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Curb is the lifestyle magazine for Wisconsinites who know what they want and aren’t afraid of the journey. It provides readers with a platform to indulge their curiosity — because Wisconsin is anything but expected.
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A Picture of Change
Solidarity SisterA nun champions change in health care
The Learning Curve
CURBWHERE IDENTITIES INTERSECT
PLUSMindful Music
Seven Stops Brew School
Wisconsin Sound
FEATURES
RENEWING OPTIMISMSikhs look forward after Oak Creek Shooting
History on tap at Hanson’s Pub
Slaying ShakespearePrison arts program meets unexpected end
Fall 2012
CUISINE
CONT
ENTS
IN MADISON, RED MEANS GO.
Stay, play and dine in style at the city’s most stylish boutique hotel and
restaurant, The Wise, where entertainment and indulgence stir the senses
and excite the imagination. Just steps away from the legendary Camp
Randall Stadium, HotelRED features 48 contemporary suites, ultramodern
amenities and world-class service & unforgettable dining experiences for
the fast-paced professional, style-conscious traveler and Madison locals
alike. Experience Madison as you never have before.
IN MADISON, RED MEANS GO.
Enjoy the local color
1501 MONROE STREET, MADISON, WI WWW.HOTELRED.COM608.819.8228 VISIT US ON FACEBOOK
33
CONT
ENTS 16
“some villain hath done me wrong”
21history on tap
24chardi kala (optimism)
FEATURES
30sweet science
34sassy and fabulous
CUISINE
38following footsteps
40bronzeville’s brush strokes
44jurustic park
ARTS
46the learning curve
50growing more than
food
COMMUNITY
54solidarity sister
58raising expectations
PEOPLE
photo by: nate moll
CURBwhere identities intersect
editoremily connor
managing editormelissa grau
lead writersalison dirr
emily gencoheather laing
copy editorjourdan miller
art directorzachary arostegui
production editortessa hahn
production associates kendra dawson
aimee katz
photo editorstephanie wezelman
marketing directorjosh lieberthal
public relations managerdevin mulertt
marketing representativesvalerie chesnik
jade likely
online editorsamuel easton
online associatescorinne burgermeister
daniel niepowmolly reppen
publisherkaty culver
cover photo bylukas keapproth
As a small-town girl, I’ve grown up loving brats, cheese curds and cows—markers of an identity seemingly synonymous with the Dairy State. And while it may be spot-on for some, this rural rendition often leaves an entire collection of cultures and identities behind.
Our state is much more than the perceptions of passers-by. Wisconsin is the urban and the rural, the Sassy Cow farmer and the Milwaukee muralist, the Menominee students and the Sikh temple members. Our staff and I set out to explore the cultures unique to Wisconsin, to discover what lay beyond the initial impressions. Yet I was amazed to find countless common threads connecting our cuisine, arts, communities and people.
We found anomalies and contradictions—stories of an optimistic Sikh community in mourning, sustainable gardens emerging in the face of health food scarcity, an inspiring arts program in a prison and candy created through chemistry.
From the rural areas in northern Wisconsin to the urban centers of Milwaukee, our sto-ries, struggles and traditions share common connections. Whether stories of tears and triumphs, or unexpected laughs and oddities, Wisconsin is a varied state. And in a time of deep divisions, we were thankful to discover the Wisconsinite identity unites us all.
I invite you to look past the rolling hills and urban skylines to discover the people and stories within. Wisconsin is a state of intersecting identities and individuals. It’s time to discover those amazing differences, their common thread and together, weave a Wis-consin that connects, not divides.
emily connor, editor
editor’s letter
Curb magazine is published through gener-ous alumni donations administered by the UW Foundation and in partnership with Royle Printing, Sun Prairie, Wis.
© Copyright 2012 Curb magazine
An environmentally
conscious printer
Winner of the 2011 Award for
Sustainable Manufacturing Initiative
from In Business Magazine
www.royle.com
CURB
photo by: aimee katz
For local residents, the white
wing tips of the world-
renowned Milwaukee Art
Museum stand as an iconic
landmark of the Lake Michigan
waterfront, a stark contrast
from the conjured up images
of Wisconsin’s manufacturing
center. The Quadracci
Pavilion’s intertwined beams
and poles, designed by
Spanish architect Santiago
Calatrava, revitalized the
lakefront in 2001.
wing tips
7
CUISINE
photo by: nate moll
lakefront
Community members swap
stories between swigs of beer
while sitting along the Mendota
lakefront outside the Memorial
Union in Madison. Though the
Capitol building often
dominates the city skylines,
this view resonates louder with
residents of Wisconsin’s beating
heart and capital city—a
symbol of both the state’s
natural beauty and urban pulse.
9
10 / CURBONLINE.com
MINDFUL MUSIC
EARTH GONGTuned to G, the Earth Gong offers a grounding
vibration. It represents stability, strength, anchoring and connectedness. It is made from an alloy called nickel silver, which contains 60 percent copper, 20
percent nickel and 20 percent zinc. The artists would craft in tandem, one holds the gong and the other turns it
while hammering to perfectly form it.
She’s not a shrink. She won’t lec-ture you on life decisions or re-lationship mistakes. She won’t have you sit on her couch and
unfold stories of regret, loss or unhap-piness. But she will amaze you.
Her name is Lee Ann Dzelzkalns, a Mil-waukee-based vibrational healer who uses instruments, meditation and her voice to help people remedy their lives. Dzelzkalns’ work is an escape from big pharma. Her methodology is based in the body’s ability to heal itself through meditation and the power of music.
Dzelzkalns’ business, LA Consulting, established in the early 1990s, is a fu-sion of sound and meditation heal-ing grounded in principals of holistic learning, spiritual awakening and the power of nature.
“People have that fear of losing control, going inside themselves and breaking down the inner walls,” Dzelzkalns says when asked why people are called to her. “Yet when you begin to do it, the
end result is pure liberation and self-realization.”
Dzelzkalns is soft spoken, but with a sense of conviction, she outlines the history of the giant German gongs hanging from her living room ceil-ing. Climb the stairs to her meditation room, and you’re transported away from Milwaukee and into someplace serene, complete with natural light fil-tering in from the ceiling.
Yet the fascinating part of Dzelzkalns’ work is in the instruments she uses, which help individuals release pain and suffering from their souls. On display in her meditation room are large and small hand-pounded Tibetan singing bowls made of seven metals, copper, brass and nickel chimes, bells and a large wooden monochord. Her impres-sive collection of instruments leads one to call her a musician, yet she’s quick to correct.
“I’m not a musician, I am an esoteric musician. The music came to me,” Dzel-
zkalns says. “What I do is mind, body, and spirit integration.” “Eso,” meaning “hidden,” Dzelzkalns explains.
Her path, as Dzelzkalns calls it, is her calling to the work of facilitating the process of healing others through the vibrations of sound. Her mantra, something she repeats to her students is “notice what you notice.” Then, with-out judgment or expectation, allow for self-clarification and the possibility of a life lesson.
The use of sound vibrations on the physical body
Lee Ann Dzelzkalns heals through soundby: Jourdan Miller + photos by: Stephanie Wezelman
11
c
The practice of sound healing is rooted in ancient principles. Yet, Dzelzkalns reminds her students that the philosophy
behind sound healing is simple. She asks participants to think of how a song makes them feel. “It elicits a warm, good feeling,
and that’s the vibration of sound,” Dzelzkalns says when asked to break down her work. From gongs to monochords, Dzelzkalns
uses a variety of instruments to guide participants through the healing process.
can be dated as far back as 565 B.C. when mathematician Pythagoras was credited to discovering the phenome-non of sound vibrations. His work tran-scended the physical effects of sound vibration and sought to help people embrace their true selves.
REVAMPING ANCIENT PRACTICESYet the practice can’t exactly be labeled as “ancient,” according to Dzelzkalns. It’s a refinement of an ancient practice, shaped and chiseled to fit into the twen-tieth century. The duality of her work is contrasting it with modern day medi-cine and helping it garner more scien-tific credibility.
“There is a lot of science behind sound and vibrational healing,” says Jen-nette Cable, a traditional naturopath, classical homeopath, sound therapist and owner of Creative Care & Well-ness Center, located in Milwaukee and serving New York City. “If we have a deficiency in something we could embark on a sound-healing journey
to get ourselves back on track. For example, we are now
able to identify the vibrational
frequency of specific vitamins and miner-
als. That’s where the cur-rent
research is landing us right now.”
While Cable’s work varies from Dzelz-kalns’, her use of musical tuning forks in the treatment of anxiety or in help-ing children with behavior disorders, autism or Attention Deficit Disorder, is rooted in the same idea that specifically applied music and sound releases stuck energy patterns and resonates with spe-cific neural centers of the body.
Through the process of a sound journey emotions surface and can lead to feel-ings of discomfort. Often times how-ever, a release is elicited and the story line of something old merely dissolves, Dzelzkalns adds.
After struggling through a series of losses in 2009, Kristen Gillan was look-ing for a spiritual outlet and was sent a brochure on Dzelzkalns’ Lotus Heart Sound Journey. “The work has trans-formed me,” Gillan says. “I was angry and hurt and incredibly sad when I started working with Lee Ann. In the span of four years, I had a lifetime of
loss jammed into a short time. On the stress scale, I was way over the max mark. Now I feel genuine happiness and compassion. As one of my friends told me, I am still me but less edgy. I have found my center.”
MUSIC IS MEDICINEOne of the more difficult yet ultimately fulfilling aspects of Dzelzkalns’ work is the physical release, which is essentially a soul detox—a sort of spiritual juice cleanse.
“Headaches, sometimes flu-like symp-toms present,” says Gillan.
Dzelzkalns explained these emotional purges as psychological and structural releases—an opportunity for growth.
Ultimately we want to just be, Dzel-zkalns says. Our goal is self-mastery. Life becomes a meditation when you’re functioning from a place of center and harmony. Helping people stay ground-ed in the truth of who they are, even with the chaos of everyday life, is what she hopes her students take away from the sound journeys.
We’re all in this together,” Dzelzkalns says, of the plethora of alternative heal-ing methods available. “It’s about work-ing as a community to expand global consciousness and brotherhood and sisterhood. Hand to hand. Heart to heart. Mind to mind. Soul to soul.”
Visit curbonline.com to read the extended version.
“““PEOPLE HAVE THAT FEAR OF LOSING CONTROL, GO-ING INSIDE THEMSELVES
AND BREAKING DOWN THE INNER WALLS,”
Z A 10 SEC ROW SEAT
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Green CountyCheese Days
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K D 12
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Fyr Ball Festival
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The Slimey Crud Café Racer Run
A popular motorcycle trek, the Slimey Crud Run roars through southern Wisconsin twice a year. Beginning in Pine Bluff, motorcycle enthusiasts
mount bikes spanning eras and genres and venture to Leland. There’s never a predetermined route. Participants are left to explore the rambling roads of Southern Wisconsin.
Green County proudly showcases their world-class cheesemakers at this delightful dairy celebration, considered to be the oldest food
festival in the Midwest. Annual activities include a cow-milking contest, yodeling instructions and a parade honoring Wisconsin’s Swiss roots and the local dairy
industry.
No midsummer celebration is complete without
burning the winter witch, right? Of course, no witch is actually set aflame during Ephraim’s annual Fyr Ball Festival in Door County though
iconic bonfires along the Eagle Harbor shore burn to greet summer’s start. The three-day affair honors early Norwegian culture by re-creating
traditions associated with Midsummer’s Eve.
Fermentation FestThis “live cultural convergence” celebrates all things fermented: chocolate, beer, kombucha and hard cider, just to name a few. Over the course of 10 days, Reedsburg, Wis., offers seminars and demos to excite fermentation foodies. Event orga-nizer Donna Neuwirth explained in a statement that “fermentation is transformation: from grain to beer, milk to yogurt, cabbage to Kimchee, hayfield to stage and from one kind of community to another. During the transformational process, nutrients and flavor develop and energy is released–the perfect ingredients for an annual festival.”
1. N. Pinckney StreetSuite 300
Madison, WI 53703608-250-3500
YOUR TICKET TO WACKY WISCONSIN by: josh lieberthal
CURB DIGITALSee more stories, videos and exclusive content in Curb’s iBook.
Chirafisi & Verhoff, S.C. is a criminal and drunk driving de-fense law firm based in Madison, Wisconsin. They measure the success of their law firm by the type of results they obtain for their clients. Consistent and successful results are what dis-tinguish Chirafisi & Verhoff, S.C., one of the finest criminal and drunk driving defense firms in Wisconsin, from the rest. With more than twenty-five years of combined experience, the lawyers at Chirafisi & Verhoff understand what is at stake for people being investigated or charged with a criminal offense or drunk driving.
Attorney Corey Chirafisi and Attorney Timothy Verhoff have handled thousands of criminal and drunk driving cases during their law careers, with more than 100 cases to trial. But they know “wins” aren’t limited to those cases taken to a jury. The best results often occur when our attorneys convince prosecu-tors not to file charges at all. Don’t wait until you are charged in court to hire a lawyer.
Contact our office immediately.
CHIRAFISI & VERHOFF, S.C.
1. N. Pinckney StreetSuite 300
Madison, WI 53703608-250-3500
CV
2012 Wisconsin Super Attorney, Corey Chirafisi and Timothy Verhoff
3502 MONROE ST, MADISON, WI - [email protected]
east coast fish house meets wisconsin tavern
G&B_Curb_Ad_Nov2012.indd 1 11/15/12 12:51 PM
3502 MONROE ST, MADISON, WI - [email protected]
east coast fish house meets wisconsin tavern
G&B_Curb_Ad_Nov2012.indd 1 11/15/12 12:51 PM
16 / CURBONLINE.com
CUISINE {CUISINE}
16 / CURBONLINE.com
SCENE I. On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noiseof thunder and lightning heard.Enter a Master and a BoatswainM a s t e rB o a t s w a i n !B o a t s w a i nHere, master: what cheer?M a s t e rGood, speak to the mari-ners: fall to’t, yarely,or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.E x i tEnter MarinersB o a t s w a i nHeigh, my hearts! cheer-ly, cheerly, my hearts!yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to themaster’s whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,if room enough!Enter ALONSO, SE-BASTIAN, ANTO-NIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and othersA L O N S OGood boatswain, have care. Where’s the master?Play the men.B o a t s w a i nI pray now, keep below.A N T O N I OWhere is the mas-ter, boatswain?B o a t s w a i nDo you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep yourcabins: you do as-sist the storm.G O N Z A L ONay, good, be patient.B o a t s w a i nWhen the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarersfor the name of king? To cabin: si-lence! trouble us not.G O N Z A L OGood, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.B o a t s w a i nNone that I more love than myself. You are acounsellor; if you can com-mand these elements tosilence, and work the peace of the present, we willnot hand a rope more; use your authority: if youcannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and makeyourself ready in your cabin for the mischance ofthe hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Outof our way, I say.E x i tG O N Z A L OI have great comfort from this fellow: methinks hehath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion isperfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to hishanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,for our own doth little advantage. If he be notborn to be hanged,
our case is miserable.E x e u n tRe-enter BoatswainB o a t s w a i nDown with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bringher to try with main-course.A cry withinA plague upon this howl-ing! they are louder thanthe weather or our office.Re-enter SEBAS-TIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALOYet again! what do you here? Shall we give o’erand drown? Have you a mind to sink?S E B A S T I A NA pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,incharitable dog!B o a t s w a i nWork you then.A N T O N I OHang, cur! hang, you whore-son, insolent noisemaker!We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.G O N Z A L OI’ll warrant him for drown-ing; though the ship wereno stronger than a nut-shell and as leaky as anunstanched wench.B o a t s w a i nLay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off tosea again; lay her off.Enter Mariners wetM a r i n e r sAll lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!B o a t s w a i nWhat, must our mouths be cold?G O N Z A L OThe king and prince at prayers! let’s assist them,For our case is as theirs.S E B A S T I A NI’m out of patience.A N T O N I OWe are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:This wide-chapp’d rascal--would thou mightst lie drowningThe washing of ten tides!G O N Z A L OHe’ll be hang’d yet,Though every drop of water swear against itAnd gape at wid-est to glut him.A confused noise with-in: ‘Mercy on us!’-- ‘We split, we split!’--’Farewell, my wife and children!’-- ‘Farewell, brother!’--’We split, we split, we split!’A N T O N I OLet’s all sink with the king.S E B A S T I A NLet’s take leave of him.Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIANG O N Z A L ONow would I give a thou-sand furlongs of sea for anacre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be
done! but I would faindie a dry death.E x e u n tSCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO’S cell.Enter PROSPE-RO and MIRANDAM I R A N D AIf by your art, my dear-est father, you havePut the wild waters in this roar, allay them.The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,But that the sea, mount-ing to the welkin’s cheek,Dashes the fire out. O, I have sufferedWith those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,Dash’d all to pieces. O, the cry did knockAgainst my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.Had I been any god of power, I wouldHave sunk the sea within the earth or ereIt should the good ship so have swallow’d andThe fraughting souls within her.P R O S P E R OBe collected:No more amazement: tell your piteous heartThere’s no harm done.M I R A N D AO, woe the day!P R O S P E R ONo harm.I have done noth-ing but in care of thee,Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, whoArt ignorant of what thou art, nought knowingOf whence I am, nor that I am more betterThan Prospero, mas-ter of a full poor cell,And thy no greater father.M I R A N D AMore to knowDid never meddle with my thoughts.P R O S P E R O‘Tis timeI should inform thee far-ther. Lend thy hand,And pluck my magic garment from me. So:Lays down his mantleLie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch’dThe very virtue of compassion in thee,I have with such pro-vision in mine artSo safely ordered that there is no soul--No, not so much per-dition as an hairBetid to any crea-ture in the vesselWhich thou heard’st cry, which thou saw’st sink. Sit down;
For thou must now know farther.M I R A N D AYou have oftenBegun to tell me what I am, but stopp’dAnd left me to a bootless inquisition,Concluding ‘Stay: not yet.’P R O S P E R OThe hour’s now come;The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;Obey and be attentive. Canst thou rememberA time before we came unto this cell?I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast notOut three years old.M I R A N D ACertainly, sir, I can.P R O S P E R OBy what? by any oth-er house or person?Of any thing the im-age tell me thatHath kept with thy remembrance.M I R A N D A‘Tis far offAnd rather like a dream than an assuranceThat my remembrance warrants. Had I notFour or five women once that tended me?P R O S P E R OThou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is itThat this lives in thy mind? What seest thou elseIn the dark backward and abysm of time?If thou remember’st aught ere thou camest here,How thou cam-est here thou mayst.M I R A N D ABut that I do not.P R O S P E R OTwelve year since, Mi-randa, twelve year since,Thy father was the Duke of Milan andA prince of power.M I R A N D ASir, are not you my father?P R O S P E R OThy mother was a piece of virtue, andShe said thou wast my daughter; and thy fatherWas Duke of Milan; and thou his only heirAnd princess no worse issued.M I R A N D AO the heavens!What foul play had we, that we came from thence?Or blessed was’t we did?P R O S P E R OBoth, both, my girl:By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heaved thence,But blessedly holp hither.M I R A N D AO, my heart bleedsTo think o’ the teen that I have turn’d you to,Which is from my remem-brance! Please you, farther.
