All posts by Barbara in Rivertown

The Baboon Congress, Words

Indie Bookstore Day

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Header photo by By Rcawsey – Own work, Public Domain,

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.

For all you baboon readers who still read books with pages to turn, this weekend is your chance to celebrate your favorite independent bookstore. The Second Annual Indie Bookstore Day is happening on April 30 around the country.

Many folks are lamenting the trend that seems to be continuing – more people buying online from Amazon while even large chains like Borders go under, and Barnes and Noble closes, among others, its Mankato store (if I remember correctly a comment from Clyde).

This article from last spring’s first Indie Bookstore Day displays photos of indie bookstores all over Minnesota:

I’ve posted below some of the metro area’s independent bookstores, and a link to their IBD celebration info:

  • My personal favorite is Birchbark Books – 2002 23rd Av. S., Mpls. – because I used to work there.
  • But here’s an independent that I haven’t discovered yet:   Moon Palace Books – 2820 E. 33rd St., Mpls.
  • And there’s Boneshaker Books – 2002 23rd Av. S., Mpls. – “The shop specializes in progressive and radical literature & mdah; and children’s books. It also houses the Women’s Prison Book Project, which provides books to inmates across the country.”  I was not able to find anything on their website about IBD, but they celebrated last year.
  • And my favorite kids bookstore, Wild Rumpus, 2720 W. 43rd St., Mpls .
  • Magers & Quinn (new and used) Books – 3038 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.
  • In St. Paul, there’s Garrison’s store, Common Good Books, 38 S. Snelling.
  • Subtext Books – 6 West Fifth Street6 West 5th Street, St. Paul.
  • The Red Balloon, 891 Grand Av., St. Paul.
  • Duluth has Fitger’s, which is as close as I can get to Mahtawa, Cynthia. It specializes in regional Northeastern Minnesota books.
  • A little farther afield, here’s an article about shops in Portland, OR, for Steve.

(Wes, I couldn’t remember which Ohio city you reside in.)

Of course, I’ve just scratched the surface, and I apologize ahead of time if I’ve left out your favorite independent bookstore. (Please add your favorites in your comments.) There are great used book stores all over, like Midway and 6th Chamber in St. Paul. Rochester and Mankato each have one.

What was the last book you purchased, whatever kind of book it was?

The Baboon Congress

Freebies

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

When I lived in Brooklyn, NY, we always looked forward to trash pick-up day, because the night before, people would put out on the sidewalk all manner of items they were ready to discard. These items rarely sat there long enough for the trash people to take them – something reasonably nice was gone within an hour. I don’t remember being lucky enough to score anything, but someone certainly did.

Well, our area has a bi-annual “curbside clean-up day” for unwanted items, and today was the day.

They take:

  • unusable furniture (i.e. couches, chairs, mattresses)
  • general household junk (up to 100 #s per item)
  • scrap metal
  • appliances (!)

All you have to do is get your stuff out to the curb, and voilà! it will all disappear. It is of course necessary to take a walk some time during the day (before the truck comes) to see if anyone on your block has put out anything you might want. I saw a rather nice tea cart with glass shelves that – I’m telling you, if I weren’t moving in a coupla months… (Next time I looked, though, it was gone.) It was amazing how many people in pick-ups cruised slowly down our usually quiet street.

What timing! We are, of course, in clearing out mode because of the upcoming move to Winona, so we were racing through the house to find what all we could get rid of. Put out an old TV table, plastic shelving, a former rolling desk chair, a plow sort of thing that had a bicycle tire as its fulcrum… gems, as you can see. But our little pile didn’t hold a candle to the pictured one at the top of this post. Granted, that is two yards’ worth.

I’m just happy I managed to not bring anything home.

What would you put out on the curb, if someone would come and pick it up?

The Baboon Congress, Travel

Welcome to Canada

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Header photo: By Wing-Chi Poon (Port of Piegan Border Station, Montana, USA) [CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

There is a Canadian island in the province of Nova Scotia that is hoping that Donald You-know-who becomes President of these United States. It is the island of Cape Breton, and although this all started as something of a joke by DJ Rob Calabrese, it turns out “People are showing a serious interest in moving here. … Get your affairs in order. That way, the day after the election you’ve got everything all settled.”

