Blue Highways: Viking, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

We continue to ride with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) into western Minnesota, past the town of Viking and its sunflower crops.  Don't they look beautiful!  Let's stop and peruse them for a while, giving ourself an emotional lift and allowing us to appreciate beauty in the world.  To see where these sunflowers grow, please, look at the map!

Book Quote

"Near Viking, tall stalks from the sunflower crop of a year earlier rattled in the warm wind.  For miles I had been seeing a change in the face of the Northland brought about because Americans find it easier to clean house paint out of brushes with water than with turpentine.  This area once grew much of the flax that linseed oil comes from, but with the advent of water-base paint, the demand for flax decreased; in its stead, of all things, came the sunflower, and now it was becoming the big cash crop of the Dakotas and Minnesota - with more acreage going each year to new hybrids developed from Russian seeds - because 'flower' is a row crop that farmers can economically reap by combine after the grain harvest."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Metal scarecrow in Viking, Minnesota. Photo by "matchboxND" and hosted at DB-City.com. Click on photo to go to host site.Viking, Minnesota

Did you know that the image at left symbolizes a type of terrorism?  Neither did I!  I use the word terrorism in jest, really, because the sunflower is a component of what is called "guerilla gardening," in which bands of eco-warriors head out on International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day to plant sunflowers in neglected and blighted cityscape plots.  Not only do the plants brighten the area but if there are toxins in the soil, the plants often soak up those toxins, and provide a natural way to help clean the environment.  Maybe instead of terrorism, we could call it "elationism."  I can imagine the happy warriors of the guerilla gardening movement heading out with their seeds, trowels and water to wreak havoc on blight through floriculture.

In fact, I can think of no better way to brighten up anything, because I don't know about you, but I cannot remain in a funk if I look at sunflowers.  There's just no way.

Throughout my childhood, I knew that sunflowers existed, but weren't grown very much where I grew up.  There were some in isolated gardens, but I didn't get much exposure to them.  The only thing I knew about sunflowers was all wrapped up in the packages of seeds that my friends would buy at the store.  They ate and then spit them, so that sunflower seed shell carcasses littered the ground around their feet.  I tried them, and while they had an interesting flavor, I didn't think all the work of splitting the seeds to get the little morsel of nut meat inside was worth the effort.

So it wasn't until I moved, and particularly when I moved to the Southwest, that I really got exposed to sunflowers.  Suddenly they were everywhere I looked on warm summer days.  The coffee shop around the corner had a whole row of sunflowers growing alongside its adobe fence.  Gardens always seemed to have a section of sunflowers.  On my drives to Lubbock when I was teaching, I would pass by a scattered field or two of sunflowers in bloom.  And whenever I looked at them, no matter what the circumstance, my spirits would lift.  When my spirits were high, the sunflowers affirmed that I felt good about the world.  When my spirits were low, the sunflowers would take me briefly out of dark places and remind me that there was beauty and light in the world.

The sunflower is also full of natural mystery in its beauty.  Look at that picture of the sunflower above.  Notice the spiral pattern in the middle.  The sunflower is actually not one flower but a group of 1000-2000 small flowers called florets, and the spiral pattern of these florets in the center follows a mathematical sequence called a Fibonacci sequence, where each successive spiral consists of florets that are the sum of the florets in the two spirals before.  According to Wikipedia, there are usually 34 spirals in one direction, and 55 in another, though they can be bigger.  Mathematics aside, I just look at that pattern and it puts me in wonder of the complexity and the beauty of the universe, as if a supreme power put a Spirograph on the world in the form of a yellow living thing of beauty.

Sunflowers have made a roundabout trip from and to the US.  They were probably among the very first crops cultivated by Native Americans, perhaps even earlier than corn.  They eventually made their way to Europe through the explorations of the Spaniards, who took the seeds back to Europe.  They eventually made their way to Russia where refinements in hybridization led to cultivation for the mass production of oil and food.  It was then that these new hybrids were reintroduced to the United States and planted for mass harvest in the upper Midwest.

In my previous post, I speculated about how Scandinavians in the upper Midwest could come to be known for their industriousness, their dourness and their quietness, so much so that they make fun of themselves for it.  The land, I surmised, with its long harsh winters and hot blazing summers probably takes a lot of mental energy to exist, coupled with the hard work of farming.

