#23, Minnesota MN (Been There)

I decided to go to college in the Twin Cities of Minnesota as I finished up my senior year of high school. By the way, the Twin Cities are Minneapolis and St. Paul which are paired together at the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix rivers. What struck me the most was the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" on their license plates and I didn't think that was possible. But it is a fact that Minnesota has over 14,000 lakes of over 10 acres in size within its borders. Within the city where I went to college it was a short drive to one of those lakes and it was open to the public.

Downtown Minneapolis with the IDS building the tallest

Minneapolis at night from the roof of the building where I worked

If there was one thing that stood out from my time in Minneapolis it would be the severe cold in the winter, especially with the wind chill factor. When I started my first job I decided to take the bus but after one minutes in that cold and wind my eyes felt like they were freezing open and I headed back to my car and drove to work instead. It was so cold that cars refused to start, and since mine already had problems starting that made it worse. I made a plan to start and warm up my car every six hours or so, doing so at 7am before first class, 1pm after lunch, 7pm when going to work, and 1am when heading home after work. That seemed to do the trick. At least it seemed to be a better idea than what others came up with, which was to start a small charcoal burn under the engine to keep it warm. The only problem with that was when the fire picked up speed or oil from the engine dripped and accelerated the burn. Every winter several cars caught fire in the neighborhood.

The Mississippi headwaters begin at the north end of Lake Itasca and make their way all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans, Louisiana, a journey of 2,348 miles. As it works its way south through Minnesota it runs right through the Minneapolis/St.Paul metroplex and is the dividing line between those two cities. I've walked parts of the Mississippi River and the Minnehaha Creek, taken photos of the flowers at the Arboretum, hiked through Minnehaha Park and checked out Lock and Dam Number One, and sat along the edge of some of those 14,000 lakes.

Arboretum, I love the symmetry

Lock and Dam Number One on the Mississippi River

Bridge over Minnehaha Creek in Minnehaha Park

I mostly liked my jobs while in Minneapolis. My first year I worked in a bank building cleaning up offices and collecting garbage in locked rooms and cages. In case they thought they accidentally threw something useful away they asked us to go retrieve the marked bag. One night I came into building and ran into a friend from school. After a little chit-chat he asked if I wanted to see the computers in one of the bank rooms. Of course I did! It was a huge room, air-conditioned to a nippy uncomfortableness, with dozens of those huge machines lined up around the edges with their tape drives spinning. That may have been one of my very first introductions to computers and over the next few years did some reading about "personal" computers that were in development. I used to sit in the University of Minnesota and try to understand all the jargon and the technology but I knew I wanted one of them. A number of years later I had one, although at a budget level I could (somewhat) afford.

My other job lasted longer and it involved being a courier driver for a company called Courier Dispatch. I know this will be hard for some of you to understand but if you wanted to get forms signed immediately you would call for a courier to come and pick them up and deliver them to where they needed to be signed, and then you might be asked to bring them back to where you picked them up. Fax machines were still a rarity in smaller offices and we drove all over the metroplex getting things from one place to another. Mostly I picked up sacks of mail from companies for hours and then dropped them all at the Post Office. My last day of work, which I had hoped would be taking enveloped from here to there, ended up being me moving an entire office of furniture and beds to another location. I was not amused. Winter was brutal in those old vans as there was no insulation and a very poor heater. It was always freezing there so you had to dress appropriately. At the end of the shift a few of us drivers still working late ended our night at the inside parking area for the vans. Then we'd go get our cars and bring them in to wash them before heading home. We never personally got in trouble but we found out through the grapevine that the bosses found out about it and notified all drivers that they could not do that any longer. It was good while it lasted. I made $5.50 an hour when the minimum wage was $3.10 an hour, which would be like making $40.15 an hour today.

1978 Buick Limited

One Thursday night during my Junior year this little blonde comes up to me and asks me if I wanted to play a game of pool. This was an unusual turn of events as all the girls I ever asked for a date either laughed, said no in no uncertain terms, or agreed to go with me just one time. So I said yet and we chatted about this and that. It seemed like she wanted me to ask her on a date and so I brought it up, but said that I had already planned to go back home in Illinois for the weekend to get my car. She did not seem happy. Dad made good on giving me first chance to buy it and I was stoked. At the moment, more stoked than dating a girl apparently. When I saw her Monday at classes she said she had gotten back with her boyfriend so I went on with school life. A few days later her roommate came to find me in the library and said the little blonde wanted to see me again. Now I was ticked as she was the one who went back to her boyfriend but I went ahead and asked her out. I had my "new to me" car but she never said a word about it, just ignored it as if it didn't exist. So now the both of us still have issues about the other. Somehow some way we got over our intial feelings and ended up dating for over a year, and then married after I graduated. 

She was surprised when I let her borrow the car and take her friends to the mall and wherever else they chose to go. Not many had cars at school and my Buick was known as the nicest car at school. That lasted only a year as the next year a guy came in with a brand new Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird and I was relegated to second best. But she eventually, grudgingly, told me the car was "alright."

When we drove to her home from school we'd take Highway 35 (an interstate highway) up to Superior, Wisconsin and then over into the Upper Penninsula. Even with rear wheel drive back in the 1970's we'd drive through the snow with several inches on the ground. Looking back it was probably not the safest time to travel but sometimes you just had to get away from college and head home.

Going the other direction I would take Highway 61 (not an interstate) all the way down along the Mississippi River to Quincy, Illinois. That trip was back roads all the way with many towns and many stops along the way. That's just how it was back then as there wasn't always an interstate to take you straight to where you wanted to go. I would often head for home right after work after midnight and drive until I got there by nine in the morning. I'd leave Sunday afternoon to be there ready for class Monday morning.

Put a bunch of different foods on the Christmas table and call it a buffet

For someone who liked to eat a lot college wasn't the best culinary experience. We were served normal portions for normal persons but I was always hungry. But I did not have the money to just go out and eat when I wanted. So I would eat from the cafeteria during weekdays, but the cafeteria was close on Saturday and Sunday. My first year of school I had to come up with some sort of plan over the weekend. My solution was the Smorgasbord near the school. The word smorgasbord was used to describe a place where you could eat a variety of foods for a fixed price, before the word buffet became popular. While these types of restaurants have mostly gone out of service in post-Covid life it was a lifesaver for me. I would get up Saturday morning and get there about 11am when they opened. I would sit there for two or three hours and eat about 8-10 plates of food, just drinking water, and only had to pay $1.99 plus tax. I particulary loaded up on the fried chicken, roast beef, ham, and fish. Then I wouldn't eat until lunch on Monday. It wasn't a perfect system but it worked that first school year.

The other all-you-can eat restaurant I liked, as did some of my friends, was Anchor Inn. They served mostly seafood like fish and shrimp and crab and such, but also threw in frogs legs for good measure. I did try the frogs legs but they were crunchy-chewy and tasteless so I went for the better tasting items on the menu. They served you much like Red Lobster does with their Endless Shrimp, bringing you portions of what you request until you're done eating. Anchor Inn was more a special place to go as it cost way more than $1.99 to eat your way through their offerings.

I'm sure there are more stories to tell but I'm not sure anyone wants to read that much more of my college years. So, I will end it right here and find another state to write about.

Until next time,

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)