James Liddy, like many distinguished Milwaukeeans, came from abroad to enrich the life of our city. He was born in Dublin, raised in Wexford, educated in the law at Trinity College and in poetry at Ireland’s pubs. Liddy came to America in search of the ecstatic writing life he’d found in Jack Kerouac’s books. He found it here.
He died in November at age 74. He had taught English at UW-Milwaukee for 32 years and published 20 books – with three new books scheduled for publication after his death. A student asked if I thought there might be a university building named after such an important professor. That seemed a long shot. Though beloved as a raconteur, James wasn’t much of a fundraiser for the university, and it’s cash on the barrelhead that puts names on buildings.
Still, the idea of publicly memorializing such a public man stuck with me, and I began to muse about it. Liddy didn’t drive, but he happily traveled his adopted city on foot, or more often, on his beloved Milwaukee County Transit System. He loved public transportation and the No. 15 bus line. It carried him, car-free and carefree, along Oakland Avenue from Sendik’s to Park Street, where he lived, or to the South Side to Chez Jacques.
So why not name a bus in his honor? They name boats after people. Aer Lingus puts the name of Irish saints on each plane. There’s even a crater on planet Mercury named after Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.
Then it struck me: If there could be an MCT James Liddy, why not an MCT Frank Zeidler? (The MCT, you see, would refer to Milwaukee County Transit, just as HMS prefixes a British ship’s name.) There’s no shortage of famous Milwaukeeans who could be honored with their own bus.
Like civil rights activists Vel Phillips, Dr. James Cameron of the Black Holocaust Museum, and James Groppi. Groppi, of course, drove a bus and was once president of the drivers’ union. And what about Charles Whitnall, the visionary architect of Milwaukee’s park system? Or Socialist Mayor Dan Hoan, who added buses to our transportation system because the buses picked up passengers at the curb rather than in the middle of traffic, like the trolleys.
Lawyers and conservatives should applaud the choice of Shorewood’s William Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Diplomat George Kennan and bandleader Woody Herman surely rate a bus, as does George Burnham, creator of Cream City brick. There’s actor Spencer Tracy, astronaut James Lovell and world figure Golda Meir. And can we leave out Liberace?
So I tested public opinion, mainly on route 15, quizzing drivers and passengers about the idea. Opinions were mostly favorable. One passenger had an inspired idea: putting a short bio of the namesake inside the bus, perhaps on one of the overhead advertising cards. Another suggested each bus line take the name of someone identified with the area of the route: Liberace on the No. 18 (through West Milwaukee and West Allis) or Cameron on No. 21 (along North Avenue, where he founded his now-foundering museum, which city officials have moved to rescue).
Next I called the Wisconsin Humanities Council. Naturally, if you start a new program, even a pretty inexpensive one like this, you’re going to encounter those pointy-headed naysayers asking where would the money come from? I asked a Humanities Council grants officer if such a project qualified for support. It did, I learned, so long as the names are chosen by professionals in the humanities – literature, history and so on.
Next up: the Milwaukee County Transit System. Jacqueline Janz, the marketing director, liked the idea, as did its president, Anita Gulotta-Connelly. It was unique, Janz said – they could find no bus system in the U.S. with such a program. But it would have to be approved by the County Board, she noted.
Board members have been struggling to find funding to keep the system going. What better way to remind us of their value than by linking the buses to the city’s history? That’s the point here – that public transportation is in fact public. Beyond its environmental or economic advantages, the transit system is something that literally connects us. Whenever you take a bus, you join a small community that is part of the whole community.
At the memorial mass for James Liddy, a young fellow told me this story: “Once James was riding my regular bus, so I took him up and down the aisle, introducing him to all the regulars, telling them about his poems. He shook hands with everyone, and they were all so proud to meet this great poet on their bus.”
That kind of pride in our community heroes might just spread, from bus to bus to bus, reminding us whenever they pass that we’re all in this together.
