Fifty Years Ago?

(Yea, all the posters looked like this in 1969)

1969 was fifty years ago. I would turn fourteen in May, and I was kind of a mess (but then again, when wasn't I?)

It's difficult to recreate that time, but I will do my best to remember. By '69 I had cajoled my mom into letting me move into my own room. We had 52 of them, so the loss of one wouldn't bankrupt my parents. (It was a motel; just to clarify. We didn't live in a 52-room mansion.) 

Just outside our apartment living quarters was a cavernous double garage that housed the laundry facilities and folding tables and miscellaneous detritus. Room #1 bumped up against all this rumbling uproar, so it wasn't an alluring rental. Thus, I determined that this room would be the perfect ~ absolutely pristine ~ new living quarters. It was like a little apartment, with a double bed, a 12-inch black and white TV, a big dresser with a mirror, and its own bathroom. Mom, in a lucid moment, most likely realized that sharing a bunk bed with my much younger brother and sister in a pseudo-closet wasn't the ideal arrangement for a newly-budded teenager, so she agreed. 

My big brother, who was a bona fide carpenter, carved a door into the wall between the deafening garage and the wondrous room; and thus, I could skit across the garage from our apartment and slip inside my very own private living quarters. The very first thing I did when I moved in was search out a sliding chain lock contraption among the clutter of odds and ends my dad owned and shakily twirl it into the wall with a screwdriver. 

For about a year and a half, I lived the solitary life of a cosmopolitan single ~ albeit a thirteen-year-old single who still needed to raid Mom's refrigerator for sustenance.

I still had my battery-operated phonograph because I didn't have a job at thirteen, at least not one that paid actual wages; but I had my eye on a JC Penney component stereo ~ black. Its price tag read $100.00 and I had nine dollars and change, but I knew one day I would definitely own it. The problem with a battery-operated record player was that it didn't have an auxiliary power cord and there was no such thing as alkaline batteries, so those four D's wore down much too quickly. I did have a transistor radio, though, so the air shimmered with music at all times. 

My new best friend Alice had reintroduced me to country music in 1967 and I'd embraced it wholeheartedly; yet I wasn't quite ready to give up my pop, so I had one size six-and-a-half sized foot in the country world and the other in the candy confection cosmos of KFYR-AM radio.

In January of '69 the Beatles performed a weird rooftop concert and Richard Nixon was inaugurated as the 37th president of the US, which sort of sums up the schizophrenic world of the last year of the sixties.

The Tet Offensive happened in February, and every single person alive (especially the boys deployed) were sick to death of the Viet Nam War. Meanwhile, this was the biggest hit in the country:

Down in Nashville, some guy named Cash had a network TV show that featured the Carters, the Statlers, and Carl Perkins. He also had the number one country hit of January and February. (For you trivia buffs, June Carter did not sing the "Mama sang tenor" part on the record. It was Jan Howard.)

Some guy hijacked a plane and diverted it to Cuba (yawn) in March. Hijackings were an every other week occurrence. At the Grammys, Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson won record of the year, but not to be outdone, Glen Campbell won album of the year for By The Time I Get To Phoenix. Jose Feliciano was best new artist. Jeannie C. Riley and Johnny Cash were best female and male artists, and one of the all-time worst songs of all time, Little Green Apples, not only won best country song but best song overall (and you know how that song has stood the test of time, which proves that the Grammys are overall worthless).

Meanwhile, this was the number one pop hit:

I'm a bit queasy from watching this video. Tommy Roe filled a niche, if that niche was toothache-sweet marshmallow confections. He actually recorded a decent song a few years later and then was never heard from again (okay, I don't actually know that for a fact).

In country, nothing good happened until April. My country station just kept playing Daddy Sang Bass over and over. Album-wise, Wichita Lineman was number one for fifteen straight weeks. Now, I like Glen Campbell a lot, but back then I truly hated him. The songs would have been okay, but the hideous strings he put on all his records made me nauseous. I liked twin fiddles and a good steel guitar solo. And don't even get me started on Jimmy Webb.

