Curmudgeon heads to his home town, Saint Paul MN

Just back from Saint Paul, and a few places north of there, to work on some genealogy stuff and meet cousins who I didn't know existed until recently.  There was snow cover but a 70 degree day helped wipe out much of the previous week's 10 inch snow.

I promise nothing about F. Scott Fitzgerald or John Dillinger.  Those two personalities, with Minnesota connections, have been over-reported and though I still find the fascination with Dillinger fascinating, I won't go there. Not too many places in Minnesota that don't claim a Dillinger sighting. Best book on Dillinger in Saint Paul is the Paul Maccabee book, John Dillinger Slept Here.

James J. Hill Reference Library, Saint Paul Minnesota

One story I find interesting is the one about Sinclair Lewis and his move to Saint Paul's Summit Avenue to write a novel about James J. Hill.   He moved in just down the block from the Hill residence.  As he set about his research he found it overwhelming and gave up.  Understandable since the James J. Hill personal papers alone consist of 672.0 cu. ft. including 1231 boxes, 65 folders, 49 tubes, and 175 microfilm reels.

Sinclair Lewis Residence, 516 Summit Ave

The Lewis research is mentioned in correspondence to Alfred Harcourt.  "...'actually spent a couple of weeks reading oceans of dope'. Nothing came of it for he says he was baffled and that he couldn’t find his way out." Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis. An American Life.

"The year 1917 saw him (S. Lewis) residing in St. Paul, in a lemon colored brick house on Summit Avenue... During this Minnesota sojourn, He also visited the Cass Lake lumber camps and slept in a bunkhouse." The Minnesota Backgrounds of Sinclair Lewis' Fiction by John T. Flanagan, Minnesota History, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1960)

The year 1917 was also my father's birth year in Cass Lake, Minnesota.  Sinclair had probably come and gone before dad opened his eyes.  Grandpa very possibly was working in the lumber camps.

Very curmudgeonly of Sinclair when he wrote on April 8, 1942: "Minneapolis is so ugly. Parking lots like scabs. Most buildings are narrow, drab, dirty, flimsy, irregular—in relationship to one another—a set of bad teeth." Lewis quoted in Esquire, 50:161.   Of course being of the same persuasion about Minneapolis, by birthright, (bad pun) I agree. 

"Those who knew Sinclair Lewis well found him alternately kind or curmudgeonly, swinger or recluse, liberal or petty, generous to rivals or nasty behind their backs, appalled by Main Street but nostalgic for its barbershop gusto, a slapdash stylist who made careful chronologies and street maps for his novels, a dissipated wassailer who arose at 4:30 to write until breakfast and then steadily into the afternoon." Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis. An American Life.

 One of my favorite Minnesota authors was Bill Holm. "He called himself a curmudgeon, and he was, but he was a really brilliant thinker and writer and musician (a pianist),... He was a Walt Whitman scholar. He was a contemporary Mark Twain." from Minnesota mourns the loss of author Bill Holm by Casey Selix and Amy Goetzman  02/26/09 in MINNPOST (see the whole article here)  

I have most of the Bill Holm's books, most I have read.  Two of my favorites: 

Boxelder Bug Variations: A Meditation on an Idea in Language and Music This collection of poems, prose, and songs illuminates the broad imagination of Bill Holm as he contemplates the mysteries of life and beauty while musing about the state of the boxelder bug. (from the publisher) This was my first acquaintance with Bill Holm.  I went to a party for some friends who were moving out of state. I thought the book an amusing gift since their home had a infestation of the miserable little things. I must have drunk too much wine for when I got home I found the book was still in my coat pocket. Probably a good thing.

and this is probably my favorite: 

                                   The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth

Growing up, Bill Holm knew what failure was: "to die in Minneota." But after returning to his hometown ("a very small dot on an ocean of grass") after 20 years' absence, he wasn't so sure. Finding pleasure in the customs and characters of small-town life, in The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth he writes with affection about the town elders, seen by those in the outside world as misfits and losers. "They taught me what to value, what to ignore, what to embrace, and what to resist." In his trek through the heartland, Holm covers a satisfyingly wide emotional terrain, from scandalous affairs in the 1950s to his aunt's touching attempts to transcend poverty with perfume and movie-star airs. (from the publisher)


Other curmudgeons in Minnesota:

On the political front is Lawrence R. Jacobs.

He calls himself the Liberal Curmudgeon.  He is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance in the Hubert H. Humphrey School and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His center is a preeminent hub for political and policy analysis in the Midwest. (see more here)

On the other side of the aisle is the Right Curmudgeon. "The Right Curmudgeon is dedicated to finding nuggets in current news stories that the politicians and the media would just as soon you miss. Our mission is to help keep you informed, armed with the facts to counter the Left’s feelings, and hopefully to make you both think and smile every day."  Michael Becker is a Curmudgeon, and true to curmudgeon form, he’s crotchety and he bites.  In addition to his blogging home at The Right Curmudgeon, he’s a regular contributor at The Minority Report, Wizbang, Unified Patriots and Joe for America.(see more here)  

I think I once found something we agreed about but I can't think of what it was.

Back to the frigid Mount where temps have not moved out of the mid 30's since our return.  We may have to re-evaluate our garden planting.  More snow peas and snowball cauliflower.