The Columnist Manifesto

I spent the week between Xmas and New Year in the upper midwest. Here is a medly post from that trip, not in chronological order.

Silent Snow, Secret Snow

We drove to our lakeside vacation condo in a snowstorm. The tough driving was reward with beautiful snowscapes.



I would like to say that with our footfalls muffled by the thick white, B and I found ourselves in a contemplative world of snow-softened sound.



Yeah, right. We happened to be staying in the self-proclaimed "snowmobile capital of the world." The snowmobilers whiz by in random swarms, belching blue smoke. The last snow-mobile engine cuts off around 2 a.m. each night.



They look like huge mechanical cockroaches. I'd like to squash them.



Mall World

Is it just us, or should Minnesota's state motto be "the land of 10,000 malls"? I'm a guy who goes to an indoor shopping mall maybe once every six months. In our first two days in the state, we somehow hit two shopping malls. And it wasn't even to shop -- one was for a bathroom break and coffee; the other was for lunch. It just seems that, in suburban Minnesota, that's where you go.

I suppose the same point could be made about suburban anywhere. But as the home of Mall of America, the world's most visited shopping mall, Minnesota is certainly a national leader.

I really liked the twin cities. St. Paul has some beautiful old neighborhoods, and Minneaopolis has a cool downtown: an attractive mix of interesting new architecture and cool early 20th century commercial and industrial buildings. But there is a strange absence of street-level business in the downtown. Where are the coffee shops, the lunch counters, the small retail storefronts?



Why, they're all on the second floor in the Skyway. To deal with the cold winter months, they moved all that indoors, and blocks and blocks of buildings are connected by second-story skyways crossing the street.



You can walk for miles through Minneapolis's retail and commercial district without going outside. The overall effect, of course, is a great... indoor shopping mall.

Regional differences

New Years Eve day, at the grocery store. I buy a pecan Danish Kringle for Sunday morning. And for Saturday night -- New Year's Eve -- the shopping list includes pickled herring, a traditional New Year's Eve delicacy in this region. I manage to buy the last jar on the shelf. Where else does an American grocery store run out of pickled herring, ever?