A word about TV:  Even the shows I liked were awful. For those who exist in a Netflix world, let me explain how television worked in 1969. There were three networks (PBS didn't count) and that was it. If one wanted to watch TV, not only did they need to suffer through commercials, but they also had to suffer through the shows themselves. Frankly, the only good program in '69 was the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Shows I watched essentially against my will:  Gomer Pyle, Laugh-In, Green Acres, Hawaii Five-O, Get Smart (okay, Get Smart was good), something called Here Come The Brides, Mannix and Mission: Impossible (again, these two are exceptions to the rule); Petticoat Junction, Ironside, I Dream Of Jeannie, Family Affair. As bad as almost all those were, there were programs even I refused to watch, such as Adam-12 and Hogan's Heroes.

Alice and I attended a lot of movies that year, too, because what the hell else would thirteen-year-olds do for fun? We saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Paint Your Wagon, which featured a painful vocal performance by Lee Marvin. We saw True Grit with John Wayne and (hey ~ again!) Glen Campbell.

Thus sums up the first quarter of the year 1969. In retrospect, country music basically sucked and pop was hanging on by a thread. 

Personally, I slathered a lot of Clearasil on my chin and dotted clear nail polish on my snagged nylons. I wore too much liquid makeup, in the wrong shade for my skin tone. I still worshiped my big brother, but he was barely around. My little brother and sister, though cute, were "others" that I scarcely interacted with. My parents were to be avoided at all cost. Life Science was an alien proposition; US History was interesting, but I was loathe to admit it to anyone. School was in essence a day to get through.

1969 does become more interesting, however, as the pages turn. 

Stay tuned.

The Birth of the Internet

If Google hadn't told me, I would never have guessed that the internet was born thirty years ago. Who used it?? In 1989 I still thought a correctable typewriter ribbon was a wondrous invention. I still composed all my work correspondence on a Smith-Corona. I was an expert at setting margins and indents. The traveling accountants at my company carried something called a "laptop", but it was essentially a portable calculator with a savable worksheet.

When I worked at the catalog store in 1979, I drooled over something called a "word processor" and wished I had the money to buy one. But I don't know what I would have done with it (well, type, sure). I don't know if there was even such a thing called a printer, and if there was, my super-serious works would have printed out on green and white paper with holes along the edges.

Even when I began working at the health insurance company in 1990, we only had green-lit CRT's that connected to nothing but the internal guts of US Healthcare.

We didn't question how it worked; just trusted that it did. When I became a supervisor in '91, I, like everyone else, used the CRT as a makeshift typewriter to type up memos, which resulted in very odd notes inadvertently added to some poor member's claim when we accidentally hit the "save" button instead of "print".

My very first home computer was purchased from an outfit called Gateway, which, to its credit, was headquartered in South Dakota. The shipping box had cow spots and everyone who ever purchased a computer in the early nineties bought one from Gateway. It was "plug in and go". No technical skill needed whatsoever. I do recall that it arrived in multiple boxes, of which I have no recollection of the contents. It doesn't seem to me (now) that a computer should require four boxes, but maybe it was to make us neophytes feel "computer savvy" (I definitely wasn't.)

Once I assembled my newfangled contraption, I had little idea of what to do with it, except for playing a lot of solitaire. But never fear ~ America Online to the rescue. Every mail order package I ever received was accompanied by an AOL floppy disc that screamed, "Two Months Free!"

Once I chanced to slide that innocent diskette into the slot, my life was forever seized. AOL was sort of the internet but sort of not. It had "groups" for various interests that one could join and talk to like-minded people. I joined the country music group, which grew monotonous. There were about five or six people in the group and none of them (including me) ever said anything interesting. I remember a discussion about Brooks and Dunn where I opined that their second album was so much worse than the first because they'd had years to write songs for the first album, whereas "Hard Workin' Man" had been slapped together quickly to capitalize on their newfound fame. And then someone said, "That's a good point" and the conversation drifted off to nothingness.

