How wonderful it is with summer at its height. The sun is out today, the purple blooms of our clematis are brilliant, and memories of a beautiful drive through the countryside of western Wisconsin on Sunday and Monday are still strong in my mind.

Our short trip took us only 100 miles or so from our home in Minnesota to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the largest city in western Wisconsin. We approached from the west, on scenic roads. Well, nearly every road is scenic in this beautiful area. Our route took us through Red Wing, Minnesota, to Highway 63, then Highway 72 and County Road C to Eau Claire. It’s a beautiful route through farming country and forest-covered hills, passing through the towns of Ellsworth, Rock Elm, Elmwood, Downsville, and Dunn. It includes some very hilly, thickly forested country - an area that was not covered by the most recent glaciers, and terrain that most people probably do not associate with the Midwest.

For three of the last four years I’ve spent time during the summer working at my former employer, Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. I still do freelance work for ETS’s Test of English as a Foreign Language, and my stints back at the mother ship help to keep me “calibrated,” as they say.

Although I spent most of my time working, I did enjoy my trip. The area from Princeton west to the Delaware River Valley is a wonderful part of the country, and summer is a nice time to be there. This is a place that has managed to retain some of its rural character, even though it sits in the most densely populated state in the country.

How did they do that? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that some of it came through open space initiatives that involved land purchases by government; private trusts and zoning ordinances probably played a role as well.

I stayed in Princeton, not far from the university, and was rather awestruck at the building they’ve done on campus in the last several years, most of it on the southern edge, including Whitman College (named for Meg Whitman of eBay fame). This is what money will do for you.

During my trip, the high price of fuel was on people’s minds. I got a feel for high gas prices when I filled up my rental car near the Philadelphia airport and paid $4.13 a gallon. Perhaps prices will come down, but with higher demand around the world it feels as though we are crossing some kind of historic watershed and moving into unfamiliar territory, to use a geographic metaphor.

Now it is good to be back home in Minnesota. Our baby boy is six months old now and can sit up on his own - though he is still prone to toppling over. He is cuter than ever, of course. And I’ve been getting lots of hugs from our daughter, who says she missed me a lot. It is nice to have been missed, and better to be home.

I recently traveled for work to the East Coast, flying the thousand miles from Minneapolis to Philadelphia, then driving to the Princeton, New Jersey, area. I lived in Princeton or its environs for eight years, first in grad school and later working there and marrying my wife, and I’ve returned there several times since then. So it’s familiar turf for me.

My first stop after leaving the airport was South Philly, just south of downtown. I was happy to find it’s much the same since I first visited 20 years ago.

If you appreciate the urban Northeast or are interested in experiencing it, this is one place to get a feel for its teeming streets. And what streets! I approached the area from the south, first driving up South 10th Street, then 9th Street. On 10th Street I saw tiny, tiny one-level brick houses, and on 9th Street I made my way through a narrow one-way corridor, cars parked on both sides of the street in front of small row houses, apartment buildings, shops, and restaurants. To my eyes, accustomed to a small town in the Midwest, the density of the place, especially its buildings, was remarkable. The people, meanwhile, were out on the sidewalks or their front steps and porches, enjoying the evening air and the sights and sounds of the neighborhood.

I made my way north to the Italian Market, an Old World-style area of shops and sidewalk stalls that was featured in scenes from the movie Rocky. South Philly is still largely Italian, though today it increasingly includes Hispanics and Asians.

I stopped at Geno’s, famous for its cheese steaks and cheese fries, and ordered “one American with” - a steak sandwich with American cheese and onions. Though busy and vital, Geno’s seemed to be desperately trying to hold the area’s diversity at bay. It proclaimed its patriotism and nativism through displays of the American flag and signs proclaiming the necessity of speaking English. Just as prevalent were pictures of local police officers, nearly all of them white.

Meanwhile, across the street, Asian and Hispanic youth played basketball and seemed uninterested in the greasy fare that I was consuming. The future is ours, they implied with their quick movements and bouncy steps.

I was left wondering what would come of this tension of cultures, what would happen to Geno’s and the descendants of the Italians, to the newer kids jumping for the rim on the other side of the street. Some kind of truce, I hope, some kind of kind of blend that is born of acceptance.

We recently made our annual trip to visit my wife’s grandparents in Sun City West, Arizona, about an hour or so northwest of Phoenix. Sun City West is one of those Del Webb retirement communities, like the original Sun City (which is near Sun City West).

It’s a bit strange that Sun City West calls itself a “city,” since it really isn’t a city in the strict sense, as its web site explains:

Sun City West is a “city” in name only as it is an unincorporated community. As such, it does not have the usual city government structure. Maricopa County provides street maintenance, building and zoning codes, law enforcement and public health services.

You won’t find any schools in this community of 26,000 people, nor will you find many playgrounds, because, according to a representative at their visitors center, to live here one person in the household must be 55 years of age or older, and no one younger than 19 can visit for more than two weeks at a time.

One benefit of these rules, at least for those who live here, is that property taxes are low. “Many of our homes do not even have a school tax,” their web site boasts. Their page on fees and taxes states this:

Local school taxes can often be a major part of property taxes but most of Sun City West was removed years ago from the surrounding school district. As a result, a typical property tax on a $395,000 home are less than $1500. annually.

An age-segregated community such as Sun City West raises some questions. What is lost and gained when we separate the generations? How ethical is it for people to avoid paying school taxes, particularly people who have benefited from public education themselves?

There is an element of racial segregation to the city as well, given its special character and history. According to the 2000 census, 98.71% of the residents are white. Of course a large percentage of the workers are not white.

Finally, I should say something about the picture above. Sun City West bills itself as “Arizona’s finest golf retirement community,” and as the picture attests, golf carts are a common vehicle for transportation. Many streets have a narrow outside lane that they can use. This, at least, is something that I’d like to see other cities - oops, communities - embrace as well.

Minnesota has recently become an intellectually poorer place with the departure of Richard Cretan for Portland, Oregon. I’ve known Richard since the early 1990’s, when we were introduced by a mutual friend, Prof. Peter Firchow of the University of Minnesota English Department, where Richard and I were both undergraduate majors in the 1980’s. (Our paths did not cross back then at that big place.)

Richard’s wife was recently offered a new job in Portland, and the combination of a good opportunity and the promise of going to one of the most sane and progressive cities in the country overcame their ties to the Twin Cities. So they have said goodbye to many dear friends and many years of life here in Minnesota.

I’ve learned much from Richard over the years, most recently my tendency to put too much trust in the powers-that-be: the mainstream media, the government, the corporate world, the political parties, etc. That trust, for example, led me to mistakenly support the Iraq War at its outset, not heeding Richard’s warnings. More recently Richard has been warning about the weaknesses in our economic system, some of which have been evident in the financial problems related to falling real estate prices and rising foreclosure rates.

Richard recently wrote a masterful post, “St. Paul to Portland, the long way,” that touches on these subjects and more. It’s his farewell to the state. Richard, we will miss you, but we look forward to seeing you in “Cascadia” and back here in the Upper Midwest.

Here’s a quote from Richard’s farewell post: Read the rest of this entry »

My summer break from blogging went on longer than I’d planned. A week after returning from Washington and Oregon, I was in Princeton, New Jersey, working at Educational Testing Service, my former employer, for 12 days. What with visiting old friends and working, and also lacking a laptop, I was either too busy or unable to post.

What follows is a brief review of my summer travel. Read the rest of this entry »