P R O S P E R OMy brother and thy uncle, call’d Antonio--I pray thee, mark me--that a brother shouldBe so perfidious!--he whom next thyselfOf all the world I loved and to him putThe manage of my state; as at that timeThrough all the si-gnories it was the firstAnd Prospero the prime duke, being so reputedIn dignity, and for the liberal artsWithout a parallel; those being all my study,The government I cast upon my brotherAnd to my state grew stranger, being transportedAnd rapt in secret stud-ies. Thy false uncle--Dost thou attend me?M I R A N D ASir, most heedfully.P R O S P E R OBeing once perfect-ed how to grant suits,How to deny them, who to advance and whoTo trash for over-topping, new createdThe creatures that were mine, I say, or changed ‘em,Or else new form’d ‘em; having both the keyOf officer and office, set all hearts i’ the stateTo what tune pleased his ear; that now he wasThe ivy which had hid my princely trunk,And suck’d my verdure out on’t. Thou attend’st not.M I R A N D AO, good sir, I do.P R O S P E R OI pray thee, mark me.I, thus neglecting world-ly ends, all dedicatedTo closeness and the bettering of my mindWith that which, but by being so retired,O’er-prized all popular rate, in my false brotherAwaked an evil na-ture; and my trust,Like a good par-ent, did beget of himA falsehood in its contrary as greatAs my trust was; which had indeed no limit,A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,Not only with what my revenue yielded,But what my power might else exact, like oneWho having into truth, by telling of it,Made such a sin-ner of his memory,To credit his own lie, he did believeHe was indeed the duke; out o’ the substitutionAnd executing the out-ward face of royalty,
With all prerogative: hence his ambition growing--Dost thou hear?M I R A N D AYour tale, sir, would cure deafness.P R O S P E R OTo have no screen be-tween this part he play’dAnd him he play’d it for, he needs will beAbsolute Milan. Me, poor man, my libraryWas dukedom large enough: of temporal royaltiesHe thinks me now in-capable; confederates--So dry he was for sway--wi’ the King of NaplesTo give him annual trib-ute, do him homage,Subject his coronet to his crown and bendThe dukedom yet unbow’d--alas, poor Milan!--To most ignoble stooping.M I R A N D AO the heavens!P R O S P E R OMark his condition and the event; then tell meIf this might be a brother.M I R A N D AI should sinTo think but nobly of my grandmother:Good wombs have borne bad sons.P R O S P E R ONow the condition.The King of Na-ples, being an enemyTo me inveterate, hear-kens my brother’s suit;Which was, that he, in lieu o’ the premisesOf homage and I know not how much tribute,Should presently ex-tirpate me and mineOut of the dukedom and confer fair MilanWith all the honours on my brother: whereon,A treacherous army levied, one midnightFated to the pur-pose did Antonio openThe gates of Milan, and, i’ the dead of darkness,The ministers for the purpose hurried thenceMe and thy crying self.M I R A N D AAlack, for pity!I, not remembering how I cried out then,Will cry it o’er again: it is a hintThat wrings mine eyes to’t.P R O S P E R OHear a little furtherAnd then I’ll bring thee to the present businessWhich now’s upon’s; with-out the which this storyWere most impertinent.M I R A N D AWherefore did they notThat hour destroy us?P R O S P E R OWell demanded, wench:My tale provokes that ques-
“some villain
hath done me
wrong”Shakespeare’s words brought
understanding and empowerment to prisoners until it met an unexpected end
1717
With all prerogative: hence his ambition growing--Dost thou hear?M I R A N D AYour tale, sir, would cure deafness.P R O S P E R OTo have no screen be-tween this part he play’dAnd him he play’d it for, he needs will beAbsolute Milan. Me, poor man, my libraryWas dukedom large enough: of temporal royaltiesHe thinks me now in-capable; confederates--So dry he was for sway--wi’ the King of NaplesTo give him annual trib-ute, do him homage,Subject his coronet to his crown and bendThe dukedom yet unbow’d--alas, poor Milan!--To most ignoble stooping.M I R A N D AO the heavens!P R O S P E R OMark his condition and the event; then tell meIf this might be a brother.M I R A N D AI should sinTo think but nobly of my grandmother:Good wombs have borne bad sons.P R O S P E R ONow the condition.The King of Na-ples, being an enemyTo me inveterate, hear-kens my brother’s suit;Which was, that he, in lieu o’ the premisesOf homage and I know not how much tribute,Should presently ex-tirpate me and mineOut of the dukedom and confer fair MilanWith all the honours on my brother: whereon,A treacherous army levied, one midnightFated to the pur-pose did Antonio openThe gates of Milan, and, i’ the dead of darkness,The ministers for the purpose hurried thenceMe and thy crying self.M I R A N D AAlack, for pity!I, not remembering how I cried out then,Will cry it o’er again: it is a hintThat wrings mine eyes to’t.P R O S P E R OHear a little furtherAnd then I’ll bring thee to the present businessWhich now’s upon’s; with-out the which this storyWere most impertinent.M I R A N D AWherefore did they notThat hour destroy us?P R O S P E R OWell demanded, wench:My tale provokes that ques-
This visit was much different. Dressed in vibrant royal garb with a blue patterned garment and crimson sash, Leair took the stage as Ferdinand in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. After nine months of rigorous rehearsals, he was ready to show the public that he, too, possessed redeeming qualities of hard work and dedication. He scanned the crowd and his eyes fell upon his mother and two sisters tearing up with pride and his daughter, Ally, watching closely in the front row. Two-and-a-half hours later—a long time to sit for any child—a thunder of applause could be heard in the closely monitored visiting area. Leair took his final bow and went to reunite with Ally, eager for her reaction.
All hesitation immediately vanished as she ran forward and embraced him. “My Daddy is a prince!” she beamed with a wide grin. Leair was overcome with joy and emotion—the impression on his daughter’s face forever etched in his mind.
“It was just the happiest moment that I can think of when we got done and I stepped off the stage and she just ran into my arms,” he recalls. “I will carry that with me forever.”
Leair first entered Racine Correctional Institution in Janu-ary 2005. He transferred from Waupun Correctional Institu-tion, where he had already spent five-and-a-half years since his initial incarceration at the age of 20. At the time of the performance, he was in his seventh year behind bars, facing a 30-year sentence on counts of armed robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment. One of 600 inmates to be involved in the study and performance of Shakespeare between 2004 and 2008, Leair was a proud participant in The Shakespeare Prison Project.
“THE THEATRE OF EMPOWERMENT”The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Ninety-five percent of these indi-
viduals will ultimately be released back into society. Prison programs such as The Shakespeare Prison Project are aimed at increasing empathy, self-discovery and conflict resolution among those facing time behind bars. The hope is that in-mates will gain valuable skills that will help them weave back into the fabric of their communities once they are released.
Jonathan Shailor, associate professor of communication at UW-Parkside and founder and director of The Shakespeare Prison Project, has been facilitating “theatre of empower-ment” classes in prisons and other settings for more than 15 years. His goal with the classes and The Shakespeare Prison Project was to use performance techniques to explore how people cope with conflict.
Inmates worked as a team over a nine-month period to study and rehearse all aspects of one of Shakespeare’s plays. With twice-a-week rehearsals, the program provided structure, a creative outlet and a valuable support system within the prison network. It also offered inmates the chance to pub-licly display their hard work during three performances, two for inmate audiences and one for family and other invited guests. During the project’s four-year run, Shailor, 55, led groups in performing King Lear, Othello, The Tempest and Julius Caesar.
“I think Shakespeare is fantastic in terms of teaching us about what it means to be human, exploring the full range of hu-man emotion,” says Shailor, referring to his belief that con-necting with Shakespearean characters can develop a greater self-awareness, discipline and moral reasoning.
And among inmates, this seemed to ring true. Leair ap-proached his role as Ferdinand, prince of Naples, with a hun-ger to learn and a desire to succeed.
Fearful of how his 7-year-old daughter would react, inmate Nick Leair prepared for his final performance with excitement laced with a hint of nervousness. It had been months since Leair had last seen his daughter, born only three months after his incarceration. She had never seen him outside prison walls or in anything but his drabby green uniform, equalizing him with more than 1,000 other inmates in the facility.
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“I completely just immersed myself in my character, and I dedicated my soul to that performance the three times that we did it and every time that we rehearsed. It was just who I was,” Leair says, passion resonating in his voice.
After experiencing a sincere connection to his character, Leair confidently felt he could have taken on any role and been able to relate. During rehearsals Leair and other par-ticipants would write journal entries juxtaposing their expe-riences with the play and real life scenarios, detailing their own crimes and the resulting impact on their families and victims. Through these introspective writing assignments and participation in group discussions, Leair acquired essen-tial skills, universally valuable both behind and beyond bars.
He gained perspective. He learned to consider consequences. He learned to consider how all parties felt in relationships and situations. And most importantly, he learned how this related to the outside world.
“With my daughter or with my neighbor or with my victims, just to be able to really dig down deep and try to get a better understanding of myself and of them and being able to make that connection,” Leair says.
LEARNING TO ADAPTPast inmate Jeff Morarend had a tougher time relating to his character. In his first performance, Morarend was cast as the female role of Goneril in King Lear. He found it difficult to
channel a woman’s mindset into his performance, attributing it to his parents’ early childhood separation and the lack of strong female role models while living apart from his mother and sisters. Even so, Morarend was up for a challenge.
He memorized more than 200 lines with ease and when it came time to perform for his family, he was eager to show them he possessed the work ethic and skill set needed to pull off the character.
“I made a mess of things, and I guess I was hopeful it would be something that my family might be proud of,” Morarend says.
Wearing a black dress, necklace and do-rag to cover his hair, Morarend commanded attention on the makeshift stage and was praised by a Green Bay women’s Shakespeare group for presenting one of the best Goneril portrayals they had seen.
Morarend’s second chance to display his hard work and dedi-
cation came when he was cast as Cassio, the general’s lieuten-ant in Othello. In the play, the character of Iago uses Cassio in his scheme to destroy Othello. The plot thickens as Iago plans Cassio’s assassination, ultimately stabbing him in the leg from behind. Though Toys R’ Us swords had been over-ruled as too close to real weapons, both Shailor and the cast used creative ways to accurately display the scene. Shailor brought in a professional fight director to train participants in stage combat and used an alternative sword prop.
With a martial arts practice weapon in hand, Morarend’s fellow inmate came after him in swift, choreographed steps. The harmlessness of the bendable PVC pipe covered in black foam rubber was successfully disguised as Morarend hunched over with a raw portrayal of pain upon his face.
“If you really get a grip of the fear and all the negative feelings that go along with what a victim is experiencing due to your crime and your actions toward them, boy that can take you a long way,” Morarend says.
He had worked at connecting with his character by relating it to his own life experiences. And though he had made mis-takes, he was hopeful for the same forgiveness his character received.
At the end of the play, Othello apologizes to Cassio for re-maining blind to Iago’s trickery, and Cassio is appointed gen-eral of the island.
“In his character, I saw failure and weakness, but there was also redemption,” Morarend says. “I guess my hope was that I could not just be that character, but have that in my own life as well.”
AN UNLIKELY BROTHERHOODBoth Leair and Morarend attribute their success to the cama-raderie established among the group.
“What they find is that they’re a team, and they develop trust in each other, and they learn how to work with each other,” Shailor says.
Each year, the program involved 15 to 17 men of different races, sexual orientations and criminal histories, ranging from drug charges and robberies to sexual assaults and ho-micides.
“It helped in relation to when I did actually get released,
“Shakespeare is fantastic in terms of teaching us about what itmeans to be human, exploring the full range of human emotion.”
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trying to cope with different people in society that may be from different walks of life,” Leair says. “I don’t think I was fully prepared for that, so the Shakespeare project definitely helped in allowing me to pick up some skills of interaction in a social setting that really are absent inside the prison walls.”
At the start of their twice-a-week practices, Shailor would round up the group in a “circle of trust,” where they would share thoughts, questions and concerns. Yet these developing relationships extended far beyond a simple circle of chairs within a prison classroom. Despite discrimination and teas-ing, inmates would rehearse in the yard together. Certain lines—such as “some villain hath done me wrong”—drew laughter among the inmates. And sure enough, by the end of the nine-month process, the cast had become a brotherhood.
And to this day, these social skills have proved important. Since his early release, Leair has never stopped applying what he learned under Shailor’s coaching and direction. He sees a direct relationship between his developing communication skills and his current job in sales.
“It’s a genuineness I like to carry in my job, having to build up a rapport and a trust with potential clients in the business world,” Leair says. “It’s the ever on-going journey of trying to be more self-aware and just strengthen yourself as an individual.”
Morarend also continues to carry lessons from The Shakespeare Prison Project close to his heart, evidenced when he read a Shakespear-ean sonnet to his fiancé during a public pre-s e nt at i on at UW-Pa r k s i d e . Despite the sense of pow-erlessness that evolved during his eight years in prison, he has worked to build his life from where he left off. He has both reconciled with his
family and continues to be a successful plumber, a career he started before he served time in prison. Leair also values the project’s ability to bring loved ones together.
“I guess to be able to be in that situation and to be fortunate and lucky enough to have the support that I’ve had and to be able to do something I think as positive as the project,” says Leair. “I can’t say enough good things about it and the posi-tive impact it’s had on me and my family.”
AN UNEXPECTED ENDDespite the program’s success, Shailor took a four-year break after he and his wife had a baby. But in 2012, he was ready and eager to pick up where he had left off, and he submitted a proposal to reinstate the program. It was discussed thor-oughly for 75 minutes among administrative staff at Racine Correctional Institution before the project was finally ap-proved to resume.