I then looked for new distractions, but I didn't know how to find anything. Someone said there was a search engine called Alta Vista, which seemed rudimentary but never quite produced the results one was searching for. Granted, there wasn't a whole lot to find in 1995.

 

When I finally did find something, one of my kids would pick up the phone upstairs in the kitchen and my connection was lost. I wonder how many family fights ensued because one person innocently pulled the handset off the receiver to place a call. "I'm online, dammit!" Dial-up was all we knew,  and it was a tenuous connection. Even if no one cut into the line, sometimes the familiar screeech took forever to materialize.

My go-to site was something called Amazon, which sold (only) books. I thought Amazon was a revelation and I purchased every single book I even minimally thought I wanted.

Honestly, Amazon should pay me a recompense, since I was one their very first loyal customers. Jeff?

I bought a sleeve of floppy disks because I thought there might be things on this newfangled "internet" I would want to save. If I ever saved anything, it has escaped my mind.

Now "Google" is a verb. But there was no Google in 1995. Even in 1997, though my company made the internet available, I had little reason to visit it. I had an email account via Hotmail, but it was cumbersome and a new term ~ spam ~ had facilely made itself known.

Thirty years has changed life forever. I now publish books and music online with little effort. I lose patience and give up on sites that don't load immediately. I flaunt my ability to find practically anything if I search long enough (just ask me!)

I've reconnected with friends and yes, my now-husband, online.

One thing that hasn't changed, though ~ Brooks and Dunn's second album still isn't very good (except for this):

Remembering Marty Robbins

Marty Robbins has been gone so long, it's easy to forget what a power he once was. He's been gone longer than many music fans have even been alive.

It's so easy to forget ~ twenty years from now, will George Strait be only a dusty memory? If you're NBC television, a reedy-voiced synthetic cowboy has already been crowned. The dimwitted network is calling Blake Shelton (Blake Shelton!) the king of country. (You don't just get to say it and it comes true.)

But even before King George, there was Marty Robbins. It used to be that a king (or at least a prince) begat a new king. Once there was Hank Williams, who begat Marty Robbins, who begat Merle Haggard, who begat Randy Travis and George Strait, who begat Dwight Yoakam. And then sadly, it ended. But my point remains.

My history with Marty Robbins is long. The very first concert I ever attended was when my mom dragged me with her to see Marty at the Grand Forks Armory when I was but five or six years old. I can still visualize our seats ~ metal folding chairs to the far right of the stage. If I stood on tiptoe, I could occasionally catch a glimpse of the brown-suited crooner over the heads of six foot-tall grown men. I sort of knew some of Marty's songs, but I wasn't exactly a sophisticated music aficionado at my young age. This was Marty's white sport coat phase, which, as I recall, was a huge hit with the gathering.

(I only recently learned that it was the Glaser Brothers doing the doo-wahs.)

I was mortified at the end of the show, when my mom began pushing me toward the stage to garner an autograph. I refused to go. I had a hard and fast rule, even at age five ~ I wasn't about to embarrass myself, regardless of Mom. If she wanted a signature scribbled on a slip of paper, hey, go for it! Of course, she didn't. I, apparently, was her surrogate ~ maybe that's why she brought me! It's not as if she and I shared a lot of bonding experiences.

Then I forgot about Marty Robbins. A lot of other things got in my way, such as the British Invasion. I was a kid in love with rock (which was actually pop, but nevertheless). It's not that I was completely unaware of Marty Robbins' songs, but I didn't try to memorize them until I hit my country phase. This is one I eventually learned all the words to:

(Much later to be immortalized in Breaking Bad,)

Regrettably, I also missed one of the best country songs of all time:

There was something about this next song that set my nerves on end at age seven. I would like to say that feeling has since dissipated, but muscle memory is strong. 

This single from 1964 launched a certain songwriter's career. Marty heard it on a demo tape and decided to record it. I never associate this song with Marty Robbins, but his version was the first:

I remember babysitting for some kid (I loathed babysitting) and his mom had a tiny collection of LP's that I perused once the little one had finally toddled off to bed. I was playing this song when Mom finally alighted the doorstep with her latest beau in tow:

This is more my speed:

Then I sort of forgot about Marty Robbins.

