If it helps, here are some voting options other than the obvious

Here we are, one month from “the most important election in the history of our country” between “the worst president we’ve ever had” and “a puppet of the radical left movement.”

Put on your Sorels, people, the hyperbole is getting deep.

I spent ninety minutes of my life watching the debate on Tuesday. Normally, I’m a big fan of presidential debates. To see two fine speakers with diametrically opposed philosophies go head to head in a series of Lincoln-Douglas style debates is a poli-sci major’s dream.

(Oops, have I lost you? Back in 1858, Abraham Lincoln (who later became president) was running against Stephen Douglas for U.S. Senate. The two lively speakers engaged in a series of debates around Illinois that have become icons of political debate in that they placed high value on logic, ethical values and philosophy.)

I was practically salivating back in 2012 when I pined for a debate between Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich (“The answer to who is New Gingrich and why should I care”). Alas, it wasn’t to be. Gingrich flamed out, and Mitt Romney debated Obama.

Yawn.

It’s safe to say Donald Trump is no Mitt Romney, so I was looking forward to watching the fireworks on Tuesday.

Ooph.

You might only understand my selection of this image for this blog post if you’ve read Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help.”

It was ugly, as you probably heard. A real shitshow, according to CNN’s Dana Bash (I heard her say this live, and I nearly choked on my popcorn).

I feel compelled to ask, as an aside to my bigger point, “Is what we want in a leader what we really need?” A few years ago, I compared a list I found in a Real Simple survey about what we look for in a leader (“an open mind and a tolerant attitude,” “humility,” “kindness and sympathy,” and “the ability to help people with opposing viewpoints find common ground”) to a Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs I was reading at the time. Isaacson used words like “bratty,” “arrogant,” “demanding” and “harsh” to describe the perfectionist behind such products as the Macintosh personal computer and iEverything. After reading the Jobs biography, I know I’d never have made it at Apple Computers. I would have hated working for such a jerk. Yet I admire the work of that jerk (“The intersection of a good leader and what I’d like to see in a leader.”)

But back to the debate this week. So unsavory it was, some citizens of this fine country have decided to skip voting. Or so says the fake news.

I considered joining them. And I’m a dutiful voter (for the most part, I’m a dutiful everything). One of my first Minnesota Transplant posts a dozen years ago was about casting my vote and teaching the next generation about its importance (“Exercising my rights”).

In a democracy, you don’t run the country, but you elect who does. If you care about how your country works (or doesn’t), you ought to care about elections. The simple act of voting is not too much to ask in return for the American infrastructure and freedoms you enjoy every day.

So to skip an opportunity to vote is a terrible waste. I’m going to the polls, and I’m going to have my say.

But our options, at least in the presidential race this year, are none too pretty. My apologies to the yuge fans of our reality TV leader and the unwavering supporters of our former vice president (and by extension, the American way of life as we know it). Or maybe I should say, my condolences to you. If you’re being honest about your allegiances, your strongest feelings are probably negative ones. It isn’t that you love Trump or Biden, it’s that you hate Trump or Biden, amiright?

But just so we’re clear, my dear fellow citizens, you don’t have only three options: vote Trump, vote Biden or don’t vote at all. So many members of the media who cover a political campaign like it’s a horse race might have you believe otherwise, but you have more choices than Fox News and MSNBC blather on about twenty-four hours a day (in an era when nonbinary is a thing, they have no excuses).

No, in fact, you have at least three other options. If you’re among the group of potential voters who’s had it up to here with the nonsense that is the 2020 election season, please reconsider not voting. Voting is too important a right to just shrug your shoulders and give up.

Option 1: Third-party candidate

If you can’t stomach either Trump or Biden, consider a vote for a third-party candidate. Libertarian Jo Jorgensen and Green Party’s Howie Hawkins are options in most states. As an alternative, Jorgensen has the added bonus of not being an old white man. Talk about progressive.

