Inside a cozy bookstore in St. Paul, my friend and I wander from table to table, browsing the hundreds of books lining the walls and tables scattered throughout. He strolls to a nearby stack, picks up a book and shows me the cover.
Continue reading "A personal approach to buying, selling books" »
On Super Tuesday, as DFL caucus goers at Brooklyn Center High School filled out Post-it notes instead of ballots for presidential polling, record Democratic turnout caught state party organizers off guard.
I spoke with both Buck Humphrey, state director of the Hillary Clinton campaign in Minnesota and Michael Donovan, one of Barak Obama's top Chicago interns. I asked each why he thought this election was drawing so much attention and why voters should choose one candidate over another to represent the DFL.
University of St. Thomas study abroad students are finding lately that their dollar is not taking them very far.
Baby bottles were passed out in St. Paul a couple weeks ago to raise money for a non-profit life center in Dinkytown in Minneapolis.
I can picture Steve Roberts and LeeAnn Juckll scanning groceries at their respective registers in the morning while nit-picking the details of the night’s action at Pot O’ Gold Bingo Hall. Neither would lose focus in their cashier duties as they reminisce about the time when Steve was one daub away from winning the “speedo” round or when the two of them were waiting on O-62 to complete their diagonal and win a round of double bingo.
Peacekeeping is not just for armies. There are groups that specialize in non-violent intervention in conflict areas all over the world that don’t carry guns, drive tanks or fly fighter planes. One of those groups is headquartered in Minneapolis.
When he gets excited spit follows the words out of his mouth. “Sorry about that,” he said, while wiping saliva off my shirt. He cannot contain himself because of the “beautiful tag” he saw at the Midway bus yard.
When my great-grandpa came from Sweden to work in the Iowa iron mines in 1916, it only cost him a couple cents to write home.
Ninety-two years later it costs 90 cents to send a letter to Sweden, something that is becoming increasingly rare as letter writing is replaced by e-mail. As Americans lose contact with their cultural heritage I try to keep an element of my “Swedishness” alive by sending frequent letters to friends and relatives in Scandinavia.
“With ‘Swedishness’… we mean Swedish thought, Swedish will, Swedish dreams, which we have brought with us as our essential wealth. We mean the planting in American soil of the seed we have not only brought with us, but which we are,” wrote David Nyvall, a Swedish immigrant to Minneapolis in his 1921 pamphlet “Svenskhetens bevarande," published the same year my great-grandpa brought his family to the United States.
Continue reading "Swedish heritage comes to life in letters" »
At one time, a dollar could buy 20 trips to the neighborhood nickel theater. Times have changed and with the popularity of multiplex theaters, ticket prices have climbed to around $9 per trip, not including $7 or so for concessions.
Continue reading "The price is right at Riverview Theater" »
My editor gave me a dollar bill and told me to write a story. First I thought I would interview a homeless person or catch the bus somewhere, but those stories seemed passé. Somebody has written about homelessness or mass transit. If not, somebody will come along and write them better than me.
It’s been seven years since the rise and fall of local rap hero Lil Buddy reverberated throughout downtown Minneapolis’ hip-hop scene. Perhaps Minneapolis’ first real hope for mainstream hip-hop success, Buddy was at the threshold of national stardom before finding trouble in his personal life and robbing a Rosemount bank.
After he stood in line for more than three hours, Minneapolis resident Todd Mitchell was one of the first inside the Target Center to hear the views of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Obama rallied a sold-out audience on February 2 in downtown Minneapolis, three days before the Minnesota caucuses.
The Minnesota Street Rod Association is "Going Back to the '50s" this June with its 35th annual car show. It gives you a great sense of what the cars used to be like; it also gave me the idea to ask about what was it like to live in the 1950s -- when a dollar could go a long way. I decided to interview my grandmother, Jean Fillbach, about when she was a teen growing up in southwestern Wisconsin. Jean was born on a small farm near Steuben, where she still lives.
Her boyfriend risks his life every time he clocks in at work. Promises of danger lurk during each hour of the 12 on his shift. Tonight, there may be an armed robbery, a domestic assault, even a murder, God forbid. She asks him to call her before he starts and again when he’s back at home. She prays he’ll make it through the night safely.
On my desk sits a dollar bill with bent corners, a crease down the center and a minor tear below George Washington’s head. When it was a freshly printed note in 2001, devoid of the imperfections inflicted over several years, the bill was worth more.
Continue reading "A weaker dollar means less purchasing power" »
While scanning rows of flashing lights and spinning cherries for a game that was going to multiply my dollar bill by a million, I expected to see everyone at the St. Croix Casino to be hoarding their money and chips as if their mortgage payments depended upon them in response to the declining economy and rising gas prices.
With a dollar in hand, is the whole world at my fingertips? It used to seem that way, but the decreasing value of the dollar in the global market has turned the tables and the whole world is traveling to the United States to take advantage.
I had the first line of this story planned since the idea came to me. It would go something like ‘It was the worst idea, with regard to food, I’ve ever had’. But after spending the dollar given to me, and an additional 20 cents, on three Blazin’ wings at Buffalo Wild Wings, the heat wasn’t as bad as I had feared.