Twin Cities, April of 2019

Spent a couple nights in the Twin Cities in April. Here's the view from my room at The Marquette. When I was a college senior, IDS Tower was the tallest building between the Mississippi and the west coast. Or something like that. These days 'tain't even clear that it's the tallest building in Minneapolis. It's still quite impressive, nonetheless.

My best pics from April's Minnesota trip were of the Macalester College campus. This one's of part of the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center. Joan Mondale's part of Macalester's culture; it's fitting to name a building after her. Her husband Walter (or Fritz), of course, is otherwise famous; they met while taking classes at Mac. And Joan's father, Max Adams, was Mac's chaplain when I first arrived on campus.

'Twasn't an official activity, but the materials we'd received before arriving mentioned we might want to visit a noon recital on Thursday. So I went, as did a few others. There were more listeners than this shows. Basically everyone sat in the back. That's how it worked when I was a student; I wasn't surprised. I recognize some changes to the hall, but they're relatively minor--the control room's moved, the seats have changed. There were seven performers, each of whom did one or two pieces. This is Frederick Kerr; he's playing "Vogel als Prophet" by Robert Schumann. ========== We were also privileged to attend the first event in Mac's new theater, a production called "Letters|Home." The show--not really a play, more of an event--was based mostly on stories the students involved had heard from their families. It was very impressive, as was the facility. Didn't take any pix of the theater event....

Over fifty years the Macalester campus has both changed and not-changed. I've already mentioned the rebuilt Fine Arts Center. The old Dayton Hall's gone; there's a new Dayton Hall elsewhere on the campus. Part of Old Main has gone; in its place is a library in a similar architectural style. The old Student Union's gone; in its place is a newer Campus Center. The old field house is gone, replaced by the Leonard Center. A grant from George and Wilma Leonard helped pay for my education. I'm hardly alone in that debt; many Mac grads were helped by Leonard scholarships.

The Dayton Campus Center on the left, Kirk Hall (a dorm) in the center, and the Dewitt Wallace Library beyond the students in the sunlight. Old Main is mostly hiding behind the trees. Dewitt Wallace grew up on this campus, then founded Readers Digest, which made him rich. Wallace money was crucial to the school's development in the fifties and sixties. We sixties and seventies students were painfully (yes, painfully) aware of that. My impression is that current students mostly think of Wallace as the guy whose name's on the library. Things change. James Wallace, Dewitt's father, was the college president for a decade or so, and a professor for several decades. One of the dorms is named after him. And the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center is named for Dewitt's mother.