Extremely Slow Makeover: Neighborhood Edition

I love Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Love. It. I watch it every Sunday with my box of Kleenex at the ready for the reveal, when the family falls to the asphalt and praises Jesus.

Ty Pennington? Don’t get me started. He and his army of volunteers can and do a total tear down of a house, rebuild it, landscape it and change the lives of one lucky family forever in 40 minutes (real time, a week).

I’ve been involved in something similar, except on a larger scale – Extremely Slow Makeover Neighborhood Edition – with a smaller army of just as dedicated volunteers. But, I wonder, how does Ty and his ilk deal with permits? Codes? The neighbors who live in the house next door that looked okay, but after the new and improved abode rises up from the ashes, it makes the adjacent home look like a hell hole.

Does anyone complain? Balk? Does the city council have to meet in order for the process to get started? Are motions tabled? Hearings rescheduled and rescheduled? Are funds a problem? Does Ty ever have an issue with a surely Alderperson? A not-on-board banker? Maybe that’s why it’s taking 13 million minutes, give or take.

I am throwing down the gauntlet. Ty, if you are reading this: here’s the challenge. You. Your team. Come into my neck of the woods and give it the once over. Re-do the main drag (we’ve even got a plan . . . it was supposed to be done in 2007, then ’08, then the City promised in ’09 and with the Stimulus money we thought it was a done deal, but, no. For some reason, it wasn’t “shovel ready.” Hell, I’ve got a shovel. I’m ready.)
Or . . . you pick the street and landscape the heck out of it. Every yard. Every house. Both sides of the street.

Come on, Ty one on! I dare you.

Caution, low flying children

I’ve got this alley in the back of my house. It’s like a lot of other alleys in Milwaukee – the place for garbage and recycling carts, pick up basketball games, car washing. The one thing that is different about my alley from all the other alleys? A 45° hill that for as long as the oldest resident (the crabby guy on the corner) can remember, has been the perfect place for kids to coast, slide, sled, skate, skateboard, and bike down. It’s a combination luge, bobsled, freestyle skateboard ramp (depends on the season). The perfect place for a speeding, no holds barred cyclist to fly down, cross the street continue on down the next alley, until brakes are applied or one meets up with a pole or careens into the aforementioned garbage carts.

Good clean kid fun. Right? Uh, well, sort of. If everything goes well, no one gets hurt – amazingly, a rare occurrence, because the seasoned veterans have spotters – a kid who stands on the bottom of the hill, usually in the middle of the street, checks for any oncoming cars and then gives the rider, coaster, skateboarder, the “go,” and zzzoooooom!

Not so last Saturday.

Apparently, two kids, on one bike, came flying down the alley and out onto the street and were t-boned by the SUV, driven by the woman. She had no time to react. That was the bad news. The good news? The kids were okay. A broken leg, cuts, bruises.

I hate to use the “perfect storm” cliche, but my street, the alley, the parked cars, inattentive drivers who speed all add up to that sublime conflagration of a bad, bad accident just waiting to happen.

Maybe last week we got lucky. The next two kids? Might not be. How can a future tragedy be prevented? Helmets? Try full body armor. Speed bumps? Oh, boy, now we’re talkin’ serious air.

The evening of the accident, there were a few parents who I saw using it as a teachable moment, pointing out the mangled bike to their kids, “See what happens?” Maybe that worked. The alley has been pretty quite since then. No skid marks.

Of course, the City of Milwaukee was all over it and put up a small, not very visible, SLOW KIDS AT PLAY sign. Whew! I feel sooo much better.

I didn’t know that there was a Reliquary in my neighborhood!

There is a room, above the Saint Joseph Chapel, in the International HQ of the School Sisters of Saint Francis on Layton Boulevard, commonly called The Bone Room – a fact I found out when I toured their Chapel, last Sunday for their 135th Anniversary as an Order.

Maybe the word chapel isn’t the right way to describe it. To me, that conjures up something diminutive, toned-down, simple, basic. The Sister’s place of worship and contemplation? Is more like a mini-cathedral.

It’s Romanesque in style. Made from the finest materials their co-foundress, Mother Alfons, could get her hands on – and judging by the first-class Italian marble columns, mosaics, excruciatingly detailed, hand-carved Stations of the Cross, and stained glass windows – she must have had one hell (excuse me!) of a sales pitch.

