Join me for a little lunch. Or something. Sometimes.
It’s Halloween, with snow falling in Stearns County. Almost All Soul’s Day. Time for a ghost story. A true story, which I retell more than half a century later.
We all have our ways when it comes to Halloween candy.
You’d be crazy to cross Mr Smith’s garden. But one night I had to.
All families have secrets. As people get older or pass away, the secrets come to light. Like Grandma Lena’s.
It’s the town that welcomes you with a smile, and a cinnamon roll at Charlie’s Cafe.
We creatures of the earth shouldn’t eat each other’s lips. That’s my firm view.
Lake Osakis wore a black veil of birdlife – a coating of coots.
Some things change, some stay the same.
What a clever quirky Minnesotan Prince was. Lest we forget.
We were always happy with pancakes straight from Mom’s pan, not too thick or too thin, drizzled with some homemade jam or jelly or sugar or maple syrup from the Piggly Wiggly.
Lena and Mina were my grandmothers – Stearns County, Minnesota women who grew up and raised families in small towns around the Lake Wobegon Trail. Born in the USA, they spoke German and had German accents. As did my parents, who spoke only German until they went to school. As do some of my cousins, who have never lived anywhere but Stearns County. We’re quirky folks, like those in Garrison Keillor’s fictional Stearns town of Lake Wobegon. I’m Laurie Hilsgen, and if you’re reading this, you might be Wobegonian, too. Let’s celebrate our loony ways. Oh ja!
