How Time Flies

Published in slightly edited form Nov. 6, 2013 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     Fall Back.  We've re-set our clocks and our lives to the sun's shorter light.  It's the eleventh month of the year.  Now we get to watch the natural world prepare itself for the short slumber of California's winter.

     Looking back to this year's beginning, time has flown but not from having fun.  In January, I was begging the new mayor of Lindsay and reconstituted City Council to restore the language on public participation in council meetings that the city manager had removed from the agenda materials the year before without any action by the Council.  It seemed a no-brainer to me, but obviously I don't know everything.

     In the second month came the resolutions to approve two competing national chain stores, Family Dollar and Dollar General, which are actually more like mini-WalMarts than true dollar stores.  Both proposals were for new buildings at the edges of our two commercial centers (downtown and Olivewood Plaza) and would have subtracted trade from existing local businesses as well as adding some.  But the City never did that math and promoted both as boons to the community, not evaluating the costs in terms of jobs, goods and services, traffic impacts, or the loss of community landmarks, much less simple economics.  It was as if Scot Townsend had never left office:  same old song and dance.



The Central California Citrus Exchange Building, part of the giant Sunkist Growers Cooperative
that brought enormous economic well-being to the community of Lindsay and other towns in the citrus belt
of the San Joaquin Valley.  Designed and built by Southern California architect W.W. Ache in 1933,
the building qualifies for the national historic registry on all three criteria.  The building was in use
by the CCC Exchange through 2005.  It has been well maintained and little altered from its original design.

     Readers of this column know the wrestling match that followed:  our challenge over the historic value of the Central California Citrus Exchange building that would have been demolished by the Dollar General project; Dollar General's supposed withdrawal and the Council's failure to approve it, followed two months later by its sudden reappearance and slam-dunk approval after the Fourth of July weekend.  This time, instead of demolishing an historic, architecturally beautiful landmark, the project demolished a business, without warning to its owner or compensation for his loss, without recognition of the community integrity it represents or the community value of having it in that location.  Without respect.




The former "Ed's Auto," now M&J Auto Repair at the corner of Elmwood
and Hermosa in Lindsay.  This site has been an auto repair shop for nearly 40 years
serving all segments of the community.  Its location downtown is convenient for those
working in businesses there as well as for people living in the nearby neighborhoods. 

Miguel Chavez, owner of M&J Auto Repair, a great mechanic
and an even greater family man whose wife and son help him in this business.

     In the name of that blatant disrespect for the community's businesses as well as the laws governing cities, at the end of the ninth month we filed suit against the City for approving Dollar General II without adequate attention to economic impacts and traffic congestion. We included the 24-year failure to implement the historic resources section of the General Plan, and the fact that public participation in council meetings has been inordinately limited to the three minute public comment period.  The media reported that the threat of litigation caused Dollar General to withdraw its proposal, which may be correct.  But it didn't cause the City to reconsider its approval of DGII, or rethink their approach to public participation much less how to preserve our town's historic buildings.  Instead, they have chosen to go to court.

Miguel's window in the ninth month of 2013.

     And Miguel Chavez is moving his auto repair business to the old site of Martin's Tire, across from the former Lindsay Foods site which would have been perfect for Dollar General (or Family Dollar, for that matter, whose plans are currently stalled by the City's "conversation" with CalTrans over the relocation of Highway 65.)  "The city doesn't want me here," Miguel said when I told him about Dollar General's withdrawal.  "They told me the zoning doesn't permit me to work on cars outside," under the awning of the former Shell Station where Ed Schapansky worked on cars for 30 years before Miguel took over the business. "And they told me if I bought the place, I'd be liable for the contaminated soil beneath the blacktop.  So I'm going to move as soon as that place is ready," he said, no matter the costs.

The future home of M&J Auto Repair.  There is no comparison to the
 current site in terms of location, quality of facility or visual appeal.

     We can pray the new site works for him better than the old, that he can make up these moving costs without killing himself doing it.  We can do more than pray:  we can go support his business.  And we can start to lean on the City for the changes required to not let this happen again.

     But there's one more thing.  Twelve months from now we can elect two new council members, perhaps changing the balance of deciding votes.  Time flies regardless, so let's make it work for us.

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Trudy Wischemann is an untimely poet and prophet-seeker who writes in Lindsay.  You can write to her at P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Two Bricks Shy

Published in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette Oct. 23, 2013

     "So, we're going to lose what we were trying to save....," Lindsay Councilman Danny Salinas essentially said the first time he heard city planner Bill Zigler's endorsement of the new Highway 65 realignment plan.

