The Promise to Listen

Published  Dec.  19, 2012 in The Sun-Gazette.

 "Listening to someone is the most Christian thing a person can do," said Rev. Tom Elson the first time I heard him preach.  It was a long time ago, but I remember it well.  His explanation centered on the respect for the other person's equality - "thy neighbor as thyself" - that true listening conveys.

   On Tuesday, December 11, 2012, Lindsay's longtime mayor Ed Murray stepped down and the three top vote-getters of November's election were sworn in.  The top two vote-getters were new, and both had run on the need for change.  One of the biggest changes they noted was the need to listen to the people, the residents of this community.

   Rosaena Sanchez, who received the most votes by far, ran her campaign on the promise to listen.  On one of her flyers she is quoted as saying "The problem isn't that the people in this town are not engaged in their community.  The problem is that they have been ignored."  Almost prophetically, she ended "This is unacceptable and will change the day I am elected."

   We had to wait a month for the elections office to finish counting the ballots, but on the first day of her term, only minutes after taking the oath of office, things did indeed change.  Although Mayor Ed had chosen Pam Kimball to succeed him, an office Pam was certainly poised to take, the two new members quickly nominated Ramona Padilla for mayor.  When the vote was taken and Ramona added the third "aye" for herself, the City of Lindsay received a real Christmas present:  a new mayor who is capable of listening.

   It was a huge step for Ramona to take, away from the promise of being one of them to the hope of being more herself.  Anyone who knows her can congratulate her for making that leap.  It's possible her experiences on the council these past two turbulent years helped her choose:  Mayor Ed ran a tighter ship than she agreed with, I think.  Whatever the reasons, I think we're going to see real growth in the council's receptiveness to the public over the next two years.  Ms. Padilla is a community builder.

  What this means for me personally is that now I can go to city council meetings without strapping on a full set of armor, knowing it's useless anyway.  I can go with questions and suggestions.  I can ask for information ahead of time.  I can meet individually with 3 of the 5 members without being afraid I'll be rebuffed or ridiculed.  It means my notions of proper planning in a rural community might get some air play, might even be heard.  One or two of them might even be implemented before I die.  What this means for me is so large I feel light-headed, euphoric.  Friends have warned that my bubble could easily burst.

   But what it means for all of us is equally large.  The one thing about the promise to listen is that, in order to work, it requires someone to speak.  We've become so used to not being heard in this town that we're rusty when it comes to speaking up.

   So, friends, let's practice.  It's much easier speaking up in a warm friendly environment than a cold formal one.  Let's make it not only a new day in Lindsay, but a new year.  Merry Christmas!!!
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Trudy Wischemann is a half-cocked environmental planner and passionate agrarian advocate who writes.  You can send her your bubbles of hope % P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 

On Gifts

Published on Dec. 12, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

   Juni Fisher was in town last week.  Billed as “A Juni Fisher Christmas,” she sang to a small, appreciative audience in the Lindsay Community Theater, kicking off a string of concerts there that promise to be wonderful.  Nick Jones, the new promoter with the theater organization, is very enthusiastic about bringing high quality entertainment to this fantastic venue.  Tickets are only $10, so Juni’s concert was a Christmas present I could afford to give myself.

   For me, watching Juni sing and play and talk is watching a miracle.  She’s up there all by herself, pure faith that what she’s singing is about the rest of us, too, whether we knew that or not when we bought the ticket.  She started young, singing with her two sisters Louise and Susan, and playing Old West songs she learned from her father on her guitar.  At the same time she was becoming a horsewoman, riding, training, showing and working on cattle ranches.  Hearing more of her life story and how it unfolded was enchanting. Part of the miracle to me is that she has kept these two seemingly opposite parts of her life merged, and her songwriting is where we see that most beautifully.

   “I am a poor wayfaring rider,” she opened, the hauntingly beautiful old melody that runs throughout her third album, Cowgirlography, carrying slightly rewritten lyrics pointing to the loneliness of following a call.  I caught a glimpse of Joseph and Mary while she was singing it.  From that moment on, I knew we were going to hear a different kind of Christmas program.

