Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
So, has 2017 been a good year, or not so good? Gulp. It’s tempting to go on about leadership that has fallen, role models who have disappointed, and our individual aches and pains.
Draft foretaste of novel I am working on
The Learner
This is the story of a young man fresh out of seminary who becomes the pastor of a church seeking a new leader.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year | 2016
As always we treasure this season of music and hope in the midst of family and friends.
Gawd & Gawf!
Do you know people who love (or at least are very interested in) the competing religions that center around golf AND God?
An unexpected reaction to “Sully”
Last evening my wife Mim and I along with some friends went to see the movie Sully.
A Novel Idea: WisconsinWatch Article
Thank you to Wisconsin Watch and contributor Mara Jezior who wrote recently…
A novel idea: Beloit author donates proceeds to support investigative reporting
“Sometime, when author Tom Warren researches issues for his books, he feels the pull to become an advocate.”
Presentation on Cuba to SLU
Tom Warren presenting a talk on Cuba to the Beloit Society for Learning Unlimited (SLU) in the fall of 2015.
Friend Ron Adamson & Tom Warren swimming in the Bay of Pigs during their trip to Cuba
SLU is a non-profit organization that supports life-long learning in the Stateline area. SLU’s roots are at Beloit College and BC faculty often contribute classes. Warren visited Cuba a few weeks after the announcement by Presidents Obama and Castro began the process that opened relationships between their two nations. Warren describes himself as an enthusiastic learner about Cuba . . . not an expert.”
Where is our beach?
Not totally gone.
During spring and summer we have made five or six trips to the cabin (Read: lake) and each time north I have been accompanied by the anxiety of experiencing no beach when we get there.
My expectations have been so pessimistic that almost every time upon arrival I have been mildly encouraged: there is some sand still there and during our most recent trip in early September we were back to having a beach fire on, well, a beach.
Our diminished beach is partly a function of the rising lake, but not totally. Currents and sand flows that have been very good to us over the decades have moved on.
Lake Superior worries
Whenever I talk to my California friends these days the conversation easily moves toward the drought there. It is serious and I hope it ends soon. Predictably, I say to them “I wish we could send some of our Lake Superior water to you.” Sigh. Yes. Again this year the lake is up – seven inches according to the last report I heard – and I expect that our previously gorgeous, big beach will not exist.
In the early 1970s, when I would go to our recently purchased property to camp for a few days, Beloit friends who were more established with cabins in the woods by the shore would say, “Check our our beach. See if we have one.” Well, they always had one. Sometimes like in the mid- to late-1980s it was narrow as the lake reached a high point in the ebb and flow of yearly levels BUT NEVER WAS THEIR OR OUR BEACH GONE. I fear that this year they will be – gone, the beaches – under water. I wish we could send some of it to California.
Tourists to Cuba
My wife, Mim, and I are still energized by our January, 2015, trip to Cuba. We had signed up via Road Scholar early in 2014 and throughout the summer and fall eagerly awaited the mid-winter time when we would head south. Then came December 17, 2014, when Presidents Obama and Castro announced their intentions to improve diplomatic relations. This changed everything. All of a sudden we were among the first United States citizens to make the trip in an atmosphere of hope and optimism. Devils are in the details, of course, and we don’t assume that things will work out quickly or smoothly, but the fact remains that our interest is ongoing along with that of millions of others.
As we prepared for our trip and went through an orientation meeting in Miami before the charter flight to Havana, we were told, “You are not tourists.” That designation is not deemed proper – or allowed – under existing agreements that permit only some researchers, scientists, and educational & religious groups. So, for example when a friend and I swam in the Bay of Pigs, we were told (with a wink and a nod) that you are doing it for fun, it’s marine research.
Okay, but the fact is we were and still are tourists. Curious ones who are still learning. Please stay tuned.