     The new plan proposed by Caltrans is in response to the City's opposition to the old one, which would have hampered access to the motel and the handful of businesses on the northeast corner of Hermosa and the highway.  The old realignment would have begun to veer westward from that intersection.  In the new plan, the westward veering will start at Lindmore on the south edge of town and bypass Lindsay completely.

     Danny was stating what anyone with eyes could see:  that those businesses would now lose the highly-important visibility factor of being along the highway, far more important than a tricky driveway entry.  What he didn't say is that now every business in the Olivewood Shopping Center on the south side of Hermosa is also at risk, not to mention those businesses along Fremont Trail on the west side of the highway, some of which will be sliced like a pie by the new route.  Last, and certainly not least in my mind, is the loss of acres of farmland and the farmability of 20-30 groves of oranges that now will be dissected.  Those farms are businesses, too.

     As I sat there listening to Mr. Zigler's advocacy for the new route, I felt incredulous, and sick.  I thought I was one brick shy of a load when we took on the Dollar General project, and now here was one even more damaging to the community.  We had just filed the lawsuit against the Dollar General II proposal, wanting the City to evaluate the economic impacts on businesses before going forward with the project, as well as to study the potential traffic problems at the roundabout. Those impacts would be small compared to this.

     "What can he be thinking?" my mind quizzed, when suddenly the answer came out of his mouth.  "It's a great opportunity for developing new highway commercial businesses," he said knowingly, not acknowledging the potential loss of our current highway businesses.  Then I saw it:  it's land development driving this thing, not community development.  That's what was behind the Dollar General project, too.

     For the moment, the threat to our existing businesses from Dollar General is gone:  Embree Group has pulled out of the project.  One of my biggest concerns for the community was the potential for losing Rite-Aid, whose product lines most closely resemble Dollar General's.  Rite-Aid has been our only pharmacy since the Monge's retired and closed Redwood.  The thought of all those people currently dependent on Rite-Aid for their prescriptions having to drive to Exeter or Porterville especially during flu season (talk about leaking retail sales!) made my head swim.  Fortunately, a new pharmacy opened last month in the Redwood building, so by Grace there may be another option should Rite-Aid throw in the towel.

     As I said in the public comment period at the Oct. 8th Council meeting, this re-realignment of Highway 65 was initiated by the City.  Caltrans proposed the new route in response to the formal letter signed by Mayor Padilla and approved in the consent calendar at the July 9th meeting.  If the City initiated it, the City can take it back.

     At the Oct. 8th meeting, many of the council members expressed concern about the possible impacts of this new route, including Mayor Padilla and Pam Kimball.  Now is the time for this community's residents, from town and countryside alike, to contact the Council members about these plans, before the city's staff and Caltrans set our future in concrete.
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Trudy Wischemann is a community researcher and writer who thinks this plan is a couple bricks shy.  You can send her your evaluations % P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Birds of a Feather

                -- some thoughts on kindred spirits, turkey vultures and other scavengers

     I took a walk over to the park the other evening, straw hat on my head, camera in my overalls' pocket.  Mostly I went to soak up the day's last sunlight, but I also wanted to see the missing hedge.

     At the Lindsay City Council meeting Tuesday, Oct. 8th, we learned a lot of things.  The most important were what the City's planning director, Bill Zigler, has been trying to negotiate over the past month with Caltrans on the Highway 65 realignment.  As of this writing, there is still no map available to the public of the new route he is working to perfect (without public input, I might add.)

     Until last week, the Council didn't have one, either.  Although Councilwoman Kimball had requested materials to study a month earlier, and though Mr. Zigler promised to bring handouts to the Council at Tuesday night's meeting, the Councilmembers themselves still didn't have a map to look at, much less show their constituents.  "I forgot the handouts," he apologized as he opened his study session, saying he thought his Power Point would give them enough information to give him feedback.  Thursday I called to get a copy of the handout for the library's file of agenda packets.  "What handouts?" Carmen, our City Clerk who doubles as Bill's secretary, said.  "I don't know about any handouts."  When I reminded her of Bill's promise to deliver them, she said she'd get back to me.  I'm still waiting.

