Ghost Dog Gone?

Most of Fort Wayne’s numerous haunted places are said to be frequented by spirits that are decidedly humanoid in aspect: the ghost of one Lt. Philip Ostrander roams the city’s namesake Old Fort; a mysterious woman wearing a white, flowing gown is sometimes seen crossing Main Street Bridge west of Van Buren Street; the restless phantom of a maintenance man prowls the dark backstage of the Embassy Theatre. The list goes on.

A notable exception is Wells Street Bridge, which legend says is troubled not by a spectral biped but rather by a devil-dog with glowing eyes that barks at – and sometimes chases – cyclists who ride across the span late on dark, cold nights. The general advice for those who encounter this creepy canine is to forget the “Dog Halt!” spray and instead put the mettle to the pedals, and get out of there as quickly as your legs can spin.

Wells Street Bridge is a landmark of downtown Fort Wayne. The 180-foot-long structure across St. Marys River was built in 1884, closed to motor vehicles in 1982, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. It’s one of only a handful of 19^th century iron truss bridges built in U.S. urban areas that have survived the inexorable march of progress.

For decades the bridge was a fairly quiet, isolated place, but it now anchors the west end of Promenade Park, a 4-acre riverfront development project opened in August 2019 that includes such amenities as an amphitheater, a craft been café, a floating kayak launch, a tree canopy trail, and a children’s playground. The $20 million project took two years to complete.

Now, this promenade is obviously a nice little addition to Fort Wayne’s growing list of attractions, but my worry – in the midst of all the breathless hoopla surrounding the park’s grand opening – is that the months of noisy, intensive construction might have displaced the legendary ghost dog from its home on Wells Street Bridge.

In recent weeks, as the nights have grown longer, darker, and colder, I’ve climbed aboard my bicycle and indulged in a series of nocturnal “test rides” across the venerable old bridge in an effort to coax the devil-dog into appearing. So far, no luck – but I like to think that the mystery still lurks there, biding its time until the nights are even longer, darker, and colder before it once again harries brave or foolhardy cyclists who dare to cross the river in the wee hours.

Interview in brief: Al Stoller, Fort Wayne’s thrill-seeking wing-walker

For as long as he can remember, Al Stoller has been a thrill seeker. Growing up in Paulding County, Ohio, he was a member of the high school rocket club. After graduating from college and moving to Fort Wayne, he got into drag-racing cars – “legal and illegal” – before taking up skydiving, a pursuit that lasted until he broke his ankle. Next came aerobatic flying, and in 2013 Stoller attended an academy in Seattle, Washington, to learn how to wing-walk. Since then he’s been up more than 15 times, including performances at air shows. Last year, at age 71, he was featured in a Japanese documentary about seniors with unusual hobbies.

How would you describe the sensation of wing-walking?

The academy [in Seattle] teaches you all the specifics – the three points of contact, the propeller blast, where you can put your feet so you don’t step through the fabric wing. When you first climb out of the cockpit, you’re so overwhelmed, four of your five senses are on total overload. You’ve got adrenaline flowing through your body like you wouldn’t believe. It’s really, really hard to think because you’ve got so much going on that’s never happened before in your life. So you’ve got to develop muscle memory so you don’t even have to think about where to put your hands or where to grab onto.

What happens once you’re up in the air?

You climb up to 3,000 feet. It’s an open-cockpit biplane with a 450-horsepower rotary engine. I’m in the front cockpit; the pilot always flies in the back. You climb onto the top wing, and you’ve got to maneuver your way through some wires and then strap a belt on because there’s nothing to hold onto. You’re just standing there. Then you do loops and rolls. Then the pilot levels out. You get back down in the cockpit, and then climb out between the two wings and do the same aerobatics over again. I’ve got the point where I just stand up and the air pressure, the wind, holds me against the two cables. That way I can give thumbs up and wave to the crowd. The whole flight takes about 30 minutes, and the actual wing-walking is about 15 or 20 minutes.

Do you ever feel scared when you’re up there?

