Surprise Surprise! George Floyd et al Ignite McHenry County

The call for the youth-led march and rally on Woodstock Square. 400 or more showed up.

Who would have thought that the murder by police of a Black man in a distant city would touch off more than a week of sustained and militant action by hundreds of people in McHenry County, Illinois?  That’s right, the suburban/exurban/rural county in the northwest boonies of the Chicago metropolitan area which was 90.1% white by the 2010 Census and until recently an unassailable conservative Republican bastion has been swept up in a national Black Lives Matter movement that has seen demonstrations in more 450 cities and towns across the United States.

Of course since 2010 the Latino community has grown and there has even been a modest influx of African Americans but my guess is the 2020 Census will show only about 2% Black residents. 

Activism of all sorts has been on the rise since the election of Donald Trump including Women’s March events, March for Our Lives and National School Walk-out anti-gun violence actions, March for Science and climate change, immigration justice rallies, and LBGBQ Pride events each of which have turned out hundreds.  Meanwhile grass roots progressive Democrats have changed the political landscape carrying the county for Barack Obama, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Representative Lauren Underwood.

A lot of that activity was organized by a small overlapping core of activists, many of the women and/or gray haired elders like the Old Man who pens this blog.

But the energy and leadership behind the current wave of protest has been entirely different—young people under the age of 25 most of whom have had no relationship with existing organizations.  Inspired by the nation-wide protests, the local movement was spontaneous and without either charismatic figure head leadership or organizational backing.  Protests in different towns have been organized independently.  Those taking the lead include Black and Latino high school and college students but also white youth allies.  They also include significant numbers of LGBTQ and gender queer young people showing that the movement has a clear understanding of intersectionality.

A portion of the crowd in Woodstock on Sunday listen to speakers before taking off on a march around the Square.

Crowds at marches and rallies in Huntley, Woodstock, McHenry, Crystal Lake, and Harvard have included up to 600+ participants, 80-90% young and reflecting the local demographics mostly white.  Geezers like me who have turned out have been happy to simple foot soldiers in the struggle taking our cues from collective youth leadership.  All of the actions have been entirely peaceful.

The first action I participated was in Woodstock on Sunday May 31.  There were well over 400 in attendance—enough to completely and continuously surround the Square in an angry and determined but entirely peaceful march. Better yet more than 85% of the marchers were under 25. Many geezers my age stayed home due to health concerns. At 71 years old, I have some of those too and I got winded after three laps around the square. Most of the young folks kept up the march for at least an hour and a half. My granddaughter Mathilda was born earlier that day and I felt I owed it to her to leave her with a better and more just world than the dangerous crappy one into which she was just born.

Protesters in Crystal Lake lay face down with hands behind their backs in front of the City Hall.Police Headquarters.

Yesterday afternoon I was at an even larger event that began in Crystal Lake’s Veterans Acres Park and marched several blocks to the City Hall/Police Department and lay down silently on our stomachs for the nine minutes that George Floyd had a cop’s knee on his neck. Safe to say Crystal Lake had never seen anything like that.

A separate youth led group is planning two days of   Crystal Lake Protests For Black Lives  today, June 5 and tomorrow June 6 both beginning at 11 am at the five way intersection of Crystal Lake Road, Walkup Road, and Grant Street near The Cottage pub and will participate in the first civil disobedience in the McHenry County protests—intermittent occupation of the streets.  Crystal Lake Police are not expected to take action against the protestors.  The group will then march to the Gazebo by the Metra Station on Woodstock Street for a short rally.

Details on Saturday’s march through Crystal Lake’s downtown and rally at the Gazebo will be announced later.  Both days rally speakers will be exclusively Black and other minorities to lift up often unheard voices.

On Monday, June 8 McHenry County Faith Leaders are planning a George Floyd Memorial Service at 7pm at churches across the county.  The faithful will gather in the Church parking lots or on the grounds observing safe social distancing for services to coincide with the public viewing at The Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, Texas where Floyd was an active member before moving to Minneapolis.  There will be prayers and eight minutes of silence in memory of Floyd and other victims of racial oppression.  The congregations will acknowledge their own privilege and repudiate the systematic racism embedded in their churches. Check with your own church to see if it is participating. 

McHenry County Faith Leaders plan George Floyd Memorial Services at churches in McHenry County.

The Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry will host one of the memorial services on its grounds.

The is so much going on now in McHenry County that it entirely possible  that other local actions have been planned that I don’t yet know about.  Keep your eyes peeled for them.

And thanks for the new generation showing us all the way.  They/we/I are not giving up!

This Week Tree of Life Mourns then Celebrates with Music

Ann and Bob Tirk in their Choir tour T-shirts.