Around 1975 I acquired a new puppy that I decided to name Marty. No matter that this "boy" turned out to be a girl. "Marty" stuck. Marty was my sidekick ~ she loved only me and refused to tolerate anyone else. I sort of reveled in that. This was my dog. Marty traveled with me all the way to Fort Worth, Texas and was my steadfast compadre on the high plains in between. I don't know why I named her "Marty", but the connotation was clear. 

In '76 Marty Robbins appeared again. I took a chance on his album, "All Around Cowboy" and fell in love with this:

This track was included on the album, and though I knew it was derivative, I got sucked in:

I'm guessing it was 1979 when I and my brood traveled to Duluth, MN with Mom and Dad for one of our fun family outings. Someone (most likely Mom) found out that Marty Robbins was scheduled to perform in concert at the Duluth Convention Center. I remember haggling with some guy on the phone as to whether I would have to purchase a separate seat for my toddler (I lost). We ensconced ourselves in the nosebleed section and witnessed a much more polished Marty Robbins concert (which I viewed through binoculars) than I saw in 1960. Even from a mile away this man was a miracle. Loose, good-hearted; funny; commanding. I didn't even think about getting an autograph and Mom had apparently gotten it out of her system, because she didn't think about it, either.

I'm reading a biography of Marty ~ it's not compelling. I hunger to learn more about him, but I won't find it here. Unbelievably, only one book (that I can find) has been written about the man. The author's intentions were good, and I hesitate to criticize writers; but the book consists of a series of, "then he...." and "his next album was...". It tells me little about Marty Robbins the person. And I believe that would have been a fascinating story.

Marty died in 1982. 

Like radio stations were wont to do, they began playing a posthumous track shortly thereafter. Even now, hearing it makes me tear up. Yep, it was appropriate:

 For some of us fans, at least, some memories just won't die.

Red River's Latest Video

Have you heard? Red River's latest digital CD is for sale! Yes! Just scroll on over to the right-hand side of the screen to see this ^ cover and click on it to buy! Plus, if you join Red River's mailing list, you get free goodies! You won't be sorry! Red River has too many great songs to include on "Life Is A Dream", but you can get some of those songs for free. And as if that wasn't enough, I'll send you a missive every now and then that's even more intriguing than my blog...really.

The first track on "Life Is A Dream" is a personal favorite of mine. I've been messing around, trying to come up with a video for "As Best I Can", and the good news is, I finally finished it tonight.

Thanks, Mrs. Procrastinator!

Peter Tork

1967:

Dear Mickey, Davy, Peter, and Mike:

Hi! How are you? I'm in study hall right now. It's really boring. I don't really have any homework to do. I'm supposed to be working on math problems, but they don't make any sense. Math is stupid. 

My school is really old. I think it was built when the first settlers came to Mandan. It's kind of dark. Every sound bounces off the walls. You should see this room. It's huge! A teacher I don't know is sitting at a desk on top of the stage. I think this must have been an auditorium in the olden days. Some boy just dropped his textbook and everybody jumped from the racket. 

I hate this school. Sometimes I have nightmares about its big wide staircase. Stupid boys like to make fun of shy girls and pull their hair or make mean comments when I'm just trying to go up to the second floor to my stupid earth science class.

How's Hollywood? I wanted to come out and visit your psychedelic pad, but if I miss school my mom will be mad. Maybe this summer. 

I really like your new song "I'm A Believer". Mickey, you really play groovy drums and I love your singing! Thank you for asking me to sing on your next record!

Davy, your tambourine playing is so cool. Peter, you are so funny! I laugh a lot at all the funny predicaments you get into. Mike, I really like your hat. I watch your show every Monday night.

If you get the time, could you come and visit me? I haven't actually met any friends yet. 

Well, the bell's gonna ring so I'd better finish this up. I just wanted to say hi.


