On Feeling Minnesota

So I'm moving out of state soon.  Minnesota has been home for the last nine years, which honestly is about eight years longer than I thought it would be.  Its a pretty hectic time, but there's also time for reflection on the good and the bad of the Great White North.

Without further ado, and with a nod to Letterman, here are my Top 10 items that I will and will not miss about Minnesota:

Top Ten Things I won’t miss about Minnesota

1. Craft Beers.  Never has a market been so saturated with beer that is all but undrinkable yet continues to be drank by hordes of hipsters.  Sorry to break it to you gang, but Darkness tastes like rancid prune juice and Todd Haug himself has told me that if it was up to him he would have stopped brewing it a long time ago.  Double, triple, quadruple hopped pilsners and brown ales?  Seriously, what's the point?  If you're going to make an IPA, make it balanced, not bitter for the sake of bitter.  The area's breweries could take notes from Pryes Miraculum and the one that started it all, Surly Furious.  

   

   Its as if Keystone Light could somehow see into the future...

2. Driving.  The roads and the drivers here tend towards terrible.  Construction starts in March and ends just in time for the ice to appear and often involves all major arteries in a given area simultaneously; there've been times where I have seriously had to contemplate how I was going to be able to get home at all.  Getting on and off the highway is accomplished by drivers sharing the same 50 yard space, simultaneously accelerating and decelerating.  It is as fun as it sounds!  Doing 45 in the fast lane?  Common, and surprisingly legal.  Cut you off at the last second despite signs that the lane is ending and the fact that there's no one behind you and then flipping you off?  Yep, happened to me on Sunday.  And just wait until the snow starts to fall. Chaos and anarchy will prevail.  
3. Burgers.  Heresy, you say?  Perhaps.  But when even the Chinese restaurants offer a hamburger, you have a glut of tasty beef patties in your market.  New restaurant?  Betcha they have “traditional American fare” and a “large tap beer menu” which translates to half a dozen burgers and a bunch of local craft beers.  After nine years it gets old, man.

   

   Awww, not another California burger!

4. Minnesota Nice.  This is a farce.  You are either nice or you are not.  Qualifying your level of nice by stating you live in a certain geography is indicative that perhaps you fall in the latter category.  I mean, over half the time I’m a jerk, but at least I own that shit, man.
5. Grocery Stores.  You can choose between Whole Foods, Lunds/Byerlys or Aldi and Cub Foods.  There’s no middle market store to be found here.  You’re either overpaying or you’re slumming it.  Where’s King Soopers or Safeway when you need it?
6. Sarcasm.  I’ve looked more than one person in the eye and told them something completely preposterous and tongue in cheek and been met with complete acceptance.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad (OK, it is funny regardless).    That’s not to say that there’s no humor here.  There is, but it is very direct and to the point, like pratfalls or a pie to the face. If I want some witty banter, I have to go find someone that's lived somewhere besides Minnesota or a Wisconsonian.
7. Being asked where I’m from.  Arguably, this is worse for my wife.  I have learned on multiple occasions that evidently to some Minnesotans a Colorado “accent” sounds like a Southern accent.  What’s worse is visiting Colorado and being laughed at because I’ll let a “Minneesohtah”out.  It’s just me trying to blend in guys, I swear!
8. Bikers.  Not the big burly bearded guys riding Hogs.  The skinny spandex wearing jackasses riding their pedal bikes anywhere they damn well please.  Running stoplights, riding on the sidewalk, on the wrong side of the road, in the middle of the road, three, four, five abreast.  The bike lanes that pop up and take a full lane of traffic away from cars.  The task forces established to enhance the biking experience and the police departments that openly acknowledge that they choose to ignore blatant abuse of traffic laws.  It's Minnesota, people. Why in the hell are you kowtowing to an activity that can comfortably be done for max four months every year and by best estimates is partaken in by about 15% of the population?  
9. Paul Allen.  Biggest homer in talk radio/professional football broadcasting.  Show Paul a 30-3 blowout loss to the Packers and he'll tell you all about how Cordarrelle Patterson was this close to breaking loose for a 300 yard game; regardless of the fact that he dropped three passes and ran the wrong route twice. My biggest fear is that before I leave  Paul Allen will land an interview with Jon Gruden.  The Positivity will be off the charts and result in catastrophic global destruction.
10. The Weather.  It just goes without saying.  If you haven't lived here, you simply can't understand.  Don't try and tell me that the summers make up for it either.  

