Through the Banks of the Red Cedar: My Father and the Team That Changed the Game

by Maya Washington

On Sundays we’d attend Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis as a family. I spent Mass in the childcare room playing with kids of every race. It was a real hippie church led by Father Harvey Egan, who looked a lot like Willie Nelson to me. They had guitars and amps and projected the song lyrics on a giant screen next to the altar, which was positioned at one end of the school gymnasium. Often the Communion and closing hymns might be a secular song like “Shower the People” or “You’ve Got a Friend” performed in the style of Carole King and James Taylor. Our world was always diverse and mostly intersectional in our understanding of loving your neighbor as yourself, but very much compartmentalized geographically between Minneapolis and the western suburbs.