2019:

I learned yesterday that Peter Tork passed away. Unless you were a twelve-year-old girl in 1967, Peter's passing probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you. Especially if you weren't a twelve-year-old girl who'd just moved from the only home she'd ever known to a new town, a new state; had a supremely dysfunctional home life and no friends. The Monkees were my 1967 lifeline.

I don't know why I glommed onto The Monkees, except that they were accessible ~ there they were on NBC television, reliably, every Monday night at seven p.m. We lived in a cramped apartment behind my mom and dad's newly purchased motel. I shared a cupboard-sized bedroom with my three and four-year-old siblings and aside from the spare minutes during which I could drop the stylus down on a 45-rpm record and spin Neil Diamond before my little brother and sister wandered home, my only refuge was the broiling console TV squatting in our living room. 

The Monkees were my lifeline. I did sit in a cavernous room with about a hundred other kids I didn't know, whiling away my time. And instead of completing my homework assignments, I wrote letters to each of The Monkees. I had different colored pens I used for each of the four band members ~ red, green, blue, and purple. Each of The Monkees received personalized letters that I never mailed. 

The me that exists today would say those letters were a means of working out my feelings. That sounds good. I did have a lot of emotions I was not allowed to express, because what did my problems matter, really, when Mom and Dad had so many issues to sort out ~ prime among them that they were both crazy?

I think my first cognizance of The Monkees was "Last Train To Clarksville", which was included on an LP that my big brother gave me as a birthday gift. 

As a marketing concept, it was prescient. Much like with the Beatles, I was primed for what was yet to come. I'd not even yet laid eyes on The Monkees, and already I was a fan.

The Monkees had superb songs. And here's a tip that you can only glean from a twelve-year-old girl: We didn't give a F if Mickey, Davy, Peter and Mike didn't play their own instruments on their records. How would we even have known that?? Music was magic that emanated from our transistor radios. Magic. If I'd learned that someone called The Wrecking Crew had cobbled these songs together, it would have made zero difference to me; and twelve-year-old me wouldn't have bought into it anyway. After all, I saw with my own eyes Mickey beating on the drums and Davy banging his tambourine. And Peter doing something on the piano and Mike Nesmith strumming a guitar and looking bored (Mike was, needless to say, my least favorite Monkee).

I don't think I was even cognizant that the group was pre-fab. Subliminally I knew the four of them didn't actually share an abandoned flophouse. But before their TV show had debuted, they were just another pop group on the radio like The Beau Brummels or The Buckinghams, only more exciting. 

The Monkees came along at about the same time my family was making the move to our new life. The reality of my new existence did not match my initial euphoria. I was too shy to even know how to begin to make new friends, and frankly, I needed to scope these strangers out first to know if I even wanted to be friends with them. When you go to the same school from kindergarten through sixth grade, you don't worry about making friends. Your friends are always just there. Friendship doesn't require any thought or effort. Kids don't react well to a new shy person. They just avoid you ~ you're weird; there's something wrong with you. Maybe you are developmentally disabled.

So, I sat in study hall from 11:00 to noon and wrote letters to The Monkees in my spiral-bound notebook...with different colored pens.

The Monkees TV show only lasted two seasons. By the end of its run I'd found a best friend and the group's significance to me had faded. Mickey, Davy, Peter and Mike had filled my friendship void, though, when I desperately needed someone.

To celebrate Peter's life, here are some of my favorite Monkee songs:

My personal favorite (thanks, Carole King):

Like most memories, I guess you had to be there. "Being there", though, wasn't too much fun. The Monkees, however, made it at least endurable.

Thanks, Peter, for being my pen pal. Say hi to Davy for me.

 

The Shelly Awards

(Trophies Always Have To Be Supremely Ugly)

There was a time when I watched award shows religiously. I'm not sure why ~ perhaps to confirm that my favorites had the proper cachet and to bitch about the wrong choices the so-called judges made. Of course, that was long before I understood that awards are bought and paid for and perpetually political (I actually prefer the naive me.) 

