My glamorous Uncle Win. Oldest of my father’s seven siblings. Master sculptor. Dedicated to preserving the culture and faces of Southwest Indians. Created 41 busts in his Santa Fe, New Mexico studio in the 1930s.

Tan. Trim. Friend of the Navajos, Pueblos, Acomas and Tewas. Here are three bronze castings that greet me every morning—Albert Lujan, José Nacio Herrara, and an unnamed old Indian man who walked 100 miles to sit stolidly for his clay portrait in spite of warnings from his shaman that he was risking death. Winslow’s friends. My friends.

Deeply tanned, handsome figure, highly respected in the art colony of Santa Fe and driven by his goal to create 50 bronze heads of real native Americans. Dropped dead at 70 short of his goal.

Piercing, brown eyes, baldheaded. White sweatshirt, white flannel slacks, white tennis shoes, white custom-built Lincoln roadster. A dashing, exciting, inspirational figure worshiped by dozens of nieces and nephews.

If you are ever in the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art, you may see the Buddha-like bust of Albert Lujan, Tewa from Taos. Famed art critic Ina Sizer Cassidy wrote these words about this magnificent bronze in the New Mexico magazine: “Winslow’s work is simplified in the last degree, his planes being only those needed to delineate the significant form and inner spirit of his model, giving strength and dignity to his portraits. It is amazing to observe the individual expressions he gets in the eyes of his sitters, as clearly individualized as is gotten by painters and accomplished by lines and planes alone.”

In Creative Art magazine, noted psychologist David Seabury paid this tribute: “It is so rare to find a man who senses meaning and yet does not try to evade reality, who seeks meaning in the form and lets that meaning so empower his vision and strengthen his touch that he renders the life before him with true power and perception.”

After World War II, he became Executive Director of the World Federalist organization for New Mexico and worked tirelessly for peace but never gave up his dream of creating a national gallery for the preservation of American Indian Art—a dream that came true after his death in 1958.

When I gaze intently into the eyes of Albert and José Nacio as they sit on our dining room buffet, I feel the warmth and kinship they shared with Winslow, my favorite artist and beloved friend.

Happy 92nd birthday, Harv.
Who’s this?
It’s me, Dave.
Dave Blodgett? Well, I’ll be darned. You made my day. Good old Dave.
Where do you live?
California.
Didn’t you live on Nevada Street in Northfield?
No, that was my grandfather.
Oh, yeah. Who was that Marxist Carleton professor?
Karl Niebyl.
Wasn't he canned?
President Cowling fired him. The student body was up in arms. Sent a delegation to Cowling to protest, but he outsmarted them. Said the firing had nothing to do with Niebyl’s teaching, but was a matter of moral turpitude and people would be hurt by disclosures. Cut the ground out from under the protest. One of the people who probably would have been hurt was my older sister Jeanne. She worshiped him.
What happened to him?
He set up an advanced school for U. S. Navy personnel at Pearl Harbor. He mesmerized the admirals just like he totally dominated the faculty at Carleton.
I wasn’t into politics at Carleton. Just football and ice hockey.
You were my hero. I watched every game you played. You were a halfback and ran a naked reverse always good for five yards. We used to call you “Guts.”
You know I was a personal friend of Paul Wellstone.
Yes, Harv. His campaign manager was Jeff Blodgett.
What a guy!
We sure miss him.
He’d lead the fight against Bush and Cheney and this crazy, illegal invasion of Iraq.
Was he piloting that plane that crashed and killed him, his wife and daughter?
No. It was a leased plane, and the pilots screwed up. A horrible tragedy!
Your wife Norma and my friend Bill Schwied’s sister, Phyllis Solomon, went to Washington to protest the senseless execution of the Rosenbergs. Remember?
Yeah. Why were they executed? My memory isn’t much good anymore at 92.”
You’re doing great! I just called to make sure you were backing Obama. I knew you would be.
I’m going to my 70th class reunion at Carleton in June, I guess. Didn’t you live at the corner house?
No, that was my grandfather.
Who lived across the street?
I don’t remember. Did you read my tribute to Paul Wellstone?
I don’t think so.
I’ll give you my blog address and you can have Linda log in. I’ll e-mail it.
Give me your phone number again.
No, Harv, let me call you. I’ve got Peanuts.
You made my day. Gee, it’s good talking with you.
It gives me a big boost. Two old guys with great memories. Happy 92nd birthday, Harv.
Love you.
Love you too.

You must have been a beautiful baby cause all babies are beautiful; but baby, look at you now.

Clean cut kid. Every teacher’s favorite from K through 12. National Merit Scholar. Phi Beta Kappa at Oberlin College. On to law school at U of Chicago. Illinois Bar, California Bar. Handsome at 40 with a rich crop of Murray hair.

A perfect world comes crashing down, drowned in a sea of vodka. Alcoholic. Bottom out. Find AA. Find Liska. Sober up. Temptation everywhere but not a drop to drink for 28 years. Four kids. Will, athlete of the year at Laguna Beach High.Yale grad. Sweet Laska, Wooster BA. Sohomore bass playing Robert at Willamette. Monika, freshman at Skidmore. Miraculous.

Turned your life around. Administrative Law Judge, adjudicating unemployment compensation claims for the great state of Illinois.

Quit drinking, Quit smoking, but not eating. Working out. Weigh in at 255 net
.
Liska wheeling and dealing in commercial properties far off in Vienna.

Retiring at 64 and moving to Mozart’s city to lend Liska a hand. In our aging years, we will miss you. Go in peace with our blessings.

My son, my son. Our pride and joy for nearly 64 years. Pianist. Student. Great choral singer. Reader. Communicator. Standing with you through tough times and good times. Life’s a roller coaster. Big time winner. Big Time loser, Now captain of your soul, master of your fate. We give you eternal and unconditional love.

Mom and Dad

Sounds of six excited children laughing, crying, shouting, singing, brawling, peeing, pounding the upright piano and splashing weekly in a tub of murky, lukewarm water for number four in the queue—water dropped hot and clear earlier into the bathtub from a kerosene fueled boiler.

Crescendo sounds of night crickets give a thunderstorm-warning chorus just like tree frogs do singing fortissimo in the heat of a summer day.

Listening to Enrico Caruso sobbing “Vesti la giubba” from “Pagliacci”on a Victor Red Seal record.

Sounds of dozens of children playing past time to bed down in wet sheets evaporating to cool tired, hot, happy dreamers who catch lightning bugs in Mason jars and count shooting stars and marvel at the pulsating aurora borealis in the northern sky.

Sounds of horseshoes clopping in from farms east of town hauling huge metal cans of fresh Holstein milk to the local farmers’ cooperative and the hooves of the blind dairyman’s white dray mare who knows every step of her way and Hod Baldwin’s roan bringing fresh vegetables from his truck garden and the Fremouw’s ice wagon drawn by monstrous Percherons. The sound of ice picks chipping out 100-pound blocks of Cannon River ice stored in sawdust bins south of pipes that empty raw sewage into the river. Grunting sounds of the muscle bound deliverymen wearing thick leather pads on their backs to cradle the huge frozen chunks they lug up the back steps and deposit in the tops of ice boxes.

Smells of lilacs, apple blossoms, chicken manure, winter dust beaten out of carpets, and fresh laundry pinned to a round, rotating clothesline, dog droppings, acrid smoke from firecrackers, grass clippings thrown up by ball-bearing, hand pushed lawn mowers and fresh tar laid down on Fourth Street. Smoke from leaf bonfires and toasty marshmallows.

Taste buds overwhelmed by licks off homemade peach ice cream paddles. Caramel bound popcorn balls. Crisp apples dipped in taffy. Chilled slabs of watermelon and seed spitting duels. Crisp fat carved from boned, rolled prime ribs of beef. Coverall pockets filled with Sun Maid raisins. Cotton candy and bite-sized peanut butter and molasses Mary Janes.

Dancing with abandon in cool, refreshing raindrops breaking a heat wave as we wade in knee deep open street ditches and sail stick boats in the muddy runoff. Face lickings from our amorous mongrel dog Trump. The tug of a kite string. The pull of a two-pound crappie on a fish line. A one-handed catch of a softball.

The safe, warm feeling of a mother’s hug that cures cuts, bruises and hurt feelings.

Precious childhood memories that transcend life’s pain and sorrow.