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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 11/09/2015
Copyright © 2015 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 11/09/2015 November 9, 2015 10:47 am (GMT +5:00) / Powered by TECNAVIA
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MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL ● MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2015 F
Adapted from a recent online dis-cussion:Carolyn: You gave some good ad-
vice (on “paying attention to howhard you have to work” in a relation-ship), but is it possible to be burnedanyway? My ex-fiance gave me thedistinct impression that not only didwe have a good foundation, but thatour differences were tolerable. Wewould spend hours upon hours talk-ing this stuff out and building (what Ithought was) good communication.He called off the wedding anyway
with no warning, saying that hecouldn’t do it.I’m left asking why I made the ef-
fort. Seems like no matter what,someone can always dupe you bymirroring your hopes and dreams toget what they want, and then ditchingyou when it’s convenient. Your adviceis sound, but it seems so hopeless.
— Burned
Burned: If you’re looking never toget hurt, then, yes, hopeless is theright word. Everyone who cares aboutsomething also gets “burned” by it,just by dint of caring.Think of it in terms of sports, be-
cause why not: If you care whether ateam wins or loses, then you will feelgood when it wins and bad when itloses. Right?You’re asking why you made the
effort when a loss was inevitable, andthe answer is, you cared so you gaveit your best. His leaving doesn’t meanhe didn’t give it his best. It doesn’tmean he duped you, either. Maybe hedid, sure, but maybe too he really wasnuts about you, and unwittinglyworked a little too hard — those“hours upon hours” — to persuadehimself that your differences weresurmountable. Maybe that wore himout, and maybe he felt terrible aboutthat, but also understood you’d both
have better chances at happiness ifyou parted ways.That isn’t necessarily staying “to
get what they want” and “ditching”when “convenient.” People who aredecent and who really care abouteach other aren’t immune to hurtingeach other. Again, all they have to dois care, and both will eventually feelhurt by something.So why get involved with anyone?
Because enough good can outweighthe inevitable bad. Plenty of peoplewill happily choose 20-40-60 lovingyears with someone for the price ofheavy grief when that person dies —and that’s a happy ending, no? Tilldeath do they part?Even when it’s not as pretty, when
people stay together for X years thenultimately split, they can still lookback on those years as mostly good,even valuable to them — be it inshaping who they are, in creating
beloved children, in being the paththat took them to the happy placethey’re in now. Not all ends are fail-ures.So, you make the effort because the
best connections to others, and thememories of them, make life worthliving; the good ones make life morefun and/or interesting; and the worstones — when picked over as objective-ly as we can afterward for usefulinformation, about others and aboutourselves (with a good therapist’shelp as needed) — can help guide ustoward something more rewarding.Ultimately it’s about finding, shar-
ing and counting on our ownstrength, vs. the permanence of anoth-er person’s feelings for us — especial-ly since the former can help the latteralong.
Email Carolyn at [email protected] Post Writers Group
No way around it: Caring for someone can lead to pain
You make theeffort because
the bestconnections
to others, andthe memories
of them,make life
worth living.‹
CarolynHax
QUOTE UNQUOTE
“Thou shalt not be a victim,thou shalt not be aperpetrator, but, above all,thou shalt not be abystander.”
— Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer
BLASTS FROM THE PAST
Today’s highlight in history
On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazis looted andburned synagogues as well asJewish-owned stores and houses inGermany and Austria in a pogromthat became known as “Kristall-nacht.”
On this date
In 1620, the passengers and crewof the Mayflower sighted Cape Cod.In 1935, United Mine Workerspresident John L. Lewis and otherlabor leaders formed the Commit-tee for Industrial Organization(later renamed the Congress ofIndustrial Organizations).In 1953, Welsh author-poet DylanThomas died in New York at age39.In 1965, the great Northeastblackout began as a series ofpower failures lasting up to 131⁄2hours left 30 million people inseven states and part of Canadawithout electricity.In 1970, former French PresidentCharles de Gaulle died at age 79.In 1976, the U.N. General As-sembly approved resolutions con-demning apartheid in South Africa,including one characterizing thewhite-ruled government as “illeg-itimate.”
In 1989, communist East Germa-ny threw open its borders, allowingcitizens to travel freely to the West;joyous Germans danced atop theBerlin Wall.Ten years ago: Three suicidebombers carried out nearly simul-taneous attacks on three U.S.-based hotels in Amman, Jordan,killing 60 people and woundinghundreds more.Five years ago: A special prose-cutor cleared the CIA’s former topclandestine officer and others ofany charges for destroying agencyvideotapes showing waterboardingof terror suspects but continued aninvestigation into whether theharsh questioning went beyondlegal boundaries.One year ago: The citizens ofBerlin released almost 7,000balloons into the night sky, manycarrying messages of hope to markthe 25th anniversary since the fallof the wall that had once dividedtheir city.
Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
East German border guards lookthrough a hole in the Berlin Wall.
