May is morel season in Iowa. No one ever tells you
where they find their morels, you just have to wait
for the hunters to be generous. I first ate morels at
a party at Doug and Bonnie’s house in Johnston,
Iowa, probably thirty-five years ago. They had found
masses of them in the woods, and cooked them up
in butter, with just salt and pepper. They may have
been the best thing I have ever eaten in my life, and
I have never had them served better.
In about 1973 we were all in Europe for the summer.
The Hendricksons had a new motorcycle (a BMW?)
and we arranged to meet in Koln, where my sculptor
friend Victoria Bell and her husband Paul lived. We
all went out to a bar with a garden for a beer. None
of us will ever recall exactly what happened or what
I said, but somehow I, who spoke a fragment of
German thanks to 2 years of language classes
(free for Drake Dames), managed to enrage the
waiter who pulled the chair out from under me
and evicted us. I’ve spent the past 34 years living
that down. It seems to come up every time we are
with Doug.
Even after the ALS diagnosis, before things got
impossible, he talked about a trip to Venice. It
would have been hard – wheelchairs over bridges –
and in the end we all gave up on the idea.
Once, shortly after Doug and Bonnie built the
house in Lesterville, we spent a couple of nights
there on the way to Arkansas. It was the time
when xxx-rated movies were becoming mainstream.
Doug insisted that Tom and I sleep in their bedroom
in the loft and watch a porno video first. Doug and
Bonnie cleared out of the house, and Tom and I got
to watch Harry Reams, thanks to Doug.
Tom and I have a fine assortment of things he made,
including his eagle skull sculpture in wood…an odd
wooden box with cast rubber with tiny nipples…
the bronze container he and Ferber made together…
lithographs…and the veggie choppers, hooks, ladles,
a fireplace broom. Shana’s ladle and Maria’s iron snake.
I have some of his iron things – hooks and choppers
in Venice. Maybe the best gift he ever gave me was
the restaurant hamburger griddle (well, sold it to
me for $15 in about 1977) that became my studio
hotplate for inking my plates. It is almost as important
to me as my printing press.
It was a sad task to add Doug’s death date on our
permanent collections records at the Des Moines
Art Center.
There are too many stories. But I have to say that
he was a steady, deeply-caring friend who took the
time to be there for me when I really needed his
presence and understanding. His presence now is
so strong inside of me that I feel I will carry his
spirit with me for my whole life.