   She sang a song about a famous bronc rider’s saddle now in the Rodeo Hall of Fame, written by Ian Tyson which she learned from him when they both performed at the Pendleton Roundup.  Unlike her other concerts I’ve seen, this time she sang many songs written by other people, songs from her years as a torch singer with the Bob Fowler Orchestra like “Woman Be Wise” and “Please Send Me Someone to Love” that can be found on her newest album, Secret Chord.  Hearing these songs from my parents’ generation that I learned as a child was like going home for the holidays.

   But she saved my soul when she sang her new song “Who They Are” (also on Secret Chord.)  Sitting there in the dark, my heart burst open while she, up there on the dark spotlighted stage, sang about artists and artisans of every kind, from painters and poets to horsemen whose “touch through calloused hand/whispers a bridge ‘tween horse and man.”  She’s singing about people who follow a call to be fully themselves, no matter the cost, and frankly, though she says “It’s who they are,” clearly she’s included, too.

   The song’s bridge carries her biggest message:  “And if God sends inspiration to share these gifts on earth, then who are we to wonder if those gifts have any worth?”  Then she finishes:

 “If not for them,
where would we turn?
They fill a need,
when will we learn?
They feed our souls,
it’s not their choice
They didn’t ask
to be our voice -
It’s who they are.”

Thank you, Juni, for being my voice these past ten years.  Love, Trudy

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-Trudy Wischemann is an operatic shower singer who has loved horses since she was born.  You can find Juni’s albums and concert information at junifisher.com.

Lost Sheep

Published on Dec. 5, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

     “All WE LIKE SHEEP,” the huge choir sang Sunday night in Lindsay’s First and only Presbyterian Church, “have gone astray, have gone astray, have go-o-o-o-o-o-on astray.”  It is my friend Robert’s favorite chorus in Handel’s Messiah, and it’s pure pleasure watching him.  With no musical training, he’s still able to sing the complicated lines because Mel Tully, the incredible music director who has led this production 11 times over the last 15 years, found ways for even the untrained to learn their parts.

     The church was packed, a blessing itself.  They were mostly visitors from out of town who came to hear their friends sing or to sing along quietly with their own scores in their laps. But I saw my neighbors there, too. Carlos Sanchez, who has a HVAC business here, was there with his family because his son Danny was singing in the choir, his first Messiah. Singing is what Danny does, and it was pure light to see him in his suit and tie, glowing after the last “Amen.”

     A small orchestra accompanied the choir, mostly members of the Tulare County Symphony. I have occupied the flute chair a couple of times, and sung in the alto section, too.  The music is exciting to make in either position. My singing partner Jesse McCuin was in the bass section Sunday night, gladly joining the others in keeping each other together on entrances. Several years ago he sang two of the bass solos and was a knockout.

     But from my position as listener this time, I heard something new, absorbed another meaning from this ancient composer’s master work beyond the exacting melodic lines, chord progressions, and brilliant instrumentation.

     Seventy people standing in front of an audience confessing in one voice that we, like sheep, have gone astray is a very powerful thing. The miracle of a crowded church bearing witness to this fact is a very powerful thing. The blaring contrast between full pews and almost empty ones, which is what so many of our churches face every Sunday morning, is also very powerful. We have gone astray, and it’s only a small comfort that people in Handel’s time did also.

     This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the parable of the lost sheep. After Alfredo’s death, which I wrote about last week, there’s been a big stray dog in the neighborhood that has scattered my flock of porch cats three times. Never one to miss a meal, Sissy was gone for two days, and after two nights out in the rain calling for her, I was sure she was dead. But she popped up on the porch late Sunday night as I popped open the canned cat food. I was instantly flooded with gladness and let it spill all over her.

     And they say that’s what the Father feels and does when we come back. I don’t think of God as a father or a parent of any kind, so that wording doesn’t really work for me. But shepherdess is a role I can understand, having looked for the missing so many times.