     Another thing we learned Tuesday was that the park's border hedge had been removed and the gravel walkway started around that curved edge.  I felt some alarm when I heard it, worried that yet another "improvement" to the park would increase the diminishments I feel when I walk through that place.  That's really what started my walk, camera in pocket.

     As I walked down my pot-holed street, Alameda, soon to be repaved, I noticed several turkey vultures flying the same route.  When I got to the once-grassy triangle on the east side of Parkside, I saw they were roosting in the tallest trees.  "Thank God they haven't killed off those trees yet," my heart sang.  Surprisingly, without the hedge the view of the park was open and inviting, and the traffic visibility on Parkside greatly improved.  It gave me hope.

     Then I decided to see where they have installed the swings.  Some of you may remember the last time I wrote about the park and the missing swings, and how, at the very next Council meeting, Chief Wilkinson, who is also our city manager, mentioned that the swings they'd ordered had just arrived and would be installed soon.  That was months ago, and I assumed it was a done deal.  But after circumnavigating the park, I have to report that I didn't find any swings.  Councilman Salinas's son Matt's skate board park is progressing, but I still don't see any swings.

     What I did find is that we have a new pharmacy in the old Redwood Pharmacy building across from what was once going to be the luxurious condo-complex Sequoia Villas but is now fast becoming a cluster of Section 8 units being built by the Tulare County Housing Authority.  I was so excited to see a business return to that site, and one we sorely need.  I spoke with the pharmacist, Dr. Edem Afaha, who says he's been there about a month and is looking forward to serving our community.  Please, friends, let's help this new business get established - just in case Rite Aid leaves town thanks to the Hwy 65 re-realignment.

     While we were talking, I found myself telling Dr. Afaha about the recent history of our town.  "It's like that everywhere," he said.  "I know," I said, "but it seems to me in a town this size we ought to be able to have a democracy," repeating a fond refrain.  He proceeded to tell me a story about a particularly arrogant city manager in Taft where he was the Rite-Aid pharmacist years ago.  "Big fish," we agreed - us little ponds attract wanna-be big fish sometimes.  But I felt like I'd met a kindred spirit.

     As the sun sank behind the Coast Range, I wandered back home through the nearly empty park.  There was a young woman studying at one of the small covered tables, her computer plugged into the electrical outlet.  I felt kinship with her, too - that's where I would have been at her age.  I noticed more turkey vultures roosting in the triangle's trees, and a stream of them flying both directions along Alameda.  "Where are they coming from?" I wondered.  Normally we don't see turkey vultures in town, except one or two circling high above.  But this was massive and right overhead - it was like the nightly flight of crows back in Davis who came in from the fields to sleep in the huge street trees there.  Then, a block from home, I saw the source:  an entire flock was roosting in my giant, overgrown Chinese Elms.

     The old saying "Birds of a feather flock together," came to mind, the truth of it swaying in the branches.  I stopped to talk with neighbors about the phenomenon, including Philip and Trish Gutierrez.  Philip was in awe, Trish slightly more apprehensive, but they confirmed they'd never seen this before, either, and both have spent most of their lives in this town.

     Later that night, I called friends in Sacramento, naturalists who would know why I was suddenly so honored with house-guests.  "They're on their way to Central and South America," my friend Steve Laymon said, and told me about counting thousands one year when they lived in Kern Valley along the vultures' migratory route.  "I didn't know they migrated," I replied.  "Some do, some don't," he answered, opening up the real mystery of the natural world we inhabit.

     They were still there in the morning, drying their wings before take-off, gone by the afternoon.  I loved having this view of community survival, a flock of sojourners responding to nature's call to do the impossible year after year.  It reminded me of the strength in numbers, the power of kindred spirits, the beauty of Community.  I'm glad I took that walk.

(For you ornithologists and other bird-lovers out there, this flock arrived October 10th and left on the 11th.  They or other migrating TVs may have flown over my friend Jim's house in Twenty-nine Palms the following day.)
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Trudy Wischemann is a normally solitary sojourner who too often forgets she belongs.  You can send her your turkey vulture sightings or other stories of community to P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Between Selma and Earlimart

Published October 9, 2013 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     I had the privilege of taking a turn in the pulpit of the United Methodist Church in Lindsay a couple of weeks ago.  I had been wanting to tell the people in that congregation about the involvement of their church in a conference 21 years ago that was life-changing for me and many others.   But going through the old materials from that time, I discovered what brought me to Lindsay.  It was the 1990 Freeze.

