Minnesota Lawmaker Killed: Too Close to Home 0 (0)

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Brian H. Gill

Update, 9:55 a.m. June 16, 2025.

The person who has been suspected and accused of attacking these people was found and arrested yesterday. I see that as very good news.

Investigation into what happened, how it happened, and who all (if any, besides the accused) was involved is, I gather, still happening. I see that as good news, too.

I also see that I made at least one mistake while writing this post, mixing up the Hortman and Hoffman names. Small wonder, that: I write it in a hurry Saturday morning. I’ve marked the errors with strikethrough, and added a corrected name in bold in one place.

Meanwhile, at least one politico has said something daft, unnecessary, and — well, that’s par for the course.

Finally, I am emphatically not happy about what happened, I’m glad that the suspect has been arrested and is still alive, and haven’t decided whether or not I should spend more time, writing about these killings and the issues involved.
Brian H. Gill

I’ve lived in Minnesota for most of my life. My home state doesn’t often make international news, and I’m not happy about why it’s making headlines today:

It’s not all bad news. One couple is dead, but another may survive.

“On June 14, 2025, Melissa Hortman, a representative in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and her husband were shot and killed in their home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. John Hoffman, a senator in the Minnesota Senate, and his wife were also in their home in nearby Champlin. Hoffman and his wife were injured, but officials were ‘cautiously optimistic’ they would survive….”
(2025 Minnesota lawmaker shootings, Wikipedia (ca. 11:00 a.m. June 14, 2025))

Brooklyn Park and Champlin, Minnesota, are on the north side of Minnesota’s Twin Cities: Minneapolis and Saint Paul.1

I’m guessing that the survivors are still alive because police showed up, checking on their welfare, after the first killings.

“What we know about the cop-impersonating gunman who killed Minnesota lawmaker”
Joe Nelson, Bring Me The News (10:48 a.m. June 14, 2025)

“…According to Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans, the Hoffmans were shot around 2 a.m. when a man impersonating a police officer showed up to their house in Champlin Park and shot them both multiple times.

“Then, around 3:35 a.m., the suspect went to the Hortman home in Brooklyn Park and fatally shot Speaker Hortman and her husband before exchanging gunfire with police….”

Seems that when police learned that the Hoffmans had been killed, they sent officers to check on the Hortmans: and met the alleged suspect coming out.

Good News, Bad News

That’s arguably a mix of good news and bad news.

Good news, the Hortmans Hoffmans were still alive and started getting medical treatment.

Bad news: by then, two people were dead and another two seriously injured; and whoever’s responsible was impersonating a police officer.

“…What we know about the suspect

“The suspect is a white male with brown hair. He was wearing black body armor and dressed as a police officer.

“The suspect was driving a vehicle that looked ‘exactly like a police vehicle’ and he was wearing a vest that mimicked a police uniform, as well as displaying a Taser and police badge.

“‘No question that if they were in this room you would assume that they were a police officer,’ [Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark] Bruley said, acknowledging that investigators have ‘people of interest that they are looking for.’

“Inside the suspect’s vehicle was a manifesto that identified ‘many lawmakers and other officials,’ including Hortman and Hoffman, according to Bruley….”
(“What we know about the cop-impersonating gunman who killed Minnesota lawmaker” , Joe Nelson, Bring Me The News (10:48 a.m. June 14, 2025))

What’s going on in Minnesota’s Metro isn’t going to quiet down any time soon.

I’m glad I live more than two hours down the road from that area. Even so, it’s uncomfortably close to home.

Bad as the situation is, it could be worse. So far, no politico has said anything outrageously crazy about what’s happened.

I see that last item as good — and refreshing — news.

Bad Ideas and a Good Idea

I’m not, putting it mildly, happy about what happened.

Killing those people was quite simply wrong. Murder, taking an innocent human life, is a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2268-2269)

There’s also the matter of impersonating a police officer. I see that as a preying on the trust we should have for those in authority. Again, a bad idea.

My wife mentioned what had happened before lunch, and said it’d be a good idea to pray for the folks involved. I think she’s right, so I’ll be doing that.

I’ve talked about life, death, politics, and making sense, before:

1 Minnesota, places and people:

Posted in Being Catholic, Discursive Detours, Journal | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Good Night, Boots 0 (0)

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Gill family photos at 818 10th Street South, Moorhead, Minnesota: Boots and Star on the TV; Star on the 'tree' in the bedroom, Boots on the couch (living room, in the background), looking over someone's shoulder. (ca. 1970)
Boots & Star enjoying the TV; Star on the ‘tree’, Boots looking over someone’s shoulder. (ca. 1970)

I’m not sure when those photos were taken. or who took them. My folks and I were living at 818 10th Street South in Moorhead, Minnesota, at the time; which puts the date at around 1970.

Could have been earlier, or later, since that’s the house I grew up in. Maybe mid-to-late 1960s to early 1970s.

The point is that those cats were very much part of my life while growing up.

Boots was the older of those two. My folks picked him from a litter of kittens because, they said, he was the most lively of the bunch. They asked my input for his name, but may have suggested a focus on his four white “boots”.

