I have something important to say to fellow Minnesotans.
But first, I want to find out how many of you readers actually are Minnesotans.
A quick poll.
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The closest I ever came to Minnesota was the drive between Thunder Bay and Kenora in Ontario. As much as I hoped to enter the promised land – alas – I was doomed to wander in the desert (uh, I mean Ontario) for the next forty years.
Father, I don’t think they’d let me in. I’m not proficient in the language. In Christ,
I checked that I’m from Minnesota but no longer live there, but really, I from Omaha, live in Omaha now, and lived in the Twin Cities for a little over two years. I do have some family there. But Father, if you really want to talk about great places to live, you should stop in the big O. This is God’s county!
My dad was born and raised in Forest Lake. He left during his college years.
Minnesota native, born and raised, and currently residing in Minneapolis :)
I assume, Father, that the very important bit will be regarding the marriage amendment? Rest assured I will be voting for it.
Born in another state but have lived in MN for the last 38 years.
I’ve been to St Paul once. Why is it that there are no urinals, just troughs filled with ice?
Michigan born and raised. Been to Duluth may times, dated a Minnesota Norwegian, broke up after tasting lutefisk.
I’m afraid I’ve never been within 500 miles of Minnesota. And not too long ago, that would have been 2500 miles. I did chose a rental car with Minnesota plates once though, so I guess I’m not completely without the graces attached to that state. So I’m curious what you have to say…
I hope you are finally going to tell us what the best chinese food in MN is.
Born and raised (for the most part) in Mankato, MN. Really great town in southern Minnesota.
Now live out east, sometimes to my chagrin. My tallness and German/Scandanavian’ness and niceness are foreign and exotic traits where I live now.
I was raised a Brewers fan, but I’ve always cheered for the Twins as well. Looking forward to this weekend’s series, starting tonight!
I’m interested to hear what this important thing is you have to say to us Minnesotans.
I was born and raised in Minnesota, but years of higher education have taken me far afield. I however, still being a student, maintain legal residency and, for instance, vote and buy resident fishing and hunting licenses in the gopher state.
I changed planes in Minneapolis once. I’m afraid I have no desire to move to Minnesota, though. I’ve just moved to Alaska, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s the most beautiful place on earth.
My only Minnesota story is from a few years ago, when the APS March Meeting was in Minneapolis. I found a Thai restaurant and, since I didn’t have one near where I lived, I kept going back for the Pad Thai. I started with mild, but that was too mild. Then I went to medium, and it was just like the mild. Then I went to spicy, and it came out encrusted in Asian peppers — apparently including all the peppers they had saved by not putting any spice in the mild or medium. It would have been fantastic if they had used about on third as much pepper.
Born and raised Minnesotan, moved to NY for 3 years (and not interesting NY, but central NY). And now happy to be back. Currently writing from Saint Paul/Vadnais Heights/Little Canada/Maplewood depending on how one interprets the Zip code and street address.
@Nathan, the accent isn’t so bad in the Twin Cities (they think they are too metropolitan for that), but when you get out to central and North MN, then it gets bad. I have an Aunt from Fargo (which is in North Dakota people) and her accent is absolutely hilarious, we love it. My sister-in-law is from the Lake of the Woods area, and she definitely has an accent.
I can report that even halfway around the world there are a fair number of Minnesota expats–I’m living in Beijing and run into a few here, and when I visited Shanghai a few times met a few more. They even used to have a Minnesota club down there (not sure if it’s still going). Up here the U of M has a Beijing office that organizes events for visiting professors, prospective students, and the like. In Catholic circles, Duluth native the singer Danielle Rose just came out for the second or third time to visit friends doing Catholic work here (a group called Little Flower, doing medical work with orphans and setting up foster homes). She brought a group with her, and though mostly Angelinos as she lives there now there was a Maplewood native as well. It was nice to talk with a nice dark “oh” and “ah” sound in our voices and to share Land O’ Lakes lemon bars, and drop plenty of “you bets”!
I have driven through it and a couple times I have flown into the airport….. that, I assume, was a taste of Gods grace if I quit sinning.
I was born just outside of Chicago, raised mostly in the Los Angeles, CA, area, and spent 241 months (day for day, but who was counting?) in the Navy (San Diego [CA], Honolulu [HI], Newport [RI], Monterey [CA], and Washington [DC], whence I departed for Washington State when I retired). I could not possibly live in Minnesota, I might survive the winters, but the physical toll on my wife would be insufferable for her. I live near Seattle, which I am given to understand is a political climate not particularly dissimilar to the Twin Cities. I would likely relocate to Switzerland (probably Fribourg, as it has a significant Dominican presence) or the Isle of Man (something of a tax haven), but given the grasping tax tyranny which has begun to engulf the United States, that would likely be a financial impossibility—the U.S., unlike most other industrialized countries today, expects expatriates to pay income tax despite the fact that an expat does not consume most general (i.e., unearned) services funded by U.S. taxpayers, nor at least one earned, service (i.e., Medicare). Not to mention that my wife is not all that keen on such a move. Alas, Father Z, because you provided no poll answer that reasonably approximates my situation, I am unable to participate in the poll beyond posting this comment.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Father, I’m concerned about the enormous number who want to move here. I think that we should develop a liturgical examination to be used during the Visa request process for prospective new residents.
For example, it would be important to know the prospective new neighbor’s attitude towards incense, bell ringing, the use of the Biretta, what caliber ammo (a trick question), traditional procedures for determining which server gets to carry the processional crucifix, which the thurible, etc., the correct pronunciation and meaning (including tense) of “lavabo”, and other liturgical factoids that all real Cat’lich Minnesotans have learned by the second grade.
