Happy Birthday Laura

Today is the 149th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I was first introduced to Laura via the Little House on the Prairie television show. I had no idea there was a Minnesota connection until one day they were talking about going to Mankato.  I remember being amazed…Mankato was in Minnesota!. And so is New Ulm, Sleepy Eye, Minneapolis and St. Paul! It seems like they were always running off to Sleepy Eye, New Ulm, Mankato, and even Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Repeat episodes of the show were on Channel 9 every day at 4 o’clock, I never missed an episode. The show was filmed in California, and I was very surprised to find out years later there are no mountains in southwestern Minnesota.

In third grade I figured out that the series was based on books, and checked out “On the Banks of Plum Creek” from the library. This was my first “big book” and it took me two weeks to get through it, but I was hooked. “Little House on the Prairie” was next, and I soon worked my way through all of Laura’s books, as well as the Donald Zochart biography that was out at the time.

I checked the Little House Cookbook out from the library and I made the ginger water Laura drank while helping Pa with the hay in “The Long Winter” (I never made it again). I begged my Mom to make Almanzo’s favorite dish from “Farmer Boy,” fried apples ‘n onions (they are surprisingly good and go well with roast pork.) I also tried Almanzo’s popcorn in milk trick.

We went on vacation in Wisconsin one year and I made my parents drive through Pepin on the way back so I could go see the “Little House in the Big Woods” wayside. Since then I have been fortunate to visit her home sites in Burr Oak, Iowa, Walnut Grove, Minnesota and De Smet, South Dakota. I have a sunbonnet and wore it while wading in Plum Creek just like Laura did. I really want to go to Mansfield, Missouri to see her final home as well as Independence, Kansas. Seeing Almanzo’s home in Malone, New York is a little far-fetched but it is on the list…you never know.

I still own the series of books and will occasionally read one at random. Every winter I read “The Long Winter” to remind myself that the Minnesota winter is not that bad in modern times. It’s hard to pick a favorite because they are all unique and I love each book for a different reason, but if I HAD to pick one it would be “Little Town on the Prairie.”

With the recent publication of “Pioneer Girl,” the annotated biography of Laura, there has been resurgence in popularity of all things Laura. There is an excellent blog titled "The Pioneer Girl Project" about how Pioneer Girl came to be, and snippets of the book will be discussed on occasion: http://pioneergirlproject.org/

If interested in learning more about Laura, some good biographies have been published in recent years. William Anderson has published some great books that provide great depth to the Little House books: http://www.williamandersonbooks.com/.

Pamela Smith Hill was editor of Pioneer Girl to life. She has also written "Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life" : http://www.pamelasmithhill.com/#!laura_ingalls_wilder/cavs. I have also had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Hill and driving her to her hotel room when I attended the first Laurapalooza in Mankato.

Another good read is "Laura Ingalls Wilder the Woman Behind the Legend by John E. Miller: http://press.umsystem.edu/catalog/productinfo.aspx?id=1768&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1.

It’s exciting to see the interest in Laura again, hopefully this will drive visits to the home site museums and bring them some revenue. Following are the websites to the home museums, give them a visit if you can, and if you are close by consider a visit.

Little House in the Big Woods: http://lauraingallspepin.com/

Little House on the Prairie: http://www.littlehouseontheprairiemuseum.com/

On the Banks of Plum Creek: http://www.walnutgrove.org/

By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy

Golden Years, and the First Four Years: http://www.desmetsd.com/desmet/visitors/laura-ingalls-wilder

Farmer Boy: http://www.almanzowilderfarm.com/

Not in the books but connections to Laura:

Burr Oak, Iowa: http://www.lauraingallswilder.us/

Mansfield, Missouri: http://www.lauraingallswilderhome.com/

A Tough Couple of Days

January 10 was not a good day if you’re a Vikings fan and a David Bowie fan.
I had the game on but was afraid to be in the same room with the TV. I had plans for the evening so chose that time to start getting ready, and I took a long time doing so. By the time I peeked around the corner and looked at the TV it was close to half time and the Vikings had the lead and Seattle had zip…a little concerned about the reliance on field goals but hey, points are points.

After half time I wasn’t quite ready to commit to watching the game exclusively, I can’t even remember what I did. I would sneak a look once in a while and things were looking good so I decided it was silly to watch the game horror-movie like through my fingers and things OK so decided to actually watch.

That didn’t last long.

When Seattle recovered from botched play I had a bad feeling, I couldn’t take it so I turned it off. Thankfully, Starz had an Outlander marathon so I watched that. I didn’t even turn the game back on, I checked StarTribune online, figured that was it and got the definitive text that the Vikings lost.

(I know, I know, the picture is old, but it fits.)

