At the end of the pork line is a kiddy pool placed atop a table and filled with ice cream buckets of salads in more varieties of Jellos, potatoes and noodles than your Lutheran aunt could ever dream of.

The church and yard is wheelchair accessible. Eat inside in air conditioning or head outside to a huge tent lined with picnic tables and a bandstand where the bluegrass band, “Long Time Gone” performs. Dinner is $10; a 1919 Root Beer float or a fresh piece of fruit pie made by the church ladies, are extra.

On Aug. 20th, the Randolph-Hampton Fire volunteer department holds their 44th Annual Chicken Feed and Street Dance, held to raise money for new equipment and building maintenance.

Half the fun at the Chicken Feed is watching the firemen cook the chicken. In the firehouse yard, they line up 6-8 cattle troughs filled with burning wood. On top of the troughs they sandwich about 100 pieces of chicken between two, handled, six-ft.-wide metal grilles. Working from left to right and on either side, two strong firemen grab the handles and flip the grilles, working down the line of troughs at as fast a pace as possible. The crowd cheers every time they reach the end, and the chicken is cooked to perfection.

Parking is on-street or in a local grain elevator area. All activity surrounds the fire station, from the chicken cooking in the yard to the bandstand on the street. The food line is just inside the station where you’ll also find dining tables. You can dine outside at picnic tables or hike up a small hill to sit on the grass.

The country western band, So Big, starts at 7 p.m. and there’s dancing in the street until 11. Porta potties include a handicap accessible one or there are bathrooms in the station; all areas except the hill are wheelchair accessible. Price: $11 adults; $7 children. Dinner begins at 3 p.m. and includes 2-3 pieces of chicken, just-picked corn, cold slaw, beans and a roll. They always ask if you want more chicken or corn while filling your plate. Don’t be shy or you’ll be begging for more.

The Randolph fire station is at 4365 292nd St. E., Randolph; www.randolphhamptonfire.org. St. Mark’s Lutheran Church is located on Highway 56 at 28595 Randolph Blvd., Randolph.

My husband, Bill, and I first caught Mars on the 2011 Grammy Awards. We were blown away. Wearing a pork-pie hat, the 25-year-old offers a retro 1960s style in his persona, appearance and word phrasing. He can play the piano and drums like crazy. He writes catchy tunes with clever lyrics that have you singing for days.

Mars played the Roy Wilkins Auditorium on May 25. Bill bought our tickets (my friend, Lori came with us) at the auditorium’s box office. Waiting in line for tickets, a mom — who was taking her 14-year-old daughter and her friends — asked my husband if he’d ever been to a scream fest before. When he said he hadn’t, she said, “You better bring ear plugs.”

I decorated T-shirts for Lori and me using duct tape and my Cricut machine (see video below). Bill didn’t want one (party-pooper). For the concert, we parked in the auditorium ramp entering on Kellogg Boulevard. The entrance is super steep: fine going down, treacherous coming back up. (We had to stop and start on the steep incline, waiting for pedestrians and exiting cars above.)

The only handicap seating is at back of the auditorium, main floor right side in a ramped, deck-style area. The metal structure is 4 feet off the ground and holds 6 wheelers (or more, as needed) and 6 metal guest chairs (or less, as needed).

The deck offers perfect view of the stage and LED screens. Back in the day, I’d be squished up at the stage but I no longer want to be shuffling around, jockeying for a spot (okay, I lied, I love to be in the thick of things but it’s claustrophobic in a wheelchair). The best part of the deck was leaving: we could shoot down the ramp and out the door.

Audience members were of all ages; wearing earplugs was “sound” advice. Acoustics are nil in Roy Wilkins, the music was loud and the bass pounded off the old cement bleachers. I thought the pounding was going to make my heart beat goofy.

We tried talking for the first hour of the show… it went like this:

“Yada, yada, yada.”

“WHAT?!?”

“YADA, YADA, YADA.”

“WHAAAT?!?”