Option 2: Split ticket

Or you could consciously split your ticket. Vote for Trump and every other Democrat on the ballot. Or vice versa: vote for Biden and every Republican option.

No president, however extreme, is going to get too much crazy stuff done without the help of a same-party Congress. The framers of the Constitution ensured it by enshrining separation of powers in our government. All the bickering the media loves to cover ad nauseum? That’s built into our democracy. We’re supposed to bicker in order to arrive at a more perfect … compromise. We can limit a president’s power by voting for Congressmen and women who will stake a claim in an opposing opinion.

Option 3: Skip the presidential line.

That’s right. Show up and stand in line (or follow to the letter the minute instructions on your mail-in ballot) but leave the presidential chad unpunched. Vote in the other races. This will register your attendance and obligation to duty but allow you to protest the options you’ve been presented for leader of the free world. To be sure, someone will be elected but you will not be blamed.

Now before you freak out and accuse me of encouraging people to “waste” their vote by choosing one of my alternative options, I’m only suggesting these ideas for those among us who are thinking about skipping Election Day altogether. If you feel strongly about Trump or Biden, more power to you: vote for him (or his vice presidential running mate if you believe our 70-something top-of-the-ticket options are not long for this world; however, I feel compelled to warn you: astrophysicist and ALS victim Stephen Hawking went on to write several books after I chose him as a shoe-in in a celebrity death pool in the mid-1990s. Death is as certain as taxes, but no one knows when the bell tolls for thee, or some mixed metaphor like that only a year like 2020 deserves.)

Don’t be passive observer. Pick a side or no side, but vote.

A less selfish first question than ‘How did he die?’

I firmly believe that practice of reading obituaries is more about the reader than the dead.

When I heard Luke Perry died yesterday, my first thought was not about him or his family. It was about me.

“Only 52? I’m 52! How did he die? Stroke? What causes strokes? High blood pressure? High cholesterol? Diabetes? Obesity? Smoking? OK, I’m good. I don’t have any of those. Oh, too bad about Luke Perry. Well, I didn’t watch ‘Beverly Hills, 90210′ anyway.”

I’m just being honest. If you’re 52, this is what you thought, too. Unless you watched “90210,” in which case you thought, “Oh, another piece of my youth. Dead.” It wasn’t about Luke Perry. It was about your own youth. Or its demise. Or your health problems caused you to think, “Uh-oh.” Again, it was all about you.

I can’t quite believe all the news coverage Luke Perry is getting about his death. Poor Margot Kidder. I didn’t know she died last year until I saw the Oscars’ “In Memoriam” tribute, and then I had to look it up: The 1978 “Superman” star died by suicide on May 13. Three weeks later, Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade took their own lives, and everyone was talking about the epidemic of suicide. But Kidder’s cause of death wasn’t announced until August, so maybe that’s why I missed it. And, she was 69. Not so uncommon to die at 69 as at 52.

All too often, the first question someone asks when they hear of a death—whether its a celebrity or a relative—is, “How did he die?” What’s really being asked is “Could I die like that?”

A less selfish first question, after you offer condolences or at least consider the dead’s loved ones, would be “How did he live?” Being interested in what the deceased person offered the world, instead of the odds of whether I’ll leave this earthly plain in a similar way, would have been a more gracious and generous way to receive the news of Luke Perry’s death.

I’m going to blame my journalism background here. I once wrote obituaries for a living, and just about every obituary begins the same way, “Claim-to-fame So-And-So, age, died day of week of a cause of death”: “‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ heartthrob Luke Perry, 52, died Monday of a massive stroke.” How someone dies is a necessary fact in a complete report of death.

Pragmatism. My excuse for rudeness.

Still, in the future, I’m going to try to ask “How did he live?” before I ask “How did he die?”

# # #

In observance of Ash Wednesday tomorrow, I’m asking big questions about life and death this week on Minnesota Transplant. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a six-week season during which Christians focus on the life and, in particular, the death of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow, bearing witness.

