Visited the Wellstone Memorial yesterday.

[Lifelong Protester]

For those of you who do not live close by, I'd like to share the image.
Located right outside of Eveleth, MN, very close to the airport at which they should have landed that October, it is a very serene place, untouched pretty much since the crash except to add the memorial. You have to drive three miles off the main road to get there. The entrance is ringed in large iron rich rocks, said to be 2 billion years old (I guess this will leave out the anti-evolution bunch or "the Earth is only 4,000 years old bunch" from visiting, right off the bat.)

There is a commemoration ring, and a legacy trail. The first is a ring that has a marker for each of the people who died (well, actually some, like Paul and Sheila, share a marker). Again, beautiful native stone, polished in part, and bearing a simple plaque with the names of the victims of the crash. On Paul and Sheila's stone in particular, as is the Jewish custom, there were many stones left on the marker. I didn't bring one of my own, but I carefully replaced a stone of someone else's that had fallen, and said a prayer.

Around this commemoration ring there is a legacy trail. Several markers along the path detail Paul and Sheila's efforts on behalf of all of us in their lives of public service. Mentioning his fiery oratory, it made me chuckle to recall his ROUSING introduction of candidate Gore at the Minnesota State Fair in 2000. What a guy he was! I am lucky I can still bring up that image of him (he was pretty small in stature next to Gore, but second to none in speaking!!)

One cannot see the crash site, so you do not have any feeling at all that you are participating in anything ghoulish. Quite the opposite, you feel a struggle between the peace the site evokes, and the message the site evokes, Paul's life, and all we owe him, both in remembrance and in keeping on the fight.

I am a native of Minnesota, although I have lived in Wisconsin for the last 30 years, I still have a hard time not calling the Democratic Party the DFL. I keep up with Minnesota politics, as I live on the Mississippi River border, and I do not hesitate to write to 'your' senators once in a while.

One such occasion was the impending passage of NCLB in 2002. A couple of months before it was debated on the floor of the US Senate, I had read an op.ed. piece by Paul in one of the Twin Cities newspapers (I forget which one, sorry) and in it he seemed to find no problem with the testing component of NCLB. Well as a teacher and school administrator I sure did! So I wrote him a lengthy letter on the subject.

On January 8, 2002 (always hard to forget as that is my husband's birthday) I was in the kitchen whipping up dinner, and I came rushing out to the living room where my spouse was listening to the debate highlights on the Jim Lehrer program. And I heard Paul USING MY LETTER!! I will never forget it! He agreed with me that 'testing is not teaching'! And he was on FIRE that day!!

I miss you terribly, Paul and Sheila Wellstone, and all of the other souls who perished with you that October.

Keep up the fight folks, we can't let them down. We can't allow their deaths to be in vain. The cause is just, we need to persevere.

[wellstone dem]

1. What a marvelous tribute

Thanks so much for a needed reminder of why we must fight on.

[scarletwoman]

2. Wow! What a beautiful and moving post!

I was born and raised in Minnesota, but I was living in Alaska when Wellstone first got elected. I had just barely returned to MN by the 1996 election and voted for him as a matter of course, since I had been raised as a lifelong DFLer/Democrat.

By the 2002 election I had gotten heavily involved in my local Pine County DFL organization, and was campaigning for Wellstone in the 8th congressional district. I met him for the first and only time at little cafe in Mora, MN in July (I think). After he gave a truly inspiring speech, and a generous q & a session to all the farmers and assorted working folk crowding the tables and counter, he headed out to his green bus in the cafe parking lot.

I pushed my way through all the people crowding around him as he made his way to the bus and pretty much jumped up and down, waving my arms in front of him and yelling to get his attention -- which he graciously extended.

I then gave the quickest possible anti-Iraq war speech I could, as I handed him a sheaf of papers that I had printed off from various internet sites that presented good, solid arguments against invading Iraq, including some great Scott Ritter material.

"Senator Wellstone, please read these! Don't let this war happen!" He leafed through them and read some of the titles, assured me that he would read all the articles, and thanked me for going to the trouble of printing them out for him.

That was it. The one and only time I got to meet this wonderful being. He voted against the IWR on October 11, 2002. Two weeks later he was dead.

:cry:

Thanks for your inspiring post. I'll really have to make the pilgrimage up there one of these days....

sw