It wasn’t just an over abundance of caution that had me book a room in town tonight. An almost non-stop five hour dash to beat the clock and pick up the bond a day before the deadline wasn’t that hard but I didn’t think the drive back would be so easy. When I get into a driving “zone” I can manage such a feat but I wasn’t that eager to accomplish it yesterday with the precious $100,000 bond in my possession. That was better left to a fresh new day with a couple belts of coffee in my system.
It was a beautiful day in southwest Minnesota. I had begun my drive with gray clouds and thought I might be traveling in the rain all day but about halfway down the skies cleared and it was 75 degrees in town with a stong breeze.
I drove to the downtown at the base of the Minnesota River valley just above the flood plain and began walking around. In the center of the business district I was surprised to see the grand statue of what appeared to be a South American noble with touseled hair and riding boots up to his knees a sword at his side. (the blade evidently having been torn off some years earlier perhaps when someone decided to hang from it) It was Jose Artigas and when I read the unfamiliar name and the explanation that he was the liberator of Uruguay I recalled that I was staying the night in a town named after Uruguay’s capital city.
Looking for a picture of the capital just now I ran across this little slide show of the original which has its own bronze statue to the noble liberator.
I love small rural miswestern towns. After walking over by the depot and a sort of rail road museum which the Tan Man would have enjoyed because it had a break down train car (one with a huge crain to pull derailed cars back on the track) and the restored “sand house” (I think that’s what it was called) a small brick building which once contained sand for engines to spray ahead of the wheels to give them traction on the track I walked up the hill to the old residential part of town. I walked past lots of modest homes with nicely tended yards. I was killing time and walking off the too large ice cream treat I’d had after first picking up the bond to consider whether I really wanted to drive back with a potentially flawed document. It had killed my appetite without giving me many useful calories. They were the only ones I’d consumed all day beside the wrapped sandwhich I’d grabbed from a Spur Station as I left Duluth.
I felt wonderful. As I’d approached Montevideo I’d imagined that I might break into tears picking up the stupid bond it’d been such a trial to arrange for it. Heck, I don’t know it will tip the balance in our favor but it means that the citizens of Duluth will get their day in court. I didn’t but walking around an unfamiliar southern Minnesota town did hit me with some potent nostalgia that mixed with the intense pressure of the previous week watered my eyes a couple times over the next couple hours.
I moved a little further downstream of the Minnesota River when I started junior high school. That’s been a topic of a few columns I once wrote for the Reader Weekly like this one or this one or this one. As I learned years ago the valley is outsized for the modest tributary of the Mississippi that flows through it today. Geologist call it the valley of the long departed River Warren a mighty glacial river that drained out the mile thick ice from a thousand mile wide glacier that once covered North America ten thousand years ago. Stop, Right now. Close your eyes and feel the ground underneath you. Do you get the same sensation you get on an elevator when it suddenly lurches upwards? Well, if you feel it now it could be because ever since that mighty scab of ice with its quintzillion tons of H2O melted the Earth below it has been rebounding upwards like a sofa cushion after your derrier takes its leave from the sitting position.
The Valley is much more modest up river of Mankato but its still very pretty to look across. I drove along its ridge past pretty farms and back down to the floor pulled my car over to walk down by its muddy bank. I was seized with a powerful desire to get a canoe and let its slow moving waters carry me away.
The highlight of my first three years in Mankato was my final year of junior high when a heavy snow melt accelerated by spring rains caused the River to flood and our junior high on the river bottom was let out so that the kids could help sandbag to save North Mankato.
Well, Well, Well. I’ve rather enjoyed writing this little travelogue. The title is cheeky but not entirely appropos. I’d started wanting to talk about the defense of our rights, the sort of thing we credit to our founding fathers in America or that the Latins credit their various liberators. For me its good old Abe Lincoln I look too for such inspiration. I’m wearing the Abe Lincoln t-shirt I wore yesterday as I type this. Its one of a dozen or so I still have and which I bought for my quixotic race against doddering old Jim Oberstar three years ago. Along with the half dozen Let Duluth Vote t-shirts I got two years ago are becoming my summer uniforms this year.
The night clerk is preparing breakfast which will be available an hour from now at six. I’ll grab a bite to eat, take a shower and put on that cheap new shirt I bought last night at Walmart so I don’t over power anybody with yesterdays stench of anxiety. I know that I’m feeling Gawdawful contemplative at the moment and I composed a couple more of these War and Peace Posts in my head yesterday when I was walking around. I’ve got to let them escape too before I go back to the more mundane quickie posts that my regular readers no doubt prefer. So, on to the next post. (sorry since I’m not at home I don’t have access to a spell checcc)
