Minnesota

I wanted Lilly to have a connection with Minnesota.  I wanted her to have a sense of rootedness that I had for most of my life.  Born in Reno and raised all over Nevada, Lilly had no knowledge of another culture or way of life outside Nevada. 

By the time she could toddle, she knew not to go near the slot machines when we went out to eat at the casino restaurant.  Lilly didn’t blink at marquees, lights, and crystal chandeliers, showgirls, and waitresses in string bikinis.  Lilly’s second Christmas, at thirteen months old, we celebrated in Las Vegas.  She wore green Christmas pajamas and sat on Santa’s lap.  The Santa was Oscar Goodman, mayor of Las Vegas and a former defense attorney for the Mob. 

                Lilly attended conferences with me in Lake Tahoe.  Grandma would come and spend a few days with us.  Together, Grandma and Lilly would order room service for breakfast, then go to the pool for the day.  Lilly would be carried around conference halls by some of the most powerful men in the state, without realizing how privileged that moment was. 

                Lilly knew what a hay bale was; after all, we would go to the local corrals to look at the sheep, cows, and “hee-hee cows” (horses) since she was tiny.  But she had no concept of the effort behind the haybale, or the fencing, or the care of the animals.  One day, as we walked the city's corrals, I carried her in my arms, her little two-year-old legs tired.

                As the Bowling Ball, Lilly, and I turned the corner around a barn, a Hereford steer came running down the path.  Close behind were two cowboys, swinging lassos and swearing.  It was an obvious gate escape, and I sized up the situation immediately.  If the steer continued, he would get across the ditch, over the railroad tracks, and into town.  Once in town, the steer would head out for thousands of acres of desert scrub land and mountains.

                I knew someone was going to catch hell for the escape.  I also knew the value of the amount of steak on the hoof headed in my direction.  Without thinking, I stepped in front of the steer and waved my free hand.  Holding Lilly on my hip, I slowed the steer down long enough for the cowboys to catch up and herd him back to his corral.  Lilly, clinging to me like a monkey, watched with her big brown eyes.  Her trust in me was absolute.

                “Cow, Mama.”

                “Yes, sweetie, but that’s a steer cow,” I told her, bouncing her in my arms.

                I turned around, expecting to see the Bowling Ball somewhere behind us.  I saw him a few hundred yards away, sitting in the car and watching us through the windshield.  I carried my child to the car and buckled her in her seat.

                “Really?” I asked.

                “I thought you would be right behind me.”  He said defensively.

                “And who the hell was gonna help those poor bastards get that steer back in the fence?”

                “I thought it was a bull.”  Bowling Ball explained, as though that made his panic somewhat more legitimate.

                “Oh, for pity’s sake.”

                “Cow, Daddy, cow!”  Lilly explained, not understanding why he was calling a cow a bull.  At a little over two years old, Lilly didn’t know what a bull was, but obviously it was something different than the cow that she and Mama had just chased. 

                The first time I took Lilly to Minnesota, Greg picked us up at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.  Lilly had bounced the entire flight, anticipating getting to spend time with Uncle Greg.  Her excitement didn’t wane as we drove through the city and headed north. 

                “I’m gonna count all the lakes.”  She announced, full of five-year-old confidence.

                “Okay, you do that for us,” Greg told her, as both of us tried to hide the smiles on our faces.

                Lilly was good at counting, but ninety minutes later, halfway through a three-hour drive, she was exhausted.  Counting lakes was no longer fun.  Being born and raised in a desert, Lilly called every swamp, river, mud pond, and swimming hole a lake.  She knew lakes; she had been to Lake Tahoe many times, and living in the mountains, she and I had gone to the local lakes in the summer.  But she didn’t know exactly what defined a lake, which left her counting beyond any number she had ever counted.

                “I’m not gonna count lakes anymore,” Lilly announced sadly.

                “That’s okay, there are a lot of them,” Greg consoled her.

                “I’m gonna count barns!”  Lilly told him.

                I think I might have sputtered a bit on that one; I remember Greg giving me a warning look.  Uncle Greg would not allow even me to hurt Lilly’s feelings or dim her light.  So, we sat in the front seat, while in the back seat, it began all over again.

                “One, two, three”

The second time I took Lilly to Minnesota, it was after Greg’s house was destroyed in the huge tornado that tore through Wadena.  This time, I drove.  Lilly rode in the back seat of the Jeep, in her booster seat for the trip.  She was fine through Northern Nevada, Idaho, the corner of Wyoming, and Montana.  The scenery didn’t change much as we drove.  It was when we drove through South Dakota that I realized we were now following the path of destruction from the tornado.  Grain bins were tossed aside like Legos, and through wheat and cornfields, a long, winding path was flattened. 

                “Look, Lilly,” I said, “that’s where the tornado went all the way to Minnesota.”

                Lilly looked up from whatever toy she had to amuse her and glanced out the window.  She made an ooh and ahh at the destruction of the farm buildings.  Then I heard:

                “Where are the mountains?”  Her cry was a mixture of fear and plaintive whining. 

                Lilly had flown to Minnesota with me the first time, and after a four-hour flight, hadn’t noticed that there were no mountains.  Now, with a slower transition, she realized that at some point the mountains had disappeared.  I looked into the mirror to see her face; in shock, tears were streaming down it.