At any rate, Boots grew into a somewhat oversize cat. We suspected he might have a bit of Maine Coon in his ancestry.

Boots was big, but not supersized, and had that breed’s lush coat. I’ve read that Maine Coons are “…sweet-tempered, gentle and friendly….” That fits him, sort of: although I’d say “regal” is closer to the mark than “friendly”.

That said, my guess is that Boots was a Maine Coon the way I’m a Scotsman: It’s in the gene pool, along with a good many other ancestries.

Evening Routines

Boots, and later Star, had the run of the house during the day. But when bedtime rolled around, they went into the basement.

As a child, I was usually in bed by that time. Dad, holding Boots, would stop by the door of my room to say goodnight. Then he’d have Boots ‘say goodnight’ too, by waving his left front paw at me.

As I said, Boots was a “regal” cat. But he was also — I’ll call it patient about human quirks. It helped that we had the sense, when we held him, to give his back feet a firm platform with one hand while supporting his chest or front legs with the other.

So when Dad and Boots looked in on me at bedtime, Dad’s right hand was under his back feet, while his left hand gently pushed Boots’ elbow, making him ‘wave’ at me.

Boots didn’t seem to mind, I was well aware of the puppetry involved, and it’s among the very good memories of my childhood.

That bedtime routine had ended by the time we moved to 1010, but Boots was still with us. He and Star shared 1010 with us for some years. I’d occasionally take one or the other of the cats for a walk.

Walks with Boots weren’t so much walks as stands.

A Favorite Spot

Hadal's photo: 'Male snow marble bengal cat with blue eyes, at 18 months old.' (May 23, 2023) Via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Hadal’s photo of a snow marble Bengal cat, not Boots, in a ‘Sphinx’ pose. (2023)

Boots had a favorite spot in the back yard, partway along the hedge on the south side, between two bushes. He’d sit there, posed like a sphinx, looking out through the fence.

I’d have preferred a leisurely stroll, but Boots was a cat: and was clearly having a good time, gazing off through the neighboring yards.

Time passed.

Boots grew older, but still liked his spot in the hedge — and his time in the back porch. Finally, one weekend afternoon, we noticed that he’d been resting there, on his right side, for a very long time. Our old cat had finally died.

We buried him in the back yard, in his favorite spot, with his nose to the south.

Remembering

More time passed.

I moved, temporarily as it turned out, to California. My folks were still at 1010 when my wife and I married, back here in Minnesota. My wife and I moved a few times, finally settling in her home town, my folks moved to the family homestead in North Dakota, where Mom grew up.

I checked 1010 South 16th Street in Moorhead with Google Maps recently. The house is still there, and so is a fence along the property’s south side. But the hedge is gone. After all these decades, that’s no surprise.

I’ll wrap this up with something from a happy childhood memory: Good night, Boots.

More; mostly about animals, houses, and being human:

Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Called to Holiness, Not Stupidity 0 (0)

Posted on June 7, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Ricardo André Frantz's photo of Bernini's baldacchino, inside Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. (2005)
Ricardo André Frantz’s photo: Bernini’s baldacchino in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. (2005)

Brian H. Gill. (March 17, 2021)I’d planned on talking about something else this week.

But that’s not going to happen: partly because part of Thursday got spent at the local clinic. There’s still an open sore on my left leg. Several, actually, in a little cluster.

That hasn’t, happily, been keeping me from Sunday Mass.

And that brings me to what I’ll talk about this week: a few of the basic obligations that come with being a Catholic.

It’s pretty simple, actually. Jesus said we should love God, love our neighbor, and see everybody as our neighbor. Everybody. No exceptions. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31, 10:25–37; Catechism, 1789)

I said simple, not easy. The ‘everybody’s my neighbor’ part is distinctly not easy for me. And that’s almost another topic.

In practical terms, one of the ways I love God is remembering to get to Mass regularly.

I’ve talked about that before, including in the previous iteration of “A Catholic Citizen in America”, over on blogspot.com Which is where I got the title for this week’s post:

I didn’t get to Mass today. Or yesterday, when the rest of my family celebrated Mass. The Super Bowl is, indirectly, responsible for the latter. Soo Bahk Do class was rescheduled to 1:00 this afternoon, to give folks time to get home for Super Bowl coverage — which would have made for a very tight midday schedule today.

Maybe not the best reason in the world for using the option Catholics living in America have for counting a late Saturday Mass as fulfilling the Sunday obligation — but it’s accepted. (“Apostolic Letter Dies Domini of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Catholic Church on Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy” (May 31, 1998))

I’d particularly wanted to celebrate Mass this weekend, since we were doing the St. Blaise blessing. His feast day was February 3 — and the blessing of the throat is part of our regional Catholic culture — not just ours, of course….

…Does that mean I have some superstitious notion that magic candles will ward off sore throats? No. I’ve been over this sort of thing before….
(“Called to Holiness, Not Stupidity” , A Catholic Citizen in America (February 6, 2011) on blogspot.com)

Now, about getting to church on Sunday. It’s important, very important. But so is taking care of my health. And so, back when my wife and I were raising out kids, was taking care of an infant who couldn’t be taken along. (Catechism, 2180-2183, particularly 2181)

That was then, this is now. Taking care of infants is a ‘been there, done that’ thing for me.