Your senses and instincts tell you to be afraid, but the thrill seeker inside of you says, “Nah, go for it.” I would say 75 percent of the people that do go up, if they hadn’t committed so much money and time, they would never climb out of the cockpit. The 25 percent of the thrill seekers just can’t wait to do it, but their senses still tell them, “You shouldn’t be doing this, you should be afraid,” but you just throw that aside and go for it.

Photo: Patrick Downs

 

 

 

 

 

Burmese refugees build community in Fort Wayne

Listen to the personal histories of refugees and asylum seekers from Burma who have settled in Fort Wayne, and you will hear a litany of travails unimaginable to most Americans: Teenagers thrown in jail for expressing admiration for democratic principles; ethnic and religious minorities whose hometowns were obliterated by their own country’s army; adults who have spent most of their lives in refugee camps and, as a result, retain few first-hand memories of their native land or culture.

Among them is Ven Kuthala, who arrived in the United States in 2002 on a religious visa and later attained asylum status. He now serves as senior monk at the Burmese Buddhist Temple on Tillman Road in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

As a college student in Burma’s main city of Yangon, Ven Kuthala was arrested in 1988 for participating in demonstrations aimed at transforming the country’s brutal dictatorship into a democracy. While an estimated 3,000 activists were gunned down in the streets by the army, Ven Kuthala described himself as “very lucky” to serve only 18 days in jail. Upon his release he rejoined the protests, but with the government crackdown intensifying, he was soon forced to flee to neighboring Thailand, where he became a Buddhist monk.

“I was not a legal migrant in Thailand, so I had to move from temple to temple every three or four months,” he said. “I didn’t want to spend my life like that, so I got a religious visa to settle in the United States and later applied for asylum.”

Ven Kuthala became a resident at the Burmese Buddhist Temple, taking over leadership in 2005 after the previous senior monk moved to California. In addition to his religious duties, much of his time is now dedicated to helping refugees from Burma adjust to life in Fort Wayne.

“Most refugees are displaced persons,” he said. “From 1988, the military junta launched military offensives along the border. Some villages completely disappeared, and the people moved into refugee camps in Thailand. Some lived in the camps for 10, 15, 20 years.”

He said that once refugees arrive in the United States, their main challenge is overcoming the language barrier. But they also need to find jobs quickly and deal with other aspects of daily life that most Americans take for granted. 

“I help people with everything they need: applying for social security cards, doing their taxes,” Ven Kuthala said. “Other things are social: family matters, enrolling kids in school. They need advice. Some people tell me about phone calls requesting money or saying they are from the IRS. I explain that these are called scammers.” 

Many refugees who live in Fort Wayne – from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union – arrive under a resettlement program run by the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, funded by federal grants under a cooperative agreement with the State Department.

According to Catholic Charities, about 200,000 Burmese refugees have resettled in the United States since 1990, with Fort Wayne hosting some 6,000 of those. While many early refugees fled political persecution, more recent arrivals have included Muslims and Christians escaping persecution in the Buddhist-majority Burma.

The program’s resettlement director, Nyein Chan, is himself a political refugee from Burma who was involved in the 1988 uprising against the military dictatorship. He arrived in the U.S. in 1994 and began working with Catholic Charities in 2000.

“The first barrier we experience is the language barrier,” he said. “Some people can pick up some level of English from the refugee camps, especially younger refugees. But some refugees are illiterate even in their own language, so it takes lots of time to learn.”

Nyein Chan said that the second biggest challenge is cultural integration, a process that also takes time and does not always proceed smoothly.

Last October, Fort Wayne City Councilmen Glynn Hines (6^th District) hosted a community forum on Burmese resettlement. Several people aired complaints at the meeting about the behavior of some of their Burmese neighbors, including cooking outside, littering, neglecting their lawns, and painting their houses “circus colors.”

“Some people see this behavior among refugees and think, ‘Oh, it’s Burmese culture,’” Nyein Chan said. “But the reality is that refugee camp culture is divorced from the Burmese culture. Even though they’re called Burmese refugees, they don’t even know what Burma looks like. We don’t experience orange houses in Burma, believe me. This is a culture where they grow up in very crowded refugee camps – 45,000 people in a very small space. Sometimes it takes time to let go of that lifestyle.”

In the face of these challenges, Catholic Charities does its best with 11 staff members to facilitate rapid integration, including arranging housing, helping with job placement, and offering an initial five-day cultural orientation program about the basics of life in the U.S., such as law enforcement and how devices like fire alarms and thermostats work. The program continues for 90 days, with a mid-term orientation within 45 days of their arrival.

“We ask how they feel after two months in the United States. They say they love very much living here, but refugees always compare it with how they recently lived,” Nyein Chan said. “One thing they’re not happy with is the food. Even if they get food from the Asian grocery store, they say it tastes different. And when people arrive in wintertime, the weather is very challenging. Other than that, they always say, ‘Thank you so much. We are very happy.’ After three months, they even look different: complexion glowing, they put on a little bit of weight.”

After orientation, Catholic Charities refers the new arrivals to its job development program, where they spend six weeks learning how to dress for an interview, the importance of eye contact, the American work ethic, and workplace behavior. Employment services are offered up to five years from their arrival date. The Fort Wayne program boasts a highly successful job placement rate, with more than 89 percent employed within four to six months of their arrival.   

Other services offered by Catholic Charities include medical transportation, language interpretation, and after-school programs for the children who need help with their homework.

The City of Fort Wayne also does its part to welcome refugees to the area. Palermo Galindo, the community liaison with the mayor’s office, works citywide to help immigrants understand processes like applying for building permits, starting businesses, or finding information about jobs. He also fosters good relationships with all immigrant communities.

“I always ask people who call with specific complaints [about immigrants], ‘Have you talked to your neighbor about what’s going on with the trash or with the lawn?’ And they say, ‘No, I haven’t,’” Mr. Galindo said. “I think that’s the first step. If they say, ‘I don’t know if they’ll understand’ – well, you’ve got to try it first. A very small percentage of people are maybe not following the rules or the city ordnance. Just like any group.”

He stressed that immigrant communities also play a key role in facilitating the acculturation process.

“We started good relationships with [immigrant communities]. Now a lot of people know me. That relationship has to continue to grow and provide opportunities to establish a dialogue within the community. I see that as a win-win for everyone,” he said. “If they become isolated as a community, there are so many things happening with the city that they might not know about, and that could affect them not growing with the same pace as the city.”

He added that from his own experience as an immigrant from Mexico, he has seen first-hand the benefits of living in a city that is open and welcoming to newcomers. “I do my very best to represent the city to the community, and pay that as a way to show how thankful I am that I have been provided with an opportunity,” he said.

Despite the challenges of language and acculturation, the dedication of people like Mr. Galindo, Nyein Chan, and Ven Kuthala has helped many refugees not only settle but also prosper in Fort Wayne.  

Javier Mondragon, pastor of Many Nations Church and head of the Bridge of Grace nonprofit organization, said he has had only good experiences working with the Burmese community, and has seen many success stories.

“I’ve seen Burmese families buying properties that were vacant or blighted in the community, and they fixed them. And so that’s good for the community,” he said, adding that while some grievances he has received about immigrants are related to city code enforcement, other complaints, like house color, are less consequential. “A color, being different, doesn’t mean that it’s bad. We try to tell them, ‘Have you talked to them?’ I think the first step is just going to them and talk as friends and neighbors.”

Ye Win Latt from the Burmese Muslim Education and Community Center said he has also seen increasing numbers of Burmese buying houses, which is “a positive contribution to the locals and the homeowners as well.”

“Most of the Burmese spend their time in refugee camps, and this is the first time they are living free and becoming homeowners. Of course that’s not an excuse to be not complying with all the codes and regulations in place, but at the same time we are part of the community, and if there is any issue, we like to be part of the solution too,” he said.

Nyein Chan said Catholic Charities and other organizations do as much as they can with limited resources, but successful integration into American society requires effort from everyone.   

“Sometimes you have a big heart for helping people, but without additional resources you can’t go very far,” he said. “When we’re talking about integration, it concerns people who live here and people who come in. If we are going to put aside the title of ‘refugee’ in an immigrant country like the United States, it concerns people who arrived a long time ago, those coming recently, and those who are still coming. We have to learn from each other.”

 

Cyclocross un-paves the way

Most of the time, the grassy expanse of Bloomingdale Park just north of St. Mary’s River and west of Wells Street is a picture of tranquility. On Wednesday evenings from August to December, however, it becomes a gathering spot for some of Fort Wayne’s most daring and adrenaline-addicted cyclists.

The 30 or so athletes – ranging in age from pre-teen to 50-something – congregate at 6 pm to pedal laps on a mile-long course that twists and turns across the lawn and through shady tree groves. The unpaved track seems designed for burly mountain bikes, but most participants favor lightweight bikes equipped with road-style dropped handlebars and knobby, all-terrain tires.

The sport is called cyclocross, a type of off-road bicycle racing that originated in Europe at the turn of the 20^th century but has only recently gained a foothold in the United States. According to the sport’s governing body, USA Cycling, cyclocross is now the fastest-growing cycling discipline in the country, with participation more than quadrupling in the past decade.

Fort Wayne’s riverside training races, sponsored by Fort Wayne Outfitters and now in their tenth year, have easily kept pace with the nationwide explosion in popularity.

“It’s kind of neat to watch the sport grow from five people showing up 10 years ago to 30 people on a Wednesday night now,” said Chad Tieman, who helps organize the rides.

Cyclocross courses are designed to test fitness and bike-handling skills, and might include anything from grass, mud and sand to sharp turns, steep hills and low barricades that force cyclists to dismount and carry their bikes for short distances. With the season running from late summer into winter, riders also face variable weather conditions, from 90 degrees and dry in August to 20 degrees and snowing in December.

“Cyclocross is ever-changing,” said Tieman. “It’s not like a paved road where you ride in a straight line for hours. Cyclocross keeps you on your game and keeps your mind moving.”

For serious cyclists, the Wednesday rides serve as preparation for the Ohio Valley Cyclocross Series, consisting of 10 race weekends in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, and other cities in the region.

“If you go to a race in Cincinnati, you’ll probably see 40 racers from Fort Wayne, and half of them finish on the podium in their category,” said Tieman. “I really credit these Wednesday nights. It really pushes you, riding with your friends.”

With gutsy cyclists blazing through multiple laps on short courses that double back on themselves, cyclocross is more spectator-friendly than other cycling disciplines. Fans at weekend races are rambunctious, shouting, heckling, ringing cowbells and offering hand-ups of beer to racers.

“One reason I like cyclocross is the guy in first place doesn’t always get a lot of applause,” said Tieman. “It’s the guy who’s in last, who’s trying his hardest, who gets the most cheering. I love that. It’s the coolest thing about the sport.”

Dave McComb, who organizes separate Wednesday night training races at Franke Park under the auspices of 3 Rivers Velo Sport Cycling Club, said another attraction of cyclocross is the short, intense nature of the races compared with road or mountain bike events, which means less training for time-crunched adults.

“When I had children, I got into cyclocross because it really fit the lifestyle of a masters [age 35-plus] racer with kids. You don’t have to ride your bike 12 hours a week to be good at a 45-minute race,” he said.

While the Franke Park sessions are free, Fort Wayne Outfitters charges $10 to ride each week. The fee covers insurance, course maintenance, and post-ride food and drinks. It also includes a donation to Neighborlink, a nonprofit that mobilizes volunteers to provide free home repairs for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

Neighborlink also sponsors a grassroots cyclocross team, organized by Andrew Hoffman, who said money raised last year through the sport was used to install six new furnaces and repair a dozen more in local homes.

Hoffman said that although cyclocross might appear intimidating to the uninitiated, newcomers should not be afraid to show up on Wednesdays and give it a try.

“You don’t have to have a cyclocross bike, and you don’t have to be hyper-competitive. Just bring your mountain bike and give it a shot,” he said. “The local cycling community is extremely welcoming to new people, regardless of your skill or how fast you are.”

A slightly modified version of this story was originally published in the November 2017 issue of Fort Wayne Magazine.