03-07-2004, 08:24 PM
Born, raised, and still reside in Northern Minnesota. International Falls, that is. I'll let the New York Times take this one...
Yes, I'm proud of my town...very proud. We are now internationally known as the town where people pee on their car doors to open them.
It's not so bad, really. I don't live IN the town itself, I live quite a distance away in a place which I refer to as The Middle Of Nowhere. I wish we had a Wal-Mart to be bored in, honestly. All we got is a K-mart, which is MUCH worse I think. Can you buy a book in our town? No. Nothing except romance novels, and the occassional Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter book which pops in on hype. Ya see, people here don't "read" that's too difficult. We used to have a Sam Goody in the mall...it's gone now. That leaves us with the major stores, K-mart and Menards. That's the best you'll get outta this town. You can't move without smacking into a bar, either. Economy: Forestry, Paper Making, and Tourism. What do I see as I look out my window right now? Lot's of snow and trees.
Weirdest part? I like it here. Go figure. Also, I got a good job, because computer technicians? I'm like the ONLY one.
Quote:WHAT would Margaret Mead make of a tribe of 6,703 people that each winter celebrates its land as the coldest spot in the contiguous United States with an outdoor festival that features such rituals as ''Turkey Bowling,'' in which frozen poultry takes the place of bowling balls, and a ''Freeze Yer Gizzard Blizzard Run,'' billed as the coldest 10-kilometer race in the United States? (In 1987, that race was run in temperatures that plummeted to minus 28 Fahrenheit.)
But that's what things are like in International Falls, Minn., which hangs like a stalactite from the Canadian border, and for which ''Ice Box Days XXIV'' (to be held next Thursday through Sunday and not to be confused with Super Bowl XXXVIII) is a celebration of its idiosyncratic fame. Not for nothing, in fact, did the town fathers trademark the term ''Icebox of the Nation'' in the 1950's, thereby embracing its status as the punch line of weathermen from Maine to Maui, who each day let their viewers know there is always someone else in the country worse off than them.
It wasn't so long ago that even high-brow media venues like public radio's ''Car Talk'' would focus on International Falls, with residents getting their 15 minutes of fame telling tales of local inebriates urinating on their frozen car door locks to thaw them out.
Yes, I'm proud of my town...very proud. We are now internationally known as the town where people pee on their car doors to open them.
It's not so bad, really. I don't live IN the town itself, I live quite a distance away in a place which I refer to as The Middle Of Nowhere. I wish we had a Wal-Mart to be bored in, honestly. All we got is a K-mart, which is MUCH worse I think. Can you buy a book in our town? No. Nothing except romance novels, and the occassional Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter book which pops in on hype. Ya see, people here don't "read" that's too difficult. We used to have a Sam Goody in the mall...it's gone now. That leaves us with the major stores, K-mart and Menards. That's the best you'll get outta this town. You can't move without smacking into a bar, either. Economy: Forestry, Paper Making, and Tourism. What do I see as I look out my window right now? Lot's of snow and trees.
Weirdest part? I like it here. Go figure. Also, I got a good job, because computer technicians? I'm like the ONLY one.