How to Talk Minnesotan
Page 20
PHYLLIS: “So you got everything then, Kate?”
KATE: “If we don’t have it, we can bring it next time.”
BOB: “Kate, we’re moving toward the car now. This is it.”
HAROLD: “Doesn’t that front tire of yours look a little low, Bob? I don’t know if I’d take off with a tire like that.”
In the finale of the Long Good-bye, the departees are in the car and the hosts are at the open driver’s window, bent over. The motor is running.
HAROLD: “Sure you don’t want to come back in and have a little lunch before you go? This is your last chance.”
BOB: “Nope. We’ll be lucky to get home for the 10 o’clock news as it is…so thanks for everything then, Harold.”
HAROLD: “No problem.”
PHYLLIS: “Call us when you get there, will you, Kate?”
KATE: “You bet.”
BOB: “I’m letting the clutch out. The car is rolling.”
HAROLD: “Bob, what’s that ticking noise. Hear it?”
BOB: “It does that when it’s cold. Lifters, I’d say.”
HAROLD: “Could be the throw-out bearing, though. I don’t know, maybe you better stay over. You never know what could happen. It could even be rod bearings.”
BOB: “Nope, we’re off. We’re not stopping for anything. Take it easy.”
HAROLD: “Yeah, well, you too then.”
PHYLLIS: “Come back.”
KATE: “You bet.”
As you pull away toward the road, your hosts will wave. You should wave back. The waving should continue until you can no longer see each other. A couple of toots on the horn are optional but always in good taste and much appreciated.
If you forgot something and have to return, the first three stages are optional for the second Long Good-bye, but the conversation out the driver’s window is mandatory.
THE MINNESOTA QUANTUM GOOD-BYE: AN UPDATE
This last and most important Minnesota lesson needs no major changes for use by visitors from out of state in 2012 and beyond, though minor adjustments would be obvious, such as the reference to watching Johnny Carson before retiring, if you decide to stay overnight and do the Long Good-bye the next day. Otherwise, there it is, the Minnesota Long Good-bye (MLG) the way it has been for years and the way it will be for years to come. Minnesotans are not as effusive as they could be, I suppose, in saying hello, and do fall short on the greeting hugs and air kisses so popular on the East Coast, but Minnesotans are very good at the Long Good-bye. I would be so bold as to say that learning the Minnesota Long Good-bye is more important to a visitor than learning how to accept food only on the third offer.
The Minnesota Long Good-bye incorporates so much of the Minnesota language and character that it can stand alone as an iconic snapshot of what it takes to be Minnesotan. I have participated in many Minnesota Long Good-byes, both as host and as guest, and every time when I get to the last stage of the MLG, where I drive off and give the obligatory two quick toots on the horn and do the backward wave at our hosts, it feels less like a good-bye and more like a hello. It is a very emotional moment, and a guy has to resist the urge to go back and stay another day or two. On the other hand, when I stand by the sidewalk as host and watch our guests depart, I start missing them immediately.
That said, I feel obligated to mention a study that the University of Minnesota Physics Department conducted on the Minnesota Long Good-bye. The research was funded by a grant from the Hotdish Foundation and the Raw Bits Foundation. Professor Krolnjikt took it upon himself to use a stopwatch to accurately time and log a multitude of Minnesota Long Good-byes statewide in order to get a range of data. At the end of a tedious two years of research, Professor Krolnjikt presented his colleagues at the U with a short refresher description of the Long Good-bye from its initiation with that lunge from the chair of the visiting husband and his announcement of “I suppose we oughta be going, then,” and the little sack lunch in case the guests got hungry on the drive, and the walk to the vehicle, and the rolling down of the driver’s window, and the talking about the possible misfiring spark plugs or the oil leak, and a quick look under the hood to figure out what the squeaking sound was, and finally putting the car in gear and driving away with a couple of good-bye toots and a backward wave.
There were shakes of the heads of the physics professors and at least one finger of a young physicist from Cal Tech twirling around his temple after Dr. Krolnjikt finished his generic account of the Minnesota Long Good-bye. One of them actually said bluntly: “Why are you telling us this?” Chairs were starting to scrape. That’s when Dr. Krolnjikt threw them the bombshell:
“No matter when the Minnesota Long Good-bye started or when the last toot on the horn echoed, EVERY ONE OF THOSE LONG GOOD-BYES TOOK EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME, DOWN TO THE SECOND.”
Dr. Krolnjikt told his colleagues that he was not able to increase or decrease the speed of the Long Good-bye with any sort of external influence. Dr. Krolnjikt’s data was accepted as probationary proof that the Minnesota Long Good-bye was indeed a quantum phenomenon. The speed of light never varies. It turns out that the speed of the Minnesota Long Good-bye also never varies, and is therefore, like the speed of light, a universal constant.
This explains for me the strange, apparent simultaneity of a Minnesota Long Good-bye feeling like a wonderful hello, though I wonder if Dr. Krolnjikt would agree.
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