by Howard Mohr
This is my last report.
MINNESOTA FARMING: AN UPDATE
In 1987 when How to Talk Minnesotan was published, farming at the basic level in Minnesota had not changed all that much for years. Farmers planted corn, soybeans, and small grains, such as wheat or oats, all of which were food crops for the consumption of human beings and livestock, such as cattle and hogs, and milk cows. The cattle and hogs, for your information, became beef and pork at some point and were then eaten by human beings, a repetitive cycle that inspired many to think that farming was the good life. A farmer could make a decent living in spite of the ever-increasing prices for machinery—another thing, besides the weather and the grain markets, they could not control.
Agra Sci-Fi
Farmers had for decades been buying hybrid seeds for spring planting. But what emerged like wildfire in the waning twentieth century were seeds designed in the laboratory by gene-splicing for particular purposes. By making a corn seed whose plant could tolerate a powerful herbicide, a farmer could watch his corn come up, and as soon as the weeds appeared, he could spray the crop, killing the weeds, but not the corn. A corn seed incorporating genetic material from a pesticide is also used to control rootworm, a crop-damaging bug. The value to the farmer is that he does not have to spend so much time cultivating crops to remove weeds, nor does he have to spray pesticide on the crop, since it is “built in.” Gene-spliced seeds are more expensive, thereby becoming one more thing farmers can’t control.
Global Positioning Satellites in Modern Farming
Minnesota farmers began using GPS to plant and harvest their crops, collecting valuable data on crop yields. The GPS tractor has a cab-mounted screen and software for placing the tractor on autopilot. GPS tractors automatically move over the fields with very little input from the farmer except to respond to the familiar woman’s voice from the computer in case of a computer glitch: “Recalibrate! Recalibrate!” The crop can be planted, cultivated, and harvested accurately by GPS. A farmer in 2012 using GPS will have by now stored the data from all his fields into the hard drive of the computer and backed it up on his laptop or iPad. Needless to say, the cost of a GPS tractor, not to mention the software, puts quite a dent into the budget, and yes, it’s another expense farmers can’t control.
GPS farming is a national and global phenomenon. But one Minnesota GPS farmer has made a profitable breakthrough writing popular fiction. George Minster (his pen name) is a southwestern Minnesotan farmer in the Hanley Falls area who was somewhat addicted to reading mysteries while letting his tractor do the driving by GPS, but like most Minnesota farmers, he didn’t want his neighbors to think all he did was ride around with his nose in a book, sipping coffee, checking e-mail, noodling on his guitar, and streaming old John Wayne movies. He figured that he could write mysteries as well as the next guy. In his GPS-guided tractor George had plenty of time to crank out “Keeping the Lid on Larceny,” “It’s in the Blood,” and “Facebooking with a Corpse,” all best sellers featuring “Ole’s the Name,” his popular grain farmer turned private investigator. George’s newest, “You Bet He’s Dead,” should be in the stores by late 2013.
Public Service Notice: Genetically
Engineered Farmer Rumors
Maybe you’ve read the scandalous stories, or watched Fox News, suggesting that some farmers in Minnesota have signed up to be genetically modified for the new age of farming, allowing them to pass on their valuable GPS-ready spliced DNA to their children and grandchildren. This is completely false.
And the same goes for the stories about Minnesota farmers sitting in lawn chairs beside the field, shirt off, taking in the rays, using a remote to guide the GPS tractor on its task of prepping the soil and planting the grain. The color photo of Minnesota farmer Ricky Crickson using a remote and sipping a gin and tonic made the rounds on Facebook, but you should know that he has never had a G & T in his life, and that his neighbor photoshopped that inglorious picture.
Please share this notice with others on social media. Just say NO to silly fabrications.
Wyoming, Golf, and the Law, Minnesota-Style
A SPECIAL NOTE FOR VISITORS
FROM STATES LIKE WYOMING
Now I don’t think for a minute that Minnesota has the corner on being fairly friendly and low-keyed, but even if you come from a state known for these qualities—say, Wyoming or Texas—you should take your lowest key and then drop it an octave or two when you visit us. We can have just as good a time as anybody in Wyoming, and almost anybody in Texas. So just go ahead and say what comes naturally:
—“Boy, one night last week a bunch of us piled in the pickup, drove into Cheyenne, partied all night, shut a couple of places down, and got back to the ranch just in time to saddle up.”
