Friday
Feb052010
Miss Minnesota
Friday, February 5, 2010 at 8:43PM
There she is.
Throughout my tenure in Washington, DC, people have called me Miss Minnesota. While I sported no tiara or evening gown, I was an ambassador of sorts. People on the East Coast believe Minnesota is a vast arctic tundra navigated only by dog teams and explorers wearing blimp-sized parkas.
"Does anyone actually live in Minnesota?" my students would ask. "What is there to do? Sit in the house? Stare at the wall?"
I grew up in the 32nd state, the Land of 10,000 Lakes. (Let's make that 11,842 lakes over 10 acres in size.) "Yes, in fact, more than five million people live in Minnesota," I would answer my students. Then I would tell them about the Mall of America, the world's largest mall, complete with amusement park, aquarium, and more stores than you can visit in a weekend of shopping. I would remind them of the professional football, baseball, basketball, and hockey teams headquartered there. Minnesota morphed into Mecca, the land of never ending Super Bowl Sundays and vast food courts of burgers and fries.
Yes, Minnesota has some good shopping. And some good health care (Mayo Clinic, anyone?). And just a teeny tiny bit of fishing in the 11,842 lakes. And maybe, possibly, some hiking or hunting or canoeing in the more than two million acres of forest.
Minnesota is also home to Duluth.
Situated at the tip of Lake Superior, which is the largest freshwater lake in the world by some measures.
Duluth takes its name from a French fur trader who first explored the area in the 1600s, and in the 1800s was one of the most bustling cities in the United States. It was, and still is, home to the world's largest inland port, and the westernmost point of the Atlantic shipping route.
My hometown is also home to the world's largest freshwater sandbar, which at over six miles long, is wide enough for a road down the middle with houses and beaches on either side.
You may recognize the Aerial Lift Bridge, one of only two bridges ever built like it in the world (the other was dismantled in the 1930s). The Lift Bridge was built in 1905, and has been in continuous operation since then. It connects residents of the sand bar, called Park Point, with the mainland, and it also raises up to let boats and ships from all over the world into Duluth's harbor to pick up iron ore and grain.
If you're from Duluth, you would recognize this boat as a "thousand footer," a boat that traverses the Great Lakes and measures over 1,000 feet in length. Thousand footers have a unique shape, and the public library there is built to mimic the same shape, with the U-shaped bow and the raised stern.
In the summer, the bridge raises and lowers 20-30 times a day, and in the winter once the shipping season has ended, hardly at all.
Duluth was once home to the largest population of millionaires per capita of any city in the United States, the shipping, mining, railroad, and timber industries having made wealthy men of smart investors. The city is sprinkled liberally with majestic century-old homes, many of them quarried red stone and brick. The most recognizable is the estate that once belonged to Chester and Clara Congdon, known as Glensheen.
This is but a small portion of their mansion found on the shores of Lake Superior. I volunteered here as a docent in college, and it was here that I came to take my sunrise pictures a few days ago.
In Minnesota, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
The Mississippi River begins in Minnesota, and is the dividing line between the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Minnesota is home to the largest community of Finnish people outside of Finland, and was initially settled almost entirely by Scandinavian immigrants. This Scandinavian heritage is still seen in the culture of the state, particularly the northern regions like Duluth, where the local meteorologists are named things like Sven, and a regular column in the newspaper is titled, Eh?
I could go on here, people. And I probably will on another day. Gosh darn it if I didn't really earn the nickname Miss Minnesota. I don't know why my brain stores this kind of information, but it does, and if something doesn't stop me, I could ramble for hours. I can make a Minnesota connection out of just about anything. Pick a topic, any topic, and I will find a connection.
Try me, if you're up for it. I will answer you in the comments.
I really must stop for now, I can feel the engines revving, and once they're warmed up, they're hard to shut down. Better to just turn off the ignition now and come back tomorrow evening, when I'll have some old school yarn pics for you!
