Recently I shared a conversation with someone who had been to a high school reunion (I think). She mentioned in the midst of the conversation how she had the opportunity to thank one of her teachers who attended the event. Then we briefly touched on the fact that we seldom thank those teachers who, for whatever reason, changed us in positive ways.

I’m sure I have scores of teachers I should be thanking. I don’t recall their names, but I recall them. One stands out, however, Miss Anne Isaacson.

Miss Isaacson was, to my memory anyway, the quintessential unmarried school marm. She taught 11^th grade English, and at 90 some years of age she exuded lavender and lilac. She was not a popular teacher. Old, strict, with high expectations, no one wanted to be in her class. If you did end up there, you were automatically given the freedom to complain loudly about the class and even be disparagingly mean. To be honest, I sometimes jumped on the bandwagon.

Secretly, however, I looked forward to English class. What did Miss Isaacson have that previous English teachers didn’t? I haven’t a clue. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was a new maturity. (Hey! I wasn’t a sophomore any longer.) Who knows?

I do know that through the year I suddenly became aware of the beauty and power of words. It began with a sudden ability to parse sentences. I figured out what an adverb was. I started to spot grammatical and spelling errors in public places. (My favorite: the Zamboni that cleaned the ice for the St. Paul hockey team had on its side: Your a saint or you ain’t.)

Clearly, I didn’t become a poet or a great writer or a gifted orator. What Miss Isaacson taught me was an appreciation for the true wordsmiths of our world. I began to hate Shakespear not because I didn’t understand it, but because I did understand it and his way with words made me feel so pedestrian.

Had Miss Isaacson not opened the wonderful world of words to this high school junior with mostly a "C" average, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today. It was a short step from the power of words to the power of the Word.

I’m sure Miss Isaacson must have died years ago. Still, here’s to her and to all those teachers who made a difference in someone’s life.

Pastor B.

Last Monday I was at the school board meeting here in Sun Prairie. The hot topic was the new boundaries for elementary schools caused by the opening of the new Creekside School this fall. I was on the Boundary Task Force that met to draw the lines. The task seemed relatively easy, and we made great progress until we were suddenly made aware of what was about to happen to one school. With the way we drew the lines, Westside School would have over half their students from poverty families. That’s when things got hard.

After several more weeks of meetings and public hearings, the task force, on a very close vote, came up with a plan. It went to the school board. So did scores of phone calls, e-mails, letters, and speakers. Wow! The board voted down the plan four to three.

As I sat in the back of the room observing the very public work of the board and the side conversations and nudges among the folks who sat in the audience (is that the right word?), I couldn’t help thinking what a messy process we have for making decisions in our democratic society. And I couldn’t help thinking what a great country we live in that has such messy ways of decision making.

People get emotional. Board members get contentious (meetings are late in the day). Some folks say things that are just plain wrong and empty-headed. Some people say things in the heat of argument they may wish they hadn’t. Each board member had a slightly different take.

I guess there are those who see the struggle as a debacle. One anonymous (of course) blogger said the board "blew itself up." Another said that we can’t expect kids to get along if the adults on the board don’t.

And I just think this is a messy but wonderful system. Voices of the minority get heard. Or, is the minority really the majority? Hard to tell. People get involved. People have the right to express their opinions with an expectation of being heard. No place does that work out as well as in local politics.

Thank God for the freedom to speak. Thank God for our democratic process. It may get messy, but it sure beats the alternatives.

Pastor B.

Consider the human voice. It is as distinctive as a person’s face. It rings with recognition from across a room. The voice doesn’t have to make a word or sing a melody to be known. A mother can pick out her baby's voice from a score of crying infants.

Within the huge closet of voices each with its own tone, pitch, timber, and whatever, there are a few voices that stand out. Yes, in the gifts bestowed by the Holy Creator at birth, some folks have voices so filled with a magical quality that they stand nearly alone on an island while the rest of the noisy world rushes past.

One man who was so gifted is Simon Estes. To put it roughly, he is to baritones what Luciano Pavarotti was to tenors.

A couple of weeks ago, Susan and I attended a benefit for the Dubuque Symphony, and I finally got to hear that marvelous voice in person. I say "finally" because 15 years ago or so I got snookered out of an Estes concert. Or at least it felt that way. We lived in Platteville at the time, and I would try to get to the Sunday symphony performances to see Susan.  She had told me how wonderful he was at the Saturday evening performance. However, he came down with a slight sore throat on Sunday and canceled out. I felt cheated, and I’ve remembered it all this time.

When the flyer came for the benefit, I jumped at the opportunity. It was well worth it. A native of Iowa, Estes can sing opera, classic standards, and gospel with an ease that any singer would begrudge if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a very nice person as well.

When Estes sang Old Man River I knew the price of the ticket was more than worth it. Now, I know we have some very, very good basses in our church choir, but (sorry guys) Simon Estes is in his own league.

And it’s all because of his voice. Other singers can hit those low notes as solidly as he. Other singers can enunciate every consonant as clearly as he. Other singers may have the ability to put their souls into each note as much as he. Yet! He has a voice that puts you in a sonorous heaven.

He also sang Steal Away. I knew that one form choir. If you don’t have a renewed and revitalized hope in the resurrection after you hear his rendition, then you are a lost cause.

Estes doesn’t do a lot of opera these days. It would appear that he performs a lot of short concerts, many of them in Iowa. He also teaches at three colleges: Boston College, the University of Iowa, and the ELCA’s Wartburg College in Waverley, Iowa.

If you ever get a chance to hear him, go for it. You’ll be glad you did.

Pastor B.

This has been a banner year for chunk kicking. The snow and slush have given us all ample opportunities to put a boot to those chunks of dirty ice that build like stalactites to our car fenders.

Most folks know that the first rule in chunk kicking is that you never kick off the chunks in your own driveway. (Kicking them off in the garage is grounds for ........well something.) Thus, every now and then the church parking lot is filled with nasty gray globs of chunk material. The face of the lot erupts with chunk acne, so to speak.

In Minnesota chunk kicking is a recognized sport. Up in Duluth, I think, is the National Chunk Kicking Hall of Fame. There you can see the record 2.5 pounds of grit that was left from the chunk Norm Thorvald kicked from his ‘63 Impala station wagon in 1966. You can see the boot Inga Kvale used in her record (women’s division) of kicking off 227 chunks from cars in the Metropolitan Stadium parking lot during half-time of a Viking - Packer football game in 1970.

And there is even more to see if you bring your woolies. The museum has a refrigerated section they keep below freezing. There you can see the huge 25.6 pound chunk that Sven Johannson booted from his 1999 Ford pick-up truck (4-wheel-drive) in 2003. (Note: today’s actual weight is a shave over 10 pounds due to the power outage caused by the big storm that blew through Duluth in the summer of 2006. (The freezer was down for about four hours).

If you go, don’t forget to take in the Floyd Iverson History of Chunk Kicking exhibition. It’s named for the late Floyd Iverson who wanted to make chunk kicking an extreme sport by kicking chunks off moving semi-trucks.

And then there is the story of an erstwhile U of M student during his commuter days. One late afternoon he returned to his ‘59 Ford Fairlane in a parking lot on the north side of the campus. There were no other cars around, so he decided to use his time wisely by removing the extra weight of chunks on his car. Beginning with the left front, he worked his way clockwise around the car. He noted that the last chunk (rear-left) was particularly large and ugly. Several toe kicks would not remove the monster ice chunk. Backing away just a bit, he booted that recalcitrant ice ball with the full force of the bottom of his boot. The chunk gave way, and so did the entire exhaust system.

Pastor B