     The conference was organized by a Methodist minister named John Pitney, who became a deep friend through the planning process and whose music I still sing whenever I get a chance.  The conference was called the Forum on Church and Land, one of many he had organized in the western states for 10 years.  The title for the one held in Fresno in February of 1992 was "Who is My Neighbor?  Agriculture, the Common Good, and the Role of the Church in Truthtelling and Reconciliation." 

     At the first planning meeting in early 1991, I met many of the people who  would contribute to the four-day event.  One of them was Rev. Dick Pitcher, the Methodist minister from Lindsay.  It was only a month or two after the crop-destroying, grove-killing, job-eliminating freeze of Dec. 1990.  Dick was in overdrive helping to organize relief efforts for the farmworkers, and his stories were vivid.  The  Lindsay-Strathmore Coordinating Council was deluged.  The Shropshires were hauling food from LA food banks in their empty trucks.  The LoBues were storing the food in their empty packinghouses.  Family farmers were mortgaging their ranches to pay farmworkers to pick the frozen-dead oranges up from the ground instead of from the trees.  One month later, when I came to document these community efforts, church women were making lunches for the children in Tonyville during spring break who otherwise would have been missing their school lunches.  Another month later I photographed three busloads of people from Tulare County who arrived at the capitol in Sacramento with signs beseeching help, signs in Spanish and English held in the hands of family farmers and farmworkers alike, side by side with government officials from all levels.

     A year later at the conference we spent one of the four days on a bus ourselves, traveling across a divide wider than the Mississippi River:  the emotional/socio-political divide between farmers and farmworkers.  We started at a small-scale Mennonite farmer's tree-fruit orchards and vineyard to hear his stories of beauties and hardships from a lifetime on that land.  We ended at a small church in Earlimart to hear stories of the farmworker families with children who formed the cancer cluster there.  In between those two poles, which are much closer than most people imagine, we stopped for the afternoon in Lindsay.  This is what it was like.

     We got off the bus and ate sandwiches we'd ordered from Mr. G's Pizza and Subs in the Methodist Church's Maxwell Hall, while Rev. Pitcher told stories about the continuing relief efforts more than a year later.  We walked down to the new Coordinating Council office on Honolulu Street and listened to Sarah Rodriguez tell about their harrowing efforts to help people still out of work, still hungry.  And we bore witness to what a community can do when Mother Nature forces us to recognize how much we all really have in common.

     There were many aspects of the conference that converted people to the need for involvement of the church in the questions we struggle with in agriculture.  But it was the evidence of this bridge across the farmer-farmworker divide in Lindsay that brought me hopefully here.  If you have stories about that freeze or the relief efforts that you would like to share, please contact me at P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 3247 or leave a message below.
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Trudy Wischemann is a kindof wacko person who writes and sings in Lindsay.

Poetic Justice

       -- some thoughts on the work of Sylvia Ross





     It came in the mail, the second, expanded edition of Acorns and Abalone, a collection of poems, drawings and short stories by our beloved local author, Sylvia Ross.  First published in 2011 as "a collection of work" that she thought she put together mostly for her family, this 2013 edition is even more beautiful and more a gift to all of us who love truth and beauty in this natural world we inhabit and the long history of our relationship to this land.

     She's also finished a second edition of East of the Great Valley, a heart-breaking, mind-opening Civil War-era historical novel set in the Sierra foothills based on her Chukchansi great-grandmother's life.  Thinking about both works, I realized that what Sylvia accomplishes with her short poems, delicate drawings, and spare storytelling is justice:  she does justice to the truth of our complex lives and reveals the beauty of knowing it.

     Under the heading "Out of Sandy Loam and Red Clay," Sylvia has added 11 poems and three drawings to Acorns and Abalone.  In some, like "Reparation," she shows how the past lovingly cohabits the present:

 

a mother-in-law's

small even stitches mended

more than torn fabric

 

an elegant patch

where kind words sewn would soften

another's cruel

 

her sewing basket

with pins scattered out of place

waits for diligence

 

the fraying wicker

coaxes my complicity

in making repairs

 

     In others, she unravels the complexities of the food chain and our complicated place sort of at the top, from sea gulls eating shellfish resulting in beautiful shells on the beach to mosquitos sucking our blood.  In "The Hawk," she shows the painful reality of intercepting the eat-or-be-eaten cycle: 
 

          "....

           The hawk couldn't know her impulsive motive,

           how she intended the bird turned free to live,

           to fly, and how unable to loft the bird skyward,

           or let it go, she too was trapped.  In fear she heard

           a reedy high-pitched music screaming out

           filling the air, the shrill piercing noise of a shout

           going beyond the barn, a cry sent reaching

           to the sky - her own voice - a hawk's screeching."

 

     The new edition of Acorns also includes a short chapter from East of the Great Valley.  It is about the first Anglo heroine we meet in the book, Nancy McCreary, whose death early in the story left me bereft.  Nancy's truths carry on in her boys and eventually rescue the Indian girl Nancy saved as an orphaned infant, doing justice to the humanity of some people regardless of race.  But this chapter delicately lays out the human pecking order that masked the competition for land and the eat-or-be-eaten attitudes of those who came to dominate it.

     The new piece that took my breath away, however, is the poem "Frazier Valley," set against her drawing of the lone pair of palm trees there, a scene we here know by heart from driving the Frazier Valley Road:












 
     This 2013 Edition does more justice to the breadth of Sylvia's work.  I hope we will be seeing and hearing more from her in the future.  Both books are available locally at the Book Garden in Exeter, online at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com, or directly from Sylvia herself at (559) 594-4743.

 

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Trudy Wischemann is a wanna-be poet with a photographic eye who loves what her mind sees in Sylvia's pages.  You can send her your favorite passages of Sylvia's work % P.O. Box 1374 or leave a message below.

 





One Brick Shy

Published Sept. 11, 2013 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     "Let it come in," said the pleasant man who's been sharing his thoughts with me the last few months on the Dollar General project in Lindsay.  "We need something downtown."

     That certainly would have been easier.  With this added, unpaid workload, the last few weeks I've wondered if I'm one brick shy of a load.  But in honor of the democratic process and all the people who stand to lose, instead we sued the City of Lindsay and all interested parties to stop the project until certain conditions are met.

     Broadly speaking, one of those conditions is to obey the laws governing cities, particularly the laws regarding planning and development, but also the conduct of open government.  Our city has been ignoring those laws so long they think they're exempt.  In the name of everyone in the past who has been harmed by this arrogant ignorance and everyone who will be harmed in the future if it's not stopped, this lawsuit is a tap on the shoulder suggesting those days are over.

     Another condition is that the potential losses from, and problems created by the project, be assessed before it is constructed.  The project proponents - the City, the developer, and the property sellers - only proclaim the benefits.  Self-interest naturally guides the property sellers.  The developer's job is to convince the City that the benefits outweigh the costs; that's what he gets paid the big bucks to do.  The City's job, however, is to assess the costs and ensure that the benefits truly do outweigh them, and to require mitigation for costs to the community as needed.  Our City has not done their job.

     A third condition is to step up to the plate and include historic preservation as part of the City's development toolbox.  The 1989 General Plan, created 7 years before we became a Charter City and adopted the "strong city manager" form of government, commits the City to doing this.  Unfortunately, historic preservation has been seen as an impediment to the City's development desires since Scot Townsend rose to the top.  The proposed demolition of the Citrus Exchange Building for the original Dollar General plan was the most recent public example of a long string of Lindsay landmarks that were slated for removal during the Redevelopment Agency era.  One look at Exeter and Reedley, two towns that have preserved older buildings and landmarks in their downtown core, shows what can be done to attract people hungry for more intimate environments, places with a history.

     We need something downtown, alright, and it's not more brick sidewalks and landscaped bulbouts.  We need people to invest in their existing buildings and encourage businesses that will attract more foot traffic, not subtract from what already exists.  We need City staff who care about helping the existing businesses, not harming them, and who want to bring residents into the planning process, not exclude them.  We need the Council to recognize when sleights of hand are occurring and call the cards.  And most of all, we need residents willing to pitch in and hold the Council's feet to the fire until they require the staff to uphold the laws and protect all the town's residents, not just a few property owners.

     When we start getting these things, Lindsay won't be missing any bricks.
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Trudy Wischemann is an open-eyed student of small farm towns who dreams of their renewal.  You can send her your observations and dreams % P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Nameless No More

Published August 28, 2013 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     Today, the date of this posting, is the celebration in Fresno of the restoration of the names of the farmworkers' bodies buried 65 years ago in Holy Cross Cemetery after the plane crashed that was taking them, courtesy of the U.S. government, back to their homeland in Mexico.  Seeing a newsclipping of the event, Woody Guthrie wrote the words that would later be put to music by Martin Hoffman and become the song "Plane Wreck over Los Gatos," or more simply "Deportee."  Sung by almost every American folksinger all these years, from Pete Seeger and Joan Baez to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and now Joel Rafael, the song is one I have known and loved most of my adult life.

