Being a kid in the summer in Minneapolis, Minnesota


Although I left Minneapolis when I was 19, vowing never to deal with snow and cold again (and I've been true to that vow, I now live in the Phoenix, Arizona area, where I hope to someday rest my old bones!), I do have fond memories of Minneapolis, and the people who grew up here in Phoenix just think that I'm kidding. Summers are heaven in Minneapolis!

There are, of course, days of heat and humidity, which Phoenix locals don't understand, and are very miserable, along with mosquitos the size of dive bombers. And I usually focus on that kind of stuff when I'm talking about being a kid in Minneapolis, but today I want to tell you how wonderful the summers are.

It's 1970 in that pic up there, and I'm twelve years old. I'm bouncing on a giant inner tube, which my dad would put out for us kids, and it burned off a LOT of nervous energy. I grew up with three brothers, and the house was tiny, so my dad was wise enough to equip the backyard as if orangutans lived there, and the moment that the snow melted, and we could get outside, we did.

Although my blood has long since thinned, and I shiver at temperatures below seventy here in Phoenix, back then as soon as the ice melted in the cracks of the sidewalks, it was tee-shirt weather (just above freezing). To be fair, Minneapolis air is much more humid than Phoenix air, so temperatures in the 60s and 70s feel quite warm. Above that, with high humidity, is miserable, but I promised not to talk about that!

In addition to spending the summer bouncing on the inner tube, and swinging on the ropes on the tree in the backyard (Minneapolis has a LOT of trees!), I rode my bicycle a lot. We lived a short block from the Minnehaha Parkway, which has wonderful bike trails. But I also rode on the streets, which are tiny, and wonderful to ride on, too.

But let's talk about the lakes. Minneapolis has a LOT of lakes. So many, in fact, that when you asked someone where they lived, they would identify the area by naming the lake. I lived in the Lake Nokomis area. And more than anything else, I loved riding my bike around the lakes. The grownups knew that it was good exercise, and healthy for me to be out in the open air, and I knew that I'd see girls.

And that's my fondest memory: girls. In the winter they would be bundled up in parkas, but in the summer they would be at the lakes, no longer bundled up, if you know what I mean. And if you're wondering where the gorgeous blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls come from, it's Minnesota. And most of them had names that were Scandinavian or German. Go look at some St. Pauli Girl beer if you want to see them. Luckily, many of them moved to Southern California, and Arizona. But don't get me wrong, I loved seeing all of the girls!

OK, enough of that. Mostly I can remember the sun on my face, and the wonderful feeling of summer that you can only feel after a brutal winter. And Minneapolis has them both!

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