Minnesota Ex Pats...but anyone is welcome

The channel 11 studios were in the hotel on the north shore of Lake Calhoun, and saturday nights there was All Star Wrestling open to the public and televised live. Pretty big deal. I imagine you went to a few shows of Casey's, and my dentist was his too. Small world back then, and friendlier too. Cost a dime to ride dowtown from our apple farm and view the city from the top of the Foshey Tower and toss a penny (statute of limitations allow me to admit this)over.

Then came Vietnam, lying presidents, and eventually Barney the Purple dinosaur and Iraq.

From everyday toils and events, it's not often we recall specifics from the deep memory banks of our minds. A couple years back I traced my childhood geography up thru Iowa and what was rural MN and the only tangible reminders were often only tombstones and highway numbers...faces, places, and markers most all replaced by WalMarts and suburban sprawl. America and her place on my growing-up including the old stores, stories, and people were long gone. That's the America people often site when saying were "still the best". I can't agree anymore, not after knowing we're not the nation we once were simple due to the fact that we've engineered ourselves into oblivion from people and place into a mass market frenzy, built upon the bulldozed memories and stylized into a veneer of fantasies, a "make believe" of imagry that preys on memory instead of being bolstered by it.

There's a definitive generational gap in ways and means now, studies being done to find out how we respond to teasing with product lines, which colors make us want to buy more and which scents force us to watch which news presentations. Disneyland for history, false democracies for economy. Sure do miss the character and realities of times gone forever, but the effect of sharing the triggers to events and places sure is magical for me. Reminds me of really who I am. We tend to forget that a bunch.

Como Park zoo, Toni's pizza on the Northeast side (precursor to the frozen empire), and Excelsior Amuzement Park...just before my time a streetcar ride out from downtown. Man I'm feeling old today, but also a bit more wise.
 
Writing Jim545 back and forth, more memories trickle in. I Remember the waterfront in St. Paul as being seedy and the Caverns from limestone Ford used to mine for windshields and the Old Soldier's Home was the bastion overlooking the mighty Miss, two great uncles' ambulatory final battles there.

Schmidt Beer and the Hamm's brewery were operating full tilt and workers there, the third generation of them safe in their jobs could drink off the assembly line anytime. All the little 'burbs" mainstreet intersections were crossroads of rail tracks for the streetcars that GM bought and silenced so their new buses could take you downtown. They still charged just a dime though.

Dayton's downtown in December was where you windowshopped to see fantasies of Santa's helpers making toys for the world. There as no skyway yet but Hennepin Avenue was for stately theaters and cheap whores (according to my buddy's dad, who worked in the Printer's District which was all of Washington Ave.

St. Louis Park was Jewish, the N.E. was Polish, and North Mpls was employed at Burmann Buckskin or the one of the two grand passenger railway stations.

Then I saw this all again, last Winter when we buried my dad at Ft. Snelling, his presense gone along with the landmarks of recall the twin cities' that were.

Just an observation from one who left then came back, for a fleeting moment.
 
Lots of good memories oak, the things no one can take from us.

And the bad memories, well, I would just as soon forget them.

You two need to get your fannies back here! A lot is gone, but it aint all gone. Heck, I'll even be your chauffeur!
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Been trying to engineer a return soon, I'll let you know. Can someone still get to the top of the Foshey Tower?

As far as moving back, If I had a tough time last December with 10 above zero, it'd kill me when it sinks to 29 below.

I see coconuts and the Southern Cross in my future.
 
I just called the desk of the W Hotel:

http://tinyurl.com/4p676l

to ask about observation deck tours of the Foshay Tower. It costs $8 per adult, under 12 free, to go up top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foshay_Tower

When the IDS Tower was built the joke was to see the Foshay Tower and the box it came in.

My Dad used to buy his pipe tobacco at Billy and Marty's tobacannist in the Tower. When cousins came to the Cities for their honeymoon we took them to the Foshay. They were from Tioga, ND where the tallest building was four stories.

I wonder if anyone ever pocketed all of the pennies tossed off the Foshay? :)
 
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My Dad used to buy his pipe tobacco at Billy and Marty's tobacannist in the Tower. When cousins came to the Cities for their honeymoon we took them to the Foshay. They were from Tioga, ND where the tallest building was four stories.

I wonder if anyone ever pocketed all of the pennies tossed off the Foshay? :)

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Wow. Dad bought me my first Peterson Briar pipe there, and a pouch of Toasted Cavandish, hoping I wouldn't tempt cigarettes. A treat was a .05 cent pack of Wrigley's Doublemint. Another great old institution was the Mpls Athletic Club where us kids had to stand in a dip bin before we could jump in the pool. I loved that smell, but found out years later it was DDT.

I never could find any pennies after a hustle off the observation floor back to the street, I knew the old guard/elevator man was suspicious but we tried a kid's version of poker face, like no one ever tried it before.

It was a kid's dreamworld to wander around downtown. The IDS was put up while I was somewhere else. Came back and it seemed like a tragedy and a loss of innocense. I heard that a few rivets weren't placed right on some lower floors and the entire tower tilted a couple degrees from it, but too late, it'd been all rented out. Folklore?

Jim told me about the Lincoln Dell near Hopkins, I remember that one and the one out in Golden Valley near the Cinerama, across from the Ice Center. My mom skated every Sunday there, she was an old Ex-Ice Folliet.

The old days seemed like these places were all within an adventurous journey from one another, distances to cover that promised wonderful sights in between. A big day and bigger deal when we wandered around from one to the next but last Winter my childhood buddy who never left, drove me down the old trails past distant memories and bumper-to-bumper hours in between, nothing really registered as the same, even the smells. And the women power-walking their highbred dogs down the lake trails weren't ANYTHING like the gals I remember.

Is it just me or am I getting old? Too many cactus thorns and jalapeno peppers?

Cook me up some Lutefisk Ollie, I got a stack of Potato pancakes.
 
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Oh, if you ever get a chance to talk with the 'never-ending' beauty queen, Barbara Peterson (Miss USA I think in '73?) Ask her about Reed.

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An old flame?
 
Seeing the Cinerama go under the wrecking ball as a heart break. Sitting in the dark watching the characters die off and be revived in 'How the West Was Won' puzzled me. Sitting through 'the Killing Fields' with a dear friend of mine who is Viet Nam vet was charged and tingly. When were the go go dancers going to show up in the cages? 2001 was amazing!

Jolly Troll ring a bell? Way before Old Country Buffet Jim. Quantity over quality...but not by much...mmmm.

Sitting in the first row of the balcony at the Uptown Theater is the best seat in town. That has been the place where I've watched to most movies of my life. Seeing Fritz the Cat and then getting my ear chewed the next morning when Dad confronted me with seeing an X-rated movie...Awww, Dad, it was a COMIC! HEHEHE!

The Grand Rounds will stay in place for ever. Theodore Wirth gave the city a gift by not allowing any private ownership of waterfront property in the City of Lakes. When ISA was in Mpls. I took some friends from UK and Denmark on a windshield tour of the parkways. they were impressed with the available access.

Lots has changed but all of the neighborhoods that I grew up in are pretty unchanged. The fringes of the metro roll out into the fields and woodlines though.
 
Oak,

You may remember Big Island on Lake Minnetonka. Don't go there now,(it may depress you).

Guys,

How about the Golden Nugget on Excelsior blvd., still there, been around since 1925.

Then there's the old mobster tavern on I think Williston Road and Highway 7, "The Wilhopin" or something like that and supposedly home of the "juicy-lucy". Gone now but what a fun place.

I could go on and on.....

Get over on the east side, Stillwater.... take a drive up the St. Croix to Taylors Falls. Things haven't changed a bit. The Root Beer stand is still there, I think the Alpine Slide is still going as well.

This is fun!
 
Back in the day.

Something my mother set up. Barb's and mine skated together in the Ice Follies in the 40's. Her dad and mine served together in WW2. Mom's a matchmaker bar none. It didn't go anywhere except friendship for life. She's fighting cancer again, lost her dad to same as mine. Brother's all Harvard Law, husband I think you're familiar with.

I was a kid, places to go and things to do. Still.
 
Big Island? Dad was a Power Squadron member, mom was in the Coast Guard Auxilliary. Next to each other. Minnesota maintained the Veteran's Club there since the grand Hotel burned down in the early 1900's. Learned to swim on the beach, canoed out to Gail Island and back. We walked the Island many times, an old abandoned two story cabin overlooked the bay the Squadron was in, we knew it was haunted. I know it's changed but one small item I've noticed is that Minnetonka has clear water now, in the sixties our boat flushed it's head right into the lake and if we ran up to the deck fast enough, we'd see our turds rise to float (dad had a homebuilt cruiser docked in Gray's bay).

Uncle Sam's downtown used to be where we boarded the Greyhound bus to Winnipeg, they had a 'stewardess' on board then, to pass out pillows and soda pops.

The way old neighborhoods still do look the same Tom - for some reason I can't imagine. The house I lived in was a apple farm, and it however is gone. On the banks of Minnehaha Creek.

Mom would take my brother and I to the Jolly Troll, Dad refused to eat there. All the fried chicken you could eat and Minnesotans love green jello dishes, almost a vegetable eh?

Oh man, you guys brought me so close I can still taste the chocolate ice cream cones scooped-up in the popcorn stand next to the band hall on the North side of Lake Harriet, where I first sailed a boat and copped my first feel (Cathy Doherty's right boob).
 
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You're not talking about Babs Carlson are you?

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No. "Burwell" or something like that. He designed the lids for river barges so they could transport stuff without getting it wet. Who'd a thought!?! A billionaire now.

I don't think I'm able to compete with that.
 
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You're not talking about Babs Carlson are you?










OOPS!, not even close.

Barbara Peterson Burwell, Miss America 1976.

You probably remember Babs Carlson though don't you Oakie?
 
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(Cathy Doherty's right boob).


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Does that make you a Lefty?

Fun to read, guys! I'm a bit younger (31) and not familiar with a few of those places.
 
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