Neither has the up-front-and-center prominence in my news feed that the annual Los Angeles fires get: and that’s another topic.
The good news, part of it, for me is that today’s smoke situation isn’t nearly as bad as the weekend’s. Getting to Mass Sunday morning, the sun had a distinct red hue: cheery or ominous, depending on the observer’s mood. 😉
That’s about all I had to say. I’ve talked about this sort of thing before:
Bemidji, Minnesota: halfway between International Falls and Fargo, North Dakota.
Two tourists in Canada asked someone which city they were in. The man replied, “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan”. One of the tourists said “oh! They don’t speak English here!”
I haven’t heard that one in more than a half-century, there’s a lead-up that makes it funnier, but never mind. This week I’m talking about a place in Minnesota, and a salesman who asked for help.
Sauk Centre, Minnesota, on U.S. 71/MN 28, looking north from near the Interstate.
This was back when I was working for a small publishing house here in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. I don’t remember if I was doing advertising copy and graphic design for them at the time, or was being the ‘computer guy’. Anyway —
One day I was getting (another) cup of coffee, when the receptionist/switchboard/keystone — you get the idea, and admittedly that’s my view of the company’s workings.
Anyway, this person took most of the incoming calls. And on that day, she’d taken one that was worth sharing.
A salesman, I think that was his job, had called, asking for help. He knew that Vocational Biographies, the company we worked for, was in Minnesota.
A Reasonable Question, Basically
Bemidji, Minnesota. There’s more to the town than Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. 😉
His job involved going to a place called Bemidji, Minnesota. The trip had nothing to do with Vocational Biographies, but apparently he figured that since we were in Minnesota, we’d know about this place with the strange-sounding name.
Well, of course, we did.
Both me and the company’s keystone knew about Bemidji. It’s a fair-size town, two and a half or three hours north of here: depending on weather.
Okay, fair enough. Traveling to a place you haven’t been to before, getting informed about regional conditions. The salesman was making sense.
Remember: this was before everybody carried little cigarette-case-sized gizmos they could use to look up anything from Bemidji’s current weather to the price of peanuts in Perth.1
Where was I? Someone from the civilized lands making travel plans. Right.
Giving the man credit, he’d already booked a seat on a commercial airline that’d take him to Minnesota’s Twin Cities. I’m guessing the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.
So far, so good. He knew that Bemidji was north of the airport, beyond the Twin Cities metro area. And he apparently figured — or hoped — that some outfit in the Twin Cities provided rental vehicles.
He was right about that. You’ll find rental outfits in many Minnesota towns, certainly all the larger ones.
That’s not what had the company’s keystone laughing.
This man had, quite seriously, asked if he’d need an off-road/all-terrain vehicle to reach Bemidji, Minnesota.
Rentals and Regional Transportation
Looking north on U.S. Highway 71, between Sebeka and Menahga, Minnesota. (August 2024)
The answer, basically, was no.
Although folks can rent off-road vehicles, boats, trailers, campers, and log splitters around these parts; we’ve got paved roads connecting pretty much every town and village. And did, back when he made his call.
So he could have rented a car at the airport. And, provided that he could read a road map, or ask directions along the way, driven himself to Bemidji.
Odds are that with a little checking he could have found a regional airline flight to the Bemidji Airport and rented a car there. Or chartered with Bemidji Airlines. Both of which were up and running by the time he called, and had been for decades.2
Routes and Decisions
Minnesota Highway 371, near Backus, looking north. (August 2023)
But, again, I’m giving the man credit for thinking ahead.
I’d have been a bit more impressed if he’d asked which route was best.
Starting from the Twin Cities, I’d probably take Interstate 94 to Sauk Centre, then head north on U.S. 71. But that’s mainly because I live in Sauk Centre, and know the roads around this town.
But if I was driving, and wanted to go the more direct route, I’d take the Interstate to Monticello, then jog over to U.S. 10 and head north. That’d take about four hours, and is what a query that used Google Maps told me. The same query told me I could spend $188 and fly there, airport-to-airport, in an hour.
Taking a more scenic and cultural route — which no salesman in his right mind would do, unless he’d already lined up another job — would involve leaving U.S. 10 in Little Falls.
The Minnesota Fishing Museum and Hall of Fame, and a bunch of other places are there: more than enough to take up a day or so. Definitely “or so”: for me, at least, or someone like me.
Then Minnesota Highway 371, heading north, goes to Bemidji: by way of places you’ll never hear of if you don’t live there.3 Which is probably true of many ‘vacation spots’.
Deep in the Heart of Darkest Minnesota —
A small unit vehicle, or SUS-V, used by the Minnesota National Guard for winter operations.
So: what, if anything, is the point of all this?
For one thing, I’m on the same page as our former employer’s keystone: I think that asking if someone would need an off-road vehicle to reach Bemidji was funny. For another: it’s been a while since I’ve talked about life here: deep in the heart of darkest Minnesota.
Perceptions and Living in Minnesota
New York City, West Street, looking north near Morris Street.
