Jeanne and Nita's View from Above Milwaukee

Yesterday we drove up to Milwaukee to meet with two old friends, Jeanne and Juanita. They are a couple who belonged to and were married in our church in Redwood City. They live in an impressive retirement community on the 9th floor of a 20 floor modern tower with commanding views out of floor-to-ceiling windows out over Lake Michigan and downtown.

Jeanne and Nita's home - 9th floor views of the Lake and Downtown

We had a flowing, leisurely conversation in their living room.

Out and Back Again

Both Jeanne and Nita grew up in the upper Midwest: Jeanne in Oconomowoc, west of Milwaukee and Nita in Richmond, northern Indiana.  Both were “town” girls growing up -- not living on farms.  Both went to University.  Jeanne’s father owned a metal plating company and Jeanne studied Chemistry.  Among many jobs and interests, she became an expert in the science and business of plating -- including helping her father for a time and specializing in the environmentally responsible handling of the waste from plating operations.  Juanita worked in corporate America in Chicago, Cincinnati, Toledo, Princeton, NJ (commuting to NYC where she was Director of Human Resources for Bristol Myers Squibb).  Both were married and divorced.

In the 90’s, both moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.  Jeanne enjoyed her first experience of the benefit of being a woman in a man’s profession.  Whereas up until her late 50’s she had repeatedly lost her job or been overlooked for promotion, United Airlines was being threatened with discrimination employment suits in the 90’s and they were happy to find Jeanne, a well qualified, 59 year old female plating scientist to lead the department in San Francisco.

Milwaukee Museum, walk after conversation

They met each other in the Bay Area through a Unitarian Universalist Lesbian dinner group and eventually were married.  After Jeanne’s retirement they chose to move back to Milwaukee where they had purchased a house.  They have since sold the house and moved into the retirement community where we met them.

How have things changed?

We asked how Milwaukee and the Midwest has changed -- and how it is different from the SF Bay Area.

Nita reflected that it didn’t seem it had changed that much.  She had lived a number of places.  And wherever she has lived she has found to be friendly and she could settle comfortably.  “Even Toledo,” she commented. “I thought I wouldn’t like it but it turned out to be fine.”  Milwaukee reminds Nita of Cincinnati -- similar size, German heritage, major water feature (Ohio River vs. Lake Michigan).  The only real difference is from Cincinnati you can get whatever is not allowed in Cincinnati by crossing the river into Kentucky. Then she adds “maybe Chicago is that for Milwaukee."

Jeanne comments that they moved back just at the time Scott Walker replaced (the liberal Democrat) Doyle as Governor. Juanita made the point at a couple of junctions in our conversation that the gerrymandering of the districts has been a large factor in the Republican takeover of the state legislature and the prospect of them keeping it for a long time.  As a consequence, Jeanne and Nita are watching Wisconsin’s redistricting case closely (it is in front of the Supreme Court this term).  Oral arguments were recently heard.  They are not optimistic about its outcome, however, given the members of the Court.

Race in Milwaukee

Jeanne, who has lived for decades in Milwaukee, recounted the history of black migration after the Civil War, the “Redlining” of neighborhoods which kept blacks in neighborhoods west of downtown and the growth of Hispanic neighborhoods.  Nita remembers the riots of ‘68 in Chicago and reading the Black Panther papers to “try to understand what was going on.”  Neither were radical, but both felt they were aware of the issues.

Recently their retirement community interviewed candidates to be the Director of Facilities, a senior position reporting to the CEO.  They had three strong candidates. Jeanne was on the selection committee.  One of the candidates was from Buffalo and was by far the best.  They offered him the job.  He is black.  After the “high” of the interview he walked out of the building preparing to go for a walk of the neighborhood to “get the feel” of Milwaukee.  He was dressed in his interview suit.  As he stood on the side of Prospect Road, one of the main north south roads along the lake, a police car drove by.  He noticed that it slowed as it passed before speeding back up further north. On his walk he noticed that a motorcycle policeman driving by also slowed.  

In a trendy neighborhood the candidate ran into another black man on the street and struck up a conversation.  “How is it living in Milwaukee?” he asked. Nearby there was a white panhandler who was calling out to passers by and in their account “making a bit of a scene.”  A police cruiser pulled up at this time.  The policeman got out and walked up to the two black men in conversation and asked them to “move along.”  He got back in his cruiser without addressing the aggressive panhandler.  When the Facilities Director returned to the retirement community, he recounted the story and announced he would not be able to accept the offer. Subsequently the job was filled by a lower ranked candidate.  The CEO of the community called in the Mayor who in turn called in the Chief of Police so that the incident and its consequences were known.

The Environment and Climate Change

Jeanne and Nita reflect on environmental awareness and climate change in Milwaukee as compared with the SF Bay Area.  Several points:

• People in Wisconsin and Milwaukee “get” the importance of the Great Lakes.  “25% of the planet’s freshwater is stored in these lakes.” Jeanne educates us.  “Don’t mess with our drinking water” is a common refrain.
  
• Zebra Mussel: Jeanne believes that the DNR (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) overreacts.  They overreacted to the carp invasion and that led to too many seagulls which resulted in polluted beaches, etc.  So in the case of the Zebra mussels they have been more laissez-faire and as a result they have proliferated.  This has deceptively cleaned the lake water -- so things look (to our eyes VERY) clean, but set other biology out of balance and are clogging some water intakes.
  
• The concern has turned to the pollution of the water in rural counties where big-farm-dairies exist.  This concern was expressed by Rodger (See “Retired Farmer” blog).
  
• Jeanne and Nita are concerned (maybe disgusted is a more accurate term) that Governor Walker has folded DNR under the State Business Development Department, drastically cut DNR’s budget and staffed it with leaders without appropriate background.
  
  

They agree that Global Warming/ Climate Change do not have the same urgency among Wisconsinites they know as it did in the SF Bay Area.  “Why?” we ask.  They are not sure of the answer.  Their reflections include:

• There is some consternation that winter sports (read: beloved ice hockey) will fall off as winters lose their bite.
  
• On the other hand people appreciate the relative ease of winter when you don’t need to worry so often about slipping and falling on icy walkways.
  
• There are many references to the “third coast.”
  

• This pride in the Great Lake ties to a half serious consideration: “maybe the population will go up with coastal US residents leaving the Pacific and Atlantic and moving to “coastal” Lake Michigan.
  
• Similarly, the ocean sea level and hurricanes seem a long way away, which they are, when you live in the northern Midwest.

Where do you get your information?

In addition to PBS, NPR, NYT, since the election they have added Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show which they believe has been trying to answer this same question: “How did this happen?”

Before we said "good bye" we covered family updates all around.  Then Nita joined us downstairs so she could take a tour of Dave's RV.  The view from their 9th floor balcony piqued her interest when she saw the array of solar panels on its roof. 

-- Peter