It was hollow feeling, and I didn’t know the circumstances, and I couldn’t believe that once again it was a missed field goal that did it. What the hell?

I don’t know what to think…is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Is Blair Walsh to blame? If you look at it from the perspective that his task was to make that field goal, and he didn’t yes, he is. I’ve screwed up a time or two (ok, maybe more), you get taken to the woodshed, but you get back up, figure out a way to fix it, and prevent it from happening again. And if the people close to you are remotely human, they don’t remind of the screw up every five minutes or throw it in your face five years later.

In my experience when things go wrong it is hardly ever just one thing. It is usually a series missteps prior to THE thing that happens that gets all the attention. Football is a team sport, maybe if a touchdown or two would have been scored instead of relying on field goals, we might be singing a different tune. But, I wasn’t on the field, I was hiding from the TV, so I really can’t say much. All I can say is I’m sad it turned out the way it did, and really, really wish the Vikings fans were exuberant and we would be watching them play in Arizona.

I think one thing we can do is take in the wisdom of some first graders.

So if the Vikings losing that heartbreaker wasn’t bad enough, the next morning I was completely destroyed when I found out via Facebook that David Bowie passed away. The first thing I saw that made me go “huh?” was a picture of Bono kissing David Bowie on the cheek and he wrote “Planet earth is blue.” I kept scrolling then I saw the news, then I couldn’t stop scrolling, and so many of his lyrics were so fitting:

“The stars look very different today”

“Look at me I’m in Heaven.”

“Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.”

David Bowie always knew how to get our attention, and he sure caught mine.

I first became a fan of David Bowie during the 80’s, I specifically remember the videos for “Let’s Dance,”  “Modern Love” and “Changes.” I didn’t know much about his previous iterations, but discovered “Space Oddity” my freshman year of college. That best drives to and from Duluth were when “Space Oddity” came on the radio and I would blast it, the’84 Buick had great speakers and it sounded amazing. Out of the older stuff “Space Oddity” was favorite, followed by “Rebel, Rebel” and “Suffragette City.”

The last time he came to the Twin Cities on tour was 2006, and I remember distinctly I wanted to see him perform live but for some reason I couldn’t go. David Bowie was one that I really hoped I would see perform live, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Later I read through the Facebook tributes and the tweets, looked at pictures and watched the news with a lump in my throat and a few tears on my cheeks, and thought about those drives when David Bowie sang to me to and from Duluth.

I feel strange being so sad and carrying on about someone I didn’t know, and didn’t know me, but he was part of my life, important parts. I first became a fan when I first started really liking music, and discovered a different part of his career when I was in college trying to figure out what kind of person I was going to be. It’s not just me today that’s sad, it’s the intermediate school-aged me and the college student that lost someone they admired.

I retweeted two things about David Bowie yesterday because they summed up how I felt pretty well.

BecauseXM: “If you feel sad, remember that the world is 4.54 billion years old & you managed to exist at the same time as #DavidBowie.”

Gianfranco Ravasi: “Ground Control to Major Tom Commencing countdown, engines on Check ignition and may God’s love be with you (David Bowie)”

Indeed. May God’s love be with you, David.

 

Is God a Vikings Fan?

The Minnesota Vikings are in a Wild Card Race, and will be playing the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. I feel a little odd writing this, since I have not watched ONE Vikings game in its entirety since 2011. I did turn on the Minnesota-Green Bay game on Sunday; I actually stayed up for it, and was pleased to see the Packers lose.

I am sad to admit that I am your typical Minnesota fair-weather fan; I don’t know what I enjoy more, cheering for the Vikings or cheering AGAINST the Packers.

Probably cheering against the Packers.

A former priest at my mom’s church once told the parish that he couldn’t wear the green and gold vestments as prescribed by the Church calendar when the Vikings were scheduled to play the Packers one Sunday. That is my kind of priest.

That missed field goal in the 1998 Vikings-Falcons game is burned into my brain. So my hesitation to jump on the bandwagon is a form of emotional self-preservation. To me, the Vikings are someone you keep giving a one more last chance to, because you want to believe them this time.

Maybe the Vikings really mean it this time.  It would be a great year, considering it’s the last year professional football will be played outside in Minnesota. A small part of me is looking forward to the Seahawks freezing their assess off at The Bank. You think Seattle is a wet cold? Baby, wait until you are in Minnesota in January, it’s gonna be a cold one tomorrow.

Wisconsin’s every futile rebuttal to any Minnesota victory or Wisconsin failure is “Oh, yeah, well at least weeeeeeeee won the Super Bowl.” It would be so satisfying to shut them the hell up once and for all.

Is God Vikings fan? I don’t know, but I hope he is.

Skol!