First of all, Sauk Centre, Minnesota, is not New York City. And Minnesota is not much like Hawaii.
To this day, I regret not clipping and saving a headline from my youth: “Minnesota National Guard Arctic Maneuvers Canceled Due to Inclement Weather”. It’s not among my major regrets, and that’s another topic.
I don’t know why that particular cancellation made headlines. It’s something that happens now and then: and I think shows more about Minnesota’s weather than it does about National Guard preparedness. Sometimes, during winter, the smart thing is to stay inside and wait until it’s safe to bring out the heavy equipment.
Even if I could afford living in a major city like New York or Chicago, I’d prefer living here in Sauk Centre. I figure there are folks who’d rather live in either of those urban centers, than here: where we don’t even have a Starbucks.
But over the decades, I’ve gotten the impression that folks living out here in the vastness between the coasts know a lot more about places like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Seattle, then folks living there know about our areas.
That’s inevitable: for the same reasons that wildfires near Los Angeles were national news, and wildfires in Minnesota’s Arrowhead region aren’t.
An Impression, and Something to Remember
I would, however, prefer not having also gotten the impression that a fair fraction of folks, when they think of us at all, imagine that we’re in a retroworld: inhabiting atavistic realms that — aren’t quite right.
“…Without knowing why, one hesitates to ask directions from the gnarled, solitary figures spied now and then on crumbling doorsteps or on the sloping, rock-strown meadows….” (“The Dunwich Horror” , H. P. Lovecraft (1928, published in Weird Tales 18929))
Sure, nobody’s going to imagine the Lovecraft was writing travelogues. But like I said: I have gotten the impression that a non-trivial fraction of my fellow-Americans profoundly don’t understand what life is like, out here in the boonies.
As for me, having lived both here and on the west coast: I love it here, and try to remember that urbanites are not like the stock characters I’ve seen on screen. Not those I’ve known, at any rate.
I’ve talked about attitudes, assumptions, and realities, before:
Since I’m mostly doing something else this week, I’ll talk about two mice. I didn’t see either, but I did hear one; and that’s the one I’ll start with.
The Resident Mouse and Me: Another San Francisco Memory
I was working at Pellegrini Refrigeration’s office/warehouse for most of the time I lived in San Francisco. The office section was big enough for — a dozen or more folks, I suppose.
The break corner, between the front office where I worked and the main room, was just an L-shaped bench, wrapped around a small table: very basic. It wouldn’t have held more than maybe four or five people comfortably.
I had the place to myself, except when a technician or salesman came through. Which suited me fine, although that’s why my employer hadn’t found anyone who’d work there more than a week or so before quitting.
Anyway, that break corner was good enough for me as another place to sit while eating lunch. More than good enough. I had room for whatever I was eating, a cup of coffee, and whatever I was reading.
Just Another Quiet Day, Until —
I’d been eating and reading, sitting on the bench with my back against the wall shared by the offices and the warehouse. The place had its usual tranquil ambience. Then I shifted my right foot. Just a little.
That’s when I heard, down by my right foot, a high-pitched but sincere scream.
Not a squeak. A scream.
Followed by the sound of frantic skittering: first toward the wall I’d been sitting against, then along the wall toward the back of the office/warehouse.
As the skittering faded into the distance, it fell into a rhythm: ‘skitter-skitter-skitter-THUMP-skitter-skitter-skitter-THUMP….’
The wall was finished on my side, but had open wooden studs on the other. The mouse apparently had access to the offices under the bench, but preferred the less-occupied warehouse side for retreat. And was running along the wall, hitting each stud on the way.
And at mouse-scale, my shoe would have been the size of a truck.
From the mouse’s viewpoint, it probably seemed a stable part of the environment, like the table legs. Until it moved!!!!
Judging by the sound, I’m guessing the mouse was right next to my shoe when I shifted my foot. Can’t say I blame the little critter for screaming.
Encounter in the Library
Livingston Lord Library, MSU: the card catalog as it was when the place was new.
The other ‘mouse story’ is from my father’s experience. Back then, the MSU library had a card catalog: dozens and dozens of drawers packed with three-by-five inch cards that helped folks find books.
Actually, it was the data on the cards, and how it was sorted: and that’s another topic.
The point is that there had to be a lot of room for people in front of those banks of drawers. And even then it could get crowded, if lots of us were making similar searches.
After hours, on the other hand, there’s nothing quite so empty as a library. Particularly after the lights are out.
That brings me to my father’s mouse.
He’d come — my father, that is, not the mouse — to the library in off-hours, I don’t remember why, with some other folks. It was after sunset, so they’d been turning on lights as they entered different areas.
When they got to the card catalog area, they noticed that they weren’t alone.
For humans, when there isn’t a crowd, the card catalog had abundant elbow room.
For a mouse, it would have been an immense void. With a linoleum floor, that gives pretty good traction for our shoes: and almost none to a mouse’s tiny claws.
That night, there was a mouse on the floor. Yards away from a wall or any other shelter.