     Many people of faith have wandered away from the church because the churches themselves have gone astray. But scattered through all our small towns there are these empty pews, waiting for the lost sheep to come back and be what people of faith are meant to be to each other: companions on this spirit journey. May the Light of this season help guide us home.
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Trudy Wischemann is an unprogrammed Quaker who sometimes sings into the silence. You can send her stories of your spirit journey - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA  93247.
- This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.

A Prayer for Alfredo

Published on Nov. 28, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

     “Say a prayer for Alfredo,” I asked my friend Robert Friday night, feeling the urge myself, not knowing what kind.

     Alfredo was a cat who’s lived on my front porch for four years.  His end was visibly coming, and for months I’ve spent extra on canned Friskies to buffer the ill effects and comfort him with my caring.  The truth is, he’s comforted me with his appreciation and caring since he arrived, and I wanted to receive that comfort as long as possible.

     But Thanksgiving Day I didn’t see him, nor that night.  Friday he was still missing, and when dinnertime came but he didn’t, I began to sense Alfredo’s time had come.

    He left his body where I could find it, thankfully, and Saturday morning I buried him near the porch.  Then his spirit showed up in a cascade of scenes reminding me why I loved him:  his crossed blue eyes looking up when he’d greet me; his thick creamy coat in winter with handsome mink-colored face and tail; his peaceful, non-warrior nature; his nurturing of Taffy’s litters of kittens and the way she loved him.  His patience, and the hole he scratched in the front door to let me know his patience might be wearing thin.  His contentment.

     I’d like to say he lived a good long life, but I suspect his time at my place was a demotion. He was elegant and had manners, possibly purebred.  It was not hard to imagine him living indoors in style, bathed and brushed.  Had my inn not been so full, I’d have taken him in, though he was still intact.  But Honey Boy, my yellow neutered male I’d brought in years before, attacked Alfredo every chance he got, leaving clumps of white fur behind.  Honey has stayed indoors for four years as a result.

     So I protected Alfredo the best I could.  He was at home here, and for that I’m grateful, though he deserved more than a yard.  When it turned cold after Halloween, I resurrected a hidey-hole for him on the porch with a recycled cat bed he’d claimed last year, padded with a towel.  I placed a stool over it and draped the stool with a blanket over a bassinet pad that insulated the small space well.  Just as I finished its construction, he crawled in, curled into a ball and went to sleep, rewarding my efforts enough to make me cry.  Minutes later it started to rain, but I went to sleep thankfully knowing he was dry.

     This morning, as I placed his cold, stiff body in his grave, I saw that I, too, one day will be cold and stiff, the breath of life gone.  It made the day better, somehow, and his passing less sad, another gift from him to me.  Some words from William Penn then passed through my head. “Death, then,” he said, “being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.”

     This is a prayer of thanks, then, for joy of loving Alfredo to the end.
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Trudy Wischemann is an animal-loving homemaker who also writes.  You can send her your animal love songs - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay, CA 93247.
- This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.

Thanks for a Place

Published on Nov. 21, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

     Watching customers gather ingredients for their Thanksgiving meals at the market where I work, I’ve been reflecting on the holiday’s meaning for me. Never much of an eater or cook and hard of hearing in noisy settings, I don’t relish the idea of getting lots of people together to eat piles of food that some woman (usually) has spent days preparing and now has to clean up. But clearly it’s important to many people. What we’re really celebrating is the place of Family in our lives.

     This is my twentieth Thanksgiving in the Tulare Lake Basin where I moved deliberately to make home. Most of my family lives six hours away when the car’s running well. Most of my years here the car hasn’t been, so I’ve missed many chances to celebrate their place in my life. For their understanding and support of my Homemaking efforts I am thankful.

     My first Thanksgiving was spent raking leaves in the backyard, grateful for both the yard and my shiny new rake, the beauty of bright yellow piles and the peaceful quiet. Then I shoved some leftovers into my small backpack and took a hike up Rocky Hill to the Yokuts paintings Bill Preston showed me earlier that year. From that spot, looking back on the valley, it’s possible to imagine this region’s entire history. Bill’s book, Vanishing Landscapes: Land and Life in the Tulare Lake Basin, was my introduction to that history, and his friendship was the wind under my wings in moving here. After all these years, that spot is my touchstone and he’s family.

     Then I came home and wrote my second essay for Southland Magazine called “Going to the Mountain,” which still speaks what I think and feel. Jim Chlebda, then editor and also publisher when it became South Valley Arts, was the first person here to give me a place on his pages, to carry my voice out where it could be heard. Being published so beautifully and freely gave life to my dream of speaking for the land here, for the small farms and rural life we still have. Our friendship today is a priceless gift from this place to me.

     Then there’s this newspaper. All the way back to when John McNall ran the Lindsay Gazette, I’ve been given space here. Under various editors and column headings, this paper has made a place for me to speak out, to commend various books to read or places to visit, to point out some small detail or huge omission, or just make a comment on the beauty of the weather and the lives we have here. Especially under Reggie Ellis’s leadership, writing for this paper has become fruitful as well as fulfilling. I owe him for this podium, and treasure his friendship and support.

     And then there’s my place at the market. What that gives me is more than a paycheck and co-workers: it gives me a place in the community where we can get to know one another on good days and bad. Where you can come tell me when you agree or disagree with what I’ve written. Where we can all grow in communication skills, and become more of a community. Where now, as neighbors, we can more fully inhabit this perfectly imperfect place.
 
     For having a place here in this amazing place, I give thanks.  Happy Thanksgiving everybody - enjoy your feasts!
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Trudy Wischemann is a gluten-intolerant reluctant eater who still remembers fondly the taste of hot dinner rolls with butter dripping down the side. You can share your favorite meal memories with her % P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247.
This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.

We Won

Published on Nov. 14, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette



     Looking back, it seems even the weather was holding its breath, waiting for the outcome of last Tuesday’s election.  Once the preliminary results were in, it let go and gave us the Fall we’ve been waiting for.


     And the results are still very preliminary.  The massive confusion at Lindsay’s sole polling place was the result of changes made by the county elections department in response to state requirements regarding district boundary lines and the inadvertent creation recently of scads of tiny “precincts,” which spawned Vote By Mail ballots sent to tens of thousands of people (like me) who didn’t know they were coming or what they were when they arrived.  It also eliminated polling places all around the state, including Strathmore’s.


     Unfortunately, the county elections department didn’t anticipate the confusion, and the workers manning the polling place, many who have done this for years, were not prepared and were terribly upset by it. Rita Woodard herself spent at least four hours in Lindsay doing damage control, sending for additional supplies, unsnarling tangled procedures, and trying to understand what had happened.


     According to one of the election observers who stayed to observe the ballot count after the polls closed, of the total 1,521 ballots cast in Lindsay on Tuesday, only 465 were regular ballots that were counted electronically that night.  That’s only 30%.  The results that were posted Tuesday night included mail-in ballots that had been received and counted as of Nov. 2, four days before the election.  But they did not include the vast majority of people - 70% - who voted on Tuesday.


     It’s possible the results could change when (and if) all the ballots are counted.  I say “if” because it’s possible that many of the uncounted ballots won’t be, and I will be following that question as closely as possible.  But I don’t expect our “win” to disappear.


     We all won big-time in this election, especially locally.  Even Tim Daubert won, who didn’t receive enough votes to beat out the incumbents.  Tim’s primary goal all along has been to see change in Lindsay’s city government, and the people gave him that.  He sparked the campaign with his signs, he wrote to the voters explaining his position (in English and  Spanish,) honoring them.  Tim even gets the credit for convincing me (and many others) to care enough to begin attending city council meetings two years ago.  As a result of his heroic efforts, we have at least two new city council members and one incumbent who does her homework. Mayor Ed’s iron fist on the gavel will be heard no more.  We owe Tim for all this.


     Here in Lindsay we won because we finally believed we might make a difference. We came to the polls in great numbers, some of us for the first time, and put our hope on our ballots.  We voted for hope, and now we’ve got it.  Let us now turn that hope into action, and start to find ways to contribute to a new Lindsay.
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-Trudy Wischemann is a 20-year resident of Lindsay who never really believed “It’s always been this way - you can’t change it.”  You can send her your hope sightings - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA  93247.

If You Like Cities

Published on Nov. 7, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

Working at the market one night I ran into one of the great human divides: rural vs. urban.
A friend and I were talking as I scanned, and he bagged, a customer’s groceries. I mentioned having gone online to look at photos of the disaster in New York from Superstorm Sandy, and that I’d recognized many of the place names from having lived on Long Island.
“You lived in New York?” he asked incredulously. “Why would you move away from the most fantastic city in the world?”
“It’s OK if you like cities,” I replied, to which both he and the young woman bagging at the next register said “Oh, yes, I like cities.  Cities are much better places than a town like Lindsay.”  They rued the day they each moved here, and dreamed out loud what it would be like to live in a city like San Diego, close to the border and the sea.
I felt a sense of loss, as if they’d already moved away to some better life, which is what I want for them as their friend.  It made me remember the opening line to Frank Sinatra’s song about New York:  “Those little town blues...”
I only went into New York City a dozen times in the three years I lived on the north shore of Long Island, an hour away.  For me it was terrifying, and it wasn’t just the unfamiliarity.  It was the terrible sense of vulnerability of so much weight packed on such a small piece of land:  the concrete and wires, people and cars, the multiple old bridges, the tunnels below water, below riverbed and sea floor.  It was the huge amount of energy and money required just to keep water, food and energy supplied to the people who live there as well as those flowing in and out like tidal surges twice daily.  Even in good weather my body tensed at the clear possibilities for disaster, and it was hard to breathe until I got home to our low-density community.
So looking at the photos online just made me sad, and a little homesick.  Sad for the losses of life and loved spaces, sad for the horrible shock they’ve faced that their lives aren’t safe, that death and danger from that kind of living are real.  Sad for all the small business owners who make livings helping people hold that kind of life together, now faced with holding those businesses together until things return to normal.
“I bet you’re glad you don’t live there now,” said another friend after listing the environmental damages behind and the engineering nightmares ahead.  I went through one hurricane while I was there, and the risks were clear though the damage from that storm in our rural area was minimal.
But New York is not particularly dangerous geography.  It’s the high concentrations of people that create disastrous impacts from natural events like storms, tornados and earthquakes.  What it takes to build, sustain and repair places like New York and New Orleans, San Francisco and Los Angeles is enormous, and we all foot the bill one way or another.  Thanks, but I’ll keep my little town blues.
-Trudy Wischemann is a writer who was raised by a city-phobic father and a city-loving mother. You can send her your feelings on cities - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay, CA  93247.
- This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.

The Need for Change: Hope

Published on Oct. 31, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

“If you’re unhappy, there’s always November,” folks told many of us who were working on the recall effort last winter. Well, here’s November. The signs are up, the fliers folded. Election day nears, with real potential here in Lindsay for improvement over the status quo.
“I don’t know,” a man said to me Sunday night “who I should vote for,” doubting there’s real hope for improvement. I gave him my reasons for hope, and will give them to you now.
On the Lindsay city council we need people who can ask hard questions, not just rubber stamp staff projects. Timothy Daubert, Steven Mecum, and Rosaena Sanchez have been asking hard questions for more than two years, fighting City Hall and winning back precious yardage that the incumbents gave away with their polite headnodding.
On the Lindsay city council we need people who understand how the public has been disenfranchised and who have ideas how to reconnect the community with its government. The incumbents are happier with no public input, and resist or even blockade efforts to give it. Daubert, Mecum and Sanchez all intend to add community oversight committees and a planning commission to bring the citizens’ voices back into Lindsay’s city government.
For example, every other city in this region has a planning commission. This gives their residents a chance to find out what is being proposed, ask questions and give input  before it goes to a vote before the council. It also gives the media - including this paper - a chance to alert their readers to the issues before they’re decided by the council. We in Lindsay have only the 72 hour period before the council meeting to discover what will be presented and decided, totally inadequate notice for real public participation.
And finally, on the Lindsay city council we need people who understand how the lower 75% of us live. Many of the projects sponsored by the incumbents have been designed to appeal to the upper 25%, and their support rests largely with the group of people who can afford or appreciate gym memberships and weight training, festivals and art exhibits, the glitz of neon-lighted palm trees and marble fountains.  They see those “improvements” as benefiting everybody, ignoring the costs that have been extracted from us regardless of our incomes, costs that will continue to be extracted through taxes and higher rents for decades to come.
A year ago in this column I asked people to consider hoping for a New Lindsay.  It was after the release of the first serious audit in years, which documented the tremendous waste, fraud, and corruption flowing below the glitzy development. The public reacted, and it wasn’t just about the bad news of our finances. It was about the betrayal of public trust by the incumbents, who continued to act as if nothing was wrong and told the public they were wrong to be upset.
We weren’t wrong. So I’m asking you now to do something heroic: hope. Let that hope carry you to the voting booth. Bring your friends, make a party out of it.  Celebrate the end of disenfranchisement, no matter the outcome. We’re on our way to a New Lindsay already.
- Trudy Wischemann is an open-government advocate who writes and hopes.  You can send her your hopeful sightings - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA  93247.
- This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.

The Need for Change: Open Government

Published on Oct. 24, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

Many of Lindsay’s problems have been described as resulting from Scot Townsend’s administration and this City Council’s oblivion.  But the biggest problem in Lindsay is its closed form of government, which has grown even tighter under Rich Wilkinson’s management, completely with the Council’s blessing.        
Where this is easiest to see is in the rules for public participation at city council meetings.  These rules are found in two places: on the agenda packet cover sheet under “Citizen Participation in Meetings” and on the agenda itself.
When Rich was appointed interim city manager, the cover sheet was spiffed up and the wording made to look inviting.  Citizens - in fact, any member of the public - could 1) speak during the three minute public comment period; 2) ask to have items removed from the consent agenda and be discussed and voted on separately; 3) speak to items on the agenda during their discussion; and 4) place an item on the agenda by contacting the city clerk.
Mayor Ed Murray did not operate the meetings according to those rules (advised repeatedly by City Attorney Julia Lew that it’s Council’s discretion,) but at least the wording was there suggesting otherwise. That is, the words were there until the public started trying to use the rules.
It was during the park renovation controversy when words started disappearing. Last fall a plan for renovating the park, designed by Pam Kimball’s nephew Steven, was approved by the Council.  One of the largest features was Sierra View Avenue Extension, which dissected the park and the community center, paving over 1/3 of the park’s remaining land. When citizens who wanted public input on the park’s redesign asked to be put on the agenda, they were told they couldn’t. When they asked to have items removed from the consent calendar or to speak during an agenda item’s discussion, they were denied.  When they pointed out the words saying they could to Mayor Ed and the rest of the council, the words disappeared before the next meeting.
In fact, the only real way to “participate” has been during the 3-minute public comment period, during which the Council does not need to respond.  This leaves those brave enough to speak their minds with the sense they’ve just talked to the wall. Which they have.
The possibilities for change, however, were demonstrated beautifully two weeks ago at the Candidates Forum held by the Dolores Huerta Foundation. The audience held people from both the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking portions of our community. The event was translated simultaneously from English to Spanish by Brenda Cervantes, a certified translator, through earphone equipment loaned by United Way of Tulare County.
I watched Brenda quickly crafting Spanish sentences from English ones, watched Spanish-speaking people attentively following the proceedings. Yet when our incumbents - Murray, Kimball and Velasquez - were asked if having the Council meetings translated was something they’d consider, all three essentially said “no,” saying it’s too expensive and/or not necessary.
Our new candidates - Daubert, Mecum and Sanchez - had different answers. They know how necessary it is, and how expensive keeping people in the dark has been. They’ve also learned where the closed doors of this city need to be opened, and want to get more of us walking through them. Lindsay may have always been like this - shut tight - but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Vote open the doors.
-Trudy Wischemann is an open-government advocate who writes.  You can send her your translations of what this all means - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247.
- This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of The Foothills Sun-Gazette newspaper.