Blogging and other political things were largely shoved to the side from Christmas to New Years. A couple days after Christmas Claudia and I traveled to the Twin Cities for one night. Neither of us had ever been to the Guthrie Theater and we were long overdue. As Claudia makes it a habit to watch six or seven VHS versions of the Christmas Carol each year I suggested that we see the famous Guthrie version. By the time we ordered tickets a month in advance the only seats available were for post Christmas presentations.
We stayed in the old Milwaukee Road Depot which has been converted by the Marriott to a Hotel and dined in Cue (not the Cue) the Guthrie’s fancy restaurant which only serves locally grown produce. We wandered around the Guthrie in the afternoon before the performance and were impressed by the views of the Mississippi from its lofty overlook on the Guthrie’s cantilevered projection. The next day we took in the Mill City Museum in a largely destroyed grain mill. It’s only a block away from the Guthrie and is part of the gentrified and condominiumized grain elevators along the River. The museum is excellent and I learned a number of things about the business that I had not known before like for instance that the milling companies all but closed shop shortly after I moved to Minnesota in the 1960’s and switched over to the much more lucrative business of selling cereal. They’re Great!
The little movie “Minneapolis in 19 Minutes” by home grown humorist Kevin Kling was a hoot and we bought one of his CD’s to listen to on our way back to Duluth. We then had lunch at “Spoonnriver” next door and sat two tables away from Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. Page was one of the famed Viking Purple People Eaters when I attended Mankato State in the 1970’s. He was seen in Mankato bars carrying what looked to be a very large cloth purse. No one ever gave him any grief about it any more than they would have harassed Rosie Grier for his needlework.
The last time I saw Page I threw water on him. He was running one of the early Grandma Marathons and Claudia and I happened to be near Brighton Beach and pitched in to hand cups full of water to the runners. Page was running with his wife much to the chagrin of Viking management which was not eager to see one of its PPE’s shedding so much weigh to train for a marathon. When Page ran past I held out the water but he just asked me to throw it on him so I did.
After lunch Claudia wanted to see the new Minneapolis Library which was also in the vicinity. It’s a grand building and made me long for the life of a librarian. Naturally we had to visit the Museum’s Book Store and to my delight I found three big biographies of Nixon including the Tom Wicker tome that reportedly was very kind to the old goat. They only cost me eight bucks and then on my way out I saw a pile of 25 cent books which included the Haldeman Diaries. I purchased that as well. Upon reviewing it for mentions of HHH I was surprised to see how little Humphrey was mentioned. This was leading up to the time that the Nixon Administration was investigating Humphrey’s campaign misdeeds. Although there was a very intriguing reference to a potential mutual blackmailing by Nixon and LBJ of each other’s actions (which was blacked out due to national security considerations) there wasn’t much on Humphrey.
Now that Claudia is heading back to work I must renew my historical research. I can’t wait.
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