Trying to write with a bit more edge.  Winona, where I am from has in its near center a park named Windom.  Bill Windom was Secretary of the Treasury.  What follows is his confession.

“Bill Windom.”

“Sideburns. Quite long on the sideburns Mr. Windom.”

“Ellen likes them this way’”

“Ellen?”

“Mrs. Windom, she's inside the house. We married in 1856. I was about 30.”

“So you’ve been gone awhile?

Yeah, but we come back, every year. See old friends. It is a cozy house after all. We used to make it back three times a year. Mardi Gras, Halloween and Thanksgiving.”

“Mardi Gras?”

“Yes, Winona used to have a Mardi Gras parade. Really don’t know why the town stopped. Just before the cold set in. Whole town walking around, wearing masks. Hannibal, Hannibal Choate made a small fortune selling masks. Only in Winona would you hold it in November.” He chuckled, bouncing his shoulders up and down.

“I laugh, enjoy life on this side. I more than ever appreciate my Quaker upbringing. Inner spirit. Just like my mama said She’d lightly pound my chest and say the truth Wiiliam, is in here. She was my first teacher. Rest her soul. Now I wasn’t a perfect politician. I lost some good friends during the Sioux uprising of 1862 and my mind sought revenge. It was my congressional district and I felt responsible for its well being.”

“Starved them. Delayed extending credit and supplies. Simple as that. We were in the middle of the civil war. Money was tight in Washington. In hindsight we didn’t do the Indians well and when living I wanted to kill them all, least the Sioux whose burying places were where we settled. I contributed to the uprising and they were Indians. I didn’t think they were human. Forgot my Quaker spirit. Unconscionable I see now. Had to die to see it. Ugly part of man. Greed, greed. I mean it filled us. Lumber, railroad, Banking, all around this square. I still get a bit long winded. Politician and all.”

So you weren’t nice to the Sioux?”

“No, no.” Looking down and shaking his head. “Chased them all my years. Pushed for the hanging in Mankato.”

“Now you had your picture on the two dollar silver certificate?”

“Yes, yes a proud moment. And then…”

“And then?

“I took the land deal from the railroad. Sold me land on the cheap. Most people paid 5 bucks an acre and I think I paid less than a nickel.”

“Oh?”

“Took me a long time to get where I’m at. Had to do a bit of thinking on this other side. Peaceful, no guns over here. Winona? I would have stayed. I left Winona for New York in 1883 and died in 1891. I never saw Ellen as happy as she was in New York. She was a city girl at heart.”

“Well you were a money man. Two Presidents you served under.”

“I was Secretary of the Treasury. My neighbors were my first supporters. Lumber money, Railroad money, Banking money. But when I needed advice I would talk with CF. CF Buck. Judge, Lawyer and wit. Wasn’t very big and he was a mass of energy, nervous energy. I’m not sure he ever relaxed. Had a hard time sleeping and on Saturdays if you needed him the best bet would be to find him in the cemetery. I kid you not he visited the dead. Every Saturday. No one special, but he knew most everybody in this town, dead or alive. From its beginnings. He told me once he carried on conversations with the dead. He had a twinkle in his eye. Smart man and dammit every time I see him he reminds me that he got that right when living.”

“CF Buck kept a diary?”

“Did you talk to the bum?

“Drank his liquor and he said the diary was from Lawyer Buck but I let it slide him being a bum and all.”(previous chapter)

“Don’t let a mans clothes fool you. Especially in this town. I must admit after the war, the civil war I held out hopes, it would be the last war. There is no greatness to war. The pain lasts for a long time and over here you face your enemies, your demons. You see the devils seeds. I mean we were living in different times, but getting to see how another thinks. And don’t get me wrong, he showed me the front cover. Right there in CF Bucks handwriting, right on the front cover was a note to the man who found the journal.

“The diary?”

“I can’t say anymore. Judge Buck loves to talk with the living now that he is dead. Jokester, prankster. Great man, great man. I hear Ellen, nice talking with you.”

I came too. Goddam cars buzzing up and down Broadway. Is there no respect for the dead? A living cemetery in the center of our city and we pay it no attention. City getting run over. Faster, faster the machines of thought forgetting what was.