TCTOD: A deep and abiding love of small town roots
Posted on November 21st, 2008 – 12:51 PMBy Michael Rand
Jon was the winner of this week’s fabulous contest, which earned him the fabulous prize of getting to tell all of you about where he grew up. But seriously, if this isn’t a talker, we don’t know what is. Jon?
I was the first to correctly identify Ricky Davis as the former Timberwolf who called for the ball when he noticed he was being guarded by a white guy; to be fair, this was in no way a guess, given that a) Davis was the logical candidate to make any statement that stupid and b) he called for the ball no matter who was guarding him. So here we go with the guest post:
Lately, it seems like writing about rural Minnesota is the trendy thing to do with a RandBall guest post. Those of us with small-town backgrounds seem quite proud of our simple roots, and I’m no different: last week at the state football semifinals, I spent a good five minutes explaining to Rand everything there was to know about Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley. For example: there’s only one stoplight in Big Stone County, a blinking yellow light at the intersection of US-75 and MN-28 in Graceville. (This fact usually doesn’t fail to draw a laugh from urbanites, even from those who, like Rand, are from a distinctly un-urban big town.)
Here’s what I want to know, though: why do I do this? I live in a first-ring suburb. I haven’t lived in western Minnesota for almost 10 years now, and yet I can’t wait to spew stories about, say, the high school gyms at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley and Chokio-Alberta. (They’re both classic small-school gyms: pull-out bleachers on only one side of the court, plus a stage / band room at one end. If I remember right, there’s even a tile floor at Chokio-Alberta, and you can pretty much put one foot on the three-point line and the other in the center circle - they’re that close together.)
It’s not like I’m exactly unique; there must be hundreds of thousands of metro-area residents with stories similar to mine. Yet somehow, I feel myself filled with an absurd pride when the discussion turns to hometowns - and a similarly strange connection with others who grew up in rural areas, especially if they went to consolidated high schools with great names, such as the now-sadly-defunct Belview-Danube-Renville-Sacred Heart, or BDRSH (pronounced “ba-dersh” to the great consternation of all BDRSH-related personnel.)
So, RandBall readers - and especially those of you from so-called Greater Minnesota - here’s your discussion topic: what’s with the rural pride?
31 Responses to "TCTOD: A deep and abiding love of small town roots"
Sarah Palin can see rural pride in her backyard.
Can I claim to be from Greater Minnesota, even though my once rural hometown is being swallowed up by the Cities?
My favorite Southern Minnesota consolidated school districts:
BOLD [Bird Island, Oliva, Lake Lillian]
Martin County West [Sherburn, Trimont, Welcome]
Maple River [Mapleton, Amboy, Good Thunder]
NRHEG [New Richland, Heartland, Ellendale, Geneva]
JWP [Janesville, Waldorf, Pemberton]
LCWM [Lake Crystal, Welcome Memorial-Garden City, Rapidan, Vernon Center]
My rural ND hometown consolidated a few years after I graduated and my family moved away. We already co-oped for football and baseball, but even basketball is no longer independent. Oh well, a town of 250 can only support a school for so long.
In 1997 I worked in Madison, MN, just a few miles south of the area Jon is referring to. Of all of the places I have lived in my life, that was my favorite. The people there were awesome. Jon - you should be proud.
Madison is a fairly small town, so when I got there I could not find an apartment for rent. Long story longer, I ended up living in the town’s nursing home. It was actually pretty fun; the old gal’s loved cooking for me, and I played a lot of euchre.
The all-you-can-play year-long membership to the Madison Golf Club was $99.
Other consolidated school districts:
ROCORI [Rockville, Cold Spring, Richmond]
Yellow Medicine East [Granite Falls, Clarkfield, Hazel Run, Hanley Falls, Echo, Wood Lake]
MACCRAY [Maynard, Clara City, Raymond]
It’s not a consolidated school district (yet), but the hockey team for my high school is several area schools together. Supposedly Montgomery (and presumably Lonsdale) were looking to get in on the act–I believe that would make them the:
LSHSPLCCML Bulldogs. That’s LeSueur-Henderson-St. Peter-LeCenter-Cleveland-Montgomery-Lonsdale.
Not sure on Cleveland, though–they might not be part of it.
My high school has done the same thing for hockey MAML (pronounced mammal) Stars, Monticello-Annandale-Maple Lake
Latte- let’s not forget KMS Fighting Saints (Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg), BBE (Brooten-Belgrade-Elrosa), or formerly CCR, now MACCRAY (Maynard, Clara City, Raymond). Some of the old-school jerseys from before consolidation can still be found at garage sales, for the hip young urchins.
How big can a town get while still being considered “rural”? Or do you just have to be in the middle of nowhere?
Roughkat: your slash fiction about Sarah Palin’s backyard has no place in a family newspaper. For shame, sir.
Jon & Latte: as the sole RandBaller from BDRSH and BOLD’s neighbor to the east on 212, I’m fairly certain that
1. BOLD used to stand for Bird Island-Olivia-Lake Lillian-Danube.
2. Danube left to join Renville-Sacred Heart, making it DRSH, which is funnier than ba-dersh because gynecological > onomatopoetical. It’s science.
How big can a town get while still being considered “rural”? Or do you just have to be in the middle of nowhere.
