Hello! My name is Barbara and here I am, nearing 90 years old, writing a story for the news for the first time in my life. Imagine that. I’m writing it on paper with a pen and my great-great-granddaughter is going to transcribe it onto her computer so we can print it properly. She really encouraged me to write. She always asks me questions about when I was her age, and she seems to love my stories so I thought I’d humor her.
I was born in Duluth, Minnesota, and except for a few years here and there, I have lived most of my life in the Northland. There is something about this place that keeps calling me back no matter how far I go. When I was younger, I wanted to see the world, so I did. I went to college in Minneapolis, worked on a farm in Ashland, Wisconsin, and later joined the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. That took me all the way to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where I spent a few years. You would think that living in paradise would have kept me there forever, but I missed the seasons. The beautiful color changes, I missed the smell of wet leaves in autumn, the way the snow made everything silent in the winter, the sudden burst of green in the spring. The deer that would come right up to our porch. So I came home to Duluth, and I have been here ever since.
I have always loved the outdoors. My family has a couple of cabins, one in Solon Springs, Wisconsin, and another in Two Harbors, Minnesota. I spent some of my best days in those woods, camping, fishing, hunting. I was never one for sitting inside and letting life pass me by. Even now, I try to get outside as much as I can, even when it’s very difficult. My favorite thing has always been getting out on the water. I have been in just about every kind of boat you can imagine, big and small, some with motors, some with sails. But if I had to choose, I would pick a canoe every time. There is nothing like paddling out onto a quiet lake early in the morning, before anyone else is up, when the water is still as glass. You can see the fish swim just under the top of the water. My friends and I used to spend whole days exploring like that, stopping on little islands to stretch our legs, eating sandwiches that were always a little damp from being packed the wrong way. I do not think I will be getting into a canoe again anytime soon, but if I could, I would. There are able bodied people who spend all day on the couch, when they could be making memories. What will they remember when they are in their 80s? The television shows they watched, the electronic games they played? I don’t think so.
When I was a child, my mother would trade homemade jams and cakes with some people she met from some of the local reservations. I wish I could remember which ones, but that detail has been lost to me. In return, she would get hand-carved toys and beautiful fabrics. My father, on the other hand, would take us to powwows. He always brought along jars of his homemade maple syrup, which he would give to the elders as a gift. I swear to you, that was the best syrup in the world. I would give anything to have a jar of it again. right now. Dad’s syrup. Maybe he’ll have a jar of it for me in his backpack when I see him again.
I have kept that connection with the native people over the years. A few years back I have been going to the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community in Mendota Heights, MN. It’s a smaller powwow than some of the tribes have. They have been a tribe that dealt with hardships and they have worked hard to persevere. There is something about the sound of the drums that you can feel in your bones. It is a heartbeat, a connection to something bigger. The dancers are incredible, and I could watch them for hours.
When I am not out and about, I love watching the Vikings and the Twins. If they are playing the Packers, I do not care what else I have going on, I will be watching. Can you believe I have never been to a game in person? My dad used to listen to the games on the radio when we would drive in the pickup truck. Not everyone had radios in their vehicles back then, so if you had one, you shared. Sometimes I think I miss listening to games that way, just a voice coming through the static, making you feel like you were right there in the stadium.
I have always loved a good joke, especially Sven and Ole jokes. My grandson told me a joke the other day that made me laugh so hard I nearly cried. He can do the Swedish accent so good. I guess it’s in his blood:
Sven and Ole are ice fishing when Ole eyes up Sven’s brand new large, shiny thermos.
“Hey Sven, vat’s dat ya got der?”
“Vell, Ole,” Sven says, “dis here’s a miracle of modern technology, a t’ermos!”
“Oh ya?” says Ole. “Vell, vat’s it fer?”
“Vell, Ole,” Sven says, “it keeps all da hot t’ings hot, and it keeps all da cold t’ings cold.”
After a few minutes of Ole staring at it, he finally asks, “Dat sounds great, Sven! So, vatcha got in it now?”
“Vell, Ole, I got my smelt sandwich, a popsicle, and two cups a coffee in it!”
Duluth and Superior have changed so much since I was a child. The roads are different, the bridges are new, and there is even an international airport now. Back then, everything seemed so much smaller. The town was full of kids running around, playing outside until the streetlights came on. We used to coast our bikes down the Duluth hills in the summer and go tobogganing in the winter. Do children even do that anymore? I do not see the kids playing outside like we used to be. I guess they may be afraid of breaking their pocket phones and other gadgets we never even dreamed of!
My grandmother taught me how to clean and cook fish in the woods, and my father taught me how to catch them. I could clean a fish before I could spell my own name. We did not have gun laws when I was young, at least none that I knew of. Everyone had rifles, even my friends who were kids. It was just part of life. None of us ever got into trouble with them. We respected them. I remember when one of the boys at school brought a 22 caliber rifle to school for show and tell. The teacher made him show it was unloaded, and that was that. He talked about how he was keeping the crows away from the field and how he won it at a youth NRA shooting competition.
I remember one summer when me and some of my best friends made houses out of stacked hay bales and spent the night in them out in a field. One of the boys stole a blueberry pie, and we ate it under the stars. It was the best pie I have ever had, probably because we were not supposed to have it. I think he got spanked later, but i don’t think he regretted it.
I got married outdoors near the Duluth Lift Bridge. It was a crisp fall day. My husband and I rode around town in a horse and buggy after the ceremony, throwing confetti and drinking hot chocolate. Things were different back then. Simpler in some ways, harder in others. My husband was a mechanic in the army. Before we had children, we used to go camping for weeks at a time, just the two of us. I miss doing that with him more than anything in the world.
Lake Superior has been part of my life since the day I was born. As a child, I swam in it every chance I got, no matter how cold the water was. At night, I would dream about how big and deep it was, dream that I was a fish swimming all the way to the bottom, where the driftwood and shipwrecks and other fish were waiting. I have not thought about that dream for all these years. I wonder if I will dream about it again tonight.
The Twin Ports is a good place for children. A place where they can explore, learn, and grow. When I am gone, I hope to be buried next to my husband, in the forest on my family’s 40 acres, near the stream where he proposed to me.
I never thought I would write a story for the news, uffdah! What on earth do I have to say that anybody would want to read?” But then I started thinking, and thinking turned into remembering, and remembering turned into writing. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever stop. I do not know if it is any good. I guess I will wait and see what people think. Maybe I will keep going and write another one. We will just have to see.
Written for www.ClearPointNews.com by Barb. transcribed by my beautiful great-great-granddaughter Emily.
We are looking for stories from the Twin Ports and The Northland in general!
Photo by Barb of the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge taken from the bow of the Vista Star