It is going to be very busy at Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry.  First, Friday evening and Saturday afternoon we bid a fond and emotional goodbye to a long time beloved member and then at regular Sunday worship services will be inspired by great music performed by an internationally admired classical guitar duo.

Bob Tirk died on July 3 just days after entering hospice care.  He succumbed to pancreatic cancer after a long battle.  Most of us last saw him in June as he made his way with his beloved wife Ann to the annual Barn Service at the Tinkler barn.  A large man, he looked frail and needed a walker to get up the gentle slope to the barn.  But he wanted to be with us one last time.  During the joys and concerns part of the service he quietly stood up and announced mater-of-factly that he would be entering hospice.

A visitation will be held from 7 to 8:30 on Friday July 20 and celebration of Bob’s life will be held on Saturday July 21 at 2:00 pm, both at Tree of Life.  In lieu of flowers, donations in Bob’s name can be made to the Congregation or Land Conservancy of McHenry County, 4622 Dean Street, Woodstock, IL 60098.

I first met Bob maybe 25 years ago or so in a different context.  I was helping organize my first big event for the Democratic Party of McHenry County—an election rally with our county candidates on Woodstock Square.  It was one of the years when the Party made a big push to have candidates in almost all races that were often left uncontested in what seemed like a hopelessly Republican territory.  I was new to this sort of thing and had neglected to arrange for candidate posters and yard signs to festoon the Gazebo—an important visual.  The candidates themselves were coming off a day long tour with several stops in the county.  I was in a near panic when someone called Bob Tirk, who was a precinct committeeman in Marengo.  Bob showed up with a carload of signs for all of the candidates and helped get them up in a nick of time for the event.  

Bob Tirk, fourth from left singing with the Frothy Boys.

As I would discover, it was typical of Bob’s eagerness to pitch in where ever needed.  I would witness it time and again over the years first with the Party and then at church.  Bob was a beloved figure even then in Marengo where he had been a long-time music teacher and Band Director at the High School and where he had since become Director of the Park District.  Despite not having ambition for elective office or much taste for the sometimes ugly side of running for office, when the Party told him that only someone with his deep connection to the community and universal respect would have a prayer, he agreed one year to run for County Board in probably the most deeply Republican district in the county.  As always in those days, it was an underfunded candidacy and could not overcome and entrench GOP organization, but he did succeed in elevating the Democratic profile in the area.

Not long after that Bob and Ann moved to Woodstock where they both quickly became huge parts of what was then the Congregational Unitarian Church.  Both musicians, they sang in the Choir and Ann sometimes subbed at the Piano.  Those were the days of the annual Dille’s Follies shows, large-cast musical reviews that played to sold-out houses for several performances every summer and raised money for both the Church and local charities.  Bob was always a member of the ensemble and also pitched in helping to assemble stage platforms and build sets.  Always a good singer, he would be the first to admit that he was not much of a dancer.  But you could always spot him in the back row of elaborately stage production numbers shuffling along gamely alongside to other rhythmically challenged big men, the Rev. Dan Larsen and Whit Sears.

In addition to his regular presentence in the Choir under the direction of Kathy Brunke, Tom Steffens, and Forrest Ransburg,  Bob enjoyed singing in barbershop quartets and choirs and especially with the Church’s men’s a capella group the Frothy Boys who performed in their signature matching bowling shirts and raised money for charities at numerous public performances.  When he and Ann began wintering in Florida he lent his voice to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota choir as well.  But the highlight of Bob and Ann’s long association with our church choir was going on the 2016 concert tour to Transylvania in Romania.

In his element--Bob Tirk cooking outdoors with his Dutch oven.

Another of Bob’s passions was cooking—preferably for a lot hungry people.  He was a proud and active member of the Black Hawk chapter of the International Dutch Oven Society and participated in their regular events and picnics.  Bob also was a dedicated volunteer with PADS, the McHenry County church-based rotating homeless shelter.  The Woodstock church was long a host on Wednesday evenings to PADS guests and Bob liked to cook them big, hearty breakfasts of bacon, eggs, and sausage the likes of which they never got at any other site.   When we began our weekly summer Compassion4Campers to help the homeless during the May-September months when the church shelters are closed Bob became the regular grill master.  He also frequently cooked for the monthly Thursday night gatherings of the church’s informal Men Group at members’ homes.

There is no way to recount all of the ways Bob volunteered at church and in his community.  He would often just show up ready to work when jobs that needed doing were hard, dirty, and thankless.  He did it without expectation of praise or glory.  

Bob at a 2017 Inaugural protest in his winter home town in Florida.

If he sometimes ducked attention, he reveled in knowing that if a poll were taken he would have been voted the church member any one would mostly like to sit down and a have a beer with, or share some of his favorite gin and tonics.

Here is some more background on Bob from his obituary.

Robert “Bob” James Wescott Tirk was born May 29, 1943 in Boston, MA, the son of James Wescott and Marguerite (Greb) Wescott. James Wescott died while serving in the Coast Guard during World War II. Marguerite married Richard “Dick” E. Tirk, who adopted Bob at age 4. Bob grew up in New York and also spent time with the Greb family in Wisconsin.

Bob graduated from Briarcliff High School (NY) and was one of many family members to attend Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, where he majored in music education. There he met fellow music student Ann Uber, who was performing the opera double bill of Gianni Schicchi and Die Fledermaus. Bob and Ann married in her hometown of Hartford, WI on June 19, 1965 and spent 53 happy years together.

Bob and Ann both taught in McHenry County where he served as a music educator for 29 years in Huntley, Woodstock, and Marengo. Early in their teaching careers, they lived on farms in Woodstock where they raised pigs, chickens, and got into the hay baling business. In Marengo, Bob took his band students on many grand adventures including trips to California, Florida, and Churchill, Manitoba. After retirement, he continued to teach part time and worked for the Marengo Park District where he created the “Summer with the Arts” program and helped to build the town pool. As if those activities weren’t enough, Bob enjoyed many hobbies including ham radio, model railroading, family history, National Park stamp collecting, bee keeping, and serving as a den mother for his son’s Cub Scout Pack.

After Bob’s time at the Park, he returned to teaching with Ann at Huntley. Once Ann and Bob both retired, they continued their travels visiting all 50 states, Mexico, and all but one of the Canadian Provinces hauling their fifth wheel (except for Hawaii). At home in Woodstock and Florida, Bob enjoyed singing with several barbershop groups, the Tree of Life Church Choir, and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota Choir. He was an expert chef at Dutch Oven Gatherings, for P.A.D.S. and Compassion for Campers, and for his grandchildren who loved his bacon and pancakes. Always up for a party, Bob loved Friday night fish fries, hot dog roasts, and any opportunity to gather with his family and friends.

He is survived by his beloved wife Ann, his daughter Liz (Brian) Yanoff, Niskayuna, NY; his son Richard (Suzanne) Tirk, Norman, OK; his brother Kirby (Veronica) Tirk of West Chester, PA; and grandchildren Eliana and Jacob Yanoff and Simon and Malia Tirk.

***

Classical Guitarists Bert Lams and Fabio Mittino.

Classical guitarists Bert Lams and Fabio Mittino will perform at a musical worship service at Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation this Sunday, July 22, at 10:45 pm.  The worship is part of a Sumer with Music series and will also feature a message of community and wisdom by Worship Committee Chair M.E. Tanabe.

Lams and Mittino will present a program from their album Long Ago featuring compositions by G.I. Gurdjieff and Thomas De Hartmann arranged for two steel-string acoustic guitars by the duo.

Mittino is Italian and began his study of classical guitar at age 13. In 1998, he attended a Guitar Craft course presented by renowned English guitarist Robert Fripp. Since then, he has continued studying and playing with the Guitar Craft technique.

Lams is originally from Belgium. In 1984, he graduated with honors from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, where he studied classical guitar. Shortly after that, he became involved with Fripp and the Guitar Craft school where he met Mittino. 

They successfully perform as a duo internationally and record their unique guitar stylings.  This is their second visit to Tree of Life.

The exotic music they will feature Sunday features the work of G.I. Gurdjieff, a philosopher of Russian/Armenian descent who had the remarkable gift of remembering music he had heard during his travels in Asia and the Middle East—Armenian songs, Hindu melodies, Kurdish melodies, an Orthodox Hymn, Sayyid dances, and others.  Many years later he sang and played the melodies to Russian composer Thomas De Hartmann.  Together they created over 300 pieces between 1918 and 1927.

The service is open to the public.  Coffee and refreshments will be shared in a social hour after the service.

Child care for infants and toddlers is available.

For more information call the church at 815 322-2464, e-mail office@treefolifeuu.org  or visit https://treeoflifeuu.org/2018/07/05/guitar-duo-at-tree-of-life/.

Remembering the Greatest Veteran I Knew

About a week ago as I was rummaging around among the piles and debris of my desk, I stumbled on the picture you see above.  It was taken in January of 1990 at a memorial service for W. M. Murfin, my father and the greatest veteran I ever knew.

Dad died in a Missoula, Montana hospital on December 17, 1989 after a painful battle with brain cancer.  The American Legion Post that he founded in his retirement home of Alberton, Montana gave him an old soldier’s service with full honors.  His remains were cremated.

The next spring his widow Rae would take the urn to his pre-war home of Hardin, Montana which is not far from the Crow Reservation and the Little Big Horn Battle Ground.  His surviving buddies there would give him a Masonic service and then take his ashes into the high country above the Yellow Tail Reservoir where they would scatter them on the sunny side of a mountain overlooking his favorite trout stream.

I missed the Legion service and would miss the trip to the mountains. 

I had last seen my Dad in November after I got a call from Rae saying, “If you want to see your father, you had better come.”  I flew into Missoula via Salt Lake City and spent a few days with him and Rae in the former log school house they called home in Alberton.  I was shocked when I saw him.  He was shrunken and shriveled.  He was in great pain and week.  He could walk a few steps, but was mostly in a wheel chair.  To his great embarrassment, he was incontinent. 

We talked a good deal and looked at old scrap books.  But we never said the Big Things that men don’t say, at least men of his generation and the sons that idolized them.  He never acknowledged that he was dying and neither did I.  We said good bye with a handshake.

Six weeks later he was dead. 

I didn’t have money for another airfare to Montana and couldn’t get more time off from the elementary school where I was a night custodian.

But I needed to say good bye and pay my last respects.  So I organized another Legion service at the Veteran’s Memorial next to the train station in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Dad was not a conventionally religious man and would not have wanted a church service, which is why he never got one out west.  Besides, at the time I was un-churched myself.  But I knew that the Legion was important to him.  He had been a member since mustering out of the service in 1946 and had founded two posts himself.  Somewhat ironically, his last Legion position was chaplain of the Alberton Post.

Dad entered the army as an over-aged volunteer, enlisting right after Pearl Harbor.  He wanted to use his skills as master woodsman as a ranger or scout, but was assigned to the Medical Corps. 

After training in the high deserts of California and rapidly promoted to first sergeant, his Field Hospital unit was loaded on the Mauritania, the sister ship of the Lusitania which had been converted to a troop ship.  Sailing from San Francisco, they joined a ship already crowded with Anzac troops and made the long sail around both Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, up the east coast of Africa and into the Red Sea where they were finally off loaded in Egypt. 

His Field Hospital was assigned to British and Commonwealth troops under Field Marshal Montgomery and was with that army as it battled Rommel’s desert army and pushed west out of Egypt to finally link up with the Americans in Libya.

After that campaign was over, Dad was sent back to the states for Officer Candidate School.  He was sent to the Pacific Theater as the administrative officer of a forward Battalion Aid Station.  His first action was the invasion Guam in the summer of ’44.

Then he was among the first to land on Leyte in McArthur’s return to the Philippines.  It was during that campaign when he won the Bronze Star for rescuing several men wounded and separated from the battalion under heavy machine gun fire. 

Dad made one more landing, on Okinawa.  He saw heavy action in the Pacific and was on board ship for the planned invasion of the Japanese Home Islands when the war ended.

Promoted to Captain, he finished out his service in Mantilla.

Not that I learned those details from him.  Like most men who saw heavy action, he seldom spoke about it.  I learned about it from my mother and from pouring over the scrap books that she had kept during the war and rummaging in his foot locker.  Which is how I found his Bronze Star medal and his Boy Scout Eagle Scout medal that he kept in the same case.  Without bragging about either, they were the proudest possessions he had.

So it was a no brainer to honor his service at my memorial.  I called the Crystal Lake Legion Post, whose hall was only a couple of blocks from my house.  I only asked if their chaplain could say a few words.  Instead, they turned out the color guard in full uniform.

It was a very cold Saturday, the temperatures hovering around zero with a brisk wind.  There had been a light, dry snow the night before.  When I got to the monument, I found that city crews had not cleared the area around it or the sidewalks up to it.  We went back home and I got a shovel and cleared the snow, finishing just as the Color Guard arrived.

It was a small gathering.  My brother’s ex-wife Arlene and her son Ira, Dad’s only grandson, were the only relatives.  My wife’s family was well represented.  Kathy and all three daughters were there.  Caroylnne’s first husband Mickey Bailey taped the ceremony on a video recorder I borrowed from school.  My youngest daughter Maureen, then seven years old stayed solemnly by my side,

The service was brief.  We laid a wreath that I had made up at a local florist.  The chaplain read a prayer and said a few words.  I gave a short eulogy and then read Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.  Taps was played and the firing squat snapped off three sharp volleys in salute.  That was it.  Maybe ten minutes.

Family members returned to the house on and had a big dinner.

I think Dad would have approved.