Reedsburg Students Welcome Popular Author

English 1 students at the Reedsburg campus recently hosted Harvey Baumgartner, Wisconsin author, modern-day Thoreau and Madison College graduate (class of 1966). They engaged the guest speaker in a lively, thoughtful discussion about writing, values and life.

Baumgartner’s recently published memoir, Dancing in the Dew: A New Way of Living on Planet Earth, chronicles his retreat from twenty-first century conveniences to a sod home with no electricity or plumbing. Its pages record the construction of his homestead from materials beneath his feet.

The result, featured in Mother Earth News, is a bright, comfortable, highly stylized abode. Niches hand-molded in the earthen walls with artifacts from nature and Native American culture caused one visitor to express the feeling of entering a church.

Over a four-month season, Baumgartner created his sod home by day and wrote in his daily journal by candlelight, reflecting on his philosophy of safeguarding the environment and on a lifetime of rugged, outdoor adventure.

One of those adventures was a 1983 family trip from Wisconsin to Wyoming—on horseback. With his wife, Cyndee, and their children, three and five years old, Harvey set off for the West, not knowing from day to day where his family would stay or what they might encounter.

The Reedsburg English students had been informed by their instructor, Bob Potter, that a book about Harvey’s cross-country horseback trip was in the works. Aware that asking questions is an important part of the prewriting process, they had prepared dozens of questions for their guest. Most of the questions concerned practical matters such as routes taken, sleeping arrangements, meals, hazards encountered, and care of their small children en route.

Baumgartner fielded those questions in detail, his responses replete with colorful anecdotes. Harvey expressed gratitude to students for their questions, as readers of his next book will undoubtedly be curious about those same details.

One student finally broached the large question that was one everyone’s mind: “Why?” Why would a man embark on a four-month horseback trip across the country with his wife and two young children? Harvey’s gaze intensified, and conviction fortified his soft-spoken manner as he relived his stressful, frenetic lifestyle as a construction superintendent, juggling multiple commercial projects around the state, sleeping fitfully with myriad mundane particulars invading his dreams. He recalled the inner voice asking what was really important to him.

The answer was clear—a return to the fundamentals: family, nature and an existential knowledge of life, and spirit. He found all of these and more traveling across the land at four miles per hour, trusting in God and his fellow man along the way.

The guest author’s visit to Reedsburg was beneficial to him as well as enriching for students in that English 1 class. Students’ questions generated a wealth of interesting detail for Baumgartner’s next book, and his story caused them to reflect deeply on their own values and goals at a crucial time in their lives.

Photo: Reedsburg instructor Bob Potter presents Harvey Baumgartner with a Madison Area Technical College sweatshirt in appreciation of his visit.