Bald-headed Men and Sundays
2014
My boys viewed their mid-1980s births in the old Midway Hospital on University between Porky’s and Ax-Man as an embarrassment, a slight their Saint Paul mom had designed to punish them by withholding the polished corridors of HCMC in their own hometown...
Slow Boats and Fast Water
2014
Early in the morning on June 21, 2007, my son Cullen encountered a rowing scull, crewed by five young women in the Saint Paul Harbor and pinned by a heavy current of the Mississippi River. This crew team had misjudged the current and was trapped against the Padelford wharf barge.
Walks with the Chowhound
2014
Selby is a chowhound. An inveterate, unrelenting, willfully indiscriminate gastronome of Saint Paul street food. Naturally he is named after the street where he lives, Selby Avenue, and naturally, when I come to dog sit him, we commence our journeys from that haunt of celebrated eateries, dine-ins, and dessert stops. This poses a problem, as Selby is a beagle, a breed that distinguishes itself by a sniffer so acute it can divine a three-month-old pancake-thin squirrel carcass from a snowbank high as a Himalayan foothill...
Five Things to Love about Saint Paul from Someone Who Moved Here from Somewhere Else
2014
John Moe is the host of Wits, a national public radio show based in Saint Paul. Noted for skimming “the cream off a few decades of local and national indie scenes,” the show features writers, comedians, and musicians. John has brought such guests as Fred Willard, Rosanne Cash, Martha Wainwright, and Julia Sweeney to the historic Fitzgerald Theater. A widely published author as well as a reporter, he lives in Saint Paul with his family.
Universe on University Ave
2013
We live in an urban universe Between street lights, stars, moons and stop signs, from distant planets unrecognized before we met within stories of broken barriers spoken by elder OGs of these histories...
Night Class
By Nicholas Voss ● 2013
It was an after school program for kids. I was ready like a manatee is ready for ping pong. Just a little clumsy after being tucked away in a collegiate cave while this city extols Saints just down the street. . . . I’ve still got a lot to learn. Like how those science quizzes didn’t apply in the van ride. . . . Where passing is keeping everyone buckled for just 3 more blocks.
Back Again
2013
I took my first breath in St. John’s Hospital at Seventh and Maria. That makes me a native Saint Paulite, even though I grew up in the suburbs. In the late 1950s and early ’60s, many suburban parents-to-be chose Saint Paul hospitals to welcome their babies into the world. As a suburban child, it was a big deal to go shopping at the downtown department stores, and each trip we took, my mom never failed to point out St. John’s at the top of the bluff. “That’s where you two were born,” Mom would remind my brother and me. Anytime my brother and I were fighting in the backseat, Mom would remind us that we’d all wind up back at St. John’s if she crashed the car because we had distracted her.
I Remember RONDO
By Moleen (Harris-Davis) Lowe ● 2013
I remember Rondo . . . the streets were cobbled stone. I remember Rondo . . . 450 was our home. I remember Rondo—the intersection Arundel Hill, On one corner the cab station; across the street, Joe’s Grocery Store . . . I remember Rondo, and we never locked our door. I remember Rondo—smiling faces still in my mind
Ocean Floating on the Avenue
2013
I was feeling drab one Saturday afternoon in my Midway neighborhood. After a week of nine-to-six computer work in a cubicle and a morning of ticking off the weekly chores, laundry, groceries, scrubbing a few floors, and carting my teen around, what I needed was a pick-me-up. A look at my grubby nails confirmed where I knew I had to go to escape the routine of the dark days of November that were seeping into December and dragging me along.
At the Sparkle Laundromat on Rice Street
2013
The teenagers are bored, having nowhere else to go, but not wanting to go home to the drab familiarity of housing projects and apartment complexes. We too are directionless, but directionless in the same place and time—between jobs, between loves, between ambitions; we are loitering without intent. Hank Williams echoes from a small dusty speaker, quarters tumble from the change machine, pool balls click with soft indifference.
Open House at the Minnesota History Center
2013
I have been a public employee for nearly a quarter century, in several local and state agencies, doing important yet mundane work that the public never sees. In cynical moments, I have often wondered if anything I do has enduring significance. Then in the autumn of 2009 my wife and I attended a special “open house” at the Minnesota History Center.
“Summer Socks”
2013
The summer I turned nine was filled with days spent with my two best friends, Punch and Dell. A day would begin at first light as I slipped through the house like a ghost after pulling on faded shorts and a too-small shirt.