I admit that I’m a sucker for all that Catholic goo-ga – Patron Saints, holy cards, statues, a thing that when you press it on a piece of french toast make Jesus’s face appear – the kitschier, the better. On the tour of the Chapel, led by an understudy guide because the original sister had fallen ill, my small, keenly interested group, learned all about the ins and outs, the whys the what fors – like how the mosaics were assembled in Europe and then shipped in one piece to the United States during World War I and how the Sisters prayed to Saint Joseph so that the ship carrying them wouldn’t be sunk. And, wouldn’t you know that good old Joseph came through, and not just on one occasion.

There were other stories of bill collectors coming to the convent for $1500 and having to wait patiently in the front parlor while the sisters prayed (Saint Joseph, again) in the chapel for a miracle because they didn’t have the cash to pay them . . . and who should arrive at their back door? A man with an envelope containing . . . you guessed it . . . $1500.

I wonder if Saint Joseph handles credit card balances?

Anyway . . . the culmination of the tour? The Bone Room. Yeah. Bone. Room. At first, Sister Tour Guide (sorry, I forgot her name) said that there were too many stairs to climb, and since we had a lot of older people in the group (she didn’t mean me, did she?) maybe we shouldn’t bother to go up and see it.

Hold up. You can’t just casually mention that there’s a room full of Saint’s relics – bones, teeth, hair, blood – and not take me up there. But, then again, who am I to argue with a nun?* Well, the 16 year old me wouldn’t have had the guts, but the over 50 year old me did. So I asked, very politely, feigning devotion, “Sister? Is there any way that we could see the Reliquary?” (I thought she’d be impressed by my using the correct terminology, and I was right.)

She led us up the back stairway. Up three flights, and opened a massive oak door. I kind of expected a catacomb-y experience – floor to ceiling stacks of femurs and skulls arranged in a nice pattern. Instead there were several glass cases with small medallions, some had the looks of gaudy brooches on elaborate stands, others were more subdued. The small piece of bone, hair, cloth, was pressed onto a tiny pillow of satin or velvet, with the Saint’s name on a small piece of paper.

I asked the Sister, why here? Why relics? And she said that as far as she knew, the Vatican “Just kept sending them to us.”

Go figure.

And then, the open house, where I learned all about the good works of the School Sisters of Saint Francis or the SSSFs for short, who are not to be confused with the Sisters of Saint Francis (OSFs) who taught me in high school, and are not to be confused with the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Third Order of Saint Francis, who were my grade school teachers and left me with a legacy of good penmanship, grammar, and major issues.

What impressed me the most about the SSSFs? Well, Mother Alfons, their foundress,
built (and re-built after a fire) their mother house, established several schools, served the sick and elderly, traveled back and forth to Europe, and she did all of this while being tucked, wrapped and bound into several layers of heavily starched cotton and black worsted wool.

I have to say this, I once portrayed a nun for a fundraiser. It was for my grade school’s 75th anniversary and I wore an exact replica of a pre-Vatican II habit. At the dinner, I dropped my napkin and couldn’t bend my neck to find it. I had to ask for help.

So, to Sister Alfons, and all the good Sisters who do so much work around the world, a tip of the wimple to you. The bone room? A tip of the finger.

Local woman blames self for rash of neighborhood foreclosures.

Was it something I said, or maybe didn’t say? Was my friendly waving misunderstood?
Did the toot of my car horn have a tone?

The house next door is empty. The one across the street? Vacant. The big Victorian
right across the alley from our garage? Yeah, nobody home. I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s something I did. Or didn’t do.

I always meant to invite the next door family over for a barbeque and the family across the street, but . . . well . . . I just never got around to it. They seemed so busy. Coming and going. Did the guy work two jobs? I think the woman did.

I suppose it would have helped if I had known their real names. That’s a problem with my neighborhood – very ethnically mixed. Hmong, Thai, Vietnamese, Hispanic, Mexican – a lot of people don’t speak english and I don’t speak very fluent Hmong and can’t remember any of my high school Spanish, hence the waving and the beeping.

I knew my neighbors only by the names that I made up for them. Let’s see, there was the Pear Family – very big butts and kept a goat in their basement (a fact I found out from the guy who lived next door to them after they left in the middle of the night.) His name? Nearly Dead Ron. He’s an emaciated ex-junkie, not to be confused with Really Dead Ron, who used to be known as plain old Ron until he had a massive coronary in his kitchen a couple of years ago and was undiscovered until . . . well, that’s what the smell was.

The late family next door? I called them The Family, because that’s what they were – I know, I had a lapse in creativity when they moved in. I was in the throws of my personal Great Depression and the medication hadn’t kicked in. By the time it did, well . . . the name had stuck. The people across the street? Who lived in the former drug house? That I was responsible for shutting down? They hadn’t been around long enough for me to get a sense of them.

So, okay, I’m not a people person. I never was. I don’t even call my friends all that much. Of course, I blame my mother for that. See, back in the day, we had what was called a limited phone line, meaning we could only make one out-going call a day but, had unlimited incoming calls, and because my father was a police officer I wasn’t allowed to call up my friends and chat about nothing, because, what if he was trying to get through and couldn’t – no call waiting – and then, went out on his beat and got killed? Who’d get blamed for that? Guess. Score eleven on the guilt-o-meter.

Well, now, just a minute. Relationships are a two-way street, right? I mean, in my defense, no one ever made an effort to get to know me. In the 25 years that I’ve lived in my house, we’ve never had one Trick or Treater come and ring our doorbell. And we always have good candy! Mini Kit Kats!
I think it’s because . . . of our hill. There’s 13 steps to climb to get from the city sidewalk to our front gate and then another four steps to get up on our porch. Geeze. People! Make an effort! At least meet me halfway. Somewhere in the middle of the block. I’ll be the one in my car waving as I drive by.

Hung Up On Double Hungs

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then, windows are . . . what? In my case? They are single paned, inefficient, energy suckers. Our windows came with the house, new, 120 years ago, and I'm sure were quite something to behold at the old turn of the century (as opposed to the recent turn of the century.)

Windows were on the top our must-be-replaced-repaired-destroyed list that we made when we moved in, but somehow, a furnace, a roof, front steps, wiring and plumbing pushed them further and further down and well, then, came a dog (several), followed by children (two), and a business (one) that required more energy than any windows could waste.

We took to wearing more layers and so did our windows. In the fall, they sported tailored canvas shades topped with a chic mid-weight, no-fuss, relaxed, woven solid that once winter came, was layered with a heavier damask, that could be left open for a casual look or tied shut for something more mysterious.

But, despite the fashion statements, the westerly winds still found their way into the kids' rooms. When they were small, they'd come into our bed, not because of bad dreams, but for the warmth. My sex life may have been put on hold for several years, but, my feet weren't cold.

So . . . fast forward to 2009. Tax incentives. Energy audits. Maybe now is the right time to replace our double-hung relics. Maybe. We are in the "gathering of information" stage – i.e. getting quotes.

And, so far? We've learned quite a lot. About tempered glass, and energy ratings, and wood versus clad versus fiberglass. We've also learned to sit down before we open the quote and to have something to drink afterwards – oh, like, a nice mellowing merlot.

What we haven't quite figured out is if we should go ahead and do it or leave it for the next nice couple to figure out.

Couple of things I want to write about. 

Number one? Stimulus $$$.

Now, you (and I) would have thought that LBWN as an organization, doing all the good deeds it does –  stabilizing and revitalizing the neighborhood – that it would be right up there on the list of eligibility for some Big Money. Well, my friends, not exactly.

See, it would be different if LBWN were doing things citywide, then . . . maybe. But as I understand (kind of) the Governmentspeak, heretofore, therefore, etc., etc., because its scope is local . . . then . . . sorry.

But, perhaps there is hope. Now, this is just me talking . . . maybe one of the many funding sources is eligible and if they are, well, do I hear trickling down?

The other thing? The Alfons Art Gallery. 

Yes. There is an art gallery in the neighborhood. Art. Gallery. White walls. Wood floors. With actual art in it and on the walls. Who knew? I didn’t. And I graduated with a Fine Arts degree.

I thought that all the galleries were either downtown or in the Third Ward. How wrong I was. The Sisters of Saint Francis have as part of their mission, a commitment to the visual arts, and to honor that commitment, there is an open-to-the-public gallery (and gift shop) tucked away on the second floor of their HQ at 1501 S. Layton Blvd., that positively wreaks of sincerity. It’s not a place that feels intimidating. Hey, the Sisters were wearing black long before it was trendy.

Check it out. Seriously.