The mouse was running with the energy of an Olympic sprinter, moving with the speed of a lethargic turtle. If it had slowed down and started walking, it would have made faster progress. But it would have taken great presence of mind to realize that.
If the lights going on hadn’t started the mouse running, the humans’ arrival did.
That’s where my memory of Dad’s account ends, and so does this week’s post.
Tony Webster’s image: Itasca State Park, Minnesota, a little south of Preacher’s Grove. (June 2017)
Growing up, my folks and I would go to Itasca State Park, north of Park Rapids, in Minnesota’s lake country.
The place has changed since then, a little.
The place I remember as a parking area, a little north of the Mississippi headwaters, where the river officially starts, isn’t there any more. It was about a thousand feet east of the Mary Gibbs Mississippi Headwaters Center.
Google Maps says that spot is the “Headwaters Concession Ruins”.
The new Mississippi Headwaters Center was under construction the last time I was there.
More accurately, at that time it would be under construction. All we saw was a sizeable clearing that’d been cut in the forest. My folks and I noticed it after following a foot trail westward from the headwaters. I don’t remember when. Maybe late 1960s.
New buildings. A place I remember labeled as a ruins. Change happens.
But the Mississippi Headwaters is still there, and so is the forest.
One of my favorite parts of Itasca was Preacher’s Grove, about halfway along the east side of Lake Itasca toward the Douglas Lodge area. I went there, virtually, this week: using Google Street View and Photo Spheres.1
There’s more ankle-high-plus-a-bit undergrowth there now, than what I remember; and less undergrowth-free pine-needle-carpeted ground.
Maybe that’s due to efforts at restoring a particular pattern of growth, maybe my folks and I were there during dry periods. It still looks like a nice place, though.
The Picture-Taker and a Trail Near the Tiptoeing Ghost
Lovely, isn’t it? Poison ivy: looks nice, gives most folks a rash.
One time — I don’t remember how old I was at the time — my folks and I went walking in the Douglas Lodge area, down near the south end of Lake Itasca’s east arm.
They’d noted, another time, that on maps of the lake, it looks like a tiptoeing ghost. I like the comparison.
At any rate, Dad was an enthusiastic picture-taker — or photographer, if I wanted it to sound fancier.
Either way, he was pretty good at it: and he knew what he wanted the picture to look like. That often involved him moving around before clicking the shutter.
Dad had gone a few yards off a trail before turning to get a photo of Mom and me. Undergrowth was thick, but not much more than ankle-high. Dad got the picture, and then looked down at the patch of undergrowth he’d been standing in.
Some places, there’s a variety of plants growing.
Here, there were several square yards of some plant with glossy green leaves. Leaves with pointed tips that came mostly in clusters of three.
Dad may have been wrong about this, but at the time he identified it as poison ivy.2
I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have waded into a lush bed of poison ivy, even if it was a good spot for picture-taking. Not intentionally. And this time he definitely hadn’t realized what he’d been walking through.
The Curious Case of the Absent Rash
Hardyplants’ photo, taken in Minnesota: poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans. (summer of 2008)
I don’t remember our hurrying, but I do recall that it wasn’t much time before we were back where we’d been staying. And that Dad was particularly industrious about cleaning his feet and legs.
Oddly enough, he didn’t get a rash. Maybe that’s because he’d been wearing thickish socks and pants. Or — and this is something we considered as a strong possibility — Dad was one of those folks who aren’t particularly affected by poison ivy.
I’m not all that unlike him — although my sense of smell is even more emphatically lacking than his — but I haven’t made a point of testing my poison ivy resistance. That’s not, I think, so much a sign of good sense: as me seeing such a test as being a daft idea.
Sure, I’m curious: but the benefit-risk ratio is highly unfavorable.
And, after my wife and I married, she’d have had words if I’d made the test.
First, the good news. The open sore on my left leg is not infected.
Frustrating news: it’s still there. And, recently, it started getting bigger again. I’m told that’s because the stuff oozing out of it is mildly acidic, and breaks down skin that it’s in prolonged contact with. Unpleasant.
On the other hand, the stuff being mildly acidic may help account for the sore not being infected, and that — again — is good news.
So now my wife and I are still changing the the dressing we’ve got over the sore daily, now using material that’s more absorbent. And I’ll be back to the clinic again next week.
At this point, I’d start talking about why using my brain and taking care of my health — within reason — and being Catholic isn’t a problem. But I went over that back in February, so I’ll just use the same excerpt I did then:
“…Prayer is good idea. So is getting and staying healthy. Within reason. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1506-1510, 2288-2289, 2292)
“Some Saints were sickly, but that’s not what makes them Saints. Being healthy or being sick is okay. It’s how we act that matters. (Catechism, 828, 1509, 2211, 2288-2291, 2292-2296, 2448)…” (“Editing Genes, Ethically” > Being Healthy: Within Reason (August 18, 2017)
This sore has been around for more than a month now. But now it’s not infected, which I’ll see as good news. This post is a follow-up from one last month:
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
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More Perspectives From the Catholic Laity:
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
That’s about all I had to say. I’ve talked about this sort of thing before:
