David Beard
Snowshoeing in Mahtowa
I went snowshoeing in Mahtowa this weekend.
Snowshoes are a gentle miracle of physics. At first it’s disconcerting to walk alongside a tree or a shrub more than a foot above the ground. I’m not supposed to be up here, and my poles are proof of this, as they press deep into the snow to bite the frozen earth. (more…)
Human Fabric of Duluth tells powerful story of addiction and recovery
If you’ve not kept up with the Human Fabric of Duluth webseries of photos and stories, you missed this week’s story of inspiration. (more…)
Handrails
The house was built before the end of World War I, finished room by room by my great grandfather after a hard day’s work at Kurth Malting in Milwaukee, where I grew up.
When was a child at the kitchen table doing homework in the 1980s, the house still wasn’t finished. The porch was sinking into the earth, and every spring I climbed beneath to crank the jack that lifted the sagging southwest corner.
There were no handrails on the steep staircase from the first floor to the basement or winding alongside the stairs from the first floor to the attic. Maybe handrails were luxuries they could not afford, or maybe handrails never crossed his mind, the way that he died without ever wearing a seatbelt.
Every day his wife, my great-grandmother, fetched a can of veggies from the root cellar for dinner. Tinned vegetables did not require the cool air of the basement to stay fresh, but old habits died hard. Cans of beets and corn and beans were still stored downstairs. (more…)
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #8
Below are more questions from a Duluth Trivia Deck I found at Savers. I’m not using all the questions in this deck in my series of posts, by the way. Some are clearly dated., e.g. “How many banks are in Duluth?” The answer will no longer be accurate. Also, some are clearly designed to promote a business.
1. How long is the Blatnik Bridge?
2. Who was John A. Blatnik?
3. The actor Tom Price portrayed a popular role in 1985 in Duluth. What part did he play?
4. How many branch libraries are there in Duluth — at the time this card deck was produced?
5. Due to a power failure, who was stuck in the Holiday Center glass elevator for one-half hour on October 23, 1985?
6. Name the person who has been mayor of Duluth, director of the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, and in the state legislature?
7. What Duluth mayor came to prominence over a confrontation with a gasoline distribution company?
8. What was the first name of the Duluth Junior League organization? (more…)
Writer Reads … in Ashland and on the Radio
Duluth authors Avesa Rockwell, Lucie Amundsen and other Duluthians I don’t know all read in the annual “Writer’s Read” event at Northland College on Jan. 26.
Avesa’s memoir, Children of the Earth, was selected by judges for its relevance to this year’s theme of “gut instinct.” Her story describes a disturbing incident from her adolescence in New Mexico and the tension between acquiring wisdom and maintaining innocence. (more…)
Poems for Chance
Chance: Poems
Tuesday night I attended the publication party and reading for “Chance: Poems,” an anthology of poems edited by Kathleen Roberts in honor of the art installation currently at the Tweed Museum. (more…)
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #7
More from the deck found at Savers …
1. In what year did the U.S. Commerce Dept, designate the Port of Duluth a Foreign Trade Zone?
2. In what year was the $8.5 million Duluth International Airport passenger terminal and industrial park complex completed?
3. In what year was Northland Country Club built?
4. In what year was Wade Stadium dedicated?
5. Who was Sid Peterson?
6. Who were the 1961 Minnesota State High School basketball champions?
7. Who was Bruce Bennett?
8. Who was “Heat Wave” Richard Berler?
9. What was the White City on Park Point? (more…)
Theater of All Sorts in the Twin Ports
Sure, all the theater illuminati were at the opening of the NorShor for Mamma Mia. But across the street and down the road, on Friday and on Saturday, other kinds of theater and performance were opening up at Teatro Zuccone and the Underground, and I want to give them a nod. (more…)
Circle of Hope Boot Camp
I went to the Circle of Hope Boot Camp at Clyde Iron Works on Saturday Morning. (more…)
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #6
More from the Duluth Trivia Deck found at Savers.
1. What famed product was sold by Duluth Tent and Awning?
2. What does a McGiffert loader [on view in the railway museum] load?
3. Who held the first motorized dairy operation in Duluth/the region?
4. Where is Mission Creek located?
5. True or false? A quarry near Mission Creek yielded much of the brownstone used in Duluth buildings.
6. True or false? The first brick structure in Duluth is still standing at E. Superior Street.
7. Where is Munger Terrace?
8. T/F: When the Torrey building was constructed, it was fireproofed by covering its iron and wooden beams with terra cotta or baked clay.
(more…)
Electronic Fiasco
Photo by Aaron Reichow
I was knocked without socks by the Homegrown Fiasco. At the Teatro, Big Science opened the event. (more…)
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #5
From the Duluth trivia deck scored at Savers. Thanks to those who have corrected the previous entries and discussed them with vigor. I learned a lot.