“YADA! YADA! YADA!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

It was one of the best concerts we’ve seen in a long time. I’m sure though, that Bruno Mars with Orpheum acoustics, will be a whole ’nother experience. Mars does not disappoint and you probably won’t need earplugs … plus, it’s for a great cause.

Glamorama may not be as loud but when you do purchase tickets ask about accommodations for people with disabilities.  Glamorama staff didn’t respond in time for this post but the Orpheum has great online information about accessibility, at www.hennepintheatretrust.org/accessible

I had an appointment at the Rehab Institute at Regions Hospital in St. Paul the other day. It was the first time I’d been there since Regions built a new entrance, wing and parking ramp. After parking in the ramp, I made my way up the elevator to the lobby. I was struck by the vastness of the new space when I noticed a sculpture of large, colored rocks set in a water fountain. A graceful, copper sculpture stood nearby.

I took the elevator up to the second floor and down the hall to my destination. After my appointment, while waiting for the elevator to take me back downstairs, I spotted a large woven tapestry of a Tree of Life scene.

The tapestry was so intricate and beautiful, it actually made me stop and think about the weaver and the story she was telling. I became lost in the moment and was no longer worrying about the reason for my trip to the clinic.

Regions, like other hospitals, is installing visual art as a healing and comforting tool for patients, employees and visitors. Some hospitals are including music and performance art. It’s no longer reproduced art purchased by the boxful but art made by the people for the people.

My sister-in-law is president of Hudson (Wisconsin) Hospital and while planning the building of their new hospital she made a concerted effort to include local healing art throughout the hospital. Hudson has also collaborated with the Phipps Center for the Arts for special in-hospital performances.

Touring Hudson’s new campus in 2003 my sister-in-law pointed out art everywhere: glass-blown light shades above registration desks; mosaic birdhouses placed strategically outside patient windows; hallways lined with pottery and quilts (one quilt was made by employees); and a labyrinth behind the hospital where people can contemplate.

The Midwest Arts in Healthcare Network is a resource for this growing trend. Through MAHN, I connected with Twin City artist and attorney, Karolyn Stirewalt. Stirewalt has several commissioned pieces in Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare including the piece pictured with this post.

Stirewalt’s The Healers Mural is a traveling mural used as a barrier for construction that can be moved throughout Gillette as the renovation progresses. The mural depicts the old and new buildings with caricatures of Gillette employees, volunteers and service dogs that young patients will recognize during their visits.

“It livens up the space, makes it more friendly,” said Stirewalt. “Being an attorney in the health care industry I’ve come across studies about the benefits of art in health care facilities. I thought I could help.”

Other area hospitals incorporating art include Woodwinds with a Minnesota woods theme; Hennepin County Medical Center; Allina System using a rotating art collection; and Boynton Health Services at the University of Minnesota.

“Boynton is almost a gallery of local artists,” Stirewalt said. “I’m doing 10 painted ceiling tiles for their women’s clinic. When people are on the exam table they can look up and see an original painting and feel comforted.”

Have you noticed any artwork during your last visit to a hospital? What does incorporating healing art say about a hospital? Would you consider choosing your health care facility based on a healing art philosophy?

Seating for persons with disabilities is rows 4-5, right of stage. There is only a couple spots for wheelchairs, one in front of the other. It looks to be a tricky maneuver. In my spot, I had to move each time someone came to enter the row behind me to get to a seat.

“God of Carnage” is a comedy about two upper-middle-class couples that meet to discuss a playground incident where their two sons got into a scuffle. As the evening progresses the couples argue, learn of each other’s relationship problems and drink until one wife tears up the other couple’s home.

I was dismayed with some of the word choices used by playwright, Yasmina Reza, among them “retard” and “coon” … the former received loud laughter, the latter, a few titters.

“Retard” was slung early on during the play and it set a tone for me. While the audience laughed uproariously all throughout the play, I could only muster a few chuckles. Reza also overused the f-bomb, all of which to me signifies lazy, offensive writing used indifferently for shock value.

This past Christmas, I went to see “Santaland Diaries” by David Sedaris at Hennepin Stages. In that play, no disability was safe from slurs. Again, the R-word garnered uproarious laughter. It was embarrassing and disheartening. I felt self-conscious, wondering if I was the only one who found it offensive. Isn’t it time we stopped using that word?

On a bright note, during its season finale, the television show “Glee” ran an anti-bullying public service announcement. I’m ecstatic. “Glee” is hugely popular with our younger generation; any move “Glee” makes is seen and emulated by many.

The announcement, “Not Acceptable” from the organization Spread the Word to End the Word, shows a black man, a Latina, an Asian woman, a homosexual and a Jewish man saying, “It’s not acceptable to call me a …” (fill in the minority slur). Cut to Glee’s cheerleader coach, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), with one of her cheerleaders, Becky (Lauren Potter, who has Down syndrome). Becky said, “It’s not acceptable to call me a retard or to call yourself or your friends retarded when they do something foolish.” To which Sue responds: “The R-word is the same as every minority slur, treat it that way, and don’t use it.” View the announcement at go to www.r-word.org

“Iris is one of the people who called me after my son’s death,” she said. “Joan Rivers [whom Judy didn’t know at the time] called me about four days after Clark’s death and said, ‘First of all, there is no guilt in suicide and secondly, you cannot quit working.’”

“That’s what people do, they decide to opt out,”Collins said . “Joan said, ‘You can’t do that, you won’t heal, you won’t find whatever it is you are supposed to learn because of this, you’ll just shut down.’”

To disappear was exactly what Collins wanted to do but she knew she had work to do.

“I’m a political creature and activist and I knew this is an area where you had to be an activist,” she said. “What better opportunity! They say life presents to you all the problems you are supposed to learn something about.”

To quote from her book: “God will not take me to a place where I cannot find meaning where I cannot be of service.”

If you have suicidal thoughts or attempts,  Collins said  the first step is to check yourself into a hospital where you will be safe, surrounded by knowledgeable people who are caring and who will talk to you. Or, call a hotline and find out what’s available in your community.

“For me there’s only one answer: talk about it,” she said. “My suicide attempt was never, ever mentioned in our home, but I’ve had a lot of therapy for years and years and years. I’ve worked on my dreams, I’ve worked with people who thought that finding the solution to my problems would cure my alcoholism.”

Nothing worked until she got treatment for alcoholism.

“I believe that treatment works, and for most of us that’s about the only answer,” she said. “Change the whole dynamic of behavior and life habits and find a way to displace the default position of negativity.”

Every suicide affects at least 10 people; most Americans know someone who has attempted or accomplished suicide.

Collins suggests the best way to help someone is to stay positive and believe that they are capable, encourage them to get professional help.

“You can’t change somebody’s behavior just because you talked to them, I can’t tell anybody what to do, I don’t know what’s best for them,” she explained. “But I do know that somebody else might know what’s best for them and maybe I can push them in that direction. Some people have to go through terrible things to find out what it’s all about.”

How have you been affected by suicide? What are your thoughts on the negative language and attitudes surrounding suicide? How can we change the stigma of suicide?

Throughout her life, Collins has had firsthand experience with suicide. The most devastating was in 1992 when her son Clark Taylor, on his third attempt, committed suicide at his home in St. Paul. The husband and father was 33.

Collins first became aware of suicide at age 10 when her father told her about a neighbor who killed himself. She eventually married this man’s son. He is Clark Taylor’s father.

At 14, her own suicide attempt became a major turning point in her life. Collins gave up concert piano, took up the guitar and soon spiraled into a 23-year alcohol addiction. As a 17-year-old working in a local resort, Collins had to become involved when a female patron committed suicide. Collins had to help the woman’s husband carry the body from an upstairs room to the resort lobby.

“I’ve thought about it since then and I wonder if it was suicide… I never saw the note, he [the woman’s husband] had it all cleaned up and was wandering around in the rain,” she said. To hide the cause of death is often an immediate survivor response due to the stigma and taboo of suicide.