Cape Breton is looking for more residents to help shore up a depressed economy. There is affordable housing, sometimes right on the water, with gorgeous views. There is high demand in the medical field and technology, and opportunities for entrepreneurs. Canada is colder, true, but there are perks if you manage to get through all the red tape: “government-funded health care, education and investment incentive schemes”.

According to an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:            “Americans have a history of pledging to move to Canada during fierce elections. But the phenomenon has hit a fever pitch thanks to GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. …There was similar buzz when George W. Bush started his second term in 2005. But there’s little evidence that many Americans actually followed through.”

This year could be different. Here is an article that gives you the nuts and bolts of what the requirements look like if you get serious about fleeing north, complete with their approximate costs.

And for a few of the differences between the U.S. and Canada (as perceived by a Canadian, at any rate), this one from Glossy News is enlightening.

 

What would it take for you to get serious about moving to another country?

Songs, The Baboon Congress

The Cruel War

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Photo of Frances Clalin Clayton By Samuel Masury – Public Domain

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

Last Sunday I came upon this article in the Minnesota History segment of the Mpls. Star Tribune – it’s about a St. Paul woman, Frances Clalin Clayton, who followed her husband into the Civil War in 1861, pretending to be his brother. Frances saw her husband killed a few paces in front of her during fighting in Tennessee – “charged over his body… driving the rebels with the bayonet.” There are varying reports of how her identity was ultimately revealed.

After Frances was discharged, she lost her papers and money to Confederate guerrillas on a train, and apparently spent some of her remaining life trying to collect money she was owed for her and her husbands’ service.

To maintain a convincing masculine identity, “Frances Clayton took up all the manly vices. To better conceal her sex, she learned to drink, smoke, chew, and swear. She was especially fond of cigars. She even gambled, and a fellow soldier declared that he had played poker with her on a number of occasions.”  —DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons, 2003

I was immediately reminded, as I read the article, of two songs that were surely played on TLGMS (the late, great Morning Show, the radio program that brought many of us to this blog).

  1. From Peter Paul and Mary’s version of The Cruel War:                        I’ll tie back my hair,                                                                                                       men’s clothing I’ll put on                                                                                           I‘ll pass as your comrade,                                                                                                as we march along                                                                                                           I’ll pass as your comrade                                                                                                 no one will ever know                                                                                           Won’t you let me go with you?                                                                                   No, my love, no

https://youtu.be/iwuMW2MYFBM

  1. And a traditional song, though not about the Civil War, was sung by Sally Rogers on her first album The Unclaimed Pint: “(When I Was) A Fair Maid”, lyrics here.

For what event have you been willing to “cross-dress”?

 

The Baboon Congress

East Side, West Side

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Header Image: Forest of For Sale signs in Oughtibridge, England. Terry Robinson [CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

The Winona saga continues. For any newer readers to the Trail, Husband and I are planning to move from suburban Mpls. to Winona, MN, this summer. For the past six weeks we have been in house hunting mode, and after seeing probably 18 houses, have narrowed our choices down to two.

I’ve found find that every day a different criteria floats to the top of my priority list. One day it is size (not necessarily large, but well laid out), another day it’s a good sized kitchen, and on a cold, rainy day last week it was an attached garage (good luck). When we first considered, we thought we were maybe done with gardening, but when we started attending open houses in February, what attracted Husband was a garden space out back; and I found that I need a good tree somewhere on the lot, preferably outside the kitchen window so as to enable birdwatching.

There are two houses in the running, one on the East end of Winona (very near a friend that is like family), that actually has more square footage than our current home; it was remodeled in the 1950s, so feels like a ‘50s rambler even though it was built in 1895.

The other is smaller than what we’re used to (not all the furniture would fit), but has received some wonderful remodeling touches by the present owner, has hardwood floors and a GAS STOVE (they’re apparently few and far between), and is on a rather busy street on the West end, a couple of blocks from an old friend of mine.

We’ve made an offer on the East end one, partly because we’re aware of a ready-made community of friends near there, but I’m still waffling between the two.

What criteria would be at the top of your list if you were house hunting?