No problem. A Minnesotan would get right in the spirit of that remark and reply like this:
—“Yeah, I tell you. The other night I went to the Fire Hall pancake feed and then afterwards a bunch of us sat around and played cards right through the 10 o’clock news. I was really tired the next day.”
The use of exaggeration is slightly different in Minnesota. Here’s an exchange between a Minnesotan and a visitor from Wyoming.
—“So, how big is this ranch of yours?”
—“We call ’em farms here in Minnesota. I farm 400 acres.”
—“Four hundred acres!!?? My lawn back home is bigger than that. My kiddos got a hundred acres just for their sandbox!!!”
—“You bet. That’s a big sandbox. Must be a full-time job just keeping the cats out.”
—“I thought maybe I’d do a little hunting while I’m here. You know back home the elk are so thick, we just open a window and fire. Think I could get myself an elk in Minnesota?”
—“If you’re a good hunter. We had three elk living in Minnesota last year, but two of ’em walked over the border into South Dakota and the other one hasn’t been seen for a while. That’s the one you’d have to get.”
Easy, isn’t it? Just be glad you’re not from California. Californians have a terrible time learning how to speak and act Minnesotan. The funny thing is, a lot of them were Minnesotans who moved out there to strike it rich or stay warm—but something happened. When they came back for a visit, they act like they’ve been brainwashed. It’s not their fault. And that’s not to say I don’t like California. Don’t get me wrong.
By the way, if you want some help on a translation between your state language and Minnesota’s, feel free to drop me a line with your question. Please include a SASE.
WHERE TO GO IN MINNESOTA
Golfing
After many years of jokes about how so-and-so should just turn his cow pasture into a golf course, and having so-and-so say turning his cows into a golf course would be worth more, so-and-so finally did it, time after time, in small towns across Minnesota. But give us credit—we resisted longer than most civilized cultures. When push came to shove at the council meetings, though, the big argument was that a golf course would be just the thing to make the town take off again. It would attract businesses. The boards could be taken off a lot of the storefronts. The town would become the focal point for the county. There would be golf tournaments and TV coverage. You never know, it could happen. It hasn’t happened yet, but it could.
If a golfing vacation is your idea of a good time, you won’t have any adjustments here. Golfing in Minnesota is about what it is in other states. You try to get the ball in the holes in numerical order without cheating and without injuring yourself or those around you. You couldn’t invent a simpler game if you tried. Because our courses were built on flat prairie land without trees, a simple game is even simpler. You can see all nine holes from green. That’s if you don’t count the gopher holes. The pocket gopher is the official state rodent, and as such is a protected species. If your ball goes down a gopher hole, you get a free shot. If you hit a gopher and kill it, there is a one-shot penalty, but you do get your name on the clubhouse wall. If you step in a gopher hole and break y
our leg, it is an act of God.
BREAKING THE ICE AT MINNESOTA
HIGH SCHOOL CLASS REUNIONS
If you’ve been living someplace else for twenty or thirty years, and you’re coming back to Minnesota for a high school reunion, your Minnesotan could be a little rusty. You’re bound to have some rough edges. Maybe that’s the way you want it, but remember that most of your old classmates did not have the privilege or desire of moving out of state. They’re not the strangers—you are. If your purpose in coming back is to offend people and show them how far you’ve gone, fine, just skip over this part or even the whole book, for that matter; you’re probably hopeless. But a lot of people knew that when you left. Don’t do anybody any favors.
All the lessons in this guide can be put to good use, but here are some sample openers. After that, you’re on your own.
An incorrect ice breaker precedes the correct one. Can you see what’s wrong?
—“Brenda, the bald guy on your left with the turkey tie and mayonnaise on his lapel, is that the same husband you’ve always had? I thought you dumped him.”