“And that’s why suicide and murder are so linked, they are so much a part of the same rage game,” she said.

Along with hundreds of songs and poems, Collins has written seven books. Her keynote topic was from her most recent memoir, Sanity & Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength, which interweaves her journal entries about her son’s death with her life journey. Her first memoir, Trust Your Heart, centers on her own struggles with mental illness.

“It tells a lot about my own mental health issues, my attempted suicide, alcoholism,” she said. “All the things we did in the sixties that we thought were political but actually they were just the result of mental illness!”

As writers she and I talked about terms and language surrounding suicide, how it perpetuates the stigma and how the phrasing we use can have negative connotations.

“Absolutely! I haven’t addressed it very much but I think it’s a very important aspect of the negativity we surround our lives with, and also the drama,” she said. “I’m very interested in the solution to things. I’m not interested in the drama anymore.

“That’s why when Clark killed himself, I never read Alvarez’s book, The Savage God, which is basically about Sylvia Plath,” she said. “It doesn’t talk about the solution, just about the drama. And that’s not enough for me. I can read a thriller and get drama. I want to read about solutions.”

Next week: Collins discusses her son’s suicide.

I’ve been creating art since I can remember … I have to, it feeds my soul. I’m a paper artist and scrapbooker and have the equivalent of a craft store in what I call my “Art Lair.” The experience of seeing new products and learning new techniques is a large part of what I love about my art. Second to crafting is shopping.

I have a degenerative muscle condition and I’ve gone from using a cane, to a manual chair, then needing someone to push my manual chair, and finally to a power chair. I’ve realized that there is a hierarchy of indifference on how the public treats you depending on your “mode” of transportation.

I’d say that the most indifference was when I used a manual chair and needed someone to push me. Sales clerks or cashiers had a tendency to ignore me while I handed over my cash, check or charge. The least indifference was when I used a cane. Now with my power chair, it seems that the freedom this chair affords me, translates to them my abilities or intelligence.

Many times when I’d ask the clerk a question about something for purchase, they’d look to my “pusher” and answer them. Especially if I’d ask for physical directions.

I once was in Bloomingdales with a friend. In the jewelry department, I put my purchases on the counter, handed the clerk my Ultimate Insider credit card (read: big spender) and she looked at my friend and said, “Can she use this?” I asked her what she meant by this and she asked my friend again, “Can she sign for this?”

Granted, this was one of the more ignorant experiences I’ve had but there have been enough subtle acts of indifference while shopping that it started to get to me and I began to shop less.

Now with my new vehicle wheelchair lift, I can take my power chair shopping. There’s something to be said about having power in a toggle. I’ve noticed a huge difference in how I am treated. Of course, there are still mom’s who grab their kid and dive-bomb them to the ground when they see me coming, but I’m not being ignored anymore! On Saturday, the cashier didn’t just take my money but in fact asked me what I thought about the weather! My favorite Minnesota topic. 

Here’s the best part about being able to take my power chair shopping: I don’t have my husband elbowing and nudging me, harrumphing and chomping at the bit because I’m taking too long in the store. I can send him on his way while I shop until I’m bored … or ‘til my battery runs out.

Now if they just could lower the shelf heights.

“We are thrilled to have the Mendota Dakota join us, it rounds out the history,” said Ted Bores, site supervisor for Historic Fort Snelling and Sibley House Historic Site.

The site marks one of the oldest settlements in Minnesota, from the days before Minnesota was a state. It is where the American Fur Company operated a regional trade with the Dakota Indians, and was home and office of Minnesota’s first state governor, Henry Hastings Sibley.

Three of the four original buildings have no thresholds. The first floors are easily maneuverable with a wheelchair; portable ramps are provided for the steps up to the entrance to Jean Baptiste Faribault’s house.

“We are working hard to get funding for a wider, solid ramp on the Faribault house,” noted Bores.

The ticket counter and gift shop are located in the Hypolite Dupuis house on the corner of Highway 13 and D Street. Inside, volunteers taught native beading art of the Dakota.