I generally was lost with the Oscars, since I'd managed to see approximately one of the nominated films, and the flick I caught never won anything. The Grammys were kind of a high-brow joke (even to the naive me) because inevitably the winners would be the industry-coronated choices (as opposed to anything any sane person would actually listen to.) "The Girl From Ipanema" beat out "I Want To Hold Your Hand" for record of the year; and you know how often we hum the melody of "Girl From Ipanema".

The Emmys were more my speed because I definitely knew how to watch TV and I was familiar with most of the nominees. The CMA Awards, however, was my show of choice. I did know my country music and frankly, my taste was eminently superior to most. Plus I was a Country Music Association member and thus got to pencil in my choices on the paper ballot. 

I like to flip on the TV at night before bedtime because the hypnotic rays tend to lull me to sleep, so I tuned into the first five minutes of the Grammys last Sunday night. I will admit, I was confused. Some gal was inhabiting different rooms of a home and brushing her hair and bouncing on the bed with a stuffed bunny; and then someone I thought was Justin Timberlake (who I later learned was Ricky Martin ~ I wasn't wearing my glasses) joined her in the number and someone I was supposed to know played the trumpet. And then some other guy piped in. 

Nevertheless I kept watching. The evening's host, Alicia Keys, soon showed up with four gals, only one of whom I recognized (granted, Jennifer Lopez was hidden behind a humongous broad-brimmed hat). The one I knew was Michelle Obama, and I thought, okay ~ she's a music icon. I did see Dolly Parton in the audience; the only person I actually recognized. And then I flipped the TV off.

So I can now say I watched the 2019 Grammys.

I've now decided to create my own awards, The Shellys. The categories are completely capricious, based on whatever the hell I feel like bestowing.

Thus:

Best Roots Recording

Nominees:

Buddy Holly ~ Rave On

Jerry Lee Lewis ~ Breathless

Eddie Cochran ~ Summertime Blues

Chuck Berry ~ Roll Over Beethoven

The Everly Brothers ~ Bye Bye Love

The Winner:

Best Rock Song From the Year I Graduated High School:

Nominees:

Drift Away ~ Dobie Gray

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ~ Elton John

Stuck In The Middle With You ~ Stealers Wheel

Loves Me Like A Rock ~ Paul Simon

Reelin' In The Years ~ Steely Dan

The Winner:

Best Song My Big Brother Told Me I Should Like:

 Nominees:

The Rain, The Park, and Other Things ~ Cowsills
Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35 ~ Bob Dylan
Another Saturday Night ~ Sam Cooke
Telstar ~ The Tornados
Where Have All The Flowers Gone ~ Johnny Rivers

And the award goes to:

 Best Beatles Song:

The Nominees:

I'm Only Sleeping
You Won't See Me
You're Gonna Lose That Girl
Good Day Sunshine 
We Can Work It Out

There is no live video to be found of the winner. However, the first runner-up (Ringo) will accept the award (I have a sneaking suspicion all the Beatles videos have been removed from YouTube. Thanks. Paul.):

Best Hit From 1965:

Nominees:

California Girls ~ The Beach Boys

I Can't Help Myself ~ The Four Tops

Ticket To Ride ~ The Beatles

Baby, The Rain Must Fall ~ Glenn Yarbrough

My Girl ~ The Temptations

The winner (not even close):

Best Music Video of the '80's:

Nominees:

Raspberry Beret ~ Prince
Take On Me ~ a-ha
Sledgehammer ~ Peter Gabriel
Money For Nothing ~ Dire Straits
Nothing Compares 2U  ~ Sinead O'Connor

The Shelly goes to:

My Favorite '80's Act:

Hall and Oates
Huey Lewis and The News
Prince
Phil Collins
Elton John

This was so close:

Best Upbeat Song:

Walkin' On Sunshine ~ Katrina and The Waves

Morning Train ~ Sheena Easton

Happy Together ~ The Turtles

Beautiful Day ~ U2

I Wanna Dance With Somebody ~ Whitney Houston

Of course, the winner is this:

Song That Scared The Crap Out Of Me (or at least befuddled me) As A Kid:

