A Minnesota Moment: Tim Walz is not a half-bad sort of a deal there...

I grew up in Minnesota. Hold my Schmidt Sportpack and my Pearson's Nut Goodie

First of all, I grew up with guys like Tim Walz.

That’s because I grew up in Minnesota. I went to Da U. My dad has a BS, a MS, and a PhD from Da U. I own an original seat from Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota. I know where Dinkytown is. My mouth closed upon the vowel “O”. I saw Kevin McHale play at Da U. I was at Da U when Coach Herb Brooks brought home the “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey gold medal, and I saw Olympian Phil Verchota pee in a snowbank behind a White Castle. I met Hubert Humphrey, twice. Once by the Butter Sculpture exhibit at the Dairy Building at the Minnesota State Fair. I met Walter Mondale way more than that. One time he recognized me. “Oh, you again,” he said.

I own a three horse outboard motor. I own a 30.06, a 12 gauge, and even a .44 rifle…better in the brush (OK, I never shot a deer and am very glad I didn’t, although venison sausage is indeed tasty). I know how to put a leech on a hook. I know what a Lindy Rig is. My late grandparents were second generation Norskies and Swedes born in Minneapolis. They would speak three languages in my dad’s house. She would ask a question in Norwegian, and he would answer in Swedish, so the kids couldn’t understand.

I know who Cedric Adams is. I know where Roundhouse Rodney is, in case you need to know. I know who Bob Lurtsema is. I know what job Alan Page has now. I remember Joe Kapp. I met Paul Wellstone. I met Wendy Anderson. I lived at 22nd and Grand. I lived at 2828 Matilda. I lived at 519 10th Ave, SE. I have gone to HHH’s grave many times. And Wellstone is in the same cemetery. I went to Gopher games in the old fieldhouse, which swayed.

That’s Minnesota, buddy. Oh, and my brother lives in Melrose, Minnesota, right by where Hubert Humphrey lived in Waverly.

Incidentally, he makes me look like a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. I’ll let you fill in the effete blanks here. He owns tools I’ve never heard of. He says things like, “Geez. I went to Menard’s to get a new snowblower, and they want $700 for that SOB.”

He doesn’t fish, though. Juh-eeziss H. CUH-riiiiiiist.

I got a box of Pearson’s Nut Goodies when I won the Pulitzer from my dear editor Joyce Terhaar—of Rogers, Minnesota, right by Buffalo there ya know, and, oh yeah, I know her friend from high school because she worked at The Minnesota Daily.

I own hockey skates to this day, and they are sharp. I know not to put my hand in the mouth of a Northern, Walleye, or Muskie. Bass, fine. I owned a snowblower. I still have all my dad’s spinning gear and use it. I had a paper route with the Minneapolis Star and Minneapolis Tribune before they merged. I had it for two years. You know how many times my dad drove me on my route because of weather?

Once.

OK, and I pulled them on a blue plastic sled. In fact, I told Sen. Amy Klobuchar I used to carry her dad’s newspaper column in the Star around to snowy porches and long, slippery driveways at 5 AM so she could go to Yale.

So I know this state and these people.

And there’s one place in Minnesota I know really, disturbingly well.

Minnesota’s First Congressional District, home of the next Democratic vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz.

Now, I have never met Tim Walz. I met the young State Senator Gerry Sikorski, who was the DFL (IYKYW, again) nominee in that very district, which was represented by a great GOP congressman named Al Quie, who recently died at 99. I was on a panel with him at HHH’s 100th Birthday event at Minneapolis City Hall— delightful guy and fly fisherman. He went on to be a respected governor in 1978. You know, back when people like me could be cool about having a Republican governor.

There is nothing weird about the First CD. OK, there are some things.

“The Viola Gopher Count” is def weird.

What they do down there at the Viola Gopher Count is gather hundreds of Violans around the perimeter of a small field, where they then proceed to close in on unsuspecting gophers, and bludgeon them with shovels.

I hope you’ve eaten already. I saw it. I cannot ever unsee it.

Ever.

So when I was beginning to sense that Walz was the guy, I knew that I was the guy born to observe him. Period. Get off of my plane.

Let me tell you what’s normal about the First CD. Have you ever seen corn to the horizon? Many a horror flick has this scene. That’s why Field of Dreams is so…weird.

Normal: nice people, wearing heavy clothing, helping other neighbors who live at the end of a driveway a half mile long. After they have helped their neighbor, they go to a church, usually Catholic or Lutheran, (ALC—Libtards. Missouri Synod— MAGA weirdos). They worship, think about how they might improve themselves, their family, or their community, and then they eat a hearty hot dish in the basement of that church. Then they go watch the Vikings lose, and take it with grace and dignity.

That’s normal.

Their idea of entertainment is getting up at 6:00 AM and listen to The Morning Farm Report on WCCO 830. They need to know about sorghum futures, as well as hog bellies at the South St. Paul Stockyard, which smells really funky in the muggy Minnesota summer. Don’t forget the sort-offs from the better end—that’s a stockyard phrase.

I drove around hundreds of miles per day with Gerry. We were not a natural fit. I am sure we would get along fine now. He was more engaged in the minutiae of the details, and I was more of a chatty free-spirit type, my navy suit and striped tie notwithstanding. Gerry sent me shopping once, and made me buy short sleeved blue shirts, not white. No button downs. Period. Long sleeved white shirts were too city.

He was right, of course.

My job was to drive and go-fer.

The night I met him I drove up in my automatic shift 1970 Mustang, and he had a manual Chrysler Cordova.

Shit.

And we were late to a gig an hour away.

So poor State Sen. Gerry Sikorski had to teach his moron aide how to drive a stick shift. Like, now.

I managed to get us there with loud grinding and a pervasive burning smell. There goes the tranny. I had it knocked two days later. Now it’s all I drive in a car.

Gerry was not like Tim Walz, at all. He was a Polish Catholic labor lawyer in a Norwegian Lutheran district. Gerry was more of a blow-dried Kennedy model: young, handsome, and not yet 30 when I met him. He was not a Tim Walz model, which is the kind of candidate he lost to, more of a rumpled dude with sweaty hair.

As a 17 year old trapped in a car with a sleeping man who made way more than I did ($300/month), I felt drowsy all the time from driving early and driving late. I usually didn’t get home until midnight, and then had to get up at six to drive an hour back to Stillwater where he lived in a real cool house on acreage.

One night, we were driving back from way deep in southern Minnesota, a three hour run ahead of us, and we got a late start. About ten PM, I started to convulsively nod.

I fell asleep going on an elevated curve going probably 50 miles per hour, with a sleeping State Senator snoring away.

I woke up as the car thankfully ran parallel to the gravel, the loud rocks hitting the car undercarriage just enough to get me conscious and in control of the wheel.

Wow, was I awake after that.

Somewhere, not in the First CD, was a 14 year old kid in Butte, Nebraska would eventually move to Mankato, in the First CD. Nebraska is more Minnesota than Minnesota. I didn’t want to run from the First CD, but I was going to Da U to major in…wait for it…AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS. Yes, I was that cynical, the suburban political angler I was at the time.

Paraphrasing Vice President Harris’s fave line, that kid was Tim Walz.

Me? I left the campaign and started drawing for The Minnesota Daily, which is a novel unto itself. I can’t write novels, but I will write extensively about it soon.

My advice for Tim Walz?

Watch your driver and let him get a little sleep, OK?

TOMORROW: MORE MINNESOTA NICE STUFF