The Dakota had two teepees set up on street level, in the yard of the Dupuis House. The site of them brought you back to the 1800s; inside they talked about their ancestor’s lives.

“The fur trading focused around us, we brought the furs to the traders,” explained Jim Anderson, Tribal Chairman. “The traders married into the Dakota people to have access to the fur trade but also for help … they married daughters of chiefs, and that was their labor force.”

All other festivities were down the hill. A person can head down a grassy hill or a steep road around back — too steep for my chair we drove down and parked. On the grounds there is about 10 feet of grass to roll over to get to the sidewalk. This could be a challenge on rainy days.

The Minnesota Historical Society, which oversees the Sibley House and its events, has a wealth of information available about site access for visitors with different disabilities. 

All the volunteers are charming and happily share their knowledge. Re-enactors were hired for the Rendezvous and set up a birch canoe, tents, cooking and trading areas. I love re-enactors. They are so into their craft and their persona. We met “Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sibley” and a few fur and bead traders. Watching our video, you will see and hear how much fun everybody had, especially the kids while listening to one re-enactor play Frère Jacque on her recorder.





Upcoming events at Sibley House include monthly, accessible River History Dog Walks and City of Mendota Walking Tours; the Fête de la St. Jean Baptiste celebration June 23; Children’s Day Archaeology, July 9-10; and Labor Day Harvest Weekend. The Mendota Dakota tribe will host the World Peace and Prayer day, at St. Peter’s Church, Mendota, June 18-21. For the Sibley House e-mail sibleyhouse@mnhs.org or call (651) 451-1596. For Mendota Dakota e-mail jim@mendotadakota.com or call (651) 452-4141.

The play is like a Greek tragedy and surrounds Oya (Christiana Clark), who refuses her destiny to go to college and run track with what we think is a noble decision to care for her dying mother, Mama Moja (Sonja Parks). When her second chance to go to college is denied, Oya spirals into depression.

Playwright McCraney uses music, dance and even stage direction to propel the action of the play. Director Marion McClinton opens the play with Mama Moja giving birth to Oya, as the full cast of 10 actors forms a birthing scene reminiscent of a Pilobolus dance move. We quickly learn that Oya is a gifted runner whose mother pushes her to compete.

We soon meet Elegba (Gavin Lawrence) and Aunt Elegua (Greta Oglesby) who both play their characters with joy and mischief as they guide Oya by showing examples and questioning her decisions.

The Man from State (John Catron), a University talent seeker, holds Oya’s destiny when he asks her to come to his school to run. But Oya asks The Man to wait for one year while she tends to her mother. By the time Oya is ready to leave for school, The Man has found a replacement, leaving Oya to live in her Louisiana projects, with Shango (Ansa Akyea) with whom she has sexual chemistry, then later, Ogun (James A. Williams) whose stuttering stops when he professes his love to Oya.

Oya visits three people to ask for help to change her fate but nobody can. Oya shows subtle signs of depression as she sits on her porch — simple lawn chairs line the back and sides of the stage. She eventually has a psychotic breakdown and presents Shango with the one thing that gave her pleasure, in the form of her flesh and blood.

Each of the 10 Equity actors kept our absolute attention as they gave some of the most powerful performances I’ve ever seen. You could hear a pin drop the entire two hours. Somehow, each actor is a solid standout: Just when you think one actor has topped the rest, another steals away the scene. The intimacy of the theater and our front-row seats, along with the talented actors’ performances, nearly put us in a trance. I’ve never known or met characters like these and it was a fresh explosion to my senses.

This play runs through June 5. The ASL and AD interpreted performances is 7:30 p.m. June 1, 7:30 p.m. Call about reduced ticket prices, at 612-377-2224, or TTY 612-377-6626. The websites are www.Guthrietheater.org or www.pillsburyhousetheatre.org

I will soon be visiting Pillsbury House Theater, so watch for that in an upcoming blog. Let me know what you think of this play, or tell me your thoughts on African mythology.