Throughout my tenure in Washington, DC, people have called me Miss Minnesota. While I sported no tiara or evening gown, I was an ambassador of sorts. People on the East Coast believe Minnesota is a vast arctic tundra navigated only by dog teams and explorers wearing blimp-sized parkas.
"Does anyone actually live in Minnesota?" my students would ask. "What is there to do? Sit in the house? Stare at the wall?"
I grew up in the 32nd state, the Land of 10,000 Lakes. (Let's make that 11,842 lakes over 10 acres in size.) "Yes, in fact, more than five million people live in Minnesota," I would answer my students. Then I would tell them about the Mall of America, the world's largest mall, complete with amusement park, aquarium, and more stores than you can visit in a weekend of shopping. I would remind them of the professional football, baseball, basketball, and hockey teams headquartered there. Minnesota morphed into Mecca, the land of never ending Super Bowl Sundays and vast food courts of burgers and fries.
Yes, Minnesota has some good shopping. And some good health care (Mayo Clinic, anyone?). And just a teeny tiny bit of fishing in the 11,842 lakes. And maybe, possibly, some hiking or hunting or canoeing in the more than two million acres of forest.
Minnesota is also home to Duluth.
Situated at the tip of Lake Superior, which is the largest freshwater lake in the world by some measures.
Duluth takes its name from a French fur trader who first explored the area in the 1600s, and in the 1800s was one of the most bustling cities in the United States. It was, and still is, home to the world's largest inland port, and the westernmost point of the Atlantic shipping route.
My hometown is also home to the world's largest freshwater sandbar, which at over six miles long, is wide enough for a road down the middle with houses and beaches on either side.
You may recognize the Aerial Lift Bridge, one of only two bridges ever built like it in the world (the other was dismantled in the 1930s). The Lift Bridge was built in 1905, and has been in continuous operation since then. It connects residents of the sand bar, called Park Point, with the mainland, and it also raises up to let boats and ships from all over the world into Duluth's harbor to pick up iron ore and grain.
If you're from Duluth, you would recognize this boat as a "thousand footer," a boat that traverses the Great Lakes and measures over 1,000 feet in length. Thousand footers have a unique shape, and the public library there is built to mimic the same shape, with the U-shaped bow and the raised stern.
In the summer, the bridge raises and lowers 20-30 times a day, and in the winter once the shipping season has ended, hardly at all.
Duluth was once home to the largest population of millionaires per capita of any city in the United States, the shipping, mining, railroad, and timber industries having made wealthy men of smart investors. The city is sprinkled liberally with majestic century-old homes, many of them quarried red stone and brick. The most recognizable is the estate that once belonged to Chester and Clara Congdon, known as Glensheen.
This is but a small portion of their mansion found on the shores of Lake Superior. I volunteered here as a docent in college, and it was here that I came to take my sunrise pictures a few days ago.
In Minnesota, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
The Mississippi River begins in Minnesota, and is the dividing line between the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Minnesota is home to the largest community of Finnish people outside of Finland, and was initially settled almost entirely by Scandinavian immigrants. This Scandinavian heritage is still seen in the culture of the state, particularly the northern regions like Duluth, where the local meteorologists are named things like Sven, and a regular column in the newspaper is titled, Eh?
I could go on here, people. And I probably will on another day. Gosh darn it if I didn't really earn the nickname Miss Minnesota. I don't know why my brain stores this kind of information, but it does, and if something doesn't stop me, I could ramble for hours. I can make a Minnesota connection out of just about anything. Pick a topic, any topic, and I will find a connection.
Try me, if you're up for it. I will answer you in the comments.
I really must stop for now, I can feel the engines revving, and once they're warmed up, they're hard to shut down. Better to just turn off the ignition now and come back tomorrow evening, when I'll have some old school yarn pics for you!
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A good thing I took Latin or I couldn't read the post.