It might be useful to inform the new residents that there are variations in Catholicism even here. For example, my Friends Fr. Pedersen and Jenson come from the Lutefisk branch, you, I presume are from the Bratwurst and Sauerkraut branch. I, personally, am a mixture of the Kielbasa and Pasty (made with “beggies”) branches.
All my life I heard the saga of my aunt moving to California from her farm in Minnesota because it was so outrageously cold up there. (She didn’t have electricity until around 1957 when rural MN was electrified). I live in a northerly state, but we have a mild climate. Our problems here stem from lots of rain, floods, landslides from super-soaked soil, etc. But one can avoid living on a flood plain, or driving through running water (which gets someone killed most years), or, after a big rain, driving near hills that are known to slump. We have nice summers…MN is really humid in the summer, isn’t it? So, sorry, not moving.
Grew up in Mankato, studies Chinese at U of MN.
Studied, that is
Where the hell is Minnesota? [Just kidding.]
@Jael, My grandparents (and my mother) didn’t get electricity until 1953 in southern rural MN. They didn’t get running water until they retired and moved into town in the early 80’s.
Summers can get humid, though not nearly as bad as the south, followed by severe weather. It is all the bodies of water, along with the fronts coming over the plains. Winters really aren’t that bad. Yes we have days and days of 0 degree or under whether, but your body gets used to it, and you get to make good use of all that cool winter gear. After spending a few summers in central NY, where mild winters (temperate wise, but not snowfall wise) are the norm, I really think people are sissies. =)
Speaking as a dyed-in-the-wool Southerner, Minnesota is right out. Sorry, guys.
Of course we do have tornadoes, water moccasins, and hot humid summers (my dad says, “the South didn’t amount to much until Mr. Carrier invented that air conditioner of his.”) You can’t be a sissy and put up with all that.
My middle dog came from next door, from Wisconsin. When she arrived here in the sunny South she had the plushest, deepest, warmest puppy coat you ever buried your hands in. That didn’t last — she now has a coat as slick as a seal, with no undercoat at all. I’m sure it’s cooler that way.
@AnAmericanMother
My family on my dad’s side moved into Florida to act as spies for Andrew Jackson. Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot, British agents who were hanged for inciting the Seminoles to attack into what was then south Georgia, were apparently identified as such by one of my ancestors.
Air conditioning is nice, but what really made the difference was draining the swamps and using DDT. Yellow Fever went a long way toward destroying Saint Joseph, Florida, the first incarnation of my hometown.
Jilly4ski…in the end, I think nearly any climate takes some perseverance. Many people who move to my area are sissies in that they can’t stand months on end without seeing the sun, become depressed, and leave. I think most people can endure cold weather more easily than our constant grey skies.
I grew up here, so when I was exiled to southern California for a few years, I was bored out of my mind by constant sun…no clouds, no FOG (I love fog), nothing but blue sky!
I passed through Minnesota once, on a camping vacation. Biggest mosquitoes I’ve ever seen in my life, were in either Minnesota or Wisconsin… the two states sorta meld together in my memory now. Pretty places, apart from the Jurassic mosquitoes! :-) I seem to remember there were also lots of cows and corn fields….
I’ll stay in Alabama, thank you. Might be hot and humid in the summer, but at least the mosquitoes won’t take someone’s arm off. :-)
I could have voted if you, Father Z, had another category.
Lived in Minnesota for many years, not born there, but loved it. Moved on to eat something other than lutefisk and aquavit for Christmas Eve.
I went to high school in Faribault; does that count?
I also spent 6 wonderful summers in N. Minn. as a child, and remember them mostly with fondness.
I visited St. Paul three times – business trips: I worked with 3M and in 1978; 1984; and 1990 represented Trinidad at conferences. Since I had been living in Trinidad, W.I. since 1972 and had become acclimatized to a tropical climate, I was frozen in St. Paul in June!!
I remember walking out of my hotel one June morning and seeing 33 at the temperature and thinking “Our temperature (at home) is 33 everyday, but there it is Celsius. Here it is Fahrenheit!! In June!!!!”
I did enjoy my visits there and found the people to be really nice and the traffic most civilized (unlike Trinidad traffic), but could not conceive of actually living there because of the climate.
This far down on the list of readers’ comments, I’m not sure if anyone is still reading…
The debate in Minnesota seems to be over a proposed amendment in favor of defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
As to be expected, the news media goes all out to get the opinion of those who have left the Church and/or those who disagree with Church teaching on the sacrament.
Here’s a good place to start, though it’s not pretty reading.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/05/17/social_issue/ex-priests-come-out-against-minnesota-marriage-amendment/
The media rounds up “the usual suspects” to “prove” that the Church really has no say in the matter and that the compassionate and the with-it will and must rule the day.
Isn’t Minnesota just another name for Canada, like Éire for Ireland and Albion for Great Britain?
I’ve been to Minnesota three times in my life, and each visit was a pleasant time. It’s a lovely part of the world. I wouldn’t mind living there . . . except for the winters. . . .
Part of a silly old song I heard once:
“I’m from Minnesota, now that’s a fact.
You can’t tell by my shoes, can’t tell by my hat,
Can’t tell by the way that I wear my clothes —
Only by the frostbite on my nose . . . “
I should have mentioned that my grandparents lived in Minneapolis for about 15 years, and it’s where most of my uncles and aunts were born.
My three Minnesota visits were to northern Minnesota (Orr, Crane Lake, the BWCA), St. Paul and Shakopee, and Bloomington.
I’m from there but currently living in California due to military obligations.
Just wanted to clarify. Why anybody would want to move away from Minnesota by choice is beyond me!
Well, Father, what is this big Minnesota related item? You’ve been afwully quiet on this topic.