The Duluth/Superior radio market is noted for two striking characteristics — an uncommon number of public-interest stations and an uncommon number of Christian stations. The commercial broadcast signals that fill out the rest of dial are mostly owned by two entities — Midwest Communications and Townsquare Media — although there are a few smaller station owners, like Northwoods Radio and Twin Ports Radio.
It was sunny out this past weekend. I argued a little bit with a friend about how warm it was, until I realized that I was at the top of the hill. How quickly I forget that the top of the hill is warmer in summer by as many as ten degrees.
[That temperature phenomenon is discussed here and here.]
But it was a fun weekend of stories in the sun.
Blood and bone, rivers and stone, are all of a piece, you see. For millennia we knew this, knew we belonged to the Earth, until some tinhorn prophet came along boasting the Earth belonged to us, a gift from God, of course, of which we’d be good stewards, of course, then all things holy left us, last seen heading skyward, and magic absconded on angels’ wings, up, up and away.
So how’s that working out? Still waiting on the Second Coming, the Third Temple, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse? Still telling old stories which buried stories older still? Tall tales of a bronze-age god who smote the competition. He himself quite recently smote by the Enlightenment and science. Yet, though we now know the Aurora Borealis is lit by particles, not spirits, mystery abides, and it carries us without needing us while we are needing stories.
Mystery abides. Our planet and the depths of space are but its outward face. Though bits of life itself have been patented for sale, we don’t understand what we’re messing with. As Cat Stevens sang, “The soul of nobody knows / how a flower grows.” We may know chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are within a few slim atoms of identical — all the green in nature so close in composition to our own ruddy animal blood, and we can manipulate both until Frankenstein’s monster seems like the boy next door, but mystery abides and it’s going nowhere, whichever new sherif’s in town.
Here’s something I always wonder about when I see it, but then immediately forget: Across from the cemetery on Highland Street there is a series of roofs built on the ground in a field, enclosed by a fence.
A cursory search on PDD and Google revealed no answers about its purpose. It’s probably capping something boring like an old dump or the sewer, but I remain curious.
So, does anyone know what it is?
On the day of the Husky Energy oil refinery explosion, fire, ecological disaster in Superior, I didn’t panic. I didn’t even find out until nearly 5 p.m. And when I did, I turned on the TV and let the coverage flow as background noise.
Later, I talked to friends who were anywhere from anxious to panicked. I’ve been thinking about why my response was so different.
Did you know Duluth has a Laurel and Hardy society?
Me neither, until Tim Broman mentioned it: Busy Bodies Tent #60 ~ Sons of the Desert. I’d love to hear more about this organization from PDD readers.
With Homegrown Music Festival just around the corner, we’re all aware that Duluth rawks. But how much do you know about Duluth rocks? Test your knowledge of local rocks (and rock-related things) in this week’s quiz!
The next PDD Quiz, reviewing the headlines of April 2018, will be published on April 29. Email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by April 26.
Security Jewelers is again auctioning one of its sponsor entries to the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon on eBay. This year the proceeds will benefit the Hills Youth & Family Services, a Duluth nonprofit that provides programming for at-risk youth and their families. The auction ends April 13 at noon.
Lottery registration for the 2018 Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon is closed. The race is at capacity with 7,500 participants. The entry cost via the lottery was $95; last year’s auctioned entry raised $205 for the Damiano Center.
So then I went and bought myself a Colt 45
Called a peacemaker but I never knew why
I never knew why, I didn’t understand
Mama says the pistol is the devil’s right hand
— Steve Earle
A couple-three years ago, after telling public truth about a violent bully in a way I knew would enrage him (and earn him aggressive, ill-informed fealty among people who saw me as the real bully doing the real violence), I slept with a thick, hickory ax handle within arm’s reach of my bed for more than a month. I feared violent retribution. I thought I had credible reasons. I may have been overreacting.
I don’t necessarily know how to defend myself with wooden sticks or any other weapons. The last time I got in a fight, about this time of year in 1984, Mike Aikens kicked my ass in Allendale Park, on 18th Avenue NW across from John Adams Junior High, in Rochester, MN. Feeling unsure seems antithetical to fighting well. I felt unsure during that fight. I didn’t yet — wouldn’t for many years — know how to stop pondering ambiguity and just be where I needed to be in any specific moment. I still feel unsure very often. In the interest of trying to understand as many perspectives as possible, I ponder ambiguity a lot. A lot. At least I think I do. Maybe not. I don’t know. Or maybe I do. I see it in a lot of different ways.
Does Rick Steves have a beef with Duluth? While I was doing a searching for something Duluth related, I discovered a PDD post from Nov. 22 titled “Rick Steves offends his Duluth friends.” Which surprised me, as I had just recently noticed yet another slight from Rick Steves regarding Duluth.
In an effort to better serve the community, Perfect Duluth Day announced today it will convert its nearly 15-year-old website into an all-advertising format, then launch two new websites to separately serve eastern and western Duluth with neighborhood-specific features and folksy tidbits.
I realized I was a northern Minnesotan on my first return trip home during my freshman year of college at an East Coast school. My mother collected me from the Minneapolis airport, and we stopped for dinner at a restaurant in Forest Lake. The waitress came to our table, opened her mouth, and began to talk. I was immediately horrified.
The accent. It was real. The Fargo stereotype was true. I’d just spent an entire semester trying to project an image of someone who wasn’t from bumfuck nowhere. I’d patiently explained to scions of the Acela Corridor elite that no, Duluth was not a suburb of the Twin Cities, and that no, ice fishing was not a fictional pursuit, but something that real people actually did. And now, here was this polite, cheery waitress taking my order, and the poor woman had no way of knowing that the words issuing from her mouth filled me with dread.
Through trial and tribulation, I overcame my fear of the northern Minnesotan accent. Even though I’d sworn I’d never come back when I was in high school, I found my way to a home with the same sliver of a lake view I’d enjoyed as a child in Lakeside. The story of what led me from one point to another is tedious, its details ranging from the mundane to the intensely personal, and the source of far too many of my own words spilled out on blogs and in the lonely, booze-fueled journals of late adolescence. I am here, a Duluthian first and foremost among any commitments I may have to places, and ready to bore any unfortunate soul with an hours-long nuanced account of why this has come to be. I have even come to accept the accent, mostly. But there are still, admittedly, moments of doubt.
All of these moments come in the time of year that in other lands goes by the name of “spring.”
The biggest mistake you can make after deciding to eat yourself is to start with the hands. The hands are the easiest part of the body to eat, so they seem like a good place to begin, but that is exactly why you should save them as long as possible. Remember, once your hands are gone, those hard to bite areas become an even bigger strain.
I suggest you start with your thigh, just above the knee. Chew through both legs, severing them. This allows you to eat your calves and feet like two big, sloppy corncobs. (Should you begin choking on an Achilles tendon, remember that a self-applied Heimlich maneuver can be just as easily performed when you are rolling around on the floor with severed legs as when you are standing on your feet.)
You might find the area from your thighs up hard to reach with your mouth so it’s important that you still have your hands and arms. Don’t eat them yet! After you have chewed open your legs, you will easily be able to use your hands to scoop out heaping portions of the rest of your body.
Many people ask me, “Paul, how do I eat my own mouth?” The answer is simple. Just push it down your throat and swallow. It’s that easy.