Throwback Thursday: An ode to the roof

Regular subscribers have noticed, I imagine, that Minnesota Wonderer hasn’t been posting very often. Hey, it’s busy around Wonderer’s house. But it’s probably busy around your house, too, so we can do without all the excuses.

As I peruse my Facebook Newsfeed every morning (everybody’s got time for that), it’s replete with “memories on this day” that remind me, among other things, of all the blog posts I logged over the years. It occurred to me that I have hundreds of entries in the back list that I could resurrect in a Throwback Thursday sort of way. Sometimes those old posts pop up, and even I’m surprised by my depth of thought.

So, with 1,982 entries from which to choose (this post makes 1,983—you betcha we’ll be celebrating 2,000 in a big way!), I’m going to share some oldies by goodies in this space on Thursdays.

Today, as the sun finally shines in Houston after days of drenching rain, I’m offering this ode to a roof, first published June 25, 2015. Because it beats living without one over one’s head.

The sky’s the limit if you have a roof over your head

Of all life’s blessings, the roof over my head is one for which I rarely give thanks.

Roofs, after all, are so commonplace they are to be expected. And they’re dull. Very dull. Usually gray or brown, maybe black. Made with shingles — the ultimately hum-drum material, or maybe cedar or tile. Installed by competent, height-defying, tight-lipped pros who appear like flies and disappear a week later, leaving a few stray nails in the yard.

But mundane or no, without a roof, every day is a bad-hair day. Or a bad day in general.

I woke at 3 a.m. last night, thankful, so thankful for the roof over my head.

It was pouring down rain. Literally pouring, like God had a bucket he couldn’t wait to empty. Lightning. Thunder. A storm for the ages. But unlike many nighttime storms observed from the comfort of the bed in my sturdy house, this storm came to the campground where I slept in a sturdy, yes, but relatively insubstantial camper.

One never goes camping but it rains. Or at least that’s how it is with me. Most camping rainstorms are day-long drizzly affairs that make everything damp and never stop until everything is packed up and you’re headed home.

This storm, however, was more hard-nosed, like a pissed off cop with a gun at a pool party (kidding! all right, already! I know all cops are not angry and overbearing! It’s a joke!).

In any case, this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill storm. And we were camping next to a river.

My Beloved’s cell phone awakened us before the drenching rain did. It warned of flash flooding.

All I could think about was a flash flood filling the valley, and us, bobbing down the river in the camper until we were splintered against a bridge pier (thank you, Voice of Doom, but our flash flooding came in the form of big mud puddles, not a jökulhlaup).

That’s when the roof started leaking. Drip, drip, drip. A persistent sort of leak. Drip, drip, drip. Reconnaissance revealed the drops were coming from a light fixture (uh-oh). Drip, drip, drip.

Sounds restful, huh?

But actually, I said a little prayer of thanks for the roof.

Because 30 yards away, a family went to bed last night.

In a tent.

I didn’t care how fiberglassy our roof was. It wasn’t canvas!

* * *

Before Minnesota Wonderer was Minnesota Wonderer (or Minnesota Transplant for that matter), she was The Percussionist’s Wife. I tell the whole story–every sordid detail–in my memoir, which I published five years ago this week. To celebrate the milestone, the Kindle version of the The Percussionist’s Wife: A Memoir of Sex, Crime & Betrayal is free this week and tomorrow’s the last day to snag a copy. Fans of memoir and true crime might agree with reviewers who’ve called it “remarkable,” “candid” and “compelling”; a friend downloaded it this week and read it one day! So “it reads like a thriller!” isn’t an exaggeration. See for yourself. If you like Minnesota Wonderer, this is her origin story. Download it here for free until midnight tomorrow.

A before-and-after moment at 4:15 a.m.

I’ve been reminded recently how life changes in a moment. One minute, life is one way. The next, it’s turned upside down.