  

They're Coming To Take Me Away ~ Napoleon XIV

Fire ~ The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

Running Bear ~ Johnny Preston

Last Kiss ~ J Frank Wilson

Devil Or Angel ~ Bobby Vee 

Hands down:

Best Dion and The Belmonts Song:

The Wanderer

Ruby Baby

I Wonder Why

Lovers Who Wander

Runaround Sue

Again, a tight competition, but Dion DiMucci doesn't care, because he's a winner, regardless:

Best Hair Band:

Van Halen

Bon Jovi

Whitesnake

Guns 'n Roses

Def Leppard

I'm not a big fan of hair, except for:

Cheesiest '70's Song:

Loving You ~ Minnie Riperton

Billy, Don't Be A Hero ~ Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods

Seasons In The Sun ~  Terry Jacks

Muskrat Love ~ The Captain and Tenille

Havin' My Baby ~ Paul Anka

You Light Up My Life ~ Debby Boone

Afternoon Delight ~ Starland Vocal Band 

Yes, there are seven nominees, because it's impossible to narrow this category down to five.

This one wins only because I can't bear to post any of the others:

Hey, look at the time! Well, the show has run far over its designated time, so tune in again next year for more Shelly Awards!

And all you forgotten acts, you're welcome! It's time you got your due!

 

 

Done

It's not as if I haven't given Minnesota every benefit of the doubt ~ I've lived here for 20 years. That's a pretty fair trial. But now I'm over it. I once thought North Dakota weather was bad, but here's a revelation ~ western North Dakota is dry. Sure, it's cold in the winter, but one doesn't risk life and limb stepping out on the front stoop. If it's cold, one can come inside and warm up. If you have to drive to work at 5:00 a.m. on ice-packed roads while dodging belligerent pickup drivers, clutching the steering wheel until the blood drains from your hands and uttering Hail Marys are your only frenzied options.

Here are Minnesota's advantages:

• The weather is nice the two months out of the year that are not winter.

Minnesota's disadvantages:

• There is a tax on everything that moves...and everything that doesn't. The other day a deer said to me, "You mean I have to pay to cross this road? Government bastards."
• The ten months of the year that are winter.
• The roads are getting more congested by the day. Why people are moving here, I cannot fathom. Native Minnesotans are the second worst drivers in the nation, and now we also have imports from other bad-driving states. I'm guessing they're all from New Hampshire.
• Its citizens keep voting for idiots who want to slap even more taxes on our daily necessities, including heat and water. On the plus side, all my mining equipment is tax-free.
• The state's hapless government can't even manage to issue driver's licenses. Because all the government employees are tasked with finding new things to tax.
• If you think this winter is bad, just wait 'til next year.
• All the medical clinics are booked up with people who've taken a tumble on the ice, so your heart attack will just have to wait.
• Once you've completed your tax return, you find that you owe the state one point two bazillion dollars to fund its "social programs".
• Local news anchors are freakishly upbeat. Especially during ice storms. I believe they are clinically insane.
• "Minnesota nice" is something the residents tell themselves while they passive-aggressively tailgate or cruise along at 35 miles an hour on a 55-mph freeway.
• One could purchase a gated mansion in another state for the same price as the monthly rent on a one-bedroom loft apartment in Minneapolis. 
• People worship local disc jockeys. And quote them.
• Bicyclists think they are cars.
• One depletes her meager vacation time taking "weather days". 
• No one visits anyone, because it takes one and a half hours and a near-death experience to travel twenty miles to a friend's home.
• Despite its conceit about haute cuisine, the most pernicious eating establishment in the metro complex is Jimmy John's.

I have approximately fifteen months left ~ and then I retire and move the hell out of Minnesota. I can't wait. I'm done ~ over it. My fervent hope is that the state doesn't steal all my money before I can escape.

We have not yet decided where to move. We have some prerequisites ~ low taxes are a given. But a more temperate climate would be awesome; and low crime. A slower pace of life.

If you have recommendations, I would love to hear them. Send them my way.

In the meantime: