Ely: que quam chep**

**in Chippewa [Objibwa] means "land of the berries"
When we visit the Iron Range in northeast Minnesota we stay in Ely where this mural was painted on an old building on a side street. It honors the iron ore miners from the four mines in that area. Taken from the sidewalk across the street, a shadow ironically is cast on the faces of the miners' families. The miner's hat is typically red as is the ore found in this area. Ely, which sits at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Region, has been hard hit by our economic decline; last trip there we found several more empty buildings.
See more red at Mary's meme Ruby Tuesday.

"The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people." Cesar Chavez

The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.

Abraham Lincoln

Last May Day I posted the history of labor and workers unions in my family as well as in Dave's. My views are the same but the urgency of the upcoming elections is nagging at me and because I'm not getting any younger, my daughters are moving toward their 30's I am feeling a trifle bewildered . . . a little less hopeful. My drive toward Utopia has slowed with each decade because I'm learning there is no perfection and a lot of compromise is due. Admittedly I believe I can adapt to the big changes if I have to but would definitely like to see things go in a different direction--and soon! The mantra of my generation was you can't trust anyone over 30. I never quite got it and now I know why, because 'they are us.' Granny Smith at her blog has posted on her sidebar the classic Pogo comic strip that goes like this:

We has met the enemy and they is us.

The voices of prophets crying in the wilderness since the 1960's about over-population, DDT, pollution, preservation, emissions controls, or recycling are now being echoed by a bright new generation that wants to see even bigger changes--and there exists a mighty deadline. Caring about the inhabitants of our beautiful planet--each other-- is one integral aspect that cannot be taken for granted. Writer/activist Anne Lamott said:

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

Here's to the year following, to May Day, 2009: hope for all 'workers.'

in the company of miners

I know many beautiful songs from your home county,...and I hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners. Pete Seeger

Have camera, will wander. . .last weekend to the Lake Vermillion area of the Iron Range in northeast Minnesota west of Duluth for Dave and Audrey to descend into the Soudan Underground Mine (and me to wander above ground). As our luck would have it, an electrical storm had just that morning rendered the mine's 'cage' and rail cars inoperable. As this had only happened one other time in the state park's history, we couldn't help reminding each other that, once again, we could write a chapter of our own in the "Stupid's" series. We used to read these books when Audrey and Erica were preschoolers and even though they're a tiny bit un-p.c. twenty years later, we had fun. . .and unfortunately we've been able to identify with 'these good natured dummkopfs' ever since. So, the area was mined for iron as well as available nickel, lead, gold, silver, and zinc ores and several open pits remain with the red iron rock protruding at many angles above ground. Autumn always arrives early in the northwoods as does the cold weather.

"On Spaceship Earth there are no passengers; everybody is a member of the crew. We have moved into an age in which everybody's activities affect everybody else."-Marshall McLuhan