Top Ten Things I will miss about Minnesota

1. Opportunity. My career went to new levels during my time here.  I had chances to get into things I never thought I would here, as did my wife, and those chances have given us the opportunity to live a life that I couldn’t have dreamt of.
2. Friends. The ones that I have made here are true friends, folks that I like to have a beer with, wind down after a long week, and help any way that I can.  I've laughed harder than I have in my life in some of the shittiest bars in St. Paul and on lovely lakeside patios in Wayzata over discussions that have started normally and deteriorated into pure and utter nonsense.  It is good for the soul.
3. Cheese Curds. Yes yes, these are actually a Wisconsin thing.  Whatevs.  Forget about cheese sticks, cheese curds are the way to go.
4. Critters. Black capped chickadees in the spring.  The annual migration of George and Gracie, a couple of ducks that stop in our backyard every year for a drink and to stretch their wings before moving on to where ever they spend the summer.  Squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks all living in my backyard, the centipede my wife found and captured because she was convinced she'd discovered a new species of insect, bald eagles, deer, turkeys, the hawk that stopped my dachshund in his tracks when he saw it waiting for him in the backyard.  Its nice to be basically in the woods/farmlands.
5. Green. Oceans of green grass, leaves, bushes.  Lush, beautiful, green as far as the eye can see.  People always talk about how beautiful Colorado is, and they're right, but Colorado east of the mountains including Denver is actually prairie and west of the mountains is actually desert. You don't get the verdant green there that you do in Minnesota...even if you only see it for like three months.  Seriously, as I type this I can look out the window and see the leaves changing already.
6. Tater Tots. I know that the real reason they're so prevalent here is because they're the key ingredient in Hot Dish.  But it is awesome to see them on the menu at a restaurant- chefs in Minnesota definitely know how to fry a tot!
7. Football. Sunday has become a day for Watching The Game.  My wife even takes some time to keep an eye on how things are going, and, in those years where our teams are doing well, gets into the action.  Listening to the Gophers beat the Huskers while raking leaves has become an Autumn tradition.  Football won't go away of course, but here is where I really began to embrace it and my wife learned to appreciate it.
8. Restaurants.  Brasa. Parma 8200.  La Belle Vie.  Psycho Suzis.  Donnie Dirks Zombie Bar.  Lord Fletchers.  The New Hope Cinema Grill.  Oceanaire.  Lola's Lakehouse. Santorinis. Broders. The St. Paul Grill.  The Blue Door Pub.  The Tea House.  Pineda.  6 Smith.  Morts. The Bloomington Chophouse. The bartender at Old Chicago in Eagan,  Hooters Spock and Fat Sareen at Wyld Times.  Jamie at Chilis.  Margaritas at Chevy's.  These are a few of my favorite things.
9. The Neighborhood.  Knowing that my neighbors will call me if something comes up in the neighborhood is nice.  Knowing that my house is safe because they're watching it for me is great.  My neighbor two doors down coming down in subzero temperatures to plow my driveway for my mother in law when she was housesitting even though I've never met or even spoken to the guy is admirable.  We don't attend the annual block party, and we really only speak to our next door neighbor on anything close to a regular basis, but we love our neighborhood and if by any chance someone from the hood gets around to reading this, we're sorry if the house was torn down and turned into a McMansion.  
10. The Last Nine Years.  It's hard to leave a place that's been Home for such a long time, even when you're essentially going back Home.  I woke up one morning right after we made the decision to move with the Stone Poney's in my head; for some reason my subconscious had associated Different Drum with us leaving Minnesota.   Even now, I think its fitting.

You and I travel to the beat of a different drum

Oh can't you tell by the way I run

Every time you make eyes at me

You cry and moan and say it will work out

But honey child I've got my doubts

You can't see the forest for the trees

Oh don't get me wrong

It's not that I knock it

It's just that I am not in the market

For a boy who wants to love only me

Yes, and I ain't saying you ain't pretty

All I'm saying, I'm not ready

For any person, place or thing

To try and pull the reins in on me

So goodbye I'll be leaving

I see no sense in this crying and grieving

We'll both live a lot longer

If you live without me