1. Who was Duluth’s first mayor?
2. What was the name of the first ship to pass through the Duluth Ship Canal?
3. In what year was the Duluth Bethel Society founded?
4. In what year did the Duluth Board of Trade organize? (The link is about the building, not the organization.)
5. Who developed the Lake Vermilion Iron Fields?
6. When the Duluth Street Railway opened in 1881, how much did it cost to ride in one of its mule-drawn cars?
7. What part of Duluth was known as a “Hay Fever Haven“?
8. What did the City of Duluth do when it was found that its Lake Superior water had asbestiform particles which are linked to cancer?
9. What was Soroptimist International?
10. This one feels like it might be suspect: What was the first church in the Village of West Duluth?
11. True or False: Duluth once had a Duluth Toboggan and Snowshoe Association?
(more…)
Open Skating at Duluth Heritage Sports Center
Image from the Heritage Center website
For New Year’s, I never make resolutions. But I do point myself toward new things that feed me.
Ice skating.
I went to the Heritage Center for City of Duluth Open Skate. (more…)
Duluth Trivia Deck Sampler #4
From the Duluth Trivia deck I found in a game at Savers.
- How long has Duluth had a Symphony Orchestra?
- The DSSO produced opera annually for 26 years. Which conductor began this tradition and in what year?
- Where does the “concertmaster” of the DSSO sit?
- What year did “Fitger’s on the Lake” open?
- What year did the Fitger’s Brewery close?
- How many years was the old brewery in continuous operation?
- Who was Margaret Culkin Banning?
- Who said that “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Duluth”?
- Where in Duluth is the important collection of Eastman Johnson paintings housed?
- What was the Hjemkomst?
The Gay Agenda on the UMD Campus
On Dec. 4 I heard a reading of Suzannah Weiss‘s The Gay Agenda on the UMD campus.
The work is intended as a web series. When I was a student, creative writing students held ambitions to be seen by a dozen people in a one-act play on campus. Today, new media gives everyone with a talent for words an opportunity to be seen by thousands. As a result, talented young people can be alive with an ambition that I never saw as a student. (more…)
“Sea Smoke” from the Hot Tub on the North Shore
I left Duluth for Bluefin Bay in the late afternoon, after dropping off my mail at the UMD post office (where the lines are shorter than the Mount Royal office by a lot). (more…)
Celebrating a Birthday, Duluth Style
Over the course of a week, I celebrated my birthday, Duluth-style. In sharing the story with you, I celebrate the things about Duluth I like. (more…)
Donating a Car to Community Action Duluth (with Reflection)
Last week, my ex-wife and I planned to get rid of her old car, still stored in my garage for the four years since she moved out. She bought a new car, I bought a new car, her 2002 Hyundai Accent still remained there.
The goal was to donate it to Community Action Duluth to let her get the tax deduction. But because it’s a donation, it needed to go when the towing company could fit the pickup in its schedule. Eventually it arrived. (more…)
Carla Stetson addressing design/construction of CJM Memorial
[arve url=”https://youtu.be/ZlFwTZxBPpM”]
I’m cleaning out my hard drive in preparation for a sabbatical. So here are some videos of Carla Stetson, then a Duluth artist, talking to my writing class. She’s addressing the process of designing and constructing the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial. (more…)
Regional book industry shifts as Book World stores close
If you live or vacation in Ashland or Marquette you know Book World. Or, perhaps the proper phrasing is that you will have known it. The whole chain of stores is closing in a few weeks.
The Book World chain was always amazing to me — a hybrid of gift shop, humidor, and book/magazine store, in small towns, creating access to book culture where it might not otherwise be available. Literary magazines unavailable on the shelf in Duluth could be found in Ashland, Bemidji and other places.
I understand this website is Perfect Duluth Day, not “Perfect Lake Superior Region Day,” but if nothing else, think about this. Book World owned 45 storefronts and was the third-largest book chain in the country. Book culture is precarious, and we should do all we can to support it in Duluth.
Thank You for Your Service
Still from Thank You for Your Service
This is partially a reflection on a movie seen at the Duluth 10 Cinema, partially a survey of important Duluth resources, and partially a reflection on the way I wish the world would be. (more…)
It’s not Mars; it’s my streets.
On Facebook, I saw a picture that could have been from Mars, or from Hibbing (where the earth has been gutted by mines in a monstrously, sublimely beautiful way).
But it wasn’t. It was a Duluth street.
(On Facebook the photo is cropped without the yellow line. This makes it look even more out-of scale Martian.)
In the next election, I understand, there is something to be done about it.