Rehearsals for the production of Hamlet were scheduled to begin Sept. 4. Shailor went forward with obtaining a class-room, bringing in textbooks and renewing his necessary vol-unteer training—which turned out not to be as necessary as he had thought.
“Shakespeare is fantastic in terms of teaching us about what itmeans to be human, exploring the full range of human emotion.”
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He had been eager for the coming of a new crop of pro-gram participants, but what came first was a rejection letter. Shailor had applied for a grant to help offset supply costs for the program. Just days before rehearsals were to begin, he re-ceived word from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections that they would not provide him with a letter of support for the grant. Determined to go through with the program re-gardless, Shailor went back to step one. He offered to run the program without the grant, but no longer received approval at RCI, leaving him with just one question: Why?
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections says The Shake-speare Prison Project does not fit within its current “evi-dence-based programming” initiative. DOC Representative Tim LeMonds says the initiative requires evidence showing programs are effective in helping offenders reintegrate into society. Regardless of whether a program is popular among inmates, statistical data must prove the program has poten-tial to reduce recidivism, or relapse into crime. Qualitative data hold little weight in the argument.
“And that’s sort of our focus is to pool all of our energy and all of our resources into those programs that evidence shows ac-tually work,” says LeMonds. “There’s just simply not enough information to show us that this is an effective program.”
Like LeMonds, RCI Warden Jon Paquin also stresses the im-portance of evidence-based programming and its role in re-ducing recidivism. Though he was not working at the facility during the program’s initial operation, he has heard positive feedback about The Shakespeare Prison Project. Even so, Pa-quin follows the DOC’s lead in supporting those programs statistically proven to aid in reintegration. Shailor was not completely satisfied with this argument.
“Now that all makes perfect sense,” Shailor says. “But for somebody who really wants to do this work, there are burn-ing questions, like why doesn’t this have something to do with reentry and reintegration.”
THE RESOUNDING EFFECTSShailor’s passion extends far beyond the countless hours he has spent volunteering within prison walls, as he has also published multiple articles and book chapters on prison the-ater. His research has highlighted both statistical and anec-
dotal examples of how arts and humanities, theater and spe-cifically Shakespeare theater programming all have concrete, beneficial effects and can reduce recidivism rates. Through interviews with inmates, evaluation forms and tracking par-ticipants after release, Shailor has gathered evidence to sup-port the program.
In addition, one similar 17-year-old Shakespeare theater program in Kentucky indicated the recidivism rate of their participants at 6 percent, as opposed to the 65 percent recidi-vism rate nationally and the 34 percent recidivism rate for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. Shailor created a petition detailing these statistics and many more to highlight the benefits of his program.
In one four-day span, 450 signatures had already been col-lected. And along with it came countless words of praise from arts facilitators, educators, former wardens, people with children in prison, formerly incarcerated individuals and or-dinary citizens. And one comment from Nicholas Leair of Merrill, Wis.
It read, “The positive effect this program had on me cannot be measured. It helped me bring a better understanding of myself as an individual. It gave me a greater depth of empa-thy toward my victims. It showed me a path of life that in-volved a positive outlet. Art heals the soul and enriches lives.”
Leair spoke of the abrupt end to the program with concern and disappointment. He immediately recalled receiving his initial 30-year sentence. Leair would have had to transfer from Racine Correctional Institution to a minimum-secu-rity facility to receive parole and an earlier release date. In January 2007, he was finally granted a security override for the transfer—right in the middle of The Shakespeare Prison Project.
“I did everything I could to withhold any type of movement to go to minimum security so that I could finish the perfor-mance,” Leair says. “The project means too much and meant too much to me to abandon it, and to hear that it’s been banned from the prison system is detrimental to society.”
He and a handful of others postponed their potential release and remained in prison longer to finish the production of the play, reflecting just how much the project meant to them.
“I think in order to make society a better place we need to fo-cus sometimes on people who do some of the worst things,” Leair says. “To take away something that can help better those people I think does an injustice to the victims, and it just saddens me to think that this program can’t continue to go forward.” c
“It showed me a path of life that involved a posi-tive outlet. Art heals the soul and enriches lives.”
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by: Dan Niepow
Fritz Hanson is not afraid to talk politics with strangers. Standing at the end of the bar and smiling through a trimmed grey beard, he listens as his sister Tracy Hanson-Said, the current owner of Hanson’s Pub, explains that I’m a journal-ism student from UW-Madison. He takes his cue here and dives into the unmentionable:
“So what are you, Dan? A liberal, conservative?”
I take a quick swig of beer, frantically contemplating the best way to navigate the situation. We had barely exchanged the usual pleasantries, and he had already delved into an other-wise taboo topic.
Some folks at the other end of the bar laugh.
“Let’s not talk about politics,” someone says laughing.
“Yeah, let’s discuss religion instead,” another chimes in.
Luckily Fritz decides to elaborate on his own views, tempo-
rarily saving me from the uncertainty of divulging my own.
These frank, open conversations exemplify the spirit of tav-ern culture. For better or worse, it’s a culture that has been a part of Wisconsin’s history from early on. Tonight, I’m spending some time at Hanson’s Pub in North Lake to gain a better understanding of this unique way of life. RICH HISTORYHanson’s Pub is one of the oldest continuously running tav-erns in Wisconsin. It’s also one of the few bars with an in-tact brewery—although nothing has been brewed there since Prohibition was enacted in 1919. That changed this Septem-ber when a few home brewers came in to craft their own beers for the bar’s 150th anniversary party. Tonight Said is having a tasting of these brews.
She pours me a small glass of oatmeal stout as I take a seat next to some regular patrons. I can still taste the warm and somewhat chocolaty flavor of the beer as I shake the hands of a few other men at the end of the bar.
HISTORYON TAP
by: daniel niepow photos by: daniel niepow + stephanie wezelman
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Surveying the interior of the bar, I’m struck by the vast-ness of the history around me. On the far wall, near the restrooms, hangs a Pabst sign from the late 1800s. And behind the bar, Said still uses an old-fashioned cash reg-ister that bears her grandfather’s name. Emblazoned with elaborate floral designs, it dates to about 1908. A clock older than the bar itself hangs above the register.
Hanson’s Brewery and Tavern was built back in 1866 by Danish immigrant Rasmus Frederickson, although it’s be-lieved he began brewing beer as early as 1862. When he died, he left the pub to his nephew Carl Hanson, and it has stayed in the hands of the Hanson family ever since. Although slightly modified due to a fire in 1945, the same structure still stands today.
Even more remarkable, the bar has remained in business the entire time. To stay afloat even during Prohibition the family converted the place into an ice cream parlor and filling station. Said told me business has been a bit slower recently, but many customers still continue to come back.
Lance Kerwin, seated to my left, is one of those custom-ers. Soft-spoken and polite, he shows a quiet fondness for Hanson’s, where he’s been coming the past 34 years. The familiar and friendly personalities continue to draw him in. He also likes how both Said and the former owners—her father and uncle—always made an effort to introduce him to any new visitors.
Many of the people I spoke to both in and out of the bar also mentioned a kind of timeless quality about the bar. Said prides herself on not changing anything during her years as owner.
EVERYBODY KNOWS EVERYBODYThe night before, I sat down with Said to hear about her personal experiences at the bar.
Dressed in a brown cardigan, she tapped off a glass of beer for me and took a seat across the bar. Both friendly and matter-of-fact, her voice carried the slightest Wisconsin twang as she shared her memories.
For her, tavern culture is nothing out of the ordinary, since it’s something she’s been immersed in since birth. As a fourth generation Hanson, she’s lived in the Pub most of her life.
“This was my rec room,” she says. “I lived right in the oth-er room.”
She began first tending bar with her parents when she was only 13. She continued to work at Hanson’s until she mar-ried at age 23, when she moved to Elm Grove. She became
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owner of the bar only five years ago. At present, she runs the bar from 3 p.m. until bar close every day except Mon-day.
Said exchanged brief greetings with a few patrons throughout our conversa-tion, calling them each by name. She seems to personify the overall sense of community and warmth inside the bar. Even outsiders like me get a feel for this after spending only an hour or two in-side.
“Everybody knows everybody, even if they don’t when they come in,” Said says. “By the time they leave they pretty much know everybody.”
A CULTURE OF ITS OWNPerhaps the best way to understand tavern culture is to view it through the eyes of an outsider. Chicago-native Carl Corey spent two years traveling through Wisconsin and taking photos inside more than 60 taverns. He then compiled his work into a book titled “Tavern League” in 2011.
Corey was drawn to tavern culture in Wisconsin because it’s something he hasn’t seen anywhere else in the coun-try.
“Very few other areas have a sense of community that is exemplified in tav-erns as much as Wisconsin does,” he says.
He cites Pennsylvania as the only other state that comes to close to Wisconsin in this regard.
It’s easy to point out the obvious physi-cal differences between places like Hanson’s Pub and other bars and night-clubs: the decor, the drinks, the music, even the people themselves. But Corey thinks subtler differences between the two exist as well.
“Bars were places where people go and simply drink,” he says. “It seemed to me that taverns in Wisconsin and the locals, which I equate them to in Great
Britain, are more of a place where the most important thing is getting togeth-er with people…rather than actually drinking.”
HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPSArchitectural historian Jim Draeger worked on a project similar to Corey’s, and he came to many of the same con-clusions. Intrigued by tavern culture from an early age, Draeger collaborated with fellow historian Mark Speltz and photographer Mark Fay to explore the topic at length in a book titled “Bot-toms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s His-toric Bars and Breweries.”
He also feels community and socializa-tion play a larger role than drinking in tavern culture—something Said men-tioned briefly in my discussion with her.
She sees people from all ages come into the bar, but she noted that even the younger folks coming in aren’t there for the usual inebriated experience.
“The young people that come in here… just come and have fun,” she said. “It’s not a crazy bar. They don’t get crazy drunk.”
Set against the backdrop of a state with a history of drunk driving, the com-
munity at Hanson’s Pub is a model of a somewhat healthier relationship with alcohol. Everyone drinks, of course, but the focus is not on the drinking. And the North Lake community is so small that many of the patrons can simply walk to the bar.
Draeger’s book project also focused on the relationship between bars and breweries, something he was able to study firsthand at Hanson’s Pub.
“The thing that’s most interesting about Hanson’s Pub is that it has survived for an extraordinarily long time with very few changes,” he says. “[It’s] one of the small-town breweries that once dotted Wisconsin, and to find one that is as in-tact as that…is really remarkable. I did not expect to find one of those.”
He hopes the book will allow people to engage with the past by visiting the many taverns he writes about. In many ways, sitting in Hanson’s and chatting with the folks inside does feel a bit like digging through a time capsule. Al-most as old as the state itself, the bar is both a fully-functioning business and a monument to the rich history of tav-ern culture. For now, at least, places like Hanson’s Pub continue to offer this dual perspective of Wisconsin’s history. c
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Arrive at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek late on Sunday morning and a security guard will likely be stationed in the parking lot, hands in his pockets to pro-tect from the Wisconsin chill.
by: Alison Dirr + photos by: Aimee Katz
Parishioners ease cars into the few remaining spots. Men, many with beards and bright turbans, and women bringing airy scarves over their hair, head straight toward what has become both a place of worship and a community center for former residents of Punjab, a state in northern India, and their descen-dants.
They enter through a double set of glass doors. This is one en-trance of four, as every Sikh temple–gurdwara, in Punjabi–has four doors to welcome those from east, west, north and south to a place where all are equal.
From outside the light brick building, the security guard is the sole reminder of Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012, when Wade Michael Page, a white supremacist, opened fire on the congregation without warning, killing six, including the temple president, and wounding three others before ending his own life. Inside, a bullet hole lingers in the salmon-pink metal doorframe that leads into the room of prayer. Photos of the six who lost their lives look on from high on the left wall as congregants greet each other just inside the doors.
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CUISINE“I’m never going to forget my father, but you almost feel like those people ... ...those people that died – don’t let them die in vain without doing anything.
IN THE AFTERMATHHarpreet Singh has been part of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin since 1997. Though he lives in Chicago, he drives back to Oak Creek each weekend to vis-it his family and attend the gurdwara. On a Sunday morning in early October, he sits cross-legged on one of 10 rows of intricately woven carpets laid across the floor in the room where worshipers sit mid-day to chat over the meal pre-pared by members of the gurdwara for all who attend. Reaching down occa-sionally to a paper plate and Styrofoam cup of hot tea on the tile floor in front of him, he says that after the shooting many stopped attending out of fear.
Some members of the community—particularly those directly involved in the shooting—showed clear symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, says Jaswinder Singh. The clinical neuropsy-chologist began driving from Indiana on the weekends to help the congrega-tion recover from the shooting. He is one of a number of mental health spe-cialists who offered their services.
Just two months after the attack, small children bolt around corners, giggling as if in a never-ending game of tag. Light from windows arching toward the ceiling bounces off the stone floor just inside the front doors as groups of two or four or five adults gather to chat in the spacious entry hall. Punjabi and English flow easily together, and hymns broadcasting over the loudspeaker throughout the main floor fill any mo-mentary lapses in conversation. Despite the tragedy, the community is imbued with chardi kala—a sense of optimism.
“If you know this community, they can put this behind them,” Jaswinder Singh says. “They are not going to hold this thing forever. It is not the acceptable thing to do. Move on, that’s what the scripture says. Whatever happened, happened. Accept and move on.”Many have returned to the basic te-
nets of the faith for guidance, primar-ily the principle of seva—or service to the community. There is a sense of re-connecting with those within the gurd-wara. But equally strong is the desire to act as a catalyst for positive change throughout Milwaukee and the U.S., so they and other minority groups are no longer targets of discrimination and violence but rather accepted and recog-nized as part of the intricate series of crossing paths in America.
“Life has to go forward, and that’s the sense of chardi kala, that you have to press forward,” says Pardeep Kaleka, the son of Satwant Singh Kaleka, the former president of the gurdwara who was killed in the attack.
“I’m never going to forget my father, but you almost feel like those people—those people that died—don’t let them die in vain without doing anything. And that’s the sense of chardi kala, the sense of urgency. Let’s make this…into something positive, make it into some-thing that people will remember for a long time.”
A TIME TO INTROSPECTInside the gurdwara, for some, the at-tack prompted a re-examination of their faith and their role within the Sikh community.
His hands folded calmly in his lap, Manminder Sethi is at home in the gurdwara he visits twice a day. A bright orange turban rests on his head, a steel band on his right wrist. The band is one of five articles of faith that serve as re-minders of the principles of Sikhism. Sethi is at once confident and relatable as he sits without a hint of a slouch in a collapsible chair in the now-silent room where worshipers ate together just hours before.
“I think all this happened for us to in-trospect,” he says. “This is what I think. So there’s a great opportunity for us to first peek into ourselves. Are we follow-
ing the gurus’ teachings? Then only I have a right to tell you what I am. If I myself I don’t know, what I am going to tell you?”
Later he would explain that “temple” does not encompass the meaning of “gurdwara,” which he translates into English to mean “guru’s place.” And “guru” refers to the Sikh divine mes-sage, which was embodied by just 10 humans and immortalized in the Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib. Any-one is welcome in the guru’s place.
Today new faces are more common. Hardeep Ahuja, his wife and 5-year-old daughter now switch between the Brookfield and Oak Creek gurdwaras on Sundays—the result of a moment of introspection.
“I usually was coming every four months or five months up until the shooting,” Ahuja says. “And then that really woke me up. Prior to this, I al-ways felt that religions were bad. I al-ways felt that religions separated peo-ple, you know? And I would just look at the world and the news and just feel like so many of our fights were because of God and religion, and I just didn’t want a piece of it.”
Then one Sunday morning, his phone rang four or five times within an hour. “Urgent.” “Call me right away,” the text messages read that morning. Some-thing was wrong.
“I just felt lost, and I didn’t know what to do, to be honest. I just knew that we should go [to the gurdwara],” he says, one arm around little Jasleen, who bounces happily on her dad’s lap.
But the roads were blocked off, forcing the family home instead. They called relatives and Ahuja’s father, a common face at the gurdwara. The advice Ahuja received surprised him: Pray for the shooter. The faith teaches there is God in everyone.
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“I’m never going to forget my father, but you almost feel like those people ... ...those people that died – don’t let them die in vain without doing anything.
These kinds of conversations, seeing his community on the news, led to a life-changing moment. He points to a more patient relationship with his co-workers and a change in how he raises Jasleen.
Kids and other people “don’t do what you tell them, they do what they see. So I realized if I want [my daughter] to be good, I have to be good. If I want her to eat right, I have to eat right. If I want her to volunteer, I have to volunteer. It’s made me talk less and do more,” he says.