The Baboon Congress, Words

R. I. P. Pat Conroy

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Today’s post is by Barbara in Robbinsdale

Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, et al., died last week on March 4, 2016. He wrote prolifically about a harrowing childhood in which his father played a huge role – his military style of parenting; the verbal and emotional abuse he visited on Conroy and his siblings; and the “military brat” lifestyle of moving around the South – 24 places by the time Conroy was 15. Conroy’s writing both “saved” him, and was the cause of more conflict – in the form of rifts with family members throughout his adult life.

Four of Pat Conroy’s books became movies:

  • The Water is Wide, 1972 (movie 1974, Conrack)   (also a Hallmark TV presentation, 2006)
  • The Great Santini, 1976 (movie 1979)
  • The Lords of Discipline, 1980 (movie 1983)
  • The Prince of Tides, 1986 (movie 1991)

In his final memoir, The Death of Santini (2013), he may have finally achieved a degree of closure and peace about his father. But as I listened last week to a “Talking Volumes” interview with MPR’s Kerry Miller, it was the stories he told about his mother that enchanted me, and shaped the rest of his life – how “she made reading the most important thing a person could do.” She took all the kids (ultimately seven) to the library every week, and they each checked out as many books as they were allowed (5 books in most libraries). They would then “read ‘em and trade ‘em,” so the kids might read as many as 25 books a week!

Literature became as real as anything else in the world, “and my mother made it that way.” She would read to him at bedtime each night, one of the first in his memory (at about age 5) being her favorite: Gone with the Wind.” He remembered it this way in the interview:

“Now Pa-at… when you hear me read about Scarlett O’hara, it is quite naturally for you to mistake Miss Scarlett for your own pretty mama. And when you read about that dastardly Rhett Butler, you can think about your fighter pilot father in Korea.” And she said, “When you think about Melanie Wilkes you can think about your tacky Aunt Helen… that girl don’t have a lick of sense and no personality whatsoever.”

When she read that way, with “every character in that book she could associate somebody we knew – it was the first time I knew there was a relationship between life and art.”

The more I read about Pat Conroy, i.e. from his website,   http://www.patconroy.com/about.php

the more of his books I want to read, especially The Death of Santini, and The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of my Life.

 

Is there a book in your “repertoire” in which you can insert people you know for some memorable character(s)?

The Baboon Congress, Travel

The People on the Train

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

As you may have guessed if you follow this blog regularly, I barely got started talking about the 1998 Rail Pass trip in the post of 2/20/16. As I was reading through my journal while writing it, I came upon many of my encounters with the other people on the train, some of whom I can still recall without prompting.

Day 1 on the train, in coach seat:  This is my first taste of freedom and anonymity – I remember this feeling from when I began living in San Francisco – my first time in a large city.  I’m resisting the temptation to pipe up and join in ongoing conversations that I can overhear.  I want to stay single, independent, anonymous.

Day 2:  There are people from all over – speaking German, Polish (?), an Oriental language. It’s very beautiful to hear… And it’s fun to watch the various couples, being not part of a couple, for a change. The similarities (playing cribbage) and differences… The sweet things they sometimes do for each other, the bossiness, the assumed closeness, the laughter, and the frowning. It’s quite a phenomenon.

Day 5:  It really is different being a single traveler. Ate in the dining car at same table with three Japanese young adults who cared not a whit about me, made no effort to engage a conversation. (Only one spoke much English.) I finally asked them at meal’s end where they’re from, etc. – a minute or two – then left it alone.

Other non-USA riders (a Londoner in Canada, a couple from Luxemburg) have been equally un-curious.  Is it that I look uninteresting? Or is it just an American trait to be curious and nosey? I guess I was hoping to tell a lot of people about this adventure I’m on.

Day 18: There’s a little girl sitting somewhere behind me – probably 3 years old or so – who sings delightfully … would  love to have her voice on tape!

Day 19: Have had some delightful conversations with various women in the last few days; just breakfasted with three generations from Beaumont, Mississippi – artist types – and asked them about how to learn perspective (in drawing).

In Observation Car: Two little girls have met here on the train, found each other (no doubt to their parents’ delight).

Day 20: Had a lot of fun drawing with a little boy named Kris. He has a cat at his grandma’s place called Shockamo-doo-da-day.   I gave some drawing paper to the family with an almost-two-year-old, across and behind me – little boy who gave his momma such a sweet hug.