But the planting of sunflowers as cash crops makes me wonder if these perennial beauties, growing anywhere from six to twelve feet high, provides a lift to people who live there.  I can imagine, just for a moment, a taciturn Norwegian Minnesotan farmer, going out to his work on a summer morning before the weather gets too hot, stopping at the field of sunflowers he has planted.  In those moments, I imagine his dour look relaxes as he gazes on the sunflowers, and a brief smile appears before he gets to the hard work on another morning.

Musical Interlude

I'm giving you a sunflower double shot, today, Littourati.  For those of you that like some rock, I'm going to give you the Grateful Dead's China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider.  It seems like it would be a great road tune, especially going through the sunflowers of Viking.  The second is a jazz fusion tune by Freddie Hubbard called Little Sunflower, with vocals by Al Jarreau.  Enjoy!

If you want to know more about Viking

What can I say?  It's a small place.

Wikipedia: Viking

Next up: Thief River Falls, Minnesota

Littourati News: Don't Trust the Search Widget

Hi visitors to Littourati!  For the convenience of visitors I have included a search bar to search Littourati.  However, I have recently noticed that sometimes the search provided by Squarespace doesn't always find things, even when they are there.

I noticed this because a visitor recently tried to search for the word "Indio," and returned 0 results.  I wrote a post quite a time back on Indio when I was mapping On  the Road.  There is a post called "Indio, California."  Indio is sprinkled throughout the body of the post, and it is also in the post's tags.

Yet the Squarespace-provided search widget returned 0 results.

If you are unsure whether the search results are real, you have two other options.  You can check the Archives, where things are broken out by month posted and by category.  You can also look at the "All Posts" link in the top banner section, where every post that I've written has been listed.  You can use your browser's "find" feature to quickly search the list of posts on a key word, like "Indio."

In the mean time, I've sent a message to Squarespace to let them know about the bug in their search widget.  I appreciate your visits, and hope that you find Littourati interesting and helpful!  Please feel free to contact me through this page, either in comments or through the e-mail feature!

Michael Hess

Blue Highways: Oslo, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

We have entered Minnesota with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM), and it almost seems like we have entered Norway instead.  All the place names have changed to ones that evoke Scandinavia.  In this post, I'll look at little at why so many Scandinavians settled in the region.  If you would like to locate where Norwegians live but fjords are very scarce, click here for the map.

Book Quote

"I drove up the valley of the Red River of the North (which empties into Hudson Bay) and crossed into Oslo, Minnesota."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Oslo, Minnestota in winter. Photo by "shu12" at Panoramio. Click on photo to go to host page.

Oslo, Minnesota

You'll notice, as we travel through this set of stops in Minnesota with LHM, that there will be a lot of place names that refer to the area's Scandinavian roots.  In the quote I pulled for the previous post on Grand Forks, LHM refers to the city as being "clean as a Norwegian kitchen."  This post is centered on Oslo, Minnesota, the name taken from the capital of Norway.  The next post I do will be centered around Viking, Minnesota, with the obvious connotations.

How extensive is Scandinavian descent in the United States?  According to Wikipedia, while only 2% of all Americans claim Norwegian descent, 16.5 percent of Minnesotans claim Norwegian descent, as well as a whopping 33 percent of all North Dakotans.  Swedes make up 9.9 percent of Minnesota's population.  Danes and Finns also have sizable populations in the state as well.  Why did so many Scandinavians settle in the upper Midwest?  One reason might have been economic conditions in the old country. Most Scandinavians, according to what I've read, appear to have settled in other areas before heading to places like Minnesota. Another reason was probably, in part, because the climate and conditions were a lot like their European homelands (minus the Norwegian fjords).  The Duluth area, where we'll be in a future post, attracted Scandinavians who fished for a livelihood because of its position at the western end of Lake Superior.  Also, displacement and resettlement of the Native Americans in the area made land available for cheap.

Make no mistake, these lands weren't a garden of Eden.  Living in them was harsh.  The summers could be brutally hot.  But the winters were, and still often are, extremely difficult.  Feet of snow on the ground, blizzard conditions for days.  Many homesteads were often buried in snow and cut off from other people until warmer weather made for easier traveling.  It took hardy people, used to harsh climates, to settle these areas and the Scandinavians fit that description.

When I first lived in Milwaukee, I was introduced to the Scandinavian heritage of the upper Midwest.  Milwaukee itself was not a Scandinavian city - it was settled by Germans, Irish, and Poles.  But people in Milwaukee used to make gentle fun of the Norwegians and Swedes up north, and even inherited some of their slang and expression that characterized their speech, such as using the expressive "uff da."  I was introduced to Ole and Lena jokes, which made fun of Scandinavian-American culture (sort of like Italian or Polish jokes).  Here's an example:

Ole and Lena was at the kitchen table for the usual morning cup of coffee and listening to a weather report coming from the radio.  "There will be 3 to 5 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. All vehicles should be parked on the odd-numbered side of the streets today to facilitate snowplows," the radio voice declared.

"Oh, gosh, OK," said Ole, getting up, bundling up and heading outside to dutifully put his car on the odd-numbered side of the street.

Two days later, Ole and Lena were at morning coffee when the radio voice said: "There will be 2 to 4 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your vehicles on the even-numbered side of the streets."  Ole got up from his coffee as before. He bundled up, shuffled off, and put his car on the even-numbered side of the street.

A few days later, the couple was at the table when the radio voice declared: "There will be 6 to 8 inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your cars on the ..." Just then, the power went out.

"Park it where?" Ole asked in the dark, "What should I do?"

"Aw, to heck with them, Ole," Lena said, "Don't worry about it today. Just leave the car in the garage."

We'd hear about fish-boils and interesting food such as casseroles with potato chip toppings.  We'd wrinkle up our noses when we heard about the Norwegian delicacy of lutefisk, which involves soaking whitefish in lye until it is almost a gelatin.  While I've never had it, I've heard that it smells bad.

It was while I was in Milwaukee that I was introduced to National Public Radio and Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, which extolled and gently poked fun at the Scandinavian side of Minnesota in his News from Lake Wobegon segment on the show.  Many the protagonists in this ongoing series of stories seemed to have last names like Ingqvist and the town had The Sons of Knute fraternal organization and the Statue of the Unknown Norwegian (the model left before the sculptor could get his name).

All of this gave me a picture of the Scandinavians of the upper Midwest as being very dour, practical and industrious.  The population seemed all to be very matter of fact and not a lot of fun, though they were quick to make fun of themselves for these very characteristics.

It all jarred with my reality because I remembered that in my senior year of college, we had a couple of Norwegian foreign students on my dorm floor, and I remember these guys as being completely crazy.  They were pranksters, they drank a lot, they loved to tell jokes about the Swedes (because the Norwegians and the Swedes are rivals even though they have the same ethnic background).  If there was a noisy night on the dorm, if the Norwegian guys didn't start it they were surely in the middle of it.

Even in my present, a group of Scandinavian skiers that competed for the University of New Mexico lived four doors down from me.  They just moved out.  They were the typical Nordic athletic types - good looking, tended blond, extremely in shape.  They were also intense partiers and noisy.  If there was noise in the neighborhood, you didn't have to look any farther than the Nordic ski team down the block.  Their neighbor was glad they moved.

So what happened to those Norwegians and Swedes in the upper Midwest to make them so dour and serious that they make fun of themselves for it?  I'm not sure.  I do know, however, that I while I like Minnesota and would be happy to visit Minneapolis and St. Paul again, I really, really want to visit Scandinavia.  It seems like a fun, beautiful place and from what I hear, the people there are very friendly.  I also know that Scandinavian women are beautiful - not that I care that much...

Musical Interlude

This video is apropos of nothing to this post, other than it was a mid-1980s hit for this Norwegian band that went to number one.  It is also a pretty cool video.  Enjoy a-ha and Take On Me.

If you want to know more about Oslo

City of Oslo
Lakes 'n' Woods Guide to Oslo
Wikipedia: Oslo

Next up: Viking, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Grand Forks, North Dakota

Unfolding the Map

At Grand Forks, we say goodbye to North Dakota and look toward Minnesota ahead.  I passed by Grand Forks once.  While William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) gets his water pump fixed, I'll use this opportunity to reminisce about how the city seems to herald civilization at the edge of the Great Plains.  To see where Grand Forks does its duty, head to the map!

Book Quote

"Who in America would guess that Grand Forks, North Dakota, was a good place to be stuck in with a bad water pump?  Skyscrapers from the thirties, clean as a Norwegian kitchen, a state university with brick, big trees, and ivy.  On Monday morning the pump got replaced in an hour for $37.50.  I had expected to be taken for three times that figure, but I met only honest people."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 10

Downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota. Photo by David Stybr and hosted at City-Data. Click on photo to go to host page.

Grand Forks, North Dakota

I remember Grand Forks vaguely, kind of like a dream that appeared in the midst of the flat farmland of North Dakota as we (my fiancee and I) made our long drive from Dunseith, North Dakota to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The city just seemed to pop up out of nowhere, and the large buildings that LHM describes, the "skyscrapers from the thirties" stood out in stark contrast to anything else that we had seen up to that point.

To me, just as St. Louis once signaled the end of civilization and the beginning of the frontier, as memorialized in its massive and spectacular Gateway Arch, Grand Forks seems to signal for travelers passing toward the east the onrush of civilization again from the sparse emptiness of the West.  First Grand Forks, modest in size and scale but seemingly gigantic after a thousand miles of prairie and farmland.  Then Minneapolis/St. Paul, the twin cities, positively cosmopolitan on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, one seemingly frozen in time with older architecture, the other with sleek, modern, glassy buildings reflecting the sunlight from a distance.  Then Chicago, which veneers a rough, wintery, no-nonsense type of grit with its own combination of past and present architecture.

But Grand Forks comes as an initial shock to the senses.  It almost seems, after all the miles and all the flatness and the sparseness of North Dakota, like it shouldn't be there.  It's buildings shimmer in the hazy distance like a mirage that you expect to disappear until you are right upon it and discover that indeed, it is there.  It has sprung, like a flower (or a weed depending on your perspective and your like or dislike of civilization), and persists despite the blazing summers and the freezing, blizzardy winters.  It persists despite the devastating floods along the Red River of the North that occurred in 1997, inundating the downtown and neighborhoods and causing the destruction of many buildings and the displacement of many people.

LHM refers to the hardiness and toughness of the people when he makes a reference to "Norwegian."  With typical midwestern and old world industriousness, the people of Grand Forks cleaned up after the floods.  They demolished some old neighborhoods to put in a levee system, and made a riverfront park to buffer and secure the city from future flooding.  In other words, nature gave Grand Forks its best shot, and staggered it, but the flower continues to sprout on the Great Plains, welcoming people back from the hinterlands to civilization.

Yes, I remember Grand Forks, which after a long drive through North Dakota, past flat farmland punctuated by occasional trees and missile silos, seems to sit as a beacon on the plains.  I was grateful to Grand Forks for providing something besides the occasional water tower to arrest my sight.  I wish that I had time to stop there and visit and experience the "honest people" that LHM mentions.  Perhaps one day I'll get to all the places I want or feel that I should have seen.

Musical Interlude

I've been waiting to use this song, and now that we're moving out of Grand Forks and North Dakota, I have to use it.  Lyle Lovett's North Dakota is a winsome and melancholy song, juxtaposing the loneliness along borders, and the search for and loss of love.

If you want to know more about Grand Forks

The City Beat (blog)
City of Grand Forks
Dakota Student (student newspaper of University of North Dakota)
Grand Forks Convention and Visitors Bureau
Grand Forks Herald (newspaper)
Grand Forks Life (blog)
High Plains Reader (alternative newspaper)
Travel North Dakota (blog)
University of North Dakota
Wikipedia: Grand Forks

Next up: Oslo, Minnesota

Blue Highways: Cavalier, North Dakota

Unfolding the Map

Engine malfunctions and car repairs in Cavalier, North Dakota.  How LHM has made it 9000 miles without a major engine mishap in an old van with a leaky water pump is pretty amazing.  His luck with engines runs out here, but luckily, the fixes aren't too bad.  If you want to know where to find an honest mechanic in North Dakota, nurse your engine over to the map.

Book Quote

"...I started back to the highway when the smell of gasoline stopped me.  I lifted the hood.  The fuel line below the gas filter had split and was arcing a fine jet of no-lead into the sunlight....

"I made for Cavalier, the nearest town.  Had I not gone to Backoo, the line would have ruptured in Cavalier instead of miles up the road.  So logic would dictate.  The fact is, engine malfunctions happen only in places like Backoo, North Dakota.  Axiom of the blue road....

"At Cavalier I pulled into the first garage I saw, and a teenaged boy with the belly of a man came out and stared.  People don't just throw words around in the North.  I lifted the hood to show him the line.  I didn't speak either.

"'Sumbitch's likely to catch fire!' he said."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 9

Downtown Cavalier, North Dakota. Photo at "afiler's" photostream in Flickr. Click on photo to go host page.

Cavalier, North Dakota

I wondered when it might happen.  LHM complained about a knocking water pump even as he pulled out of Columbia, Missouri so many stops and posts ago.  He seemed to be magically gifted, despite all the miles he put on, with very few mechanical problems in old Ghost Dancing.  But you have to love his axiom of the road..."engine malfunctions happen only in places like Backoo, North Dakota."

I also have been blessed with very few problems like this in my driving history.   Of course, like everyone I've had my share of flats to fix, batteries that have worn down, alternators that have died and starters that went bad.  I've had an occasional radiator problem, and once, when I was a teenager, I think an axle broke while I was driving my mom's car and went over a very hard bump.  But these incidents all occurred in populated areas where I could easily get to repair services.  It might have been a hassle or a headache, and it may have cost me some money, but within hours or at the most a day or two, the car was fixed and I could get back to my normal life.

When it comes to long-distance driving mishaps, I can think of only two incidents.  The first occurred when I lived in Milwaukee and made the occasional long driving trip out toward the East Coast.  Even then, the malfunction happened only at the end of the trip, when I was about 40 miles from home.  It was late afternoon and I was driving a Chevy Cavalier that belonged to my place of employment.  I was looking forward to getting home, having a hot meal and relaxing after a long trip.  South of Kenosha, Wisconsin I had settled in behind a car that was doing a good speed and was fiddling with the radio - I can't remember what time of year it was but I might have been trying to catch the last of a Brewers afternoon game or find some interesting music.  The car ahead of me suddenly swerved to avoid something in the road, and I couldn't react fast enough.  I drove right over a large piece of sidewall that had shed itself from a semi.  There was a loud thump in the front of the car, but it seemed everything was all right.  However, as I got to Kenosha, the oil light came on, and then the car started losing power.  I pulled over to the side of the freeway and walked to the next exit.  Luckily, I was near a gas station with some pay phones (yes, this was pre-cell phone days).  I called a road service and then called my girlfriend.  The tow service arrived and would only tow me up to three miles without charge, so he took it to a nearby dealer.  My girlfriend found me there, and took me home.  The dealer looked the car over, told me that there was a puncture in my oil pan and wanted to literally replace the whole engine.  I called my mechanic and he told me to pay for the tow up to Milwaukee.  He ended up replacing the oil pan for a lot less money.

LHM worries, in this chapter, about getting screwed by unscrupulous mechanics that know that you are in a tough spot and figure they can charge you just about anything.  My experience with mechanics has been that if you get a good one, hold on to him or her like gold because many of them are more than willing to tell you a few more things need to be fixed in order to squeeze more out of you.  Luckily for LHM, he found an honest teenager who fixed a dangerous fuel line leak and charged him a couple of bucks for it, and also gave him some honest advice about his water pump.

These kinds of trepidations, about what kind of service I'd find in a small town on the road, are what kept me from seeking weekend service in Kingman, Arizona as my wife and I were driving back to Albuquerque from a two-week visit to my mom in California.  We had stopped in Kingman to get some fast food and continue our drive.  We pulled into a parking lot for some reason and I found that I couldn't get my car, a G20 Infiniti with a standard transmission, into first gear.  Second gear wouldn't work either.  I had to coax it from third gear.  We briefly thought about trying to find a place, but it was late afternoon on a weekend and we didn't want to stay in Kingman.  We decided to try to make it to Albuquerque instead, and decided not to stop except for gas in case the whole gear system decided to go out.  We made it, though I was clenching my buttocks the entire way like LHM described when he thought he might run out of gas.  We did end up having to replace the entire transmission, but it was better and easier to do it at home.  I always felt we got pretty lucky.

The passage that describes what happens with LHM and his car is a long one so I didn't put it all in.  Essentially, he pulls Ghost Dancing into the bay and shuts it down.  He and the mechanic replace the hose and the mechanic charges him $2.10 for hose and labor, probably a $15 repair today.  The mechanic tells him that the water pump needs to be replaced, and is astounded when LHM tells him he's driven it 9000 miles.  He tells LHM that he wouldn't even drive it to Hoople, 18 miles down the road, and that he should take it to the Ford dealer.  LHM does, but the dealer says he doesn't have the part and that he'll need to go to Grand Forks.  So, LHM sets out for Grand Forks, hoping he'll make it but not sure that he'll even get to Hoople.

I like the metaphor that's implied.  When someone asks me from now on how I'm doing, I'll say "I'm just trying to make it past Hoople."

Musical Interlude

I'm not a big fan of the modern Nashville-influenced country genre, preferring pre-Nashville country instead, but I found this song by Alan Jackson, Talkin' Song Repair Blues, to be very humorous and witty.  As he says at the end of the song, "I like it...it might be a hit."

If you want to know more about Cavalier

Cavalier, North Dakota official page
Wikipedia: Cavalier

Next up: Grand Forks, North Dakota