Now Jasleen practices seva—service—by sweeping the floors with him on Thursdays, and they switch between the gurdwaras in Brookfield or Oak Creek on Sundays. His wife volunteers now, too, at the gurdwara in Brookfield, closer to their home.
UNABLE TO HATE WHAT YOU KNOWThe return to the principle of seva reaches beyond individuals or families or even the walls of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. A group of younger mem-bers in particular began the group Serve 2 Unite to incorporate seva in outreach to the broader community.
“We feel like we have a voice, and I think the kids, the adults, they all feel it,” says Pardeep Kaleka, whose father was president of the gurdwara. “Before, most people just concentrated on going out to their jobs and doing their jobs, coming home. I feel like now the Sikh community feels part of the broader American community, so they do more for them. We want to get involved in politics, we want to get involved in making a safer America.”
After the shooting, many from outside the gurdwara—businesses, politicians and citizens of Oak Creek, greater Wis-consin, the nation and other nations—paid their respects. Community sup-port lines the walls of the gurdwara. In the room where worshipers eat hang white laminated posters roughly five feet in length covered in multicolor patterns of handwritten notes express-ing sympathy. They create a continuous border just below grand pictures of the Golden Temple, the holiest place for Sikhs, and images recounting the sto-ries of the faith.
And now through Serve 2 Unite, the youth aim to foster relationships and understanding among groups both reli-
gious and secular. Under the “outreach” arm of the gurdwara, Serve 2 Unite has a core group of about 10 members be-tween the ages of 18 and 35. The orga-nization seeks to affect legislation like gun control and promote an anti-hate message through education.
“It’s definitely moved into an outreach effort,” Pardeep Kaleka says. “Some-body told me a while back that you can’t hate what you know, and I think a lot of times we get so involved into our own life that we never reach out to help others. And so it became my mission to basically move in and let people know who we are and what we stand for, not just how we look.”
The younger members of the gurdwara plan to gather members of mosques, synagogues, churches, LGBT groups and others to build mutual understand-ings through the common goal of im-proving the community, says Kanward-eep “Guggi” Singh Kaleka, a teacher at the gurdwara’s school and an integral member of Serve 2 Unite. A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVEThe desire to explain the inexplicable also led Pardeep Kaleka to transcend
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his own anxiety and preconceptions. On Oct. 22, he sat down in a Thai res-taurant on the east side of Milwaukee with a man who could offer insight into what Wade Michael Page had experi-enced, what made him want to attack and kill. That man is Arno Michaelis, a former white supremacist.
Michaelis now runs the anti-hate non-profit Life After Hate. The organization incorporates both former perpetrators and victims of violence and promotes the practices of compassion, forgive-ness and kindness.
Over notoriously spicy food and the course of three hours, Michaelis gave “Par,” as he calls Pardeep Kaleka, an an-swer to the question everyone seemed to be asking: Why?
“I used to be mad at this guy [Page]
because obviously you’re angry for a while,” Pardeep Kaleka says of the an-swer. “Talking to Arno from Life After Hate has made me almost see the guy and feel bad for him. Like you empa-thize with the guy…The shooter was going through his own living hell.”
Michaelis transitions without a mo-ment’s hesitation into a description of his role in building the white power movement and what it’s like to live in that world. In the moment when Pard-eep Kaleka asked for answers, Michaelis told him it was an honor to be allowed to explain how such a “horrible event” came to be.
“Essentially the [white supremacist] is living in a state of constant terror,” Michaelis says. “When you walk out of your house, every waking moment of your day is spent in fear, because ev-
eryone who isn’t white is, by default, an enemy. They’re there to kill you. They’re there to wipe your people out. And ev-eryone who is white who isn’t a fellow racist like you is a traitor.”
Page, Michaelis says, had been practic-ing hate and violence for more than a decade before the shooting—a life in which any joy, love or happiness disap-pears in the face of ignorance.
This explanation helped Pardeep Kale-ka understand and move forward—though he makes it clear that doesn’t justify Page’s actions. Page’s world was his own prison, he says, and in that mo-ment, Pardeep Kaleka began to feel em-pathy for the man who killed his father and members of his community.
Now Pardeep Kaleka and Michaelis are joining forces to spread the message of anti-hate in schools throughout the area. A social studies teacher himself, Pardeep Kaleka says his students per-ceive kindness as a sign of weakness. They plan to speak first at Cudahy High School about bullying. Principal Chris-topher Haeger says he hopes the talk will help students understand that there is a range of hate, from that exemplified so painfully in the temple shooting to bullying between students.
But when Michaelis visits schools to speak, his talks tend to focus on practic-ing compassion, kindness and forgive-ness rather than the negative impacts of bullying and violence. The message: The same small acts of kindness that made it impossible for Michaelis to continue in the white power movement can change other lives, too.
That’s also the message Pardeep Kaleka conveys.
“No matter where you are in your life, change can happen,” he says.
“Life has to go forward, and that’s the sense of chardi kala,”
c
29
COMM
UNITY
46The Learning Curve
Growing More Than Food
ARTS
38
Bronzeville’s Brush Strokes
Jurustic Park
Following Footsteps
PEOP
LE54Solidarity Sister
Raising Expectations
CUIS
INE
30Sweet Science
Sassy and Fabulous
CUISINE
by: Jade Likely + photos by: Stephanie Wezelman
SWEET SCIENCE
UW-Madison Food Engineer-ing Professor Rich Hartel’s office is lined with bags and boxes of chocolates.
His computer screensaver alternates between pictures of different brands of candy and his bookshelves are lined with publications on ice cream and con-fectioneries. Indeed, he may have the sweetest office in Madison.
That’s because he is the university’s resident sugar expert and the coordina-tor of UW-Madison’s Resident Course in Confectionery Science, or simply Candy School, as it is often called. Each summer the food science department hosts a two-week professional course on candy making, aimed at helping repre-sentatives from companies nationwide learn the ins and outs of candy technol-ogy. While many Wisconsinites may not be aware of the Candy School, bigwigs like Mars, Wrigley and Ferrero have taken note.
DECADES OF SWEET SUCCESSCandy School celebrated its 50th an-niversary this summer, marking five decades of savory success in the confec-tionery world. Hartel, who took over as Candy School coordinator in 1998 after founder and professor Joe von Elbe re-tired, organizes the two-week program. It includes guest lectures from candy experts and hands-on learning expe-riences for people ranging from new hires in the industry to CEOs of candy companies. The class attracts attendees from not just the United States, but all around the world, including Pakistan, Japan and Mexico.
First offered in 1963 with full support from the National Confectioners As-sociation, UW-Madison’s Candy School has gained a reputation in the confec-tionery industry as one of the only all-encompassing candy courses in the world.
CUIS
INE
30
A UW-Madison lab celebrates 50 years of crazy concoctions and tasty treats
31
“We’re the only one that teaches across the board, all sorts of different can-dies in such depth,” says Liz Thomas, a first-year master’s student working with Hartel to organize this year’s Can-dy School. The class also offers insight to those in the industry who may not know how easily they could create new products for their brand.
“Someones who’s making a hard candy could switch over and make a gummy relatively easy. There are really easy and fun and interesting ways to add value to your products without much additional effort or investment,” Thomas says.
EXPERT CONFECTIONSThe reputable Candy School is so well-known that the small number of spots in the class are eaten up quite fast with little marketing on UW-Madison’s side. Each January, the class organizers sim-ply send out a brochure to circulate through major candy associations and watch the spots fill up months before the class begins.
Hartel has been working with the class for 27 years and began acting as coor-dinator when von Elbe retired. Candy School brings in some of the great-est minds in the confectionery world to share their expertise with students in the course. Ir attracts two or three experts for each of the different sec-tions, which range from gum making and hard candies, to chocolate and fon-dants, to taffies and gummies.
“They have real industry experience in each of their specific areas of focus, so you have an expert on hand to ask ques-tions who has tried everything and who has probably failed a bunch of stuff and then made it successful,” says Thomas.
Each class spends two mouthwatering days on each of the specific candies. Beginning with a presentation on the history and background of the product, the course then delves into the prod-uct’s basic ingredients and how to cre-ate it. Day two is truly delicious when students get to conduct manufacturing
labs and concoct the confections they learned the day before.
CANDY CHEMISTRYWhile the summer Candy School is meant for professionals, UW-Madison also offers an undergraduate version of the course hosted every other semester. This senior-level class focuses more on the scientific aspect of candy manufac-turing instead of the practical or tech-nology-based understanding.
“In the candy class during the school year, Rich gets to go crazy on the sci-
ence part, so you get to learn in-depth what’s going on inside the candy and behind the scenes,” says Thomas, who also acts as a teaching assistant in the undergraduate course.
Instead of inviting experts every day to teach their specialty to undergraduates, Hartel created an online lecture for stu-dents to learn the scientific specifics be-hind candy making. Tuesday labs give eager students the chance to apply the science they’ve learned to the sweets that taste good. But it’s Wednesday evaluation days, when students often get to eat their treats, that are the best.
UW-Madison senior Katie Moy, a stu-dent in Hartel’s undergraduate candy course, is already putting what she’s learned to use in the real world by
working with local Madison business DB Infusion Chocolates.
“I get to help them run certain tests on their chocolate in order to make sure they’re safe and see how stable they are,” says Moy, who plans to go into confec-tioneries after graduation. “I give them a little bit of the science background and they give me a little bit of the art-istry and confectionery background.”
Moy knows both sides of UW-Madi-son’s confectionery course because she helped with lab setup at the summer Candy School two years ago. The bud-ding confectionery scientist has seen the impact of Candy School on its pro-fessional students.
“A lot of people that come are either in-terested in candy or they got sent there because their company knows that this is a reputable program and it’ll give you a crash course on what candy making is,” she says.
Candy School is truly a one-of-a-kind learning opportunity for candy con-noisseurs, but it’s also just plain fun.
“Candy is kind of cool. Even though there are people that think candy’s bad for you, anything’s bad for you if you abuse it,” Hartel says. “Over history, sugar’s gone through ups and downs and think about it, it used to be so rare. Sugar’s only been around for a few hun-dred years and being able to make can-dy like this has only been around for a few hundred years.”
The continuously evolving nature of science coupled with the world’s love of sweets keeps Candy School continu-ally relevant. And just think—that Her-shey’s bar in the grocery checkout or that stick of Wrigley gum offered by a friend very well could have been made by someone who learned right here in Wisconsin, all thanks to UW-Madison’s sweetest secret.
““
CANDY SCHOOL IS TRULY A ONE-OF-
A-KIND LEARNING OPPORTUNITY FOR
CANDY CONNOISSEURS, BUT IT’S ALSO JUST
PLAIN FUN.
c
Light-bodied
amber ale tinted a
robust “reddish” color.
LAGER
Bold, dark and
strong malty ale brewed by roasting barley
and hops.
INDIAPALE
ALE
INDIAPALE
ALE Stout
pale ale
Light-coloredlagers
(hence the name)
accentuated by a bitter-
ness markedby a hoppy
taste.
Lagers are popular beers produced with a
slow fermenting process and allowed to
mature 6 to 8 weeks before sale. Low in
hops and easy to drink.
Pale ales brewed with extra hops,
making themsmooth yet bitter
to the taste.Historically
brewed with a signature amount
of hops tostay freshthrough ajourneyoverseas.
Fact: Wisconsinites take their brews seriously. Whether it’s tailgating at a Brewers game or sitting around the camp�re with some friends, beer holds a special place in our hearts. But Miller and Leinenkugel’s aren’t your only local options. When you’re aiming to try a new brew, consider these simple tips at the tap.
by: Jade Likely
33
A Fishy Tale
Lutefisk links Norwegians in Wisconsin to both their past and present
by: Molly Reppen
They have a system.
In the crowded kitchen are the cooks, preparing lefse and meatballs and melting butter in a crockpot. In the dining room are the servers and buss-ers, waiting on guests.
But the most important thing in the chaotic, yet organized, Vermont Lu-theran Church tonight is lutefisk.
Simply, lutefisk is dried cod, but it’s also something much more. Only the bravest of the brave can face the smelly, gelatinous creature. To prepare lutefisk, the dried cod must go through a pro-cess of being soaked in water, rinsed, dipped in lye and rinsed again, before you can cook it and eventually eat it.
This odd dish is more than just a fish. It’s a tradition. Lutefisk is and has been a symbol of identity for Norwegian-Americans since their arrival to the United States in the late 19th century. People who attend the lutefisk dinner at Vermont Lutheran Church don’t come because lutefisk is tasty. They come be-cause it means their roots will continue on. Lutefisk means that Norwegian-American culture is here to stay.
Vermont Lutheran Church in Black Earth, Wis., is an old country church off Highway 78, nestled in the hillside
since 1856. The remnants of old farm life still remain in this beautiful Wis-consin countryside. Along with the rural towns surrounding the area, Ver-mont Lutheran Church’s members take great pride in their very strong Norwe-gian ties.
“If we can’t laugh with and at ourselves, we’re in pretty tough shape. The roots run kind of deep and it’s interesting, ya know,” says a lutefisk dinner chair Harald Norslien. A 76-year-old man with quirky, knock-knock-joke humor, Norslien has been a member of the church for quite some time. Like other older members in his community, he was born in the area and baptized at Vermont.
“This is a very family-oriented church, and I think you’ll find with a lot of country churches, and the cemetery being right out beside the church here, that the ancestry is very strong,” says Pastor Chad Christensen, referencing the nearby graves honoring popular Scandinavian names like Olsen and Johnson. “This Norwegian flavor of things has been handed down.”
Norwegian immigrants began to settle the open lands of Wisconsin starting in the 1840s and 50’s. Thanks to the Homestead Act, cheap land allowed these American newcomers to have
a new start with their own farms and homes. On the downside, Norwegians found themselves without coastlines and fresh cod. This included their lu-tefisk, a staple in many Norwegians’ diets.
It wasn’t until the end of the 19th cen-tury that Norwegian-Americans could get cod in the Midwest. It was at this time that lutefisk became a staple at Lutheran churches and Norwegian homes. Lutefisk became associated with ancestry and the old country and started rising in popularity in the 1930s.
Since then, Norwegian-Americans have equated lutefisk with their home-land, a symbol of struggle and experi-ence.
“Lutefisk is something that is not that tasty for a lot of people. It smells kind of bad, but you eat it because it’s part of the experience,” says Peggy Hager, se-nior lecturer of Scandinavian studies at UW-Madison. “Lutefisk is more than just food. It’s sort of the experience of roughing it and toughing it to identify with your family that made this rough trip over the ocean.”
Visit curbonline.com to read the extend-ed version.
c
34 / CURBONLINE.com
CUISINE
As the temperature inches to-ward freezing and the wee hours of the night begin aching for the rooster’s crow,
Madison’s weekend crowd impatiently awaits glory. A glory that drips so freely with grease and just-out-of-the-frying-pan heat that customers know they’re getting far more than their daily dose of fat.
They’re waiting at Fried and Fabulous, a food cart run by self-proclaimed CEO/Janitor Steve Lawrence. Despite the fact that his treats may be slowly killing their insides, patrons line up for all things batter-dipped—cookies, candies…any-thing that will take the grease, even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
It’s clear from the patrons’ looks of com-plete satisfactory relief that the taste is entirely worth the fat. But what makes that fried dough and sweetened fat go down with ease? Only the finest local liquid delicacy deserves a spot in his food cart, Lawrence says. He chooses a herd of “Fresh Milk with Attitude” kind of cows. It’s called Sassy Cow Creamery, and according to Lawrence, it’s the best that’s out there. The owner, however, has little sass or attitude to share.
THE BUSINESS OF COWSHovering just above a whisper and tak-
ing no bait for the feisty stories that must be behind a business of Sassy Cows, James Baerwolf is the business-man of the homegrown, cow-raising, family-made farming company. “Me and my brother Rob, we have the cows and the farm and our creamery,” he says. “The three together then, that’s what Sassy Cow Creamery is.”
Business remains business in the Baer-wolf clan, but they are in the business of cows, sassy ones at that. This moo-ing herd has an attitude that is far more palpable than its owner’s reserved busi-ness-only lifestyle. With a camera in sight, these Sassy Cow Creamery cattle strut profile after profile, throwing their heat-bearing nostrils into the lens dar-ing it to hold their photogenic gaze. It’s
evident these milk-bearing cattle rec-ognize they hold a bit of clout in this Midwestern dairy market.
