The Gang's All Here

Kate "Ma" Barker was famous for heading up her family business; mostly kidnapping, the occasional bank robbery, some protection rackets. Then she teamed up with Alvin "Creepy" Karpis in Saint Paul. The Barker-Karpis gang terrorized the capitol city for a few years. On this day in 1933, the gang robbed the offices of the Swift meat packing company in South Saint Paul, grabbing $30,000.00 in payroll cash and assorted cold cuts.

St. Paul was known as a haven for gangsters in 1920s. The mayor and police chief had a gentleman's agreement with mobsters: the gangs from Chicago and St. Louis and Kansas City could hang out in St. Paul as long as they paid a token bribe to city officials and promised not to cause too much trouble. It worked for a while, but after the Swift robbery the gang felt some heat and moved to Wisconsin, where they presumably stole cheese to go with the meats.

Here's a cute song about stealing, followed by a Brautigan poem on the same theme. It's especially appropriate because the new school year starts in a week or so and right after that our little town holds its annual celebration called (clumsily) "The Defeat of Jesse James Days'"

The memoirs of Jesse James
-- Richard Brautigan

I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.

Youth Will be Served

On this day in 2012, little Bobby Tufts was elected mayor of Dorset, MN. At four years old he was very likely the youngest mayor in the country. Two years later, he was re-elected, but lost to a 16 year old rival in 2016. The townsfolk had apparently had enough of Mayor Tufts' temper tantrums and disjointed speeches, so they opted for maturity.

This is not as remarkable as it first appears. Dorset, a tiny village in the beautiful lake country of north central Minnesota, surrounded by five state forests, holds its mayoral elections in a unique way: Names of nominees -- dozens, usually -- are placed in a hat during the town's biennial fair and a name is drawn to challenge the incumbent. The winner is elected by acclimation, which usually involves some beer and much shouting and laughter. Sounds like a pretty decent way to do it.

I'd put the age of our current President at about six. Give me pretty much any 16 year old instead.

Mayor Tufts grew up not far from Hibbing, which as every school child knows is the town where Bob Dylan grew up. Dylan wrote a song about being young.

Here's a poem by Richard Brautigan that's kind of related.

"Ah, Great Expectations!"

Sam likes to say, "Ah, great expectations!"
at least three or four times in every
conversation. He is twelve years old.
Nobody knows what he is talking about when
he says it. Sometimes it makes people
     feel uncomfortable.

Whiskey Saves the Day!

The 4th of July, also known as Independence Day, is frequently celebrated with fireworks, sometimes accompanied by drinking. We have been warned repeatedly that combining the two is not wise. Fun, perhaps, but not wise.

Case in point: On July 4, 1862, things got out of hand in the little river town of Winona, Minnesota. During a raucous celebration, some downtown buildings caught fire. Hannibal Choate, saloon keeper and astute businessperson, supplied volunteer firefighters with whiskey, which kept most of them on his block all day. Choate's business was the only one saved.

Minnesota, despite the events in Winona, has a long history of modest, sober celebrations. Indeed, it was common for Minnesotans to cross the river into Wisconsin to buy fireworks that were outlawed in Minnesota. Thanks to Governor Jesse Ventura, fireworks restrictions were eased about 20 years ago. Jesse had a strong libertarian streak and argued that Minnesotans did not need the government telling them how to have fun. He also advocated Sunday liquor sales, a measure finally approved about six years ago. So Minnesotans no longer have to drive to Wisconsin, Iowa, or the Dakotas to buy booze on Sunday. Between fireworks and liquor sales, I believe we have just about crippled Wisconsin's economy.

Here's a wistful little Brautigan poem on the subject:

Feasting and drinking went on far into the night
but in the end we went home alone to console ourselves
which seems to be what so many things are all about
like the branches of a tree just after the wind
     stops blowing. 

Jumper Cables

It's odd to think of jumper cables on a hot July day in Minnesota. The cables lie neglected in the trunk or hang ignored in the garage. But yesterday I got a call from my daughter in California. She and her friend wanted some fatherly advice on jumper cables. I was surprised to learn that anyone in southern California owned jumper cables, but there they were in Los Angeles, trying to jump-start her friend's car. It seems her friend's sister had borrowed the car and left the lights on all night. Even in California, that will drain the battery. So they came up with a pair of jumper cables, as out of place as an icebreaker in the Caribbean, and had to call dad back in Minnesota. Glad to help out.


It reminded me of a Brautigan poem. This Brautigan poem.

Herman Melville in Dreams, Moby Dick in Reality

In reality Moby Dick
was a Christ-like goldfish
that swam through the aquarium
saving the souls of snails, and Captain Ahab
was a religious Siamese cat
that helped old ladies
start their automobiles.


(from Lay the Marble Tea, 1959)

Brautigan spring

Goodness sakes, the sun has shone brightly for two days. In a row!

My lovely wife and I are considering, along with thousands of other people, planting a garden this year. Some years ago, we tried growing vegetables and flowers and didn't have much luck. The soil around our house is poor, we have no expertise in these matters, and it seems like a lot of work. Many generations of rabbits have made their home beneath our deck and this year's bunny brood will enthusiastically attack any young shoots, I'm sure.

Still, we'll give it a go.

Richard Brautigan's fourth collection of poetry was called "Please Plant This Book." Each poem was printed on the back of a seed packet. It is one of the few Brautigan books I do not own.

Here are two selections from "Please Plant This Book" (1968):

Parsley

I thank the energy, the gods and the
theater of history that brought
us here to this very moment with
this book in our hands, calling
like the future down a green and
starry hill.


Squash

The time is right to mix sentences
sentences with dirt and the sun
with punctuation and the rain with
verbs, and for worms to pass
through question marks, and the
stars to shine down on budding
nouns, and the dew to form on
paragraphs.

Food and Place, volume 1 (Northfield)

What's that game? The one where somebody says something and you're supposed to respond with the first thing that pops into your head? Joe Poznanski did a version of it a while back on his blog, in which he named each major league baseball team and the first player most people think of in relation to that team. For example:
Yankees ---> Babe Ruth
Brewers ---> Robin Yount
Nationals ---> ummm...nobody. And so forth.

Let's try it with cities and food. The US of A is becoming ever more homogeneous in its eating habits, what with the staggering proliferation of chains and fast food outlets. I believe it is now impossible to get more than 30 miles away from a Subway sandwich shop anywhere in this country.

But there are still pockets of regional or local food specialties, and it is these to which we will turn our attention. Should be good for dozens of posts, because I (with the generous help of legions of loyal and clever readers) will offer up commentary on each. It's a series. Or a serial. Or (see below) a cereal.

As a warm-up exercise, try this one:

I say Northfield, you say....Malt-O-Meal! The cereal company is a prominent industry here, occupying a large modern factory on the edge of town and the historic Ames Mill in the center of town. That's a picture of the Ames Mill at the top of this post. They still make the original hot wheat breakfast glop at the Ames Mill. People around here are quite loyal to Malt-O-Meal (often shortened to MOM) and make a game of guessing which cereal they're packaging today based on the smell that envelopes the town. Marshmallow Mateys? Tootie Frooties? Yum!

Malt-O-Meal's dry cereal is good. I don't fancy the artificially flavored kids' cereals, but the simple classics like raisin bran or corn flakes are better than their major-label counterparts.

Tomorrow, the food-and-place post will look at Cincinnati.

Let us conclude with a poem by Richard Brautigan which is about food and not about food:

Private Eye Lettuce

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man's imagination
and his desire to name
the objects of this world.
I think I'll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner.

(from "The Pill Versus the Spring Hill Mine Disaster" 1968)