Seven years ago, on July 19, 2019, I received Certification of Registration from the United States Copyright Office for a work I completed that year entitled The Great American Novel. Over five years contiguous to that date I labored in my spare time to restore a century old wooden freight wagon taken decades ago from a family orchard near Milwaukee and transported to Madison where it sat exposed to the weather in a quiet residential neighborhood and eventually fell to ruin, a heap of rotted wood and rusted iron.
I could not bear the thought of dragging the remnants of that wagon to the curb for the city to haul away as refuse, so I began the job of rebuilding not repairing the wagon, because nothing remained to be repaired. I had no previous experience building wagons. I had a few tools and essential knowledge from living on a farm in Iowa and working to improve just about every house I ever lived in, so I got to work. The job took five years. Now I must make repairs again as the wagon continues to weather where it has remained for the last three quarters of a century in the back yard of a quiet home in Madison.
Anything worth saving once is worth saving again.
There is another element to this story. It relates to the Milwaukee origins of the wagon and the family that owned it. I quote The Great American Novel:
“They grew apples. They called their orchard by the family name. They left the farm and the orchards when the old folks got too old to work those twelve and fourteen hour days and no one wanted to operate the land like that any more or didn’t think they could make enough money, so they sold off most of what they owned, except one especially beautiful parcel they offered to the University of Wisconsin as the last piece of virgin timber and prairie known in Milwaukee County.”
“The University turned them down.”
“No one wanted the gift, the ground littered with trillium and verdant grass, alive with the sound of birds in Spring and Summer and delicate step of rabbits and nothing more obtrusive than the ever watchful gaze of hawks way up above looking down for their next meal. So the land got sold, the picturesque stone barn over a century old got demolished and bulldozers reshaped the natural pond into a predicable lozenge shaped puddle ringed by identical townhouses to maximize profit by standard construction methods to minimize cost per square foot.”
“Then they built a volume discount store to coax cubicle residents out of their money and paved a four acre parking lot for all the perishable cars. In the now man made pond they installed a standpipe and pumping system and tinted the water toilet bowl blue so it could squirt up into the air for no reason whatsoever, maybe for a fashion statement, maybe to welcome perfect strangers home. Members of the family who despaired of the sale and sought nothing but a remembrance of the past to somehow endure a remorseless future could not bring themselves to visit the location for years even for a glimpse. One combat veteran related to the old folks and who returned from a tour in Viet Nam tried to salvage what he could from the family home he played in as a child before they knocked it down and buried the remains. He took doorknobs and hinges and would have taken more, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t save it, just like Viet Nam and the family said not too long afterwards he died of a broken heart.”
End of quote.
So if you ask me why I run for public office and you can’t take a hint from the words you’ve just read, you’ll never know.
There is a Romance I serve. There is an Idealism within me that will not die. There is a History I honor, even if all the reasons for being Romantic or Idealistic or in love with History die all around me.
And there is one other very good reason.
There is a new god being worshipped in Wisconsin District 79. It is the same god that destroyed the family farm outside Milwaukee and it endangers family homes and values here in Assembly District 79 which lies primarily within the City of Madison. It is a ruthless, careless, ambitious and vulgar god. It pretends to be concerned with the rights and welfare of common citizens, but it is not. It cares only for itself: for power; how to get it, how to keep it and how to use it to get what it wants at whatever cost while it profits from whatever the cost may be to others.
I will not serve that god.
That god is the invention of men and women who thrill to the sound of their own voice and get paid to evangelize. They believe if they shout loud enough and long enough they can turn any concocted press release into the truth.
I am running for public office in order to serve the Public.
I am rebellious enough to rebuild an old wooden wagon instead of working to buy a new car and I am stubborn enough to admire people willing to give what they have worked so hard to gain, rather than be taxed into oblivion or rejected by those in authority who prefer another commercial development rather than a priceless natural treasure.
Vote for me.
I’m running for Public Office because I refuse to run in any other direction. I will not run away from the challenges or opportunities placed before the Wisconsin Assembly and I will work to make our State Assembly the best functioning and most productive legislative body in the United States of America.
Elect me and I will prove it.