Looking for Daisy in the Archives of the Saint Paul Public Schools
2013
I wanted a class photo, your name on a staff list. From old city directories I have pieced together a list of the schools where you taught— Cleveland, Lafayette, Edison, Ericsson, Drew— not a one of them standing in the next century. Old photos at the History Center show their stern facades. And what of the faces looking at you every morning?
When Our Elders Perish, an Entire Library Burns to the Ground (African Proverb)
2013
Private Ivy Hagan and Josephine Hicks Hagan became the twenty-something ensemble known as “Aunt Jo and Uncle Ivy.” They mentored children of all ages and needs throughout Saint Paul between 1933 and 1994. They were gifted storytellers, speaking in parables of their African American memories between Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Saint Paul, Minnesota. I listened, observed, and learned.
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.
A Civilized People
2013
I take a seat at a corner table facing the window. A blustery spring day. The mutter of cars and buses as they pull up to the stop sign. Western Avenue, once the city limit back when little farms lay between St. Paul and the milling city of Minneapolis.
Nanny and Nanny’s Daddy
2013
p>Nanny is my grandmother. Daddy is her husband, my grandfather. One day, years ago, Nanny and Daddy were out looking for the Winter Carnival Medallion. They watched others find the medallion on the grounds of Nanny’s old house.
End of the Line
2013
Take the bus? Sure, I can take the bus. Moving to Saint Paul from a small southern Minnesotan town in 1976 was thrilling. I was nineteen years old and fearless; riding the bus didn’t seem like a big deal.
XXX Searle
2013
A chunk of snow falls while my grandma Dorothy Marie Miller Wick Rangitsch Hayes stares out the window. She is eighty-nine years old and lives in the disorientation and terror of dementia.
Tickets
2013
A RENOWNED RECYCLER with a long history of community service, Richard Miller writes parking tickets as part of his job as Building Service Assistant for the Minnesota Historical Society.
The Sweetest Kiss in Saint Paul
2013
As you go through life you get kisses you remember forever. There is the kiss you get in the parking lot of Porky’s Drive-In when you are fifteen. There is the first kiss that tells you this is the girl you are going to marry someday.
Workin’ on the Railroad— Dale Street Shops
2013
Driving through the intersection of Dale Street and Minnehaha Avenue, in the Frogtown district, you couldn’t help being impressed by the massive yellow-ochre brick building with the exceptionally tall glass block windows.
Bridge
2013
There’s no time in traffic on 35E to honor a place such as this—my old neighborhood in ruins. In one second my car wheels cover what was once my brothers’ bedroom with the nursery rhyme floor.
Swimming with the Sharks
2013
Among our family stories is one with a lesson: Don’t try swimming with the sharks.