—“So, Brenda, this is quite the deal then, isn’t it? Oh, here’s a Kleenex—why don’t you give it to the sophisticated-looking gentleman on your left there. Isn’t he a TV anchorman?”
—“What crawled up on my plate and died?”
—“Gosh, I haven’t had any lutefisk for, I don’t know, twenty, twenty-five years. It sure brings back some strong memories.”
—“Oh, Dale, I’ll never forget that time we accidentally got locked in your uncle’s basement and had to spend the whole night there playing Ping-Pong and so forth. Has your wife there heard that one?”
—“Dale, remember me? We rode the same school bus.”
—“Richard, do you still think it was me that took the engine out of your car after the prom and pushed it into the lake?”
—“So, Richard, what’re you driving these days?”
—“Last I knew, Frank, you were facing embezzlement charges at the bank. How’d you come out on that anyway? I hope it was better than you did when you stole the cheerleader funds from the principal’s office.”
—“Been catching any walleyes, Frank?”
SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MINNESOTA LAW
If you are called upon to testify in a court of law, or worse, if you are a defendant in a court of law during your stay in Minnesota, I should point out that although our legal system is no more a tangle than anybody else’s, you still are judged by factors beyond your control, including how you talk.
When you pick your lawyer, make sure the Minnesota Language Bar Certificate is displayed, or you might as well plead guilty from the beginning and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.
Selected Landmark Rulings in the Minnesota Courts
The Chicken Suit
The State Supreme Court, reversing a lower-court decision, has ruled that robbing a bank dressed as a chicken can—in special circumstances—be construed as “goofing off,” but the judges hastened to add that they hoped everybody has the sense not to try it again. The ruling came after Ed Olson of Mortwood, Minnesota, rented a chicken suit for the Mortwood Crazy Days. The theme was Farm Funnies. Ed thought it would be a riot if he hopped into the 12th Midwestern Savings & Loan as a 200-pound rooster and demanded a bag of corn from the teller, who at the time was wearing a hog mask and hoof gloves. She pushed the silent alarm, and the guard, in a Henny-Penny costume, hopped over and told Ed to freeze. Ed clucked and flapped his wings and did a couple of turns around the lobby, having a great time until the guard put one bullet into the ceiling fan as a warning.
The Supreme Court ruled that because the bank president was using a bale of hay for a desk and was wearing bib overalls, Ed Olson was thereby within his rights to demand corn from a teller who looked like a hog. They further reprimanded the bank for trying to be funny—it was the court’s contention that banks are not meant to be funny places. Ed Olson was chastised and today has a seat in the Minnesota State Legislature, where he can get a laugh any time things slow down by clucking, crowing, and pecking on a tabletop with his nose.
Contracts
A Minnesota District Court ruled that “Well, I don’t know—maybe” is legally binding for all practical purposes.
Dark, Brooding Personalities
The same District Court ruled that a person possessing a perpetual gloomy and pessimistic outlook may not be too much fun to be around, but it’s not a crime.
Hugs
The Domestic Claims Court of Minnesota ruled in favor of the wife who sued her husband for more hugs. The plaintiff, arguing her own case, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that her husband never initiated any hugs, and when she hugged him, he drew back and screwed up his face like somebody in pain. The judge sentenced the husband to three years in prison but suspended it on the stipulation that he hug his wife twice a day without being asked, and none of that halfhearted, unaffectionate stuff either. The case is being appealed on the grounds that it violates a Minnesota man’s constitutional right to be unemotional.
SELECTED MINNESOTA PRODUCT
AND SERVICE DISCLAIMERS
Northstar Typewriter
We assume no responsibility for the words made from the alphabet on the Northstar Typewriter, or for any combinations of those words in sentences, paragraphs, poems, novels, cute essays, or editorials. Nor do we in any way imply that the purchase of this machine will make you a writer or lead the way to a big contract with a publisher. Furthermore, Northstar Typewriter, Inc., and its agents are specifically exempt from blame in the willful or accidental construction of revolutionary statements, obscene words, or ads for banks. We are not liable for the vagaries of authorship or the deep and oppressive gloom that descends on those individuals who sit by themselves before this typewriter day after day. Any harm that comes to the owner of the Northstar Typewriter or to any other person as the direct or indirect result of something printed first by said machine is solely the problem of the person who puts the paper in the roller and pushes the keys. We hope you have many happy typing hours on the Northstar, but of course we cannot guarantee it.
Church Fan
This folding fan was placed in the hymnal rack for your worshipping comfort, compliments of the Pearl Brothers Mortuary. We would be pleased if you would exercise caution in the intended use of this, our flowered fan. Taken in hand, it should be waved to and fro in an arc in such a manner that a gust, you might say, of wind will cross your face. Inordinate velocity could, we are sorry to inform you, cause the fan to fly apart, sending sharp remnants of cardboard into the next pew or farther. It is with deep sorrow that we disavow responsibility for any injury—either psychological, physical, or moral—that results from our tasteful fan impacting with your body or that of another through improper deployment. It also grieves us to make known that although our fan can indeed make you cooler through convection and evaporation, it has its limits. Therefore, we cannot be liable for heat stroke, sleepiness, or sticky underwear. Remember Pearl Brothers Mortuary in your time of need. Your rites may vary in some areas.
Minnesota Birth Certificate
The enclosed birth certificate remains valid for the lifetime of the owner or until death, whichever comes first. You can’t blame us if things don’t go just like you want after you’re born. We’re only trying to do our job here, but it gets harder every day because of the cutbacks we suffered. Everybody has to take the knocks and nobody has the right to go around bellyaching about stomach gas, bowlegs, or cowlicks. We certify that you were born of parents—more or less—at a specific time, in a specific place, in a specific county. All the rest is on your shoulders, chum. Welcome to the club.
Have a Nice Day
In saying “Have a nice day” to you, I don’t mean to imply that the phrase itself will always affect your day in a positive way. In fact, it could have the opposite effect. Sometimes when I say “Have a nice day,” people will glare at me. In one instance I was struck on the fore
head with a peanut-butter sandwich. Listen, I sincerely want you to have a nice day when I say so, but if you can’t or won’t, hey, it’s okay, I’ve been there. Have a nice day.
A Modern Minnesota Marriage Vow
We will love and cherish until death does us part, unless in the meantime we begin to get on each other’s nerves. Sickness and sorrow must be shared, along with cleaning the crusty stuff off the bottom of the oven. If communication breaks down or we are nauseous in each other’s presence, the holy bond of wedlock may be broken. We expect a couple of super years and three or four pretty good years until our next marriage, but if it seems like it’s not quite the deal we imagined, we can go our separate ways at the drop of a hat. We agree to adore each other forever, unless one of us changes lifestyles—in that case we’ll get together for drinks sometime and then play miniature golf.
TV Weathercasters
In a minute the weather, but first this. In calling ourselves forecasters, the seven trained meteorologists of the WWTO Weather Central Center are only trying to look on the bright side. Sometimes we hit it right on the nose, but that doesn’t make up for the times we have egg on our faces. It baffles us as much as it does you, and we all have our doctorates, except Mert, who doesn’t know what he’s got, but he’s taking medication for it. We marshal every state-of-the-art piece of expensive gadgetry in the Weather Central Center to provide you with an accurate picture of the immediate future weatherwise. But weather is an act of God and sometimes we just have to throw up our hands and take our lumps. Sure it’s frustrating and humiliating to be wrong about the forecast day after day. But what’s worse is when it stays sunny and mild for a week and we’re down in the Weather Central basement playing pinochle. But listen to us: it’s worth it, every bit of it, when we straighten our tie and take our place in the weather chair near the map and begin to banter with the anchor-person. You may think of us as primarily weather forecasters, but we think of ourselves as primarily comedians. Sure we miss the predictions about 70 percent of the time—nobody’s perfect—and maybe a guy with a wet finger and old shrapnel wound could do better, as many of you have written in to say. That doesn’t bother us. But when we walk out in front of the cameras with our pointer and you don’t laugh, that’s what really hurts.