One southern woman knows how to have fun with that 3-year-old grandson. He’s in her custody, she tells me… and she’s also going to adopt a baby – she’s 52 and rides a motorcycle!

Day 23: Worked a crossword puzzle with a very nice kid (11-ish) en route to church camp.

Day 28: Ate in the dining car with another vital grandma traveling with her daughter and grandson – a widow full of life and actively seeking a good time – on a trip to Canada to study genealogy with her cousin.

What’s your modus operandi when traveling? Anonymous, or “out there”?

 

 

 

The Baboon Congress, Travel

North American Rail Pass

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.

Once upon a time, I had a very good idea. It was 1998, and my 50th birthday was coming up. I wanted to do something special for this birthday… not a party, something more unusual and exciting. I love traveling by train, and a friend had alerted me to a fantastic deal provided by a North American Rail Pass. An article in the Mpls. Star Tribune read: “The 30-day pass, providing unlimited travel and unlimited stopovers, will cost…. $645… for travel between June 1 and Oct. 15…”

After getting the OK from Husband – “May I have the month of July off, Dear?” (son Joel was 17)  –  I started planning. I knew from previous experience that I could sleep in coach, sort of, for a night or two at most. I decided to travel the perimeter of the country, as friends/sister lived at several points thereon.  Turned out I could schedule myself for a couple of days/nights on the train to get to the next destination, and then stay X # of days with someone. It allowed me to see almost everyone I wanted to, within the 31 days. (Because I stayed eight days in the SF Bay Area, I unfortunately had to skip NYC.)

The Rail Pass required travel in both the US (Amtrak), and Canada (Via); although it felt silly, I flew to Winnipeg to launch on July 1 (Canada Day!), then traveled on Via across the plains and Canadian Rockies, arriving in Vancouver at 8:55 a.m. on July 3. At the time, this was the one link where no train was available, and I took the motor coach, Greyhound, from Vancouver to Seattle, where I found a hotel for one night and a nice Japanese restaurant (it being the one stop where I knew no one nearby).

The rest of the itinerary looked like this:

      • Seattle –> Oakland:  One night on southbound Coast Starlight.  Spent eight days with sister et al.
      • Oakland –> Los Angeles:   One day on southbound Coast Starlight.  Transferred to …
      • LA –> Deming, NM: One night on eastbound Eagle.  Spent four days with high school friend.
      • Deming –>Jacksonville, FL:  Two nights on eastbound Sunset Limited.  Transferred to …
      • Jacksonville –> Charleston SC:  One half day on northbound Silver Meteor:  – spend 3 days with childhood friend.   (Note: In 1998, there were still trains between New Orleans and Jacksonville, not shown on the current map.)
      • Charleston –> Washington DC:  One night on northbound Silver Meteor.  Transferred to …
      • DC –> Indianapolis:  One night on westbound Cardinal: spend two days with grad school friend.
      • Indy –> Chicago:  One half day motor coach: (better timing than Amtrak’s Cardinal for last leg of trip):
      • Chicago –> St. Paul:  One half day on westbound Empire Builder:

I got to see breathtaking, sometimes close-up views of:  the Canadian Rockies, chartreuse canola fields in bloom, a Seattle suburb full of blue hydrangeas, cliffs along the California coast, Arizona desert cacti, southern live oaks and Spanish moss in Florida, a sweet little streams with a footbridge in West Virginia, a duck on moss covered pilings in the Chicago River, cattle facing a classic red barn with a sign posted: “Prepare to Meet Thy God”.

Train stations, some outstanding like the ones in Jasper, Alberta, Canada, El Paso, Texas and Union Station in Chicago.

Union Station, Chicago
El Paso Station
Jasper Station

Then I boarded the Empire Builder for the last few hours to St. Paul. Husband met me at 10:59 p.m., at the St. Paul station on, appropriately enough, Transfer Road – I was ready to be home.

Imagine you have an entire month to be spirited away somewhere. Everything for which you are responsible will be taken care of, and money is no object. Where would you go?

History, The Baboon Congress

Winona Ho!

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Header photo of Lake Winona and bluffs via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

Winona Ho!

The Play Group

When Husband and I moved up to Minneapolis from Winona in 1985, it was with mixed feelings.  We thought we had found “Home” in Winona, and we knew how much we were leaving behind in the small town. Minneapolis is where Husband had landed a good programming job, and we had his family and several friends in the Twin Cities. But we were pretty sure it wasn’t going to be permanent – we would return some day to Winona.

There are many reasons why this is finally going to happen, probably in mid-summer:

The hippie farm

– For Husband, he’s realized that Winona is where his Tribe resides – people he’d met as he helped to start up the food co-op and the farmers’ market, from his apple-picking days at an orchard on the river, from living on the Hippie Farm  above East Burns Valley… there were many colorful characters, several of whom are still around.

Up on the Levee

– My roots there are not as deep, but I formed a bond with local folk dancers, and parents in the preschool play group that Joel and I had joined. I fell in love with the beauty and the – movement is almost the right word – of the river. (…“you rolling old river, you changing old river…” Bill Stains)  Our house was just a couple of blocks from the Mississippi, so we would often pull the wagon up on the levee to see it. I also love the fact that this town, slightly larger than Marshalltown IA (a little over 25,000 when I was growing up), had such a vibrant Alternative Community. Then there was the Culture available with three (now two) colleges, a boat house community…

–  It turns out that my Tribe, I have come to realize, is mostly our Babooner “collective”, plus a few others. I am hoping this is a portable connection, though I imagine it will feel somewhat different not being right “in the center of things”. I figure I’ll be traveling up to the Cities at least monthly – will try to schedule it around Baboon events.

–  I am also aware that, for both Michael and me, we are not as moored to this place as we once were, before our son Joel died in 2007. And Husband has lost several family members in recent years, either literally or figuratively – freeing us up even more. I am hoping that my mom will be amenable to moving there when the time is right, and we have done some research to that end.

At a party - 1984

– We have recently seen the power of the network of Winona people, since our best Winona friend Walken (who is experiencing the early stages of Parkinson’s) lost his wife Bernadette in December to pancreatic cancer. There is a food network that brought daily meals for weeks, and several people who provided rooms for his visiting in-laws.  (Reminds me of how we Babooners have gathered to help each other at times.)

I have never said “No” to a move, and I have never been sorry. But as I think about leaving Mpls, it is with mixed feelings. No doubt I will miss a lot of things about this city – this is worthy of its own blog at some point.

But the bluffs are calling.

Have you ever had to leave a place before you felt you were ready to leave?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Baboon Congress, Words

Banished Words

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

I was listening to “The Splendid Table” one recent Sunday morning and was appalled to hear Lynne Rossetto Kasper mention a kitchen “hack” for a desired outcome. Until then I had thought I could avoid hearing “hack” (used in place of the word “tip”), if I simply stayed off Facebook and Pinterest. It’s just one of those little new words that drives me a little batty, and apparently I’m not the only one. On New Years’ Day, I came upon this New York Times article about a Banished Words List, issued annually for the past 40 years by the Public Relations Department of Lake Superior State University (in Sault Ste. Marie, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula).

This tongue-in-cheek listing began as a publicity strategy to help LSSU become known as more than a technological institution. “The first list was dreamed up by Bill (William T.) Rabe and… friends at a New Year’s Eve party in 1975. The following day, the “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness” was released – the international reaction from news media and the public was unexpected… Although Rabe retired in 1987, the list has been continued by LSSU’s Public Relations people.    

“People from around the world have nominated hundreds of words and phrases such as ‘you know,’ ‘user friendly,’ ‘at this point in time,’ and ‘have a nice day,’ to be purged from the language.” Some more recent offerings have been: “my bad” (1998), “forced relaxation” (1989), “free gift” (1988), “live audience” (1983, 1987, 1990). 2015’s list included “bae,” “polar vortex” and… “hack.”

It was in some odd way satisfying to find “hack” on the 2015 Banished Words List

“This word is totally over-used and mis-used. What they really mean is ‘tip’ or ‘short cut,’ but clearly it is not a ‘hack,’ as it involves no legal or ethical impropriety or breach of security.” – Peter P. Nieckarz Jr., Sylva, N.C.

What word or phrase would you submit to the 2016 Banished Word List?