GREEN SHEETC Find the Green Sheet at jsonline.com/greensheet
Honor Roll
U.S. NAVY/MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS STEVIE TATE
Boatswain’s Mate 2nd ClassAustin Zimanek, from Abrams,guides a rigid hull inflatableboat as the knuckle boom cranelifts it from the amphibioustransport dock ship USS Arling-ton. Arlington, part of the Kear-sarge Amphibious Ready Group,is conducting naval operationsin the U.S. 6th Fleet area ofoperations in support of U.S.national security interests inEurope.
Caledonia — Fred Hermes says he doesn’tmove as easily as he used to.You wouldn’t believe him if you watched
the 89-year-old play the rare 1926 Wurlitzertheater organ housed in his Caledonia base-ment, his fingers flipping buttons and flyingacross the five keyboards while his feet ef-fortlessly work the pedals below.Tucked under a three-bedroom ranch at
the end of a dead-end road along Lake Michi-gan, the basement looks ordinary enoughfrom the outside. A hand-painted wooden“Theatre” sign is the only hint of what liesinside.But a step through the basement door is
like traveling through a time machinestraight into a 1920s movie palace. Rows ofred theater seats on the main level and in abalcony face the organ console elevated on astage; Roman columns, sculptures and crystalchandeliers decorate the room; mul-ticolored lights illuminate the stageand ceiling.The theater — Hermes calls it his
“basement bijou” — is something tobehold, but it’s the organ that takescenter stage — literally.“It’s the biggest organ that Wur-
litzer ever built,” said Hermes, amember of the Dairyland TheatreOrgan Society.Of the thousands of organs the
company made in the 1920s, it onlymade three like Hermes’ “MightyWurlitzer.” The 3,000-pipe organweighs 25 tons and is housed in four cham-bers measuring from 20 to 75 feet. Bells,trumpets, flutes, percussion and all mannerof other instruments create a maze of pipes,wooden beams and electrical wires inside.“You can get almost anything out of this
organ you want,” Hermes said. He stroked akey to play a heavenly note on the tibia flute.“Almost makes you want to cry, doesn’t it?”
Obsessed from childhoodHermes took piano lessons growing up, but
it was during a trip to a Racine theater thathe found his passion.“My mother used to take me down to the
Rialto Theatre in Racine, and the guy playedan organ down there — it was a small Wur-litzer — and when he played those low notes,
Racine; Italian Renaissance décor from Rac-ine’s Venetian Theatre.About 20 tour groups arranged through the
Racine County Convention and VisitorsBureau (800-272-2463, realracine.com) maketheir way through Hermes’ miniature moviepalace every year to watch silent movies andhear him play.Every three years or so he stages his favor-
ite: the original 1925 “The Phantom of theOpera.”As he made his way through the dark
theater to turn off the blower for the organ,the spry octogenarian — who still goes intohis real estate and insurance office a fewdays a week — didn’t miss a chance for ajoke.“Now I’m the phantom of the opera,” he
quipped before turning off the hissing blow-er, silence descending on the theater andending the 1920s spell — for now.
(I was so excited) I’d kick her all over theplace,” he said. “I decided then and there,someday I was going to buy that organ, be-cause I liked it so much. Then about fourweeks later, I was born. I bought my firstorgan.”The industrious 8-year-old bought the
pump organ from his piano teacher andhauled it home on a wagon with the help of afew friends.Two decades later, Hermes was at it again,
recruiting friends and a couple ofsemitrailers to help him haul themassive five-keyboard Wurlitzerfrom the Michigan Theater in De-troit home to Racine. Hermes paid$3,000 for the organ in 1955; heestimates it’s worth about $3 mil-lion today.Hermes then built the Caledonia
home for his organ, including abasement with 20-foot ceilings.Once his son and daughter grew
up and stopped using the largebasement as their indoor play-ground, Hermes started thinking
about what he wanted to do with the space.“That was in about 1959. They started tear-
ing down all of these beautiful movie palacesall over the country,” he said. “I got ahold ofbuilding records, and they would tell mewhen they were tearing a theater down, andthey would say, ‘Come and get whatever youwant out of the theater, that’s less stuff forus to haul to the dump!’ So I would go andpick up all this stuff here and there.”Hermes said he has artifacts from about 50
theaters: a mustard-yellow curtain from theCrown Theatre in Racine; the motor mecha-nism that opens and closes it from the PalaceTheatre in Dallas; stage lights from Keno-sha’s Lake Theater; crystal chandeliers fromthe Piccadilly Theatre in Chicago; more than100 theater seats from the Uptown Theatre in
This Is Us
3,000-pipeorgan hitsright chordCaledonia man’s ‘basement bijou’features 1920s-style movie palaceBy CHELSEY [email protected]
CHELSEY LEWIS / [email protected]
Fred Hermes sits in front of his rare five-keyboard Wurlitzer theater organ in the basement of his home.
Hermes has turned the basement of his home into a150-seat movie theater. The seats came from Rac-ine’s Uptown Theatre, which opened in 1928 andclosed in 1959.
ABOUT THISFEATUREThis Is Us is arecurring featurein the JournalSentinel GreenSheet, with storieson the people,places and thingsreflecting the spiritand heart of ourcommunity.
Featured attractionWatch a video of Fred Hermes and his “basement bijou”at jsonline.com/greensheet.
