The Corona Diaries Vol. 26: La La Land

Mid-July 2021

In addition to a new kitchen floor, we have a couple new trees. You may recall from a previous entry I wrote last year that an autumn storm damaged the tree on the terrace out front and that the city took it down. Well, they finally replaced it.

It's some kind of new-fangled version of an elm that is resistant to Dutch elm disease which has devastated our tree population. I am looking forward to seeing it grow and perhaps live long enough to enjoy it throwing some evening shade on our house.

We here in Madison are blessed with trees nearly everywhere. It's something I couldn't help but notice since I moved here but it is also something I didn't really appreciate until 2003. That fall I visited a friend who had a penthouse suite at St. Mary's Hospital and, when I looked out of the window, I saw an arboreal landscape. Not just a city dotted with trees but I was peering down on green canopies wherever I turned my gaze. I knew Madison had a lot of trees but I didn't really appreciate the scale of our urban forest until that moment. Better late than never.

Back in 2019, the city removed another tree on a terrace which is on the north side of our lot. That one was replaced last October with a Kentucky coffeetree but it went into the ground completely bare and was, to all appearances, dead. Since it was autumn, I thought that perhaps it had simply shed its leaves already. But when this spring rolled around, nothing had changed even when all of the surrounding trees were beginning to bud. However, I am pleased to report that leaves finally began appearing in May and it is looking much better these days.

While not all of the branches sprouted, I am hopeful that it will flourish. Its predecessor didn't shade our house and made more raking work for me in the fall but I still miss the sight of a tree there. There's this empty space which I look forward to being filled. Plus I think it's only fair that other people get to park their cars underneath a tree on that block so that they too can have birds shit all over it.

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I started a new work schedule earlier this month which involves going into the office two days a week. While I had to go into the office a handful of times since the pandemic began, I took my first bus ride there since March 2020. The corn near the bus stop was way past knee high by July and more like head high.

It felt a bit odd to be on the bus that first ride but it didn't take long before I got back into the commuter swing of things. In the morning there aren't many folks riding with me - maybe 8-10. My ride home in the afternoon is generally more crowded. Indeed, there have been a few times when there were people who had no option but to sit next to someone else and a few people could be found in the aisle.

The pandemic has wrought more transit changes than just fewer passengers. The bus I take had its route changed so my stops are now a block or a block and half farther away from the office than the old one was. Not a big deal, really. What's more annoying is that the bus' schedule has been tweaked and now I have a lengthier wait. Instead of a 10-ish minute wait pre-Covid, I now have one more like 20-25 minutes. Hopefully transit will continue to return to normal and I can get some time back.

The farm near my bus stop is for sale so I am unsure how much longer I'll be standing next to a field in the morning waiting for my ride. Presumably developers want to turn every acre into apartments but a group wants to save a good chunk of it for a working urban farm open to the public while the rest of the property that isn't wetland would have affordable housing built on it.

Only time will tell. Either way, I'd love to have a bus shelter installed because the wind really whips across that field when it's bare in January and makes waiting for the bus a chilling experience.

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A couple friends and I recently hiked around the newly-opened Joyce M. Baer & George J. Socha Conservancy. It's east of Madison and east of Marshall, the home of El Poblano which I wrote about previously. Its namesakes donated the 140 acres that make up the park.

On our walk, we spied some grapes growing in a patch between the park/path and an adjacent farm field.

It is still very much a work in progress with more trails forthcoming as well as a canoe/kayak launch on the Maunesha River. I look forward to more walks there perhaps stopping in Marshall for a taco or two afterwards.

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I have discovered a new musical genre: la la. It is black Creole country dance music and is reputedly the precursor to zydeco. I first heard it on an episode of Accordion Noir, a radio show that features music with the titular instrument. The song is by Goldman Thibodeaux and the Lawtell Playboys and is from their latest album, La Danse à St. Ann’s. Thibodeaux is in his late 80s and apparently he's one of the last La La players around. Wrap your ears around "Jolie Catin":

It isn't immediately apparent to me why it is referred to as a precursor to zydeco instead of zydeco. Perhaps I need someone with more knowledge about music than me to explain it to this dummy.

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My latest bike ride was something of a grave matter, you could say, as I went west to Forest Hill Cemetery. It's a bit like the Madison equivalent of Graceland Cemetery in Chicago in that notable locals and city fathers are buried there. It is also the final resting place of E.H. Jefferson.

That would be Eston Hemings Jefferson, the youngest son of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. He gained his freedom in 1827 and married one Julia Ann Isaacs in 1832. They eventually made their way to Madison where Eston made a living as a cabinetmaker. History tell us that he was also an excellent fiddler. It took me a while to find the gravestone even knowing what section of the cemetery it was in. Eventually I stumbled upon the big family marker with "JEFFERSON" emblazoned upon it and put 2 and 2 together.

In a previous entry I believe I mentioned seeing a duck the likes of which I'd never seen before. While I had a photo, it wasn't a great one but I ran into this variety again on my ride and got a better snap.

My Birds of Wisconsin book doesn't have this type of waterfowl in it but my Internet searches lead me to believe this is a Black Swedish duck and her ducklings. Mallards are ubiquitous here in Madison and seeing another type of duck really threw me for a loop.

"Wait. There are ducks other than mallards?!"

Since I was on the west side of town already, I left the cemetery and went in search of Aldo Leopold's house. Leopold has been mentioned in this very diary before, he being the famed environmentalist and author of A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There which I finally read last year. He lived on Madison's west side from 1924 until 1948 while he was working at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory here.

It's certainly a nice house but rather modest in contrast to some of the other homes just a block or two down the street. And it's positively spartan in contrast to this palatial abode:

While I was riding up Van Hise Avenue I recalled that there was a Louis Sullivan house in the neighborhood somewhere. I stopped next to the above joint and consulted the Internet on the house's location only to feel stupid when I found a page saying that this was the Sullivan house I was seeking. It is the Bradley House and was designed by Louis Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie. While I know Sullivan, I am unfamiliar with Elmslie. This is one of the few residences that Sullivan designed and one of only two buildings of his in Wisconsin.

I shall reserve the bike ride finale for next time.

 

Bonus photo is a cartoon that humored me.