The Snow King
2009
For all of you Minnesotans who flatter yourselves by thinking you’re hardy, I suggest you snow blow for a while. That’ll take you down a notch.
Minnesota RollerGirls
2009
The door to the legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium doesn't even open for an hour, yet eighty people are waiting as my wife and I step into line. In another half hour, the line will double and then double again, until the RiverCentre staff will ask the RollerGirls to open the doors early. A line of over three hundred people messes up the flow of the public through Saint Paul's convention center and to the Xcel. The hits, the falls, the brilliance are real. The players of the Minnesota RollerGirls have resurrected a dead sport and redeem it—game by game—from the depths of 1970s late-night television hell.
Somewhere I’ll Find You
By Phebe Hanson ● 2008
So we moved from my small town in western Minnesota to St. Paul where I had to go to Murray High, a school with more people than in the entire town of Sacred Heart...
W. A. Frost
2008
Whether you are a native Saint Paulite or a transplant, chances are you have a favorite bartender. Saint Paul is arguably short on some things, but people: when it comes to bars, you can take your pick. From the highest order, with oak and marble features, to scratch-off parlors in old working-class neighborhoods, there is a crowd and atmosphere to suit your taste.
Halwa’s Story
2008
My name is Halwa Abdulkadir Hussein. I was born in Somalia in the town of Hargeysa in 1989. I grew up in Somalia. I am Muslim. I have four brothers and a mom. My father died in 1994, and at that time I was young, so I moved to Kenya. I came to the United States of America on June 6, 2006.
Art by Patricia Bour-Schilla
The Fruit Of Summer
By Jan Zita Grover ● 2008
My nails have been black for over a week now. This is the price I pay for picking mulberries, whose juice has a staining power the military might want to look into. Under the guilty tree, a (doomed) white car has been parked for the past nine days, and I know from experience that its hood will never be pure white again: pale pink blooms will adorn its surface, souvenirs of its time beneath that tree.
Trust
By Kevin FitzPatrick ● 2008
"You'll get a ticket parked that way," I called. A slim black woman in cleaning clothes that workers wear at Regions Hospital had parked her rusty car along the curb, but pointed south, the wrong way on that street.
The Rebirth of Lowertown
2008
Welcome to the off-the-clock lives of artists in downtown Saint Paul. Thanks principally to the City of Saint Paul, the former Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation, ArtSpace, the Saint Paul Art Collective Housing Corporation, and local foundations, Lowertown—a district that by the early 1980s had lost most of its commerce and stood semi-abandoned and down on its luck—is thriving again.
David C. Martinez and Trinh Ngo
2008
The following two stories are written by adult learners of English as a second language in Saint Paul. The stories are from Journeys: Stories and Poems to Open Your Mind, an annual collection of student writings compiled by the Minnesota Literacy Council.
The Union Depot
2008
If you were to stand here today, on an equally mild summer morning, as the maker of this 1925 photograph did, Union Depot would not look much different. It would be, of course: time changes not only the physical lives of buildings but their meaning and function.
Lament
2008
It's clear I've missed a few stellar odes on my way to do the laundry—cracks in the canon, Li Po and Heaney's gold.
Everest on Grand
2008
A family cultivates a soaring dream on the southeast corner of Grand Avenue at Syndicate Street, supporting three generations with a business that builds bridges between Saint Paul and the traditional tastes of Nepal. That's where the Sharmas, who initially came to Minnesota in 1977, run Everest on Grand, the first Nepali restaurant in the state.