It has been interesting being in Luverne this weekend as I get to know the place again. When I grew up here I never bothered to associate street names with places or landmarks, so when I am told that City Hall is on Luverne St., it means nothing, but when I am told City Hall is in the old hospital, then I can find it no problem.
There are more coffee shops now, as well as a Mexican grocery store. I ran into a couple of people who knew who I was after I introduced myself, although their memories of my dad are fresher than their memories of me. I recognize familiar faces but don’t have names for them yet.
Two people stopped by the new house when they saw we were parked in the driveway. One was a neighbor who I knew from high school, and the other was the former owner. Both told us they had been keeping an eye on the place until we moved in. The former owner was able to tell us the garage door code and said her husband would come over to help navigate the very complex sound and video system set up throughout the house. We feel very welcome.
Last evening we ate at a very fine Italian restaurant in Sioux Falls with our daughter, son, grandson, and daughter-in-law. It was at the hotel we are staying at this weekend. We struck up a conversation with the waitress, a young woman in her late 20’s. She grew up in Luverne, knew my dad, and went to high school prom with my Cousin Jack’s son. She was going to drive to Luverne after work to visit her parents. She said she visits there a lot and would see us around town. I feel connected with new and old.
What are positive and negative changes over the years in your community? When have you experienced old wine in new bottles?
Trail Baboon 
The sales person in the furniture store we went to on Saturday is from Kazakhstan, and she goes to Luvernevto go skydiving. That is sure a new thing!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Rise and Shine, Baboons,
Renee, you will feel like you are living in the center of available culture with “short” driving distances, compared to your life in Dickinson. Sioux Falls is 30 minutes from Luverne. It must seem like nothing after the driving you have done.
Our community is a suburb that has grown a lot since I moved here in 1990. I had been battered by breast cancer surgery and chemotherapy that year. When I recovered from each chemo session I would read the newspaper, especially the real estate section, especially properties that had been offered up for resale by the FHA following foreclosure. I bought a townhouse for $69000 and Lou and I finished it and updated it. That townhouse is now selling for $290,000. Wow. There is a change. The road that goes by that townhouse association is Mitchell Road, which did not extend through a corn field to Spring Road where people get water from a Spring. It is now a main thoroughfare that connects to Flying Cloud Drive.
These western suburbs are characterized by urban sprawl. People move here for work, educational systems and housing. Much of the area was fields in 1990; now it is housing and our house is and “old” house for this community built in 1975. Fortunately, the wildlife has not left. In fact it has increased due to the generous level of public areas and parks. There is a Bald Eagle that has been sitting on the cross/cell aerial behind the church we attend. They fly over often and nest on the Minnesota River.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jacque – we used to drive regularly to that spring to get our water, and stop at the Lion’s Tap for a burger as long as we were there… about that time, too, using Mitchell Road.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It is a lovely spot. The Mdewakewan Dakota had a camp there i to the 1950s with that spring providing water.
LikeLiked by 1 person
New schools. New roads. Positive.
New owners of the apartment building? Unsure. Probably rent increase.
New wine doesn’t go in old wineskins. Some famous guy said that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve been in my current home since 1991. It is by far (way way way by far) the longest I have lived anywhere. There is only one person on my block who has been here longer than I have. I remember when I was the newbie – seems a century ago.
It doesn’t feel like too much as changed (except the various neighbors) but I suppose it probably has. They completely re-did my street and the bridge over the creek 13 years back. Library was remodeled 2 years ago. The biggest change is that the vet office down on 54 & Lyndale moved into a grand new space on the ground floor of the new apartment building next door to the old building. YA was there last week but didn’t seem overly impressed.
LikeLiked by 2 people
When we got back to Winona in 2016, after being away for 31 years, all these festivals had grown while we were gone – the Shakespeare and Beethoven ones in the summer, Midwest Music in the spring, Frozen Film Festival in midwinter. And the newest one, Sandbar Storytelling Fest over the past weekend.
Old wine in new bottles? … well, in different bottles, when I decant a bottle into the small ones in a 4-pack. Keeps it fresh longer, and then I can just have one per evening.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We stopped in Nelson WI for ice cream yesterday. I didn’t remember all the wine on the one side of the shop. Guess it’s been a few years since we were there.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I love that place – it’s a great meeting place to liaison with folks from the Cities. (Well, nice for us – we don’t have to travel as far.)
LikeLiked by 3 people
They have also approved 5 cannabis stores in Luverne. Now that is pretty weird.
LikeLiked by 3 people
How many tattoo parlors??
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t know that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For your next reconnaissance
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t know about old wine in new bottles, but I have had new wine from recycled bottles.
My neighborhood is much the same in character as it was when I moved here, although we lost our neighborhood bakery, which became a coffee shop/bakery, and then was sold, and then went out of business.
Some new apartment buildings have gone up, though none really close to me.
The green stairs had to be dismantled after damages sustained in rock slides and windstorms. It lengthened the time it takes to get downtown if you’re going on foot.
Downtown St. Paul is so changed from when I first knew it. When I was in my twenties my mother worked in the safety deposit vault in the old Midwest Federal building, which no longer exists. It was on the basement level. It was connected by skyway, and sometimes when I walk through that skyway, now a connection point in the light rail system, I look at the spot where the elevator once conducted the foot traffic down into the vault, and reflect on the ephemeral nature of things that once seemed so fixed and solid.
LikeLiked by 5 people
The old Jerabek’s Bakery is now a Mexican restaurant with pretty good, authentic Mexican food.
On our side of Robert St., the old Josephs Market, was closed and the building sold some years ago. It sat vacant for a several years.
A little over a year ago, the building was sold again. It has now been lovingly restored and upgraded and now houses Leather Works Minnesota. The following is an excerpt from their website:
“ST. PAUL, MN. March 24, 2025 – We are excited to announce the opening of the new location of Leather Works Minnesota in April, 2025. Owned by Kent and Lee Begnaud, Leather Works Minnesota has a 26 year history of manufacturing hand crafted leather goods, with the last 13 years spent in Lowertown, St. Paul.
Leather Works Minnesota’s new location is 736 Oakdale Ave., the former Joseph’s Meat Market building on St. Paul’s West Side; a 1908 building with local and historic significance for the neighborhood.
The new location will feature an expanded retail selection of our classic leather offerings, as well as additions from local makers and curated dry goods.
An exciting twist to Leather Works Minnesota’s retail experience is the inclusion of Joseph’s Coffee and Donuts. Joseph’s will feature coffee from Cafe Palmira, founded by the Palacios family with generations of experience in coffee cultivation, as well as the award winning Cardigan Donuts.”
Check them out, they are lovely people.
LikeLiked by 2 people
When we moved back to Winona in 2016, we landed just 2½ blocks, from our 1980s house on Vine St. There were quite a few neighborhood changes, one being that Tushner’s Meat Market (between these two houses) is gone, replaced by a little printing business – handy at times, but not nearly as handy as that grocery.
LikeLiked by 2 people