You’re no longer rural if you have a Dairy Queen. You’ve graduated to “the city” status for people who are actually rural: “I’m going to the city to get some parts, Lois. You want a Parfait from the DQ?”
Thus, Olivia, though only a little bigger than and just as much in the middle of nowhere as all the other cities in Renville County, is not rural. They have a DQ. And a Subway, for that matter.
It was actually pretty fun; the old gal’s loved cooking for me, and I played a lot of euchre.
Clarence glosses over the fact that he slipped up once, called it “pfeffer” and was beaten repeatedly with a filthy bedpan.
“I’m going to the city to get some parts, Lois. You want a Parfait from the DQ?”
Referring to it as “THE Dairy Queen” has always amused and confused me a bit. I dated a girl from Lake Crystal who was incapable of simply saying “Dairy Queen”- it was always “THE Dairy Queen”, even when there were several DQ’s to choose from in Mankato.
I’d challenge her on it: “Are we going to Burger King or THE Burger King?”
“Burger King”
“Then why is it ‘THE Dairy Queen’?”
“IT JUST IS!”
I had forgotten that. Thanks for bringing it up.
/opens bottle, throws away cork.
I must admit, playing basketball in that Alberta gym of which Jon speaks, was outstanding. Talk about home court advantage…no one (sometimes not even us) wanted to play there.
It was a beeyotch on the shin splints though.
BOLD used to be just Bird Island-Lake Lillian… yes, their gym has signs on the wall for past BILL teams.
A couple of other consolidated comments:
- Merx mentioned Yellow Medicine East, which used to be Granite Falls-Clarkfield. Before combining, Granite Falls was nicknamed the Kilowatts (the power plant was there) and Clarkfield was the Cardinals; after the merger, their teams were known as - this is absolutely true - the Kilocards.
Apparently, though, Cottonwood-Echo-Wood Lake has folded into YME as well, which is a shame.
- My favorite acronyms tend to be the ones that aren’t just initials; here I’m thinking of Rocori, MACCRAY, and Win-E-Mac, and other schools of that ilk.
- And Clarence referenced Madison, which (along with Marietta, Nassau, Milan, and Appleton) is part of Lac Qui Parle Valley. When they built the new LQPV high school (this would be in the early 1990s), none of the newly involved towns would let the others have the high school; this is why LQPV is in the middle of a cornfield, closer to Dawson, MN than anything else.
The Dairy Queen in my hometown was shut down for a while when I was younger, rumors of drug deals out the backdoor. Does this mean the town was urban, than rural, and urban again? And yes we said THE Dairy Queen.
Before combining, Granite Falls was nicknamed the Kilowatts (the power plant was there) and Clarkfield was the Cardinals; after the merger, their teams were known as - this is absolutely true - the Kilocards.
This is true. Their mascot was a bird eating a light bulb.
/opens bottle, throws away cork.
Clarence - What are you drinking, chardonnay?
Merx: yes, yes, and yes.
Roughkat: in outstate Minnesota, “cork” is what we call screw top caps. We don’t know any better.
Since AZGG doesn’t seem to be around I’ll represent her hometown (I think).
SE is Sibley East (Gaylord, Arlington, Green Isle) which, contrary to what every person from the cities thinks, is not adjacent to Henry Sibley, but rather is the east side of Sibley county.
We absolutely despise the west side (which is pretty much identical) GFW (Gibbon, Fairfax, Winthrop)
Thank you for explaining, Stu.
/hides chardonnay bottle behind back.
For some reason when I hear a consolidated school name I think of WCCO radio’s snowstorm school closing reports: “Kenyon-Wannamingo, public and parochial, 2 hours late. No moring kindergarden”.
No mention of the battle between Dayman vs. Nightman on last nights It’s Always Sunny?
Boo season finale. Hooray Rock Opera!
Very disturbing, Nightman [redacted] the boy’s backdoor. I would like to see a full length version of the musical, maybe it will be on the DVD.
And this whole thread serves as the answer to Jon’s question about rural pride: because rural Minnesota is really kinda weird. 8 school districts smashed into one goofy acronym, nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I’m sure the suburbanites here have equally fascinating stories about the time that Greta the nanny fed you your cake with a salad fork, and Daddy had no choice but to terminate her on the spot.
I’m sure the suburbanites here have equally fascinating stories about the time that Greta the nanny fed you your cake with a salad fork, and Daddy had no choice but to terminate her on the spot.
I laughed at this… but why? It’s not like I grew up in imporverished circumstances.
Excuse me, the cake eaters in Edina ate far better cake than I ate in Eden Prairie as a child.
Jon: because it was a completely unfair cheap shot that had little basis in reality.
My favorite team to play against in baseball back in the 90s was Red Rock Central-Westbrook Walnut Grove. That combined the towns of Sanborn, Lamberton, Stordon, Jeffers, Westbrook, and Walnut Grove. That made my Heron Lake-Okabena-Lakefield school seem a little bit bigger out in the Red Rock Conference since we only had three towns combined. The kids out in the ‘burbs really did miss some fun names and times out in the sticks.
I met Jon in his short stay in IT classes at the U and we connected because of our similar small town backgrounds. I went to the previously mentioned Red Rock Central high school (Jeffers, Storden, Sanborn, Lamberton). I really enjoyed going to a small town high school because you can play any sport you want even though you may not be that athletic. Nothing beats whopper feeds and high school football on fall Fridays. Can I get a witness.