We had such a moment at 4:15 this morning. This moment didn’t change my life so much as it changed someone else’s but it’s illustrative of my point.

We’re camping this week in my cousin-in-law’s yard. It’s idyllic. Nice level lot, protected from the wind, a well-manicured yard. The cousin-in-law offered to let me use her brand new washer and dryer and her husband shared the fresh produce from his garden–ah, the comforts of home one misses when one is living in an RV.

The idyllic scene that greets me when I emerge from my camper in the mornings.

The cousin-in-law’s yard out is in the middle of a corn field. The front yard is a stretch of county road between Hither and Yon, but the other three sides are bordered by seven feet of corn. I swear, it grew a foot this week. The corn even muffles all sound except the birds and the bees. Literally, the chirping of the birds and the chittering of insects is the only thing you hear out here, punctuated occasionally by the engine noise of a car speeding by.

This story is about that placid corn and speeding cars.

At 4:15 a.m., my Beloved awakens me with an urgent question, “What was that?!”

“I didn’t hear anything,” I murmured.

He jumps out of bed, throwing on his clothes. I’m becoming more alert now.

“Honey, you’re dreaming,” I said. “You’re putting your underwear on backwards.”

“No, I heard a car go into the ditch,” he says. “I heard the tires squeal and a crash.”

“I left the flashlight where it belongs,” I said, rolling over.

I wasn’t interested in investigating a dream.

But a car did indeed go into the ditch and crash.

My Beloved called 911, and within minutes, 10 emergency vehicles were on the scene.

The “scene” was only 50 feet from my cousin-in-law’s house, between two light poles. Mr. E754145 left the pavement, entered the corn field and was launched airborne. This is where he went in, losing his license plate.

And this is where he landed, roughly 30 feet further on.

The bare patches in the foreground indicate where the car went off the road; the string of corn stalks trailing from the field to the road show where the car was towed out of the field.

I think Mr. E754145 is alive to tell the story. My Beloved heard him try the ignition as he was calling 911, so he was at least conscious after crash landing. He didn’t hit a pole. The corn softened his landing. But in any case, his car was intact and operational and so was he at 4:14 a.m. At 4:16, he had to be stretchered away, and the car was towed.

Before and after.

Life can change in a minute.

Where the women are strong and the living is easy (and never the twain shall meet)

Land of 10,000 lakes.

State of only two seasons: Winter and road construction.

Where all the children are above average.

Minnesota is home to a few hyperbolic descriptions, and most recently WalletHub named it the country’s least stressed state, making it most relaxed, I suppose.

Who is WalletHub to make such declarations? WalletHub monitors credit scores, and its analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 33 key indicators of stress ranging from average hours worked per week to personal bankruptcy rate to share of adults getting adequate sleep.

And Minnesota ranked as No. 51 on the most stressed list.

Are Minnesotans the least stressed people I’ve met in my travels around the country?

I don’t know. If giving a friendly wave or acknowledging the presence of a sojourner with a nod as one’s paths cross is manifestation of lack of stress, then yes, Minnesotans have the corner on a relaxed demeanor. (Frequently outside of Minnesota, I will acknowledge someone with a “good morning” or a “hello”—a fellow jogger going the opposite direction, a guy walking his dog, a woman washing her hands at a neighboring sink in the restroom—and it’s as if I’ve surprised them by having a voice. Or a smile. Some residents of the coasts go out of their way to avoid making eye contact.)

The Minnesota compulsion to greet strangers, some would attribute to the phenomenon of Minnesota Nice. Perhaps. I have heard residents of the state—both natives and short-termers—describe Minnesota Nice as passive-aggressive. I’m skeptical. Minnesota Nice may be passive—”After you.” “No, after you.” “No, please be my guest, go ahead,” ad infinitum—but it’s not veiled aggression. So maybe it is the result of being trusting and assuming the best and getting a good night’s sleep.

One of the factors in WalletHub’s stress index is health and safety related stress factors. Apparently, Minnesotans have among the highest number of psychologists per capita and get the most hours of sleep a night. I come from a family with a long history of cherishing naps and believing nothing good happens after midnight. And that’s to say nothing of the 16 hours of darkness in the long, long winter months. What else you gonna do but sleep? Well, there is something else, I suppose, which might contribute to one of the lowest divorce rates in the country (another stress indicator).

Minnesota also ranks No. 50 in money-related stress factors (only Wyoming is lower), certainly due in  part to the frugal nature of born-and-bred natives. Author Garrison Keillor slyly notes this in his book Lake Wobegon Days: “So the Council changed [the town’s name] one more time, from Lake Wobegone to Lake Wobegon. Businessmen didn’t order new stationery right away, however, not even those who favored the change, but used all their New Albion stock until it ran out.”

In any case, I can take some of my good habits like eating right and maintaining a good credit score with me wherever I choose to settle someday, and the index may offer some insight on where not to settle (let’s just say Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky aren’t exactly calm and soothing places to reside).

If Minnesota is true to form, it’s not taking pride in its least-stressed status.

“Seldom has a town made such a sacrifice in remaining unrecognized so long,” he said, though other speakers were quick to assure him that it had been no sacrifice, really, but a true pleasure.

~ Garrison Keillor in Lake Wobegon Days

Trashy, novel beach

Before we get totally freaked out by climate change and the United States bowing out of the Paris Agreement, let the glass beach near Fort Bragg remind us of unexpected consequences and Mother Nature’s novel solutions to humankind’s poor treatment.

Surely, some unexpected consequences of man intervention’s in nature are negative, I’m not arguing that, but this one is a positive.

Fort Bragg, Calif., sits on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and for decades up until 1967, the city’s trash–everything from cars to batteries to bottles, cans and appliances–was unceremoniously dumped over the cliffs into the ocean. This was common practice in many seaside cities for centuries.

Over the next several decades, the biodegradables, well, degraded, and the metal and other items were eventually removed and sold as scrap or used in art. Mother Nature’s pounding waves broke down the glass and pottery and tumbled those pieces into the small, smooth, colored pieces–a rainbow of sea glass.

The beach looks like most other beaches from far away. A beautiful and wild place with waves crashing unendingly on the shore.

But close up, the sand is glass–glass smooth enough to walk upon.

If you find the beach interesting, you must check out the International Sea Glass Museum on the south edge of Fort Bragg.

Interviewer turns interviewee

It’s funny when the world turns the tables on you.

For years, I asked the questions. I was a newspaper reporter for a small daily in Ohio, and I spent hours on the phone, in meetings and talking to people, and then I spent hours more turning the raw material into readable newspaper stories.

Earlier this week, a reporter asked me questions. She was writing about my latest book, Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Promise or Repeat: On Finding the Meaning of “Like” in 1982.

It’s a story that’s been three and half decades in the making and took, oh, about five years to coalesce into something comprehensible, but you’ll love it if you’re a teenage girl or was one once. Do you remember your first French kiss? Did it change you? This book explores that moment for me.

Ooh, sounds interesting, right? Here’s the book blurb:

In a world before social networks made it a routine act performed with a click, “like” is a state of mystery and meaning among teenagers navigating the halls of Wadena Senior High School. Fifteen-year-old Monica is sure she would be happy if only she had boyfriend, but first she endures a litany of boys who think flirting is accomplished with insults and other shenanigans. After her first kiss, performed on a dare and described in the pages of Dear Diary as “the pits! Gross! Dirty!,” Monica learns the truth about French kissing from a charming outsider. Navigating relationships and learning the meaning of like—or love—is far trickier.

