Finally Reliable Delivery!
By Thomas Regnier
I am writing to express my appreciation for the paper’s recent change to being delivered directly in the mailbox. For the longest time the paper arrived in a forlorn pile that made it into our apartment complex only if one of my fellow residents or myself brought it in from the front stoop. Oftentimes (for a year, at least, I recall) it didn’t arrive at our building at all. This arrangement is much superior!
Thomas Regnier lives in Lowry Hill.
Small Story to Share
By Maria Klein
As a returning resident to the neighborhood, after several decades, I’d like to say first how much I appreciate the discussions going on in the pages of the Hill & Lake Press. A lot has changed since I first hung around Lowry Hill and Lake of the Isles, and the pages of the H&LP have helped me understand better the issues and dynamics.
In particular, I’d like to offer my support to the comments made by Sandy Nelson and Larry Lamb (August 2022). As a 75-year-old with MS, trying to walk by LOI and re-learn how to ride a bike, I’ve observed that most bike riders have shown themselves to be unconcerned about others.
However, in the spirit of contributing to a friendly community, I’d like to share a small story as an example of neighborliness.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 31, the day before her school started, my youngest granddaughter, Alexandra (8), and I had a little picnic by the lake. We lunched between two lovely willows not far from the channel to Cedar Lake.
Afterwards, I recommended a little stroll and Alexandra declared that she would like to walk and pick up trash. It would make her feel good inside herself, she said. I grabbed a spare grocery bag from the car and off we went.
At first, the walk was clean as a whistle–impressively tidy. As the footpath gradually rose up to pass over the canal, Alex noticed a steep little track back down to the lake shore. She said, “I think I should go down there to check.” So she did and promptly disappeared from sight.
Moments later, I heard her calling and scrabbled down the embankment to see what she had found.
At that corner of the lake, you might have noticed a retaining wall that curves alongside the canal. There’s a semi-secluded bench and a fair amount of vegetation–a clump of scrub trees, thistles, buckthorn, probably poison ivy, and this shrubbery was full of trash.
It was not an easy site to clean, with the dense foliage, but Alex was undeterred. For twenty minutes we picked up bottles, cans, wrappers, cups, caps, lids, paper boxes, muddy socks and–to Alex’s astonishment–a pair of jockey shorts.
As we were getting ready to go dispose of our haul, Alex set the overfilled bag on the retaining wall– and out popped a spider. Startled, Alex let go of the bag, it tipped, and several items rolled out into the water. Drama!
As it happened, a group of French-speaking young people were passing by in canoes–I’d heard French tones float across the water as Alex and I were working. When three plastic bottles landed in the lake, one pair of canoeists switched course, paddled over, fished the bottles out of the water, and the day was saved.
A gift from some young teachers (French and Belgian) about to start a year in the French immersion program at Normandale Elementary School in Edina, neighbor school to Concord, where Alex just began second grade.
We dumped everything out to photograph for posterity, collected it all back into the bag, and piece by grubby piece put everything we could into the recycling bin– there wasn’t much left for the trash bin. And then went happily to reward ourselves at Sebastian Joe’s.
I promised Alex I would tell you about her good deed, so this is me fulfilling my promise. I’ve included a photo.
Thank you for this nifty neighborhood publication, thank you and especially for sending it directly to my mailbox–I’m reading it regularly now!
Maria Klein is a Kenwood Isles resident.
Inter-Neighbor. hood Connection, Extraordinary Collaboration
By Emilie Flink
Kenwood neighbor and dancemaker Carl Flink met Bill Cameron, a Bryn Mawr a neighborhood 4th of July party in 2002. Born and raised in Kenwood, Flink is the Artistic Director of the award winning, Minneapolis-based dance company Black Label Movement (BL) and the University of Minnesota Dance Program Director. Later that afternoon they had their first photo shoot. Cameron has shot every BL project since, is now the company photographer and has become a sought-after lensman by dance artists across the Twin Cities.
Cameron and Flink connect through their boundless curiosity and appetite for creating and capturing daring movement onstage and in unexpected locations like the Cedar/Isles lagoon, beneath its wooden railroad bridge, ancient ruins in India and Duluth’s famous Graffiti Graveyard The longtime collaborators also share careers in law and a passion for social justice work. Flink expressed, “I met Bill as a photographer, but he became a collaborator, advisor and critical member of Black Label, as well as a great friend.” Both men have an intimate knowledge of the diverse landscapes in the CIDNA and Kenwood neighborhoods stemming from Flink’s childhood here and Cameron’s long daily walks with his wife Connie, his camera always close at hand.
Being neighbors makes it easy to switch gears and grab a photo opportunity in the Cameron’s home studio or nearby location like the Kenilworth Corridor railroad tracks. Emilie Plauché Flink, Flink’s wife and artistic partner, is currently working on a book about this unique collaboration featuring Cameron’s exquisite photographs of Black Label Movement.
Black Label Movement performs Sept. 23-25 and Nov. 12 & 13 at the Cowles Center for Dance in downtown Minneapolis. For tickets and more information, visit thecowlescenter.org. All tickets are pay-as-you-are and start as low as $10.
Emilie Flink lives in Kenwood.