                Familiar with altitude sickness, I guessed Lilly might be having the opposite reaction.  Never having lived as a flatlander, she had taken the mountains for granted.  To her, they were always there, serene and protective, watching over her.  She must have felt like an infant held in the air, a sensation of endless falling without the mountains to hold her in place. 

                There was nothing but fields and farms, and the sky touched the ground on the horizon.  Untethered, Lilly was frightened.  I pulled over at the next small town gas station, and we walked around a bit until Lilly was able to reconcile the lack of mountains with still being safe on solid ground.

                When Lilly was twelve, we sent her on an airplane by herself to spend the summer with Uncle Greg. She spent most of her time with cousins, aunts, and uncles.  Greg took her to every county fair in northern Minnesota. She went swimming in a lake and later called me that evening to fill me in on her adventures.

                “I don’t like swimming in the lake, it’s yucky and slimy on the ground.  And there’s fish there, it's not like the pool at McGill at all.  I got plants stuck on my leg!”

                Lilly went fishing with Uncle Dave on his boat. Donna sent me a picture of her holding a fish she had caught.  The expression of disgust on her face was as priceless as the phone call was later that day.

                “They made me help clean it!”

                One evening, after a day spent at a county fair, probably the fifteenth out of fifteen days, Lilly called me to educate me further on Minnesota.

                “They don’t eat healthy here.  It’s all fried food.  They take this thing called a Twinkie, which is like a little cake with frosting inside, put stuff on the outside, and deep-fry it.  They have little, tiny donuts in a machine, and you go up to the booth, and watch the donuts go through the hot oil, and then they sell them to you.  And they put sugar and cinnamon on them, and they are all greasy!”

                “But are they good?” I asked.

                “Well, yeah, yeah, they are good.” 

                I quietly laughed to myself, hearing Lilly picking up the Minnesota Idioma, the language and culture so sweetly familiar to me.

                “But it's not healthy!  They don’t eat salads here!  Or vegetables or fruit!” Lilly continued.

                Lilly had discovered the wonder and joy of fair food.  She didn’t realize this was a summer treat, not a daily way of life.  It was summer, the time of hot dogs and hamburgers, macaroni or potato salad, and Kool-Aid.  Wherever she went, Lilly was encountering a new culture.  A culture of celebrating the arrival of summer, surviving the winter, and enjoying each free moment.  In her eyes, it appeared to be a way of life.

                In rural Minnesota, late summer was a time for feasting. Farming with cattle could be challenging in the winter, and planting and harvesting were demanding in the spring. But by the time of the county fair, haying was mostly finished, with combining and chopping corn yet to come. This was the season for small-town parades, neighbors gathering, leisure, and gratitude for the land's bounty and joy for life.

                Lilly learned the art of “visiting,” a custom essential to rural Minnesota life.  Her Aunts and cousins took her along as part of the daily routine.  It was also that summer, at the age of twelve, that Lilly first encountered ignorance and racism, the willful hatred of “others”.  The call from Lilly that evening was hard for me as a mother, as she filled me in with her shock and disbelief.

                “We went to visit one of Uncle Greg’s relatives.  She is not a nice person! She uses bad words about black people and said she doesn’t let them touch her groceries at the store!  She said President Obama is a “Mooslum” and he’s gonna give everything to the “Mooslums”.  She doesn’t even know what a Muslim is.  And I don’t think she has even met a Black person, but she hates them.  And she goes to church!  How can she be like that and go to church and say she believes in God!  She’s not a nice person; she is full of hate!”

                I knew the person she was talking about and could only agree with Lilly’s description.  Lilly had met one of the many small-town hypocrites.  When children on the playground called Lilly’s friend “mud person” because of her color, I explained to her about ignorance and how it was repeated through generations. She understood how children could believe something so ignorant and hateful.  But an adult?  How could an adult exist in this world with that level of hatred and stupidity?

                “You went from Vegas to rural Minnesota,” I explained.  “The people are just like the people here; some are good, and some are bad.  Some figure things out and learn for themselves, others believe everything that they hear and feel safer that way. It makes them feel special, that they know things that other people don’t know, so they hang onto that.  If someone says something that doesn’t fit in with what they think, they just ignore it.  You can’t change them, but you can’t let them get to you.  Small towns are the same as big towns, except in a small town, you know who the bad people are.  Remember when I told you that no matter what, you don’t discuss politics, religion, or money?  Because it's not worth the time and effort to argue with them.  Your Grandpa Reuben always said, ‘There’s no point in trying to teach a pig to sing, it just makes you frustrated and confuses the pig.’  You gotta think of that when they get to you.”

                “But how can people be like that?”

                “They just are, honey, they just are.” 

I couldn’t explain to her how people who are otherwise good and caring can also be prejudiced and conspiracy theorists. I had to accept that the culture I wanted Lilly to learn was not always going to be perfect.  I couldn’t explain the complexity of humans to a twelve-year-old.  It would take time for her to learn that there can be goodness and badness in both good and bad people.   

                “Did she talk like that in front of you?  What did you say?”

                “I smiled and nodded, just smile and nod and change the subject if you can,” I told her.

                My daughter would, in time, see the good and bad in people.  Minnesota has beautiful lakes and perfect summer days.  But it also has the bitter winters and cold that can kill.  It has summers of deep-fried fair food and winters of comforting hotdish.  Despite her self-righteous anger, love of family meant Lilly would return.  It also meant that when I picked her up at the airport, she would be saying things like, “Ope”, “Uffda,” and “Yeah, no.”