You can go home again

[offcntr]

I've never really had a mentor.

Wasn't really close to my professors. Only met with my graduate committee twice in three years. It may be I'm too independent (bull-headed, my father would have said). But I think there's also a healthy dose of reticence, a holdover from the shyness of my childhood. I'd rather figure something out for myself than bother someone else, asking for help.

So it was with some trepidation that I got in touch with my Viterbo pottery professor and his wife, Tim and Mary Crane, about visiting them while we were in Wisconsin. Sure, Mary encouraged us to stay over. We have a guest room! Do you have any food preferences? How long can you stay? But I still didn't want to intrude. Didn't want to be a bother. (I'm so Midwestern sometimes.)

So glad we did.

The conversation went all over the map. Pottery, of course, and "Where are they now?" reminesces. But art in general, literature, college and life experiences. I showed pictures, they showed pots. Visited the wood-salt kiln, still there after 35 years (though the kiln shed had burned down in 2014 and been replaced), the studio, showroom. Went for a long walk along the ridge--they still live in a rented house beyond two fields and three cattle guards--looking at birds and plants and other points of interest (Wolf scat? You have wolves?). And the beautiful rolling hills of SE Minnesota.

They also invited Tim's ex, Diane (who also taught me at Viterbo) and her partner Bets to dinner, where the conversation started all over again.

We left with a stack of books (including a noir trilogy set in La Crosse), a couple of pots, and an open invitation to come back... and some wonderful memories.