“The cows are the most important part of the puzzle because without the cows, we would just be a small dairy,” Baer-wolf brother James says softly. With the cow at the center, the family all around and the creamery in between, it’s clear this company truly believes in what it produces.
Sassy Cow Creamery is located about seven miles north of Sun Prairie, Wis. Situated happily in the middle of the two Baerwolf family farms, the cream-ery is the recognizable hub of the busi-ness. Miles of wind-rippling grassy farmland surround the cheerfully red dairy stop-and-shop, which opened four years ago and pulls a crowd of weekly regulars. Whether to pick up their organic skim, traditional 2% or even the wild strawberry milk from those crazy pink cows (a legend yet to be confirmed), the locals know where to get their quality dairy milk.
SASSY COW’S FABULOUS FANLawrence is just one of these loyal lo-cals. His enthusiasm for all that is Sassy Cow is something only the dozens of children, who line up ready to inhale ice cream on a summer day, could rival.
SASSY AND FABULOUSHow Sassy Cows create quality from creamery to cart
by: Tessa Hahn
““
I WOULD GET THE 2,000 CALORIES A DAY FROM JUST
SASSY COW CHOCOLATE MILK. IT WOULDN’T JUST BE THE ONLY THING I WOULD DRINK. IT WOULD BE THE
ONLY THING I WOULD CONSUME AT ALL.
35
Lawrence is a grown-up kid who teeters on the edge of giddiness when discuss-ing the likes of Sassy Cow chocolate milk.
“If it weren’t for a desire to remain healthy and alive, in good shape, and if my body didn’t require other nutrients, I would drink nothing but Sassy Cow milk for all of my nutritional require-ments. I would get the 2,000 calories a day from just Sassy Cow chocolate milk. It wouldn’t just be the only thing I would drink, it would be the only thing I would consume at all,” says Lawrence, just short of shouting for all of Madi-son’s late-night wandering crowds to hear.
Lawrence is quite possibly Sassy Cow’s biggest fan. Describing the experience of drinking this milk as if it came from the Tiffany-blue box of standards, “The skim milk, the 2%, it has a sweetness to it that you just don’t find in regu-lar grocery brand milk. The chocolate milk? Have you tried it?! Oh my God! It’s amazing. It’s like liquid chocolate ice cream, and it puts every other choco-late milk on the grocery store shelf to shame.”
NEVER-ENDING HARD WORKMeanwhile, cow-owner Baerwolf strays away from picking a favorite flavor of
any of his dairy goods, as he admits, “The thing is, a person still can only drink so much milk.”
The lack of passion he has for his cows perhaps comes from knowing the dairy life, and only the dairy life, all too well. Brothers James and Rob grew up a farm, and have since moved to pastures passed down through three generations of Baerwolf men and women, to open up Sassy Cow Creamery to allow their farmstead dairy to continue to grow—a business decision at its core.
Without the slightest mention of the awards his creamery annually accumu-lates from the World Dairy Expo, not that his chocolate milk won first place in 2008 or that his vanilla ice cream took the gold in 2012, Baerwolf remains humble and refuses the idea that he and his family have truly made it.
“There really isn’t that kind of mo-ment with farming because you are always growing and taking on ad-ditional debt. With the creamery here, we’re about four years into it. Four years is not a long enough time to say that everything worked out, and you’re going to be around. We’re just not the type of personality to say it all worked out good, and every-thing’s in good shape,” says Baerwolf.
SUPERIOR SASSY COWSWhether it’s just a normal day on the family farm or not, it remains that these cows have sass. Although, Baerwolf doesn’t always see it that way. “Gener-ally, I don’t associate humor with the cows cause they sort of make a person more frustrating,” says Baerwolf.
The cows run this farm, but it’s not the man behind the milk business or even the seller of the chocolate milk from a just-off-of-State Street food cart who show what being a sassy cow is all about.
It’s the milk that comes from the very sassy cows. They’re the reason why Lawrence chooses Sassy Cow Cream-ery.
“Because they’re the best. I’m not go-ing to take some organic horizon milk in a juice box, taste it, and say it’s good enough when I know there’s something better out there,” he says, with an en-thusiastic tone.
The something better out there? The cows. And according to the subdued cow-man himself, “Pretty much any-thing you could want to know about a cow, a person is very similar.”
I’m just not sure those sassy cows would agree. c
CUISINE
CUSTARD?how well do you know your
by Corinne Burgermeister
2. Where was custard created? a. Coney Island b. Staten Islandc. Boston
d. Manhattan
CUISINE
1. Custard came to the Midwest at what event? a. Wisconsin State Fairb. Chicago World’s Fairc. St. Louis World’s Fair
d. 1934 World Series
36 / CURBONLINE.com
3. Unlike ice cream, what does custard
contain?a. natural flavors
b. egg yolksc. egg whites
d. cream
8. In what year did Gilies of Milwaukee
first open?
6. In what year did Leon’s of Milwaukee first open?a. 1928b. 1940
c. 1942d. 1948
7. In what city did the first Culver’s
open?a. 1928 b. 1938
c. 1940 d. 1942
a. Milwaukeeb. Sheboyganc. Portaged. Sauk City
4. What two flavors of custard does Culver’s
serve every day? a. vanilla and chocolate
b. vanilla and strawberryc. chocolate and strawberry
d. vanilla and mint
5. Custard must contain at least
10 percent of what?a. milkfatb. creamc. sugar
d. flavorings
Answers: 1b, 2a, 3b, 4a, 5a, 6c, 7d, 8b
Cherry: Th
e Noun Project
Plate: Joanna Smolonska, from
The N
oun ProjectIce cream
: Henry Blas, from
The N
oun Project.
We’ve got the arts covered in
and at madisonmagazine.com
LiberaL arts bLog Arts EditorKatie Vaughn
cLassicaLLy speaking bLog Classical Music Critic
Greg Hettmansberger
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Cherry: Th
e Noun Project
Plate: Joanna Smolonska, from
The N
oun ProjectIce cream
: Henry Blas, from
The N
oun Project.
CUISINE
From antiques to high-end shoes, motherand daughter bring new business
to downtown La Crosseby: Heather Laing + photos by: Stephanie Wezelman
ARTS
38
Just a few blocks down from Riv-erside Park—where Carla Callies used to be spotted walking her pet rabbit—golden fall sun streams
into the windows of the old Pamperin Cigar Factory in Historic Downtown La Crosse, Wis.
Though its cigar-making days are over, remnants of the factory can still be
found in the building. Serving as Cal-lies’ new home, she continues to dine at one of the old wooden tables where women used to sit and roll cigars. And alongside it, an 8-and-a-half-foot wooden Popeye figure, fully equipped with a mechanical arm, has retired his amusement park days for the new role of “greeter” in Callies’ home.
FOLLOWING FOOTSTEPS
39
c
“When people walk into that front door, they are coming into my world,” says building owner Carla Callies, tak-ing proud ownership of the time and ef-fort that went into the building’s reno-vation.
And Callies’ world is nothing shy of unique. She is a collector and creator of all things visual, from her newly ac-quired shopping cart, to her elaborate candy display, to her love of body parts adorning the wall.
OPENING AMBIANCECallies first purchased the vacant fac-tory building in August of 2001. She was about to encounter a new test of her skills, facing both the pretty and the ugly sides of redesign. And little did she know, these unforeseen challeng-es would help shape her into a strong mentor, mother and business owner.
Just a few years prior, Callies had opened Ambiance—an antique shop in an old gas station downtown—and she was eager to revamp her business. In just eight short weeks, she managed to turn the first floor of the building into a new space for her shop and the second floor into her cozy home.
The new Ambiance was open seven days a week and brought a strong cus-tomer base to the downtown La Crosse area, which was starving for specialty shops. Quirky, eccentric and free-spirit-ed, Callies was able to let her personal-ity shine through in the ever-changing designs that drew people to her store-front. In addition to running the store, Callies was able to continue her love for interior design, decorating between 200 and 300 homes a year—and all through word-of-mouth.
“A lot of people credit my mom that Ambiance was an anchor store for downtown and that she started to really make downtown a destination,” says daughter Andrea Poukey, who gradu-ated high school early and started Am-biance with Callies.
The store continued to bring new life to La Crosse for over 12 years. But after she faced two strokes in seven months, Callies’ doctor and husband told her the last thing she wanted to hear. It was time to shut down Ambiance. Although she fully understood the necessities of the decision, Callies couldn’t help but feel blindsided.
“I didn’t even know I was stressed be-cause I just work at that pace, and it’s just something I do,” says Callies, who looked at the store as a vital component of her life.
Callies was left with the task of decid-ing what to do with the first floor of her beloved building. Whatever busi-ness would take over the space had very large shoes to fill, and—quite literally—shoes were the answer.
KICK MAKES THE MOVEInspired by her mother’s entrepre-neurial spirit and using knowledge she gained serving as Ambiance’s accoun-tant, Poukey and her business partner,
Allison Krzych, decided to open their own elegantly decorated shoe store only a few short blocks from Ambiance. They had been in the process of looking for a new store location at the time of Callies’ health decline. Things fell into place as the two were able to move their equally successful store, Kick, to Ambi-ance’s location.
“My mom is amazing in the fact that she was excited for our idea, and she want-ed us to do something that we loved,” Poukey says. “And what my mom does, nobody can duplicate.”
Whether as a collector and creator or mother and mentor, Callies put her many roles to use to help ease the tran-sition. She also offered up her keen eye for design when helping with the store layout.
Poukey and Kryzch met in 2000 and continue to base their business off the two things they share in common: their love for La Crosse and their love of shopping. And despite challenges with the economy and rising prices, Poukey and Kryzch work as a team to get through it all.
By following in Callies’ footsteps and tapping into the niche of specialty shops, the girls remain leaders in bring-ing business to downtown. Since Kick’s opening, downtown has seen an in-crease in the number of young store owners taking their stab at entrepre-neurial life in La Crosse.
And as a mentor from above, Callies enjoys taking a step back and watching as Kick continues to progress.
“Now I just take the decorating jobs I want, and I babysit my granddaugh-ter…and I get to live in my building still and have it taken care of from the girls downstairs,” Callies says. “It’s just a win-win. It couldn’t be better.”
““
WHEN PEOPLE WALK INTO THAT
FRONT DOOR, THEY ARE
COMING INTOMY WORLD.
40 / CURBONLINE.com
BRONZEVILLE’S BRUSH STROKES
by: Emily Connor
A renowned Milwaukee mural represents a neighborhood’s plight and pride
40 / CURBONLINE.com
ARTS
41
The cream-colored brick wall sits squarely between the artist’s thumb and forefinger. Cars are speeding past going north on Interstate 43. But Rey-naldo Hernandez doesn’t notice. He keeps staring straight ahead at 642 W. North Ave., the Inner City Arts Council building. It’s a perfect vantage point to see the mural he’s planning. He’s spent months designing. But the real work is yet to come.
It’s 1984. The city has admitted it has a gang problem. They’ve sent a group of reluctant kids to Hernandez for the summer to paint this mural, an hom-age to the neighborhood, Bronzeville, Milwaukee.
Today, the challenges have changed. It’s over 25 years later. And you can’t see their faces. Many don’t know their names. You don’t know their stories, or where they live now. But you do see their brush strokes. In the shape of an eye, dark and piercing, looking up to-ward the horizon. In the gleam of a trumpet, shiny and brass. In the pale blue background, a canvas of more than just the now-chipping acrylic paint.
No, you don’t know the girls and boys, at-risk youth and gang members, who worked long afternoons, breaking through their limits to discover hope and understanding with the help of their mentor, artist Reynaldo Hernan-dez. But you do see their triumph, and all that it represents. It’s the Inner City Arts Council Mural.
THE BRONZEVILLE OF TODAYOn the far right of the two-story mu-ral, a woman’s eyes look out over I-43 next to a trumpet player, an artist with a paintbrush, dancer and a traditional Af-rican mask. But something is stretched across the top of her forehead, a block-lettered banner: The Vanguard Group.
This building where the mural resides, once housed the Milwaukee Inner City Arts Council, a thriving organization that planned festivals, events and pro-vided art, dance and photography les-
sons for the neighborhood. But after a lack of leadership and funding caused the organization to shut down in the late 1990s, the building sat vacant, boarded up for nearly 10 years.
The Inner City Arts Council Mural now resides just on the edge of the Bronzeville Cultural and Entertain-ment district, a neighborhood project currently under development in Mil-waukee. Many could drive past the neighborhood today, never knowing what it once was in the 1950s and 60s: A bustling community and cultural hub of African-American music, art and talent. Construction of I-43 in 1968 devastated the community, effectively splitting the predominately African-American neighborhood in half. As more than 8,000 homes were eliminat-ed, community members packed their bags and left.
But the community felt a revival when the Inner City Arts Council moved into 642 W. North Ave. in 1976. For decades, the Council helped plan community events and foster the same pride in art the old Bronzeville captured and their mural represents—a feeling slowly fad-ing since the Council closed and an era of new economic challenges emerged.
“The city is still hurting because the In-ner City Arts Council is not around…I used to teach out of the building,” mu-ralist Reynaldo Hernandez remembers.
Hernandez’s artwork can be seen in over 100 murals around the state, hall-marks of a career spanning nearly fifty years. Sitting in his studio in Harambee, just north of the Bronzeville redevelop-ment zone, he is surrounded by hun-dreds of paintings —a lifetime of work, achievement and talent resting in a sin-gle studio space.
Hernandez is right. In its prime, the In-ner City Arts Council created a sense of community spirit and pride. The 6th District Alderwoman Milele Coggs, who oversees the current Bronzeville Redevelopment area, remembers tak-
ing art classes there as a child and an annual festival they held.
The Bronzeville Cultural and Entertain-ment District redevelopment plan offi-cially began in 2005. Initially, growth remained stagnant. But the purchase of the old Inner City Arts Council build-ing in 2010 presented an opportunity for growth.
The Vanguard Group, an architectural firm, opened its offices in February 2012 in the Inner City Arts Council building. Yet, they hadn’t erased the iconic mural. The woman’s eyes still look out over northbound cars on I-43.
INSPIRING THROUGH ARTAt first they fought. They rebelled. They had an image, and they sought to pro-tect it. The psychology at play was a huge factor. But it was just the begin-ning in the summer of 1984. Hernan-dez knew the rebellious kids he was working with would be proud once their work was completed.
Hernandez had spent months designing to incorporate the building’s windows and other obstacles into his mural–a signature of his style as an artist. Her-nandez struggled with the important task of bringing color and life into the community. He had stiff competition—“All the garbage in the inner city from billboards, a lot of cigarette and tobacco ads, “ says Hernandez.
But his piece would speak to Bronzeville’s history to inspire and honor the community and work of the Inner City Arts Council. Yet, the ardu-ous process, of molding young minds by making a mural, was a difficult en-deavor.
“The kids would challenge you. It was crazy. They got on their bikes, their lit-tle bikes and would get on the freeway,” remembers Hernandez, as he describes the season spent working with the kids painting. But each day they continued, forging ahead to finish the treasured piece.
ARTS
Murals are meant to brighten city walls and inspire community mem-bers. Hernandez believes murals should “bring color to cities that are mostly steel and concrete,” as his bursts of deep red, sky blue and bright yellow do.
Originally known as the Idia Mask of Benin, this symbol arose from a pair of Nigerian ivory masks dating to the 16th century. A king from the court of Benin, a thriv-ing civilization, immor-talized this female mask to honor his mother, Idia. Today, pendants with the symbol are worn at ceremonies for spiritual renewal and purification to honor the legacy of the Benin dynasty.
Hernandez wanted to empha-size the influence of the Inner City Arts Council in the com-munity. The Council provided art lessons in various disci-plines to children and adults in and around Bronzeville.
M U R A LB R E A K D O W N
It may take thousands of brush strokes to turn a humble wall into a work of art. But with persistence and patience, opportunities unfold. “These kids learn that there is more to life than street ac-tivities and sports. You can develop the talents you have and expand your hori-zons,” says Hernandez.
THE BRONZEVILLE OF TOMORROWWhen The Vanguard Group first began renovating the building, they had plans to remove the mural. But the commu-nity came forward. With Coggs’ help, they made it clear the mural should stay.
“Because of the inclusion of the com-munity it makes it clear to any develop-er what the priorities of the community are and my priorities as a representative of the community,” Coggs says.
Yet, progress remains slow. Unfortu-nately, the current economy has made development “an arduous, time-con-suming and time-taking experience,” according to Coggs. But it’s not about speed; it’s about the quality of redevel-opment, and keeping history and cul-ture alive.
“It is always important to pay tribute to an area, to a building, a history of time,” Coggs says. “I think the mural is iconic, the very location of it off of the highway. It has become an identifying marker to visitors and to residents.”
“And it’s a beautiful piece of artwork,” she adds.
LASTING IMPRESSIONSFor Hernandez, he knows art isn’t just about the beauty and aesthetic quali-ties. Its inspiration and influence run deeper.
Today, Hernandez continues his work, designing and painting murals while teaching students all across Wisconsin. After decades of painting and working with at-risk youth, Hernandez says the lasting impressions are what matter. “I get satisfaction just by meeting students that have grown up and are themselves good citizens of the world,” says Her-nandez.
Years after the Inner City Arts Council Mural was completed, Hernandez was in northern Wisconsin, on the UW-Stout campus. When he stepped out of
his car, he heard a young woman run-ning and yelling behind him. As he turned around, she stopped. She was there to thank him. She was one of the young women, one of the gang mem-bers, who helped paint the Inner City Arts Council Mural. She was now a stu-dent at UW-Stout.
“Just that experience—painting the mu-ral—influenced her to see there is more than just life in the ghetto,” remembers Hernandez. “She learned you could get out and expand your horizons.”
He smiles. “That makes me happy.”
It’s been more than 25 years since the Inner City Arts Council Mural was painted. Today, we don’t know where they are. Many don’t know their names. But we see their work. The work of those students, gang members and at-risk youth. We see their pride in the community. It’s an emblem of history. A symbol of what Bronzeville could be once again. Homage to an arts and en-tertainment district on the side of 642 W. North Ave.
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The drummer in the mural here holds a lookalike of the Akan Drum, an instrument from Ghana, West Africa. It traveled to the Virginia Colony among slave ships in the 1700s. Drumming became an instrumental part of African-American music, helping form cultural identity and community.
The average life span of a mural is 10 years. If the mural is not sealed every four years, UV light breaks down the acrylic paint over time. Although many of Hernandez’s murals have lasted longer than average, every outdoor mural must weather the elements.
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ARTS
Down a winding road, in a city at the heart of Wisconsin, a marsh overflows with crea-tures from centuries long gone. On this land, behemoths hatch from scrap metals and tiny critters of all shapes and sizes are born from discarded parts. A dragon with helicopter blade wings soars high above, while smiling piranhas show off their rust-ed teeth. This place is Jurustic Park.
Jurustic Park, in Marshfield, Wis., is a liv-ing, ever-changing creation of Clyde Wyn-ia— sculptor, self-professed “amateur pale-ontologist,” and, perhaps most importantly, storyteller. He has honed his craft over 19 years, turning his Marshfield home into a public sculpture garden and infusing life into his work. Extracting metal from the McMillan Marsh, Wynia transforms ordi-nary trash into something remarkable.
WALKING THROUGH JURUSTIC PARKWhen Wynia pulls these creatures out of the marsh, they are given more than just a physical form. Each takes on its own distinct personality. Fast Eddy Biscotti, a legendary Norwegian gun fighter who, to date, has never lost a duel. He is joined by Einstein, the wise hound dog. Einstein is never wrong and can answer any question you give him correctly, assuming you ask it in the right way—simply ask him a yes or no question and then push his head in the right direction.
As Wynia paces through his park, a path he’s traced countless times, he tells the fan-ciful stories of each one of his friends. One by one he introduces all of them: Oxide, the watchdog, Ivan the womanizer and Abe Lawbender, the crooked lawyer from Shy-sterville, of the firm of Lawbender, Chee-tum, Pettifogger and Skumb. And one by one, the scrap metal sculptures come to life.
EXCAVATING ARTby: Zachary Arostegui
A Marshfield artist mines marshes to bring creatures to life
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JURUSTICPARK
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Jurustic Park was never something planned. Much like Wynia’s creations, the park came together from disparate elements and formed something larger. It started when Clyde crafted a metal bird and granted it flight. “I made that bird that hangs in the tree, and that was the first one…then it just exploded so fast. So, five years later, I decided to re-tire and play the rest of my life.”
Although it may be play to Wynia, he also puts many hours of work into maintaining the park. “We’re open in the summertime, 10 to 4:30, eight days a week.” He now creates and sells hundreds of pieces a year and donates sculptures to parks, schools and char-ity fundraisers, all while creating addi-tional artwork to continue expanding the park.
The park in the marsh is hardly a se-cret at this point. The Wausau TV sta-tion, among others, has done stories on Clyde’s work, and in August, the BBC
was at the park filming an episode of a children’s television program.
Despite his fame, Wynia still speaks humbly about the park’s origins and his own artistic abilities. “To make sculp-tures, it just wasn’t my thing. Until I [began] this digging these critters out of the marsh, welding them back to-gether and then it just exploded.” How-ever, the work speaks for itself, attract-ing visitors from 34 different countries this year alone.
AN ARTISTIC VISIONClyde’s artistic interests extend beyond metal work and date to when he was a young boy. “I grew up on a little farm and always wanted a welder, and we could never afford one.”
However, once Clyde did purchase a welder for himself, he did his best to make up for lost time. “I did a lot of pottery, made my own wheels and kilns and everything, so that required a
bunch of welding. I did a lot of stained glass and built a lot of equipment for that, but I always wanted to do sculp-ture. But nothing ever clicked until I got out in that marsh, and then that just took over everything. I don’t do any-thing else anymore.”
Jurustic Park defies description. It is inextricably tied to Clyde—his perso-na, his unique sense of humor and his humble, inviting nature. Without the stories that go along with them, Jurustic Park is no more than a congregation of scrap metal. It is as much a performance as it is a sculpture garden. Through this one-of-a-kind style, Wynia has taken the discarded and breathed life into it in a way few artists can. Each creature has a unique life, so he cannot choose a favorite.
“I wish I could. I don’t dare! What would the others think?”
CUISINE
COM
MUN
ITY
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by: Emily Genco
Paula Fernandez trailed behind her son Wade as they walked through the double-doors of his middle school in Shawano, Wis. As they
entered, a group of boys in the foyer zeroed in on Wade. They began to chant, “Hey-ya, hey-ya, hey-ya, hey.” His chocolate-colored, waist-length hair pulled back in a ponytail often attracts attention.
“I looked at my son, and his face just dropped. He just started walking really fast and trying to get out of there,” says Fernan-dez, a cultural resource specialist for the Menominee Indian School District.
Fernandez says racism isn’t rare in the com-munities surrounding the Menominee In-dian Reservation. Just last year Sacred Heart Catholic School in Shawano received inter-national coverage when a seventh grade teacher scolded a Menominee student for speaking the tribe’s native language.
While these incidents attract attention, they only begin to illustrate the cultural conflict native students face in schools across Wis-consin, a conflict that extends beyond what can be seen or heard. On a deeper level, tribal traditional values conflict with those needed to succeed in westernized educa-tion. For native students, school becomes a
THE LEARNING CURVE
American Indian students balance conflicting cultures in education
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high-wire act as they attempt to balance at the cross-section of two cultures.
“That’s what we struggle with as an In-dian people. We have to walk this line and half ‘be’ in both worlds,” Fernandez says.
RAISE YOUR HAND, SPEAK UPAmerican Indian students who have learned in one of Wisconsin’s public schools said they could feel it: the loss of focus when a teacher leans in too close, like a microscope turned one de-gree too far, the hovering anxiety when a teacher asks for an answer. Quick. Speak. It’s uncomfortable. It’s confus-ing. It’s emotionally draining.
This internal conflict arises when stu-dents learn to behave one way at home and another in school. In class, students are expected to raise their hands, an-swer quickly and talk loudly, competi-tive behavior considered disrespectful in Native culture.
UW-Madison English and American Indian Studies Professor Roberta Hill recognizes the learning style of Native students compared to what is expected in a modern classroom.
“You know that you must confer dig-nity on others, so you don’t speak up right away,” Hill says. “You may wait two or three class periods, to get the feel of the room, see who all is speak-ing, how they’re speaking, what they’re saying and what the teacher might ex-pect of you. You don’t just jump right in and speak up.”
These values of patience, observa-tion and cooperation aren’t taught as a part of Native culture. Native students raised in tribal culture also learn to cul-tivate rich emotional lives, but western culture demands cool intellectualism and analysis, Hill says. “Everything in your educational system, all your ex-periences are telling you to stuff your emotions. You have to think of some ways to keep your emotional life alive.”
CONSEQUENCES OF CONFUSIONMisunderstandings can arise when the cultures of students and educators dif-fer.
Teachers who aren’t familiar with Na-tive customs may wonder why Native students don’t speak up or ask ques-tions, why they avert their eyes. The teacher may see a student looking away and conclude the student isn’t listen-ing or is showing disrespect, when re-ally it’s the opposite, Fernandez says. “If you don’t know about a culture, you’re making assumptions about the child, and this child is just being what they naturally are.”
Irene Kiefer, director of advancement at the College of Menominee Nation, believes the physical customs of any group with a strong cultural back-ground can be misunderstood.
“Body language, patterns of speech, all of those things can be issues that get in the way of successful cooperation be-tween somebody who’s trying to teach, or nurse or carry out a relationship [with] somebody else,” Kiefer says.
Native students often don’t understand why the classroom feels foreign. The difficulties that arise navigating the
expectations of a different culture con-tribute to the lower achievement for Native students in Wisconsin, Fernan-dez says.
In the past six years, American In-dian/Alaska Native students have had the second highest dropout rate in the state, an average of 3.79 percent.
LEARNING TO WALK IN BOTH WORLDSNative students who aspire to be suc-cessful must learn to navigate the value system that governs behavior in the western classroom.
The class “Menominee Models” taught at Menominee Indian High School freshman through senior years aims to help students do just that. The goal: creating the model Menominee person, balanced in both worlds.
New methods of teaching may also play a key role in helping students navigate both the tribal and western value sys-tems.
Justin Gauthier is a student at UW-Madison studying English. He remem-bers art classes as a boy at St. Antho-ny’s, which later became Menominee Tribal School. The classes had a more communal feeling and were a reprieve for adopting the more individualistic mode of thinking required by the other classes.
Gauthier and his classmates are work-ing to design a science and sustainabil-ity curriculum for seventh, eighth and ninth graders. The lessons will channel the communal feeling of his childhood art classes where students can validate their background knowledge in school.
“We’re trying to instill in the kids that there is a history of science learning in our communities, and it’s just not in this western science mode,” Gauthier says.
Gauthier hopes the curriculum will de-mystify the scientific method and give students’ stronger footing to help them
““
THAT’S WHAT WE STRUGGLE WITH
AS AN INDIAN PEOPLE. WE HAVE
TO WALK THIS LINE AND HALF ‘BE’ IN BOTH WORLDS.
48 / CURBONLINE.com
COMMUNITYperform at a higher level.
The College of Menominee Nation is also preparing teachers to better in-struct Native students by helping them understand the culture and history of American Indians.
STRIVING HIGHER AT UWWhen Native students successfully navigate primary and secondary edu-cation, some continue to feel cultural discord in higher learning.
At UW-Madison, Native students from tight-knit family backgrounds can feel alienated despite living in crowded dorms and seeking out solidarity with others through the Native American student group Wunk Sheek.
Finding a community in college be-comes an important step for the success of Native students. In Wisconsin, 3,307 American Indian men and women over 25 have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher out of 28,638.
It’s easier to feel successful when you can meet with others, according to UW-Madison Professor Roberta Hill. She attended UW-Madison in her last year of undergraduate study. At the time, there were 13 other native stu-
dents on campus.
“Because there were those 13 Indian students, I didn’t feel so totally alone. We kind of counted on each other,” Hill says.
Today, 35 tribes are represented on the UW-Madison campus. Ten of the elev-en tribes in Wisconsin are present, and 402 students on campus self-identified as American Indian/Alaska Native in fall 2012.
BRIDGING THE GAPWithout educating all students, Native learners may continue to experience cultural conflict in school. They may continue to have their braids pulled and be taunted as they walk by, just as Wade was.
The Department of Public Education has taken steps to bridge the gap and promote understanding about Native cultures. Beginning in 1991, school curricula began requiring that Wis-consin schools teach about American Indian culture, history and tribal sov-ereignty in social studies twice in the elementary grades and once at the sec-ondary level.
Fernandez sees educators discussing
Wisconsin Indians well in fourth grade, but by the later grades emphasis is lack-ing. “There’s no teeth to the law. There’s no follow-up. There’s no way to ensure that people are doing this,” Fernandez says.
Others have recognized the need for greater diversity training in schools.
After the Sacred Heart incident, Joseph Bound, director of education for the Diocese of Green Bay, said the school would work to implement a diversity program to teach Menominee and oth-er American Indian cultures to increase cultural awareness.
Fernandez went to the superintendent of Shawano schools and offered to sim-ilarly teach the students about Menom-inee culture after her son was teased.
“It’s like beating on doors to say, ‘Can I come in and help and combat this stuff?’” Fernandez says. “Because only through education are these young ones going to stop this perpetual cycle of racism.”
Two years have passed. She’s still wait-ing for the district to call. c
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The cascade of dehydrated corn hulls are being counted be-hind the counter, crunch after crunch as husks are peeled
away. Throughout the room, the swirl of homemade honey mingles with fresh-grown organic coffee, herbal tea, rosemary, pepper and other warm and inviting herbs and spices. These sights and sounds are common in the Tsyun-hehkwa retail store, which showcases all the organic and natural food the Onei-da tribe has to offer, something I never would have known before opening the door and stepping inside.
I am Oneidan. No matter the percent-age, it is a part of who I am. Despite this, it was not until recently that I de-cided to take an active interest in dis-covering the history of my native an-cestors. Guided by my aunt Carrie, an active Oneida tribe member, I spent a day on the Oneida nation reservation. One day immersed in all things Oneida gave me both a taste for the food-rich culture filled with culinary celebrations and an appetite for more. Every festi-val that Oneida have during the yearly circle connects to food and what is in season—a reminder that regardless of tribal membership, the food we put into our bodies has a time, a history and a purpose to be consumed.
As Oneidans, we have a responsibility to be thankful for the food we’re given and a duty to continue eating the natural food provided to us. I was given a wheel that explains what an Oneidan should
eat and when during the year. Between meat and sugar, vegetables and grains, there’s a specific time of year for every-thing that’s eaten, and all celebrations in the Oneida Nation revolve around this notion. From Strawberry Fest to Har-vest Fest to Bean Fest, every traditional festival in the Oneida nation celebrates food.
I also received a recipe for traditional corn soup, a popular dish on the res-ervation. In search of ingredients, I made my way to the Oneida store of the Tsyunhehkwa farm goods. Translating as “Life Sustenance,” the Oneida farm’s products demonstrate how crucial food is to their lives.
Upon entering, I learned anyone who visits the farm gets put to work; it’s a complete hands-on experience, and my first task was learning to braid corn. Testing my patience and dexter-ity, learning to braid was as unique an experience as it was difficult. I intently focused on the braiding pattern, intri-cately weaving each piece with as much poise and precision as possible.
And while there’s no rhyme or reason, but rather randomness to the stalks braided, no braid can be fixed. Corn is one of the three staples of the Oneida diet. From the sweet, musky scent of it to the crinkle of the cornhusks, it is an integral part of the tribe. Visit curbonline.com to read the extend-ed version.
ONEIDANS JOIN IN FOOD AS CELEBRATION
by: Valerie Chesnik
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COMMUNITY
In an urban food desert on a busy Mil-waukee road, sits Will Allen’s Growing Power—a quiet and unexpected urban greenhouse growing more than just food for a community in need.
For the people living in food deserts within Milwaukee County, accessible and affordable produce is hard to come by. In a report from the USDA, Mil-waukee County has 20 low-income neighborhoods where a significant number of residents lack access to gro-cery stores and supermarkets.
Within the heart of a Milwaukee food desert, Growing Power and founder Will Allen are providing communities with access to affordable, healthy and sustainable food not readily available in their neighborhoods.
Since it started in 1993, both Allen and his nonprofit are filling a gap in the food system, changing the way people view food and farming to spread a new set of values and earning much deserved recognition.
ALWAYS A FARMER Will Allen grew up on a farm outside of Washington, D.C., to parents whose passion for farming instilled in him a desire to grow food for others. “We didn’t have a lot of money,” Allen ex-plains, “But we had the real power to be able to grow food.”
Growing Power not only produces sustainable food, but also provides people with training and education to
understand what is happening in the community. Allen believes the limited awareness of food deserts in urban communities stems from an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality.
“Most people take for granted that food is always going to be there if they have it,” says Allen. “And most people take for granted that the food they’re eating is nutrient rich, which it isn’t.”
Allen and Growing Power provide people with an education in a way that doesn’t force-feed the information. He brings people into the communities where fresh food isn’t available so they can see first-hand what is happening. “The food systems that we’re trying to create, these local, sustainable food sys-tems [are] really about social, food and environmental justice,” says Allen. “So, everybody should have the right to at-tain grocery-appropriate food.”
More than 20,000 people toured the Growing Power greenhouse last year alone, and a trip to the urban structure helps visitors fully grasp everything the organization does.
A PEEK INSIDE In a room full of eager-to-learn garden-ers, plant-lovers, first-time farmers and the simply curious, the tour guide be-gan with the history of Growing Power. Despite attentively listening to the in-teresting information, it was far too easy to be distracted by the surround-ings: sounds of rushing water, the smell of wood chips and fresh soil, pots and trays overflowing with greenery and opportunities to taste the fresh leaves growing within. Growing Power will use these greens in a salad mix and distribute them along with food from the Growing Power-initiated Rainbow Farmer’s Coopera-tive and produce purchased through wholesalers to create Market Baskets. These baskets are food—stamp eligible and offer people a good mix of fruits and vegetables in their communities. Growing Power also raises goats for their composting benefits, chickens for the 300 eggs they collectively lay each day and bees for their honey. These products are sold daily within the Growing Power store and in the local farmers’ markets.
The tour ended at the main entrance, where the walls were covered with news-paper and magazine clippings. One ar-ticle was titled “Homegrown Hero” and the other was Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2010.” On one section of the wall, frames housed a letter from Michelle Obama thanking him for his hard work, a picture of Al-
GROWING MORE THAN FOOD
by: Kendra Dawson
Will Allen unearths the power to change the way Wisconsin-and the world-eats
“““THE FOOD SYSTEMS THAT WE’RE TRYING TO CREATE, THESE LOCAL,
SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS [ARE] REALLY ABOUTSOCIAL, FOOD AND
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE,”
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len in a tailored suit shaking President Obama’s hand and a letter from Bill Clinton.
It is clear to see that Allen is not only making a difference for the Milwaukee community but throughout the coun-try as well.
INSPIRING OTHERSAfter attending a two-day Growing Power seminar back in 2008, Universi-ty School of Milwaukee’s seventh grade science teacher Kip Jacobs was inspired to start a sustainable garden at the school. “I knew of composting, but Will Allen really had a great way of saying ‘This is not hard. It’s really quite easy to do.,” says Jacobs. Jacobs says Allen’s concepts of urban gardening inspired him to push it into the school setting. He says that the beauty of Allen’s model of sustainable food production is that once you know how to go about the process, you can adapt it to your situation. Jacobs, along with the help of a few oth-er USM teachers over the years, started a garden on campus for their students. The school’s Environmental Action Team, a student organization, works to maintain the garden along with Jacobs’ seventh-grade students.
“Will’s influence has reinforced the whole notion of composting and where we get our food,” says Jacobs. And it’s a notion that Jacobs has taken into the classroom with him to share with fu-ture generations.
MUCH TO BE PROUD OF Growing Power is not only growing food, but also growing ideas and re-building communities. When asked how he felt being on the forefront of a movement that has inspired so many to get involved in the community, Al-len responded with humility. “I didn’t start this work to get accolades. That’s not what’s important because working in the food system and being a farmer keeps you very humble.”
Growing Power now has 15 retail train-ing centers around the country to pro-vide farmers with the education they need to be sustainable farmers. They are about to start building the first ver-tical farm in the world to maximize what they can do within the city limits. And despite countless accomplish-ments over the last 19 years, Allen con-tinues to set goals. He hopes to change the dynamics of local food sources and would like Growing Power to cut back on electricity use by increasing use of solar panels. But, ultimately, he hopes to see the community receive the full
nutritional impact from the food they eat.
“We have a responsibility of getting people food that’s good for them and not just giving them a bowl of slop,” says Allen. “That’s not what we would consider having food and sharing food in a cultural way.”
MOVING MILWAUKEE FORWARDAlthough it would be naïve to say such large-scale problems like food acces-sibility can be easily fixed with more organizations like Growing Power, it’s a start. Allen is doing his part to inspire others along the way. Allen had hoped Growing Power would become a safe place for others and even-tually become much more than just the roadside stand it started as. Discuss-ing the impact he hoped to have in the community, Allen used a parable about a man who sees a sparrow lying down with its feet in the air. The man asks the sparrow what it is doing.
“I heard that the sky is falling,” the bird replies, “and I want to hold it up.”
The man laughs at the bird. “You believe that you can hold up the whole sky?”
“No,” the bird says. “But one does what one can.” c
POLA
RI
ZED POLITIC
S
The uniquely purple state of Wisconsin is a study in political contrasts. Urban centers like Milwau-kee help maintain the state’s blue voting record. But Milwau-kee County’s neigh-bor to the west, Waukesha County, remains one of the most conservative areas in the state.
Dick Pas (right), chairman of the Waukesha County Democrats,
and Keith Best, spokesman for the Waukesha GOP,
offer insight into Wiscon-sin’s political polariza-tion and the contrast between voting red and blue.
BY: SAM EASTON
“Waukesha County took a huge hit in terms
of real estate, small businesses, retirement ac-
counts. There were a surprisingly high num-
ber of personal and business closures, a kind
we haven’t seen for decades.”
There aren’t many institutions
that have had such a negative
effect on our politics as political
message radio… Talking about
politics is dramatically harder
and it’s a huge loss for the city,
county, state and country.”
“We are at a tipping point. Whether people want
government to take care of them or whether
people can survive on their own. All we want to
do is maintain smaller and efficient government.
There are so many things done by church groups,
by charities, and I’d like to see that be maintained
where government is out of it.”
“I realized I was the epitome of the American
Dream, a high school dropout who was able to
work hard and get ahead in life. My wife and I
never needed the government for anything. Even
though neither of us went to college, we were able
to succeed through nothing but sheer hard work.”
“We are at the point right now where
this country is either going to go totally
socialistic or whether we are going to
maintain our freedom and liberty.”
“The Republican Party has allowed its
voice to be taken by people with micro-
phones and the net effect of that is to
lose one’s historical origins, policies
and broad-minded thinking.”
There aren’t many institutions
that have had such a negative
effect on our politics as political
message radio… Talking about
politics is dramatically harder
and it’s a huge loss for the city,
county, state and country.”
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Tiny, finger-spread hands on construction paper marks the first understanding most kids have of a turkey. It’s Crayola-colored and almost animated. For some urban youth from low-income families, it’s the only concept they have of this wild animal, never knowing an environment where they can experience wildlife.
Holiday Home Camp, a Wisconsin experience for disadvan-taged youth from Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago, gives these tiny hands an opportunity to reach for more. To stare at sparkling stars or glimpse the proud feathers and wagging wattle of a turkey in the Lake Geneva forest is exhilarating for eyes confined to the city. Even more profound, however, Holiday Home offers campers the ability to just be kids.
“A lot of our kids are coming from areas where they have a lot more responsibilities on them than you would expect a child their age to have,” says Holiday Home Camp Office Manager and Registrar Stacy Usher. “When they come here, they are safe, they have food, they have shelter, and they can just have fun and be children, which is something they don’t get the luxury of, quite a bit, at home.”
A connection to nature and group harmony can escape to-day’s urban youth, especially if they come from low-income or disadvantaged families. Attending summer camp is a wonderful way to build character and community—but it’s costly. Holiday Home works within a sliding pay scale to provide “camperships,” so no child is denied a camp experi-ence.
“Some families pay $20, some pay $100, some don’t pay any-thing,” Usher says. “It’s whatever they can afford to pay that’s not going to hurt them.”
“The most important thing [for people] to realize is that, for these kids, summer camp is not just a vacation. Summer camp is something that changes their lives. When they’re here, they feel empowered.”
Visit curbonline.com to read the extended version.
A CAMP EXPERIENCE FOR ALLby: Stephanie Wezelman
CUISINE
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With honesty and determination, an 86-year-old nun transcended her time to bring equality to health care
by: Melissa Grau + photos by: Stephanie Wezelman
SOLIDARITYSISTER
As war raged in Viet-nam, waves beat the shores of Guam, a tiny U.S. territory is-
land in the South Pacific. The rising island temperatures matched the heat of flaming ten-sions within the government-run Guam Memorial Hospital. Native nurses had little educa-tion or experience. Imported Filipino nurses couldn’t speak English to care for their pa-tients. And Navy nurses—often cycling through during their husbands’ tours of duty—stayed too briefly to train and commit. Traditional island gender roles clashed with imported hospital regulations from progressive
California. The roiling conflicts festered into high turnover, low salaries and long hours for staff poorly served by an alcoholic and untrustworthy leader.
Through turbulent tides, in the heat of the moment, a nun closed her eyes.
Not in prayer, but in defiance.
“I did go down to the personnel office. There were three men there. Everything was run by men at that time,” says the nun. “They started talking Chimo-ran, so of course I didn’t know what they were talking about.” Disregarding their own rule to
only speak English in the hos-pital, the men talked over their new director of nurses and her plea for higher salaries.
She talked louder, “I don’t mind working for a little bit, but these people are trying to feed their families, and they’re working hard. They deserve benefits. As long as you’re going to speak Chimoran, I’m going to have a little nap. I’m really tired. And when I wake up, I expect to have the salary raised.”
“I really did go to sleep,” Sister Leclare Beres recalls with a little laugh. “And yes, they raised the salaries.”
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It is often said that well-behaved wom-en rarely make history. Though obedi-ent and observant of sanctity, nuns in health care carved out a place in Amer-ican history as true pioneers over the past century. Sister Leclare is part of Wisconsin’s unique piece of that story.
STUBBORN HONESTY“You probably think I’m a brat. But I’m just being honest.” As an 86-year-old nun wearing a bicycle-embroidered T-shirt, her spunky personality is quick to defy all stereotypes. Reactions to her stories are more like, “Solidarity. sister!” Ahem, Sister Leclare, that is.
A powerhouse, Sister Leclare has affect-ed change in health care throughout the world. Whether telling doctors what to do in a pediatric ward in Idaho, fight-ing for labor equity in Guam (an island, despite conflict, she lovingly claims she would have lived on forever), teaching nurses patient-focused care in China, or spearheading free clinics for the dis-advantaged in Wisconsin, she always advocates for the underdog.
“She is strong-willed to the point of stubborn,” says former coworker and current Director of Saint Clare Health Mission, Sandy Brekke. “When she sees something that’s an injustice, she will work and work and work to make a change. She always succeeded.”
“You know,” Sister Leclare says as she raises her eyebrows. “I never lose my spunk.”
FIGHTING FOR HEALTH CARE EQUALITYAs Leclare grew older, gender politics between male doctors and female nurs-es decreased in the workplace. Over the past 20 years, her dedication to the poor in La Crosse, Wis., has ensured quality care for the underserved and ignored. First in 1984, she helped establish the Indochinese Screening Clinic for the thousands of incoming Hmong refu-gees in the area.
“We would be their first contact for
care,” Leclare says. “We’d have them come as a whole family. And then we would go through their records—their rain-soaked records.” Originally func-tioning in a one-room clinic, Leclare and her team faced challenges navigat-ing the confusion, the interpreters and cultural beliefs that resisted Western-ized medicine. Though it proved dif-ficult, “We did it,” says Sister Leclare. Over the next 14 years, she served 4,500 refugees as they began integrating into a healthy life in Wisconsin.
In 1991, Leclare began to envision a free clinic to address the poor and uninsured in the area. After joining a committee and working with representatives from both hospitals in La Crosse, Leclare be-came the first director of the Saint Clare Health Mission. “We found out that 10 percent of 100,000 people [in the sur-rounding counties] would qualify for care in a free clinic,” says Leclare. “To qualify, they have to be 150 percent of the poverty level.” With an identified need, the free clinic prospered thanks to the generosity of over 100 volunteers and countless donations of time and money. Today, more than 350 people volunteer at the Health Mission.
“THAT CONSTANT INVITATION”Soon after Leclare graduated high school in 1943, she left behind her fam-ily farm, one-room schoolhouse and Great Depression-era funk to work in big city Milwaukee. She bought herself a pair of high heels and a red hat with the money she earned, eager to shed the clothing she shared with ten siblings. But her new metropolitan style didn’t surprise her family back in Elroy, Wis., nearly as much as her decision to join a convent.
“You had to write a letter of interest to join. I said to a nun, ‘How about you write it, and I’ll sign it,’” says Sister Leclare. “I knew I wouldn’t actually sit down and write a letter. I was dating at the time and having fun.”Signed, sealed and delivered shortly af-ter, Sister Leclare decided to give “that
constant invitation” to join the convent a test-run. Sixty-eight years later, one would call the test-run a success.
NURTURING CHANGE Before health care evolved into a busi-ness, a science and a largely govern-ment-regulated sector, care facilities sprouted because nuns planted them-selves among communities in need of health attention. “We would probably not have the systems of care we have today without their leadership,” says Therese Pandl, president and CEO of the Eastern Wisconsin Division of Hospital Sisters Health System, who has worked with nuns for more than 30 years. “What I’ve observed over my experience working with them is cour-age, tenacity and figuring out how to get things done in the face of incredible adversity.”
At the turn of the century, a time when American culture resisted female em-powerment, “Women had more op-portunities if they chose a different path,” says Pandl. Women who chose the path of religious service could travel the world, receive higher education and secure freedom from the necessity of marriage as an economic crutch. With Catholic sisters’ daring commitment to elevating the status of the disadvan-taged, they can be considered some of the first feminists.
“I surely do not put men down,” quali-fies Leclare. “I love men too much. But I think that women have to have their place, and they should not be put down as the weaker sex.”
Barb Kruse, who serves as the spiritual director for the Franciscan Spirituality Center, has observed Leclare’s persever-ance as a personal friend over the past 30 years. “She’s not going to be intimi-dated by men, or men who have power,” Kruse says. “Somehow she found with-in herself power to be that pioneer.”Pandl does not think Leclare is unique in her disposition. “They are definitely feminists, in that feminism is the outra-
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PEOPLE
LECLARE’S COMMANDMENTS
DISCERN VALUE Even if you have enough energy to function on two hours of
sleep, like Leclare was known to do, it is not wise to say “yes” to everything. Take a moment to reflect. In Idaho, Leclare used to
sit at a desk in the hospital’s utility closet, gazing out a hidden window with the good view. “When things got really tough, I’d just go look at the Tetons and meditate on God, and then I’d get
all settled down.”
JUDGE JUST THE ACTION Assume the best in people. Sandy Brekke says Leclare clearly judged actions, not people, and she could easily help someone
to understand that they are in charge of their own actions. Transcending judgment is empowering.
FORGIVEIn Guam, her no-nonsense philosophy eventually angered her
superiors, spurring a campaign to remove her from the hospital. After a lengthy trial, she remained director of nurses amidst
many who conspired against her. “I learned that you can forgive and that you can really forget…And the next two years were the
best two years I had,” says Leclare. “We have an opportunity with whatever happens in our life that we can be forgiving and
go on and live a wonderful life.”
BE PASSIONATE ABOUT FUNFind what you truly love, and do it every day. “She loved to bike. I remember several times she would come to work on Monday
all scratched up because she caught some gravel on a ride,” recalls Joe Kruse, chuckling. Alone or with friends, whether
20 miles or 491, she made time to pursue her passion until she was 83 years old. Leclare’s “game-for-anything” attitude also
reinforces how spontaneity and verve are equally important to foster fun.
geous conclusion that women are equals…social justice is part of why they believe they exist,” she says of the nuns she has encountered. “Even though there’s varia-tion within religious women groups, they still will be strong in their support of people.”
Not everyone is singing feminist nuns’ praise, however. American sisters’ documented support of legislation that broadly advances personal equity, like the Afford-able Care Act, brings them into conflict with some male Catholic leaders. In recent years, the Vatican issued a report calling groups like the NETWORK, a social jus-tice advocacy group of nuns, and the larger umbrella group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, “radical feminists.”
With American nuns’ actions deemed divergent, the Vatican indicates it will begin censoring nuns’ teach-ing and speaking materials and may even disband the LCWR.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FREEDOMLeclare watches ball games with fellow sisters. Her pas-sion for biking brought her hundreds of miles forward in her contemplation of God’s beauty. She loved the Blue Man Group performance in Chicago. She has climbed on rooftops, soaked in the sun on the Swiss Alps and will always swear by the power of forgiveness. Nurs-ing gives her a feeling of being free and an identity as a formidable force for justice. She’s a loving and accepting mentor.
That’s Leclare.
Individual agency led Sister Leclare to her biggest ac-complishments. “She was in graduate school when women didn’t go to graduate school,” says Joe Kruse, chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic Health Sys-tem-Franciscan Healthcare. He elaborated that with her education and leadership characteristics, “She is the quintessential nurse.”
Sister Leclare is now retired from nursing, but does not seem to tire from serving her community. She still vol-unteers at the Saint Clare Health Mission she helped start, says Brekke. “Even at 86, you can tell it still gives her energy. She’ll just sit and talk with people, and peo-ple always remember her.”
Barb Kruse reflects, “Leclare has impacted my life in her solid presence. She influenced me by living in the pres-ent moment…She’s just so grounded in who she is.”
Thank God for that. c
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WISCONSINSOUND
Singer Josh Thompson makesMidwest memories into country melodies.
Country musician and Wis-consin native Josh Thomp-son is bringing old-fashioned Midwestern values to the
glitz of Nashville. As one of only a few country musicians who hail from the state identified with beer, cheese and the Green and Gold, Thompson says he feels a special commitment to represent his home when he tours the U.S.
“I love it there [in Wisconsin]...It’s a chief part of me, and I always make sure that wherever I go I always speak vol-umes about Wisconsin and hopefully do it justice,” the flannel-wearing, po-nytail-rocking performer said. For this reason, Thompson loved having the chance to return home this summer to perform in Milwaukee with Gary Allan, Rodney Atkins and Sunny Sweeney as part of the Country Throwdown Tour.
Audiences return the love, launching three tracks from his latest album to the Top 30. Like his fans, Thompson’s manager, Julianne Drenon, was drawn to the Wisconsinite’s raw skill and au-thenticity.
“His talent is so powerful, and yet he’s still humble and thankful, and it just makes you love him,” she says. “I see him aspiring in everything that he does to stay true to how his mother and fa-ther raised him and maintain those val-ues. He’s not trying to be anybody else. He’s not trying to emulate this person or that person. He’s Josh Thompson.”
Growing up, Thompson harbored an enthusiasm for songwriting, which manifested itself in boxes of unpub-lished songs still stacked in a closet of his mom’s apartment. He launched his career via his gift for songwriting, with
credits that include “Church, Pew or Barstool,” recorded by Jason Aldean, as well as the title track of Jason Michael Carroll’s “Growing Up Is Getting Old.”
In 2010, Thompson released his debut album, “Way Out Here.” Having per-formed live with big names like Eric Church, Brad Paisley and Dierks Bent-ley, Thompson hopes his hard work and evolving talent will turn his newest sin-gle into a successful sophomore album.
Thompson’s mom can hear the essence of his small town nature in his music. “I think being from the Midwest, you have all those values. You’ve got to work hard to make it. You’ve got to work to have something.”
Visit curbonline.com to read the extend-ed version.
by: Devin Mulertt + photos courtesy of: Julianne Drenon
c
We won’t take a dime if we ain’t earned it.When it comes to weight brother we pull our own.
If it’s our backwoods way of livin’ you’re concerned with You can leave us alone
We’re about John Wayne, Johnny Cash and John Deere
Way out here.
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PEOPLE
RAISING EXPECTATIONS
One mother’s journey to transcend poverty
by: Emily Genco + photos by: Stephanie Wezelman
Micheal Austin wakes up at 4 a.m. and pads quietly through her three-bedroom mobile home to make coffee. The smell of Folgers fills the kitchen as Austin settles at the table. Sometimes in the morning lull before her children begin to stir, she clips coupons or steals a few minutes to finish homework.
Austin is an honors student at UW-Oshkosh and has worked as an employment counselor for the disabled. She cares how her eldest daughter is doing in welding class, leans the bikes against the back porch to keep the yard tidy and wears a football jersey on game days.
She feels “typical.” And she is.
As one of the 725,797 Wisconsinites living below the pov-erty line, Austin shatters many stereotypes about the poor. She has never been to jail, doesn’t do drugs and is actively searching for a job in the service sector. She is indeed a typical face of poverty—a complex problem with many causes. She’s just not the face most people picture.
STRETCHING THE DOLLARAustin remembers growing up in poverty’s shadow, mov-ing between Utah and Massachusetts where her father could find work as a carpenter or truck driver. In Brock-ton, Mass., her parents never owned a home.
“We were taught to stretch the dollar even when we were really little. We didn’t have big Christmases. We didn’t get birthday presents. Things like that didn’t matter. We ap-preciated what we got,” Austin says.
When the family moved to Wisconsin in 1990, Austin’s fa-ther fell sick. The family relied on his disability checks and the money her mother brought in working at Burger King and Subway. She never went to college.
Today, Austin lives with her five children in Oxford, Wis. Money is still tight. She dries clothes on a line, buys from Goodwill and budgets weekly. She shops out of season to afford new jackets. She saves and waits, forgoing vacations to pay rent.
Life is a balance for Austin and her family. She writes ev-erything in a brown and beige binder: work appointments, schedules, budgets and notes of encouragement. One of her favorite quotes is, “All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune,” by Henry David Thoreau.
Austin must juggle economics daily. Rent is cheaper in ru-ral Wisconsin, but as a tradeoff, she must drive the family
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everywhere, leaving her finances at the fickle mercy of rising gas prices. Austin recently left her job as an employment counselor at Northwoods Inc. of Wis-consin. With recent budget cuts, she had received fewer and fewer hours. By the time she had driven back and forth to work, she was losing money.
“I spend a lot of money on gas a month. I cut corners just because gas is killing me,” Austin says. “When it goes up, I just get stomachaches from the stress of it because it has to come from some-where.”
April, 15, Alexia, 10, and Alicia, 9, board the school bus between 6:40 and 6:50 a.m. each day. Kayden, 2, and Avah, 1, must be driven to daycare 30 minutes away in Adams. Work was an-other 45 minutes away. Then dinner. Then homework. On some days, she only gets two hours of sleep.
“It gets difficult sometimes because I just wake up, and I feel overwhelmed. And there’s no time for breaks. And
there’s no time for sick days,” Austin says. “So I feel like I go in overdrive a lot from the minute I wake up until I go to bed.”
Single mothers must provide both care and financial support for their chil-dren. They are the bottom line. Austin’s daughters share the responsibilities. April babysits. Alicia cooks spaghetti.
“Some days I know my kids just want to be kids. They want a mom who’s just going to bake cookies and watch TV and play games with them,” Austin says. “I want to be that mom too, but my days are so long.”Austin often plans meals around the coupons in the Sunday paper. At $2.00, she can’t afford it every week, but her former boss could. She would retrieve the paper after he threw it away. No one really wanted the coupons.
AGAINST THE ODDSIn the United States, 50.4 percent of female householders living below the poverty line have not finished high
school, and 10.9 percent hold a bach-elor’s degree or higher. In Wisconsin, the numbers are worse.
For single mothers living below the poverty line, Austin is the exception. Before she went into labor with her son in 2010, Austin thought about her col-lege finals.
Kayden was born Dec. 13 in the middle of exams. Austin continued studying in the hospital and took a final after she was discharged, on time.
Austin is most passionate about sociol-ogy and anthropology, but she’s major-ing in human services. Unlike many other undergraduates, Austin has a family to think about. “When I did be-come single, I chose human services for the simple fact that I needed to provide an income for the kids very quickly.”
While her aspirations are economically mobile, the image others see when they look at her is mired in under-expecta-tions and stereotypes of the “welfare
60 / CURBONLINE.com
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mom.”
They imagine a past of promiscuity, jail time and drug abuse, Austin says. They couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Austin has worked since she was 15—babysitting, cleaning and waitressing. Until November, she counseled clients with disabilities in their job search. Just two weeks after Austin gave her notice, she had already lined up four interviews for new jobs.
“Knock me if I wasn’t working. Knock me if I had kids for a welfare check. I know that there are people out there, but separate them from me because I’m what the real problem is in the economy and America today,” Austin says.
Her family and friends motivate Austin, according to Brian Downey, a case man-ager for the Central Wisconsin Commu-nity Action Council.
“There are a few people that do abuse the programs that are available. I hate to see it when somebody like Micheal consid-ers herself a part of that because she’s re-ally not,” Downey says. “She’s an honest, hard-working mom. The only problem she has is finances.”
A HAIR AWAYAustin was enrolled in Project Chance, a program that connects homeless families with rent, food and day care assistance. Participants in Project Chance can re-main in the program for two years. This November, Austin’s two years were up.
A scholarship Austin won in the second week of November will allow her family to remain financially afloat through De-cember.
Austin tries not to let the stress distract her from her kids and her studies, but it’s hard to forget past struggles finding housing in Adams County. The reason? Austin has kids. “It’s not so easy to call out Joe Schmo that you see in church and file a complaint against them for not rent-ing to you.”
The hotels in Adams County where homeless families live serve as haunting reminders that financial security can be precarious.
“Everybody makes fun of them when they drive past,” Austin says. “I feel grate-ful that we’re not in that situation, but I want people to understand I’m a hair away from that. That could be us too.”
LOOKING FORWARDIn Wisconsin, 305,508 people receive cash public assistance or food stamps. As of last year, 44.4 percent of families with a female householder with no husband present and children under 18 lived be-low the poverty line in Adams County.
“Do people understand what a low self-esteem you get just by asking for a hand-out or what it actually feels like to go to social services and apply for something?” Austin asks. “I don’t think they know how hard it is, but when you do it, it kills you inside.”
This May, at 35, Micheal Austin will fin-ish her bachelor’s degree. Austin imag-ines a time when she can provide more stability and a house for her family.
“We have more of a future because of the choices I made. I’m just ready for them to happen now,” Austin says. “I’m ready for those stages to begin because I feel like I’ve worked so hard for it.”
Austin looks forward, but some elements of her past in Brockton—including a diehard love of “The Pats”—endure. On game days, Micheal Austin and five her kids pull on their New England Patriots jerseys. It’s tradition.
There’s another lesson Austin is passing on to her kids: perseverance. The ambi-tion to rise above her situation drives Austin to transcend the labels, the judg-ing stares, to rise until others see the true Micheal Austin—the tireless worker, the student, the football fan—instead of a nearly forty-year-old stereotype of the “welfare mom.” c
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Q&Awith ryan downsFor the world’s largest sauerkraut producer, it’s all in the family.by: Devin Mulertt
More than 100 years ago, in the town of Bear Creek, Wis., two Irish brothers began a pick-
ling company called Flanagan Broth-ers. Since then, Dave and Henry Fla-nagan’s enterprise has become the world’s largest producer of sauerkraut, processing nearly 150,000 tons of raw cabbage into kraut each year and con-troling 85 percent of the North Amer-ican market.
Ryan Downs currently leads the busi-ness founded by his great-grandfather and great-uncle. Now called GLK Foods, LLC, the company operates a second manufacturing facility in Shortsville, N.Y., but maintains its original manufacturing plant and headquarters in Wisconsin. Honor-ing the achievements of the past while exploring innovations for the future, Downs shares plans for continuing his family’s tradition of success in Wis-consin.
WHAT POSSESSED TWO IRISHMEN TO START MAKING SAUERKRAUT? It actually started as a pickling company, processing pickles, with some cabbage on the side. One year the cabbage market was inundated, so they decided they were going to turn it into sauerkraut. It wasn’t some great master plan, it just kind of evolved.
WHAT WAS THE EARLY BUSINESS LIKE, AND HOW DID IT EVOLVE OVER TIME?They ran the business for basically the whole 20th century. It was a successful business, but there were so many more competitors at that time. Sauerkraut used to be a lot like cheese where there was a little shop on almost every corner in every small town. And people ate a lot more sauerkraut then, too, a trend I would like to go back to. Now that we’ve acquired other businesses, it’s a much more exciting industry to be a part of.
HOW CAN YOU MAKE MORE AMERICANS INTO KRAUT-EATERS?In the United States, we pretty much eat it as a condiment. In other places, it’s seen as a center of the plate type item. The trick is just to get people to try it. Kraut’s a “super food,” and a lot of people don’t know that. Typically what people eat with sauerkraut in the U.S. isn’t healthy. It’s a brat, or it’s a hot dog. So it’s incumbent on us to show them other ways to use it.
Last year, at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, one of the top trends identi-fied for the coming few years was the resurgence of pickled vegetables, particu-larly artisanal sauerkraut. Everybody’s interested in returning to more simple foods, which sauerkraut is. We’d never heard “cool or trendy” and sauerkraut in the same sentence before, so we got pretty excited. One thing we’re doing to boost consumption is to capitalize on the movement that’s already afoot in the U.S.
WHAT MAKES BEAR CREEK ONE OF THE FINEST CABBAGE GROWING AREAS? In Wisconsin, we plant a lot of the cabbage in between Bear Creek and Shioc-ton. It’s a glacial lakebed, and it’s great soil for growing cabbage.
WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIPS DO YOU HAVE WITH BEAR CREEK AND WISCONSIN? We sponsor sauerkraut festivals and goofy stuff like that. We give cabbage for this event in Shiocton that they have called the Cabbage Chuck, where they take these enormous catapults and shoot cabbages miles. It’s insane.
Most of our sales occur east of the Mississippi—the Eastern Seaboard is the single biggest market. But they eat a lot of kraut here in Wisconsin, as well. Sauerkraut’s just something that feels like it fits in Wisconsin, you know? c
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7Starting in Milwaukee, head downtown to the Riverwalk, where you can see a collection
of life-sized bronze ducks. Gertie and her babies inspired happiness among the people of Milwaukee during World War II. Not only will you find Gertie, but also Dee Dee, Pee Wee, Rosie, Millie, Black Bill, and Freddie adorning the Riverwalk.
Stop to relax a bit in Sheboygan. The best place for a bathroom
break is the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, where you’ll find the six most beautiful bathrooms in the world. In an artist residency program with the Kohler Company, students created these public bathrooms as works of art. From tile to marble, waterfalls and mirrored walls, you’re in for a treat. Who knew a toilet could be so glorious?
Head west and you’ll end up in the birthplace of the Ice Cream Sundae, Two Rivers. In 1881, resident George Hallauer asked the owner of the local soda fountain to top
his dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce, which at the time was only used for ice cream sodas. The combination was an instant favorite, yet was only sold on Sundays. In the middle of the week, a little girl requested her chocolate-covered ice cream treat, asking if the owner would pretend it was Sunday. In 1973, the State Historical Society dedicated a marker in a Two Rivers park commemorating the first ice cream “sundae.”
In Wausau, check out the Lil Ole Winemaker Shoppe for wine and gifts. There is even a free tasting at their beautiful wine bar, free classes and the chance
to have a wine tasting party. There are also a variety of wine-related accessories to add to your collection. You can buy a myriad of trinkets: supplies to brew your own beer, wine racks, glasses and festive holiday decorations.
Remember Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox? In Eau Claire stop at the Paul Bunyan Logging Camp Museum, where you can
find the duo lurking on the softball field. Pose at Caron Park and take your picture with these iconic statues.
Stretch your legs when you reach Superior’s Big Manitou Falls. The fourth largest
waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains is sure to make your jaw drop. Walking around Pattison State Park you won’t see the falls at first, they are hidden within the woods. Your face will be lightly splashed with mist, and you’ll be mesmerized watching the water cascade down from the Black River. And of course, if you visit in fall, you’ll catch the breathtaking leaves as they’re changing.
You have arrived at your final destination, Madeline Island.
Disembark from the ferry and head over to Tom’s Burned Down Bar. Literally, someone torched it. Thus, the owner eradicated the problem by backing an 18-wheeler into the ashes and reopening it for business—until the bar caught on fire again. Today, a permanent white tent covers the bar with snarky jokes written on the walls and quirky sculptures throughout.
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3Weird and wild Wisconsin is just
around the bend on every road trip
stops along the wayby Aimee Katz
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Stop the Schlep! Do you really like waking the kids up before dawn,
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What’s the Opposite of Schlep? Dane County Regional Airport. A nice, short
ride from anywhere in the Madison area–no major
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Next time you travel, do yourself and your family
a favor. Fly from Dane County Regional Airport.
After all, it’s all about the journey.
It’s all about the journey.
Go to StopTheSchlep.com
5115 Vilas Communication Hall821 University AvenueMadison, WI 53706Phone: (608) 262-3690Fax: (608) 262-1361