Set in a “hick town” on the windswept plains of Minnesota where a teenager’s social calendar is marked by basketball games, cafeteria dances and playing Pac-Man at the bowling alley arcade, Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Promise or Repeat: On Finding the Meaning of “Like” in 1982 examines the fateful year Monica devotes to reeling in a keeper of a boyfriend like so much walleye. With self-deprecating humor, authenticity and awkward details captured on the pages of the diaries Monica faithfully kept at the time, it’s a story that reminds us what it feels like to be a teenager again, grappling with timeless questions of desire, loyalty and remaining true to oneself.

This book is for every teenager trying to navigate the maze of finding true love, or at least true “like,” and for every woman who grew up in the ’80s who might have forgotten all she learned during those seemingly simpler times.

You’ll feel like you’re sneaking a peek at my diaries (no guilt!). Like my first memoir, subtitled with “sex, crime and betrayal,” there’s little about kissing, a little about a petty crime and a little bit of double-dealing, too.

Set in Wadena, Minnesota, as it is, the local paper took an interest. Reporter Meagan Pitellko chatted with me earlier this week, and the today made the front page of the Wadena Pioneer Journal today. Click here to have a peek. I was impressed that she turned what I thought was small-talk about the weather into the lead of the story.

This was the kind of table-turning I could appreciate.

* * *

Interested in reading Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Promise or Repeat? The paperback is $11.95 and available here.

The Kindle edition is $3.95. If you’re a member of KindleUnlimited or Amazon Prime, it’s FREE! Click here.

The Day After

Like a visitor on an alien planet, I observed Chicagoland residents with keen interest today.

Who are these “Cubs fans”? What is the meaning of this white flag with a blue W? What does it mean, to reverse a curse?

The Chicago Cubs, of course, won the World Series last in a wild Game 7 that went 10 innings and included a rain delay. It was awesome! (I told you it would be.) I was awake at 11:45 when the last out was secured.

I thought I was weird. I’m a Twins fan, after all. And a woman. And who watches baseball nowadays with its relative lack of violence and obscure concepts like double switches and designated hitters?

But as I sat around a table this morning with eight other middle-aged women and a (lucky) man at a cafe known for its brunches, I asked who else stayed up till midnight last night. Every hand went up. Every. Single. One. And then we all toasted the Cubs with glasses of champagne. No kidding. It wasn’t sparkling apple juice, some pretender stuff. One of those middle-aged women brought a bottle of real champagne to our meeting. Because the Cubs winning a baseball game — The Baseball Game — was That Important. That noteworthy.

On the way there, a car ahead of me on the interstate had a license plate that read “CUBEES.” The plate hung on the bumper of a sporty model that probably isn’t normally driven this time of year. But it was driven today.

I stopped at a superstore on the way. Every other person there, bright and early, was wearing Cubbies blue T-shirt. Or sweatshirt. Or a Cubs hat.

In the afternoon, on my way home, I stopped for coffee with a friend who lives a normal, quiet suburban life. Playing on the TV in the restaurant? A recording of last night’s game. The friend? She (yes, SHE) stayed up until 3 a.m. after the game, standing in line and buying World Series merchandise at Dick’s.

What I thought would happen didn’t. There were no riots. No cars overturned and burned. No crazies causing headline-making mayhem. I didn’t even hear anyone trash-talking the poor, poor unfortunate Indians. No zombies. Instead, there was cheering and champagne. There were fireworks, yes (I heard them at midnight, even in my little suburban village, far from Wrigleyville). And there were tears. Oh, the dewy eyes of dreams come true.

What I didn’t expect was the disbelieving gratitude of baseball fans who had never seen their team become champions and who finally let go of the superstitions they held close to ward off disappointment. They finally witnessed the team win it all. For themselves, of course. But also for generations of others who weren’t so lucky.

The day wasn’t filled with belligerence or arrogance or vitriol. It was filled with joy. Pure, blissful joy.

And it was a delight to behold.

Weighty matters

Oh, my gawd, I saw the most compelling news story on the Today show this morning while I was running on the treadmill (thank gawd I was multi-tasking).

