song, it was more of a challenge than the other eleven. The others were stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The Leyda family’s story is ongoing. How would I start it? I looked back over my notes and found a place where we had talked about their having Clara, the first-born, and realizing she was on the autism spectrum. Chuck said, “She’s gone away from us. It’s beautiful, but it’s sad.” Sherri explains, “When she was born, we thought she’d live in our physical world. After that first year, we knew. You don’t know when they’re a tiny baby.” Chuck says she was his little fairy princess from day one.</p>
<p>And so the song begins, “Twelve years old, she’s their first girl, they thought she’d live in their world, but she dances on the spectrum where, Clara’s a fairy princess there.” </p>
<p>As our day at the Zoo draws to a close, and we start walking toward the exit, Chuck walks hand in hand with Rowan and tells him, “I had a really good time with you today.” I walk along with Sherri, and a bit off to our left are Clara and little Mary. “Mary is sticking with Clara, isn’t she?” I ask. “Not grabbing or talking, just walking along beside her.” Sherri answers, “Yes, she likes to help.” </p>
<p>All day, there has been no baby talk. They talked to them like the intelligent human beings they are. When one child got too far ahead, they would simply go put their hand out to that one, or calmly call their name. They had fun with their kids. They obviously had great joy in seeing the kids happy and having fun, like any parents. Earlier, Chuck pointed and said, “Otter!” When Rowan saw it, Chuck broke out in a big smile. At one point, Mary and Chuck hung over a railing gazing at the flamingos, their smiles totally infectious. All day long, Chuck and Sherri’s love for these three souls is unmistakable. They accept each one exactly as they are.</p>
<p>Mom and Dad understand that each of their three children are very special, and each one needs different things. Each one learns and communicates in different ways, and Chuck and Sherri have dedicated their lives to teaching and giving exactly what each one needs.</p>
<p>I named their song, “What Each One Needs.”</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/7b5abeadd78f96aeb72147a9bb4172389e2c4a33/original/p3244148.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><strong>Sherri takes a picture of her daughter Clara, at the Minnesota Zoo</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Rowan gets a lift from his dad, Chuck, at the Zoo</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Chuck and his daughter Mary check out the flamingos at the Minnesota Zoo </strong></p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963072015-10-10T12:00:00-12:002020-01-13T09:09:18-12:00Mary Ann Peltier Rigney - aka Dragonfly
<p>Mary Ann Peltier Rigney was a friend of mine growing up in Stillwater, Minnesota. She was always a very positive person, but I never noticed it as much as when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November of 2008. I got together with her February 5, 2015 for an interview at her home. I asked how she had first discovered the cancer. She told me she was working in a chiropractic office at the time, and had to lay flat on her stomach on the floor one day to reach under a shelf to adjust the stereo system. Except that she <strong>couldn’t </strong>lay flat. She said it felt like she was lying on an inflated balloon. She didn’t have any pain, but she knew something was wrong.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/ac8dc492ef8b63563fb759bdc8081ee26a8340b8/original/maryann-eyes-closed.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><strong>I sang the song I'd written about Mary Ann to her for the first time on June 18, 2015</strong></p>
<p>I went to school with Mary Ann at St. Mike’s. She was two years behind me, so I didn’t spend a lot of time with her then, but as we got older, we got to know each other well, playing guitars in teen choir at the church, and appearing in plays and choral reading in high school. She was always the girl with the beaming smile, and ever-present positive attitude. And none of that changed when her life changed forever in 2008. </p>
<p>In retrospect, she says she had the “silent symptoms,” but didn’t realize it at the time. She was breathless when she bent over, she had fatigue, felt bloated, and had lost weight. But she was in Weight Watchers, so she just chalked it all up to that. But after that experience of not being able to lie flat on the floor, she went straight to the doctor. After looking at an X-ray, and examining her, his face went white and he said yes, there was a mass there. An ultra sound and CAT scan quickly followed, and the specialist confirmed it was ovarian cancer. At first, she was in shock. “I felt surreal, like this isn’t right. I’m healthy, I’ve never had a bad cell in my life.”</p>
<p> Mary Ann’s family is very important to her, and she immediately shared the news with them, even before it was confirmed. First she told her husband, then their two sons, aged 18 and 21, who were both living at home. I asked how she told them. She said, “Dr. Williams thinks I have ovarian cancer.” Then she shared, “We were all sobbing, but I wanted to be strong for them, so I said, ‘OK you guys. I don’t think you know your mom has some stubborn cuss in her, and I’m just going to beat this crap.’” It did the trick, and they all laughed through their tears. Next stop was her parents’ house, to give them the news.</p>
<p>After the date for her surgery was set up, she had a heart-to-heart talk with her husband, and they both decided, “It’s time to pull up our bootstrings and hit it head on... go for the gusto.” The surgery was extensive, removing her ovaries as well as fallopian tubes, appendix, omentum (the layer of fat that covers your abdomen), and a lymph node. (She had had her uterus removed years earlier).</p>
<p>She was home by Thanksgiving, and started chemo ten days after Christmas. She had “double” chemo, receiving IVs of both Cisplatin and Taxol. There were also various other drugs taken on a complicated strict schedule; pre-meds for the chemo, and others to combat nausea, insomnia, and anxiety. </p>
<p>Throughout the six months of treatment, her family and friends played a huge part. Her mother, father, or a friend drove her to Woodbury. They would sit with her through hours of either chemo IV’s, or fluid IV’s. I asked her how long it took for the exhaustion that comes with chemo to set in. She answered, “It comes on right away. You feel drugged. You lose your appetite. You don’t crave food.”</p>
<p>She told me, “I lost my hair within two weeks of starting chemo. My doctor told me you will lose your hair before your next session, and that it will be emotional. But it’s the only thing that you have control over. A lot of women shave it off, some don’t. The minute it started coming out, it came out in clumps. My friend Sue shaved my hair off. I had her come to the house. I decided, when it started coming out, I’m not going to look scraggly.... I was really teary.”</p>
<p>In the next breath, in typical Mary Ann style, she said, “I looked in the mirror, and thought, ‘I don’t look so bad bald.’ All of a sudden I turned and I got a glimpse in my peripheral vision, and I went ‘Oh my gosh, Billy my brother and I look alike! (He’s bald). Billy needs to put on earrings, and we’ll match!’ My boys shaved their heads the next day - they shaved each others - and my brother Billy, and some of the firemen.” Several of Mary Ann’s brothers are firefighters, as was her dad. “It was the least of my worries. My hair is nothing to worry about. I am who I am without my hair.”</p>
<p>“I told Mom going over to my last treatment, I felt so bad, I said if I had to do any more after today, I was hitting rock bottom. I couldn’t stand it. Pure exhaustion. The thought of it... all the drugs, it does a whole number on your head.” After a nine day cycle of chemo, she got two weeks off, before starting it all over again. How did she make it through six months of this? “I told the boys I had stubborn cuss in me, and I guess that’s what’s kept me going.....my family, my boys, my husband, my parents, and a lot of prayer, and a lot of friends’ support. People from all over were putting me on prayer lists .... I don’t know ....I just think laughter, good attitude and my family and friends’ support has kind of kept me on the road. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some really low days - everybody does, even without cancer or other issues.”</p>
<p>After the six months of chemo, she had a CAT scan at Woodwinds Hospital. Then you wait and wait, for a week. I asked her what she felt like all that week. “A nervous wreck,” she answered. “Actually, as the days go on, you get more nervous. The fact is the radiologist has to read it, they compare it to the last one. It’s faxed to the doctor, and the nurse can’t tell you till the doctor has looked at it.”</p>
<p>Finally the phone rang, “I have good news! For now, I have good news. Right now, it looks like you’re cancer-free, it’s in remission.” Mary Ann said, “I got off the phone, and it was another surreal. I’m supposed to be happy. Why aren’t I super-excited? Later on I was happy. Totally relieved.” Her exhaustion was so extreme, she had to wait a year and a half to go back to work at the chiropractic office part time. Then in 2010, her husband left her. The nurses told her this was not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately. </p>
<p>Every three to six months she got tested, and everything was fine, until she got the call she dreaded, two years after going into remission. The cancer was back. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. She had only been back at work for a few months.</p>
<p>She told me the doctors were “always trying to take the positive route. I think that’s another good thing for me, I’ve always had doctors and nurses that have to tell you bad stuff, but we’re going to do this particular drug and they explain it really carefully, what the major side effects are, but you could have others you know.” </p>
<p>She had a second surgery, removing her spleen, the tip of her pancreas, a sliver of the bottom of her liver, and a couple lymph nodes. She’s been on different types of chemo ever since. She lives with her mom and dad now. I’ve also known them for years, and it’s obvious she got her loving and positive attitude from them! She hasn’t been able to return to work again.</p>
<p>Besides the sickness and exhaustion, she’s suffered many side effects from chemo, including peripheral neuropathy (numbness in extremities) and ringing in her ears. Over the years, she’s lost and re-grown her hair three times. The first time, she said, “It came back kinky, curly, and gray. The second time, it came back gray also. The third time, it’s coming back dark brown. I’ve never had this dark of hair. So I’m getting younger!” She laughs her beautiful laugh for me again.</p>
<p>I told Mary Ann, “A lot of people are inspired by you. Because you’re so positive. I don’t know how you can keep that positive attitude.”</p>
<p>She replied, “I have a nice home, and everybody loves me, that sounds terrible, but I have good support, (she laughs out loud), and I love everybody. You can sit around and cry and mope, but then that’ll make you sicker. They say to stay away from stress. If you’re always going to be negative, then that’s going to affect your health and so I try to be positive. I’m a goofball and my boys tell me that and I tell them I have chemo brain and that’s why I’m that way and they say Mom, you can’t blame it on the drugs because you were forgetful before you got cancer (She laughs again). So they don’t cut me any slack either.”</p>
<p>I asked her, “You never thought ‘why me’ with the cancer?”</p>
<p>She told me, “No, I guess I really just never had time to do that, or that’s just not me maybe?”</p>
<p>As I started writing Mary Ann’s song, I thought about how she’s always liked dragonflies. Out of curiosity, I started reading up on these amazing beings. Unlike other flying insects, dragonflies are very agile and adaptable, able to fly in all six directions - forward, backward, up, down, and to either side. They can also change directions suddenly. Though their wings appear to be paper-thin, they are surprisingly powerful, capable of migrating across oceans. The more time I spend with Mary Ann, the more I realize she has become, now more than ever, like her beloved dragonfly - agile, adaptable, resilient, strong, and powerful. Thus was born the title of her song, <strong>Dragonfly.</strong></p>
<p><strong> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/21a0f1db8006a730382b37b36a7152142ebe6044/original/p6184358.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></strong></p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963062015-09-16T12:00:00-12:002021-12-14T18:08:14-12:00Glennis Ter Wisscha and The Willmar 8
<p>In November of 1976, the Citizen’s National Bank in Willmar, Minnesota, hired a young man. He had gotten the job because the bank president had lost a game of golf with the young man’s father. The women employees at the bank were told to train him in and “teach him everything you know, then he will be your supervisor. " This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was not the first time this had happened, but several of the women decided it would be the last. Armed with the information that these men were making almost twice as much as the women, several of the women went into the bank president’s office to protest. His answer was “We are not all equal you know. Men need to earn more, so they can take girls out on dates.” The women formed their own union and went out on strike on December 16, 1977. The windchill was 70 below zero.</p>
<p> If you were living in Minnesota in the 1970s, you may have heard of the Willmar 8. When I was writing my grant proposal, and imagining who I would like to include in my project of writing songs about people who had gone through big challenges in their lives, the Willmar 8 appeared in my mind. I was the same age as some of them, and I followed their story in the newspapers at the time. A product of those times, I was not shocked back then to hear they were making half as much as the men. It was common. I was very proud of them for taking on the status quo to try to right this wrong, and as I wrote the grant proposal, I was determined to find one of them and see if she would talk to me. </p>
<p>I read everything I could find on-line. Surprisingly, no one has written a book about the Willmar 8, though there is a documentary, narrated by Hollywood’s Lee Grant. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/428416/The-Willmar-8/overview" data-imported="1">http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/428416/The-Willmar-8/overview</a>. I found this 1981 DVD at a Minneapolis public library. There are lots of articles on-line with quotes from Glennis Ter Wisscha, who was 19 when they went out on strike. I googled her, and found she now lives in the Twin Cities. I contacted her and she agreed to talk with me, in a restaurant in Minneapolis. Curtis snapped photos, as I turned on the Zoom digital recorder, and Glennis started painting pictures for us of a time that young women nowadays would find unbelievable.</p>
<p>Glennis is a very articulate women. She told me there was already a law in place, the Equal Pay Act of 1963. I asked how the bank got around that. She answered, first someone had to complain in order for there to be a violation. </p>
<p> She went on, “No one had complained. That’s what made this so remarkable (we didn’t know it at the time of course), because we were a group of women who just knew that is was wrong. And we were also a labor movement. That’s one of the things that was unique about us. There was the feminist movement who saw us as a feminist issue, there was the labor movement who saw us as a labor issue, but we didn’t identify with either one of them separately, but the same, when we tried to negotiate for equal pay in the contract.”</p>
<p>She said none of them considered themselves “feminists.” They simply knew it was wrong. They formed their own union, “Bank Local One,” and filed a gender discrimination suit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. Now that they were an official union, the bank was required by law to negotiate.</p>
<p>Glennis told me, “By law, they had to show up. No one could make them negotiate. They would sit there reading the newspaper. They were present. Nothing said they had to communicate.” She said the union members would make a request, and the bank officials would say, “No.”</p>
<p>The eight women realized the negotiations were going nowhere, so on December 16, 1977, they walked out of work and went on strike. It was a record cold winter, and Glennis and the others bundled up in snowmobile suits, scarves, hats, mittens, and snowmobile boots. Glennis recalls her eyelashes freezing shut from the bitter cold.</p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/688f79d2dee42c00899465082ae41cb0a98a7703/original/willmar8.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDM5NyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="397" width="640" /> </p>
<p><strong>In this photo from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Glennis is near the middle, holding the sign that says, “We protest slave labor.”</strong></p>
<p>The strike stretched on and on, through freezing cold winter through hot, humid, rainy summer. They were on the line every day. Glennis said, “It was our job. We were always there during banking hours.”</p>
<p>As time went on, it became more evident that many of the townspeople were against their cause. As one man in the Lee Grant documentary said, “Oh, I say they should call it off. That’s what I think. After all, this is a Christian town and it’d be nice if we had peace.” Glennis recalled getting the “silent treatment” from people she knew at the local grocery store in this town of 18,000. Glennis was married, but during the strike she and her husband parted ways. She said he just couldn’t understand how her consciousness was changing as she embraced the cause.</p>
<p>With no big union money backing them, it became increasingly harder for the eight women to make ends meet. In the documentary, the camera films Glennis at the grocery store, opting for a 23 cent can of soup rather than the vegetable beef that costs a few cents more. </p>
<p>With so many people against their cause, bitter cold weather, and a terribly hard economic situation, what kept them going?</p>
<p>Glennis says, “It was the Today show that gave us the moniker the Willmar 8. We couldn’t figure out what they were doing there.” Other national media came; television, newspapers and magazines. Then the letters started arriving from across the U.S. and across the globe. </p>
<p>Women everywhere sent whatever money they could, 5s or 10s, and begged them not to give up the cause. One female bank employee wrote, “They’re talking about you, you’re making an impact, they’re listening, things ARE getting better, please, please don’t stop. You’re doing this for all of us.” Glennis said, “Her one letter was 5 pages. After awhile it was no longer about or for us, if we quit, how could we say we’re quitting, and all these other women across the world were looking at us as if we’re doing something remarkable, to help THEM.” </p>
<p>In the song I wrote, “Willmar 8 (We Are All Equal You Know),” the chorus is sung by a “choir” we assembled of 11 Twin Cities women singers. They are the letter writers, singing, “The whole globe is watching you, it’s starting now to improve. You are doing this for all of us, please don’t stop, keep on you must....”</p>
<p>Glennis also told me, “One thing that kept us going is that we were right. There’s no way we could lose. So it was just a question of time. That was big. We never expected it was possible. Everything happened, and it was wrong.”</p>
<p>The strike dragged on for a year and three months. The only money coming in was from donations like the 5s and 10s in the letters they received. They also gave talks at the U of M and for various NOW groups, where they would pass the hat.</p>
<p>One scene from the documentary that really, really touched me was when the eight women are dividing up the donations, and Glennis puts her head down in her hands and says, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She was flat broke, and the small amount being doled out would not cover her bills. Teren says, “I’ve got my bills paid up. Give Glennis $40 out of my money.” They all agree that next time it could be any of them, and they will stick together and help each other out.</p>
<p>In March, 1979, a National Labor Relations Board judge handed down his ruling, saying that the bank was guilty of unfair labor practices, but those practices did not cause the strike, therefore the strike was “economic” and no back pay was due. The strike was over.</p>
<p>As our conversation came to an end, Glennis said it was all worth it. The strike made a statement. As a result of pressure by working women, in 1978 the Department of Labor officially targeted the banking industry as a top priority for enforcement of equal opportunity. </p>
<p>Glennis said, “That was huge. (And) I know that the banks were the highest purchasers and renters of the documentary, on how not to do it in the future. So they learned something.”</p>
<p>She continued, “Also, we would have women who would acknowledge, because of what we had done, the timing of it all, that all of a sudden they got past that level of glass ceiling, that they were promoted to vice presidents, managers, and nothing else had changed, except for what was in the news.”</p>
<p>So the Willmar 8 lost the battle. But they helped win the war, and they are now in the history books. Thank you all for fighting this battle for us, Glennis Ter Wisscha, Doris Boshart, Irene Wallin, Sylvia Erickson Koll, Jane Harguth Groothuis, Sandi Treml, Teren Novotny, and Shirley Solyntjes.</p>
<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/e6625d57a12bff31329226bb9ae89bb45869aa7a/original/glennis-lor.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><strong>Loretta interviewed Glennis Ter Wisscha in Minneapolis on May 18, 2015 (Curtis was the photographer!)</strong></p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963052015-08-23T12:00:00-12:002022-05-09T16:06:50-12:0035W Bridge Collapse Survivor Garrett Ebling
<p>Garrett Ebling usually never crossed the 35W bridge in downtown Minneapolis. He lived and worked in the southwest suburbs, so there was no need, except on August 1, 2007. His company picnic was held at Como Park in St Paul, and afterwards they all went to a restaurant in Roseville. He planned to go south on Snelling, then take Highway 94 to 394, back home. But he missed the turn for Snelling. Ending up on 35W, he decided that would work fine. Rush hour traffic was terrible and he thought he would take the first exit south of the bridge and cut through downtown Minneapolis to get to 394, to bypass some of the traffic. But he never got across the bridge that day. </p>
<p>Curtis and I live in northeast Minneapolis, just a couple miles from the 35W bridge. We drive over it all the time, but not that day. The first I heard of the collapse was when my mom called immediately to see if we were OK, and I said, "Why?" Everyone in the Twin Cities was calling everyone, to see if they'd been "on the bridge." I stood in our backyard that evening, listening to the rescue helicopters in the distance. It was an eery, surreal feeling. The next morning I was compelled to go see it with my own eyes. Police kept people back quite a way. I stood on the University Avenue overpass over 35W, and though I saw the devastation with my own eyes, I still couldn't quite believe it. As the days went by and bodies were recovered, and stories of survivors came out, I read everything I could find. </p>
<p>As months, then years went by, I always wondered what happened to the survivors, and the families of the victims. I searched for more information. Thirteen lost their lives in the collapse. Many of the survivors are living with chronic pain and health problems, and post traumatic stress disorder. There was a very good Star Tribune on-line article that is still on-line, about the collapse at <a href="http://www.startribune.com/13-seconds-in-august-the-35w-bridge-collapse/12166286/" data-imported="1">http://www.startribune.com/13-seconds-in-august-the-35w-bridge-collapse/12166286/ </a>It includes photos, and many interview videos. I watched an interview there with Garrett Ebling, one of the worst injured. Recently I found out he had written a book about everything he went through. Here is a link to his book, <strong>Collapsed. </strong><a href="http://www.35wbridgecollapse.com" data-imported="1">http://www.35wbridgecollapse.com </a> After I read it this spring, I contacted him and asked if I could write a song about him and his experiences. He agreed right away, and we met at a coffee shop for an interview the morning of May 29. He is a trained journalist, and spoke very articulately about everything he went through. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/b929800452e3b1db3b2d396aa48e06ca3213edbe/original/p5294225.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p>Alone in the car that hot August day, he had his windows open and his music turned up high. He didn't even realize he was already on the bridge at first.</p>
<p>He told me, "<strong>I saw everybody’s brake lights in front of me went on at the same time. Normally, brake lights are staggered when you’re in stop and go traffic. Everybody stopped at the same time. That’s when I saw the first two sections of bridge go. They went straight down, didn’t dip or turn, dropped like being on an elevator, then they were gone.</strong></p>
<p><strong>What do you think (He looked at me and laughed here). It takes a second to register. Something out of a movie, not in realm of what could consciously happen. A second..... all the cars in front of me are gone. Whoosh, everybody was gone. Then there was this weird sense of relief, something bad really happened, but I’m still here....it didn’t happen to me. </strong></p>
<p><strong>In that next second, I felt everything beneath me give way. Then I remember getting really tight - grabbing the steering wheel really tight, my legs were straight and tight, foot slammed on brake. I didn’t know how high up I was, I didn’t know there was water below me, I was just preparing, bracing myself, and I started to fall, and that’s all I remember. Then I wake up in the hospital and it’s 3 weeks later."</strong></p>
<p>When he finally woke up from a medically induced coma, he learned all the details of what had happened after everything went black for him that day. His car was on a section of bridge that collapsed pointing downward, and his car plunged forward into the abyss. His head was against the steering wheel, so when the airbags went off, they didn't help. He plummeted 110 feet, the equivalent of an eleven story building. The car ended upright in the water on the right side of the collapsed bridge. It was perched on debris, so the roof was above water.</p>
<p>A man named Rick was driving home from his job as a service technician for the cable company when he heard the crash. He drove down to the riverbank. He saw Garrett's red Ford Focus about 30 feet from shore. The water was up to Garrett's neck, and he was bleeding, and trying to get out of the car (though he has no memory of that). Rick and another man waded over to the Ford and cut his seatbelt to get him out, then pulled him through the murky water to shore. </p>
<p>When Garret woke up in the hospital, he slowly realized the extent of his injuries. His head had taken a terrible blow, resulting in brain trauma. The doctors did two surgeries to re-build his face, in which every facial plate was broken. They worked from three photos of him as a point of reference. He suffered a severed colon, due to the seatbelt. His left arm (his dominant one) was badly broken, as were both of his ankles. He had a collapsed lung, a ruptured diagram, tracheotomy, and a spinal injury. His jaw was wired shut, and he had tubes everywhere, including one in the top of his skull, draining excess fluid. His body was totally traumatized, with swelling everywhere. During the colon surgery, they were afraid they were losing him, and had to stop the operation temporarily and continue at a later date.</p>
<p>Though he was on medication, at times the pain was excruciating. I asked him what the worst of the pain was. He replied, "Out of everything, the most painful was when they took the wires out of my mouth. They were screwed into the roof of mouth, so they had to unscrew all those. They kept a dixie cup next to me, took each one out, dropped them in the cup, with my gums attached. Half of my mouth was in that cup. I was white as a ghost. My mom was in the room, and fiancee. I told them to leave. 'I don’t want you to see me, this is going to be so much pain. I have no choice, but you leave. I don’t want you to see me in this much pain.'"</p>
<p>The doctors told him it was a miracle he survived. He was in the hospital for 3 weeks, then in rehab facilities for another 5 weeks. Garrett pushed himself hard in physical therapy, determined to get back everything he could that the bridge had taken from him. He had to start from square one, learning to walk all over again. A therapist would help him out of his wheelchair, with his walker, which had an elevated left arm rest, in front of him. In his book <strong>Collapsed,</strong> he says, "I'd grab the walker with my right hand and place my left forearm on the arm rest. I'd step with my right foot, then push the walker a few inches forward. The next step was a little hop, pressing down with my right hand and my left elbow. It was extremely painful. The first few attempts were measured in inches. But as with everything, I pushed myself hard. I'd count the number of cinder blocks in a row along the hallway and set goals in my head. Yesterday I made it ten blocks. Can I do fifteen today?" </p>
<p>Eventually, he progressed enough to go back to his apartment, with both the walker and the wheelchair. He continued physical therapy, and also worked out regularly to regain his strength. Garrett was 32 when the bridge collapsed. At the interview, he told me, "My youth at the time helped, they said. I feel like I’ve aged a lot in 8 years. I feel like I’m paying for it now. I feel like 60 now. I feel 20 years older than I would have otherwise." </p>
<p>As he started to regain some of his strength and agility, he and his family and friends started to notice changes in his personality. Namely, he had mood swings, and was often irritable. Garret told me, "People would say, wow, you look like you’re doing good. But inside I’m just stuck. I feel hollow. I remember having the thought that I’m never going to be able to smile or laugh again. I don’t have it, don’t have it in me. No lows or highs in me anymore. Dead space. It was a real concern."</p>
<p>He was diagnosed with traumatic stress disorder, and just like with physical therapy, he took the bull by the horns and plunged into the pschyotherapy that would help him deal with that. He found that, due to the brain trauma, his brain no longer processed thoughts like it had before. Garrett and his therapist honed in on his stressors, and worked on reprocessing his thoughts and emotions. He ended up working through many issues from his past. Eventually, he had an eye-opening breakthrough in therapy. He told his therapist in any stressful situation, he always felt the need to keep moving forward. She asked him how he processed all the emotions, and he said he never did. He stuffed them away, so he could keep moving forward. In his book he says, "She paused and said, 'Did you hear what you just said?' And he repeated it to himself, 'I-have-to-discount-emotion-in-order-to-move-forward.'"</p>
<p>He made a lot of progress after this breakthrough. I asked whether he still suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, and he answered, "PTSD you just kind of have, and you have to learn how to notice the signs when things flair up, and then you can learn to manage it. Talking through and processing is a big step to managing it, and but it doesn’t just go away. My brain has been changed." Luckily, since he blacked out as his car was falling off the bridge, he doesn't have the part of PTSD that would cause fear and anxiety, and trigger flashbacks. </p>
<p>Besides the lingering emotional effects, Garrett has pain in his ankles. He permanently lost his sense of smell, and several places on his face and in his mouth are numb. Overall, as he said above, he feels much older than his 40 years.</p>
<p>I asked if there was any silver lining at all to having gone through the collapse. Learning to work through old issues, and re-process emotions was definitely a plus, he tells me.</p>
<p>And finally, he adds, "The bridge provides me a forum to go and talk to people and have an effect on people. I go speak from time to time. I hit a lot of small libraries in south and central Minnesota, giving talks. I talk to kids. I’m talking to a student summer leadership camp in a couple weeks. I’ve talked to retiree groups, property manager associations…It's a door."</p>
<p>I was honored that Garrett spoke with me, and gave me an insight into the determination he had to heal, physically and mentally, from the 35W Bridge collapse. Hearing all that happened to him, and how he fought back, inspires me so much. He is living proof that it is possible to come back from such a life changing traumatic experience, and live a full, productive life. Garrett lives in the Twin Cities, and owns and manages two "Which Wich" Sandwich franchise restaurants, one in Blaine and one in Maple Grove. The song I wrote about him is called "The Bridge." </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/6c41dea1698f39af92d0ad56bf29c07b7c516556/original/p5294226.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/8f53fb2b3c528bf3cba751a94c019b944de9a6af/original/p5294236.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDgweDY0MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="640" width="480" /></p>
Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963042015-07-28T12:00:00-12:002020-10-12T14:32:32-12:00When There's Good to be Done - Christy Harding's story
<p>A little over one year ago, a Florida woman woke up in the recovery room at Fairview Riverside Hospital in Minneapolis. She’d just had her kidney removed. A team quickly transported it across the Mississippi River, to Children’s Hospital. A team of surgeons had already prepped 2 year old Arianna Moore, and when the precious organ arrived, they transplanted it into the toddler. Today, that little girl is 3 years old, and healthier than she has ever been in her short life, thanks to a total stranger, Christy Hart Harding of Jacksonville, Florida.</p>
<p>I first heard about this incredible story in May of 2014. I was watching the local news on TV in Minneapolis, and the reporter said a woman from Florida had heard about a Pine River, Minnesota girl’s need for a kidney on Facebook. She had gotten all the tests, was a perfect match, and was flying up to Minneapolis for the operation. I was intrigued. How does someone make that decision, to be tested to donate a kidney to a stranger? What kind of person does that? I was determined to meet this woman, and ask if I could write about her.<br></p>
<p>The deadline for applying for the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant was early July. I wanted to write a song about this courageous, compassionate woman! I included her in my “artist narrative,” saying she was one of the real-life, everyday people that I planned to contact as a subject for one of my twelve songs. I had already contacted some of my “subjects” before I included their names in my grant proposal. But I didn’t contact Christy until November 2014. I felt I should give her time to recover from surgery, and I also wanted to follow the little girl’s progress and see how she was doing </p>
<p>When I did contact Christy, via Facebook, she was very welcoming, and said she’d love to be part of my project. She emailed me some basic information about her story, and I read everything I could find about her and Arianna on-line. Curtis and I were doing a concert tour in Florida this past spring, so I did an interview with Christy at a Panera Bakery in Jacksonville early on the morning of April 25. (Continue reading below photo)</p>
<p> <em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/080e921f5b43c870daa7abf312e7d3732e11dbac/original/p4254187.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></em></p>
<p>I turned on the Zoom digital recorder, and Curtis was ready with the camera. Christy is in her 30s, a beaming, friendly, outgoing person. The very beginning of her story was seeing the Facebook post that announced Arianna desperately needed a kidney. You can see photos and news about the little girl now, on the very same Facebook page at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ALL4MOORE?fref=ts%20" data-imported="1">https://www.facebook.com/ALL4MOORE?fref=ts </a> The post wasn’t sent specifically to her. It was in her Newsfeed, and she noticed it as she scrolled through all the postings, sitting at her kitchen table in the fall of 2014. </p>
<p>The amazing thing about this is, Christy told me she normally quickly skimmed through posts about sick kids or animals, because they were just too sad. “Why did you stop and read this one?” I asked. “It had to be an angel, or God whispering in my ear. I was meant to be her donor,” was her answer. The site said, “You could be my hero. Is your blood type O?” Christy’s blood IS type O.</p>
<p>Arianna was 2 years old at that time. Both of her kidneys had failed when she was just 7 weeks old, and she had been on dialysis ever since. She has a twin sister, who luckily did not have the rare genetic problem that had destroyed Arianna’s kidneys. I asked Christy if she thought it over for awhile. She said, “No, I picked up the phone right away and called the phone number, to see if it was for real, to make sure it wasn’t a hoax.” It was for real. The number connected her to a hospital in Minneapolis.</p>
<p>Next she called her husband at work and said she wanted to donate a kidney to a little girl they’d never met before. Yes, he was surprised! But they both talked about their own 2 year old daughter Sarah, and how they would search the whole world for someone to help her if she was in Arianna’s situation. The endless tests were begun, first in Jacksonville. Later she flew to Minneapolis for final tests, never contacting Arianna’s family. She didn’t want to give them any false hope until she knew for sure.</p>
<p>On April 21, 2014, the call came from the Minneapolis transplant team. “You are a perfect match!” Christy watched Arianna’s Facebook page, and as soon as it announced that a donor had been found, that was her cue. She messaged Arianna’s mom, and introduced herself. In an interview with a news station, Ashley, the mom said, “I could not find words.” </p>
<p>Christy and her mom flew up to the Twin Cities in early May, 2014 and met Arianna and her family for the first time. Media was everywhere, asking for interviews. Television, newspapers swarmed everywhere. But the little girl spiked a fever the night before the surgery and it was canceled. </p>
<p>In June, 2014 Christy and her mom returned, and this time the surgery was completed as planned. After about 3 hours of surgery, Christy woke up in the recovery room, and remembers a man there, trying to get her pain under control. I asked her what her very first thought was. Without hesitation she replied, “Is Arianna OK?” It was her mom’s “assignment” to keep in contact with Arianna’s mom, and as soon as Christy was taken back to her room, she found out the operation was a complete success, and the kidney was actually kind of “over achieving.” Christy said, “Yeah, that would be my kidney!”</p>
<p>I had to ask her, “Weren’t you worried about having major surgery?” </p>
<p>She answered, “You know the funny thing is, the surgery never scared me. The parts that scared me were my family - being away from them,and then when I came home, not being able to pick my daughter Sarah up for 6 weeks. I’m very practical, and in my mind, you know you have the chance that you might not make it back. And I thought, well I’ll be OK with that, because I won’t be here to suffer through it. My biggest worry was for my family. That was the biggest weight.” </p>
<p>After a few days, Christy returned to Florida, and after a few weeks was able to return to her job full-time. But she wasn’t done yet! She started a fundraising campaign, and raised enough money to bring Arianna, her parents, and her two brothers and sister down to Florida for a vacation at Disney World in the spring of 2015. Look in the photo gallery on her Facebook page to see photos with Tinker Bell and more! <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ALL4MOORE?fref=ts%20" data-imported="1"> https://www.facebook.com/ALL4MOORE?fref=ts</a></p>
<p>As we closed out the interview, I asked her, “Why? Why donate a kidney to a total stranger?” Her answer was “When there’s good to be done, you have to do it.... don’t just talk about it.” </p>
<p>That seems to be Christy’s motto in life, and one that I personally am inspired to try to live up to! The name of the song I’ve written about Christy’s story is “When There’s Good to Be Done.” </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/e9886d2057437df15de890d0b6467107cc2dfd3b/original/p4254190custom.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6ODAweDEwNjciXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1067" width="800" /><br></p>
Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963032015-07-17T12:00:00-12:002023-10-16T02:55:51-12:00Lester Schrenk - Survived WWII German Death March
<p>The year was 1942, and Lester Schrenk's parents didn't want him to enlist. They lived on a farm in Long Prairie, and Les was 19 years old. Nevertheless, he went ahead and joined the Army-Airforce (all one branch of the military then). He went to basic training, mechanic training, then gunner training, and one year later he was overseas, flying on missions in a B-17, as a ball turret gunner.</p>
<p>I interviewed Lester at his retirement home in Bloomington, on January 31. Curtis and I had played music for the residents there many times over the years. I asked the activities director if she knew of any residents who had a story to tell that might fit my grant project - people who had overcome great challenges in their lives. With no hesitation she said, "You have to talk to Lester Schrenk." </p>
<p>He and his wife Bernice invited me into their apartment, and I turned on the Zoom digital recorder. And Lester took me on the journey of his life, through World War II and beyond! He was on his tenth mission when the Germans hit the fuel tank of the right wing. There were great explosions and flames trailing 30 feet long. They were over the North Sea in February, and the pilot knew they would not survive baling out in that icy water. So he turned the plane around and headed back toward German occupied Denmark, 20 minutes away. He also put down his landing gear, a signal to the Germans that they were surrendering. Amazingly, the German pilot who had hit them "escorted" them back to land, without firing anymore. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Lester had extracted himself from the "ball turret," the small plexiglass structure hanging from the belly of the plane, which was his gunning position. He strapped on his parachute. The minute they saw land below, they all baled out. At the same time, the destroyed wing blew off. All 10 men baled out, and all survived except the pilot, who unfortunately landed in a lake and drowned. </p>
<p>Dozens and dozens of Nazis were waiting for Lester, guns drawn, and they took him to be interrogated. Beatings were standard, but Lester gave only "name, rank, and serial number." He was sent to Stalag Luft 6, (Luft meant it was a POW camp specifically for airmen). Conditions there were very grim, with very little food. Russian Allied troops were closing in on this area, so the Germans decided to evacuate the camp to keep the POWs from being liberated. First they were jammed into boxcars, so tightly that they were forced to stand. Next they were loaded into a filthy coal ship, again so tightly that they had to stand. There was no food. Lester recalls getting one small sip of water on the ship. </p>
<p>Their destination was Stalag Luft 4, which was even worse than the last camp. There was very little food. Red Cross parcels meant for the men often were not delivered. Most days Lester got just one meal of watery soup. Some days there was a can of rotten fish. Any canned goods were often rotten. Lester and the other men ate it anyway, out of necessity. Again, the Russians were closing in, so they evacuated this camp of 10,000 men as well. </p>
<p>Lester's group of approximately 500 men marched out in February 1945. It was one of the coldest winters on record. Lester's American uniform had been taken when he was captured, and he was issued a hodgepodge of clothes, none of which was meant for cold winter wear. His shoes were from an English soldier, with holes, and very slick on the bottom. He had a thin jacket, and one thin blanket.</p>
<p>Lester wondered where their destination might be, but after several days of marching, he realized they were not really heading to any particular place. They were simply evading the Allies. The truth was there was no camp for them to go to. At night they slept on frozen ground, sometimes in a barn. Many times they marched on cobblestone roads, and the pain was excruciating on Lester's feet, as his shoes slid this way and that. Lester said when they did walk on dirt roads, it was a relief. His socks became worn away till all that was left was a ring of fabric around the top. Trench foot was common, from having wet feet. If one removed his shoes, the feet could swell and one might not be able to get shoes on again. </p>
<p>Les says they were already so weak when they started out, and conditions so terrible, that they just dragged along. Some days there was no food at all, some days they got only a cup of hot water. Some days they had watery soup, or frozen sugar beets they found on the road, that had fallen off a wagon, and everyone suffered from dysentery. Les said many times the diarrhea was so bad you would not have time to lower your pants to relieve yourself. No one had a change of clothes, or a way to wash. Conditions were positively filthy. </p>
<p>Since Lester's family was German, he knew how to speak the language somewhat, so he was forced to march up near the front so he could translate orders. When a man could not go on, a guard fell behind with him, and Lester heard a shot. It happened everyday. Some men froze to death at night. Lester said they used the "buddy system" for sleeping. Five or six men would sleep close to each other to conserve body heat, and double up their blankets. Some mornings the blanket underneath would be frozen to the ground.</p>
<p>Part way through the interview I looked into Lester's eyes and asked, "Was there ever a time you thought you wouldn't make it home alive?" Without missing a beat he said, "Oh no. I KNEW I'd get home. I knew what my parents were going through, and I had to get home for them." They hadn't heard anything from him since they left Stalag Luft 4.</p>
<p>Eighty-six days after they left the POW camp, the English Army liberated them. Lester found out later they had walked almost 800 miles. Some days they walked 10 miles, some days 15 or 20. This forced march came to be known as the German Death March. There were many groups marching through Germany and Poland. I was amazed I had never heard of it before. I asked Lester how many men died during this march, and he said no one knows, not even our government. </p>
<p>Lester made his way back to Long Prairie and his parents, and not too long after, married Bernice. In 1998, Lester got a computer and learned how to use the internet. His incentive was finding the German pilot that had shot them down. I asked why in the world he wanted to find him. He said to thank him. Thank him? </p>
<p>"I wanted to thank him, for not finishing us off," Les said. "Instead, he followed us back to Denmark, and saw us parachute out. Other Luftewaffe pilots would have just shot us out of the sky." Amazingly, with help from other internet "buddies," he found the pilot just a few years ago. His name was Hans Hermann Muller. With such a common name, it was difficult to search for him. Lester and Bernice traveled to Germany and met the pilot and his wife, and did thank him, in 2012. Now they are good friends. </p>
<p>When asked why he would want to meet the pilot, Les said, "If I hated him, would it hurt him? No, it would hurt me. It would make me a bitter person. It’s better to forgive and put the past behind you."</p>
<p>There is a documentary that Denmark TV made about their meeting in 2012. It's showing on Minnesota Public TV July 19 and 26. It's called "Mortal Enemies," and here's the times it will be on. </p>
<blockquote>
<div><strong><em>tpt </em>MN - The Minnesota Channel</strong></div>
<div>Showing statewide on all 6 PBS stations in Minnesota</div>
<div>Channel 2.2 by antenna in the Twin Cities; check listing for local cable</div>
<div></div>
<blockquote>
<div><strong>Sun Jul 19th @ 9:30 pm</strong></div>
<div><strong> </strong></div>
<div><strong>Sun Jul 26th @ 3:30 am</strong></div>
<div><strong> </strong></div>
<div><strong>Sun Jul 26th @ 9:30 am</strong></div>
<div><strong> </strong></div>
<div><strong>Sun Jul 26th @ 3:30 pm</strong></div>
<div></div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p> St Paul Pioneer Press ran a great article about Les on Memorial Day of this year. Here's a link to it - <a href="http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28172819/minnesotan-les-schrenk-survived-wwii-now-he-knows" data-imported="1">http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28172819/minnesotan-les-schrenk-survived-wwii-now-he-knows</a></p>
<p>Lester's story touched me so deeply. I wondered how anyone could live through these things and come out not only alive but also stronger for it. The song I wrote about him is of course a very condensed version of the above story. I asked him what he'd like me to call his song. He said, "That line from the chorus, 'I Will Get Home,' would be just right!"</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/d8a344b295833677a48dd7cda50e0a1067e4ac25/original/p4011089.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963022015-07-06T12:00:00-12:002015-07-08T21:14:51-12:00Harvey Ronglien's story - "State Schooler"
<p>The grant year started January 1, and I hit the ground running. The first interview I did was with Harvey Ronglien, in Owatonna, Minnesota. </p>
<p>In 2010, Curtis and I did a concert at the Owatonna Arts Center. It's a beautiful old brick building, built in 1885. In the back hallways, there are many glass display cases, filled with photos, articles, and artifacts from the 1930s and 40s. They tell the story of the "State School," the state orphanage in Minnesota. </p>
<p>After the concert, I talked to Silvan Durben, the artistic director at the Arts Center, about the orphanage. He told me the actual building where the arts center is now located used to be the main administrative building of the state orphanage, from 1886 till 1945. He told me I should come down sometime when Harvey Ronglien was giving a talk and a tour of the grounds. Harvey grew up at the orphanage, and he and his wife started the museum, the glass display cases in the hallway, in the 1980s. So Curtis and I drove to Owatonna the next summer, heard Harvey talk, and took the tour to the newly renovated Cottage 11, where Harvey lived for many years of his childhood. I was mesmerized by this intimate look at a young life forever molded by an institutional upbringing. I told him I'd like to write about him someday.</p>
<p></p>
<p>I got the grant in 2015, and "someday" arrived! I drove down to Owatonna on a bitter cold day, and interviewed Harvey right in Cottage 11. I had read his book "A Boy from C-11," which I had bought when I first met him, so I used this as a basis for my interview questions. The book is available at the gift shop, which is right there in Cottage 11. Harvey pulled no punches; he talked candidly about everyday life growing up in an institution where there was little positive adult interaction and corporal punishment was acceptable. He also recalled good memories such as being involved in the Golden Gloves boxing program, and the one good "matron" he had when he moved to the "Big Boys' Cottage." </p>
<p>For each person I've interviewed, the essential question is always, "How did you get through this?" Harvey's answer was complex. He learned to never "rock the boat." Individualism was frowned upon, and there were no real role models to follow. Like many of the "State Schoolers" have said, they became robots of sorts, moving along through life without thinking for themselves. Punishment for even small infringements was very harsh. He says his wife Maxine "saved him." He had no idea how to act as part of a family, and she literally taught him how this was done. Some of the others who grew up at the orphanage are very bitter and unforgiving about what they went through, but Harvey remembers both the good and the bad. Though he still has scars from what he went through so long ago, he is also thankful that the State School gave him three square meals and a good education, in the midst of the Depression years.</p>
<p>Harvey and Maxine still live in Owatonna, and plan to be at the CD release concert there on Saturday, Nov. 21 at 2 pm. The CD release will be held right at the Owatonna Arts Center. The room that is used as a concert hall, in the main building, was the dining room where hundreds of kids, including Harvey, ate their meals every day. </p>
<p>We're also doing a CD release concert in Minneapolis, at the Cedar Cultural Center, on Sunday, Nov. 22 at 7:30 pm.</p>
<p>You can learn more about the "State School" at <a href="http://www.orphanagemuseum.com" data-imported="1">http://www.orphanagemuseum.com</a></p>
<p></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/393132/ec1780cfe8c61d2d13c57e303bf1c39825b751fc/original/harvey-loretta.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p>Loretta and Harvey Ronglien in the living room of Cottage 11. The kids were required to scrub and wax this living room floor, but they could never sit in there. It was for "show" only, such as when visitors came, which was very seldom.</p>
<p>My next blog entry will be Lester Schrenk, a World War II veteran who was a POW. Somehow, he was able to survive the German Death March, marching with other prisoners across Germany for 86 days through one of the bitterest winters on record. </p>
Curtis & Lorettatag:curtisandloretta.com,2005:Post/60963012015-07-05T12:00:00-12:002020-01-13T09:09:10-12:00Grant from Arts Board vs Rocking on the Porch!
<p>When I was a little kid, sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch with the family on a warm summer night, we would watch the cars go by. Understand that I grew up in the country, right on Highway 36 (then called 212), which led into downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. Nowadays untold thousands of cars pass that way each day, but in those days each car was an exciting event. I dearly wanted to know where each one was going. What was their story - where had they come from, where were they headed, what would they do when they got there, had they encountered roadblocks along the way? I remember thinking how cool it would be if each vehicle had a sign on it explaining its destination. Now I've officially been given permission to ask people, in depth, about their personal stories, and pass them on to the world.</p>
<p>I was awarded an Artist Initiative grant in Music from the Minnesota State Arts Board this year. My project is to develop my songwriting skills, particularly in the genre of story-songs. I'm interviewing 12 everyday, real-life people who have overcome overwhelming challenges in their lives, and come out better for it. Then I'm crafting each story into a song, and Curtis and I will record these songs for a CD to be released in November.</p>
<p>What a stellar cast of characters I've assembled! I knew these people, my "subjects" in song, would be inspiring to me and to others, but I wasn't prepared for HOW inspiring they have been to me already. I feel so honored to be able to connect with each of these folks, and get a clear insight into each of their stories. I love my job! The grant project enabled me to contact each "subject" and ask to be invited into their lives, and share their story with the world. </p>
<p>I found each "subject" in a unique way. Stay tuned here for an introduction to my "cast of characters!" First up here in my blog will be a look into the life and story of Harvey Ronglien, who grew up at the State Orphanage in Owatonna, Minnesota. Come back soon and sit on the rocking chairs on the porch with me, and we'll delve into Harvey's journey together!</p>
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Curtis & Loretta