     When I first heard of this name restoration project from Tim Z. Hernandez, the project's fountainhead, I began telling everyone I knew and wrote my first column on it in May.  What I discovered was that most of the people I live among did not know the story and had never heard the song.  That lacking is a reflection of the suppression of the conflict that arose when Cesar Chavez and the UFW began agitating for changes in farmworker conditions:  wages, rules and regulations, the right to organize, exposures to pesticides, housing conditions - you name it.  Unlike most places on the urban coastal shelf I inhabited at that time, the union's demands were being placed upon the people who had the most to lose, the folks on the next rung up on the agricultural ladder.  The conflicts were so painful that most memories of that time have been buried.  As one elderly Hispanic man in my town who was on the UFW's march to Sacramento put it, "I am ashamed of that time.  So much conflict, so much pain."

     As I've watched this project progress from hope to dream fulfilled and beyond, it has occurred to me that the time is ripe for healing.  In that spirit I sang "Deportee" to my Methodist congregation yesterday, most hearing it for the first time.  The Spirit moves when and where it will.  I'm just glad I'm here to see it.  Here is the piece that was published in Wednesday's paper as "Nameless No More."

"It's a simple act of courage,
planting garlic in the fall -
a harbinger of better things to come ..."
     -- John Pitney, "Blue Heron, Fly" in Keeping the Garden, 2004

    Today I want to write about the simple acts of courage of songwriters and poets.  Every song my friend John, a Methodist minister in Oregon, has ever written has been a simple act of courage.  He'll never see, much less gather all the harvests of his plantings, which have occurred across the country and even here, from Fresno to Earlimart.  But that doesn't stop him.

     "I haven't written any songs lately," he complained to me over the phone a few weeks ago after telling me about standing on the Columbia River Bridge with a large group of people protesting fracking and the plan to transport its products by rail down the Columbia River Gorge.  "Don't worry, you will," I told him, explaining my theory of writing cycles of intake and output.  "I don't know," he said, "it might be time to lay down across some tracks."  Yikes.  To me, just thinking about fracking and the power behind it is a simple act of courage.

     Woody Guthrie's writing the song "Plane Wreck Over Los Gatos" was a simple act of courage.  He took some facts from a newspaper article about a plane wreck in 1948 in which 28 Mexican workers were killed being "returned," (i.e., deported) to their country, merged them with years of knowledge about farm labor conditions, and painted a picture that still moves people to tears today.  He did not write the music; he never performed the song.  I don't know if he even heard it performed before he died.  But he left behind an indelible story that otherwise would have been lost, not knowing if it would ever bear fruit.

     Sixty-plus years later a young Valley poet comes along, Tim Z. Hernandez, who finds himself called to follow a leading (as Quakers call it) to find out who these workers were and locate their relatives.  The son of farm laborers who worked in the fields himself, Tim was moved by his own story to discover the unmarked, invisible stories of the 28 who were buried in a mass grave in Fresno's Holy Cross Cemetery.  Just starting that project was a simple act of courage.  But now, more than two years later, with support from thousands of people across the country and more serendipity (or Grace) than you can shake a stick at, the names and relatives have been found, along with the $10,000 it cost to have a new grave marker installed with those names engraved on it, to be dedicated in a blowout ceremony next Monday, Sept. 2, 2013 - Labor Day.

     These two simple acts of courage correct a sin of omission from before I was born.  But the larger issues - the treating of immigrants who come here to work, just trying to survive, as non-persons, faceless, nameless, dispensable - and the perilous journeys they make and consequences they incur in order to do so - these issues are still with us.  Hopefully this small correction will point the way toward the next simple acts required.

     Writing about the spirit of hope that arrived to his farming friends in the body of a Great Blue Heron who appeared to them after a fire destroyed their barn, their crop, and their old John Deere tractor, John concludes the song with this about himself:

"And I may plant my garlic
in the shadow of the moon;
the neighbors know I'm looney anyhow!
But if we stop believing, then
our future has no wings.
Blue Heron, Great Blue Heron,
don't you dare desert us now!

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Trudy Wischemann is a social scientist who appreciates the missionary work of birds and bards.  You can view other columns on this site and leave a comment below.