Today national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen revealed that fast food served at major chains like McDonald’s and Subway doesn’t actually look as good as the commercials portray (Fast-food face-offs: Does it look as good in real life as on TV?).

Can you believe that?

No, not that Americans are getting short shrift on their fast food orders. That Jeff Rossen hasn’t ever heard of food styling. Or photography filters.

Is it false advertising that you can’t actually see the ground beef patties in your Big Mac (like on TV)? Or is it false advertising that Rossen passes himself off as an “investigative correspondent”? He spent an afternoon and $20 to develop this 5-minute piece of this enlightening video.

Ugh.

This is what’s wrong with television journalism, I thought as I covered the treadmill miles. So I changed the channel, only to find Good Morning America tackling the troubling trend of skateboarders taking to freeways for their hijinks, complete with the hashtag #FreewayChallenge. This was accompanied by repeating loops of the daredevils falling in the street. I felt like I was watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. So if we have Jackass-inspired video and a hashtag, then it’s news?

No, this is the definition of the word irritainment, which I learned earlier this week from a “news” story in the Star Tribune. Irritainment is defined as “entertainment that is irritating but also so enticing that you can’t stop watching.”

So I quit watching. I turned off the TV news and hit the weights.

1984 memories of Prince

September 1984

Remembering a show: Purple Rain with Prince — wow!

The Dear Diary I kept through high school was created by author Judy Blume. At the end of every month, the pre-printed book prompted me to reflect on the best and worst of the month and to remember a book, a show and a feeling. In September 1984, the show I remembered with a “wow” was Purple Rain.

I saw it with my on-and-off boyfriend whom I’ll call The Dentist’s Son on a Wednesday night, September 5. I was 17.

“Prince is so neat,” I wrote. Ah, the descriptive abilities of a teenager.

We got back together for the umpteenth time after the movie, an event which got more attention in Dear Diary:

I said, “I guess I shouldn’t assume anything. I guess I shouldn’t assume that you’re going to take me back.” We were driving around after the movie, and he screeched to a halt and kissed me. He did want me back!

I wasn’t going to write a tribute to Prince because I wasn’t sure I had all that much to add, and to be truthful, I don’t have much to say about his towering talent other than what I described so succinctly in my diary in 1984: Wow. Still, I have strong feelings of nostalgia for Prince, and his passing makes me sad. The songs from his Purple Rain album never fail to bring me back to memories of high school and The Dentist’s Son so Prince’s impact on my echoic memory is strong.

That’s echoic memory, not erotic memory, but in this case, I probably mean both. Echoic memory, as in echo, is a very brief sensory memory of some auditory stimuli. “When Doves Cry” instantly carries me back to the couch in my parents’ living room where I enjoyed long, mostly first-base make-out sessions with The Dentist’s Son.

(There are songs like that for several of the boys I loved as a teenager.The Church Drummer is “Jack & Diane” by John Cougar (later John Mellencamp). The National Merit Semi-Finalist With the Snake is “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits. The Two-Timing Pianist is “One More Night” by Phil Collins; I wore out Collins’ album No Jacket Required on my Walkman while pining for that guy. But I digress.)

It is Prince’s music that echoes as most sensual to me. Which I’m sure he intended (among other things; Prince was nothing if not deep). Wasn’t that the whole point of “Darling Nikki” (he said “masturbating,” heh, heh, heh)? It took me years to understand the double-entrendres of “Little Red Corvette.” Now I comprehend the musicality of Prince’s work (and the lyrics), but in the ’80s all I understood was the raw eroticism.

Quite a feat for a man who called the Twin Cities home. His last name, Nelson, couldn’t be more quintessentially Minnesotan. But most of us natives would rather choke on a hunk of lutefisk than say “masturbating.” Let alone sing it.

Not Prince. A man who liked wearing ruffles and looked sexy doing it. He was an original. And with his death, I mourn for him. And for my sweet youth.