Taking care of my health is another matter. It’s still an obligation, but not my top priority.

Priorities

'The Past - You are Here - Eternity' timeline.Being, staying, or getting healthy matters. But if I made my health, having a neatly-trimmed lawn, getting the latest thing in household appliances — anything or anyone other than God — my top priority, I’d be practicing idolatry. And that’s a very bad idea. (Catechism, 2112-2113)

Time to wrap this up.

First, about being Catholic and whether or not I’m in good health. I’ve said this before.

Being healthy is okay. Being sick is okay. They’re both part of being alive. Getting well, and helping others get well, is a good idea. The same goes for scientific research: where ethics apply, same as with everything else we do. (Catechism, 1410, 1500-1510, 2292-2296)

Being a Catholic

Collage, clockwise from upper lef: John Grantham's photo, interior of Old Catholic church in Hannover, Germany; Bujdosó Attila's photo, interior of Takatori Catholic Church, Hyogo, Japan, designed by Shigeru Ban; Deadkid dk's photo, exterior of Dali Catholic Church, Dali, Yunnan, China; brager's photo, interior of St. Maria Catholic Church; Westfield, Indiana, USA.
Clockwise from top left: Old Catholic church, Hannover, Germany; Takatori Catholic Church, Hyogo, Japan; Dali Catholic Church, Dali, Yunnan, China; St. Maria Catholic Church; Westfield, Indiana, USA.

Finally, what started me thinking about this was someone’s comment in a discussion thread on social media — and that’s a whole slew of topics I don’t have time for today.

This person had been thinking about becoming a Catholic. Which struck me as a good idea: since I had the same thought, years back now. Although in my case I hadn’t so much ‘thought about becoming a Catholic’, as finally knowing too much and having no reasonable option other than becoming a Catholic. And that’s yet another topic.

Anyway, this person liked the idea of being Catholic, but had the notion that Catholics have an overwhelming number of rules we have to follow.

I’ve run across that perception: and met folks who, deliberately or not, give the impression that our faith involves running through a bewildering number of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual routines; and following a list of rules that’d strike a control freak as excessive.

Sure: over the last couple millennia, we’ve accumulated an impressive array of devotional practices. But the vast majority of them are optional.

The basics, like I said, are simple. Incredibly difficult, but simple. And, happily, being a perfectly perfect person isn’t an entry requirement. We’re all works in progress.

More about health, being Catholic, and why Mass matters:

Posted in Being Catholic | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Another Smoky Day in Central Minnesota 0 (0)

Posted on June 3, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Google Maps: air quality over central North America. (June 3, 2025 1:35 p.m. (18:35 / 6:35 p.m. UTC))
Air quality over central North America: Monday afternoon, June 3, 2025; via Google Maps.

I mentioned “wildfires in Minnesota’s Arrowhead region” in last week’s post. They’re still going, and still not national news:

My state’s air quality did make headlines, though; as a sort of footnote to Canadian wildfires:

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. 😉

Weather.gov's current conditions map for United States. (January 9, 2025, 16:34 UTC)That’s about all I had to say. I’ve talked about this sort of thing before:

Posted in Discursive Detours, Journal | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Road to Bemidji 0 (0)

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Google Maps: northern Minnesota, showing location of Bemidjii, Minnesota. (2025) used w/o permission.
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.

Destination: Bemidji

Google Street View: Sauk Centre, Minnesota, on U.S. 71 / MN 28 looking north from near south 12th. (June 2024)
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

en:User:Ase500's photo: Bemidji, Minnesota, statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox statues. (ca. 2005) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bemidji,_Minnesota
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

Google Street View: U. S. Highway 71, looking north, between Sebeka and Menahga, Minnesota. (August 2024) used w/o permission.
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

Google Street View: Minnesota Highway 371, looking north, near Backus, Minnesota. (August 2023) used w/o permission.
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 —

Minnesota National Guard photo: small unit vehicle, or SUS-V, used by the Minnesota National Guard for winter operations; from 'Here’s how the Minnesota National Guard is preparing to help stranded drivers', Ben Henry, KSTP (February 22, 2023)
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

Google Street View: New York City, West Street (23 NY-9A) looking north, near Morris Street. (November 2024) used w/o permission
New York City, West Street, looking north near Morris Street.

From LakesnWoods.com's Sauk Centre Gallery: 'Main Street, Sauk Centre, Minnesota, 1930s'.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.

Alex Goykhman's 'Chicago River at Dusk'. (2008?)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

Hugh Doak Copp's illustration for 'The Dunwich Horror', by H. P. Lovecraft, in Weird Tales (April 1929)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:

1 A town in Minnesota, and Perth’s peanuts:

2 Transportation and all that:

3 Exotic locations and sites mentioned in this week’s post:

Posted in Discursive Detours, Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments