Everything You Know About Minnesota is Wrong
By TIM GIHRING
Photo by Darrell Eager
(page 3 of 4)
Garrison Keillor grew up Lutheran
He speaks of lutefisk suppers and the Reformation as though he spent every Sunday of his life in a Lutheran pew. But Keillor was actually born into the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect that makes Lutherans look festive. Brethren families often restrict drinking, dancing, literature, movies, and television; storytelling and radio were among the few entertainments available to Keillor. These days, having joined the Lutheran church but married an Episcopalian, he and his family worship at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in St. Paul. “We don’t make a big deal about it,” says the Reverend Frank Wilson, St. John’s rector. “We try to give him his space.” So despite his sonorous voice, Keillor hasn’t been asked to read the day’s lesson. Once or twice, humorous happenings at the church have found their way into Keillor’s writings. But Wilson understands why Keillor doesn’t talk more about Episcopalians: “We’re not the largest group in Minnesota. We’re used to taking a back seat in religious life here.”
Minnesota, king of lakes
We’ve long known that Minnesota has more lakes than its license plates claim—11,842, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which considers a lake to be 10 acres or larger. But a controversial 2005 study quashed the idea that we’re the nation’s lakes leader. Counting a lake as any body of water—natural or man-made—that can be seen by a satellite (measuring about 100 feet across), the researchers ranked Minnesota seventh, even though we were deemed to have 10 times our advertised 10,000 lakes. The leader? Texas, with 269,976 lakes. In any case, the study only surveyed the Lower 48; Alaska, using a 20-acre standard, boasts the most lakes in the country: 3.5 million. Or about five lakes for every Alaskan resident.
Minnesotans speak the clearest English, doncha know
Fargo aside, we believe everyone else sounds funny. Minnesotans speak General American English, right? Isn’t that why news anchors everywhere—trained to speak with maximum clarity—all sound like us? Listen again. According to renowned linguist William Labov and the researchers behind the Telsur Project, a 1990s study of regional accents, the area of the country that is most linguistically neutral is actually south of here: eastern Nebraska, southern and central Iowa, and northern Illinois (but not Chicago). How to Talk Minnesotan author Howard Mohr agrees that many Minnesotans are oblivious to their peculiar diction, though he says our unique speech is really more about attitude —using the passive third person, for example—than accent. Says Mohr: “I had a friend who smoked cigars, and he opens up a 5-gallon can of gas—looking in with his cigar going—and another friend tells him, ‘You know, a lot of guys wouldn’t smoke a cigar and look in a gas can like that.’ It’s all about being calm, without pushing.”
Cow tipping: right of passage
Like sex in middle school, everyone just assumes everyone else is doing it—but has anyone actually pushed over a sleeping Bessie? Almost certainly not, according to researchers at the University of British Columbia. Calculating the amount of force required to topple an average cow—given the point of push, the angles between hooves, and a certain amount of bovine resistance—they concluded that the purported prank was a near-impossibility. Two people could maybe do it if the cow didn’t react at all; a successful tipping would likely require at least five people. Or one really small cow.
No. 34 is No. 1
Kirby Puckett was our most popular athlete, but was he our most accomplished? It’s hard to top the resumé of Bronko Nagurski, who grew up in International Falls and is said to have honed his strength running four miles to school each day. The U of M football player was the only one in U.S. history to be named All-American at two positions. He went on to lead the Chicago Bears to three championships and also found time to win world titles in professional wrestling. He became a charter member of both the pro and college football halls of fame, and in 1999 he was named one of the Associated Press’s top 100 athletes of the century. “Kirby was an ideal combination of skill, enthusiasm, and clutch performance,” says Star Tribune sports columnist Jim Souhan. “But in terms of historical importance, Bronko was a more dominant figure. Kirby was wonderful, but it is interesting to see how much weight we give to his performance in game 6 of the ’91 World Series. How would we think of him without that game?” Not that Nagurski ever sought the spotlight: He lived out his last years as the so-called Rainy Lake Recluse, running a gas station in International Falls.
St. Paul is secretly hipper than Minneapolıs
If it’s a secret, it’s a well-kept one. Where’s the party? The Red Savoy parking lot? There’s no arguing that St. Paul today is a livelier place than it was even a few years ago. But venturing downtown at midnight, you’re still more likely to encounter a tumbleweed than a pedestrian.
You’re always welcome back
Our prodigal sons inevitably return: Al Franken, Garrison Keillor, Prince (okay, so we’ve lost track of Prince). Or do they? Dylan never looked back. Jesse Ventura is now living la vida loca south of the border. F. Scott Fitzgerald moved East for good in 1922. Part of the problem might be that we’re choosy about whom we embrace. “As long as you don’t leave St. Paul, people are okay with you,” says Fitzgerald devotee David Page, who teaches journalism at Inver Hills Community College. Also, Fitzgerald’s lifestyle—all that boozing and bragging—didn’t sit well with St. Paulites. “He and Zelda took advantage of celebrity just like rock stars do today,” Page explains. “St. Paul at that time—and maybe still—finds that immodest.” It took a push from Keillor and Page to accord Fitzgerald even minimal civic recognition—even as Charles Schulz, who also never returned, was honored with hundreds of statues. Moral: If you think you want to come back, hang with Snoopy rather than Snoop Dogg.
We’re a Democratic state and always have been
“If you look at it from the total historical perspective, the state has been Republican,” Hy Berman, a labor historian and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, once told Minnesota Public Radio. A common mistake, he says, is to assume that the DFL’s terrific run at the state Legislature in the last quarter of the 20th century—not to mention the proliferation of high-profile Minnesota Democrats, from Hubert Humphrey to Eugene McCarthy to Walter Mondale—constitutes the norm. In fact, Berman says, it’s the exception. The state Senate was Republican-controlled from 1860 to 1973; the governor’s office has been evenly divided. Even the much-touted success of Democratic presidential candidates in the state—winning 11 of the last 12 contests since 1960—looks different in context: Five of those races featured presidential or vice-presidential candidates from Minnesota. Of course, to say the state has been Republican also requires some context—Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is, after all, no Elmer Anderson. It’s safer to say that Minnesota loves balance (simultaneously electing Senators Rod Grams and Paul Wellstone) and independents (Governor Jesse Ventura). Even our mainstream parties are unusual: From 1975 to 1995, our state Republican Party called itself the Independent-Republican Party (to distance itself from the national organization following Watergate), and our Dems have long been known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. We like to be different—but not extreme.
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